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But it didn’t matter, because suddenly I wanted this trip in the worst way. “I’m in. I’m going with M.J. to Louisiana.” I grabbed Bitsey’s other hand and stared challengingly at her. “It’s on you, Barbara Jean. Are you in or are you out?”
Bitsey
I have been on and off diets for the past twenty-two years.
I diet before every single holiday, before we go on vacation, before every major social event, and afterward, too. My closet is organized with size eights in the back, then tens, and so on and so forth. I wore the eights and tens during the eighties when Jack and I first came to California. During the nineties I graduated to twelves and fourteens. The millennium ushered in the sixteens. Now I’m in eighteens, but I’ve taken a stand. I refuse to go into size twenty. It’s getting mighty tight, though.
When the invitation came from my high school reunion committee, it seemed like an ideal way to motivate myself. I made an appointment with my doctor, started taking Meridia, and vowed that this time I would succeed. And at first I did. I lost nine pounds the first month. That’s pretty good. But since then I’ve lost nothing. I’m stalled. Nine pounds is not enough to return to New Orleans. Nine pounds is not enough to face Eddie.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. What is wrong with me? I wouldn’t be behaving like an insecure fifteen-year-old if a different name had been listed on the reunion committee. But there it had been: Edward Dusson, Cochair. Eddie Dusson. Harley Ed, I used to call him. Dangerous Dusson, the other cheerleaders had said. My heart hurts just to remember how much I loved him in high school, and how much he’d loved me. But if I walked up to him today, would he even recognize me?
Then again, who’s to say that he hasn’t gained a hundred pounds himself?
I can’t imagine that, though. Not Eddie. Besides, if he’s on the reunion committee, he must still be fit and trim, still good-looking, and probably rich by now, too.
If only I could go see him and yet not have him see me. It was almost a relief when Jack said he couldn’t get away from work. I didn’t have to decide; he’d done it for me. I could be angry with Jack and hide at home, and on the weekend of the reunion, I could sit two thousand miles away and pig out on Oreo and Jamoca Almond Fudge.
But I have more pressing problems than Eddie’s weight and his bank account. This morning I telephoned Margaret, and her roommate informed me that Margaret had moved out. I must have sounded like an utter fool, a mother too stupid to know what her own child was up to. “Yes. Two weeks ago,” her roommate had said in this “you poor, pathetic thing” voice. The snooty little brat.
It turns out my middle child, the one with the highest IQ but the lowest level of ambition, is living with some guy she’s never even mentioned to me.
I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I should never have let her live off campus. I should have made her stay at an in-state university. I should have realized that even at twenty-two she wasn’t responsible enough for college. Junior college maybe, but not a big liberal arts school.
I called her on her cell phone, and after three tries reached her. She was in a bad mood already, because I’d awakened her. She is so much like her father, a total grump until he’s had his coffee. But it was ten o’clock in the morning. On a weekday most people are up by then.
Except that cocktail waitresses aren’t like most people. A cocktail waitress! It turns out that she works a late shift from six until two in the morning, and sometimes even later. But she makes great tips, she told me, so she thinks it’s worth it.
Oh, and his name is Gray. “He’s a bass player, Mom, in a roots rock band.”
A roots rock band. What is that supposed to mean? And what kind of musical roots does Tempe, Arizona, have anyway?
I shouldn’t have gone to Cat’s house after that call. I should have just crawled back into my bed. After all, Jack wouldn’t be home until after eight. All I had to do was order dinner from Gourmet Wheels, put it into my own pans, and he’d never know the difference.
But I couldn’t make myself sleep during the day without taking a Xanax, and I didn’t want to do that. So I threw on a green linen jumper over a white T-shirt, stuck my feet in my favorite espadrilles, and ran to Cat and M.J.
“It’s on you, Barbara Jean,” said Cat in that schoolyard bully way she sometimes gets. “Are you in or are you out?”
If they each hadn’t been holding one of my hands, I would have said “Out.” I would have. Except that when Cat and M.J. gang up on you, there’s really no way to defeat them, at least no way for me to defeat them. But it’s not because I’m a wimp. It’s because they make me brave. They grab hold of my hands, and all of a sudden Cat’s loud bravado and M.J.’s determined optimism spread through me like the enticing aroma of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls on a Sunday morning when the girls were little and all lived at home.
“I’m…in,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.
“Yes!” M.J. cried. “Here, let’s have a toast.”
We lifted our coffee mugs and clinked them together. “To road trips,” Cat toasted.
“To losing weight,” I added. “And fast.”
“To friends,” M.J. said. “And maybe old boyfriends, too.”
The rest of the morning passed in a blur. We had plans to make, a diet and exercise regimen and a travel itinerary to arrange. Cat would have to take time off from work. We decided to drive M.J.’s Jaguar. Cat was ecstatic about that. She hates to fly, and we would need a car when we got there anyway. So we’d make it into a real road trip, and if I wanted, we could stop to see Margaret in Arizona.
I calculated that if I restricted my caloric intake to below a thousand a day I could lose eight pounds in the next three weeks. Maybe even ten.
But only a thousand calories? I’d already eaten that much for breakfast.
That night I told Jack about our plans. I had returned home midafternoon, and in a frenzied burst—of guilt, I guess—I cooked his favorite Fiesta shrimp pasta for dinner. I also prepared a pot of gumbo—his mother’s recipe, not mine—and a pork roast stuffed with garlic. Tomorrow I planned to make a pan of spinach lasagna as well as a pot of Chicken à la Bushnell. That way I could freeze more than a dozen meals for him to eat while I was gone. All he would have to do was supplement them with salads and a hot roll or two.
“Why are you driving there?” he asked. “That’s a four-or five-day trip, assuming nothing goes wrong.”
“What can go wrong? As long as we stay on I-10 heading east we can’t get lost.”
He made a sarcastic sound. “The way you three jabber, you’ll miss a turn and end up in Idaho before you notice.”
“We will not!”
He got up from the table and without responding, headed for the television in the den.
I hate when he ignores me like that. It’s like getting in the final word, without saying anything. I wanted to scream, but of course, I didn’t.
After I loaded the dishwasher, I followed him into the den. He was reading the latest issue of U.S. News & World Report with the television on.
“I’ll leave the freezer stocked so you won’t have to worry about meals.”
“That’s all right,” he said, without looking up. “I can always order out. Just leave the phone number of that place you use.”
“The place I use?” I stared stupidly at him. “What place?”
“I don’t know the name. Meals on Wheels. Something like that.”
My heart did this great big, guilty flip-flop in my chest. He knew I sometimes used Gourmet Wheels? I was ready to abandon the trip right there. The one value I still had to Jack was my cooking ability. But if he knew about Gourmet Wheels and they were good enough for him, what did he really need me for?
He tossed the magazine on a side table and glanced at me. “So, when do you leave?”
“Um…next Friday,” I mumbled. “I’ll call you every night.”
“Okay.” He reached for the remote control and flipped through the channels. “You’d better tell the girls. Oh, look. They’re rerunning that Jackie Gleason biography, the one with the guy from Raymond.”
I went into the bedroom, closed the door and burst into tears. Then I called Cat and M.J.
We stayed on the telephone for two hours. You’d think we were teenagers the way we talk. Cat can make anyone laugh, she just has that way about her. She’s sarcastic and totally irreverent. She could be a stand-up comic if she wanted to, which always makes me wonder about her upbringing. I read Roseanne Barr’s biography, and Louie Anderson’s, and I know that the best comedians usually come from awful childhoods. The fact that Cat hardly ever mentions her family actually reveals a lot about her. But all she’s ever told us is that she grew up in one of those small towns strung up and down both sides of the Mississippi. For the most part they’re just clusters of little frame houses and the occasional trailer park, the kind that always attract tornadoes. My guess is that her father worked in one of the chemical plants.
As for me, I, too, sprang from that part of the state, only my grandfather owned six hundred acres of land there, an old sugar plantation that had been in the family since the early nineteenth century. He sold it right after World War II to one of those same chemical companies, and he made a lot more money from the sale than he ever did raising sugar.
Thanks to Pepere, my family has lived well ever since. He bought a huge Greek Revival house in the richest New Orleans neighborhood he could find, the Garden District, then proceeded to join every private club and exclusive society he could. He lived like a king for ten more years until he walked in front of a streetcar. He lingered three weeks, then died.
A month later my father eloped with my mother, a woman his father hadn’t approved of, and moved her into his father’s house. He lives there still, but alone now. Memere died when I was six. Mama died eight years ago. But at seventy-seven Daddy is going strong. He’ll be overjoyed to have all of us stay with him.
Cat and M.J. were pretty pleased by the idea, too. I just hope they don’t become awestruck when they see the way I grew up. The problem is, our house is huge. Magnificent even. It’s been written up and photographed for innumerable publications, as much for its architectural value as for the antiques that fill every nook and cranny. Mother bought only the best. Her entire life was dedicated to proving that she was good enough for the La Farges. Even though Grandmother was never as unkind to her as Grandfather had been, I don’t think Mother ever felt good enough for either of them, let alone the rest of her in-laws. So she did everything she could to make herself seem good enough to belong in their family.
Mother took classes in all sorts of subjects: art, music, antiques, and she was on so many committees and foundations I don’t know how she kept up. Our house was used for every kind of society fete you could imagine. But she only picked the charities that made her look like a generous benefactress or patron. Forget political fund-raisers. She was terrified of offending someone by taking a position on anything that might be controversial. But crippled children or multiple sclerosis or art education, the museum or symphony or ballet association—those were her charities.
To be fair, she did a lot of good. She was even nominated for the Times-Picayune’s Loving Cup. But she didn’t do it out of love. She did it to look good.
I always knew I was a disappointment to Mama. I hated all that society posturing, and I didn’t want to join a sorority at LSU. But of course I did. She planned my wedding to meet her standards, then helped us pick out an appropriately grand house to live in. But she was always on me about my clothes, my friends and especially my weight. It was a relief when Jack was transferred to California and I no longer had to see her every day.
Fortunately my brother married a woman even better connected in New Orleans society than he was. They were married just before Jack and I moved, and she and Mother became inseparable. I was sick with jealousy for years. Six years, twice a month with Dr. Herzog, to be exact. Then Mama died and so did my jealousy, though I still see Dr. Herzog now and again for other reasons. Anyway, my brother and his wife live in a monstrous Palladian-style mansion on St. Charles Avenue, so Daddy’s house is practically empty. We girls would have the entire second floor to ourselves.
Cat yawned into her end of the phone. “Some of us have to work tomorrow. Y’all can talk all night if you want, but I’m turning in.”
“’Night, Cat,” I said.
“’Night, Cat,” echoed M.J.
After the click M.J. started laughing. “You should see her face. She can’t stand to miss anything, so you know she must be tired.”
“So am I,” I said. “Tired and excited and scared.”
“Me, too,” M.J. said.
“Are you going to stay there? In New Orleans, I mean?”
She was quiet. All I heard was the faint rhythm of her breathing. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But maybe. Except that I need you and Cat. What would I do without y’all? So no. I don’t think I can stay.”
All it would take was the right man to keep her there. I knew it but didn’t say so. The odd thing was, M.J. was even more scared than I was to go home. And I think maybe Cat was, too. It was a novel concept. What is it about home and the family and friends we leave behind? Compared to them we were all failures—failed marriages, failed careers. Well, Cat was doing okay in that department. But she’s the one with two divorces.
On the other hand, I told myself, marriages unravel in New Orleans, too. Youthful plans fall apart. Children disappoint you. You disappoint you. Maybe the secret to high school reunions was lying, creating another wonderful life that makes everyone else’s feel inadequate. I could do that, couldn’t I?
“Well, good night,” M.J. said. “See you at nine. And wear comfortable clothes and tennis shoes.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good night.” Comfortable clothes? Tennis shoes? I hung up the telephone and went to my closet. Big loose dresses. Too-tight pants. I closed the door and turned away, then reached for the Xanax. Tomorrow was going to be rough. I needed a really good night’s sleep to get through it.
I woke up late. Jack had already left for work. I saw his cereal bowl in the sink and his orange juice glass. I hadn’t made him breakfast on a weekday since Elizabeth left for college. She’s our youngest. Cat was gone, too, when I arrived at her house. The whole world was at work except for me and M.J., and she was doing warm-up stretches. I slunk into Cat’s sunroom feeling guilty, but M.J. didn’t fuss about the time.
An hour later I was close to tears. “No. I cannot do even one more.” Crunches, lunges, pliés, punches. I couldn’t do anything that involved any moving at all. I lay on my back on the floor and wiped the sweat from my brow. “I think I broke something, M.J. I’m not joking.”
She ignored me and like a sadistic drill sergeant, fixed me with an unsympathetic gaze. “You didn’t break anything, Bitsey. But you did use muscles you haven’t used in years.”
Somehow I rolled over and pushed up onto my knees. “And I don’t want to ever use them again.”
“Once we cool down you won’t feel so bad. Just remember your goal, to make that old boyfriend of yours sick over what he missed out on.”
Of course, that was the precise moment I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the gold-leafed, side table against the far wall. A red-faced, middle-aged woman with ugly hair and wet spots everywhere her too-tight T-shirt snugged up to the rolls in her belly and arms. I squeezed my eyes closed against the sight, and against the tears. “This is not going to work, not in three weeks. Not in three years.”
“Oh, yes, it will.” She steered me toward the powder room. “Wash your face, comb your hair, then grab your sunglasses and visor. We’re going for a walk.”
That day I drank ten glasses of water with lemon, and three glasses of juice. Orange juice, cranberry juice and white grape juice. I had a salad for lunch, grilled vegetables and salmon for dinner and an apple for my evening snack.
“No cheating,” was the last thing M.J. said as I crawled into my Volvo. “I’ll be over in the morning to clean out your pantry and your closet,” she said, looking as fresh and perky as a prep school cheerleader.
“I hate you,” I muttered, glaring at her in the rearview mirror as I pulled out of the driveway. “I hate you and I hope you gain a hundred pounds. And that your boobs sag down to your waist.” She wouldn’t be so perky then.
I was in bed when Jack got home, and in bed when Cat called. I didn’t answer the phone but she knew I was there.
“I heard what she did to you,” Cat said into the answering machine. “And you have my condolences. Call me if you need anything. I have some prescription-strength Advil and three heating pads. Good night, Bitsey. I love you.”
The next day M.J. and I walked again, though walking is a relative term. She strode, I staggered. I suppose that averages out to walking. Afterward I watched while she emptied my pantry of every gram of carbohydrates. “Nothing white stays,” she said, “except on your hips and thighs.”
“But you drink,” I protested. “Like a fish,” I added, and none too nicely. But since drinking was her only vice, I meant to milk it for all it was worth.
She sent me a cool look. “The difference is that I exercise enough to counteract the calories. You’ll be able to drink, too, once you lose the weight.”
“So since I never want to drink as much as you do, does that mean I won’t have to exercise as much?” My voice was sweet, but I was seriously annoyed.
She gave me a long, even look that made me feel like an evil stepmother. If I didn’t want to accept her help, fine. I didn’t have to make ugly little digs at her. But before I could attempt to redeem myself, she shrugged one shoulder. “You can do what you like, Bitsey. Meanwhile this stuff can all go to the food bank. Now, let’s tackle your closet.”
Cat came over after work. She stared at the mountain of clothes on my bed. It’s a big bed, a California king, and the clothes M.J. said I could no longer keep smothered it. Cat picked up an ivory silk shell.
“She says I can’t wear it,” I explained. “Even if I lose weight.”
“When you lose weight,” M.J. corrected me. “The problem is, the blouse isn’t your shade of white.”
“That’s because it’s not white. It’s ivory.”
“And it’s too yellow for your complexion. Just like your hair,” M.J. said.
I stared at her. First my pantry, then my closet. Now my hair?
Cat took a seat across the room, grinning like a redneck in a ringside seat at a Dixie wrestling match. Round one might have gone to M.J. But I wasn’t down yet. “I’ve always been a blonde and I’m not changing now,” I said, feeling more than a little rebellious.
“I’ve made an appointment for you with my hairdresser. Tomorrow at eleven,” M.J. went on as if nothing I said mattered. “By the way, have you weighed in today?”
I wanted to strangle her. She was as bad as Jack, always honing in on my weakest spot and winning the argument, of course.
To put it mildly, I had a terrible week. My whole body hurt, my pantry and closet were embarrassingly naked, and I decided I hated cottage cheese.
My daughters were no solace. Margaret never returned my calls, Elizabeth couldn’t talk because she had a big test and a big paper and a social calendar that left no room for her poor old mother. Jennifer talked, but I made the mistake of telling her I was on a diet, and after that all she could do was lecture me with her theories of what worked for her. Seeing as how she’s never been more than one hundred and ten pounds, her theories didn’t exactly carry much weight with me. No pun intended.
The only good thing that happened started off as a bad thing. M.J.’s hairdresser, Darius, cut all my hair off. And I do mean all. He had to get rid of the old perm, he said, and as much of the old color as possible. He left me a measly inch and a half. Then he dyed it an ashy blonde. I cried all the way to Nordstrom where, to make me feel better, M.J. bought me a pale aqua sweater and a pair of silver clip-on earrings shaped like shells.
Only after she left my house did I venture into the bathroom and stare at my strange reflection. Jack was going to have a fit.
Or maybe not.
What if he didn’t care? Or worse, what if he didn’t even notice?
I fiddled with the hair. Smart and sassy was what Darius had said. Hair with attitude.
Actually, I looked like Meg Ryan’s mother. Well, maybe her fat older sister. One thing I did notice was that the short hair made my eyes look bigger. And the aqua sweater gave them a sparkle. I decided to reapply my mascara and eyeliner.
