Once There Was a Fat Girl

by Cynthia Baxter

  “No, I guess not.”

  Martha sighed. Somehow, breathing in and out deeply seemed to help keep the tears from falling.

  “So, goodnight, Eddie.”

  “Goodbye, Martha.” Eddie turned abruptly and walked away. Martha hurried into the security of her building.

  “I won’t cry, I won’t cry,” she mumbled determinedly in the elevator. But she felt so overwhelmed. What had happened? She wasn’t even sure. It happened so fast, it was like a dream, a fantasy she constructed while riding the subway.

  Yet it was true.

  Martha was relieved to discover that Betsy and Lisa were out. She went into the kitchen. She surveyed the cabinets and the refrigerator, and then discovered a half-empty bag of Mr. Chips by the telephone. She stared at it, hard. She needed something to fill the void in her stomach, to make the sick feeling go away.

  There are times in life, Martha told herself, when food is the only answer. No matter what Irma says about positive thinking and willpower and all that garbage, sometimes you just need to stuff yourself. It was like filling up a hole with flour and sugar. And there was just no substitute.

  She had felt this void before, this gnawing hunger that refused to be wished away. The night of her senior prom, for example. Her senior prom. There’s a misnomer, she thought wryly as she opened up the package of Mr. Chips. God, I haven’t thought about that for years.

  Her best friend during her senior year had been a strange girl named Jasmine Sylvain. Jasmine was the smartest student in the school, and in May it became common knowledge that Jasmine would be class valedictorian. “It’s lucky that Jasmine is smart,” whispered the cheerleaders and class treasurers and homecoming queens, “because she’s so strange.”

  “Strange” was such a harsh word. “Individualistic” might have been more appropriate and more kindly, or even “bizarre.” For Jasmine was like no other student in the school.

  The most obvious manifestation that set her apart from the others was her mode of dress. For Jasmine wore gypsy outfits purchased in Greenwich Village, or hand-knit creations made by her mother in outlandish-color combinations like orange and purple, or peasant-style garb from faraway places like Afghanistan. Her hair was long and yellow and wild. Even the food she ate was considered weird at the time: carrot juice and pomegranates and carob candy bars.

  Jasmine was, in short, a social outcast because she was different. And this she shared with Martha Nowicki. So the two became fast friends, whiling away Saturdays in Jasmine’s tree house, painted with imaginary animals and fantastic flowers, discussing great literature and classic films and other such erudite topics. Two subjects were carefully avoided: the painful narrow-mindedness of the inhabitants of their home town, and boys. For neither Jasmine nor Martha had ever dated or had anything at all to do with the boys at school.

  At the end of the year, as graduation grew closer, Martha and Jasmine spent more and more time together, in anticipation of the separation that college was to bring in the fall. Then, suddenly, Martha noticed that Jasmine was beginning to act strange. Nothing tangible, just little white lies and secrets.

  One Friday, late in May, Martha approached Jasmine after school, and watched her slide books into her locker.

  “Hey, Jazz, I have a great idea. How about if tomorrow night, you and I sit outside the gym and watch all those dopey kids go to the senior prom?”

  Jasmine shook her head and concentrated on leafing through her math book.

  “Well, we could go to the movies. I bet I could borrow my mother’s car.”

  Jasmine bit her lip and shook her head again.

  “Oh. Well, we could just hang around my house. I got some new records.”

  Jasmine looked up then, and Martha could see that her face was red and her forehead was furrowed with tension.

  “Martha, I’m going to the prom tomorrow night. Tom McNulty asked me.”

  Tom McNulty was, in a way, Jasmine’s counterpart: smart, studious, ostracized because of his crew cut and stilted manner. Nevertheless, Tom McNulty was male.

  Martha simply said, “Oh.” But the feeling in the pit of her stomach was identical to the one she was feeling as she reached into the Mr. Chips bag.

  That Saturday night, Martha sat in front of the television set in the playroom. Her parents were out, and she was alone. The sick feeling was still there. She watched Saturday Night at the Movies and ate two cream pies, three full boxes of cookies, four bottles of Coke, and a one-pound bag of M&M’s.

  The empty feeling still hadn’t gone away.

  Martha picked up a chocolate chip cookie, the first one she had touched in several weeks. As she did, a white piece of paper tucked beneath the phone caught her eye. In Betsy’s tight little handwriting were the words, “Larry called 8:00. He sounds cute. Call back.”

  Then there was no room for doubt or anger or sorrow. Or Mr. Chips. Martha picked up the phone and dialed.

  * * * *

  “Martha, how would you like to make some extra money?”

  Martha looked up from an intriguing letter from Mrs. Eileen Arrowsmith of Clinton, Iowa, enumerating ways of lowering the calorie content of Dried Potatoes with Chives (“try adding yogurt instead of sour cream!”), to see Alex Turner’s smiling face.

  “We’re putting together some preliminary marketing plans for next year, and I’m running into a time crunch. I want to get this out by Friday, so I’m going to need some extra help.”

  “The marketing plans? Me?” Martha asked shyly. “But I...”

  “It’ll mean working overtime; that’s where the extra money comes in,” Alex went on. “But more important, this is a desperate plea for help. I need somebody with a good head on her shoulders to help get me through this minor crisis.”

  “Well, sure,” Martha agreed, still uncertain. “But really, I don’t know very much about marketing...”

  “Great.” Alex Turner started walking back to his office, calling over his shoulder, “Stop by at five. We’ll get started right away.”

  Four hours later, Martha found herself surrounded by six market research reports, a calculator, a ruler, a pad of graph paper, and a can of Tab fresh from the friendly Coke machine downstairs. She was busily plotting the historical market shares of Grandma Good-cook’s and Doodle Noodles, drawing the kind of graph that always graces boardroom walls in New Yorker cartoons about big business.

  “You have no idea how helpful you’re being,” Alex commented, passing by her desk and glancing over her shoulder at the blue and red lines that zigzagged across the page.

  “You mean that what I’m doing is really more than just playing Connect the Dots?” Martha glanced quizzically at Alex, then returned her eyes to the paper before her, trying to see more than an Aztec-style design.

  “What you have here,” he explained earnestly, “is proof that our increased advertising budget is paying off. Look.” He bent over the graph. “Doodle Noodles were knocking us off the shelves in all the Midwestern markets. We suspected that they were running a test, to see just how much it would cost them to accomplish that, to find out what it would take to shake us up.”

  “What did it take?” Martha asked, suddenly interested.

  “Well, first they dropped a thirty-cent coupon. They distributed it through magazines like Woman’s Day and the Ladies’ Home Journal. Then they offered an on-pack shelf-liquidator—that means they ran an offer right on the box for a premium that they sold, at cost, to the consumer. You see, when a company runs an offer like that, they’re not interested in getting calendars or beach towels or whatever out to the public. Oh, sure, it’s good advertising to have the products’ names all over the house. You know, like those mugs that look like soup cans?”

  Martha nodded.

  “But the company doesn’t make a cent on them. No, the main intent is to get the consumer to make a multiple purchase. We want her to run out and buy two packages of noodles instead of one.”

  “But then she won’t buy any more for twi
ce as long. Doesn’t that screw things up later on?”

  “It might. But hopefully, by then the competitors will be out spending money on their promotions, and consumers will just ignore them, since they’re already stocked up. That helps deplete the competitor’s budget. Besides,” Alex reasoned, “if consumers have a kitchen full of Grandma Goodcook’s Noodles, they’re more apt to use them.”

  “That seems kind of sneaky,” Martha mumbled, without really meaning to. She couldn’t help thinking of all those starchy calories that went down so easily, with or without Mrs. Arrowsmith’s yogurt. Irma Gold was always carrying on about the dangers of such prepared foods, and Martha tended to cower in her chair during those tirades, feeling like a traitor, a part of the system that propagated such evil substances.

  “But everyone ends up happy in the long run,” Alex was countering. “We take the consumer out of the market for a while so she can’t buy our competitors’ products, no matter what kind of deal they’re offering, and she gets her premium—her calendar, or whatever. Not to mention all those tasty Grandma Goodcook’s Noodles,” he smiled.

  “So what does all that have to do with this graph?”

  “What you’re looking at is our market share—the percentage of noodle sales that went to AmFoods’ products—versus Doodle Noodles’ share. See, all last summer, Doodle Noodles spent all that money on promotions. And their share went up.” He pointed to the blue peaks on the page. But then,” he went on excitedly, “we started a heavy-up. That means we increased our advertising—almost doubled it, actually—in those parts of the country where Doodle Noodles was fighting us. And look,” he exclaimed triumphantly, “we won back our share!”

  “Gee, marketing almost sounds like a game,” Martha mused.

  “It is, in a way,” Alex admitted. “Except you’re playing for pretty high stakes. We’re talking about millions of dollars in sales revenues. That translates to hundreds of people working in factories, and truckers, and advertising agencies...”

  “But isn’t it kind of difficult to keep track of sales in every city in the country?” Martha asked wistfully. “As well as promotions and advertising, and then what all the competitors are doing?”

  “There’s even more to it than that,” Alex explained. “Marketing people also worry about manufacturing problems, like making sure there are enough packages of the stuff to go around. And they worry about packaging problems, and inventory problems, and legal problems...”

  “It sounds like all you do is solve problems! I’m surprised every marketing manager in the world doesn’t have an ulcer!”

  “A lot of them do. But if you’re quick, and aggressive, and enthusiastic... Martha,” Alex said thoughtfully, “have you ever thought about going into marketing?”

  “Me? To me, the word ‘marketing’ still conjures up images of supermarket carts filled with food. I’m hardly the type.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said slowly. “I’ve met a lot of business people in my time-—interviewed job candidates, seen marketing managers come and go— and I’ve learned that getting involved in something like this takes almost a kind of... spirit. And I think you have that spirit.”

  Martha blushed and turned back to her graph. “Well, if I ever want to switch careers and become a business magnate, I’ll keep you in mind,” she joked. But despite her resolve to concentrate on the matter at hand, she briefly fantasied about Martha the Dynamic Businesswoman, a model advertisement for an insurance company or a bank, sitting in her three-piece suit behind a big desk, looking glamorous and powerful. Thinking of her recent job interview at World Air, Martha wondered if statisticians ever moved into marketing.

  * * * *

  On Wednesday night, Judy called.

  “I take it that was your one and only who was creating a minor scene at the meeting Monday night?”

  “Yeah, my one and only,” Martha sighed. “But that scene was nothing compared to the one after the meeting.”

  “Really? Did you have a fight?”

  Martha proceeded to relate the whole story, starting with her eventful Sunday brunch at Sylvester’s and ending with Eddie’s sudden and dramatic disappearance into the night.

  “Gosh, Martha. Now what?”

  “I don’t know, Judy, and I don’t think I even care. I saw Larry again last night. He’s really sweet. I like him a lot.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve been with Eddie for years. What about that?”

  “Judy! You’re the one who’s always telling me to go out and swing!”

  “I know. But still. Hey, that reminds me. Did I tell you about Henry? He’s the burly guy from Monday’s meeting.” She filled Martha in on all the details of their romantic evening at Maxwell’s Plum, sipping club soda with lime while a disgruntled waiter hovered about them disapprovingly.

  “Well, I’m really glad you met someone at a meeting,” Martha said, “At least you have someone to distract you from Irma Gold’s lectures. They’re getting worse, don’t you think?”

  “You’re not kidding. I wish we could talk about something deeper, like the psychology of dieting, or the reasons for overeating in the first place.”

  Martha was surprised. “Do you know anything about that stuff?”

  “A little. A person isn’t as miserable about being fat as I’ve been without looking into it. There are lots of motivations for any kind of behavior. For instance, I’ve had you pegged from the start. You’re dieting out of anger.”

  “Anger! That’s ridiculous. I’m just dieting because Eddie...”

  “Eddie. Right. This guy who supposedly loves you. He starts making fun of you? You don’t want to offend him, so you stop eating for two months. Come on, do you think you’re that shallow? That’s anger, baby. There’s your real motivation. You’re going to get back at him. You’re going to show him. It seems obvious to me. Think about it, Martha.” Judy sighed deeply. “Oh well, I guess I’d better get off the phone. My roommate Jane has been giving me dirty looks. She’s a real pain in the butt lately.”

  “Why? What’s she been doing?”

  “Oh, just the usual. Hairs in the drain, rotten food in the refrigerator, dirty pots soaking in the kitchen sink for weeks at a time. She reimburses me for her phone bills months after I’ve paid them. I made the terrible mistake of putting the phone in my name when we first moved here. All this wouldn’t be so bad if she was nice, at least, or civil, even, but she really is a bitch. Oops—she’s just coming out of the bathroom.”

  “It’s nice to know there are other people in the world with obnoxious roommates.”

  “Oh, yes? You too?”

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

  “One day we’ll all own brownstones in the East Sixties. Until then, however—all right, Jane, I’ll be off in a second. Well, Martha,” Judy continued sweetly, “my roomie wants to use the phone. Hey, I probably won’t get a chance to see you again before the weekend. Happy Memorial Day, or whatever the appropriate expression is. Don’t forget not to eat!”

  * * * *

  This time around, Martha felt quite comfortable, seated in the lime green plastic chair which faced Sylvia Akins’ desk, waiting for her to finish her telephone call to her hairdresser. She realized that she probably had a right to feel smug, but with a promotion and a raise and the start of an exciting new career mere minutes away, she decided to be magnanimous. She had planned out her strategy: she would let Ms. Akins explain how Aimee had screwed up (she expected that the proper business euphemism would be “failed to work out exactly as anticipated”), then have her formally offer her the job as Public Relations Assistant. She was trying to determine whether or not she should let Sylvia Akins grovel when the Personnel manager hung up the phone and turned her attention back to Martha.

  “So, here you are again,” Ms. Akins began noncommittally, and just as expected, she lit up a cigarette. This scene was evoking an eerie sense of déjà vu, only this time Martha was the one with the bargaining power.


  Perhaps I should ask for even more money, Martha deliberated.

  “Well, Martha. AmFoods may be a huge company, but it has many characteristics of a small town. I’m sure you’ve heard about the unfortunate experience we ran into in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.”

  Martha was enjoying her unfamiliar position of power. “I did hear some rumors, Ms. Akins,” she said innocently, “but I’m not sure exactly what happened.”

  Sylvia Akins frowned and took a puff on her cigarette. She was using a new ashtray, Martha noticed. This one was from The Rainbow Room. Ms. Akins seemed to be a bit light-fingered when it came to acquiring office decorations.

  “The details are not important. What is important is that we have begun looking for a PR assistant once again.”

  “I see.” Martha stared at Ms. Akins impassively.

  “That is why I asked you to come in today and spend a few minutes talking to me. I take it that you’re quite familiar with the position and the qualifications it demands?”

  “Of course.” Martha peered at Ms. Akins. “We discussed that job a few weeks ago, right before Aimee Ludlow went to that food show in Minneapolis.”

  “Yes. I just wanted to make sure you had a good idea of what the job entails because of what I’m about to ask you.”

  By this time, Martha had made up her mind that she would, indeed, make Sylvia Akins grovel. She would have to beg Martha to take the job, to help out AmFoods now that they were stranded, with no one to act as their bearer of goodwill out in the cruel, competitive marketplace.

  “I know all about the job,” Martha stated calmly.

  “Good. Martha, you know that all of us at AmFoods have a great deal of respect for your work. In fact, Alex Turner, the Marketing Manager of the Division, has mentioned to me on several occasions that he has always been pleased with you. You’re familiar with the company and its products, and you know many of the people who work here.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Martha was beginning to wonder why this was taking so long.

  “That’s why I want to ask you... if you can recommend someone for the job.”