These Girls (19 page)

“If you must,” the astrologer said tightly. “I still prefer a ‘big boner.’”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty fond of them myself,” Renee muttered. She finally ended the call and reached for the foil-covered plate on her desk. “I made these last night, and I
was
going to share with you people,” she said, uncovering the plate of dark-chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons.

“Sorry,” said David. “We made a huge boner by laughing at you.”

Renee rolled her eyes, then handed him the plate. He bit into one and groaned.

“No boners were committed during the making of these cookies,” someone else cracked.

“Scram,” Renee ordered. “All of you. I need to get to work.” The plate made the rounds and came back to Renee’s desk. She pushed it to the side and began to type the edits into the astrology column, then glanced at it again. There were five cookies left, little rounds of golden coconut wreathed in dark chocolate. She’d been so good lately—didn’t she deserve just one little treat?

Before she could think about it, she snatched up a cookie and devoured it, trying to finish chewing before the guilt set in. Immediately after swallowing, though, she began to beat herself up. She should’ve savored the treat, made it last. Wasn’t that what all the dietitians recommended? She’d barely tasted it, and now all she could think about was having another.

Although her daily pill was helping her control her eating, it obviously wasn’t doing enough. Last night, she’d wanted to unwind by baking, so while she was making the macaroons she’d cut up a bowl of carrots and celery to munch on. Her strategy had failed—she should’ve known better than to square off against the aroma of freshly toasted coconut—and she’d been unable to keep from eating two cookies right after they’d come out of the oven. But at least she hadn’t gobbled a half dozen, like she would have a few months ago. Her scale was being as uncooperative as ever, though; it seemed stuck on the same discouraging number.

Renee sighed and pushed the plate farther away, then reached for her mouse and navigated onto the magazine’s website. She clicked the link to the blogs for the beauty editor contestants. The page was divided into three columns, with photos of Renee, Jessica, and Diane at the top. Renee didn’t love her picture—the editor had sent around a photographer to snap all three girls sitting at their desks with barely any advance warning—but requesting a retake would make her look like a diva. The other girls hadn’t complained about their photos. Renee just wished she’d been wearing something more flattering that day. She hadn’t realized how her wrap shirt clung unforgivingly to her midsection. Combined with the fact that she was sitting down, it made her look heavier than she actually was, and Renee could clearly see the roll above her waistband.

The blog comments were streaming in, Renee saw. She had twenty-six new ones just in the past day! Renee felt a surge of satisfaction. Jessica and Diane had nabbed fewer than ten comments apiece. Renee opened the comment thread, ready to jump in and interact.

Love your blog!
A smile curved the corners of Renee’s lips as she read.
I’ve heard of the mayonnaise-for-shiny-hair tip before but thought it was an old wives’ tale—does it really work?

Renee scrolled down to the next one:
Maybe you should lose weight before you try to give beauty tips. Who are you to be giving advice?

Renee felt like a hand had reached out of the computer and cracked across her face.

She read it twice, a third time. She could barely breathe, but she was helpless to do anything but continue reading.

The next comment was in defense of Renee:
What does her weight have to do with anything? Prejudiced people like you are the ugliest people in the world.

Then another slap:
She’s got a fat ass. You probably do, too.

Oh, God. The comments section had turned into a free-for-all, with a few people vigorously defending Renee and one other—along with the original poster—slinging vile, ugly comments that stung like acid.

Everyone at the magazine would see this. Jessica and Diane. Nigel. Her friends. Would Trey see it? Would people pass around the link, sending the comments zipping through the air like blood-seeking mosquitoes? It had happened once before—an assistant at
Sweet!
had mistakenly forwarded a note from an editor who was planning to fire a writer, and by the end of the day, that e-mail had made it into the in-box of almost every employee in the building. The writer had ended up marching into the editor’s office and quitting on the spot.

Renee couldn’t delete the comments; she wasn’t an administrator of the blog. Bile rose in her throat as she read the ugly, painful words again and again, until they felt as if they were seared into her brain.

She grabbed her purse and started to run for the elevators, but the tears threatened to erupt before she could get there. She veered into the bathroom instead and locked herself in a stall. She put down the lid of the toilet and sat on it, wrapping her arms around herself and sobbing as she rocked back and
forth. She felt as raw and exposed as if she were walking naked through Central Park on a sunny day. People she didn’t know were staring at the fat around her waist, mocking her thighs, gossiping about her pudgy upper arms. They didn’t care that Renee put a dollar in the cup of a toothless homeless woman every morning on the way into work. It didn’t matter that she offered her seat to pregnant women on the subway, that just last week she’d ducked out of a bar to take
Gloss
’s receptionist home after the girl got too drunk at an office happy hour and wound up sick. Nothing she did mattered, because whenever anyone looked at her, all they saw was her fat. She was ugly. Unworthy.

She’s got a fat ass. Fat. Fat.

She stayed in the bathroom for an hour, choking back sobs whenever the door swung open. Her head pounded, and her throat felt dry and sore. She wondered if she should sneak home and pretend she’d gotten sick. No—people might question her absence. Leaving could call even more attention to her. She’d have to go back to work and sit there like a robot and pray six o’clock would come soon. She thought about the writer who’d quit while the entire office speculated about her fate. How had she managed to hold on to her dignity through it all?

Renee finally stood up, unlocked the door, and washed her face at the sink. She held paper towels soaked in cold water against her eyes for several minutes before she began to apply makeup, smoothing on a thick layer of foundation and two coats of mascara, as if it was camouflage she could hide behind. She untied the scarf around her neck and tried to arrange it so it hid as much of her body as possible.

Then, with a still-shaking hand, she reached into her cosmetics bag for Naomi’s bottle of pills. She turned the tap on again, cupped her hand, and washed down a pill with the metallic-tasting water. She hesitated, then swallowed three more.

Renee made herself sit at her desk until the stroke of 6:00
P.M.
Then she sprang out of her chair and walked thirty-six blocks home. It wasn’t because she wanted to burn calories, although that was a nice side benefit. She needed to tamp down the energy pulsing through her body. After eight blocks, her feet ached. After fifteen, a blister formed and then broke, bleeding on the lining of her shoe, but she still didn’t break stride. When she got home, she kicked off her heels and, still in her work clothes, attacked the apartment, clearing out the refrigerator and freezer, scrubbing the shower and toilet, and taking everything out of the cabinets and wiping them all down. All the wretched jobs that she usually dreaded, she tackled with zeal.

She created a chart that she posted on the back of her bedroom door with her exercise goals. No more wimpy two-mile walks for her. She’d double the length, she vowed as she refolded the sweaters in her closet into perfect squares.

She couldn’t sit still. She drank only ice water for dinner, wishing it could douse the hot shame and anger bubbling inside her. Those cowardly, heartless bastards who’d left messages on her blog were losers who vented their frustration with their own sad lives by trolling the Internet for people to abuse. Did they even have friends? No; they probably never showered, thought acid-washed Jordache jeans were the height of style, and counted reaching a high score on a video game as an overwhelming triumph in their lives.

Anger began to crowd out her shame, and she fed it because it felt better. She could still feel each comment searing into her mind, and she knew she’d never forget the precise words.

She’d show those assholes. She’d lose the weight. She felt invincible—for the first time, she knew she could do it. All she’d had since breakfast was that cookie and a cup of tomato soup, and she wasn’t even hungry! The thought made her pause. So the pills
were
working, after all. She just hadn’t been taking enough of them.

As Renee stripped her bed to remake it with crisp hospital corners, she realized something: Normally, the humiliation would’ve sent her straight for some cake or bread—anything soft and yeasty that she could cram in her mouth. Her pain would be temporarily numbed, but then she’d hate herself even more. These pills were letting her break that self-defeating cycle. She couldn’t believe no one had ever mentioned them to her. Maybe other women didn’t want the secret to get out. She felt pure, and strong, and burning with purpose.

By eleven, she’d soaked and cleaned her makeup brushes and organized her books into tidy, alphabetized rows. She halted her frenzy only when she heard the front door opening a little while later.

“You’re still up?” Cate said, her keys clanking on the counter. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed onto the love seat.

“Yeah,” Renee said. She noticed Cate was wearing a black-and-white striped skirt. With
horizontal
stripes. Only the slimmest women could get away with that; they probably didn’t even bother to make the skirt in Renee’s size. “Where were you?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Okay.”

Cate glanced over at Renee. “That’s supposed to make you really want to know.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking about something else. So?”

“I had a blind date with Robyn’s nephew.”

“That might be the scariest single sentence I’ve ever heard,” Renee said.

“He’s a very allergic human being,” Cate reported. “He spent a lot of time talking to the waiter about the ingredients in various dishes. Which was fun, because we went to a Japanese restaurant and the waiter didn’t speak English that well.”

“Sexy,” Renee said. Her fingers drummed against her thighs. Her body finally felt tired, but her mind raced. She was anxious
for Cate to stop talking, to leave, so she could dive into doing more cleanup in the kitchen.

“The weird thing is, I don’t even remember agreeing to be set up. This guy named Eli just called me and said Robyn had given him my number, and the next thing I knew, I was meeting him at Ippudo.”

“I would’ve done the same thing,” Renee admitted. “Robyn kind of scares me.”

“Hey, you don’t have any of those cookies left that you made last night, do you? I need a treat after what I just went through,” Cate said. She stretched her long legs out in front of her.

“Nope,” Renee said, the word coming out more clipped than she’d intended. How casually Cate could toss off those words. Renee never felt like she deserved dessert.

“Okay.” Cate yawned. “I better get to bed or I’m going to fall asleep right here.”

So go already!
Renee thought, her fingers drumming faster.

After Cate’s door finally closed, Renee stayed up for another hour, cleaning the crumbs from inside the toaster and wiping down the kitchen walls with a sponge. What would happen when she needed to get up for work in a few hours? she wondered. She couldn’t stay up all night; she’d crash tomorrow, and she needed to be alert. She had a new blog post to write, along with her usual workload, and she had to be emotionally strong in case Nigel brought up the anonymous comments.

Finally she found an old bottle of sleeping pills in her makeup case, and she broke one in half, letting it dissolve on her tongue so it would work faster and grimacing at the bitter taste.

Tomorrow she’d take the diet pills earlier—first thing in the morning, she decided as she climbed into bed and pulled up the covers. Maybe she’d start with two pills. It would probably take a few days until she teased out the perfect dosage. As she
lay with her heart racing, she tried to quiet her mind, but she couldn’t prevent hot tears from streaming out of her eyes and down the sides of her face as a single word stuttered through her mind like an old-fashioned record player with a stuck needle:
Fat. Fat. Fat.

Cate’s eyes widened as she stared at her computer screen.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

She jumped up and hurried over to Renee’s cubicle, but the chair was empty. It was just a few minutes past nine, so Renee probably wouldn’t come in for another half an hour or so. As Cate stood there, unsure of what to do, a piece of paper in the center of the desk caught her eye. The handwriting on it was Renee’s.
Hard-boiled egg, 78 . . . medium apple, 85 . . . tuna salad with light mayo, 250 . . .

Something felt like it was twisting in Cate’s gut. Renee was tracking her calories, obviously trying her hardest to lose weight, and now some anonymous jerk was attacking her. She must be devastated. The comments had been up since yesterday afternoon, but maybe Renee hadn’t seen them. She’d certainly acted normal last night. But she’d probably check her blog first thing today.

Cate took the elevator to the lobby, walked to the corner Starbucks, and bought two vanilla lattes. There was a long line, and by the time she returned to the office, Renee was at her desk, typing away as if nothing was wrong. Her face was pale, but her eyes were bright.

“Hi,” Cate said softly, handing her a drink. “I brought this for you.”

“Thanks,” Renee said, taking a tiny sip.

“I thought, if you wanted to go for a walk . . . maybe talk a
little bit,” Cate said. She glanced around to make sure no one was listening, but the office was still relatively empty. “I read what that asshole wrote on your blog . . .”