On the Rocks (4 page)

And I did. Then I went back to sleep.

Six months and twenty pounds later . . .

Chapter 3

Petty Thieves with Eating Disorders

C
OUGH, WHEEZE, SPIT, SNORT
.
My lungs sputtered and heaved and spasmed as I tried to run the trail along the Charles River for the first time in months. I struggled to inhale oxygen, while women pushing baby strollers and middle-aged men who probably smoked three packs a day managed to jet past me. My legs quaked as my muscles readjusted to being used for anything other than walks to the grocery store, and when I grew lightheaded I decided it was time to take a little break or risk having a massive coronary while attempting to be healthy. I leaned my hands on my knees while I glanced at the distance display on my newly purchased jogging watch and discovered that I had gone about ten feet.
Great,
I thought as I stretched my quads and pretended to be busy so I could delay starting up again until I could breathe like a normal human being.
This is just absolutely fantastic.

March is still cold in Boston, but on this particular morning the weather was just warm enough to manage a pathetically slow run in yoga pants and a zip-up fleece. The events of the last six months had rocked my entire world, and let’s just say that my mental health wasn’t the only part of me that suffered––my ass took the brunt of it as I decided to feed my grief with ice cream, cookies, and anything else that had a high sugar content and wasn’t nailed down. Weight gain was really the least of my problems, all things considered, but once your underwear and your shoes become painfully tight, you realize it’s time to rein it in a bit.

One hour and one mile later, I returned to my walk-up apartment on Hancock Street, stopping to pick up my mail from mailbox number 3C, my name, Abby Wilkes, written in black pen and taped to the little silver door. I grabbed the stack and flipped through it, throwing the things I didn’t want to open, and the things I didn’t need to open thanks to the wonders of auto-pay, in the trash can: bill, bill, birth announcement, another bill, bank statement I would most likely never bring myself to open, catalogs, baby shower invitation, and a rent statement. I really, really hated mail. All it ever seemed to do was remind me that people out there were happy or that I owed people money. I know it’s selfish to begrudge other people’s happiness, and I’m not particularly proud of it. That said, having to send out wedding cancellation cards that say, “Picked the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger,” can change a girl
.

I entered my apartment and threw myself despondently on my couch, which is what I did every time I came home these days. This last year had been the absolute worst of my life, and that included the year I read an article in my mom’s magazine about eyebrow shaping and thought that meant you were supposed to shave your eyebrows off with a disposable razor. I thought that episode had put my “most humiliating experience” on lock, but it paled in comparison to how embarrassed and ashamed I’d felt lately. That’s really saying something. Spending most of fourth grade without eyebrows was a hugely traumatizing experience, as ten-year-old girls don’t really have much interest in hanging out with someone who accidentally turned herself into a walking mannequin. Trust me.

As a little girl, I dreamed of getting engaged, though I guess that doesn’t make me any different from any other little girl on the planet who used to wear a pillowcase on her head and pretend it was a veil. I don’t know why girls dream of wedding days the way boys dream of playing professional baseball, but for whatever reason, I was obsessed with the thought that somewhere in my future a day would come when I’d be able to wear a pretty white dress and look like a princess. Deep down, we all want the fairy tale, and if I have to fault anyone for being able to single-handedly combat all of the progress of the women’s movement and still convince little girls that the proverbial dream life begins at the end of an aisle standing next to a man, I blame Walt Disney. Feminism may have come a long way since our grandmothers’ time, but Gloria Steinem is no match for Cinderella, which I’m sure is hugely frustrating for her. It has to be painful admitting that your biggest adversary is actually a cartoon wearing one shoe whose only friends are a pack of mice. Whatever. As far as I’m concerned, Cinderella can suck it.

Since everything happened, I had turned myself into a hermit, rarely leaving my apartment for anything other than my walk to and from work. I saw no reason to leave when I could have food, movies, dry cleaning, and alcohol delivered. I had no interest in being out there anymore with normal people who had normal relationships and didn’t have to wear a big hat and sunglasses every time they walked by Vera Wang to keep from being recognized by the salesladies. I was pretty sure if they saw me they were going to chase me down the street and hit me with a bill for Grace’s champagne. I was fairly certain they didn’t appreciate customers who downed their Moët and then left an expensive gown in a heap on the floor while they bolted from the store in tears, but in my defense, at the time, that was not how I saw that afternoon ending.

Fate can be a finicky bitch.

After that I just gave up. I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I resigned myself to a life alone, broke, and, apparently, fat. Not exactly how I pictured my thirties starting out. I don’t know what I did to anger the universe so much that it felt the need to sucker-punch me the way it did, but I figured there wasn’t much point in worrying about it anymore. Instead, I locked myself in my apartment, let my bills pile up, let my friendships wither away, and let myself dry up like a prune. It might not have been the best of coping mechanisms, but the sad truth was, my apartment was the only place left on earth where I felt safe. The only way the universe could screw with me in there was if it put Häagen-Dazs out of business or blew up my cable box.

When Grace called me earlier that week begging me to meet her to do some shopping, I hesitated, much preferring to stay home alone than brave the masses, but eventually I caved. I knew that getting out of my apartment was a good idea, especially since my couch now had a permanent indentation from the excessive amount of time my fat ass had spent on it, and I couldn’t afford to buy a new one. It’s comical what motivated me to do things these days.

I took a quick shower and left my building, glancing nervously over both shoulders like I was expecting someone to jump out of the bushes and assassinate me. I walked through the Back Bay and met Grace on the corner of Newbury and Dartmouth Streets. As soon as I saw her, I knew she was going to ambush me with something. Maybe looking for assassins wasn’t as crazy as it seemed: maybe this was like the mob, and the people who came to kill you were pretending to be your friends. I stared at her, trying to read her mind before she said anything. Grace had no poker face whatsoever.

“What?” I asked as soon as I hugged her hello. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Why do you think I’m going to do something to you? I’m not the enemy, Abby, remember? I want to help you.”

“I don’t need help,” I lied.

“I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve left your house in the last six months for anything other than work, and you just entered Ben and Jerry’s ‘Name a New Ice Cream’ contest with a flavor called Flabby Abby. You definitely need help,” she said as she smoothed her long auburn hair behind her ears.

“I thought it would be cool to name the new ice cream! I know I’ve been in a bit of a funk, but you’ll be happy to know that I went for a mini-run this morning. I’m trying to get back into an exercise routine. And for the record, I tried the frozen yogurt, but it doesn’t taste the same. People tell you it does, but it doesn’t.”

“This has nothing to do with your weight. You’d look great at any size.”

“Thanks. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Why am I here, Grace? Seriously. I thought we were going shopping.” I didn’t mean to sound impatient, but I felt like I was being trapped in some kind of half-assed therapy session.

“I’ve decided you need an intervention. I’m afraid I’m going to come over one day and find you hanging by a bridal veil from your shower rod. I’m not letting you wallow anymore. It’s not healthy.”

“Neither is housing a pint of ice cream every day, but I’m still doing that.”

“Exactly. I want the old Abby back. I don’t like this new antisocial, depressed version. If you keep this up, you won’t need clothespins to hold up that Vera Wang sample size,” she joked, the way only a best friend can.

“In case you forgot, I’m no longer in need of Vera. We had a falling-out. I don’t plan on talking to her or her giant dresses ever again.”

“I haven’t forgotten, but it’s time you get over it. You’re not the first person on earth to have her engagement broken off.”

I stared at the sidewalk and let my shoulders slump forward. “I don’t know how,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to pull myself out of this.”

It’s funny: you don’t realize that you’re losing yourself until the day you wake up and look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back at you. If you didn’t even realize it was happening, how can you possibly know how to stop it?

She removed her hands from her pockets and firmly grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to face her. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but it’s time you at least tried. You can’t beat yourself up like this anymore. I love you too much to let you do this to yourself.”

“And how do you propose I do that? Are you going to try to put me in an ice cream eaters anonymous meeting? I already looked online. Oddly enough, I couldn’t find one in the greater Boston area.” I was getting really tired of people just telling me to pull it together, to move on, to get over it. What the hell did they know? Last time I checked, these people weren’t attacked by social media in a bridal salon. I was pretty sure if I asked people on the streets of Boston for a show of hands for who had been through a similar experience, I’d be the only one with my hand up. It was fitting, really. I was living one of the nursery rhymes I sang to the kids in my class every year.

The cheese stands alone.

“Funny you should ask. I have a proposition for you,” Grace said.

“I’m listening,” I said. And I was. I was planning to listen to whatever she had to say, politely say no, and go home to my
Pretty in Pink
DVD and a canister of Pringles.

“Hear me out before you answer,” she ordered, rubbing my shoulders before she released them and put her hands back in her pockets. She looked at me with so much pity, it was all I could do to not run for home. I would have, but the extra pounds on my ass had me running slower than I used to, so she’d have had no problem catching me. At this point, it was a safe bet Roseanne Barr would have no problem catching me.

“I’m scared,” I said, well aware that nothing good ever follows that sentence.

“A paralegal I work with was supposed to go down to Newport for the summer, but two of her friends backed out and now she can’t afford to do it.”

“My sympathies to the paralegal.”

“Very funny.”

“Chubby girls usually are.”

“Would you stop it?”

“I assume there’s a point to this story about a paralegal with no friends and no money, because if this is your way of illustrating that everyone has problems, it’s not working.”

“Not exactly. Apparently, it’s too late to get her deposit back, so she offered it to me for half-price. I saw it online, and it’s this super-cute beach cottage with a deck, and it’s walking distance to all the bars in town, and I think we’d be nuts not to take it. It makes complete sense for you: teachers don’t work in the summer anyway. You can spend three months relaxing and figuring out how to resurrect the old Abby, the one who didn’t live in elastic pants and find toothbrushing optional.”

“You just pointed out that when I’m not at work I live in sweats, and then suggested I do a summer house where normal attire is a bathing suit? Your sales pitch needs works. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Abby, I’m not taking no for an answer. You need this.”

“Let’s just assume for a nanosecond that I’d be interested. Do I really need to point out the fact that I’m not exactly rolling in cash at the moment? And what will I do out there by myself all summer? Your solution for snapping me out of my depression is to sequester me at the beach in Rhode Island for three months? How does that make sense?” Minor details like my complete and total isolation apparently were not as important as Grace’s quest for the perfect tan. Still, I knew she wasn’t going to drop it. Grace had a way of pushing until the craziest things seemed to make sense. It’s one of the things that made her such a good attorney.

“You can afford it. It’s only three thousand dollars for each of us for the entire summer. That’s completely reasonable.”

“What are you talking about, I can afford it? You’re a lawyer, I’m sure you can afford it. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a kindergarten teacher. I don’t have three thousand dollars to randomly rent a house in Newport. Three thousand dollars is like, a lot of sessions with a shrink. If I was going to spend that kind of money on anything, therapy would be a better option. No way. I don’t want to do it. I’ll be perfectly happy sitting in my apartment alone all summer, thank you very much.”

“That’s a great idea. Sweat to death in your apartment. You don’t even have air-conditioning.”

“I’ll stick my head in the freezer if I have to,” I said. I realized that if it did actually come to that, I’d have to move some of the ice cream containers in order to accommodate my head, but I figured if I had to I’d just eat them all in one sitting or something.

Not that I’ve ever done that before.

“Do you think Ben is sitting around self-destructing like this? Do you?” she asked.

I thought about him again, for maybe the millionth time, and at least the tenth since I’d woken up this morning. I was still so angry about what happened. I was so angry I could barely see straight, and for that I blamed the obvious culprit. Facebook.