Once There Was a Fat Girl

by Cynthia Baxter

  “Did you ever notice that there’s no need for birth control in erotic dreams?” he called in to her.

  “Do you have erotic dreams often?” she called back.

  “Well, now and then. You know how it is. Why, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes, I guess. I usually don’t remember my dreams. Just the scary ones.” She came back into the room. “Who do you dream about?”

  “Aw, come here. We’ve been doing too much talking.” He pulled her toward him, gently pushed her onto the couch, and took off the rest of her clothes.

  They made love silently, with pieces of other people’s conversations drifting in through the open window. They were lovely, these moments of closeness. In the darkness of the night and the security of routine, Martha felt almost bodyless, just as she had in the ocean years and years before. At moments like this, she could forgive Eddie his faults. They seemed so right together; she felt free of the lonely feelings that haunted her so much of the time.

  Martha loved Eddie at moments like this.

  * * * *

  It had been on the geology field trip that Martha first came into contact with Edward James Magill, her first date, her first kiss, her first boyfriend, her first love.

  Her college had a requirement of two semesters of a laboratory science course, and Martha, being an enthusiastic, naive freshman, decided to face the challenge head on. The choice was limited, and most courses were quickly eliminated from consideration. Biology required the cutting up of small animals, not to mention the agony of collecting virgin fruit flies at one or two in the morning, way over on the other side of the campus. Physics was much too difficult, and it required a course in calculus. Martha certainly wasn’t up to that. Chemistry seemed reasonable enough, but she had once set fire to her hair with a Bunsen burner in high school chemistry, and she felt safer steering clear of the subject altogether.

  That left geology. Rocks were not the most exciting thing in the world, but the labs consisted of scrutinizing pieces of Mother Earth and memorizing their names and figuring out their classifications. That, Martha felt, she could handle.

  There was one catch, however. During the first semester, the class went on a geology field trip.

  It was a two-day affair, one that Martha dreaded from the very first day of class. The trip was a joint venture between her school and the men’s school down the road, just for first-year geology students, designed, no doubt, to separate the dilettantes from the more serious scientists.

  The chartered bus left the Science Building promptly at 7 A.M. one Friday morning, and returned at midnight the next day. For two long, bleak, misty days, three dozen students were driven from site to site to gather rocks and seek out relevant geological wonders. Friday night, the students slept at a run-down country motel, cramped four to a room. Martha was too exhausted to care.

  At noon on the second day, the bus stopped near a huge open field, miles and miles from even a gas station.

  “It is now twelve o’clock,” Dr. Sanderson announced, standing at the front of the bus. He had white bushy hair, tiny steel-rimmed glasses, and a gray threadbare overcoat. “At six o’clock, the bus will be leaving for the return trip back to the university. During this time, you are to carry out the instructions on page twelve of your mimeographed outline. There are no restaurants nearby, and no bathrooms, so you’re on your own. See you at six!”

  This is definitely the low point of this trip, Martha thought grimly. “I would have been better off cutting up cats and frogs.” She noticed, to her dismay, that it had started to drizzle as she stepped off the bus, lugging her sackful of rocks. She kept them with her at all times, lest they get lost or stolen.

  “Excuse me,” someone said, “is this the site where we’re supposed to collect two dozen samples of metamorphic rock?”

  Martha looked up, and there, in the mist, was Eddie, clutching a sackful of rocks not unlike her own.

  “No, that was this morning’s site.”

  “Aw, shit. I thought we were just supposed to observe there. Now what am I gonna do?”

  Martha, as usual, was helpful. “I have some extras you could have. I wasn’t sure if I was picking up the right ones, so I got lots of extras. We could sort them out when we get back.”

  The stranger brightened. “Gee, thanks. That’d be great. I’d really appreciate it.” He smiled, and Martha melted.

  He was tall, she noted, and not as emaciated as most of the guys she had seen around school. He was quite attractive. He had dark curly hair and a moustache. At first she was surprised she had never noticed him before, but then she realized that she had had very little contact with the men’s college, even though it was only two miles away.

  The day passed slowly. Martha felt miserable and wet and concerned over her inability to remember which rocks were which. She was also desperately counting the minutes until she would be near a bathroom again. Eddie offered some cheer; he waved and gave her an encouraging smile every time their paths crossed.

  The feeling of camaraderie, of having endured some horror that could be comprehended only by those who had experienced it, lingered with the geology students for days. On Sunday, Eddie came over to collect his rocks, and he stayed longer than the half hour it took to sort through them. He was friendly, telling Martha all about his brother the astronomy professor, his family in Philadelphia, and his desire to work for an advertising agency in New York after graduation. Martha was a good listener. She smiled and nodded and laughed at all the right times.

  Martha got a B+ on her geology field trip report. She also got a phone call from Eddie a few days later, with an invitation to a Saturday night movie.

  After eighteen years, Martha was going on her first date.

  * * * *

  “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...”

  Sometimes counting helped Martha relax by giving her something to concentrate on other than the anxiety that could spread over her suddenly like a chill from an open window. She hadn’t been on a job interview for over a year and a half, not since she had sat in the very same waiting room in the Personnel Department at Amalgamated Foods. She dug her nails into the orange plastic that covered her chair, and noticed that the magazine selection hadn’t changed since her last interview. She glanced at a copy of Time magazine that was almost two years old.

  “Oh well,” she mused. “Old news is good news. At least I know how everything finally worked out.”

  “Miss Nowicki?”

  She recognized Sylvia Akins’ voice, and she stood up quickly. The strap of her shoulder bag slid down, and she clamped her arm to her side to prevent her valuables from tumbling to the floor.

  “Come into my office.”

  Martha sat down in a lime green plastic chair opposite her interviewer’s desk, and tucked her feet and her delinquent pocketbook underneath it. She tried to recall all of her qualifications, and she hoped she wouldn’t be asked about her “strengths and weaknesses.” It was a standard question at job interviews, but Martha was always puzzled about appropriate responses. (“Let’s see,” one might say. “My strengths are my IQ of 175, my Ph.D. from Harvard, and my ability to go for thirty minutes without breathing. My weaknesses include my heroin addiction, a history of devil worship, and thirteen counts of homicide.”)

  Ms. Akins began by lighting up a Virginia Slim. Martha knew from previous encounters that the cigarette would be used as a dramatic complement to Ms. Akins’ carefully chosen words, pronounced with an unusual accent that was a cross between Brooklyn nasal and elocution school perfection. “I understand you’re interested in the newly opened position of Public Relations Assistant.”

  “Yes,” Martha said, flashing her special upwardly mobile smile.

  “The job involves acting as a liaison between Amalgamated Foods and our consumers,” Sylvia went on, patting her silver-streaked, precision-cut hair. It was the work of Sassoon, Martha was certain. “In a way, it’s an extension of your current position—building good rel
ations with the public—except that it’s on a much more personal level, of course. Every year, AmFoods sponsors food shows in cities all over America, and we need to send PR people to them. Then, there’s the annual sports event, the three-mile race in Central Park. We always get a lot of press from that. In addition, a good part of the job consists of meeting with consumers on a one-to-one basis, doing things like going to their homes to apologize, on the company’s behalf, for any problems they might have experienced with our products. The job involves a lot of contact with the public. Does that sound like something that would be of interest to you?”

  Martha nodded, careful not to appear too anxious. “Yes. It sounds very interesting.”

  “Well, then.” Sylvia Akins stiffened, suddenly ill at ease. “Perhaps I should describe the kind of person we’re looking for. We need someone who can handle a lot of coordination work, someone with good organizing skills. We know you have those,” she added, beaming. “We need someone who also has good... people skills.”

  Martha shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “As far as I know, I have good people skills. I get along with everyone at the office, and I find it easy to talk to strangers.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do.” Ms. Akins smiled again, this time, Martha noticed, somewhat condescendingly. “However, the kind of person we’re looking for must be...well, remember that the PR Assistant will be representing the company. For thousands of consumers out there, you will be AmFoods.” She leaned forward and said pointedly, “You will be Dried Potatoes and Noodles.”

  “I think I could meet that challenge,” Martha said meekly.

  “There is another aspect to the person we’re looking for,” Sylvia Akins said hesitantly. She paused to flick her ashes into the Tavern on the Green ashtray that was nestled between the New York Times and a framed photograph of a painfully handsome man. “May I ask you a personal question, Martha?”

  She nodded, swallowing hard, expecting the worst.

  “Why is it that you don’t wear make-up?”

  Martha could feel her cheeks turning as red as any of Charles Revson’s blush products.

  “I do, sometimes. I, uh, it’s just that, well, I don’t see what that has to do...” Martha’s heart skipped wildly, and she thought momentarily of her recent conversation with Aimee.

  “You’re forgetting, I think, that the PR Assistant will be in the public eye constantly, and that, well, appearances are very important.”

  “Oh, that,” Martha said, trying to brush off the whole conversation lightly. “That’s no problem. If I were going to a food show or someone’s house, I would certainly get dressed up. I do know how a representative of a big company should look.” She wished her brown dress with the elasticized waistband would miraculously turn into a white tailored suit. It did not.

  “I hope I’m not offending you, Martha. It’s just that there are certain elements to a job such as this one...”

  “I understand,” Martha interrupted, studying her hem.

  Sylvia Akins glanced at her appointment book, and it became clear to Martha that she had exhausted her allotted time.

  “Thank you so much for stopping by, Martha,” Ms. Akins was saying, standing up and smoothing her silk tailored blouse, the kind that appeared in every book and magazine article telling corporate women how to dress. “Your application will be considered along with everyone else’s. We should be reaching a decision soon. I’ll be getting back to you!” she added brightly.

  Martha stood up and smiled wearily. “Thank you for your time.” She returned to her desk in a slightly hypnotic state, uncertain about what had just transpired. She had a year and a half of college and had worked for AmFoods for the same amount of time. She was so familiar with the products and the problems of consumers that she could have been a stand-in for Grandma Goodcook. And yet none of those factors seemed to have mattered, not to Sylvia Akins with the Sassoon hair and the vice-presidential French cuffs.

  As she sat down to pore over the letters from dissatisfied cooks all over the country, Martha wished that she, too, could write a complaint letter. There was something nagging at her, something that seemed much more important than rubber bands packed in with the manicotti or dried potatoes that refused to be mashed. Martha felt like compacting her fury and her confusion into three neatly typed paragraphs, beginning with “To Whom It May Concern” and ending with “Very truly yours, A Concerned Citizen.” There was only one problem: she wouldn’t know whom to send it to.

  Chapter 4

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Thin, Incorporated. My name is Irma Gold. I have lost forty-eight pounds and kept them off for almost five years.”

  Martha was too excited to listen. She had lost six pounds! That was her reward for not having cheated all week. She was so proud of herself!

  It was hard to sit still. She wanted to call Shirley and tell her the good news. She wanted to run out into the streets of New York and flap her arms and jump and down. There were clothes to wear, people to meet, places to go, different Weight Watchers frozen fish entrees to try.

  All day she had been jumpy and excited, waiting for the moment of truth, waiting to be weighed in.

  “I never thought I’d look forward to getting on a scale, Shirl, but I know I lost weight. I can feel it. Look!” She pulled her skirt tightly around her waist to show Shirley the slack.

  “You could fit a banana in there!” Shirley exclaimed. The two giggled so much that Mr. Shaw scolded them.

  Sure enough, Irma Gold gleefully announced that Martha had lost six pounds that week.

  “It’s all water, you know,” Sophie grumbled, in line behind her. Irma glared at her.

  Martha sat down with Judy, and told her the good news.

  “That’s great, Marty!” Judy exclaimed. “I lost two myself. We’ll have to celebrate!”

  How odd to be called Marty. No one had ever called her that before. It had never seemed to suit her. Someone named Marty should be thin and elf-like, with straight blond bangs. She had been called Mart, or Marth, or Mar, but never Marty.

  “Tonight, I’d like to talk about sodium,” Irma’s lecture began. “Now, who knows what sodium is? Where are my chemistry majors? Dorothea? Blanca? Come on. Sophie? You have high blood pressure, don’t you? What’s sodium?”

  “It’s salt, salt,” came the feeble reply.

  “Right. Salt. Too much salt causes the body to retain water, right? You women should know this. What are some Secret Offenders?”

  Secret Offenders. That was Irma’s new phrase, Martha noted. A catchall for the evils of the food world. I’m plagued by Not-So-Secret Offenders, she thought wryly. The fact that chocolate is an offender is hardly a secret. It was certainly a catchy phrase, though. It sounded like a spy ring or a group of perverts who led double lives as respectable businessmen.

  Irma’s group was unable to come up with any suggestions for Secret Offenders in the salt context, so she was forced to produce a four-foot cardboard chart showing pictures of salty items, cut out of magazines. Irma apparently spent hours going through food magazines, cutting and pasting and remaining unmoved by four-color photographs of French fries and devil’s food cakes.

  Martha realized now that Irma’s lectures weren’t going to get any deeper than reprimands and photographs of food. The lecture continued with warnings about drinking gallons of diet soda, and Martha looked around the room, desperately in need of something to absorb her attention.

  Ralph hadn’t come back. “I guess he couldn’t turn on to Boston lettuce,” Martha mused. Sophie, who sat behind her, had liquor on her breath. Lucy, still emaciated, filed her nails and looked bored.

  It was a motley crowd, that was certain. I’ll bet everyone has a story to tell, Martha thought. What a great idea for a television show. “What’s My Food.” Panelists try to guess which foods made each of the contestants fat. Sophie was obviously a drinker. Lots of Fritos, too, and onion dip and those little crackers shaped like wheels. The cheese-fla
vored ones, with all the salt on them. Judy, sweets, no doubt. Probably just Pepperidge Farm, Sara Lee, the usual. Blanca, potatoes. Martha immediately pegged her as a potato freak. She came up with a more original title for the show: “The Secret Offenders.” Lure the viewer with promises of spies and perverts. Mystery, excitement, terror.

  Ah, the terror of too many cookies!

  “Now, which foods are the low-sodium foods?” Irma was saying. “Which are the friends of the water retainer?”

  “It makes sense,” Martha thought cynically. “If Secret Offenders are your enemies, then asparagus is your friend. Friends and enemies. Even food takes sides.”

  “Aspara-grass!” Irma cried gleefully, producing a handful of green stalks from a Grand Union shopping bag, hidden until the last minute to create suspense. “Cantaloupe! Yes, cantaloupe! And cauliflower is one of your diuretic vegetables.”

  Now there’s a pleasant thought. If I wasn’t so inspired by the fact that there are presently six pounds less of me, I’d leave, Martha thought, catching Judy’s eye and shaking her head. It’s like hypnosis, though; you don’t realize its effects until later when you’re confronted with a vending machine. I’ll listen. It’s good for me.

  Martha’s cynicism disappeared when Irma announced her six-pound weight loss to the group. The announcement was greeted with a sprinkling of dutiful applause, but a definite sign of approval, nevertheless. Her euphoria returned, her determination remained strong.

  They’ve really got me hooked, she realized. I’m powerless. A slave to cauliflower. And the other diuretic vegetables.

  * * * *

  When the meeting was over, Judy said, “I’m going over to Bloomingdale’s. Want to come?”

  “Sure.” Martha had nothing else to do, and it would keep her mind off food. Besides, it would give her a chance to get to know Judy better. “You know, I once spent fifteen dollars on beautiful Belgian chocolates at Bloomingdale’s. They were molded into pictures of tennis rackets and flowers and things like that. God, they were good.”