Slim Chance

by Jackie Rose

  “But as you can see, Bruce’s parents are nearly impossible,” I pointed out between clenched teeth. Bruce sat silently in the back seat.

  “Lillian’s no treat herself,” Claire said sharply. “Bruce, I’m just glad your mother had the foresight not to offer her another drink.”

  “She wasn’t drunk,” I protested. “She was just nervous.”

  Bruce snorted. I guess he finds it funny when I defend my mother, since I spend most of the time complaining about her. But just because she’s a bit of a lush or maybe not as sophisticated as some doesn’t give anyone else but me the right to judge her.

  “Well,” I said, “I guess I’d drink too if I knew certain people would be judging everything I said and did for six hours straight. And what the hell was all that about Bertie’s charity work? And how she’s so happy and grateful that she didn’t have to work a real job, and how important it is to be there when your kids come home from school. What a witch!”

  “Uh, Evie? I’m still here, remember?” Bruce grumbled as Claire pulled up in front of our place.

  I suppose I was being a bit of a hypocrite about this—criticizing one’s mother should be the domain of blood relatives alone. But in-laws must form some sort of exception, shouldn’t they? Especially when they’re so wicked.

  “Come now, Evie. Take it down a notch,” Claire said seriously.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But it’s not like she doesn’t know Mom worked when I was growing up. And that she still works. Like there’s something wrong with working! She knows working isn’t a choice for some women. Some women just have to work!”

  “Your mother did the best she could, Evie. For the hundreth time, you know she never meant to leave you out on the stoop that day. She had no way of knowing Mrs. DeFazio wouldn’t show up that aft—”

  “I know that! I’m not talking about that!”

  “Come, now—you’re getting hysterical,” Claire said, patting my hand.

  “Would you mind if I come home with you tonight, Claire?” Bruce asked, managing to make me angrier than I already was.

  She laughed loudly. “Brucie dear, you know there’s always a bed for you at my place. You’re a pleasure—a real pleasure. Evie, I wish I could say the same for you.” Bruce snickered.

  Claire wiped the corners of her eyes and sighed. “But I’m afraid you’re on your own tonight, Bruce. You two go inside, talk it out. That’s what separates the good marriages from the bad, you know—not the fighting, but the making up.” She paused to think for a moment, then looked at me. “We had some doozies, your grandfather and I. And don’t believe that crap about never going to bed angry. There’s nothing wrong with going to bed angry. Nothing wrong with waking up angry, either, come to think of it. That’s going to happen. So long as you can agree to disagree, you’ll be fine. Respect each other’s differences. That’s the real truth of it,” she smiled, and winked at Bruce.

  I hugged her and we got out of the car. “’Bye, now!” she said cheerily as I closed the door. She turned the stereo up right away, and we could hear the muffled strains of James Taylor blaring from behind as we trudged up the steps to the front door. We turned and watched her old Lincoln float off down the street until it disappeared out of sight.

  By Monday, I couldn’t do up my pants. After a brief period of abstinence Friday morning, I’d spent the whole weekend in sweats, eating leftover turkey and, when that was all gone, cranberry sauce out of the tin. If I could have called in sick, I would have, but I’d just used up my last sick day of the year the week before when Morgan needed some hand-holding at the gynocologist’s following three inconclusive home pregnancy tests. It was the second time this year she’d thought she was pregnant, but, mercifully, it was not to be. She suspects Billy’s been poking holes in the condoms, although there’s been no real evidence of any tampering.

  “Maybe you should go on the Pill,” I suggested.

  “Yeah, right!” She cackled, tightening the lid on her cup of pee. “Me—on the Pill. I’d be pregnant and I’d have the clap.”

  “The clap? Are you kidding me? Do you really think Billy would sleep around? He doesn’t seem like the type. I mean, you know him better, but I just thought he was really into you and only you, you know?”

  She raised her eyebrows and looked at me like I should know better.

  “Oh,” I said, the light dawning. “Who?”

  “Peter.”

  “Morgan, not again,” I groaned. Peter is Morgan’s boss. He’s an absolute jerk—gorgeous, married, rich and heartless. Morgan adores him, or rather, adores being thrown down onto his big glass desk and ravaged every once in a while after everyone’s gone home.

  She shrugged her shoulders unapologetically. “After a few months, the sexual tension just builds to the point where we have to release it or it’ll become obvious to everyone.”

  “Couldn’t you ask for a transfer or something?”

  “Why would I want to do that?” she said, throwing her long red hair back over one shoulder. “I like Mergers and Acquisitions. Besides, I didn’t spend all those years busting my ass in business school just to let a prick like Peter get in the way of what I want.”

  “Well, excuse the hell out of me, Madam Maneater,” I said.

  “Gimme a break, Evie. I’ve been working my way up there for three years and it’s one of the top investment banks in the city. I’m not about to throw it all away!” She slammed her bottle of pee down on the desk in front of a frightened receptionist, and plopped down on a chair between two very unhappy women who appeared to be about ten months pregnant. What a piece of work.

  I pictured poor Billy, sitting at home alone poking holes in condoms by candlelight, an uneaten dinner for two laid out on the table. Innocently believing Morgan was working late, as she often does. She probably just forgot to call, he assures himself.

  I suppose love really is blind. Actually, in Billy’s case, love is deaf, dumb and blind.

  I wonder if Bruce would do something devious like that. The condom, I mean, not the cheating. Probably not, on both counts. The idea of having kids thrills him, I know that. Plus, the thought of condoms brings out his softer side, if you get my drift. In any case, birth control sabotage isn’t his style. The only thing Bruce might consider poking a hole in would be the theory of relativity or something lame like that. Besides, he probably charts my cycle to know exactly when I’m ovulating, anyway.

  I reached into the back of the closet and pulled out the black Anne Klein II Fat Suit (Allure, December: “Five Work Essentials To Suit Every Figure”). In a state of emergency such as this, I would never get on the scale. But judging from the snugness of never-fail Fat Suit—and the lines my underwear were leaving on my hips—things had gone from bad to worse. Better skip breakfast and break out the big guns. After work today, I’ll stop by the drugstore. Annie told me that Nicole dropped ten pounds in four weeks on a combination of ginseng ampoules and chromium supplements. I haven’t seen her, and I’m sure she still looks frumpy, but ten pounds, for her, that’s something. I bet she probably took laxatives, too. There must be something at Walgreen’s that’ll work for me.

  At work, I studied the calendar. Let’s see…today was Monday, November 27. That gives me about nine and a half months to go until the wedding. Or 265 days. Thank God it’s a leap year—that’s an extra day which might come in handy.

  I lost five pounds in a single day once, on the cabbage soup diet. But if I wanted to buy my dress soon, there was definitely no time to mess around. Besides, my metabolism ain’t what it used to be. When I was twenty, I lost (and then gained) ten pounds six times in a single year. It was so easy—all I had to do was cut out French fries and chocolate. But I’d been doing that for two whole months, and I’d gained God knows how much. Maybe there was something wrong with me, like some sort of fat-creating disease or something. It was a hopeful thought.

  Pruscilla wouldn’t be back till Monday, so all week long, I devoted myself to researching that very q
uestion on the Internet. While Thelma flitted about nervously, preparing neat piles of color-coordinated folders on Pruscilla’s desk, I diligently studied the facts. Unfortunately, the facts were as follows:

  Fact #1: An underactive thyroid may be to blame. Symptoms may include weight gain, irregular periods, flaky skin, depression, weakness, constipation and a puffy face. Eureka! Maybe this was the miracle I’d been praying for all these years.

  Fact #2: I do not have an underactive thyroid. Or type-two diabetes. Or undiagnosed edema of any kind. No systemic medical condition is to blame. An emergency lunchtime visit to my doctor on Wednesday confirmed these findings. Not at all worth the $120 fee to rush the results of the blood test.

  Fact #3: Pregnancy causes weight gain.

  Fact #4: I am not pregnant. That is, unless there has been an immaculate conception.

  Fact #5: In 1991, doctors at Stanford University Medical Center removed a 303-pound tumor from the right ovary of an otherwise healthy thirty-four-year-old woman. She made a full recovery.

  Fact #6: There is no such tumor in either of my ovaries, also confirmed by my doctor. I do not even have a small tumor.

  Fact #7: Obsessing over one’s weight can be a sign of anorexia. Might I be teetering on the brink of losing half my body weight?

  Fact #8: After completing 14 self-diagnosis questionnaires, it appears the only eating disorder I might be afflicted with is something called binge-eating disorder. Symptoms include eating until feeling painfully full, eating alone due to embarrassment, eating when not hungry, and feeling disgusted and depressed after overeating. The prognosis? Weight gain and, eventually, obesity.

  By Thursday afternoon, I had reluctantly drifted away from the hopeful expectations of the medical Web sites to the more familiar depression-inducing body mass index calculators of the diet sites. There, I was forced to concede that my symptoms, although severe, were not altogether uncommon. In fact, they were quite mundane. What I did learn is that my body has betrayed me in a way as cruel as any organic disease, as ferocious as any pathological malignancy. It seems the years of yo-yo dieting have taken their toll. The culprit? A wonky metabolism. The cure? None to speak of, although one thing has been known to help other sufferers—exercise. The time of desperation was nearly upon me; the only option, painfully clear.

  I would have to join a gym.

  What else could I do? If I’d learned anything from my research—aside from the fact that there were also downsides to thyroid problems and massive abdominal tumors—it was that I was verging on an unhealthy attitude regarding weight loss. I would have to accept that, despite all promises to the contrary, there is no quick fix, no magical ampoule full of ginseng that would make my ass fat morph into muscle. Only hard work and a healthy outlook could prevail.

  As I stared at the daunting pile of color-coded folders Thelma had gradually been depositing in my In Box, I realized that I’d done nothing all week but pray for various horrible illnesses, research the best liposuction clinics in the five boroughs, and neglect my professional responsibilities. Pathetic. How could I expect to be promoted if I can’t even bother returning an e-mail or two? Bruce was right—I was in danger of losing it. Well, not anymore.

  On Friday afternoon I left early since I figured it would be my last chance for a while, with Pruscilla’s return just one short weekend away. While I’d been embroiled in online research, Thelma had spent the better part of the week pulling her hair out in Pruscilla’s office, which was by now a complete mess. The tension in the air was almost palpable, and it floated out of the office and hung over my cubby. I didn’t envy her—she’d probably be in there all weekend. But it was hard to feel sorry for her. The simplest things seemed confusing for Thelma, even deciphering Pruscilla’s handwriting proved nearly impossible for the poor woman. But it was no trouble for me. I’d gotten quite used to it, in fact, and almost looked forward to typing her long-winded reports and memos (Pruscilla’s typing is slower than her writing), since it afforded me the rare opportunity to look busy while keeping my headspace completely free. I was getting quite good at drawing it out as long as possible.

  The first week Pruscilla was gone, I didn’t mind interpreting for Thelma all of the purple little Post-its Pruscilla had left stuck to everything. But then she started bothering me twenty-five times a day with questions about how Pruscilla does this and how Pruscilla does that, and since I wasn’t put on this earth to save Thelma’s ass (and neglect my work besides), I developed a set of avoidance techniques to divert her ceaseless calls for help. Mostly, that meant pleading ignorance. For example, Thelma has no idea that part of my job is to coordinate the printing of all promotional materials. Nor is she aware that I have input all of Pruscilla’s notes and market-research data for all new product launches for the next 18 months. Best of all, she thinks most of my time is spent returning Pruscilla’s e-mail. If she wants to be a good manager, she’s going to have to learn a little bit about self-reliance.

  As I got ready to leave, she yelled out, “Evie, Evie! Wait!” In her hurry to stop me, I could hear a flurry of papers swishing to the floor. But I pretended not to notice, and scooted down the hall to the elevators. If Thelma doesn’t get it by now, then there’s nothing anyone can do to help save her. Besides, if there’s one thing I’ve learned working at Kendra White, professionally speaking, it’s to form alliances with the right sorts of people, not to go down with a sinking ship. That, and never name a lipstick after a disgraced White House intern.

  Although there are tons of gyms in Brooklyn near our place, I decided I’d be more likely to go if I joined one near work. Not too close to work, of course, in case somebody should see me, but close enough so that I can walk over during lunch if I want. Part of the Kendra White benefits package includes paying fifty percent of employees’ gym memberships—not that KW is such a saintly place to work; judging by all the fat ladies who work there, paying for gyms was a pretty safe bet—which meant I could afford something pretty nice. I remembered a place I passed by once when the subway station was closed because of a bomb threat and I had to walk to the next line.

  It was still there. Mid-Town Fitness. Inside, it was the archetypical New York City health club—iron and granite decor, with a three-storey-high, half-block-long plate-glass window facing the street. Half a dozen Wall-Street types hung off a climbing wall off to one side. A battalion of machines crossed the length of the room, ten rows deep. Scores of pony-tailed socialites wearing diamond earrings bigger than the earphones on their Discmans walked, ran and stepped off the calories from the salads they ate for lunch. Up above, weight machines on a mezzanine. I scanned the room for a fatso, but the only person I could find who didn’t look like she’d been born there was the dumpy old woman spraying down treadmill consoles with a bottle of pink disinfectant. It was perfectly awful, but morbidly fascinating.

  I was so enthralled by the moving sea of boobs and biceps that I hadn’t noticed a young red-headed tart descend on me from behind the front desk.

  “Hi, I’m Missy. Can I help you?” she asked sweetly.

  “Um, no, I don’t think so,” I said, turning to leave.

  “Would you like a tour?”

  What I’d like is to get the hell out of here. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound so sure,” she laughed. “Have you ever been a member of our facilities before?”

  “What do you think?”

  She tried not to look, but her eyes inadvertently traveled down to the waist of my bulging trench coat. A single vein throbbed at the center of her forehead. “I’m gonna guess…no?”

  “That’s right, Missy, the answer is no. No, I haven’t been a member here before.”

  “Come on, it’s not so bad. Let me give you a quick tour. You’d be surprised how friendly everyone is,” she said, oblivious to my extreme discomfort, and started walking. “Let me show you the women-only section. If you’re shy or uncomfortable about a co-ed workout, it’s the perfect…” I reluctantly fo
llowed as she yammered on and on. The deeper we got into the bowels of the place, the uglier and heavier everyone became. I felt a little better. It seems the thin and the vain crowd the machines at the front by the window because they enjoy being gawked at like zoo animals by passersby.

  “…and wait till you see our new eucalyptus and tea-tree-oil steam room! Have you heard about it? New York Magazine did a piece on it last month. Did you know that eucalyptus can clear your body of cancer-causing toxins? My hand to God! Our smokers really seem to enjoy it. Do you smoke? You can get a regular steam, too, if you prefer, but I don’t see why anyone…”

  “Can I see the weight room?” I asked. Muscle, I’d learned, burns more calories at rest than fat does, if you can imagine that. So my plan was to get ripped.

  “Of course! Of course!” she said, and trotted toward the stairs. “Our weight room is equipped with the latest air-pressure machines, free weights…”

  Missy droned on. At the top of the stairs, I leaned on a railing to catch my breath and look around. Abs as far as the eye could see. Mostly men up here, thank God. Struggling with these ridiculous machines in front of skinny little girls would be worse.

  “…of course, if you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll need at least three days a week of strength training, so we’ll customize a program just for you….”

  Then I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirror-covered walls. My face was red as a beet, and I felt like how those guys lifting the huge barbells looked—like they were about to have an aneurysm. Could I really do this? I peered over the railing down at the floor below. Rows of well-conditioned pony-tails swayed from side to side as their owners marched silently onward with fists clenched. Would I ever look like one of them?

  “…so if you opt for the deluxe membership package, you have access to both the cardio and weight rooms, along with towel service, of course, and—”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I don’t know if I can do any of this. I don’t know how.”