“You are grown women. Act like it,” Valentina said.
Jeremiah, meanwhile, was smiling as he marched around the perimeter of the room, which almost made Alice’s head pop off with rage. She headed toward him.
Valentina hurried after her, followed by Daphne. “What do you think you are doing?” She reached out to grab Alice’s arm.
Jennifer stepped forward. “Let. Her. Go.”
Alice tried not to chuckle when the blonde woman jumped back. She hadn’t done it much, Jennifer’s version of “Boo!” But it always remained in her arsenal. The ease of scaring a white woman made her want to laugh. Or cry.
Valentina sent them filthy glares. “You,” she said to Daphne. “Wait here.”
Daphne stepped back with a smile.
“Go that way.” Valentina tipped her head toward the door in the back of the room. “And hurry.”
Alice raced down a well-appointed hallway, past a grand staircase, distantly aware of the colonial portraits hung. Her first moments of gratitude since arriving came when spotting sanitary products in the Puritan-simple bathroom. The need to rush fought with desires to never go back; to duck under the mysterious sign and escape.
No wonder they took phones and wallets. Otherwise, mass exodus was certain. She reminded herself of the Mobie. How these folks produced excellence enough to win awards. There must be a method to this madness.
When Alice returned, the women were grouped by twos: Seung and Susannah, Jennifer and Lauretta, and Hania and Daphne.
Valentina nodded toward the last duo. “There’s your place. With your buddy and the cute one.”
And boom: Alice and Valentina had become enemies.
• • •
“How did we end up three to a room? Do you think because we spoke up the most? How am I going to fit this all in one drawer?” Enough underwear covered Hania’s bed to satisfy a small country of plump women. She stroked the one outfit they had let her keep: the “going home” clothes they’d been told to bring, meant to spur them on in anticipation of being sent home at least forty-plus pounds lighter. Which sounded insane. Ten pounds a week or more?
“More likely, they set up the pairings beforehand.” Alice didn’t believe her words but wanted to comfort the younger woman. Documentary makers witnessed, never forced, drama, but they stacked the cards in favor of the spectacle.
“They must have washing machines.” Daphne pointed to her own small pile of all-black underwear and bras.
“What if the machines break?” Hania squinted as though foraging for disastrous possibilities. “What if we have to wait turns?”
“We’ll wash a few pieces in the sink.” Alice tried to hide her dismay at sharing a room with two strangers, trying to convince herself that the gathering nightmare storms would recede and soon this place would match the words in the Waisted brochure:
Those joining us in the green hills of Vermont will be afforded the unique opportunity to spend an entire month exploring ways to bring themselves into balance.
Mindfulness. Forthrightness. Honesty. We believe by bringing these values to the forefront, women will have the opportunity to choose exactly who they want to be.
“The sink? With three of us in here sharing one bathroom?” Hania threw herself back on the bed, splaying across her rainbow of silken underthings. Seen in XXL, red silk lingerie appeared sadder more than appealing. Alice struck the thought from her brain. Why shouldn’t Hania parade around like a model for Victoria’s Secret? If the girl couldn’t do it now, in her twenties, when would she?
The convent-like room measured perhaps twenty by thirty. Three twin beds covered with white quilts decorated with sprays of cornflowers, made a U. Each was allotted a nightstand with one drawer, a shelf above her bed, and a white milk-glass reading lamp.
Daphne picked up the pillow and gave a connoisseur’s squeeze.
“Down or foam?” Hania asked. “I can’t believe they didn’t let us bring pillows.”
“Foam. Hard as a rock,” Daphne answered. “Maybe they thought we’d secretly stash popcorn inside ones we brought. The commander wants us to be uncomfortable. Build us up. ‘Commander’! Sounds like he’s trying to build a tin-pot army.” Daphne grinned at Alice. I’m funny! I want to be your friend!
White girls wanted credit and acknowledgment for acting the way any decent human should behave. That Boston remained such a hub of racism—some hidden, some as obvious as the weather—didn’t register with them. Alice had no intention to be grateful for normal. White girls aching to be her friend ripped out her kishkes, as her mother would say. Connecting just shouldn’t require gymnastics.
She suspected Daphne was Jewish. One Jew usually recognized another. Her mother loved to talk about the special connection between black and Jew, but each time Alice thought of this, arch conservatives like Sheldon Adelson came to mind. When she said this to Bebe, her mother waved away the words with “Every group has idiots.”
Jewish and mixed-race folk were linked in their desire to claim those who belonged to their tribe. Even now, she and Sharon Jane alerted each other upon spotting a newly discovered member. Recently S.J. texted her did u know Pete Wentz has a black Jamaican grandfather?
They were no different than Bebe lifting her chin, pointing to a picture of Scarlett Johansson, and saying “Jew.” Alice’s father, another player in the game, would reply, “half-Jew, to be accurate.”
Finding Jewish-black celebrities was her parents’ idea of a Google jackpot. Rashida Jones! Lisa Bonet! Tracee Ellis Ross! They’d read names aloud to Macon and Alice. Who but mixed-race and Jewish people had so many sites devoted to listing members of the tribe?
Now Alice smiled at Daphne, feeling her father’s encouragement at the generosity of turning up her lips. Even if the woman’s bravery in helping her get to the bathroom had been eagerness to demonstrate her liberalism, her willingness to take a hit for Alice did show courage.
Hania groaned. “I can’t sleep on foam.”
“Call housekeeping. Call Valentina,” Alice said. “She’s sure to help you.”
“That woman has it out for you,” Daphne said.
“For us.” Alice opened the drawer to put away her underthings and pulled her hands away as though spiders lay in wait. “What the hell?” She picked up the slithery material and shook out an article of clothing made of mottled orange-yellow stretchy fabric that would not have been out of place on a rocket ship to Mars.
Daphne reached into her dresser and withdrew a matching one, using her fingers as pincers. “What on God’s earth is this fabric? And who in their right mind wears that color?”
“I think they chose it with intent.” Alice rummaged further and came up with a shapeless, slightly sheer nightshirt. Also a shade of rotting pumpkin. “What’s our theme here?”
“Halloween?” Hania asked.
“Harvest? Vegetable death?” Daphne moved to one of the three chairs arranged in a circle on the round rag rug, the jumpsuit still in her hand. “The brochure called the place austere. Designed to help us find the inner strength we need to rely on our own resources for change.”
“Through shame and torture?” Alice asked. She sat opposite Daphne as Hania folded her silky things, aware Hania might be the left-out point of their triangle.
Alice and Daphne could bond over missing their children. Where Hania had put up a picture of her boyfriend as her single allowed personal item of a nonhygienic or skin care nature—the exact words of the emailed instructions—the others displayed family pictures.
Daphne had teenagers: an attractive, if pouty, daughter, so thin she appeared breakable. Alice wondered if the girl’s fragility came naturally or if she starved herself. The son, with his Clark Kent spectacles, matched the geeky-hip affect favored by boys these days. Daphne’s husband’s uncomfortable smile said he preferred holding the camera to being photographed.
And Daphne? She held the same pose universally used by fat women. The same position Alice, and likely Hania, if she
became a mother, would hold before the camera. Hiding behind her children, angled so that only her face and spill of hair showed. In Alice’s shot, Libby sat in her lap and Clancy stood over her, giving her the ability to cut off her thighs with cropping magic.
Daphne shook out the hideous jumpsuit. “Why would they pick something so obviously unflattering? A tee shirt and sweats would work fine. Yoga pants. A sweatshirt. Shit, even a sports bra would look better.”
Hania, frowning, joined them in the circle. “Everything about this is mean. Do they actually believe this will help us lose weight?”
“Do they care?” Alice asked.
Clancy had never trusted the principals from Acrobat Films. He said their supposed genius masked misogynist visions. Their cold documentaries bordered on vicious, whatever the topic. In his opinion, Acrobat Films were a nest of nihilists.
“We’ll go through this together,” Daphne said.
“What’s their end game, I wonder?” While planning this trip, Alice flew on wide wings of rage, never questioning why the film company underwrote the entire operation, including covering the salary each of them was surely losing by participating. At the time, she saw only the online clip included in the web application, which showed five women around a table discussing their body image in ways that brought Alice to tears.
They hadn’t been wearing jumpsuits.
“Did you notice how they stressed alone?” Daphne asked. “That we gained alone and will only lose alone? Do you think that philosophy works?”
That Alice’s best friend, Sharon Jane, provided her with solidarity was a given. Friendship sustained women’s fortitude.
“No,” Alice said. “But I believe their goal had us walking out looking good. To make their point about their philosophy. There must be an argument for what they’re pushing. I can take whatever crap they hand us if I can walk out of here a new person.”
“So you think it will work?” Hania asked, as though Alice were an oracle.
“I do believe that.” She held her hand out and helped Hania to a standing position.
“Let’s put on the hideous motherfuckers,” Daphne said. “We’ll be the sisterhood of the traveling bulges.”
CHAPTER 12
* * *
DAPHNE
Daphne felt both better and worse than she’d imagined. She wondered why any of them was there. These were the women she met at Weight Watchers, so this could simply be a spa where they learned to eat well and got massages.
Except it wasn’t. And that’s what made her feel worse. What neuroses connected this disparate group?
A bell sounded. Daphne jumped off the chair at the sound and then laughed. “What the hell are we doing here?”
Alice nodded. “As the kids at my community center say, I feel you.”
Gratitude washed over Daphne. She’d always felt a need for female camaraderie. Here, she recognized, it might save them. “Time to face the pumpkin suits.”
The three of them turned from each other for privacy, pulled on their jumpsuits, and prepared to leave the room.
“Have we landed smack in the middle of The Handmaid’s Tale? Should we worry?” Daphne tugged at the clingy fabric sticking like a layer of unwanted skin.
“The Handmaid’s Tale?” Hania asked.
Daphne withheld judgment. Reading wasn’t everyone’s source of comfort and joy. “The Handmaid’s Tale is a story of women held—”
“Oh, wait, wait . . . with Elisabeth Moss. And Samira Wiley. I saw the show but didn’t read the book. I’m not a big reader,” Hania said. “I’m a geek. I build code. You know.”
Daphne didn’t know. Coding meant no more than a computer-related word to her. Who should be judgmental now?
Hania swiveled from Daphne to Alice and back. “Don’t you find this place a bit too intense? Are we in danger?”
“Of course not.” Daphne wished she felt more certain. She raised her eyebrows at Alice. “Right?”
“My husband sort of works with the guys running this show. Well, they’re colleagues. Both filmmakers. These guys might be rough, but they want what we want. I think they’re what I need.”
Daphne exhaled. “Okay. Tough I can take.” She stiffened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and led the way out.
Women were emerging from the other bedrooms. The seven, including Daphne—bulges and curves in the usual and most unusual places, stuffed in their iridescent stretch suits—walked the plush burgundy carpet lining the hallway floor. Daphne wanted to shake off her uneasiness and declare the end of hating herself. When she returned home, Sam and she would talk about everything openly; they’d build a transparent life.
Still. This place.
A cavernous gym to which they were led swallowed up the women. Daphne tapped Alice with a surreptitious finger. “What do you think this room was before?”
“A staging area to sell slaves.”
“And now they use it for sex trafficking,” Daphne said. “They’re getting us in shape for the buyers.”
Hania widened her eyes. “Quiet! Valentina is watching. Do you want a shot?”
What would shots bring? Carrying Coleen on her back, if it was meant to break her, had begun the job well. The muscles and tendons in her back felt as though she’d been stretched on a medieval rack.
Valentina and Coleen prowled like cats as Jeremiah consulted with the photographer. Perhaps instructing them to get crotch shots. Possibly the entire operation was a cover to make porn for fat freaks, with Acro bat bankrolling films to make money from a subset of men addicted to seeing fat women strain as they exercised. Why not? Weirder perversions existed. Indeed, only porn could explain these bizarre semi-sheer outfits. Daphne turned to Alice, ready to run the theory by her, but Alice’s slight head shake warned her to keep quiet.
Leather and steel devices loomed everywhere. Old-fashioned medicine balls were stacked in piles. A track circled the room. A tall wooden laddered frame climbed the far wall.
An iron box held hand grippers and some odd contraption of wood, springs, and a pulley. A pyramid of Russian kettlebells lurked in a corner.
A colossal platform scale dominated the room.
Daphne shifted from foot to foot, watching Seung pull on her ponytail, raveling and unraveling her coil of purple hair. Lauretta examined her bright nails as though meditating on the meaning of life. Waiting was hell. Daphne tried to estimate the size of the gym. The room rivaled the enormous entry by at least a factor of five. The rubber floor, a dusty black, felt gritty even through her sneakers—but that had to be her imagination, right?
The air smelled of cracked leather and acrid metal. Missing Sam and the kids doubled her over. How much did she hate herself to leave them and volunteer for this?
Jeremiah stepped forward and held out his hands as though bestowing a benediction. “Welcome to your new home, ladies, where everything is up to you. How hard you work, how much or little you eat—everything is in your control, your decision-making. Each of you will be stripped to your essence, uncovering who you are and if you have the strength to become a normal size. You all know the most obvious thing about being fat. Nothing hides it. Walk around fat, walk around announcing your weakness.”
With those words, Coleen, across from them, pushed a chrome button. The walls turned from dark to a reflective surface. Mirrors engulfed them, mirrors sharper and brighter than Daphne imagined existed; mirrors that made her think of Sylvia Plath’s words: I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. / Whatever I see I swallow immediately.
Mirrors courtesy of Satan.
“Walk to the wall,” Valentina ordered.
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WEIGHT LOST: They had to be kidding.
Bulbs mimicking harsh midday light ensured that every bulge became visible through the sheer cloth, advertised every piece of flesh. Shadows drew lines around the apron of fat hanging from Dap
hne’s stomach. Her complexion turned sallow. Her chin sagged. The thin, clinging fabric exaggerated the dimples and cellulite, the map of crevices made by every ounce pushing out her skin.
Valentina plucked small white squares from a blue package and handed a few to each woman. “Clean your faces.”
Daphne found herself holding wet makeup removers. She peeked at Alice and Hania. Like hers, their makeup possessed a defining aura. Alice artfully layered shades. Coppery foundation glazed her skin to a perfect finish, highlighting the slight hazel glint in her irises. Hania’s deeply brown eyes had been drawn into Cleopatra wings.
Daphne had packed enough makeup for a full squadron of cosmetic lovers, including tricks of her stage trade for fun. Lipstick, mascara, and all their cousins were her security blankets.
Valentina crossed her arms over her chest. “Naked faces, ladies.”
Seven women considered the mirror, lit harsh enough to perform an operation. Only Seung had arrived barefaced. Daphne held the damp tissue to her face, unwilling to see herself drained of color under these lights.
Coleen walked up behind her. “Particularly you, Ms. Makeup Artist.”
Alice snuck a look at Daphne in the mirror, lifting her chin just enough to send a message of solidarity and an expression that said Interesting job!
“This helps us?” Daphne asked. “Seems like an exercise in humiliation.”
Before Coleen lifted her notebook and yelled “Shot!” Jeremiah walked over, followed by the flannel-shirted cameraman. “You hide, but I see you. You hide in your black smock and your black leggings. You paint yourself into a walking, breathing, Photoshopped copy.
“But at night, when you get into bed with your husband, who’s there?” He put a hand under her elbow and raised her arm. “Only by facing ourselves, do we change. Have the guts to see who is there.”
Daphne’s hand shook as she wiped off streaks of black mixed with beige and rose. Wiping away her mascara revealed colorless lashes she detested. Spots of discolored skin appeared: patches of rosacea; ugly freckles; the childhood scar from when Bianca pushed her, and she fell into the corner of their parents’ glass coffee table.
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