Holding Out for a Zero

by Wardell, Heather

  I have to keep going, though, if I want any chance of understanding what happened to her, so I do though it’s awful. Nothing seems important in my quick checking, but I feel like something’s missing, and eventually I realize what it is: there are no mementos of my parents and me and Anthony. No wonder Jessica didn’t know Gloria had a family. It looks like Gloria didn’t want to admit that even to herself.

  I don’t know why I’m surprised, really, given that there are no photos or family heirlooms in my condo and none on display at my parents’ place either. We’ve all basically given up on being a family. We see each other at major holidays and exchange awkward phone calls at birthdays and otherwise we’re strangers.

  But I can’t let Gloria be a stranger any longer. I have to understand what happened. So I skim through the final few boxes. Nothing useful turns up, but in the last box I find granola bars and I have one unwrapped and to my lips before I know what I’m doing. Then I rush outside and throw it in the garbage can. I can’t eat it. I need to protect Gloria.

  Eat less, live longer.

  Chapter Nine

  After a week of never once going over 1200 calories a day, I know I’ve lost weight but I don’t know how much. I plan to take Friday evening off from hanging out at the hospital and go home to try on the dress before working from home for a few hours, but as I leave the office after working late it feels wrong not to go see Gloria so I do, only to find my parents still there.

  “Don’t you guys usually visit her during the day?”

  Dad nods, looking uncomfortable, and Mom says, “But I wasn’t sure how much time you were spending with her at night so I wanted to stay until you arrived, and now I see that you leave her alone for a long time. I thought we agreed we’d have someone with her for most of every day.”

  She agreed to that. She’d promised that to Gloria the first time we saw her in the hospital. But even then I’d known we couldn’t keep that promise, or at least that I couldn’t give the kind of time Mom was expecting. With Mara’s wedding, and all my usual work plus trying to get ahead, and also my so-far-useless attempts to research Gloria’s life, I’ve actually thought I’m doing well to be at Gloria’s bedside as often as I am.

  Not well enough for Mom, though, who’s still talking. “Your dad and I are here at ten in the morning and we stay right through until one of her friends shows up mid-afternoon and then we go have a late lunch and come back for a little longer. Are you even here an hour a day?”

  “Lana,” Dad says quietly. “Not in front of Gloria.”

  “Out in the hall, then.”

  I follow them out then Dad turns to me and says, “We know you’re doing your best.”

  “Her best,” Mom mutters under her breath. “Is that good enough?”

  Never has been, so why should today be any different? “I do stay for hours usually, and I’m here now, and I’ll stay until nine or so.” I didn’t bring my laptop, I realize with a jolt, because I was planning to go home to work, so I won’t get anything done for those hours.

  My stomach twists. Anything but taking care of Gloria, which is what I should be focused on. I’ve already deserted one sibling, putting my social life ahead of Anthony, and I can’t do that again. Work will just have to wait.

  As I realize I don’t have time for it to wait, Mom says, “Well, good. And tomorrow we can’t be here at all so you’ll need to be. All day, and as late in the evening as you can. Okay?”

  I take a breath to agree then remember. “I can’t, actually. It’s my friend Mara’s bachelorette party and I need to—”

  “You’re going to desert Gloria for a party?”

  “I’m not deserting her,” I say, hating that she’s using the same word I thought earlier. “It’s just one day. And I’m the maid of honor so I have to—”

  “Can you believe this?” Mom turns to Dad. “A party’s more important than Gloria.”

  He doesn’t respond directly. Instead, he says to me, “It can’t be rescheduled, can it? I could move my laser eye surgery if I had to, I guess, but—”

  “After you had to wait five months? I think not.” Mom sighs. “And the wedding must be soon, right?”

  “Two weeks from tomorrow.”

  She sighs again. “Well, I suppose Gloria could be left alone for a bit. I’m sure her friends will be in. I just hate the idea of her waking up with nobody here. What time would you have to leave?”

  We’re doing our final bridesmaid dress fittings at four then we have mani-pedi appointments at five and will go out to dinner after before heading over to the strip club. I could skip the nails and food, but we’re going to my usual nail place and my presence will ensure we get better service. “Three,” I admit. “At the latest.”

  “Three!”

  Dad puts his hand on Mom’s shoulder. “If she could be here longer, she would be. Right, Valerie?”

  I nod, still trying to decide whether I should blow off the party to sit by Gloria. I can’t miss the fitting but I could skip the rest. If I do, I’ll disappoint Mara, and her bridesmaids might take over and turn the party to what they want instead of what she’d imagined. But while Gloria waking up tomorrow isn’t very likely given that her coma score is still only 7, if she did return to consciousness and find herself alone that’d be horrific.

  I want to do both. I can’t.

  Why do things always work out that way? Why can I never see the right course of action and just take it? No matter what I do, someone will be upset with me. I hate knowing that. It makes me feel helpless and useless and bad.

  Mom takes the decision out of my hands. “Go to your party. Gloria will be fine. As fine as… well, whatever. Have fun.”

  Unlikely, at this point.

  Maybe I look as sad and confused and angry at my inability to please everyone as I feel, because Mom clears her throat and says in a gentler tone, “I do hope you have fun. Really. I just hate the idea of Gloria being alone like—” She bites her lip. “Well, never mind.”

  She doesn’t need to finish. I know she’s thinking of how Anthony went unconscious all by himself and never saw any of us again.

  The three of us stand silent for a moment, while I wonder exactly how much she hates me for killing her son, then she says, “I think we should go now. Stay with her as long as you’re able to tonight, okay?”

  “I will,” I say, then add, “I’m sorry.”

  She shakes her head slowly, looking defeated. “It’s okay. I understand. It’s okay.”

  Dad gives my shoulder an awkward squeeze then takes her hand, and they head off down the hall together without looking back.

  I stand alone for a few seconds, then a nurse rolling a food trolley down the hall toward me startles me back to myself. I slip into Gloria’s room so I won’t need to speak to the nurse, and sit for three hours by her bed talking as much as I can. Earlier in this whole mess Gloria’s friends were showing up constantly and I was frustrated by their presence, but tonight nobody interrupts and I don’t like that they’ve forgotten her. If she doesn’t wake up, nobody but me and my parents will ever think of her again. And she isn’t waking up. Not even close.

  A nurse offers me crackers but I refuse to take them, and eventually I’m too tired and hungry to stay another minute. When I get home, I go straight to my kitchen and try on my size zero dress right there.

  I can’t even wriggle it over my hips.

  I hadn’t expected it to fit yet, after just a week of perfect eating, but I’d wanted to know how far I have to go.

  A lot farther than I expected.

  Fear fills me as I put my horribly large-sized clothes back on and hang the dress up again. I need to lose at least a few inches all over. Can I do that in time? How long will it take? How long does Gloria have?

  I can’t answer the final and most important question, but with a bit of Internet research I discover that I will lose a pound or so a week by continuing my reasonable calorie restriction.

  But I also find that I probab
ly need to lose twenty pounds to get to a size zero given my build.

  Does Gloria have twenty weeks?

  I’m very much afraid she doesn’t. I have to go harder, have to give this everything I possibly can. ‘Reasonable’ isn’t good enough. I’ve already lost one sibling, I won’t lose two without a fight.

  I get myself a glass of water, hoping it’ll fill my stomach and also flush away a bit more fat, and begin searching the Internet for the solution.

  Most sites I find want to sell me something, but the idea of taking some pill that in a month will probably be proven to cause cancer or something even worse doesn’t appeal to me. I keep looking, and eventually see someone referencing the ‘2468 diet’: 200 calories one day, 400 the next, then 600 and 800 and then back down to 200 for another go-round.

  Most of the people following this plan are anorexic girls, and I can’t stop clicking on link after link and reading their text-speak-laden posts about how much they hate food and hate their bodies and how desperately they want to lose weight. Their stories shock and horrify me, as their pain and their dread of food and how they use it to punish themselves burst off my computer screen. I don’t hate food or my body or myself, of course, not at all, but I share their desperation.

  Being on this diet will be different for me, though. They’re kids, coming at the diet from a place of fear and self-disgust. I’m an adult, with more willpower than anyone else I know, doing it because the first time I cut back my food Gloria showed her first sign of recovery.

  The ‘reasonable’ method won’t cut it. I have to prove how hard I can fight so Gloria will fight too.

  And I will.

  I make myself a promise: tomorrow I’ll eat as little as I can with Mara and her bridesmaids, and starting Sunday I will do the 2468 diet until I reach size zero.

  Chapter Ten

  “So slip into these, ladies, while I get our lovely bride some champagne, and we’ll see how they look.”

  I take my maid-of-honor dress from the overly cheerful saleslady and close myself into a dressing room, ignoring the three bridesmaids’ joking-but-not complaints that they want champagne too. I don’t. I know each glass is about 90 calories, and I’m saving most of my calories today for dinner and drinks at the strip club. All I’ve eaten so far is a small meal replacement bar, and I feel sick and tired, probably partly because of lack of food and mostly because I got up early and spent as much time as I could at Gloria’s bedside. When I was working and not paying total attention to her, I felt guilty, but when I was paying attention and not getting ahead on my work I felt guilty about that too. At least my diet is guilt-free. It’s not feeling so good so far, though. But it’s worth it. Size zero.

  My size six dress slides over my head and down my body easily. Too easily, I realize, when I look at myself in the mirror and see the navy chiffon dress hanging loosely around my body instead of being pulled against me by the wide satin waistband.

  “How’re you all doing?” Mara calls, and I hear the others open their doors and come out. I twist back and forth in front of the mirror, wondering what if anything I can do to make the dress look right, then give up and join the others in the main fitting area.

  “You guys look— oh, Valerie, wow, where’d you go? You’re so skinny!”

  “Just lost a few pounds,” I say, not wanting to talk about it since it’s all so tied up with Gloria. “No big deal.” I look at the others and gush about how great they look, hoping that’ll draw the attention away from me.

  It doesn’t work. “God, I hate you,” Mara’s sister says, with one of those smiles that isn’t really a smile.

  “Mia!”

  “What? Come on.” She gestures at her own waist, where the dress is digging in like it’s holding on for dear life. “I’d give anything to lose a few pounds, and they just drop off her.”

  “I’ve been trying, actually,” I say, then wish I hadn’t when she says, “Really? After getting the dresses ordered?”

  “Ladies, ladies,” the clerk says, “it’s not a problem at all. You all look wonderful. And we can take Valerie’s dress in at the waistband, and let Mia’s out a bit, and…” She studies the other two bridesmaids. “And you two don’t seem to have changed at all since we measured you, so that’s great. You’ll all look terrific.” She shoots me a glance and adds, “But ideally no more weight changes, okay?”

  I don’t know how to respond. After a moment of awkward silence, Mara says, “Valerie? You can stay like this for two weeks, right?”

  My mind fills with an image of Gloria in her hospital bed, pale and silent and far from us, and I want to say that I’ll keep losing weight as fast as I can. But I can’t say that out loud to Mara or Mia or anyone. If someone tells me that losing weight for Gloria doesn’t make sense, then it might not work, and I can’t bear the idea of that.

  Well, whatever. I won’t explain it, and I won’t stop losing the weight. I clear my throat and turn to the clerk. “Make it tight,” I say, “around the waist. Then if I do lose… I mean, when…” Frustrated because I can’t admit what I’m doing and because losing weight is causing me trouble and yet I can’t let myself stop, I sound angrier than I intend to when I say, “Look, just make it tight, okay? Can you handle that?”

  “Of course,” she says, still cheerful but with ice beneath her tone. “That’s what we do.” She pulls a measuring tape from her pocket and wraps it as tightly around my waist as Mia’s waistband. “Will this work?”

  It hurts, but I don’t mind. I know that in two weeks it won’t. “Yup, it’s just fine.”

  Mia shakes her head as the clerk writes down my measurement. “I just like cheeseburgers and chips more than I like the idea of being skinny.”

  “Not me,” the nearest bridesmaid says, smiling at me. “I’d love to look like you. You’re so elegant and sleek.” She looks down at herself. “I just don’t have your willpower. You’re lucky.”

  No, I’m determined. I’m in control and I’m determined, and with those two things you can make everything go your way.

  *****

  Five hours later I am not remotely in control or determined. That’s how it goes, though, when you’re so drunk you can’t turn your head without everything going out of focus.

  When we arrived at the strip club and claimed the VIP table I’d arranged for us, Mara settled Mia down next to her and hugged her and said, “Strippers with my sister. I love you!” Mia hugged her back and said, “I love you too. You’re the best.”

  The other bridesmaids went, “Aww,” in unison, and I echoed a second too late because the easy happy relationship between Mia and Mara made what I’ve never had and now might never get the chance to have with Gloria all too painfully clear. I flagged down a passing waitress and got the drinks started, and they haven’t stopped, and since all I had for dinner was a tiny salad I am probably fifty percent booze now and am one hundred percent drunk and two hundred percent happy about that.

  Tonight I don’t have to care about anything. I’m drunk enough that I can’t even care. And that’s the best.

  As yet another round of drinks arrives at our table, a handsome well-muscled man in the tiniest bright red thong I’ve ever seen comes over and points his bulging crotch at us. “Hey, ladies, like what you see?”

  They all squeal, and Mia points at Mara and says, “Kiss my sister! She’s getting married!”

  The guy glances at me, which surprises me since I wasn’t one of the squealing ones, then leans over and kisses Mara just beside her mouth. Drunk Mara hugs him and pulls him down onto her lap, and he rubs against her for a few moments then kisses her cheek and says, “Have a good night, ladies. I’ll come back and see you soon.”

  They all squeal again, but I’m too busy with my new overpriced cocktail to bother.

  An endless stream of waxed muscled men later, I’m in a state I never thought I’d experience: tired of looking at naked male flesh. It’s everywhere. That same dancer, who calls himself Dustin, has been back to our
table multiple times and he’s pretty hot but the rest are blurring for me.

  Although that could just be the booze.

  Dustin leaves our table with what looks like a fifty hanging out of his underwear thanks to Mia, who’s already told us several times she’s going to make him her boyfriend if it costs her a million dollars, and I push up to my feet and say, “Bathroom.”

  “Again?” Mia pouts. “I was gonna get Mara up on stage.”

  Mara screams. “The hell you were! I can’t go up there!”

  “No?”

  “Well, maybe,” Mara says, and they collapse giggling into each other’s arms.

  I leave without a word, because I can’t think of anything to say, and am halfway to the bathroom line-up when a huge shriek goes up from the tables behind me. Looking back, I see a bunch of guys in loincloths on the stage, dancing like Tarzan never would, while women squeal and wave money at them.

  I stumble on toward the bathroom, bumped from all sides as women rush back to see the jungle show, but though that’s annoying on my way there it turns out well because I can get right into a stall.

  When I’m done and leaving, I meet Dustin outside the door. “Hey, you,” he says, leaning close so I can hear him over the music and the crowd. “Enjoying the show?”

  “Too many guys,” I say, swaying slightly and trying to fight it. “I don’t know where to look.”

  He chuckles and takes hold of my shoulder then draws me to a dead-end hallway around the corner. “Look at me then.”

  I raise my head and make my eyes focus on him. Up close he’s even better looking, and before I know I’m going to I mumble, “Fine by me. You’re hot.”