The Cinderella Pact (22 page)

Then she wipes off her hands, opens her purse, and pulls out a folded piece of paper, laying it on the counter and patting out the wrinkles. Seeing it, I know why my mother sought the help of a priest. Heck, seeing it I think I'll go light a few candles myself.

The paper is a torn-out advertisement from
Bride
magazine or its ilk, and it features a tall blond model in a deep Christmas-green satin gown that grips her perfectly slim form tighter than a kid's fist on Pixie Stix. As though that weren't bad enough, the dress is sleeveless—another designer conspiracy bent on humiliating women everywhere—and in a mermaid cut. Perhaps the most unflattering cut ever known to ass.

Even if by miracle of miracles I get down to a weight that would please my insurance adjuster, I would still look strangely distorted in a sheath like this, like a fat, green Morticia Addams. And one wonders if this was superskinny Eileen's plan all along.

“Eileen's bridesmaid dress,” I say, picturing my upper arms wobbling for all to see.

“It's obscene. The Church won't allow bare shoulders. You'll have to wear shawls.”

I say a silent prayer of gratitude to the Catholic church for sparing plus-size girls everywhere.

Mom bites her lip. “I can't talk her out of it. Eileen has her heart set on this design. Five hundred dollars each—too expensive for your cousins and I'm sure for you, too. Like I told her, you're only a low-level editor. You can't afford a five-hundred-dollar dress.”

“Not
that
low-level, Mom.” I fight the temptation to brag that, actually, I have $100,000 and change set away thanks to Belinda. That I
might
have a half-a-million-dollar movie deal in the works.

Mom is in her own world. “The wedding dress is just as indecent—so low cut. Seed pearls. Embroidery. All silk. Something a Donald Trump wife would wear. I'm not kidding. It costs six thousand dollars.”

“Then Eileen should stop expecting her parents to be millionaires and pick a different dress,” Dad suddenly declares. “I sure as hell'd like to own a six-thousand-dollar car, let alone a dress you wear for one day. She's spoiled is what she is, Betty, and it's your fault.” He stomps off to their postage-stamp backyard, gets on his knees, and starts yanking carrots from the garden. Mom and I stand at the back door watching him.

“Things a bit tense around the homestead, huh?”

“Eileen's demanding too much. We always planned on paying for her wedding—yours, too, Nola—but not a wedding like this. Horse-drawn carriages. Caviar and real champagne during hors d'oeuvres. Yesterday she asked if I could get the mayor to use his connections at the Princeton Country Club to let her hold the reception there. I can't even conceive of what
that
bill would be like.”

Unreal. My family is not caviar-and-country-club material. The Manville Knights of Columbus is about as clubby as we get.

“It's as though she's suddenly out to impress, and I know who.”

Here it comes. I've been waiting for this, the moment when Mom turns her wrath on Belinda.

“Between her giving Eileen the green light to marry Jim ahead of you and now her flying in from England to be maid of honor, you'd think Belinda Apple was the focus of attention and not the couple getting married. Like Father Mike said, only a woman of self-centered and egotistical makeup would behave this way. I wouldn't mind, frankly, if she disappeared off the face of the Earth. So help me God.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I have to do something, but what? I can't let my parents drain their retirement savings to pay for Eileen's wedding. They're already hard up, ironing used Christmas wrapping paper, rinsing out Glad bags and saving them for leftovers. The next thing I know, Mom's going to be making baskets out of laundry lint.

The only choice is for Belinda to call and cancel.

On the other hand, Eileen will not put up with a “Manville Deluxe” wedding. If she is relegated to a standard Saturday afternoon deal at Sacred Heart followed by a cocktail reception at The K of C and a honeymoon in the Poconos, we'll all pay in years of spiteful Thanksgivings and sniping Christmases. We'll never have a family gathering in peace again.

I know what my sister craves: a candlelit winter evening service, an ermine stole, and a horse-drawn carriage whisking her through a sparkling snowfall to a grand and glorious hall decorated with wreaths and mistletoe, where fires burn in huge fireplaces and everyone is in satin gowns of green and red.

This is why Eileen is so mad for Belinda, because Belinda offers the magical touch of celebrity. This is also why I'm loath to tell her that Belinda can't come and why I am parked outside Nancy's house on a lovely September evening, unable to punch in Eileen's phone number on Belinda's cell.

Nancy has invited Deb and me to her spectacular house for an end-of-summer party to mark how far we've come since we formed the Cinderella Pact in June. Nearly three months into it, and I've lost a total of twenty pounds. I've also toned my arms and even my abs substantially thanks to an excruciating Carmen Diva Tae-Bo DVD, though if I am ever fortunate enough to meet Ms. Diva on the street, I feel it is only fair to hurt her as she has hurt me. The way I see it, she owes me a new set of deltoids.

“What're you doing sitting in the car, Grandma?” A blond woman I've never met before in a black swimsuit and white cover-up is on Nancy's stone doorstep, waving me in. It's not until I squint harder that I realize this is no strange woman—this is Deb.

“Oh . . . my . . . God.” It is all I can say, getting out of the car and taking in her thinner legs, thinner waist and, especially, thinner face. I haven't seen her in three weeks, and wow! It's as if the fat's been sucked out of her. Granted, she won't be taking home the swimsuit medal from the Miss America Pageant this year, but compared to how she used to look, the new Deb is a completely different person.

“I can't believe you,” I gush, noting her straightened hair and professionally tweezed brows. When was the last time Deb donned a swimsuit? Years. All those summers missed at the Shore, because she was disgusted with herself for having to swim in shorts and a T-shirt, claiming she didn't want to go into the water because of sharks. “You're almost . . . thin!”

Deb smooths down her cover-up. “Nancy said the same thing, but I don't see it. I look in the mirror and see the same old me.”

“That's a crock and you know it.” Then I hesitate before asking the next question. “What's Paul say?”

“I have no idea,” she says, shrugging. “He hasn't said one word, except for last week when he made some crack about me getting awfully flat chested.”

Somehow I maintain a smile so Deb won't know that what I'd really like to do at the moment is go over to her house and slap Paul to his senses.

“So maybe I should get a breast job. That might get his attention.”

“Well, I think you look amazing and so does everyone else.” I give her a tight, tight hug. “He probably is in awe and dumbstruck and doesn't know what to say.”

“It's the funniest thing,” she says, clinging to me. “We fell in love in high school when I was fat. We married when I was fat. We were happy when I was fat. I'm thinking maybe Paul likes me fat. It's a real bummer.”

Or, I am tempted to suggest, maybe you liked him when
you
were fat. And now? Now you're not so sure.

“He'll come around.” This has now become the Cinderella Pact mantra: Paul Will Come Around. We must say it to Deb at least once a day. “All right. Let's get this party started.”

Nancy lives in an absolutely spectacular gray clapboard colonial she and Ron bought three years ago in Hopewell Township. Four bedrooms. Rumpus room. Designer kitchen with a commercial-grade stove and granite countertops. Plenty of space for the children she never could pencil into her schedule. It's puzzling why she keeps this monstrosity, now that she and Ron are supposedly split and children are fast becoming out of the question.

Nancy is on a lounge chair by the pool, completely covered up and wearing a big straw hat. “Well, well, well,” she says, squinting in the sun. “You finally made it.”

“Show her, Nancy,” Deb exclaims, clapping. “Come on.”

“Show me what?” Maybe it's a brand-new engagement ring from Ron, or some other symbol of their reunion. That would be the best surprise of all.

Nancy waves Deb away. “I feel silly.”

“If you don't show her, I will.” Deb reaches down to snatch Nancy's robe, but Nancy's too fast for her. Hopping out of her lounge chair, she turns her back to us and then, almost seductively, drops her robe to her feet.

I can only stare at the shocking display. Two pieces. This is unheard of in our group. But my eyes are not deceiving me. Yup. It's no mirage. Two pieces. “You daredevil, you!” I holler. “You really went for the whole enchilada.”

“Now show the front,” Deb says.

Shyly, Nancy spins around. All I see is cleavage, long legs, and not too much cellulite. The suit must have cost a fortune—and worth every penny. There is plenty of elastic in the hips of her modest, high-cut bikini bottom to rein in the fat, and whoever designed the top should be given an architectural award for creative support. She is not Cindy Crawford, but she would not send sunbathers screaming for the surf either.

“You win,” I say.

Nancy winks. “We all win. And the best part is that the worst part is over. Now it gets fun.”

I'm not so sure about that. According to my dieting history, I'm due for another plateau right about now, which will mean I'll get frustrated and go back to my former careless eating ways. But seeing how the Cinderella Pact began with a lie—Belinda's lie—I once again heartily concur with false enthusiasm.

When I come back from changing in one of the house's five bathrooms, both women are sitting at the edge of the halcyon blue pool, dangling their feet in the water. The air is heady with the late-summer-afternoon perfume of freshly mowed grass, coconut oil, and chlorine. The season's last cicadas twang in the high green hedges that afford us privacy and shade.

Like Nancy's and Deb's, my swimsuit is built around the revered color black and reinforced with enough elastic to seriously interfere with proper lung function. However, unlike Nancy's, it's an old-lady suit with a little skirt to hide the tops of my thighs. In light of her stunning two-piece, I feel like a grandmother.

“You look good too, Nola,” Nancy says, shielding the hot sun with her hand. “How much have you lost?”

“I'm not getting on the scale. I figure when I get thinner, I'll be thinner.” I can't bear to tell them the truth. I'm clearly last in the running here, what with Deb's bypass surgery and the professional trainer attention lavished on Nancy.

“Not stepping on the scale,” Deb says. “I couldn't do that in a million years. I'm getting on the scale every hour.”

“Tony”—that's Nancy's personal trainer—“keeps telling me to pay no attention to the scale. And I hope he's right, because I've only lost seventeen pounds.”

A bubble of happiness rises within me. Three pounds. I've lost three more pounds than Nancy, and yet she's stunning.

“Why are you smiling?” Nancy says. “Oh, hold on. You
have
been stepping on the scale, haven't you? And you've lost more than I have.”

I blush. I can't stand it when Nancy catches me in a lie, which she almost always does.
Almost
always.

“Twenty,” I say. “I didn't want to tell you, because you look so good I assumed you were closer to forty.”

Nancy opens her eyes wide. “Forty. Those are Deb's kind of numbers. No. Not forty. Heck. I don't know how much I'll lose. As muscle replaces fat it gets denser, Tony says, which means the scale is no indicator of anything.”

“Yes,” I say, holding up a white wine spritzer. “Chuck the scale.”

“Chuck the scale,” Nancy toasts.

“I don't know,” Deb says, frowning. “I'm beginning to like the scale.”

We pelt her with ice cubes and push her into the pool to make her take back her scale-loving ways.

Nancy helps Deb out of the pool and hands her a towel. “Though there is one thing Tony said that made me think of you, Nola.”

“Oh?”

“I was telling him about how we got started on the Cinderella Pact. Do you remember? There was that scene at the Willoughby, and then I had that article from Belinda I'd been carrying around.”

A funny chill comes over me. Goosebumps rise on my arm.

“And Tony said that no way could you lose a ton of weight just by walking five miles a day and cutting two hundred fifty calories. He said your body would adjust to the exercise and you would have to decrease your calorie consumption accordingly and increase the exercise, just like Brian that waiter said.”

“Uh-huh.” I nod as if this makes sense. “Good for you, Deb.”

Deb has just wrapped the towel around her. No big deal to civilians. Big deal to fat girls. Even so, she is not diverted by my compliment. “Do you think Belinda made it up about losing weight?”

“If she did,” Nancy says, “then she should be fired.”

I swallow, hard.

“That's what made me think of you, Nola. You should ask her outright.”

“Absolutely. I completely agree. I'll call her Tuesday. You know what?” I am forced to resort to an old standby. “I'm starved.”

“Now that you mention it,” Nancy says, much to my relief, “me too.”

Food. The final distraction.

The party fare is not our usual. Gone are the margaritas and nachos with sour cream, the chocolate-tipped strawberries and cookies. Nancy has carefully selected stuff Deb can eat in moderation. A lowfat yogurt dip. Grapes. Raw vegetables for us. Crystal Light for Deb, who says she chews every bite thirty times. I'm not sure how you chew a grape thirty times. I find myself watching her and counting.