Fat Chance (10 page)

Does the dinner tonight include Jolie? I wonder as Taylor saunters off. The scent of sautéing beef probably sends her into spasm.
Merde!
Fatty food! Is she in the gym too? I can't get the vision of her in the gym out of my head. I see her riding on a bike next to him, purring seductively. Or lying down on a weight bench, trying to tease him into getting on top of her. Or worse still, following him into the shower while dear old me is in the kitchen fixing them both dinner. I turn up the CD.

 

In the middle of rolling out the pasta for the manicotti, I stop. Tim McGraw is singing “Please Remember Me.” It
makes me think about the paper, and I check my watch. What's going on now? The office seems a world away.

The scent of sautéing garlic and onions and browning beef makes me think of Tex and how he would have delighted in the feast I was preparing—especially in a kitchen this size. He would have rolled up his sleeves and joined me. He never cooked with a recipe. The proportions just seemed to come to him. Then he taste-tested.

When we met I assumed that his culinary repertoire began and ended with his kickin'-ass chili. And it wasn‘t the kind of chili that I knew, with red kidney beans and tomatoes.

“Cut up the beef, you
never
use ground beef,” he informed me. I sat there, like an attentive student, watching him add water, chilies and garlic, and then cumin and oregano. Nothing else. He told me about the international chili cook-off that he entered in the West Texas ghost town of Terlingua—total population 25—fewer than the number of tenants who lived in my apartment building. That gave me just an inkling of his interest in food. It turned out that Tex had read more cookbooks than Tamara had tried diets.

He was the one who introduced me to Ligurian cooking—“La Cucina Profumata.” One cold Sunday last winter, I called him after a brunch to whine about a disastrous blind date. He swore that his fish Ligurian-style would improve my mood. We met on the West side to shop for Gaeta olives and red snapper. When we got back, he presented me with a little gift sack of an appetizer: Basil leaves stuffed with minced prosciutto and Parmesan cheese then breaded and fried in olive oil. Then he taught me about Sicilian bottarga, the cured tuna roe that was salty and pungent and divine when mixed with olive oil, garlic and parsley, and served over spaghetti dusted with bread crumbs.

And technique. Tex knew every method, even how to use
a pressure cooker. He walked me through the basics, one afternoon, demystifying the process.

“I know it's going to spew out of the pot and explode in my face,” I said, holding an oven mitt over my face like a catcher's mask.

“Darlin', you have nothing whatsoever to worry about.”

“Where in the world did this contraption come from anyway,” I asked, lowering the mitt.

“Introduced at the 1939 New York World's Fair by National Presto Industries.” What were the chances of any other guy in the world knowing that?

“And for the one-million-dollar jackpot, Mr. Van Doren, the category is food history. Who was the fierce conqueror who introduced the lowly potato to Elizabeth I? Tick tock, tick tock—”

“Sir Walter Raleigh.”

“Jesus, Tex! How did you
know
that?”

“Trivial Pursuit, I think,” he said, grinning. “Keep going.”

I did. “If you're so smart, tell me about the origins of ketchup. And I'm talking about pre-Heinz.”

I remember the way he stared back at me. “Ketchup, huh?”

I was so sure then that he was stumped. “Ketchup, you heard me.”

Slowly, a smile spread over his face. “Ohh.” He feigned confusion. “I think what you mean is ke-tsiap. It was a seventeenth-century Chinese brine of pickled fish and spices.”

“Oh, stop it, Tex.”

“I swear to you.”

But he wasn't all business. I was over at his apartment baking chocolate cookies one day, got distracted and forgot about them until the smoke alarm went off. I raced to the kitchen, too late. Tex had to hold back a laugh.

“Guess Maida Heatter's job is secure.” He lifted one, tossed
it up and then caught it in his hand, weighing it. “Feels like buckshot,” he said, eyeing me with a wicked grin.

“You want to
feel
buckshot?” I took a cookie and flipped it at his head.

“Naw, that wasn't buckshot,” he said, taking aim, “THIS is buckshot.” He flung it at me like a Frisbee and then ran out, ducking behind the couch. Men love this sort of thing. I think it's almost instinctual for them to go wild and act piggish, like out-of-control adolescents. Food fights, panty raids, activities of that high level of sophistication. No matter how old they are, or what they do, start the rumpus and you'll see how easily they'll join in.

Our food fight escalated to the point where both of us were running in and out of rooms, screaming threats and barricading ourselves behind furniture and doors. Cookies flew through the air. What did I care? It wasn't my place.

Eventually, we cleaned the mess up together and then, bereft of dessert, we went out for it. Then we just walked and explored some new neighborhood, and saw a movie. Sometimes our nights together ended up in a bookstore or a foreign magazine stand where we would share barbs about which books made the bestseller list, who was profiled in the news magazines and who should have been, or the ludicrous subject for a fashion magazine cover story: “Legs are Back.”

“Didn't know they left,” Tex said.

Nothing special, we just hung out. Together, just not on Saturdays or Wednesdays. Those were his date nights with Sharon. This was fine with me. We went to better restaurants than they did. She was a born-again vegetarian. At least this week.

Though it's late in New York, I dial and then punch out his extension. If he answered, it was never by name, in case he wanted to duck who it was.

“Metro.”

“So how's the big cheese?”

“Turnin' blue without you,” he says.

“Yeah, it's dead there without me, huh?”

“What's it to you? Was there a lull between sour apple martinis poolside and you remembered your roots?”

“Actually, they're drinking cosmopolitans out here, but more importantly, I needed help with a recipe. I'm making veal marsala and I forget how much wine to use.”

“Whatever's left in the case after you drink yourself sick.”

“That's helpful. Thank you.”

“Why don't you teach the actor how to cook? You spent a summer at the Culinary Arts Institute, didn't you?”

I don't answer.

“Maybe you could give him some tips on roasting the high-heat method; reducing gravies—”

“You don't sound like yourself. What's doing?” The Texas drawl was back. Why was he pissed?

“Ah'm getting married.”

“Tell me another one.”

“Ah am serious.”

I knew at that moment he was leaning back in his chair, stroking the side of his face. I start to answer, but nothing comes out of my mouth, then a rush like bullets. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Now, what kind of thing is that to say?”

“You're one of my best friends, and you didn't even
tell
me?”

“Ah'm telling you now.”

I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder and start mincing the onion, making very small, precise cuts with the knife. I don't know what to say. That doesn't happen often.

“Well…congratulations.” I'm using the knife to push all
the pieces into a neat pile. “I'm just surprised. Well, that's wonderful for you and Sharon. When's the big day?”

“If I had five minutes away from this damn place I could figure that out.”

“So why don't you sound deliriously happy?”

“I'm in the middle of a mess here. Police reporter just quit, so it looks like there‘s going to be white space where his column belongs.”

“I'll let you go. I was just cooking up a big Italian dinner here and I thought of you—”

“I thought you don't eat that way anymore.”

“I'm keeping the franchise.”

“Good, when you get back you can teach Sharon how to cook.”

“She can't
cook
?”

“She does other things,” he drawls.

I try to keep the laugh in the back of my throat, but like a wave in motion, there's no stopping it. Tex hangs up, and that makes it funnier. Maybe it was the wine, but I'm doubled over, holding my stomach envisioning the headline in a supermarket tabloid: Cuisine from Hell! The poor guy would subsist on boilable bag cuisine. His mantra would be “microwave ready.” Served him right for getting involved with an investment banker. Well, at least I now know what to buy them for a wedding present: A Texas-size toaster oven, and
Cooking for Dummies
. If it didn't exist, I'd write it.

“M
aggie,
que pasa, mama?
” Tamara says when I call her a few minutes later at the office.

“According to plan.”

“And how is the hunkasauras? What is that bad little white boy really like?”

“Trash,” I say. “No, sweet, really. I'd even venture humble. Unlike his pet frog here, I don't think he has a mean bone in his body.”

“Are you lovesick? I mean how can you work with a guy who looks—”

“It's under control. What am I missing?”

“Page six in the
Post
. The headline, and I quote: ‘Mega Morph for Mesomorph for Mega Mike—'”

“Yeeech.”

“They said that you whittled down, glammed up and headed out to play houseguest of, quote, ‘L.A.'s sexiest bachelor.'”

“Oh God. How the hell did they find out? This is going to poison my career. I can see the résumés pouring in to Wharton now for my replacement. He probably bought himself a cat-o'-nine-tails and is whipping himself for giving me the okay to come out here.”

“Never mind the real world, you've got exactly eleven more days left in paradise. Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks, Tamara.”

“Maggie?”

“Yeah?”

“Is he hung?”

“Oh, Jesus, I am going to hang up in your—”

“One mo' thing.”

“What?”

“Pro-tec-shun.”

I'm about to hang up and then hesitate. “Did you hear about Tex?”

“Yeah, Sharon's really crazy about the guy.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me,” Tamara says before hanging up.

It was good to check in with the office. Dear, crazy Tamara…and the whole crew. But after today, no more “in the kitchen with Maggie.” I'm out here working, even though in the sunshine it doesn't look like anybody does that.

I fish out a meatball. Mmmmm, perfection, and the recipe will die with me. Forty minutes to dinner. I sip the wine and look out at the gardens. Fruit trees—oranges, lemons, grapefruits, mangos. Eden. What would it be like to live in a house like this? Vistas of paradise, cascading vines of fuchsia bougainvillea, scarlet frangipani, spiky red-and-yellow bromeliads… I'd be a fine gardener. I could barely remember to water my cactus.

This
was
a world away. The view over my kitchen sink in
Manhattan was the traffic-choked entrance to the Midtown Tunnel, and beyond it a sliver of the East River with a cylindrical concrete Con Ed tower, like a monument to steam, rising above it. And that was an improvement over my last apartment where my head abutted the kitchen cabinets when I did the dishes. Enter trompe l'oeil. But here, no ersatz panoramas needed to be painstakingly drawn.

Wasn't that what my makeover was all about? Repainting reality? Toying with nature? Priming the surface with diet and denial, and then drawing a new figure. Making up a prettier face, a brighter hair color. Buying clothes to flatter the new figure. But would the paint stick over the old surface? Or would the true grain show through, and the new design warp and wear?

But I'm striving to stay in the moment. Some of my old self was surely shed with the weight, at least some of the negativism. And, for the most part, it seemed as though I had broken through old barriers and was now liberated from the burden that excess weight put not only on my body, but also my mind.

I set the table. Two plates, napkins, forks and knives. Oh…I've forgotten Jolie. Not too Freudian or anything. I quickly fling down another dinner plate. It crosses my mind to replace it with a teacup, but I restrain myself. I grab a carrot. There really is something to be said for the nibbling (no, gorging) on vegetables while cooking idea.

Just before eight, Taylor's torso is silhouetted in the door frame. He's wearing a band-collared white linen shirt over jeans. Does he realize how it sets off his eyes? I try not to stare.

“I'm fashionably early, and starvin' to death.”

“Where's Jolie?”

He shrugs. “Maybe undressing for dinner?” I smile at him.
Are we both making fun of her? Bitch that I am, I warm to that idea.

“Well, while we're waiting, I'll give you a quick taste of my specialty to get your juices flowing.”
Oh no, did I really say that
?
Doesn't look like he's reading anything into it, fortunately.

“C'mere.” I spear a meatball, blow on it, and hold it out to him. “Tell me what you think.”

He closes his eyes and moans as his mouth moves. “I'm yours,” he says, lunging at me.

“You pathetic creature. Is one miserable meatball all it takes to win you over?”

He's reduced to silence.

“Tell me something, Taylor. With all the women swarming over you, hasn't anyone ever cooked you a meal, for God's sake?”

“Can I count the chef at David K's?”

I shake my head in disbelief. “In a crunch you ever rustle up your own dinner?”

“I poured milk over corn—no—amaranth flakes once.”

“What?”

“It's some grain they found in an Egyptian crypt, I think,” Taylor says. “Tastes that way, anyhow. Otherwise, let's see. Sometimes I scramble eggs. Other than that, I don't think this kitchen has ever been used this much before. You christened it.” He reaches for another meatball, but I push his hand away.

“Wait for your girlfriend.”

He starts to turn away when Jolie walks in wearing a halter dress that I think is really a long blouse.

“I see that the party started
sans moi
.”

“No, we were waiting,” I insist. I bring the dishes to the table and start serving.

“Taste Maggie's meatballs, you won't believe them,” Taylor says, looking upward. “They're out of this world.”

Jolie gives me the
mal occhio,
or whatever the
evil eye
is in
French.
“Un peu,”
she says, holding up her hand. She cuts off a pebble-sized piece and tastes it, allowing me a small smile.

“You are a good cook. I have never seen Michael so excited—about food.”

I'm about to give her a helping of oysters and manicotti, but the hand shoots up again. Two miserable meatballs and a glass of wine. Not Taylor. He's piling his plate high like a college boy home for the holidays, and popping the cork on another bottle of vin ordinaire. The more he and I eat and drink, the more explosively our stories erupt into laughter. By nine o'clock, Jolie has a splitting “mal à la tête.”

“Please excuse me. I don't feel very well.”

“C'mon, we haven't even had dessert yet,” Taylor says. “Maggie made zabaglione.”

She shrugs and walks off, turning back only once to glare at him over her shoulder. He's oblivious.

“So I'm up on stage in front of a group of Hollywood honchos,” he says, trying hard to stifle a laugh. “It's my first audition.” He puts his head down contemplatively to control the urge to laugh, then continues. “I walk up, working hard at looking laid-back, confident, and I clear my throat and get down to business.” He slaps his hand on the table for emphasis. “I start reading and I don't stop, I can't, I'm off and running, flying high on my performance, my incredible virtuosity, oblivious to the words…the meaning…except five minutes down the line it hits me that unless this show is for transsexuals, I blew it big-time, because instead of reading Stanley Kowalski, I was a brilliant Blanche DuBois….”

 

By eleven o'clock one candle has burned out, and the other is just a flicker in a pool of melted wax. We sit opposite each other like old friends. Bizarre, but it feels like trading stories with him is the most natural thing in the world.
Two empty wine bottles stand between us. He reaches for a third.

“I don't want to become a candidate for a liver transplant,” I say, putting a hand out to stop him. “I don't know about you, but I need some air.”

We walk down to the pool and stretch out on lounge chairs. My head is spinning, buzzing. I'm mesmerized by the luminescent turquoise water, and in the stillness, every sound filters through me. A helicopter sputters overhead and then turns silent, absorbed by the vast acres of darkness. The wooden chaise creaks, as if in pain, as I shift my position and lie back, tranquilized by the meal, the whir of cicadas, the comforting sound of my own breathing. Taylor lifts the wine bottle to his mouth then lets it slide to the ground. It hits the concrete with a ping. Why do I feel like a stoned, twenty-year-old stowaway who inexplicably ended up in a strange place with a celebrity rock star? I break the silence.

“Do you have some kind of herbal cure out here—some capsules from the health food store or Tibet or somewhere—to prevent hangovers, because I think I'm going to wake up with a raging one tomorrow, and I have a column to write.”

Taylor rubs his chin. “Yeah, okay, here's what we do,” he says, his voice booming. He starts to laugh, the slow, sexy laugh of someone who has happily been relieved of the burden of sobriety. “We wrap our heads real tight in towels filled with ice cubes, down some Vat 69, and then take off our clothes and go swimming in the buff.” He laughs harder, and harder. It's contagious, we're both so ripped.

“I would sink. I would sink like a stone, like a medicine ball. They'd have to use a rope to haul me up.” That sets me off and I can't stop. “Oh, God, it's not so funny.” Inexplicably, tears fill my eyes. The line is blurring between comedy and tragedy. “Why am I laughing so hard, or whatever this is?”

“You're away from home,” Taylor says, looking at me levelly. “And you're having an adventure.”

I avoid his eyes. Heat is spreading over me. If I allow my head to turn one inch in his direction, we'll be on top of one another and this is moving far too fast for me. I'm so afraid of crashing, of having it all look so different in the morning light, that I put on the brakes. “Yup, that's it. A long-overdue R&R.”

He's still staring and I'm pretending not to notice, but the power of his look seems to immobilize me. I'm about to tell him to stop, but stop what? Instead, I chide myself.
Do not move your mouth again. Stop before you blurt out something that you're going to die of embarrassment from for the next eleven days.
Abruptly, I get up on my feet. “I've got to go up,” I say, crossing my hands over my chest for emphasis. “Do you mind if I leave you the dishes? I am so wrecked.”

“Actually, I think I would mind if I had to do all of them right now,” he says in a goofy voice, “but the maid is coming bright and early. Come on,” he says, managing to stand. “I'll go up with you.”

I follow him as he weaves up the stairs. We're standing outside my bedroom door.

“'Night, Taylor.”

He leans forward and runs the back of his knuckles along the side of my cheek. “G'night, Maggie. Thanks. Thank you. It was a great night.” He doesn't move, and I don't dare draw breath. Finally, I ease back and look at him questioningly.

“What?” My legs are going weak. But he just smiles woozily, touches his finger to my lips and then walks off down the corridor.

 

Not all migraines are created equal. This one mimicks the pummeling given to a slab of veal being reduced to wafer
thinness. The pulsations come in waves, the cerebral equivalent of what the poor uterus probably goes through as it contracts explosively in the last centimeters of childbirth. But nothing productive would come out of this torture session, other than the lesson to lay off wine and drink more mineral water.

But while my paddled brain might have been getting thinner, my waistline wasn't. The fat fairy has reappeared and waved her magic wand, causing my middle to swell. Then there was jet lag, topped off by exhaustion from going to bed at three, New York time, and the pressure to write a column when outside it was sunny and 80 degrees.

My thoughts are racing and I stop typing. The column is autobiography masked as journalism. Maybe that was why it had affected readers. But the end was a question mark. Would I triumph over my obsession with food, weight and body image and honestly accept myself for who I am? A month ago, it looked that way. But now, having lost weight at great expense, would I be going back in time, fighting the old battles—perpetually weight cycling—and again joining the ranks of the one third of all women, fat or thin, who despised some part of their bodies?