Fat Chance (23 page)

“Me, too.”

“Really?”

I just laugh, and order another Bloody Mary. By the time I'm ready to lick the soup bowl, the conversation turns to “the deal.”

“It struck me one day, after reading your column, after California, that you could do a phenomenal book on how a high-powered New York health columnist's world is transformed by coming together with a Hollywood superstar.” He lets his voice slow down, and I'm not sure whether I heard a question mark at the end of the sentence or whether he was just taking a breath and judging my reaction. For lack of something else to do, I shake my head slightly, in acknowledgment. He goes on.

“Readers would love to know how the relationship affected you, how he influenced the way you live, your feelings about yourself….” He lets his voice trail off and, again without a reaction from me, he lowers his voice and looks me in the eyes as if he's about to pull me down under the table.

“It could be very big,” he says, letting the edges of his lips curl up slightly.

“A book all about little ole me and Mike Taylor,” I say, with just a hint of a smile. I can't help running my hand back and forth over the leather of the banquette. It's as soft and sensuous as the interior of a Rolls Royce. I don't know if it's the drinks, but I'm suddenly imagining myself lying on the leather without my clothes on. I force my attention back to Sharkey.

“A tell-all book, right?”

He nods just slightly, as if fearful of breaking the mood with words, then adds in a voice so low I can hardly hear, “Any way you wanted to tell it, Maggie. It would be your book. Your
showcase.
”

I'm looking back at Slim, but actually staring through him. What could I tell readers about Taylor? That he was a sweet, decent guy with no pretensions? In the long run, maybe less than meets the eye? But the body—it should be
recorded for posterity. Photographed, sculpted. A road map of muscles and strong curves. His presence was compelling, he had great charm, knew how to use his mouth, but? He welcomed Spark notes, cocaine?

Actually, I couldn't recall seeing a single book in his house, except for the coffee-table book on Native American jewelry with the cover color that coordinated with the leather upholstery. The Taylor library seemed to consist of
The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Details,
the
L.A. Times
sports section and movie scripts.

As far as I could tell, he wasn't a guy, like Tex, who would ever become fascinated with the arcane aspects of a hobby, a story, a sport. Was he really like
The Trainer,
his first movie? The human exercise machine who got you into better shape? Maybe meeting him, and sleeping with him
had
muscled me up. But for what?

I turn to Sharkey. He's waiting for a reaction. I spot him glance, surreptitiously, at his watch under his cuff. It's thinner than a sheet of the pastry dough.

“I'll think about it,” I say, finally. “I just don't know.”

“That's fine,” he says, looking directly at me. “Take the time you need. Just remember, this could be a blockbuster book. A book about diet, romance, celebrity glamour and changing your life. A book that would inspire American women, empower them.”

Empower
them? I want to punch out people who parrot the jargon of the day.

“Awesome,” I say, sliding out of the booth.

T
here are times when work is your salvation. It fills a void in your life and helps remind you that while emotionally you may feel as though what keeps you together is not stronger than a fragile membrane, you continue to stake a claim as…a writer…an accountant…a teacher. You have a purpose beyond sucking wind, exfoliating skin cells, growing dark roots, exhaling carbon dioxide, consuming foodstuffs, and taking up a coveted seat at rush hour on the Lexington Avenue #6 train. At those times the deeper you can immerse yourself in your work, the greater the salvation it offers.

The idea of imparting nutritional guidance to readers, friendship in print, and serving as columnist/shrink, all included in the fifty-cent morning paper made me feel, at that moment, that my existence was justified. I had a purpose. And it was not to
empower
women, or write an account of my relationship with Taylor. It was to report, and act like a sifter—someone who sorted through scientific material and
helped shake it out for readers so that they could use what was new and pertinent.

So when the clock struck 10:00 a.m., I was behind my desk, journals piled neatly at my side, checking health Web sites, reading summaries of the latest research and trying to think of nothing but being a productive journalist. But I'm looking over statistics on the growing incidence of obesity and it doesn't take much to shatter my concentration. From the corner of my eye, I see movement and then I jump back as something saucerlike flies across the room and I nearly tumble to the floor. It's not an extraterrestrial object, however. It's a white Stetson, and it slices through a stack of papers, sending them flying as it comes to a smooth landing on the corner of my desk.

“Souvenir from the Mad Hatter,” says a disembodied voice from outside the office door. I look up and wait, trying to hold back the smile that's going to give me away.

“Were you visiting Alice in Wonderland?”

He pokes his head through the door. “It's a hat store near Midland.”

I pick it up and turn it around. “I love it.” I glance up at him quickly, and then do a double take, as he drops down on the couch facing me. Was it the tan?

“You put it on whenever you're going to cry and you look in the mirror,” Tex says. “You'll feel like an idiot and it'll stop you right away.”

I hold it to my heart. “I'll wear it to lunch.”

“Good,” he says, jumping to his feet. “I'm starving, let's go.”

We head out into the afternoon sun and walk for blocks, passing the Plaza Hotel and the towering trees and sprawling green lawns of Central Park that are bathed in the crisp lemon glow of afternoon sunlight. Hours go by, and I can't
recall what we talk about, or even if we talk much at all. I hold on to the sleeve of his jacket, and feel the pebbly grain of the leather brushing the side of my face. We go into the zoo, and watch a family of monkeys sitting together, one adult picking obsessively at the fur of another, grooming it, while the babies race around, pursuing each other. If I had to describe the feeling that I had in just one word it would be
anticipation.
We walk out of the park, across to the West Side, past a field where boys in blue-and-white uniforms play soccer, yelling out to each other excitedly.

Eventually we end up in a small dim Italian restaurant and sit across from each other at a corner table covered with a starched white cloth. I gaze out a small leaded-glass corner window and watch the world change when seen through triangles of yellow-, blue- and then rose-colored glass. After barely glancing at the menus, we order antipasto and rigatoni. Pavarotti regales us with a sublimely lyrical “Nessun Dorma” from
Turandot.
What would Calef's fate be? Marriage to the princess or death?

“A lot has happened since we spoke on the phone,” I say finally. “You won't believe this.”

“Try me.”

I shake my head. I don't where to begin. “It's just so…so—”

“I'm waiting…”

I run my hand lightly over the tablecloth and finally look up, telling him about Taylor, his life, my infatuation and the need to run away after the scene in the newsroom.

“I couldn't imagine how much being rejected by you would hurt,” I admit, surprising myself with my candidness. Suddenly, I feel like I want to be totally open with him. I don't need to couch what I say in half truths for my own self-respect anymore. We're both past that.

He nods, wordlessly, staring into my eyes, his fingertips forming a tent, pressed against his mouth. He has incredible powerful hands. I think about arm wrestling him.

“You know the funniest thing?”

He shakes his head.

“I just got an e-mail from Taylor. They've delayed the film by six months. He's off to East Africa for a movie about a rubber baron.” I shake my head. “My so-called life…. There's so much that I wanted to tell you. I felt so badly about what happened between us.”

“Look, I was pretty cruel to you too, so it's okay—”

“No, it's not. Losing the weight was like the beginning of a healing process that I had repressed for so long. It opened up this volcano of emotion. When you lose all the weight you lose some of your identity. It's confusing to change that much. Everything gets harder. The fat excuse is gone and you have to confront new issues.”

“You mean you don't just go from fat to happy?” he says teasingly.

“You just go from fat to less fat and still unhappy, but for different reasons. The problems are still there.”

“Well, it's reassuring to know that you're still torturing yourself.”

“I'm getting better though, but it's something you have to work through. There was just so much resentment that I carried around with me for so long. And I guess you were in the firing range…but it was so stupid. I'm so sorry. I mean, you changed too and I couldn't even give you a simple compliment—”

“I'm tough…don't worry about it.”

And handsome, I almost say. I'm seeing that for the very first time. “But now, let's get to you, Romeo.”

He closes his eyes.

“Tell me, what's happening with Sharon?” I'm biting my lip.

“Not a lot to tell,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “She left Texas a few days after we got there. What she seemed most concerned about was getting up in the middle of the night to reach her global network of clients. I heard her talking one night, and I sat up in bed. Thought she was talking in her sleep, then I saw her whispering into the phone….” He widens his eyes. “She hated the heat, doesn't like the desert. Nothing to do. Couldn't stand barbecue…or outdoor life. First woman I ever met who couldn't even grill a steak. Maybe that should have told me something.” I watch him as he looks off, lost in thought, and I wait for him to continue.

“I realized that I didn't want to go after her.” He's looking into my eyes now, as if to judge the effects of his words. “I haven't called her since I'm back.” He looks down and then back at me. “Remember all the cozy weekends we spent together cooking?” he says, reaching across the table and putting his hand over mine. I catch the glint in his eye and we just stare at each other.

I nod. That small kitchen, but we never got in each other's way. Some of our best conversations came over drinking wine, sautéing vegetables, drinking wine, altering the consistency of spaghetti sauce, drinking more wine. It was our intimate space, I see now, for the first time. Cooking was just a backdrop for us to be together. “We had good times.”

“I always thought that we were just friends,” Tex says. “But after the fight and then losing my mother…there was only one person who I wanted to be with.”

I'm holding my breath.

“What I'm saying is…we have something pretty special.”

“Maybe you just saw me for the first time when I lost the weight.”

Tex narrows his eyes. He sees right through me. “Give me more credit than that,” he says.

That was familiar
.

“That was your issue, not mine. I never cared whether you gained or lost. You were this real woman, and all I saw was a vulnerability that you worked hard at trying to hide.”

“And here I thought you didn't understand anything about me except my appetite.”

“Maybe that was just our cover.”

His blue eyes are breaking my heart right then. He just stares, like a child with no pretenses.

“Well,” I say, exhaling, “it's really a terrible idea to get involved with somebody you work with.”

“Ma'am, I couldn't agree more.”

I pull my hand back from him suddenly. “I'm scared, Tex,” I say, hugging myself.

“Of what?”

“What if it doesn't work out?”

“After my aching heart mends I'll write the book
Eating My Heart Out: My short, tragic love affair with Maggie O'Leary,
quit my job and live on the royalties.”

“See what happens when I let my guard down with you?”

“Let's get out of here,” Tex says, dropping some bills on the table. We walk away from two plates of barely touched food. In the cab I lean against him.

“What did we learn from all this?” he says, lifting my chin so our lips meet.

“That I had the wrong dreams.”

 

I slice an orange and press it down over the rotating blade of the juicer watching a cascade of pale yellow liquid, like watery gold. I use another half, and then another until a blue
pottery pitcher is filled. In a copper omelette pan I pull down from the overhead pot rack, I melt a pat of butter and then pour in a bowl of scrambled eggs. French bread is warming in the oven, and I open a jar of thick blueberry preserves and carry it to the table with two tall white mugs filled with French roast coffee.

He comes in behind me and kisses me on the nape of the neck. “A woman in the kitchen making me breakfast,” he whispers. “My day's starting out perfect.”

“Don't get too comfortable with that.”

“Why not?”

“I usually don't do breakfast.”

“Well, that's fine, because I usually don't have time to eat it.”

Then it occurs to me that I don't want our, now-eighteen hours together to end because we have to go to work. “Let's call in sick.”

Tex snickers. “I
am
sick—of that place.”

I go to the phone and lift it. “You have to leave the room while I'm calling.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm going to crack up laughing.”

“I'll sit here and be real serious.” He grabs the paper, and I start to dial. When Science's secretary answers, I look up at him and start to laugh. I slam down the phone.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” he says, pretending that he doesn't know.

“You were smiling! I'm trying to act sick, to make my voice sound heavy and you're sitting there smiling. You're going to get me fired.”

“You gotta rehearse,” Tex says. “Look in the mirror.” He messes up his hair, and slouches toward the hall mirror where he studies himself. Meanwhile, I sneak into the bathroom and
make the call. When I come out, he's still standing in front of the mirror.

“I don't feel well,” he says. Then in a deeper basso, “I don't feel well today, I'm going to be staying home.” He opens the front of his bathrobe revealing some chest hair and turns to the mirror at an angle. “I…I don't feel well today, I'm going to take the day. I'm kinda off today, I have this cough, I'm all congested, I'm going to take the day. I'm just outta sorts today, I'm going to take the day.” He says it over and over, in different voices. I start with the giggles and end up howling.

“Are you trying to sound like Mitchum, Clint East-wood—or the Count on Sesame Street?”

“C'mon, it's good.”

“So call Larry, tell him you're sick.”

He starts to dial then collapses laughing, and hangs up. “Wait, wait.”

“You can't, you cannot do it.”

“'Course I can.”

“You can't—so call him. Go ahead.”

He dials again. “Larry, hey, how's it going? Yeah, I know, listen something came up, you man the fort today, man, I'll be in tomorrow…yeah, thanks.” He exhales a huge boisterous bellow after slamming down the phone.

“You are such a fraud.”

“No, I said something came up.”

“Yeah, what?”

“God, you're so easy to set up,” Tex says, grabbing me.

 

We wake up again at noon.

“This is like being twenty-one again,” Tex says, rolling over. “I think that was the last time I slept this late.”

“You can't keep up with me.”

Almost unconsciously, I pull the sheet up over me.

“Ever dated a really skinny broad?”

“Oh sure, half the old Ford model agency have slept in this bed.”

He's staring at my body, smiling, as though I'm a Renaissance goddess painted by Titian. And for once I'm feeling womanly, curvaceous, overripe, instead of the
F
word.

“I never did like boyish, skinny women,” Tex said. “Bony jutting hipbones, small pert breasts. They look sickly to me, emaciated, underfed. No softness, no generous contours, no sexuality…”

He lies back on the pillow with the back of his hand resting on his forehead. He's staring at the ceiling.

“Tex?”

“What?”

Before I can think of what I'm saying, the words spill out. “Do you think you could love me?”

He puts his arm down and turns to me. “I never had a choice.”

 

While deadline is encroaching for everyone else, the two of us are strolling up and down the aisles of Fairway, a West Side food market, examining the lettuce and arugula and squeezing red, yellow and orange peppers to find the firmest ones. We buy the peppers and greens, along with a chicken and asparagus, black olives, elephant garlic and a crusty Italian bread (for him). We're making Mediterranean roast chicken with asparagus and roasted peppers over mixed greens tossed with black olive aioli.