Finders Keepers

by Karin Kallmaker

  Marissa, moving on

  P.S. Please don’t be dead.

  At bedtime, her body feeling like lead, she looked at the pale green T-shirt peeking out from under her pillow. She used it to dry new tears, then folded it into the back of her sock drawer.

  “Marissa, you sound so motivated.” Helena Boxer glanced down at the printouts Marissa had made from her nutrition and exercise tracking program. “You are working incredibly hard.”

  “And getting nowhere fast.”

  “Plateaus are inevitable but I actually don’t think that’s what’s going on. You’re exercising too often and not long enough. Plus while the weights, stationary cycling and elliptical are good cardio training, they’re only helping you keep and build the substantial muscle you’ve got, not burning fat.”

  “But I didn’t have muscle before.”

  “Actually,” Helena said with a smile, “you did. You had muscles sufficient to pull your entire body up a flight a stairs. Your muscles were finely toned to do short bursts of heavy effort. Your training at the gym is more of the same. Some of it is even less of the same because only the elliptical isn’t sitting down. So the muscles in your legs and butt that used to carry your entire body around are working a weight machine but only having to move your legs.

  What you’re doing isn’t challenging enough in the right ways. Tell them to get you off cardio and onto aerobic—slower, longer. You need endurance.”

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  Marissa made a note. “I spent a lot of money at Take It Off and that feels like a waste too.”

  “Actually, programs like Take if Off and other weekly meeting groups are valuable, at least initially. Some people love the support group atmosphere and find it motivating too. But the big benefit is retraining yourself on portion size. I doubt, though, that you’re getting enough protein to sustain your muscle mass. You’re not going there anymore?”

  Rolling her eyes, Marissa said, “A couple of weeks ago I figured I could buy a piece of fish, cook it badly and steam some broccoli all by myself.”

  “Good for you. You have great snacks, too. Nuts, lean cheeses, reduced fat lunch meats. Don’t be afraid of carbs—”

  “They suck up so much of the calories, and so quickly. It’s hard to eat a half a bagel.”

  “A good-sized handful of pretzels is satisfying crunching. Look for the fat-free variety. You know, your diet is excellent, but low in protein and I’d say low in treats.” Helena gave her a toothy grin. “That’s right, you need more treats. You’ve learned a habit of moderation. If you can apply it to things you really enjoy, there’s no reason why you can’t treat yourself a couple times a week to whatever tempts you.”

  “Cookies.” Marissa realized she sounded like she was praying.

  “I love cookies.”

  “Then get some of the individually-wrapped snack packs of your favorites. Portion controlled that way, but still a reward. As for the protein, you can add powder to nonfat milk for a shake or increase the portion size of the fish and lean chicken. You need about ten grams more a day, preferably without a lot of fat.

  Without enough protein, your body will cannibalize your muscles to allow you to exercise.”

  “And that’s completely self-defeating.”

  “Right. The more muscle you have the more calories your body will need to keep going—the more you can eat. At some point the amount of lean body mass to fat will hit equilibrium and that’s where you’ll be for the rest of your life if you continue the exercise.

  Does that make sense?”

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  “Sure.” Marissa could easily picture the intersection of weight and lean body mass on a chart. Getting to that point was what she wanted. “I can follow that. I was reading about how a lot of information about body mass index and body fat percentage is too sim-plified. You can have a body fat of twenty percent and still be unhealthy.”

  “That’s my goal—I want you to find the healthy spot for you.

  That could be twenty-five percent body fat. Technically, that’s overweight. But if you are carrying solid lean body mass and able to do all the activities you want and eating a nutritious diet, then what’s the percentage matter? And it’s depressing but true, it’s easier to get from thirty-five to thirty percent body fat than it is to get from twenty-five to twenty-four. Your body is smart. It has perfected a lifetime of saving fat in case you need it.”

  “I’ve never thought about food that way. That eating badly and sitting on my hinder was a kind of training. Anti-training, even.”

  They chatted for a few minutes about gaps in public education and resource materials with scientifically-grounded information.

  “It is frustrating,” Helena acknowledged. “If I really want to depress myself I go web surfing for diet advice. There is downright dangerous stuff out there that somehow sounds reasonable on the surface. Urban myths, especially, with ridiculous celebrity diets.”

  Thinking of Heather, Marissa said, “I have a friend who’s really frustrated and she wants to try one of those five-day shock loss low-calorie diets. She says she wants to ‘jump start’ her system.”

  “Talk her out of it,” Helena said immediately. “Let’s say she eats two thousand calories a day. Not unreasonable but for her, it’s too much. So one day she eats five hundred. The hormone leptin stops producing—it’s the hormone that tells you to stop eating and it also tells your body it’s okay to burn energy. She spends the night too tired to move and feeling quite hungry.”

  “In college there was this so-called Dolly Parton diet and I didn’t make it two days.” She could still recall the smell of onion and cabbage soup.

  Helena shuddered. “That’s because on the second day the hormone ghrelin—I called it gremlin—kicks in. And it screams at 176

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  your stomach to growl, cramp and will even send out messages to shake and pump less blood to your brain so you’re dizzy and feeling sick.”

  “That’s when I gave up.” Marissa didn’t admit she’d tried it a half-dozen times, with the same result every time. Doing the same thing over and over thinking the outcome would change. Huh, she thought—when the outcome of a stupid plan didn’t change no matter how often I did it, who did I blame? Not the plan. I blamed myself.

  Enough of that, she told herself.

  “Good, you listened. The gremlin’s entire purpose is to get you to eat. After all, you are starving to death—what else is your body to make of your low-calorie intake? Then!” Helena paused meaningfully. “You suck up all the willpower you’ve got and make it day three. You are now technically starving. The diet says you’re losing water and fat. But you’re not.”

  Trying not to recall how many times she’d tried similar diets during her early twenties and always ended them with a bag of Oreos or pepperoni pizza, Marissa asked, “What is happening?”

  “Your clever body, the product of tens of thousands of years of evolution, burns what you don’t need—muscle. You’re starving, you don’t need to run a marathon. So it burns muscle. The scariest bit is that your heart is a muscle like any other. So its capacity is being reduced along with your glutes and deltoids and so on.”

  “Wow.” Marissa tried to take that in. “So a diet like that you don’t lose fat and when you give it up you feel like crap both psy-chically and physically. That’s a complete downward cascade.”

  “And after losing muscle you’re even less likely to exercise and your body desperately hoards fat because of the starvation trauma you just put it through. The entire experience trained your body to keep the fat.”

  “So there you are—every pound comes back, double.” Marissa sighed heavily. She had been there so many times.

  “So talk your friend out of it. A diet that restricts choices, prompts moderate and wise eating is what we all need.”

  “Thank you. I�
��ll talk to her tomorrow. Um, so, about my exer-177

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  cise. Too often and not long enough?” A quick trip to the gym fit so easily into her schedule. She felt good about making herself go almost every day.

  “Yeah. You need more variety and the good news is there are things you can do that are almost free. Your time is a valuable enough investment. They involve getting out of the gym. When you make some progress, the gym can help you hone specific areas.

  In bad weather those machines are great. But right now, given that you seriously want to lose fat and build some endurance, walking with hand or ankle weights for no less than an hour, three times a week, will give you slow and steady progress toward your goals.

  Change your gym focus from cardio like I said, and go no more than three times a week.”

  “Walking is so boring, though.”

  “I know. Music, books on CD, they pass the time. Oh, do you know how to skate?”

  “No, never learned.”

  “Well, if you’re feeling adventurous, go to the rink and rent pads and blades and give it a try. It’s good aerobic exercise and does fantastic things for your butt. A variety of exercises, just like a variety of foods, is what your body needs. In the long run, having choices will keep you motivated and enthused.”

  “You’ve given me so much to think about. Thank you. I feel a little overwhelmed, but really, this has been great,” Marissa said.

  Her head spinning with too much new information, Marissa resisted the urge to go to the gym as she’d just been yesterday. It felt weird, fighting the urge to work out.

  Instead she went shopping. Wandering in the department store she looked at expensive walking shoes and socks that must have had gold thread given the price tag. Perhaps she should treat herself to some gear. Did she want red shoes or blue ones? They would make a nice reward for starting a new program.

  Oh no way, she told herself sternly. Giving yourself treats and rewards before you actually do anything is the wrong kind of training. She made a note about the red walking shoes. If she found the 178

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  time and commitment to stick with Helena’s suggestions for three weeks, she’d get them then.

  Instead, she marched over to the accessories and plunked down eight dollars for handheld weights, then set out on the Iron Horse Trail that ran along the back of their office building. Her ordinary gym shoes would be fine for now.

  The first half-hour felt great. The second half-hour, to her surprise, took more effort than she had anticipated. Her hips hurt, her knees hurt, her shoulders hurt. So her gym workouts hadn’t improved her ability to do something as simple as walk for an hour.

  That was mind-boggling. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, she wanted to whine. She nipped the impulse in the bud and instead told herself firmly that it was proof she was unique. Dang it all.

  She got home later than usual and missed one of her few favorite television programs. But I’m worth it, she told herself in the shower. I like myself more than TV, more than Oreos, more than a hot fudge sundae.

  Her reflection wasn’t the woman who had frightened her in Tahiti. She wasn’t yet the woman she knew was inside her either.

  But there was a change, a definite change, one she wanted to pursue. One of these days she was going to look on the outside the way she felt on the inside.

  The next morning she tucked the finished Finders Keepers questionnaire into her satchel. It was time.

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  Part Three

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  Chapter 12

  Of all the ways that Marissa had imagined finally confronting Linda again, eyes stinging with sweat and smelling like a locker room was not one of them. Linda, of course, looked as if she’d just left a day spa, immaculate, relaxed and gorgeous. The hurt and pain Marissa had worked so hard to put away were immediately at the surface, combining in an inner cry of, “This is so not fair.”

  She gave herself a moment to think by fumbling for the iPod shut-off. She couldn’t have felt more unattractive, in spite of the running shorts Heather said made her bootylicious. She finally made herself look at Linda again. This conversation was not supposed to happen standing in her parking lot before the sun was completely up.

  “What do you mean you want me?” Marissa tried to face Linda square on, fighting off all the memories of her skin, her laughter and the soft, welcome words that had made Marissa feel attractive and wanted. “You wait a year?”

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  “I know. And I know you’ve reason to be mad.”

  “I got over being angry a while ago. I don’t feel anything but regret now.” Okay, given the way her heart was pounding, that was a boldfaced lie. But a pounding heart didn’t mean good feelings, only strong ones.

  The dark eyes shimmered with emotion—oh, how does she make her eyes do that, Marissa wailed inside. It wasn’t fair. “I have a lot of regrets too,” Linda said quietly. “I know I must have hurt you. If you’ll let me explain, at least you’ll know why.”

  “Does it matter? I’m past it.”

  A new set of lines around Linda’s mouth creased as she smiled, but not happily. “I was hoping it would still matter to you.”

  “It would have nine months ago. You broke my heart, do you know that?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you just here because you want me to forgive you so you can move on? Fine.” Marissa wiped sweat off her brow and, dang it all, wished she didn’t look like a drowned rat and smell worse.

  “You’re forgiven.”

  “Can we maybe get together tonight and talk?”

  “I have a date.” That, at least, was true. She didn’t have to explain it was a first date in a short series of first dates as she worked up the courage to call the women her own program reported were 98% highly compatible with Chabot, Marissa.

  “Then you pick a time. I was going to call tonight and let you know I was in town but I couldn’t wait. I thought I’d at least see where you lived.”

  “I don’t see what there is to be gained in all of this.”

  Linda took a deep breath and it was not fair that somehow, though her face had new lines, she looked even more embraceable than before. It’s just physical, Marissa told herself angrily. She’s the last woman you went to bed with. Well, Eve tonight might get lucky, because she wasn’t going to let Linda hurt her again just because she wanted Linda bad. Oh hell.

  “Okay, well, let me give you this and maybe if I call after a while we’ll be able to talk. Because I’ve missed you. And I’m here for the 184

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  right reasons finally. I know that doesn’t make sense. But if I’d shown up earlier it would have been for the wrong reasons.”

  Linda held out a wrapped package she’d drawn out of a shopping bag. It was about the size of a box of chocolates, but when Marissa reluctantly took it she decided it felt like a book.

  “I’m not going to tell you to call. I’m not going to tell you I want to talk over old times. That’s just not the way it is.”

  “I am so sorry I hurt you, Marissa. I knew that I probably was hurting you but—” The brown gaze flicked to the package in Marissa’s hands. “There were reasons. But no excuses. I behaved badly and I’m sorry.”

  Her breath catching, Marissa hated that she was blinking back tears. “I won’t let you break my heart again.”

  “That’s not going to happen, no.”

  What did that mean? Wasn’t Linda here to try to rekindle their Tahitian flame? “So forgiveness is all you want?”

  The flash of light might have been a car moving in the parking lot or it might have been Linda
’s smile. “I’m not saying that either.”

  “I have to go to work.”

  “I have an appointment to get to as well.”

  “Fine.”

  “Okay.”

  Even as Marissa was biting her tongue not to ask questions, Linda strode toward a nondescript sedan that screamed “rental.”

  And just like that, she was gone.

  Dazzled, befuddled, bemused—Marissa couldn’t find the right word to describe how she felt. She would not spend the rest of the day, as she had spent so many days, wishing for Linda to call. She would not go back in time.

  “Hey, girlfriend. You’ve got some mail and here’s your very own newly minted Finders Keepers Questionnaire.” Heather handed Marissa the bundle of envelopes with the questionnaire on top.

  “The printer finally came through. Halle-Berry-lujah.”

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  “I’ll get the waiting list out to the prospective clients today and Ocky is looking for you.”

  “I love the hair clips.” Marissa peered at the glitzy blue and white barrettes holding back Heather’s hair.

  “Tar-jay, Le Chic.”

  “Oh.” Marissa leaned close and said in a whisper, “I’m buying a condo.”

  “Oh—you talked to Octavia? That’s very cool. Wait until you tell your mom.”

  “She’ll be picking out carpets.” The prospect of sparring with her mother over decorating was actually quite pleasant. “Little does she know how much crap I have.”

  Marissa tried to settle into her work day but the morning encounter with Linda had been deeply unsettling. She had been certain she was over Linda. She no longer thought of her every day and when she did it wasn’t with, well, anguish or anything. Regret was a good word. Nothing more than a vague, wistful regret.

  Right.

  “Is that another new shirt?”

  Marissa glanced up to smile at Ocky. “You noticed.”

  “You’re becoming quite the clothes horse.”