“New rule,” he says, sitting on the bed and loosening his tie. “From now on, I only travel to and from work in vehicles where people can’t spit on my shoes.”
I consider his statement. “I have no idea what that means.”
“It means this morning a homeless lady spat on my foot just as I was getting on the el.”
I have yet to come to terms with the el, Chicago’s elevated mass-transit system, because it’s so badly designed. Our train system operates on a hub-and-spoke system rather than a grid. All trains are routed to one place in the center of the city, and then if you need to go elsewhere, you have to go downtown, ride around the Loop, and switch trains. So, if I want to go to Lincoln Park from my house (a mile away) I have to travel almost seven because the only other crosstown option is the bus, which . . . no.
This is why the city has such a traffic problem. Driving is the least of all evils. But when I drove Fletch the three miles to his job yesterday, it took me forty-five minutes to get there and forty-five minutes to get home. And then when I picked him up, it was the same exact thing. It’s a wonder anyone who doesn’t telecommute is ever in a good mood. The mayor ’s solution is to ride a bike to work, but how are you supposed to do that if you have to wear a suit and don’t have shower facilities in your office? And yesterday when we were in the car it was a gorgeous early spring day, so there were hundreds of bikes on the road, none of which were obeying basic traffic laws. I was all, “Where are we? China?”
Still, I’m sorry Fletch was spat on, and I try to muster appropriate sympathy. “Hmm . . . was it like a loogie or just excess saliva?”
“Does it matter? Her nasty bodily fluids hit my foot just as the door closed, so I couldn’t even yell her stupid. I’d rather she tried to pick my pocket to avoid the biohazard.”
“Was she aiming for you?”
“Again, you’re missing the point. Me. Spit. Foot. Brief stop at the shoeshine place before I hit the office.” I look down at his shoes, and they’re so shiny they’re practically incandescent.
“They look very nice. What did you do to make her spit on you?”
Fletch throws his hands in the air. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I was reading the Sun Times and she’s more of a Tribune fan? Maybe she was mad that I got Starbucks and she’d rather I support local coffee shops. Or maybe it’s because she was wearing a garbage bag stuffed with socks and had an aluminum foil cap and her decision-making process is skewed. Kind of hard to tell what was the exacerbating factor.”
“That reminds me—one time a guy, um . . . exacerbated on my friend’s coat on the Red Line. She got to her office and threw up in a trash can. She was traumatized way more than you.”
“I should be thankful no one jerked off on me?”
I giggle and blush. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You won’t be laughing tomorrow morning at seven o’clock when you drive me to work. That is, if you want to use the car.”
“We really need another vehicle, and I don’t mean a bike.” Although I would be pro-Vespa if I were allowed to drive it on the sidewalk.
“I’m aware of that. When you get your next check, we’ll buy a second car. ’Til then, see you at seven a.m.”
“Um . . . other than the spitting, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”
He shrugs. “I had a good day, but there was nowhere to go but up after that. And what are you doing? Downloading more shit?”
“Don’t touch me because I stink. And no, I’m buying really good stuff,” I reply.
He guffaws. “I’ll bet. What are the damages so far?” He leans over my shoulder to look at what I’ve purchased and wrinkles his nose. I can’t tell if he’s more repelled by me or by my choices. “Let’s see, first, Asia . . . Asia? Why would you buy Asia? Do you have a head injury?”
This is a legitimate question. I accidentally bump my noggin so many times a day, Fletch has suggested a helmet. Last year I was bent over looking in the fridge, and when I stood up I hit the open freezer door so hard, the whole unit lifted off the floor. Everything tasted green for a while, and when Fletch asked me who the president was, I said, “You?”
“Because of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, of course. The bike scene made me remember how much I liked that song back in high school.”
He makes a little disapproving noise. “Yeah, I liked parachute pants in high school, but you don’t see me buying them now. What else? Ah . . . very nice. Vanilla Ice.”
Will everyone’s incessant Robert Van Winkle bashing never stop? “Number one, he had fantastic hair, and you can’t say he didn’t, because I’ve seen the photos where you tried to copy it. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Number two, the man knew how to groom his eyebrows. And number three, he was rollin’! In his 5.0! He had the top flipped down so his glorious hair could blow! And all the girlies? Were totally on standby and they were waiting just to say hi. Did he stop? No! He just kept rollin’. Try to argue with the fine, fine wordsmithery in that song. I dare you.”
“Do you even have any clue what a 5.0 is?”
“A car? Of some sort?”
“A Mustang.”
“Whatev. That downbeat was groundbreaking.”
“Yeah, I imagine that’s what David Bowie and Queen thought when they came out with it in the first place.”
I look over my shoulder and give Fletch a withering glance. “You’re awfully smug for a man who paid to see Cool as Ice87in the theater.”
Fletch clears his throat. “Err, what else do you have? Aqua? Who are Aqua?”
“They sing the ‘Barbie Girl’ song. Which is thirty-one flavors of awesome.”
“Mmm-hmm. Let’s see, Ricky Martin . . . ridiculous; Pat Benatar . . .”
I poke him with an accusatory finger. “Do not even start on Pat Benatar. Her stuff is classic, and if you don’t believe me, ask anyone on I Love the ’80s. You want to argue with me about the impact ‘Love Is a Battlefield’ had on every girl born between 1960 and 1975? No. Because you can’t.” Every time I hear her I still want to don a skirt made of rags and all the eyeliner in the tristate area.
“Hey, you’ve got the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I actually like them.”
“And what movie brought them into the mainstream? That’s right. Clueless. Which you claim—wrongly—was dumb.” Oh, Cher Horowitz, your legacy continues to impact my life in so many ways. Thank you again for teaching me the importance of designing a lighting concept.
“The Bosstones. Huh. Maybe there’s hope for you ye—Wait . . . did you download the Spice Girls?” His lip curls with revulsion.
The Spice Girls . . . my secret shame. Fletch isn’t supposed to know I like them. Kind of like how he’s not supposed to know I put deodorant on every part of my body that bends, creases, or folds88or that I lie when I say I rinsed off the tip of the whipped cream container after I squirted it into the dogs’ mouths. Although I’m all for open communication, I feel there’s some stuff he’d prefer to be in the dark about. “That was a mistake. I didn’t mean to download them.”
“You have six of their songs on here. I see ‘Wannabe,’ ‘Spice Up Your Life’—”
“And I made six separate mistakes. My fingers slipped. I was drunk. And distracted. Shut up.”
He begins to smirk in earnest as he clicks through my list. “MC Hammer . . . Kriss Kross . . .”
“Stirring tunes and interesting pants. What of it?”
"Smash Mouth . . . Positive K ... New Edition . . . and Lynyrd Skynyrd? Did you mean to put them on here?”
“Um, duh? They sing ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ do they not?” And possibly when I get bored on the treadmill, “Sweet Home Jennsylvania.”
“But Skynyrd had talent.”
“Hence my download.”
“Five bucks says the only reason you have any idea who they are is because someone sang this song on American Idol.”
“Ha!” I exclaim. “Shows what you know. I am thoroughly familiar with Skynyrd, thank you.” Despite Bo Bice’s
stirring rendition in season four. And Ruben’s in season two.
“Because of the KFC commercial?”
"Yeah, right.” Yes, right.89
“And finally, Lou Bega and Naughty by Nature. Wow. This is a cavalcade of suck.”
“Mock me as much as you want, but when all my working out gives me big strongs”—I curl my biceps—“we’ll see who’s laughing.”
“I already know who’ll be laughing. Me. At your deplorable playlist.”
Through clenched lips I ask, “Shouldn’t you be changing out of your spitty clothes right about now?”
“On my way.” He places a hand on my shoulder before leaving the guest room. I can hear him digging around in his closet, and I recognize the sound of him neatly folding and placing his garments in the dry-cleaning basket and insertingcedar trees into his shoes. I’m perpetually amused at how careful he is with all of his clothes. If he wears one of his dress shirts for even an hour, it goes right in the basket. He goes through so many outfits each week, for the past four years our dry cleaners have given him a Christmas present.90 He goes past the guest room wearing a crisp pair of track pants—ironed?—and a starchy white T-shirt on his way down the stairs. “Hey, don’t forget to download ‘The Macarena,’ ” he jokes.
Ooh, good call!
The good news is, I’m getting ready to go to New York. The bad news is, I decided to get my roots fixed before I go. In so doing, I’ve placed myself in the hands of a fresh-from-beauty-school assistant. She’s washing my hair, and by washing, I mean banging my skull around like it’s a maraca.
“Goddamn it, it’s a head and not a coconut! Will you please be more careful?” I shout.
“Oh, sorry; did you say something?” she asks. The assistant is coiffed with two enormous blond pigtails—Hi; you’re how old? Thirty?—streaked with an entire spectrum of colors, and she sports six different shades of eye shadow. She’s having trouble reaching the shampoo bowl because she’s extratall and highly unstable due to her goofy goth moon boots with ridiculous platform heels. Here’s a tip, Rainbow Brite—start wearing sensible kicks to work. And try to not snap your customers’ necks when rinsing out their conditioner.
“I did. I guess you couldn’t hear me over the sound of my skull thudding repeatedly against the porcelain,” I tell her.
“You’re so funny!” she squeals.
“Yeah, hilarious,” I agree. “And I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t you bang my head one more time and we can see how hysterical it is when I forget how to drive home?”
She giggles and wrenches my hair, twisting the last bit of water out before throwing a towel in the general direction of my face and leading me to my stylist, Monique. “Here’s your next victim!” she exclaims.
I settle into the chair in Monique’s station. She secures a plastic gown over me and removes the towel, then begins to comb and assess. “Hey, Jen; how are you? Your color looks great!”
We look at each other in the big mirror as we chat. “Really? I’m surprised there’s any hair left. Your assistant yanked the foils off like they were live grenades.”
A look of concern crosses Monique’s face. “Sorry about that. We’ve been talking to her about being more gentle with our clients.”
“Does she listen, or does she laugh and tell you you’re funny?”
Monique blows a thin stream of air out of pursed lips and nods. “The latter.”
“Her ponytails are too tight.”
She nods. “What are we doing today? Trim?”
“No, I want to go modern. Think more New York and less Junior League of Central Texas. I want smaller hair so everything else looks smaller by comparison.” As she artfully snips and shears, I tell her all about how I’m going to New York again and my diet. I explain how I’m rewarding myself with treats like haircuts and pedicures for every ten pounds I lose.
“If you’re here, that means you’re ten pounds down!” Monique says.
“Right!”
Sort of.
It’s more like three. But since I refuse to go to New York with visible roots, split ends, and naked toenails, I bent my own rules. Besides, I’ve got plenty of time to lose my weight before my self-imposed deadline. No need to go whole hog right this minute.
She begins to smooth my hair with a bunch of potions, and then picks up a blow-dryer and a boar-bristle brush, the resultant sound rendering conversation impossible. After she dries the back, she spins my chair around so I can’t see her working on the front. Twenty minutes later, she’s finished and whirls me back around.
“What do you think?”
I look at my hair, open my mouth—and no sound comes out. Monique hands me a mirror to check out the back. “You love it, right?”
“I . . . I . . . oh.” My hair is shorter, shooting up in the front and kind of bent at a ninety-degree angle at the top, hanging down in odd little waves on the sides. It’s not framing my face so much as sandwiching it. Picture a cocker spaniel’s ears. On my head.
“It’s chic; it’s modern; it’s just perfect! What a great look! All right. Helena’s waiting for you, so I’ll see you next time. Have a wonderful trip!”
Dazed, I’m led back to the pedicure area of the salon. While Helena works on my feet, I keep running my fingers through the strands, trying to make the do less rectangular. I’m fretting so much over what’s happening at the top of my body, I don’t notice when Helena accidentally slashes my big toe with the cuticle nippers—until I get up and try to put weight on my foot. I can barely walk out of the salon.
I drive home and go directly to the full-length mirror in the bedroom. I hobble up to it to take a better look at myself, and a grin spreads across my face like an Italian sunrise.
With my hair cut to look exactly like a Russian fur hat with earflaps and my brand new gimp, no one in that city is going to notice the size of my ass.
“I hate New York.”
Stacey gives me an unblinking stare, looking me up and down as I say this, starting with the Russian earflaps and making her way down to the sweatpants, socks, and floppy green Crocs. “Clearly you are a crazy person, and you should probably leave my home before you soil yourself on my couch.” Were it not for her family in Chicago, Stacey would live in New York in a heartbeat.
“Perhaps hate is too strong a word,” I concede.
“Your e-mail said you had a fantastic time.”
“I did—I had a blast. Nothing specifically bad happened, except I figured out I am not and will never be a New Yorker. And I’m secretly disappointed. I’ve always considered myself kind of New York-y. Upper West Side, bay-bee.” I flash her my approximation of a gang sign.
“Meaning what in English?” Stacey asks.
“First of all, everyone there is tiny. Not so much as in ‘not fat’ but more like they’re all built to a two-thirds scale. They’re all wee little bird people. Take my publicist, Mary Ann, for example. She’s adorable and totally proportionate—she’s probably five-two or five-three, but she’s really slender. I actually bet her that she weighed less than a hundred pounds. Granted, I lost, but only by six pounds. If she gets the flu really bad, she’s going to be down to double digits. Can you imagine being double digits?”
“Yeah . . . in grade school.”
“When we said good-night, I hugged her, and I was able to pick her up and swing her around. She told me she could totally do the same to me, and I wouldn’t let her try because her spine would snap and then I’d be in trouble. And yet she totally ate and drank everywhere we went. She doesn’t have a problem with food; it’s just that she walks everywhere and can’t put weight on.”
“Tragic.”
“And that’s not even what got me. She and I went out for a late dinner one night down in the West Village, and there must have been a Ford Models party or something in the front of the restaurant. We were in the back on the way to the washrooms, and an entire parade of frigging gazelles loped past us. Seeing them made Mary Ann feel fat because they clocked in at a
buck-five and had a good eight to ten inches on her. On what fucking planet is a hundred pounds fat? On planet New York, that’s where.”
“There are models all over the city. They breed there. Like cockroaches. You can’t take a step without bumping into some anorexic Amazon, swinging her ponytail and portfolio. You really want to feel bad, try standing next to one of the fourteen-year-old Brazilian models in an elevator. I’m normally nothing but confident, but when I come face-to-fat with one of them, I wonder if we’re even the same species.”
“Exactly.” Stacey always gets it. “So we’re at this restaurant and I’m eating a bowl of pasta. It’s a small bowl and I got it with a light garlic sauce and some langoustines, so it was pretty healthy, not to mention totally delish. Yet every single model on her way to the potty gave me a look of horror, like I was supping on live snake or something. Me being me, I started to get mad. Finally, I got all aggressive, like, ‘Of course I’m eating. I’m in a fucking restaurant. This place exists solely for the purpose of dining. That’s what you do here. You eat. Digestion optional.’ ”
“You make friends everywhere, don’t you?”
“At that point I was cranky anyway because of all the walking. I limped everywhere because of my stupid pedicure, and I felt like I was being stabbed in the foot. Plus, because I’m vain, I refused to wear sensible shoes and instead wore those cute little black suede Mary Janes I ordered from London, with the pink embroidered flowers on them, and they just made every step ten times more painful. And I ruined them! The constant friction wore all the plastic off the kitten heel, and I ended up wobbling around trying to balance on a tiny peg. Next time, style be damned, I am wearing my Crocs.”
“OK, fine, frustrating, but that’s more your fault than New York’s. You can’t let your own poor judgment color your opinion of an entire city.”
“Here’s the crux of it. We went to all kinds of cool places, but every single one of them was just . . . so small. This happened last time I was there, too, but it’s only now I’m able to put my finger on what bothered me. Anyway, the tables were wee. The chairs were delicate. The bathrooms were bite-sized. Everyone there is little because there’s simply no room for their bodies to expand, kind of like they’re all living in an overcrowded fish tank. There was something so Dostoyevsky about the place, like everyone gets their square foot of space, and they can’t take up more than that.”
Such a pretty fat: one narcissist's quest to discover if her life makes her ass look big Page 13
