150 Pounds Part 5

"Was there s.e.x? Greg, you wh.o.r.e!"

Silence on the other end.

Shoshana groaned. "Fine. Be that way. I'm listening."

"Anyway, we're doing whatever, and lo and behold, in her closet are a whole row of her little expensive jeans, all carefully hung on hangers with little clips."

"What size were they?" She always liked to know what size clothing people wore.

"I don't know, maybe six? Eight? Anyway, don't you find it pretentious?"

"What, that she wears a size eight? Certainly not. She's my new hero, what with the licking of the knife and ordering dessert and all that. I can't wait to meet her."

"No!" he said, laughing. "I mean that she hangs up her jeans. I mean, who does that? I feel like it's a talisman of bad things to come."

"Okay, Greg, seriously, you're not Harry Potter. Don't say 'talisman.' It will turn girls off."

"Whatever. All I'm saying is that I feel like most nice, normal American girls fold their jeans and put them in a dresser. Anyone who hangs up their jeans probably votes for Nader and litters."

Shoshana stuck her tongue out at the phone.

"See? This is exactly why we broke up. You are so crazy! You go out with this girl once, and you're coming up with all these wild a.s.sumptions about her. Go out with her again. Let her pick the restaurant. Stop nitpicking every girl you go out with. You're such a mathlete." Greg had been on the math team in high school, and she'd never let him live it down.

"You know you loved my mathematic self," Greg teased. "That's how I got you to sleep with me in the first place."

"More like I was fifteen and desperate to lose my virginity. Besides, you served up that 'mystery punch' at your parents' house," Shoshana said, examining her toes. "I would have slept with anyone after drinking that. I sincerely hope you've come up with better tactics to get laid since then." She needed a pedicure badly. One big toe's pink polish was chipped.

Greg chortled. "That's right! I forgot about that. I think it was rum, cranberry juice, and a ground-up lemon peel. I'd just seen c.o.c.ktail and wanted to be Tom Cruise."

After a few more parting insults, Shoshana hung up with Greg, only after wrestling out a promise he would go on a second date and bring her home a slice of cake from their dessert. With her love life in the c.r.a.pper, she had to rely on friends' dates to bring her home goodies. She made a mental note to work harder on finding a boyfriend.

Shoshana stepped into the shower, letting the steam run over her face to open her pores before exfoliating. She felt weightless under the water. She thought about her friends.h.i.+p with Greg as she rooted through the various bottles of shampoos belonging to her roommates and found her brand, which claimed to use water from a spring in Alaska but was probably actually from the Gowa.n.u.s Ca.n.a.l.

She thought again about her lack of a love life and realized she hadn't had s.e.x in over six months, which was depressing. She wanted a boyfriend, but not badly enough to sleep with random people. She had a JDate account Andrea had signed her up for without asking. And put up a picture of Denise Richards. From a still in Wild Things. Topless. Needless to say, Shoshana had gotten a lot of e-mails to go through and delete.

The truth was, she was having so much fun with her friends that, although she wanted love and romance, it didn't feel all that important. She was twenty-six years old, saw her mother and sister daily, lived with four crazy women, and had a wide network of not just friends, but best friends.

Shoshana knew eventually she'd meet someone great, but she wasn't going out every night to the bars to find Mr. Big. She often wondered if there was something wrong with her; it seemed every other woman she knew had been suckered into the s.e.x and the City mentality: that their lives revolved around meeting a man, settling down in a fabulous apartment, and having adorable babies. She was happy with her life, something she knew people like Alexis Allbright had a hard time wrapping their malnourished brains around. She'd always had this mystical, tingling sensation that she was somehow ... destined to do something interesting and different. That she had a life purpose. It was this glittery future that would swim into her thoughts, when she least expected it. A gut feeling told her this destiny did not have to include a man.

Lately all her dates had been failures, but she wasn't giving up hope just yet. Aggie had taken an attractive picture of her last week to replace the Denise Richards one. She stood on a chair, claiming Shoshana's face looked less wide when shot from up above. Shoshana had worn her favorite three-quarter-length pink plaid dress, outlandishly large diamond hoop earrings down to her shoulders, a matching pink and white plaid scarf in her auburn hair, and red lip gloss. Everyone agreed she'd taken a great photo.

If nothing else, JDate provided good material for Fat and Fabulous.

The first guy had been pretty bland, like eating a rice cracker. Date number two had told her that her feet looked beautiful in her open-toe gold sandals and she'd gone home happy, thinking she'd call the guy again, until Greg said he probably had a foot fetish.

The third, last week, was with a man named Asher, a graduate student at Rutgers, who was in the middle of getting his Ph.D. in American Studies.

The first thing she noticed about him when she met him at a small Italian restaurant in the West Village was that his right eye blinked continuously, open and shut, like a traffic light. She later remembered lights that blink meant "caution," which she should have paid attention to. He had a flat haircut, like an early Paul McCartney but not nearly as handsome, and when he stood up to shake her hand he was very, very short. Shorter than Greg.

She'd tried to make the most of it. You never knew when Prince Charming might come galloping into your life, perhaps even disguised in wrinkled chinos with too many pockets that looked like they'd been purchased around when the first episode of Melrose Place aired.

"You look just like your picture," she'd told him, to break the ice. She'd read somewhere it was a common compliment for online daters.

"And you look ... similar," he said, taking in her 215 pounds. And she'd put her long hair into a bun and everything for this troll of a man. Hmph.

"So, tell me about your Ph.D. program," she said, after ordering blueberry pancakes and a mimosa. The booth squeaked when he moved and Shoshana had to stifle a laugh. It sounded kind of like a fart.

He glanced furtively around the restaurant. "Do you think anyone's listening?" he asked.

Shoshana bit her lip. "What?" Did he mean listening to the fart?

"What about those two men over there? Probably FBI, right?"

She turned to look at two overweight truckers in flannel s.h.i.+rts, their pockets protruding with Marlboro reds.

"Definitely not listening." She started texting "SOS" to Andrea underneath the table. Maybe she'd get lucky and her roommate would take the PATH into the city and pick her up with an excuse; Andrea was well practiced at coming up with date-escape strategies.

He grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her close to his face. He messed up her bun. His breath smelled like racc.o.o.n p.o.o.p.

"I'm writing the history of the New Jersey Devil." He leaned back in the booth, looking extremely satisfied with himself.

"Okay, next time, no talky, no closey," Shoshana said, as two steaming plates of food were placed before them. She patted her hair back into place.

"Sorry. I just have to keep things hidden from the government. They want to sabotage my dissertation."

Shoshana burst out laughing. "I think the government has more important things to do than worry about the Jersey Devil. Besides, it's just an urban legend. You know it's not real, right?" She took a bite of her meal and closed her eyes in ecstasy. Delicious! He started to speak and she cracked one eye open, wis.h.i.+ng he would stop.

He glared at her. "You know, you sound just like my mother. The Devil is real. I've been following his tracks in the Meadowlands for the last six years."

She stared at him. "Well, everyone needs a hobby," she said at last.

He leaned back in the booth, looking her over head to toe. It appeared he was switching gears.

"Just so you know, I'm totally into you. My mother was a large woman, and I've been attracted to fat girls ever since. You have a lovely pear shape."

Okay, that was the final straw. Shoshana put down her fork. Gave her food a longing look. It really was a shame to waste it. She gathered up her purse, came around to Asher's side of the table, and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

"Have you ever actually looked at a pear?" she said. "It starts thin, then it gets fat, and it never gets thin again. It's not a cute fruit."

And with that she threw her auburn hair over her shoulder and walked to the train.

As she stepped out of the shower, she realized she'd forgotten to tell Greg about the date from h.e.l.l, so she called him back while she towel-dried her hair, which fell in damp waves down her back. She called Greg approximately seventeen times a day.

"Forgot to tell you something," she said when he answered.

"I was just about to go into the office, you caught me. I realized I forgot to ask you how JDate was going." Greg was reading her mind as usual.

"You work too hard. Well, since you asked ... after the Jersey Devil, the boring guy who doesn't drink because he doesn't like feeling out of control and still lives with his mom, and foot-fetish man, I did get a very nice note just last week from a nose, ear, and throat doctor who lives on the Upper East Side."

"So? What's the problem?"

"Um ... okay, promise you won't laugh?"

"I promise."

"His last name is Lowc.o.c.k. First name John, last name Lowc.o.c.k."

"Like Lokok? Sounds Asian."

"No, spelled like it sounds. Low and then ... you know."

"Oh, that's fabulous. You have to go out with this guy. In fact, maybe I could come along just to shake his hand."

"Greg! You're not helping," Shoshana said, giggling. She walked back to her room, where Andrea was perched on her bed reading a trashy celebrity magazine.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Tell Andrea hi," Greg said through the phone. Shoshana did the explaining and the greeting. Greg was over often and friendly with all her roommates except Aggie, who'd once stolen his golf-ball money clip and cemented it into a sculpture of an erect p.e.n.i.s. It had been the tip and he'd never forgiven her.

"Greg says hi."

"h.e.l.lo, Gregory."

"But what if we meet, fall in love, get married, and then my name becomes Shoshana Lowc.o.c.k?" Shoshana wailed.

"Junior high must have been h.e.l.l for this guy," Andrea said, shaking her head.

"If that were my name I'd totally own it," Greg said, his voice full of mirth. "h.e.l.l, yes. My name is Lowc.o.c.k. Then I'd scratch the bottom of my pants leg meaningfully."

"Greg!" Andrea and Shoshana both squealed. Andrea was leaning on Shoshana's shoulder, listening in.

"Okay, Greg, you perv, I have to go. Andrea's making me call in sick for her."

"Again?"

"Yup. Okay, see you later."

Shoshana knew Andrea's boss's phone number by heart and called, gave the excuse quickly (she was a terrible liar, so she spoke fast), and hung up.

"I'm going back to bed," Andrea said. "Come get me if Steven Spielberg calls and wants me to audition for his latest movie."

First things first. Shoshana decided to forfeit getting a pedicure in town in favor of doing it herself; that way she could take care of business without leaving the comfort of her bed. She did everything from her bed. Once, when she'd broken her big toe playing soccer in a town league she belonged to, she'd hosted an entire dinner party from the confines of her bed. Friends had sat cross-legged around her, drinking wine and chattering. Spilling potato chips on her sheets.

She painted her toenails, scrunching up the little rubber clingers that held her small, rosy toes apart. She had tiny delicate pink nails, which she carefully painted blue, her foot propped up on a white pillow on her bed st.i.tched with lettering: BETWEEN TWO EVILS I ALWAYS PICK THE ONE I HAVEN'T TRIED YET. It had been a present from her mom, for her twenty-fifth birthday, who knew Shoshana adored Mae West quotes. And pillows, of course.

Shoshana regularly wrote Fat and Fabulous from home. She'd been a homebody all her life. She felt grateful to have been sprung free by the recession from her horrid office clerical job at an allergist's office in Jersey City. (Who wanted to listen to people sneeze all day?) On days she didn't sleep in, she'd wake around nine-thirty, stretch, throw off her large candy-cane pink-and-white-striped duvet, and glide her tiny feet into white fur slippers with small heels on the bottoms that always made her feel like a movie star. After breakfast she wrote a first draft of her daily column, checked in with various writers, read the message boards, and scanned the headlines for any news about weight issues.

In the early afternoon she often went for a power walk with her wealthy friend Nancy, who lived uptown in the Hudson Tea Building, near Greg's building. Nancy had Kanye West and Eli Manning for neighbors. She owned a vintage clothing boutique in town and dated a local cop, Anthony Morelli, off and on, and Shoshana was now well versed in the fiery pa.s.sions of the Italian man.

Both women were fat and fabulous; thus they shared a mutual hatred for jogging. Jogging is not a friend of the Fat. All that pain surely cannot be worth the cardio benefit. The last time Shoshana had tried to jog, her b.o.o.bs had fallen out of her bra three times in broad daylight. So they power-walked. Or at least they walked kind of fast. When they weren't gossiping.

Shoshana's favorite part of the walk was the end, when they stopped off for a gla.s.s of wine, and Nancy, knowing everyone in town, would fill Shoshana in on the latest dirt.

After her walk and after attaining a suitable wine buzz, she'd go home, shower, pick out a dress from her closet, and see who felt like getting takeout dinner. (She adored dresses, never wore pants unless they were stretch leggings, and abhorred shorts.) She'd often thought of posting on her hatred of shorts and pants, but knew what the result would be: hundreds of hate e-mails from her readers: Dear Shoshana:.

The whole point of Fabulously Fat is to empower round women. How dare you write about how fat girls shouldn't wear shorts. All you are doing is perpetuating anxieties that we already feel about our bodies, instead of doing your job, which is to make us feel comfortable in our skin.

She had to be extremely careful when using a self-deprecating tone. As the Face of Fat, she had to be persistently positive, which could get tiring. When she slipped, the e-mails piled up in her in-box fast and furious. One reader, a fellow blogger named Ashley from Idaho, claimed Shoshana had no right calling herself fat at 215 pounds. As Ashley weighed somewhere around 300, she felt anyone with smaller numbers on the scale was merely "chubby" and didn't have enough credibility to be in the Fat-O-Sphere.

Shoshana had written Ashley back:.

Dear Ashley.

I'm delighted you read Fat and Fabulous. I can a.s.sure you I am fat. Statistically, I am obese. When I walk onto a bus, or sit down on the subway, people glare at me, like I'm supposed to apologize just for living and breathing the same air as them. Like I should say, Sorry I exist, people. So I hope you'll trust me to continue to be the voice of the Fattie, and hopefully you will keep enjoying the blog.

She felt sometimes as if she were a campaigning politician, futilely attempting to please everyone. But her readers meant the world to her, so she tried to stay above conflict as much as possible.

Another snafu occurred when she wrote a seemingly bland post about her favorite snack, hummus and wheat crackers. Shoshana received hundreds of e-mails stating it sounded suspiciously like she was advertising a diet.

The irony was Fat and Fabulous was just the opposite. There were rules: Her readers were not allowed to post anything regarding diets in any form. Not even if they'd found one that helped them lose weight. This had been a controversial decision, but she, along with other colleagues who ran blogs for big girls, such as The Rotund and Manolo for the Big Girl, refused to allow any talk of diets on their message boards and did not post diet stories. The motivation behind her starting Fat and Fabulous was to empower women, not suggest ways for them to starve.

She also did not allow diet advertis.e.m.e.nts on her blog-tricky, given how much money they offered to sh.e.l.l out. Shoshana refused; what with five million insecure readers looking for answers and salvation, they were sitting ducks for the diet industry. But Shoshana wasn't going to help them; any diet her mom and sister tried over the years had left them feeling ill, or they'd gained all the weight back (sometimes double the pounds!). The industry was a sham, and it made Shoshana angry that it was so profitable. There were big bucks in making women feel like s.h.i.+t.

Finding herself alone again in her room, Shoshana realized she was still hungry and padded downstairs for a snack. Their small kitchen was cheerily painted a bright robin's-egg-blue, and strung from the ceiling were colored holiday lights that Karen had duct-taped to hang in waves, which gave a warm glow to the cheap white cabinets. Aggie was cooking on the stove, using a big wooden spoon to stir a suspicious-looking substance bubbling in a black pot that looked like a cauldron.

"Whatcha got cookin'?" Shoshana asked her nervously. "And what did you do with all the toilet paper in the house?" Aggie liked to "experiment" with various foods. She'd often mix together two recipes into one, swapping ingredients. She had a small vegetable garden growing on the fire escape that she slaved over and would integrate the spare rusty-brown carrot or ill-looking parsley bunch into her meals.

Aggie turned to Shoshana. She had bright red hair, dreadlocked and tied up on top of her head in a messy knot, and white skin with old pockmark scarring from adolescent acne. She was tiny and elfish, five-foot-nothin', huge blue eyes, and a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She worked as a barista downstairs at Empire Coffee to supplement her nonexistent income of being a sculptor.

"I'm sorry about the toilet paper, Shos.h.!.+ I totally used it in this work yesterday and then forgot to buy more. I'm going to the A&P for pickles in a little while, so I'll pick some up."

Shoshana wisely decided not to ask what the pickles were for. They were either part of a cooking experiment, or to be stuck into a sculpture. Either way, she wanted no part of it.

"I'm cooking herbs for life longevity. Want some?"

"Er, no, thanks. I'll risk the shorter life."

"Up to you," she said cheerfully, shaking her dreadlocks. "By the way, you were great on Oprah! They showed a rerun of the episode with you from two months ago."

"Thanks! Did you watch the whole thing?" Shoshana, surprised, sat down at one of their wooden chairs Aggie had salvaged from the street on garbage night. Aggie wasn't exactly technologically advanced, and had held a protest in their living room against buying a flat-screen TV last month, calling it "consumer garbage." Eventually she'd settled down, put away her sign, and sat on the couch watching Glee with the rest of her roommates. They were used to Aggie, and loved her dearly, but there was no denying the girl was odd. The only child of two hippie parents, she'd lived on a commune in Ohio until breaking free and running away at eighteen. The director had believed eternal salvation meant wearing tinfoil hats when out in the sun and that eventually they would all get onto a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and live on another planet if they prayed hard enough for it. Aggie still couldn't walk by a box of foil in the grocery store without shuddering. Shoshana was still a little hazy on the details when it came to Aggie's time on the commune.

"I watched it through the window of someone's apartment on Grand Street this morning," Aggie said guiltily, sticking into her mouth one of her dreadlocks, which had curled down from the bun, and sucking on it. She'd attached little silver bells, and they jingled when she turned her head.

"Wait a minute-you stood outside someone's apartment? How did you not freeze? It's the middle of the winter."

"I dunno. I was looking around on the ground for pinecones for one of my sculptures and when I looked up, I saw the most beautiful sight; it was you, and you were on the television! This family had the show on, and the mom was feeding her baby at the kitchen table, not even watching Oprah, even though she had it on, which don't you kind of hate it when people turn on the TV but don't watch it, just, like, for background noise? It's such a waste of electricity."

"Um ... Aggie? Can you kind of get to the point? Because I have work to do."