Such a pretty fat: one narcissist's quest to discover if her life makes her ass look big

by Jen Lancaster

  Ever the problem solver, Stacey presses on. “OK, so you’ve proved you can get results. Could you do that again?”

  “I don’t know. The first diet that comes to mind was after my freshman year of college when I gained a bunch of weight.”

  Fletch comes out of the den and joins us in conversation. “You know what your problem is? Too much tequilas and popcorns,” he says. He’s referring to what one doctor told me when I went in for a back spasm at Purdue’s student health center. The doctor delivered this statement with a poke in my almost-nonexistent belly, cracking himself up. I didn’t find him at all funny, especially given the bulimia affecting half of all the girls I knew on campus.19

  Fletch sits down next to Stacey on the dog-free couch. “I didn’t gain weight because I was boozing. Freshman year, I drank ultragirly stuff like Fuzzy Navels and butterscotch schnapps, and you can only have so many of those before going into diabetic shock.” Stacey and Fletch grimace at my candy-coated taste in beverages. “Oh, don’t give me those faces. What, like you’ve never had Amaretto and Dr Pepper?” They both frown. “Pear brandy and pineapple?” Stacey turns up her nose, and Fletch visibly shudders. “Or made a peppermint slushy out of fresh snow and Rumpelminz while sledding down Slater Hill?” They vehemently shake their heads.

  Pfft. Their loss.

  I continue, “The real culprit was my dorm’s cafeteria. They served the kind of meals I’d never had at home. You know how people wax on and on about all the wonderful foods their moms make? Not me. My mom has always prided herself on her ability to alter recipes. Nothing makes her happier than cutting out even the most necessary portions of oil and sugar. She was obsessed with cooking healthy years before it ever became trendy. Like, when we were kids, our pancakes weren’t all light and fluffy, drenched in butter and syrup. Ours contained lumpy brown flour and handfuls of palate-shredding wheat germ, topped with a thimbleful of Log Cabin maple-flavored syrup and a tiny smear of margarine.”

  “Sounds like multigrain granola pancakes—maybe your mom was just ahead of her time?” Stacey says.

  “Ever had Kool-Aid made without sugar?” I ask.

  “That’d just be red water,” Fletch says.

  “Yeah, ask me how I know. And have you ever tried a castor oil-raw egg-orange juice smoothie? Imagine drinking battery acid, only less delicious.” Stacey looks disturbed. “Here’s another example—cookies in my house were made not with milk chocolate chips and sugar but carob and unsweetened applesauce.”

  Fletch winces and Stacey says, “Ugh. What were those like?”

  “Like eating a handful of damp sand.” One time my mom’s zeal even prompted her to make her signature apple pie with slices of zucchini.20

  “Was she a bad cook or just overly health conscious?” Stacey asks.

  “The latter.” Mom always made great stuff for holidays, and the buffets she set up for parties were spectacular. She’d serve wonderful treats like teriyaki wings and baked ziti and little Swedish meatballs, but none of these dishes ever worked themselves into our dinner rotation. Instead we had her homemade chicken soup about once a week, made with water instead of chicken stock, and she’d boil the bejesus out of the vegetables. She never separated the chicken carefully enough, so the soup would be all bland and mushy except for the tiny, stabby bones. “I got really turned off of food and became an incredibly fussy eater. I spent seventeen years opting for wheat toast in lieu of whatever dinner she’d cooked.”

  “Trust me,” Fletch adds, “her mom could make an Ethiopian villager politely back away from the dinner table, claiming he’d had a big lunch.”

  I nod. “When I got to college, I had food I’d never really tasted before, like chicken-fried steak, au gratin potatoes, Pop-Tarts, and ranch dressing, and I lost my mind. Plus, there were shakers of real salt on the table and not the ridiculous NoSalt foolishness we kept at our house. And butter! Pat after pat of real butter, stacked in small golden packages on the salad bar! And I could put as much as I wanted on my toast!” I smile, thinking of how the plain, dry baked potatoes I could never choke down at the family dinner table turned deliciously decadent, piled high with sour cream and bacon bits and melted Velveeta. “Had I not roomed with a dietetics major who’d appointed herself my own personal Food Police, I’m sure the damage would have been much greater than fifteen pounds.”

  Stacey waves me off. “Wait . . . fifteen? This whole story led up to you only gaining fifteen pounds? Girl, please; I gained forty freshman year at Brandeis. We all did.”

  Fletch asks, “Was it a huge party school?”

  “No, but every night around eleven when we were studying, people from local restaurants would go up and down the halls of our dorm selling anything you could think of—egg rolls, fried rice, pizza, burritos . . . It was insane. My dorm perpetually smelled like a food court.”

  Fletch and I are incredulous. He says, “No one did that at Purdue. None of us had any money.”

  “Not a lot of Jappy girls in Indiana,” Stacey reasons.

  “Question, then—how did you lose the forty pounds?” I ask.

  “I’ll let you know when it happens.” Stacey and I laugh, but Fletch looks like he still can’t wrap his mind around the fact that anyone could gain weight in college. He lived off campus his freshman year and existed on bologna omelets. Every time I pile his breakfast plate high with rashers, he reminds me how three pounds of turkey bacon lasted him a whole semester. Drinking might be the only reason he didn’t starve to death. She asks, “What about you? How’d you shake it off ?”

  “When I got home, my parents decided I was ‘fat,’ so they put me on a diet and had me do a weekly weigh-in. I had to lose two pounds or I was in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  "Don’t know. I always lost two pounds.”21

  My mom was so damn mad at me after my freshman year, especially once she saw me in a bathing suit for the first time. I went from 135 pounds to 150 and you’d have thought I’d flunked out given her reaction.22She always used to tell me her greatest fear was that I’d walk across the stage at my high school graduation overweight. Really? I remember thinking. With forty girls in my school who’d either gotten pregnant or had babies, this is her issue?23Had I not been so affected by reading novels about anorexia like The Best Little Girl in the World when I was younger, I bet I’d have developed an eating disorder in response to her obsession with my weight.

  I clearly remember how annoyed I was every Friday morning, stomach rumbling, standing on the scale in our tiny first- floor bathroom. My mom would crouch down to examine the numbers while my dad made sure I didn’t try to cheat by pressing my hand down on the towel bar. (He didn’t catch on until the third week. Heh.)

  I desperately hated the whole process, especially because I had no choice in the matter. I knew being heavier didn’t change who I was, and I was furious at being forced to alter something about which I felt perfectly fine. And who cared if I weighed fifteen pounds more than when I competed in the Miss Huntington pageant? It’s not like I won and had to worry about going to Miss Indiana with excess baggage.24

  The worst part of that summer was the exercise. The second I got up and before I’d do anything else, I’d pop Jane Fonda’s workout into the tape player, huffing my way through the sixty-minute advanced version before I’d allow myself to have my first of three meals of wheat toast.

  To this day, I hate Jane Fonda.

  And leg warmers.

  I’m still OK with toast, though.

  The only thing I liked was swimming laps in our pool, which ended up being the main reason I was able to get back to my pageant weight. But, really, I have to laugh when I think of what my family considered ‘fat.’ I’m just shy of five foot eight, and 150 pounds was well within normal limits, especially since I have a big frame and b-o-o-b-s. I’d gone from a seven to a nine, and I hadn’t even broken into double-digit pant sizes at that point.25Plus it was the eighties. At least five pounds was hair and product
.

  Stacey asks, “Looking back, are you angry with them?”

  “Now? God, no, not at all. The benefit of hindsight tells me weight wasn’t the real issue. They were trying to come to terms with the fact that their moderately obedient child went away to college, and a drinking, swearing, moderately independent young adult returned in her place, you know? More importantly, I looked fantastic when I went back sophomore year. Totally let me date guys in better fraternities. ”

  “Glad you had your priorities straight,” Fletch chimes in.

  I continue, “I wish I had that kind of external motivation right now, because it’s certainly not coming from within. I’m conflicted—I know I need to do this. I mean, I don’t want to have a heart attack, and a stroke would totally mess up my smile, and yet I can’t get past the idea of not eating what I’d like.”

  “Me, too. Intellectually, I understand why it’s important for my body to carry less fat, but I can’t say I’m unhappy with who I am, regardless of my shape.” Stacey has beautiful hair, perfect features, and a positive self-concept, and I swear men throw themselves at her wherever we go. She doesn’t need to lose an ounce to be her gorgeous self.

  “Exactly! We should start a Girls with High Self-Esteem and Possibly Cholesterol support group. Seriously, though, I know I should eat less and exercise more, so I started going to the West Loop Gym about a year ago. I’m there a lot, but I just don’t see results.”

  “Have you done any personal training? I work out with mine three days a week, and I’m down about thirty pounds since last year. What’s important is, I feel good.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I reply. “I had a few sessions with a trainer last year. The problem was, I’d work my ass off, and then I’d come home and reward myself with something delicious. ”

  Stacey nods. “It’s hard not to.”

  “When I go to the gym now, I’m still waiting for the endorphins to kick in. It doesn’t matter if I kill myself every day, I’ve yet to experience anything like a high,” I tell her.

  Stacey shifts, and Loki takes this as an invitation to join her and Fletch on the couch. “I love working out with my trainer, Gabe, because he’s a really good friend. But doing it on my own? Not so much. I dislike every single step I take on the goddamn treadmill. Like, when does it get fun?”

  “Lately, I’ve been on this kick where I don’t eat anything I can’t pronounce,” Fletch tells us. He’s dropped ten pounds with this little trick since the Bus Incident.

  Fucking show-off.

  “Yeah, I tried that, and then I read the label on a package of Hostess cupcakes. It’s amazing what I can pronounce,” says Stacey.

  “I’m more of a fruit-pie girl myself, but I totally agree,” I reply. “Bottom line is, the weight went on so easily—seems like it should come off the same way.”

  “But so far you’ve done nothing,” Fletch mentions.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I snap. “It will happen, just not tonight, OK?”

  “Whoa, sorry. Just trying to participate in the conversation. ” Fletch moves Loki and his potentially leather-puncturing claws back onto the floor. Loki goes over a few feet to lie on his squashy down bed, where visions of salad tossing will soon dance in his head. “Maybe you should start the show?” he deflects.

  I press PLAY on the TiVo remote and Top Chef begins. Five minutes of braising, sautéing, and roasting later, I look sheepishly at Fletch and Stacey and ask, “Um, is anyone else hungry?”

  TO: carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

  CC: angie_at_home

  FROM: jen@jenlancaster.com

  SUBJECT: scenes from a parking garage

  Setting: In the car, circling the lot two levels underneath Nordstrom.

  Me: My God, it’s crowded in here. We’re never going to find a space.

  Angie: (gestures toward cars parked perpendicular to those already in spaces) Well, why don’t you park like that?

  Me: Those are the valets’.

  Angie: (squints at a Lexus SUV with a Notre Dame alumni sticker on it) Wow, the valets really have nice cars.

  Me: (turning to look at Angie, incredulous) I meant they’re valet parked.

  Angie: Oh. I guess that makes more sense.

  Scene ends as I almost drive us into a pole because I’m busy laughing myself into a pants-wetting asthma attack.

  See you soon?

  Jen

  P.S. Ang, I wouldn’t mock you if you hadn’t infected me with the plague.

  P.P.S. Ten points to you for not mentioning how much weight I’ve gained since I saw you last. Thank you for taking my delicate little feelings into account.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Talking (Terrible) Turkey

  "I stand up, and my ass knocks over someone’s wine-glass, like, four tables away. No lie. And now I’m too mortified to ever go to that restaurant again,” I tell Angie. I’m lying on the guest bed in the office with my legs angled up and feet against the wall, my default phone position since high school. Normally I’m loath to talk on the phone, but recently we switched cable providers and now our service is a flat rate. My hate for the telephone is neatly eclipsed by my love of free long distance.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Angie replies. “Besides, I saw you a month ago, and your butt was fine. I’d have noticed if it was seventeen feet wide.” Of course, Angie is a mom and routinely lies all day—for example, That fluffy bunny on the side of the road is covered in delicious raspberry jam! And he’s napping; shhh, don’t wake him!—so I’m not so quick to believe her.

  “Don’t be so sure. I was wearing black pants and a girdle. They’re very deceptive.”

  In the background, I hear Angie’s youngest son saying, “Mommy’s on the phone and Daddy’s at work—so who will make me a sandwich, I wonder?”

  “Do you have to go?” I ask. “The last thing I want is my rampant obesity causing your children to starve. And by the way, when the hell did I begin to criticize myself ? A month ago I was fat and happy. But ever since I made the decision to drop a few pounds—way less easy than it sounds, by the way—I’ve become obsessed with my size, and in so doing I’ve inadvertently allowed my inner critic to have a voice. And you know what? She’s a bitch. Like now when I see my underpants in the laundry, I no longer think Soft! Cotton! Sensible! Instead I hear her say Damn, girl, these panties be huge.”

  “Your inner critic has terrible grammar.”

  “I know, it’s the only way I can take away some of her power over me. Anyway, should I call you back?”

  “Nope, not to worry; lunch is handled. Hang on a sec.” After a quick discussion of the merits of peanut butter versus turkey, and crusts on or off, I can hear Angie working on the sandwich as we talk. Over the summer we chatted one night while Angie stripped a bed, changed wet sheets, comforted and repajamaed a toddler, and chased down a car of speeding teenagers while shaking a brick at them, never once interrupting the conversation or setting down her margarita. The only reason this woman isn’t president of General Motors is because she’s chosen not to be.

  “The other mothers on the PTA are terrified of you, aren’t they?”

  “Naturally.” She laughs. “Back to the restaurant—what’d you do about the glass?”

  “I was so embarrassed, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die, but the guy was cool. The waitress got him more wine, and he wouldn’t let me pay for it, so it was best-case scenario. But I’m bothered that certain body parts are trailing behind me creating mayhem and wasting perfectly lovely Bordeaux. And lately? I’ve noticed I’m developing a bit of a shelf back there. My inner critic calls it an ass plateau. Seriously, it’s a fleshy blob that sits right above my crack, like a fanny pack or perhaps my tailbone’s version of a helmet. When I see you I’ll let you rest your drink on it.”

  “What’s stopping you from dieting?”

  “Sloth? Lack of proper motivation? The new Democratic Congress? Honestly, I don’t know why I’m not doing more, because I’m certain
ly thinking about it 24/7. Then my mind goes back to a life spent not eating cookies and I wonder why I’d even bother, since life wouldn’t be worth living. The good news is I bought another tanning package, and that’s almost the same as dieting. You know, tanning is the new black.”

  I hear an audible gasp from the woman who thought she created an SPF 130 sunscreen by layering SPF 50 over SPF 80. “Yes, and so’s melanoma. What did your doctor suggest? ”

  “Don’t know what she suggests yet—I’m not going to see her until late this afternoon. My plan is to have her put me on antianxiety medication because I can’t sleep at night.”

  “You’ve still got the insomnia?”

  “Yeah, I still feel pretty stressed, but it’s more like free- floating anxiety over financial stuff than episodic. Although the stress is somewhat lower now that I got caught up on my student loans.” Yeah, you try to not have a panic attack when the student loan guy tells you he’s going to send the Department of Justice to your house to break your ankles and take your couches and dogs.

  Okay, fine, he didn’t exactly do that.

  He simply suggested I follow the payment schedule as I’d promised to do in a binding legal document.26

  “Did you use your royalty check?” I hear a muffled banging on the other end of the line. Angie’s either building her own chicken coop or testing her formula for cold fusion.

  “I did. Oh, and get this—when I told my mom about finally taking care of this debt, she said, ‘You’re just like that Osama fellow,’ which . . . what? I said I had no idea what she was talking about and she replied, ‘You know, your Illinois senator—Senator Osama. When he got his book deal, the first thing he did was pay off his student loans.’ I told her if she couldn’t differentiate between the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the Democratic senator Barack Obama, she may want to taper back on her 24/7 FOX News viewing.”

  “Speaking of your mom, how was Thanksgiving? Did they come up?” Most years, my parents drive to Chicago from their home in Indiana and take us out for a lavish dinner at Lawry’s. We love going there because the restaurant is in Marshall Field’s old private residence and it feels like we’re having dinner at an obscenely wealthy elderly relative’s house. The place is all done up in Christmas decorations and there’s festive music, and everyone’s dressed in their holiday finery—it’s more like a party than a restaurant, and there’s enough pie for everyone! We gorge ourselves on prime rib, creamed corn, and my favorite dessert ever, a chocolate bag filled with fresh berries and mousse.