Finders Keepers

by Karin Kallmaker

  Hell, how egotistical was she being? She had no reason to think Chrissy was doing more than being nice and she had Chrissy on her back and moaning already. Okay, there were definitely a few habits she had that she didn’t much like. Time to outgrow them.

  Chrissy, with the phone cradled between shoulder and ear, delivered her half sandwich and salad with a wink. “Uh-huh. I think that’s a good idea, Mom. Uh-huh.”

  The sandwich was lean and delicious, the dressing as tasty as promised. Chrissy, kept busy by the increasingly crowded bar, didn’t linger again. When Linda was ready to go she waved and held up a twenty with an enquiring look. Chrissy nodded distract-edly and Linda headed for the door after securing the bill under her empty beer bottle.

  “Hey, big spender!”

  Turning back, Linda found herself the center of attention from the customers at the bar. “It’s enough, isn’t it?”

  Chrissy laughed. “Yeah, and if you tip me that much people will talk. Here.”

  Linda took the proffered five. “You were busy and I didn’t want—”

  “Just be sure you stop in again. You talk nice and you’re way more easy on the eyes than the rest of these ugly bastards.”

  There was good-natured rumbling from the crowd as Linda made her escape. Her ears were burning. She felt as if she’d just passed a test of some kind and she didn’t know what it all meant.

  But she knew it felt okay to be found pleasing, even if it was just 165

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  a fleeting encounter. She would endeavor not to need a jump or require rescuing from a ditch. Being “good people” was not a bad place to start life over.

  Glancing around the room, Marissa was pleased to see it was mostly women and a variety of sizes and shapes. Like her, most appeared to have arrived directly from work and all had the unmistakable harried air of not having time for this. But they were all here.

  Feeling too self-conscious to engage anyone, Marissa studied the small notebook she’d brought for taking notes and reminded herself why she was here. Yes, she could read nutrition books, diet books, watch fitness videos and the latest in health news. It was just the same with anything else. She studied up on hardware and soft-ware advances, didn’t she? And when she got into a situation at work she couldn’t figure out for herself, she called a consultant.

  In this case, the consultant was Helena Boxer, the nutritionist that their client had recommended. She looked as nondescript and unassuming as Andrea Curel had described, that is, until she started speaking. Helena Boxer wasn’t thin and she wasn’t bulging muscles. If anything, she had a bit of a tummy, but it looked womanly. As she spoke, she glowed with vitality and Marissa was taken in by the directness of her gaze.

  “Basically, I’m about to tell you all a bunch of really depressing facts. They are all things you don’t want to hear and don’t want to believe. If you decide you don’t want to go ahead, then you’ve lost nothing but some time. That’s why I don’t take sign-ups until after the first session.”

  Well, that was fair, Marissa thought, considering how many checks she’d already written to the gym and Take It Off.

  “So I’m going to start at the top. I’m not going to tell you what diet to follow. There is no best, one-size-fits all nutrition plan that leads to weight loss and fitness. Everyone is different. Our bodies change constantly. What works this year might need tweaking next 166

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  year. Our evolution is based on adaptability and flexibility—success in weight control requires both.”

  So okay, Marissa thought, if there’s no plan to follow . . . then what? She felt a tickle of confusion and more than a little frustration. She was so tired of working so hard for so little.

  “I can tell you, though, how to spot a bad plan. One simple rule will eliminate ninety percent of what’s being hawked out there. If the book or guru or infomercial says you do not have to exercise to succeed it’s a fraud.”

  Marissa blinked.

  “I know, I know, that seems harsh and I’m not given to blanket statements. But this is one I feel strongly about. It’s just my opinion. Exercise, physical activity, like walking, swimming, hiking, tennis, dancing—it’s vital to your health and well-being. You can’t maintain a healthy weight without it, especially as you get older.

  Our bodies are designed to move.”

  Helena turned back the first sheet of her obviously well-used flip chart. “Here’s the list of the big lies. One—you don’t have to exercise. Two—you don’t have to watch what you eat. Three—you don’t have to wait for results. Four—you don’t have to change. I am telling you the more these statements are used in any so-called weight control program the bigger the lie and, curiously, the more they charge for their advice and products.”

  Remembering the price tag on Bianca’s late night infomercial miracle pills, Marissa found herself nodding as she scribbled notes.

  “You want to believe it—I want to believe it too. I’ve struggled all my life to control my weight. I want a magic bullet. It wasn’t until I accepted that fitness and meal planning were a reasonable use of my time—not just reasonable but justifiable and vital—that I had success. So think about that for a moment. We can train ourselves to plug in our cell phones, take the car in for oil changes, moisturize our skin, brush our teeth every day, absorb the news important to our lives and jobs. These things take time but they’re necessary to maintaining our lives. So when is the last time you allowed time to maintain your body?”

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  Marissa frowned. Actually, she was spending five hours a week maintaining her muscles. She was here because it wasn’t getting her anywhere with losing the fat.

  “Everywhere you go you’re looking at advertising that says it’s okay to spend time at the coffee bar or shopping or talking to our friends or whipping up a weekly home facial. But there’s no money for anyone in telling you that an hour’s walk five times a week is not just okay, it’s great for you.” She turned another page on the flip chart.

  “And women. Oh we women are multitaskers. We take care of everyone else and the time to take care of us is always at the end of the day. Who can take a walk at ten p.m. when the kids are finally asleep? Who feels selfish for letting the kids make their own breakfasts so you can get some exercise?”

  There were nods all around Marissa.

  “Here’s the last thing I’m going to tell you that you don’t want to hear. You’re going to have to change. Not just what you eat and how you get exercise. You are going to have to change how you look at yourself. If you don’t think that is true then I simply can’t help you.”

  “Okay,” the woman next to Marissa said. “I can really use something I want to hear now.”

  Helena grinned. “Fair enough. How about this? Unless you are one of the rare people with a bona fide physical problem, you can control your weight. You can lose the fat, you can eat the foods you like. It’s up to you.”

  “That’s better,” the woman muttered.

  “Here’s the bad news.” Helena paused to laugh as many in the room groaned. “You have to do all the work by yourself. I can only guide. Your friends can only encourage. Gyms can only provide equipment. The work is yours.”

  “I’m already working hard.” Marissa couldn’t contain herself any longer. “I exercise five hours a week and I’m eating like a bird.

  I should have lost twenty-three pounds according to the math but I’ve only lost nine.”

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  “I understand and it sounds like some analysis of what you’re doing might help you find something that works smarter. But that does bring me to an important point about reasonable expecta-tions. How long did it take you to gain the weight you want to lose now?”

  “Ten, fifteen years.”

  “Some of the diet gurus will tell yo
u that it’ll all come back off in three months.”

  “I get that they’re being unrealistic.” Abruptly, Marissa had tears in her eyes. “I know it’s going to take time. I’m willing to invest the time. I just don’t want it to take ten years to get it back off. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working this hard just to stay even.”

  “What about two years?”

  Marissa found a half-smile. “I don’t want it to take that long, either.”

  “But you’d spend two years getting a degree that might be a lifetime investment in your career, wouldn’t you?” Helena spread her hands in appeal.

  “True,” Marissa admitted.

  “I’m not saying it’ll be two years. I’m saying it’s an investment of time to get a result you think is important. Like taking a night class to get a better job. This is about scheduling your life to get a better physical machine through consistent exercise and good nutrition. If you don’t think that you are worth this investment then you will never succeed. You have to like who you are, right now, enough to want to spend time on yourself for the payoff of a body that will carry you healthily into middle and old age.”

  Off to Marissa’s right, someone asked, “Are you going to cover diet plans and approaches at some point?”

  “I will. My program is this series of five classes. Next week we’re going to do metabolic math and talk about hunger hormones and the recent suggestion by some researchers that fat is an organ, like the pancreas, and it acts and reacts on a very complicated level.

  In addition, you’ll each get two hours of consultation, scheduled 169

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  any ol’ way you like. If you want more, we can talk about private consulting.”

  The woman next to Marissa raised a hand laden with chunky rings. “You’re not going to tell me I need to stop having caffeine and diet soda and eat seaweed pills, are you?”

  Helena laughed. “I believe that there are herbals that can help some people and if I think that’s the case with you I have the names of a few homeopaths. Caffeine—no one can decide if it’s good or bad, in excess or moderation or what. Some people eliminate caffeine and feel great. But the last thing I want to do is tell you to take all the joy out of your life. What’s the point in that?”

  “Damn right. There’s no point in me doing something that just makes me want to die.”

  Nodding with understanding, Helena paused to look carefully around the room. “I want to be clear—I’m a licensed nutritionist and a veteran of the weight loss wars. I’m not a doctor, a homeopath, a fitness trainer and I’m certainly not a therapist. I will tell you if I think you need any of those things—”

  “Oh, please,” the woman next to Marissa scoffed. “I just like food too much. I wasn’t abused as a girl and now I stuff myself because of the trauma, boohoo poor me.”

  Marissa, feeling as if her eyebrows had hit her hairline, said,

  “Maybe not, but some of us here were.” Reflecting on her epiphany that wanting to be unattractive to boys had led her to put on extra pounds, she added, “Some of us probably haven’t figured out that one’s got to do with the other.”

  Helena took back control of the session with a quiet, “As I said, we’re all unique. Our issues and histories are all different. What we need to do for ourselves will vary.”

  The session went on for another twenty minutes of question and answer. When it was over, Marissa got out her checkbook to enroll in the full series of classes. She wished she’d been able to convince Heather to come as well. Though she still went to the gym, she too was dejected that she’d not really had any results either.

  The woman next to her leaned close and said, “I’m really 170

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  sorry—that sounded incredibly insensitive. I have this problem with my mouth. Too much food goes in and too many words come out.”

  Marissa found a smile. “It’s fine. Are you going to sign up?”

  “Yeah.” The woman smoothed her already tidy blond curls and Marissa admired the perfect manicure. “She made a lot of sense, especially that one size doesn’t fit all. I don’t want to exercise. I hate it, in fact. But I can’t hide from the fifty pounds on my ass anymore. I went to the theme park this weekend with my kids and there were two rides they wouldn’t let me on because the belts wouldn’t go around me. And I thought, well damn. I like roller coasters more than Egg McMuffins.”

  Marissa laughed. “Sounds like you got quite a jolt. I had to climb a cliff or probably drown and I nearly didn’t make it because of the weight and my total lack of fitness. So here I am.”

  One beringed hand swept through a mass of black curls. “It’s also true that my ever-lovin’ husband said this was a waste of time.

  What he meant was he didn’t want to be making his own dinner once a week.”

  A tall, broad-shouldered woman who looked as if she could play football turned from the sign-up table. “Oh, you got resistance too? It was my boss who didn’t want me to leave ‘early’ which was actually not quite as late as usual. You’d think a woman would be more understanding.”

  Rising, the woman next to Marissa added, “My husband thinks it’s a good idea for me to lose weight. He just doesn’t want it to take any special effort away from him. But the time has to come from somewhere, unfortunately. Just writing a check to the gym isn’t going to work. I have to actually go.”

  Marissa sighed. “I get up earlier than I used to. I’m not dating anyone right now so I do have time to myself but otherwise I work long hours. And this isn’t a weekends-only effort. Some of the time has to come from the work day. I guess I need to remind myself I’m lucky I have some control over my work schedule. A lot of women are not so lucky.”

  After paying her fee and scheduling a thirty-minute consulta-171

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  tion with Helena for the following week, Marissa strolled out of the community center building to her car. Ocky, when Marissa had let her know she had to leave before six, had groused a bit, saying,

  “You’d think they make classes like that at a convenient time.”

  “I work most Saturdays so it’s not like any time is convenient,”

  Marissa had answered. Now she was wondering why it was that Ocky, her oldest and dearest friend, hadn’t applauded madly when she’d said she was going to try out a weight control consultant recommended by one of their clients. Didn’t Ocky want her to be healthier?

  She was still mulling over Ocky’s attitude and even entertaining the idea that just maybe she was over her crush on Ocky as she settled in at home in front of her computer. The unfinished Finders Keepers questionnaire seemed to wink at her. What was she waiting for? Other women were lamenting time away from their loved ones to exercise. She only had work as an obstacle.

  She stubbed her toe on the way back to the kitchen for a second bottle of cold water. It wasn’t the first time she’d nearly tripped over the boxes of Finders Keepers: the Early Years records. Feeling grumpy, she surveyed the crowded living room. She knew Ocky’s garage was full to the hilt, but honestly, this was ridiculous.

  Something had to change.

  “I swear,” she told her computer monitor as she opened her e-mail, “I will not turn forty and still have significant pieces of fur-nishing supported by cinder blocks.”

  She checked her messages, telling herself she wasn’t hoping to see something from Linda. There wasn’t and she told herself it didn’t matter.

  There was, however, a message from the man who had taken all the photos of their adventure. He apologized for the delay in sending them out to everybody. Marissa quickly sent back an effusive thank you and downloaded the zip file.

  She was smiling when she opened the first one—there it was, 172

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  their doomed ship looking so bright and unsinkable. The next photo was the lifeboat. It
looked so small. She spotted herself in the last row. She didn’t remember being that far back. She’d gotten the second-to-last seat on the boat, it appeared. Had she been any slower getting to the emergency station she’d have been in a different one.

  Just in front of her, of course, looking alive and lovely and tall and strong and all good things there could be in a woman, was Linda.

  She zoomed in on Linda’s face and realized she’d forgotten Linda’s precise features as a whole. The mouth she remembered perfectly as she did Linda’s eyes. Her hands remembered the texture of Linda’s hair even if she’d forgotten how richly dark it was.

  Her fingertips tingled with the memory of Linda’s skin even if she’d not remembered the perfect olive tone.

  What had happened? Why hadn’t Linda been in touch? May was just around the corner.

  Clicking forward she found the photo of Linda, body stretched and taut as she made her way up the cliff. Her legs were impossibly long, her arms impossibly powerful but Marissa knew they were real. She’d felt both around her.

  Her stomach growled and she wanted to have a second dinner.

  She was so tired of being hungry. Trying to do something with her hands that didn’t involve opening the marcona almonds, she decided she’d weigh herself, which was always a mistake at the end of the day.

  Predictably, the scale said she’d gained a pound in the course of her starvation. Something inside her broke and she stomped hard on the stupid thing before smacking both fists equally painfully onto the wall. The little print of wildflowers slipped off the nail and she cut her big toe on a shard of glass.

  Sitting in the middle of the mess she cried, cried like she hadn’t before and called Linda a lot of names. Then she spent a sniveling hour finishing the questionnaire.

  She gazed one last time at the clearest photo of Linda’s face.

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  Dear Linda,

  Maybe I loved the way you made me feel and not really you. But I felt something for you and it was real. It didn’t deserve to be ignored and forgotten. Even though the time with you was arguably the best thing to ever happen to me, I’m angry and hurt.You better not be dead, because someday I will make sure you know that you broke my heart.