“We need your help more than they do,” Tex says.
“And why is that?”
“Justine’s threatening to get the Atkins police after me.”
“Send her to Paris. Make up a new designer, make up a scandal. Hemlines are going up to the navel.”
“Hmmm, now that’s a thought.”
Then there’s a call waiting for him, and another one after that, and after a quick “Don’t forget us,” he hangs up.
I call Tamara. Turns out she’s spending more and more time with Ty—in his West Side apartment that looks as if it was done by a decorator from the Sports Channel. She’s told him about her novel. Apparently she’s finished it and mailed it off to one of the leading publishers. It’s about two women, a writer and a photographer, who meet at a weight loss center. I wonder what the romantic angle is, and it occurs to me that it could be Taylor’s next movie.
I slip the phone back into my bag as I walk up toward the house. I spot Taylor through the window—a romantic film star of the silent screen. The only thing missing is the plonkety piano. He’s telling a story. Everyone is enthralled, then they’re in hysterics. This is his town, and I’m the bag lady who comes over from Ireland. I walk farther from the house, down toward the water, kicking off my shoes and lifting my dress. The wind blows at my back, ballooning out the front of my skirt. I turn the other way, feeling the force of it wrapping the fabric tightly around my legs. Fat, thin. At the whim of nature.
A milky glow surrounds the full moon and casts a haze on the slate black water. It’s almost 80 degrees here and below freezing at home. I want to imprint this moment in time in my memory, a visual souvenir of a perfect winter night in Southern California.
I use these memories like a life raft to spirit me away from reality’s disappointments because they testify to the existence of a higher life. I call upon my mental scrapbook of memories when I want to catalog my life’s most poignant moments. Waking up in the Texas hill country in the early-morning chill with a sky nonstop blue; walking along an empty beach on private Palm Island in the Grenadines. The manicured gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome, the air perfumed with flowers as I walked with a dark-haired Italian boy. These were gifts in the montage of memories, experiences when life reveals itself at its best, awing you with its raw beauty.
I try to memorize everything I see as I stand ankle-deep in swirling water. It would all be pushed aside when I was home. Tamara would move up at the paper, and I’d have to find another support person. I’ll miss having her sitting outside of my office every day. I don’t like to lose people. But to see it happening to Tamara doesn’t surprise me. Life is all about serendipity. You just have to be open to it.
Like Taylor’s call, and the changes in my life that it set in motion. And it wasn’t just the weight. It was the stimulus for getting me to the point of shaking up the status quo and trying to make things better in my life. It gave me the boost to say that I would try to do better for myself. That I was worth it. That I would strive to be the best Maggie that I could. And that whether I failed or not, I would know that I tried—that I dieted, that I exercised, that I was ready to take responsibility for myself and help determine the course that I would follow rather than bemoaning my fate and throwing up my hands in surrender.
For that alone, I owed Taylor. And now that I’m exercising, I’m convinced that it’s the perpetual motion that is largely responsible for keeping the weight off. That’s definitely a column. I savor the last bite of the crab cake and lick my fingers.
The Fidget Factor
Think you’re fat because you had twice as much for dinner as your thin neighbor? Think again. Take note of this tidbit that I found in a textbook:
“One is hard-pressed for evidence that groups of overweight individuals actually eat more on the average than people of normal weight.”
What it comes down to, the experts say, is remaining in motion. Thinner people move more. I call it “the fidget factor.” A more recent study held that thin people start to fidget more after they overeat, as if their bodies were instinctively battling the weight gain.
So what’s holding you back? When you’re cooking in the kitchen, turn on the radio and sway in time to the music while you’re mashing potatoes. Move your upper body while you’re sitting at the computer waiting to download a program. Get up during TV commercials and walk to the kitchen for a snack instead of keeping the bowl next to you. If you want ice cream for dessert, walk to the store, don’t drive. Get moving…anywhere…anytime.
I glance back at the house. Was he doing some coke in a back bedroom now? Behind a closed door with some leading lady? Nothing would surprise me. He seemed pretty relaxed about everything.
Why don’t I take lessons from him? Breathe, ease my choke hold on life. It’s hard to do if you live in New York. Everyone wears body armor, assumes a sense of entitlement, a self-preservation mind-set. City life calls for being a strategist, figuring your way around the crowds, traffic, sealing out noise, adapting to tight spaces, getting by with less. I’m gazing at the water when a hand on my shoulder makes me jump.
“BOO! It’s only me.” Taylor laughs, kissing me on top of my head.
I turn abruptly. “You scared me. I guess my mind was someplace else.”
He nuzzles my shoulder. “You’re just having a great ole time, right?”
“No, it’s fine, I just don’t know anybody. Anyway,” I say, gesturing around me, “I usually don’t get a chance to spend my nights like this so—”
“Guess I should have realized you wouldn’t exactly feel at home here.” He slips an arm around my waist.
A male voice calls Taylor from the house. The words carry against the wind… “Hey, Mike, get back here, there’s somebody who has something nice for you.” Then a high-pitched woman’s laugh.
“You’re wanted.”
He frowns and shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ll be missed. Everybody’s half-wasted in there, anyway.”
“How’s your blood chemistry?”
He tilts his hand back and forth. “C’mon, let’s go home.”
“Going home.” That was a wild thought. We walk to his car only to find an offering parked on the hood: a sad blonde in a black cat suit who’s also ready to go home with him.
“Michael.” She slides down, pressing herself up to him. I, of course, am invisible.
I stare with disgust and sympathy… Great, another Venus flytrap.
“Melanie, I think you need to go home, babe,” he says softly. He looks at me, his eyes widening in desperation.
“Take me with you, Michael, I want to go home with you.”
He puts his arm over her shoulder. “I’ll walk you back to the house.” He tosses me the keys. “Prepare for launch.”
Melanie snuggles against him as they walk. Her slurred words trail after them… “Remember how good it was with us that night, Michael, remember?”
I start the car and drive slowly toward the house. The headlights blind him when he comes toward me. He holds up his arm to shade his eyes.
“Get in, Taylor. I’m your designated driver.”
He walks around to the passenger seat. “I don’t know who I’d put my money on, me half in the bag, or you sober.”
“Taylor,” I say, brushing white powder from his top lip. “You need to chill.”
I could never have imagined myself being seduced by a car. Maybe it was a California thang, something in the air you breathed that gave you a 911 turbo high. I hold the wheel loosely as it snakes along the curving road. I glance at Taylor, who has his head back against the seat, eyes closed.
“Where’s Jolie tonight?” I ask lightly.
His eyes open and he squeezes them for a moment, as if to focus, then shakes his head.
“She was in a pissy mood, and decided to do a magazine shoot they offered her in Phoenix. She’ll be back next week.” He rubs his eyes. Had the drug cocktails gotten to him, or was there something on his mind? I couldn’t tell.
“Listen, for whatever it’s worth…she’s not the love of my life. It’s more of a convenience thing, for me at least. It’s probably more to her…I don’t know, but for me…” He shakes his head.
Was that his spin on “my bedmate doesn’t understand me”? I’m not sure what to say so I’m silent as I drive up the hill and punch in the codes. I know them by heart now. I pull into the garage and turn off the ignition. Neither of us moves. Finally, I reach for the door, but he leans over and holds my arm.
“Wait.” Then his mouth is on mine and I’m yielding to the pressure of his lips as his fingers gently knead the base of my neck. If his work is as good below the waist…The car is steaming up like a Turkish bath. I ease back from him, taking a breath.
“Maybe we shouldn’t start this now, you’re so wasted.”
“Mmmm.” He’s kissing me again.
“Taylor.”
He looks as though I’ve startled him. “What?”
I close my eyes, exasperated and get out of the car. He follows me to the kitchen door and starts to open it, and then stops. The lights are on, but there are no sounds. He looks at me warily, then cautiously steps in. And there, at the kitchen counter, is Jolie, flipping through French Vogue.
“Oh, hey, well, what are you doing home?” Taylor asks, with sudden sobriety and an easy charm developed in fifteen years of theatrical training.
“Everything went wrong and the shoot was canceled. I tried to call you mais nobody was home.”
“Oh man,” he exhales, involuntarily raking his hand through his hair.
“Bummer, yeah,” I say, badly squelching an eruption of laughter. The magazine pages keep flipping. Someone has to break the strained silence.
“Well, I’ll let you guys catch up,” I say. “See y’all in the morning.”
Taylor gives me a sheepish grin. “Sleep tight.”
I climb the stairs, obsessed suddenly with biting away a ragged sliver of a cuticle, knowing I will end up drawing blood. I storm into my room, slip off my shoes and fling them toward the closet. One inadvertently misses its mark, and ricochets out of the open window. SHIT! If I had only left the damn windows sealed. Now I’d have to go downstairs again, and outside to search. I wasn’t about to leave a snakeskin Manolo out in the damp night to get moldy.
I lie back in bed waiting for them to go up to sleep before I tiptoe back downstairs. My eyes are closing, I can’t help it, and then I’m drifting, dreaming of seeing Tex and Justine going into an eyeglass boutique.
She laughs off his selections. Her eyes sweep the hundreds of frames and in a nanosecond, she snatches up three pairs. She extends her hand.
“Try.”
Before he has time to look at himself, she picks out the ones that “they” would take.
He jumps back involuntarily. “They’re six hundred dollars! And that’s without the lenses.”
“Or the brown tint,” she says.
“Tint?”
Then she leads him by the nose to Barneys, and ooh, Joseph Abboud.
He doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She shakes her head in despair. “Joseph Abboud,” she repeats. “We’re going to dress you in him.”
I see them emerging together, weighted down with garment bags bulging with Scottish cashmere sweaters and jackets, tropical wool gabardine slacks, sea island cotton shirts and a dozen coordinating silk ties, all in muted tones of mahogany, rust, tan, camel and beige. Then they’re in the gym, working out side by side. He’s got a gorgeous body, and she’s reed-slim, dressed in a thong leotard. I wake up, startled, and remember where I am.
Slowly, I ease open the bedroom door and slip down the staircase toward the front door. Whew! They’ve already gone up. I tiptoe out to the area that I judge to lie directly beneath my window. My eyes scan the grounds, but I don’t see it. Not having exactly a handle on the laws of aerodynamics, I’m not quite certain where to look for an airborne Manolo that has been propelled out the window and down two stories.
I walk farther from the house, pushing aside bushes, stepping over plants. Just my luck I have to plow through the Garden of Eden, hedge by hedge. Why the hell couldn’t he have a Japanese rock garden? A serenity garden with sand and smooth stones. I look and look but don’t see anything. It couldn’t have vanished, not unless the ground is made of quicksand. My toe catches something hard and for a minute I think that it might be the shoe, but then realize that it’s either a sleeping rattlesnake or a garden hose. No sound or movement, so I assume it’s inanimate or dead. I keep searching and suddenly spot the heel jutting up from the ground close to the house. Aha! I take a step and am about to lean over and pick it up when an ear-splitting alarm pierces my heart like a spike.
OH MY GOD! CHRIST ALMIGHTY. I start to bolt, then duck, then try to run. A moment later, a brilliant bath of light streams down from an overhead flood, blinding me. I creep closer to the house, paralyzed by fear, expecting a pair of burly arms to throw me up against the house and pat me down. What should I do? Hold my hands up till the cops come? How the hell do I turn everything off? This must be what it feels like to be part of a botched prison escape. My heart is beating as though it’s breaking out of my chest.
“HEY, WHO’S THERE?” It’s Taylor. I look up and see him leaning out the window.
“WHO THE HELL’S OUT THERE?”
I close my eyes. “It’s only me, Taylor,” I say in a small mouse voice. “Jesus, your alarm system scared the shit out of me.”
“Maggie? What are you doing outside now? Wait, I’ll come down.”
I stand still, holding the stiletto in my hand like a talisman to ward off evil spirits. If only I could be someplace else! I would take a nuclear testing site in the Nevada desert, Easter Island, anyplace. And why isn’t the old San Andreas fault lending me a hand here? But no such luck. Not a tremor, not a shudder. In a minute, Taylor walks up to me, clad only in black silk boxers, a taut, tanned Adonis.
“What’s going on?” he says, bewildered. “What in the world were you doing out here?”
“Testing ground-level security. Wanted to make sure that you were safe from invaders.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“The shoe, the shoe,” I say, finally, holding it up to his face. “It somehow got out of my grasp and took a nosedive out of the window.”
“You are somethin’ else, babe,” he says, shaking his head. He takes my hand and starts leading me toward the front door, but then he turns back to me. “C’mere,” he says, guiding me into the gardening shed. I follow him, and in the darkness he leans up against me, covering my mouth with his.
“This is what we should have been doing,” he says, working his mouth down to my neck. His hands are slowly tracing the outlines of my body and I’m pressing against him and moaning. There’s a cushion on the floor and he edges me back down onto it. My skirt is being tugged slowly up my thighs and my breathing is getting short. He’s so warm against me, pressing, hungry, his body hard. In just a minute I won’t be able to stop things. His hand is beginning to slide up between my legs, and I pull back from him sharply.
“Wait, no, I can’t. I feel like we’re sixteen-year-olds tiptoeing around back behind the garage while my parents are upstairs. A minute ago you were upstairs in bed with Jolie, and now you’re sneaking around here with me.”
“So what? I want you,” he says, not separating himself from me. I push his shoulder back.
“But this is so sordid, really. I can’t do this—the furtive fuck in the—ahem—‘tool shed.’”
He presses his forehead against me, and waits until his breathing slows. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I don’t know what I’m doing.” He looks down at himself and smiles shyly.
“Give me a minute, okay? I’ll walk you up.” He stands there, eyes closed. Finally, pulled together, he helps me up and leads me back into the house. I follow him up the stairs, and work hard to pretend that I’m not short of breath. I have a sudden memory of being six years old and excitedl
y playing red light, green light. When we get to my bedroom door, I barely look at him.
“G’night,” I say, quickly slipping inside. I undress and then get into bed, lying there unable to sleep. Instead of being flattered by his attention, it depresses me. Groping in the dark, that’s the only way I can think of it. He was high, and he was horny. It didn’t feel like there was any more to it. I’m the other woman in the house. What kind of move could he make that would be honest, open and caring? However you looked at it, he was sneaking around. But even if he wasn’t, is he really interested in me? Or am I just another conquest, living—off-limits in a sense—in another part of his house? Maybe the duplicity of it turns him on. Maybe he really is like the sexy sleaze he plays on TV. Maybe… Oh, what does it matter? I drift off into a fitful sleep.
sixteen
When the call comes in the wee hours of morning, it doesn’t surprise me. Tamara has been living the life already. In addition to shots of Camby, that together formed a basketball ballet, she has candids of the staff: Wharton spilling coffee on his lap in the cafeteria; Ty tossing a wad of paper in a garbage pail as if he were shooting a basket; Tex giving the coffeepot a menacing look; Justine studying her profile in the ladies’ room mirror.
Ever since she started keeping her camera with her, she’d been capturing intimate slivers of life. Outside accounting she’d talk with the secretary, while keeping her eye on people opening their paychecks. In the cafeteria she’d shoot people taking first bites of the daily special. It didn’t win her popularity contests with her colleagues, except for Wharton.
“Give me your best shots,” he told her again and again. “I’d like to see what you’ve got.” Obviously he didn’t mind being included in her rogues’ gallery.
“So the telephone rings and Wharton’s secretary asks me to come up to see him,” Tamara says, continuing her update, “and I panic.”
“Why?”
“The first thing I’m thinking is that it’s something that you’ve done, Maggie.”
Fat Chance Page 15
