Epilogue
Back(Fat) to the Future
I got rich during the dot-com era.
Then I went broke.
Then I got fat. I guess my mom was right about all that sugar and butter.203
So I wrote a book about my experiences called Bitter Is the New Black. People liked it, so I wrote another one called Bright Lights, Big Ass. People liked that one, too. So I wrote a third book called Such a Pretty Fat.
I’ve since married Fletch, adopted a pit bull named Maisy, and my trainer Barbie got me to run my first mile in thirty years.204
I guess that brings us up to now, the night before I leave for my cross-country book tour.
What I said—“Please give me a loose, casual, messy updo.”
What the stylist heard—“Please fashion my locks into a giant, impenetrable hair bullet.”
What I said—“I’d like my makeup to be light, polished, and natural.”
What the makeup artist heard—“I would like fifteen shades of lavender eye shadow. And boob glitter. Lots and lots of boob glitter.”
Finished in the salon, I sit in the car and stare at myself in the rearview mirror. I look like a Russian mobster’s girlfriend. Yes. This is exactly what I was going for when I forked over three hundred dollars.
I tried to prevent the problem with the hair, telling the stylist it wasn’t what I wanted while she was in the middle of doing it. To compensate, she scrunched the enormous dome she’d created on my head a couple of times to loosen it up. Now I have one piece solid with hairspray, and because of the rumpling, it keeps swinging open on the side like a broken garden gate.
I pull out of the parking garage, doing my best not to mow down innocent pedestrians in my cosmetic distress. I attempt to mellow out by telling myself when I get home I can probably turn the dome into a bouncy retro ponytail. And I can likely remove fourteen of the fifteen layers of eye shadow . . . right?
I catch another glimpse of myself at a stoplight. The eyelashes . . . they may be a problem. I asked the makeup artist to supplement my own stubby, thin lash line with some false pieces. She said it would be fifteen dollars for the case of loose lashes and another twenty for the application. Sure, I said. If that’s what it costs, that’s what it costs.
At no point did I realize she’d apply every single last lash in the box in an effort to give me my money’s worth. I couldn’t see what was happening, so I made the (wrong) assumption to trust her judgment.
If I happened to bump into a Vegas showgirl right now, she’d be all, “Bit much, doncha think?” Plus, the lashes aren’t even on straight. On my right eye, half of them are facing west, the other half facing east. They come together in the center of my lid in a hairy little teepee. Also? I appear to be cross-eyed.
As I turn off of Michigan Ave and onto Chicago, the rogue bit of hair swings out to the left, hits me in the eye, and gets stuck in the forest of lashes. When I attempt to detangle it all, I almost lose control of the car and narrowly avoid plowing into a family of tourists wearing Navy Pier sweatshirts.205
On the bright side, maybe no one will show up tonight and there won’t be any witnesses to me in all my Moscow Mafia-doll glory.
In her book Save Karyn, the author Karyn Bosnak writes about spotting Stevie Wonder in front of a New York restaurant. She’s so starstruck it doesn’t even occur to her that Stevie won’t see her when she waves.
Save Karyn is one of my favorite books. I’ve read it half a dozen times, and I particularly love the Stevie Wonder story. So you’d think that when I run smack into Stevie and his entourage in the Admirals Club at O’Hare, I’d have the sense not to wave at him.
You’d think that, anyway.
Since I arrived at the airport two solid hours before my flight, I have plenty of time to call my friend Angie to report on my dumbassedness.
“How many times did you walk by him and wave?” Angie asks. “More than once?”
I hesitantly admit, “Yes.”
“More than twice?”
I exhale. “Yes.”
“More than five times?” I clear my throat. What? The Admirals Club is very dry. By they way, I can thank my author friend Stacey Ballis for clueing me in on the Admirals Club in the airport. She explained that I didn’t have to be an actual admiral to join; I only had to have four hundred dollars. “Jen? You still there?”
“I can’t help it if his seat’s on the way to the bathroom. I paid a lot for this membership and I’m absolutely going to make that up in mini-muffins and hot beverages.”
“How many free coffees have you had so far?”
“Also more than five.”
“Is his entourage concerned you’re starting to stalk him?”
“If I pee one more time, then probably. For now, I’m okay.”206
I hear pans rattling in the background. Angie has the ability to whip up a four-course, five-star, nutritionally complete breakfast for her kids using nothing but spray cheese and tub margarine. She’d be running the world right now if it didn’t interfere with her PTA meetings. “Tell me about last night. Nice turnout at your Chicago reading?”
“Thank God, yes. Great crowd, lots of enthusiasm, and they didn’t laugh at my hair or makeup too much. The only hitch of the whole night is now my face hurts from smiling.”
“Aww . . . you were that happy?”
“Yes . . . but also I got too much Botox.”
Right before the first draft of Such a Pretty Fat was due, my editor and I began to talk about author photos for the back page. The pictures on my first two books are a bit posed for my liking. Stacey suggested I should have one that showed my personality more, so I thought it would be funny to print a more informal shot.
Considering how many stories there are in that book about getting high on Ambien and ordering Barbie merchandise, I figured posing with my life-sized Barbie hairstyling head would be hysterical. I took my digital camera and did some arms-out, MySpace-type test shots. Since I can never be alone in any room of this house, my dogs Maisy and Loki tagged along to my impromptu photo shoot, staying close while I tried out various angles.
When I uploaded the photos, the first thing I realized was that posing with a Barbie head and tousled hair and two dogs wrestling in the background makes one look less “upbeat” and “iconoclastic” and more “bugfuck, batshit, ham-sandwich crazy.”
On closer inspection, I noticed how awful my skin looked: leathery, spotty, and in need of some serious ironing. I kept staring at the shots and telling myself, Oh, honey, the sun is not your friend anymore. I briefly considered printing out my photos and bringing them to grade schools to Scare Kids Straight into Sunscreen.
Despite my glaring lack of time management skills, I managed to finish the book and couldn’t dwell on what was happening above my shoulders. Shortly after that, my manuscript came back for editing and I got immersed again in work. When I finished the revisions, I found myself with nothing but time.
And a mirror.
And an approaching fortieth birthday. I’m not ashamed of my age, but I kick myself for eschewing sunscreen for all those years. Plus I’m still kind of emotionally immature and I decided I’d be better off if my outside matched my inside.
I began to seek solutions. When I found out procedures like Botox and microdermabrasion cost less than a good pair of boots or one night in a nice hotel, I said Sign. Me. Up.
I started getting injections right after my birthday and I’ve been thrilled with the results. The only problem is I went overboard this last session because I figured if a few poisonous facial injections are good, then more must be more good.
Again, not so much.
Now if I grin too broadly, my forehead offers resistance and my face aches. The sensation is wholly unpleasant. Yet I’ve got skin like a baby’s ass, so you can see my dilemma.
Angie laughs at me. “You’re kind of a moron.”
“Well aware of that, thanks.”
A quick series of beeps goes off on the other
end of the line. I assume it’s Angie’s dryer, but she may be initiating a launch sequence. All bets are off with her. “You all stressy about your flight?”
“I’m actually calm. I bought an iTouch and downloaded a bunch of episodes of Gossip Girl. I figure if I’m concentrating on whether or not Blair and Chuck will work it out, I won’t worry so much about being airborne.”
“Then forgive me, I take back calling you a moron.”
“I appreciate that. Listen, I’ve got to scoot.”
“Oh, are you boarding already?”
“No, but I am about to wet my pants. I’ve got to go find a bathroom in the terminal so Stevie doesn’t sic his security team on me. Talk to you soon!”
I arrive in New York for my first official tour event and it goes well. I’d say the evening is perfect, until the next morning when I start receiving photos on my BlackBerry. I wore a great yellow and white dress. Although this garment is a bit lower-cut than I’d normally choose, it’s so flattering that I couldn’t not wear it. I love how it hugs my chest and emphasizes my newfound waistline,207 and then the fabric cascades out gracefully all the way to a tea-length swirl. This dress hides a multitude of sins.
Except I never tried it on while sitting down.
I’m casually elegant in all the photos where I’m standing at my lectern. Unfortunately, I had no idea that when I sit, the dress gaps and so the top two inches of my black bra showed in every seated shot.
Despite my foundation garments being documented for posterity, I take some comfort in the fact that it’s a top-of-the-line bra. Right before the tour, I went in for my first professional fitting. I found out I was six inches and two cup sizes off! (Who knew everything up there was rolling around like a couple of honeydew melons in the trunk?) I didn’t care for the fitting itself because it entailed a stranger moving my b-r-e-a-s-t-s around like a shell game for thirty minutes, but I forgave her when I discovered the right fit trims twenty pounds off immediately.
The irony of having shown the entire audience my bra is how reluctant I was to putting a bra on the cover of the book in the first place. Oh, no! I argued with my publisher. I can’t have underwear on the cover! I’m too modest! Fortunately, my gaffe at the reading will be a one-time mistake. Before my lunch meeting today, I’m going right out to buy fashion tape.
Hey, guess what I didn’t know about fashion tape? Apparently the double-stick stuff will keep the neckline of my garment from gaping. However, if I peel my dress back even once to readjust, I’ll ruin the sticky bond, thus not only showing a generous swath of underwear but also large, mangled bits of tape. And this will happen when I’m shaking the hands of important people at my publisher’s office.
Then, if I buy stronger tape, it will be too strong, and when I peel it off I’ll take an entire layer of skin with it, leaving me with enormous tape hickeys.
I have one word for my next tour: turtlenecks.
Today is by far the high point in my professional career. When I look at all the reasons I might have had in becoming a writer, what I’m about to do ranks in the top five. I’ve known this was a possibility for an entire month, yet I didn’t dare to dream it could actually happen.
Where am I?
In the car, on my way to meet one of my all-time favorite authors, Candace Bushnell!
I’m so keyed up that the truffle oil fries I inhaled at lunch roil in my stomach. Or possibly it’s all the cupcakes.208 A while back I wrote a blog post on cupcakes and I got more feedback from it than anything else I’ve written in my site’s five-year lifespan. Seriously, our nation is never going to be on the same page on issues like gun control, welfare, the economy, the environment, etc. I doubt we’ll ever come to terms on tastes great or less filling and hybrids versus Hummers, and there will always be Yankees fans and Red Sox fans, and never the ’twain shall meet. Fortunately, all it takes for us to be of one mind is some buttercream frosting.
Because of this, a number of people in cities with great bakeries wrote and offered to bring treats to my events. My response? “Cupcake up, bitches!”
After my overly enthusiastic reply, I began to have second thoughts. I mean, for God’s sake, I’m beyond neurotic when it comes to issues like “safety” and The Gift of Fear is like my personal user’s manual. Do I not have Homeland Security on speed dial? And live in a city where all the 911 operators recognize my voice?
Were I not temporarily made insane by the idea of a box of treats with my name on it, I’d have never agreed to people bringing me cupcakes. I asked myself, “Really? You’re going to eat food from a stranger? Really? No.”
Then I received cupcakes last night at my event.
Um . . . guess what?
I totally will eat food from strangers.209
Right now, though, I’m probably feeling sick because Candace is about to interview me on her Sirius radio show. I’m about to have an actual conversation with my idol. Other writers dream of making bestseller lists, but me? I dream of meeting the inspiration behind Carrie Bradshaw.
Even though Carrie and her friends got me through a few rough patches early in my career, I must admit I stopped watching Sex and the City a few years before it went off the air. I got tired of hearing other women try to figure out which character they were, e.g., “Oh! I’m a Charlotte because I’m a good girl!” or “I’m an attorney so I am all about Miranda!” or “I’m a Carrie because I write!” (Rarely do I hear anyone say, “I’m a whore so I’m a Samantha.”) And their romantic insecurities? I’d had enough.
The thing is, there are plenty of gals out there who have healthy self-esteem and solid relationships and they don’t waste all their energy fixating on whether or not he’s going to call. Rather, they’re of the mind-set that “Of course he’ll call. Why? Because he knows he’s fucking lucky to have me.” These women don’t trawl the town every night. Sometimes they enjoy sitting at home with a partner (or they’re content to be alone), watching reality TV in their sock-monkey pajamas and good jewelry, drinking wine.
Point? Maybe you aren’t a Carrie or a Samantha or a Charlotte or a Miranda.
Maybe you’re just you.
Regardless, I’ve already decided that Candace and I will be BFFs by the time we’re finished with our interview because I’ll be a breath of fresh air. I’ll be different from all her New Yorky friends because I was raised in Indiana and because I have a pit bull named Maisy and because I get into fights with people at Target. She’ll appreciate my middle-class status and will consider me all brave and avant-garde because I buy my own groceries and spy on my neighbors for fun. I’ll call her Candy and she’ll still call me Jen because I have no other nicknames.
We’ll become thick as thieves and I’ll get to hang out at her summer house with movie stars and she’ll come and stay with me in my guest room and won’t mind when Maisy the love monster insists on sleeping under the covers with her and she’ll pretend to enjoy my husband’s cooking because she’s kind.
Of course, I’m pretty anxious to make a positive impression and I’m concerned I may freeze up on the air and lead to long moments of awkward silence on her show. She might not like me if I come in all panicky and wigged out. What if my mad respect for her causes me to make an ass out of myself? What if she hates boob tape?
I’m afraid I’m going to break into a Wayne’s World “we’re not worthy” at her feet the second we meet. Oh, God, what if I accidentally try to be funny and adopt a cornpone accent and tell her, “Ah’ve seen your stuff on the tee-vee!” After all, turning into a babbling idiot is what I do when I meet people I admire. I was at a book fair a few years ago and Augusten Burroughs was giving autographs. When it was my turn to say hello, I completely lost my shit. There I was in my twinset and pearls and pleated skirt and the one thing I could think to say to him was, “Ha, ha, I’m from Indiana, where everyone likes NASCAR! Wouldn’t it be funny if I asked you to autograph my boob? Like at a NASCAR event? Ha, ha!”
Three years have passed and I’m still cring
ing.
What if I accidentally manage to hold it together and she hates me anyway? Or what if I get to the studios and her producers say, “Yeah, we made a mistake. We don’t actually want you on the show.”
Normally I wouldn’t have so much insecurity and I’d be all, She’s lucky to get to meet me. But come on—this is Candace Bushnell. The regular rules don’t apply.
These thoughts race through my mind while I pass through the security checkpoints at the Sirius studio. I’m cleared at each level, so at least I can be sure that if I’ve been booted from the show, the producers haven’t yet spread the word. I find this oddly comforting.
My editor, publicist, and I are standing in front of the little pod where Candace is doing her broadcast. I can’t believe this is real. We just passed the studio where Howard Stern records his show and we’re catty-corner from Opie and Anthony’s broadcast hub. How on earth am I here?
I make Kara, my editor, confirm again that I’m well put together, but I’m not sure I believe her. Seriously, do you know how fucking daunting it is to pick out an outfit Candace Bushnell will see? The woman is known worldwide for her taste. (I end up wearing a gauzy purple dress embellished with little silver balls and a white cardigan. Unfortunately I terror-sweated all the style out of my do. I wedge a pair of sunglasses on top of my head so my messy hair looks intentional.)
The producers wave to us on the other side of the glass and motion that they’re about to wrap it up with the guest before me. While waiting, I toy with my buttons and chew all the lipstick off my bottom lip. I’m just about to hyperventilate when the door opens and a gorgeous black woman walks out. She smiles at me and says I can go in.
Hey.
I know her.
How do I know her?
Is she my cousin?
No, dumbass, you think every person who looks familiar is your cousin. I’m surprised you can even watch television without making Fletch crazy.
Pretty in Plaid: A Life, A Witch, and a Wardrobe Page 25
