Dietland (26 page)

“She said that you're strong. She described you as a survivor.”

It was difficult to understand how those words could apply to me. “I don't see it that way,” I said.

“It's not easy to live in that body, is it? Not in this culture, with so many shitty, hateful people everywhere. You haven't had an easy time of it. Anyone who can survive that is strong.”

I turned from Sana and the screens and stared for a moment in the opposite direction, down the dark corridor, into the comforting black. I had always thought of myself as merely existing, but Marlowe thought I was strong. Leeta, Verena, Marlowe—since I'd met them, the eyes with which I interpreted the world around me were new.

Another day and night passed, or at least that's how it seemed. I lived by my body's rhythms, sleeping when I was tired, drinking when I was thirsty, and experiencing the stirrings of hunger. Since I hadn't been eating, I was weak from lack of nutrients and I had to drag myself from my bedroom to the bathroom. Without a mirror I couldn't see myself, but I knew my hair was straggly and matted in places. I had only the essentials—toothpaste and soap, a hairbrush. I didn't have deodorant or a blow dryer or a razor or tweezers or makeup. Running my tongue over my upper lip, I could feel the prickly hairs there. I was slowly reverting to nature.

I spent most of my time writing in Leeta's notebook, which I was making my own. The New Baptist Plan replayed in my mind: the doctor and his black marker, the man in the subway station, the blind dates, my Dabsitaf-induced dream. I felt humiliation and sadness, but also something else, an emotion I couldn't yet describe.

When Verena finally arrived, I had been writing in the journal for most of the day. “Are you ready to talk?” she asked, sitting in the desk chair.

I was ready. Verena asked if I had read Leeta's journal and I told her that I had.
poor louise b. always looks like she's on her way to a funeral.
There were lines that I'd never forget.

“What did Leeta see when she looked at you?” Verena asked.

“She saw a woman in pain.”

“That's what I see too. You carry a great deal of pain around with you, Plum. Can you envision ever letting it go?”

“You can't let go of pain. It's not a balloon that can float into the sky.”

“Okay, but imagine for a minute that it is. You put your pain into a balloon and you let go of it. It floats away. How do you feel?”

If I let go of my pain, there would be a hole inside me that was so vast I would cease to exist. I would be the balloon floating into the sky, not the other way around. There would be nothing pulling me down, nothing keeping my feet on the ground. My pain was my gravity.

“Without my pain, I wouldn't be me anymore.”

“Pain takes up a lot of space,” Verena said. “You could fill that space with other things. Love, perhaps? In our first session together, you said you wanted to be loved.”

“I can't imagine anyone loving me while I look like this.”

“That's only because you've never
allowed
yourself to imagine it. How can anyone love you if you hate yourself?”

“I know what you want, Verena. You want me to cancel the surgery, to stay like this.” I ran my hands down the front of my body. “You're asking me to live a life that I don't know how to live.”

“Calliope House is full of women who've chosen another path. It's possible.”

“So I would have to live at Calliope House for the rest of my life?”

“Of course not. Think of Calliope House as a way station.”

I picked up the notebook from where I'd set it on the bed next to me and skimmed the pages of Leeta's observations, the men taking photos of me in the grocery store and laughing, the teenage boys taunting me.

“I think there might be something good about being fat,” I said. It felt good to say the word
fat.
I had always avoided it, but it had the same thrust as
fuck
and the same power—an illicit f-word, the top teeth digging into the bottom lip, spewing the single syllable:
fat.

“Because I'm fat, I know how horrible everyone is. If I looked like a normal woman, if I looked like
you,
then I'd never know how cruel and shallow people are. I see a different side of humanity. Those guys I went on the blind dates with treated me like I was subhuman. If I were thin and pretty, they would have shown me a different side, a fake one, but since I look like this, I know what they're truly like.”

“Explain why this is a good thing.”

“It's a special power. I see past the mask to the real person underneath. I'm not living a lie like so many other women. I'm not a fool.”

“Is Alicia a fool?”

“Alicia wants the approval of all the horrid people in the world.”

“What does Plum want?”

“Don't talk about me in the third person anymore. This is my real life. I'm already living it, remember?”

“Okay, what do
you
want?”

“I don't want their approval.”

“You wanted their approval before.”

“Well, I don't want it now. Fuck them.”

“You sound very angry.”

“I am angry.” That was the word that was missing from my journal. “But wasn't the purpose of the New Baptist Plan to make me angry? That's what the confrontations and the blind dates were all about.”

“I didn't know how you were going to react to the New Baptist Plan. It might have strengthened your resolve to have surgery.”

“It didn't.”

“You've always been angry, Plum. I just want you to direct that anger where it belongs, not at yourself.”

Verena was trying to help me, even more than she already had, and I was grateful, but I couldn't help feeling annoyed at her sometimes. She didn't know what it was like to be me, no matter how empathetic she was. There was a line between us, the line that existed between me and most people.

“I'd like to be alone now,” I said. I moved from my sitting position onto my side, resting my head on the pillow, curling up under the sheets.

Verena didn't argue. She stood up and collected her belongings. On her way out, she placed a slip of paper on the nightstand in front of my nose. It was a check for $20,000.

“Why are you giving this to me now?”

“It's time,” she said. “You made it to the final task of the New Baptist Plan. No matter what you decide to do with your life, we had a deal. A Baptist always keeps her word.”

I picked up the check, noting all those zeroes. “If I don't have the surgery, I'll have to say goodbye to Alicia. I'll miss her. Is that silly?”

“You'll grieve for her,” Verena said, “and then you'll move on.”

When she left, I pulled the sheet over my head and began to cry, welcoming the release. Crying existed beyond thinking, beyond words. It felt good. When I couldn't cry anymore, I thought about what Verena had said. In my mind the balloon was red, like the walls of Calliope House. I thought about the painful things I might put into it. I imagined letting go.

“Knock, knock.” Sana entered my bedroom, a white box in her hands. I had fallen asleep, but now lifted my head from the pillow. “What time is it?”

“About four o'clock in the afternoon.” She came into the room and set the box on the desk. I struggled to sit up, worried that my face was red from crying. My eyes still felt swollen.

Sana was wearing loose gray slacks and a white T-shirt, with Keds on her feet. Her body wasn't thin or fat, but a slightly curvy place in between, and solid as well, as if she had strength. She smelled like the outside, like fresh air and sunshine.

“You need to eat,” she said, not as a suggestion. From the box she removed a platter of small pastries and cakes, as well as a dish of what she said was saffron-infused cream. To make room, she pushed aside the books, including Verena's
Adventures in
Dietland.
“If you don't eat you're going to get sick.”

“Did you make all that?”

“You're kidding, right?” She placed a knife, a fork, and a tiny spoon on top of a napkin. “There's a Persian bakery on Seventh Avenue that I like. I thought I'd buy you a treat.”

I appreciated her kindness, but I also felt exposed. “I need to wash my face. I feel like a mess.”

“Take your time.”

In the bathroom, I felt the urgent need to shower, wanting to wash from head to toes. Under the stream of water, in the steam and heat, I stood for much longer than was necessary. I didn't have access to the summer sunshine, so this was the next best thing.

When I returned to my room, the pastries and cakes, the dish of cream, were all spread on my desk, but Sana wasn't there. I picked up a slice of cake with my fingers—white sponge with icing and a sprinkling of crushed pistachio nuts on top. Once I bit into it, I tasted cardamom and rosewater. The bliss inside my mouth soon reached my stomach, filling the empty space, and I finished the cake in three rapid bites. I was so close to heaven, there were angels all around me.

I ate and ate. I thought of the baby birds and how their mouths were filled, but this wasn't the same. I didn't bother to count calories. There was no time for math. I had always hated math. Into my mouth I placed the leaves of phyllo, honey, and nuts, the deep-fried pastry sweetened with syrup, the soft cookies flavored with coconut and almond, dipped into the saffron cream. Vibrations of pleasure ran through me. My lethargy ebbed with every bite and I began to feel human again.

When I was finished, I placed my hand on my belly, unable to stop smiling. After several minutes I was thirsty, so I went to the kitchenette and drank two glasses of water. On my way out, I heard the sounds from Marlowe's room growing louder, then stopping suddenly.

“Sana, are you still here?” I called out.

“Yes!”

For the last time, I walked down the dark corridors to the circular room, feeling full and satisfied. Sana was there, sitting in one of the chairs in the center of the screens.

“I don't know how you can stand this place,” I said.

“Sometimes I think of it as my church.”

“You've lost me.” I found that this often happened when I was talking to the women of Calliope House.

“You know how Christians believe Jesus died for their sins? And they go like this?” She made the sign of the cross. “For me this room is like that. It reminds me of a central truth about my life. Sometimes you need to be reminded of that.”

I didn't reply, but looked at her quizzically, letting her know I needed assistance. She rose from the chair and came toward me. “You and I can never look the way women are supposed to look.”
You and I.
Only weeks before, such a comparison would have plunged me into despair, but now I could see her point.

“Do you think we're the same?”

“In the ways that matter, yes. We're different in a way that everyone can see. We can't hide it or fake it. We'll never fit society's idea for how women should look and behave, but why is that a tragedy? We're free to live how we want. It's liberating, if you choose to see it that way.”

The line that existed between me and most people didn't exist with her. I wanted to touch her face. I didn't ask if it was all right, I just placed my hands on either side, touching the burned place, feeling the smooth, pearly flesh. My hands were filled with the warmth from her skin. In her pupils were tiny reflections of the screens, like white flecks. She blinked them away.

“Thank you for feeding me.”

“You're welcome, Sugar Plum. Do you mind if I call you that?”

“I don't mind.”

“I hope to see you aboveground soon,” she said. She left me alone with the screens. My impulse was to turn away, but she had warned me not to do that. The sanitized slits, these entrances to the world, filled the room.

The slits disappeared, making way for a naked young woman kneeling in a patch of grass. She was outside in a yard or a park, surrounded by a pack of men. The men were only visible from the waist down, their voices muffled like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. They took turns shoving their penises into the young woman's mouth. They grabbed at her body, pulling her hair and jerking her head back. She was soaked with their fluids, but still she smiled, this causer of mass erections, her naked body beamed around the world to subscribers of Porn Hub U.S.A. The scene went on and on, until the men were spent, and when it was finished, the young woman wiped the semen from her eyes.

Sana would have been pleased that I didn't look away. What I'd seen was a surprise. I couldn't recoil from the young woman on her knees in the grass, even though I wanted to, because we had something in common. If there was a spectrum, the young woman was on it and I was on it and so was every other woman I knew. Eulayla Baptist was there, bursting through her jeans.
In nine months, you'll be looking foxy!
That's what Gladys had said at my first Baptist Weight Loss meeting.
Foxy, hot, fuckable.
Whatever it was called, that's what I'd wanted—to be hot, to elicit desire in men and envy in women. But I realized I didn't want that anymore. That required living in Dietland, which meant control, constriction—paralysis, even—but above all it meant obedience. I was tired of being obedient.

I left the circular room, passing through the archway, walking briskly through the dark corridors to the front door of the underground apartment. I turned the handle and there was a click—the door swung open, revealing a tiny vestibule and the red door that led to the outside. I tried the handle of the red door and it opened. For the first time in days I felt sunshine and fresh air on my face. I snapped off the head of a rose that was dangling from a vine near the door and rubbed its petals against my cheek.

Shutting the door behind me, I walked up the steep concrete steps, which were warm beneath my bare feet. Outside there was no thrusting, no back-and-forth rhythm, and I steadied myself as I climbed. At the top I was awash in sunlight. The brightness of the sun burned through everything before me, and I saw nothing but shadows and shapes at first.