The Cinderella Pact Read online

  Also, Deb’s having a crisis of her own. She is refusing to go to her son’s sixth-grade graduation tomorrow supposedly because she doesn’t want to publicly embarrass him with her fatness. Therefore, this is not so much a meal as a therapy session. And Rule #1 is that a friend’s mental health takes precedence over a regular paycheck, especially if her mental health requires the consumption of crab salad on a fresh, flaky, buttery croissant at the Willoughby Café.

  But something’s off at the Willoughby. Nancy and Deb are not sitting at our usual table by the plate glass window overlooking the street. They appear to have been relegated to the back near the swinging kitchen door, and they look none too happy.

  “New management,” Nancy says as I squeeze into a tight booth. “They claim they didn’t know we wanted the table by the window. If you ask me, it’s discrimination.”

  “Fat discrimination,” Deb whispers, taking a furtive sip of her ice water. “Nancy says they don’t want to turn off potential clientele by having us displayed at the window. She’s asked to speak with the manager.”

  I try to be balanced about this. You have to watch out for Nancy. Great kid. Big heart. Card-carrying member of the ASPCA and all that. But as a razor-sharp litigator, instinctively on the hunt for a possible federal lawsuit.

  “They probably didn’t know our routine. Just an innocent mistake.” I scan the menu for something new, now that there’s new management.

  “Is there a problem?” The manager is a bony man with a mustache and a name tag that reads CHESTER. He shifts his feet impatiently and eyes the table one over, as though dealing with us one more minute will be sheer torture.

  “I wonder if we could move to the table by the window. That’s our favorite spot,” Nancy says, pointing to “our” table, which sits empty and set, ready for patrons.

  “I’m sorry,” Chester says. “But that table is reserved.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you could reserve tables.”

  “Oh, yes,” says Chester. “You can now.”

  Nancy is undaunted. “Well, oddly enough, I’ve been here twenty minutes and no one’s sat there the entire time.”

  “I suppose they’re late. Or maybe they’ve had a change of plans.”

  “Then we’ll be happy to take it.”

  Chester frowns. “I’m afraid not. It’s still reserved, even if the reservers aren’t coming.”

  There’s no doubt about it, we’ve been dissed.

  Deb, who is a mass of blond curls and has the backbone of mashed potatoes, blushes as pink as the shirt under her flowered jumper. I just wish Nancy would drop it. I have to get back to that meeting and I don’t have time to debate the nuances of civil rights with a restaurant manager.

  But Nancy won’t drop it. Her eyes flash and her expertly polished red lips twitch like leaves before a storm. I brace myself against the table for the oncoming torrent. When you’ve known Nancy as long as I have, you know it’s risky to confront her without comprehensive insurance coverage.

  “You wouldn’t, by any chance, not be giving us that table because we’re . . . on the heavy side, would you?” She keeps her gaze on Chester, level and determined.

  I tense up, riveted by this interchange between my friend, who, though, yes, on the heavy side, is rather glorious in a subdued fawn silk duster adorned with Russian amber, and Chester, who is definitely a reincarnated squirrel. What I can’t get over is how Nancy has the guts to call herself “on the heavy side” in public. I mean, I don’t even use those kinds of words with my own doctor.

  “I have no idea what you mean,” he says, lifting his pencil. “Shall I take your order?”

  “Yes,” Nancy says, “we’d like the window table.”

  Chester blanches and then recovers. “If you’re unhappy with our service, ma’am, there are other restaurants in the neighborhood. This isn’t the only place to eat. Hoagie Haven is right up the block.”

  “Yesss,” Deb murmurs under her breath. “Let’s get out of here. Please.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nancy counters. “That’s exactly what he wants. Chester is trying to appeal to the upscale lunch crowd and he fears three fat broads in the window is bad for business.”

  Interestingly, Chester doesn’t dispute this.

  Nancy flips open the menu. “We will have one side salad and three waters. Oh, and three forks. We’ll split it.” It is the cheapest order possible.

  Chester snatches our menus and storms off. The rubber-necking patrons in the restaurant sheepishly turn away from us, the car wreck of feminine destruction in their midst.

  I don’t dislike many people, but I think I dislike Chester. And so, being the mature, stable woman I am, I immediately imagine a way to get revenge.

  “I wish I had a magic wand that could make us instantly thin,” I say. “And then we could walk in the door and he would rush to seat us at the table by the window and we could bust him and his fat-phobic ways on the spot.”

  “Like Cinderella,” Deb says, “only instead of new clothes we get new bodies.”

  “Maybe it’s time,” Nancy says.

  “Sorry, Nancy,” I say. “My magic wand’s at the shop under repair.”

  “I’m not talking about magic. I’m talking about finally taking off the weight once and for all.”

  Deb groans. “Not this again. I hate when you get on your we-need-to-lose-weight soapbox.”

  Me too. “Besides,” I say, “we are who we are. Isn’t that our mantra?”

  Nancy begins rummaging around in her purse. “Lookit. I’ve been carrying around this clip for a month, waiting for the perfect opportunity.” She spreads out a copy of Belinda Apple’s April column. I flinch upon spying the headline:

  IF I CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU!

  Dear Fabulous Belinda!

  I am so tired of being overweight. I have dieted and exercised all my life and now I’m in my midthirties and still 265 pounds. I fear I will only get fatter as I get older and my doctor has warned me that I risk heart disease and diabetes if I don’t take drastic action.

  The thing is, I’ve already been on every diet known to man and I understand that after years of yo-yo dieting it’s even harder to lose weight. Plus, I’m no spring chicken. I fear it’s too late for me.

  Should I resign myself to my fate and just give up? Or do I have an obligation to my husband and children to lose the weight I can’t seem to lose? Help!

  Signed, SEXY UNDERNEATH IT ALL

  I move on to the answer that I can recite by heart:

  Dear SEXY UNDERNEATH IT ALL,

  If you read my column regularly, then you know that my philosophy is that the women of our generation have to stop worrying and start living! We spend sixteen hours out of every day—and even more, if you count the sleepless hours in the middle of the night—fretting about other people: our kids, our bosses, our husbands. No wonder we’re suffering from record rates of depression, cancer, and heart disease. Not to mention obesity.

  With this in mind, I will let you in on my deepest secret. I used to be desperately overweight . My excess weight held me back in so many ways. It kept me from developing normal relationships with men, it nearly lost me a job and, worse, it completely curtailed my activity. I didn’t ski. I didn’t ride. I didn’t even shop. Eventually, I found myself becoming a hermit.

  The turning point was the day I was to interview a famous actor, of whose work I am a total fan. I can’t say who he was, except that I was unable to interview him at his Italian villa. Instead, I had to settle for a VIP lounge at Heathrow, in a cramped space with barely enough room for two folding chairs.

  If you’re as overweight as I was, you know what happened next. I was accompanied by said famous actor to the tiny room where I sat and promptly broke the chair, falling—smash!—to the floor. I was so embarrassed, I had to flee, unable to ask him even one question.

  That’s when I decided: enough! From that moment on I would consciously monitor my caloric intake, I would increase my activity and
I would STOP WORRYING how long it would take me to lose the weight. I would just do it. My way.

  It was a simple equation, really. Nothing more than high school thermodynamics. If it takes the burning of 3,500 calories to lose a pound in a week, then I should burn 250 calories through exercise and eat 250 calories less each day. I figured out how many calories I needed to eat to be a healthy weight and worked from there. (There are plenty of free calorie calculators on the Internet.)

  By walking a mere five miles a day (to work, shopping, etc.); later kickboxing, which I love; and simply changing what foods I ate (no white flour or sugar, minimal fat), I was down to ten stone (140 lbs.) after a year and I’ve continued to lose without ever feeling deprived. I’ve never felt better or been happier.

  So, my fellow fat friend, my opinion is that it’s not too late if you still have the will and determination to do it. It’s only too late when they put you in the coffin, which they might very well do soon if you don’t take a few simple, painless steps now.

  Best of luck,

  Belinda

  I stare at the article. Total fiction. One hundred percent whopping lies. A few simple, painless steps? Without ever feeling deprived? Puhleeze. What kind of ditz would buy that?

  “I totally buy that,” Deb says. “I’ve heard that walking five miles a day and cutting out a couple hundred calories can take off the weight.”

  I slap my forehead. OK. So Deb’s a pea brain, but not Nancy. Surely she’s too smart to agree.

  “I completely agree. Don’t you, Nola?” Nancy says, folding up the article.

  My jaw drops. “No. I don’t think you can lose a ton of weight by walking and cutting out two hundred and fifty calories a day. I think that’s more Belinda spin.”

  “Then why did you print it if it’s spin?” Nancy asks.

  Have to admit, she has me there. “Because it was saleable spin?”

  Nancy gives me a look. “Anyway, what I propose is that we follow Belinda’s example and just do it.”

  “Diet?” Deb asks. “But I hate diets. I’ve been on so many diets I’ve given up. They don’t work. You just gain the weight right back. And now that we’re in our thirties, it’ll be doubly impossible to lose.”

  Deb’s right. I despise diets too, especially any diet involving gelatin. As for exercise, I just don’t have the time, not with my commute. That’s another problem, sitting. I do a lot of it. Forty-five minutes in the car to work. Then at my desk all day. Forty-five minutes back. By the time I get home, I’ve been sitting so much that I’m exhausted.

  “I don’t know,” I say unenthusiastically. “I can’t summon the energy for another weight-loss thing.”

  Nancy regards us with disappointment. “Look at us. Are we dead yet? No. We’re in our thirties. We’re young. I, for one, have plenty of living to do.” She takes a deep breath. “My goal is to get down to what I was in college. I’d like to be able to wear anything I want and do anything I want without worrying about my size. Especially now that I’m about to get a divorce. I need a better body if I ever hope to have sex again.”

  Aha, so that’s her motivation. Now I get it. Last year Nancy’s super husband, Ron—at least, I always thought of him as super—ran off to Cozumel with a fresh, young law clerk for a long weekend. Though he begged and pleaded for Nancy’s forgiveness, she refused to take him back. A mistake, in my opinion. They don’t get much better than Ron—er, when he’s not running off to Cozumel with twenty-five-year-old law clerks, that is.

  “It’ll be easy,” Nancy says. “Two hundred and fifty calories a day. Let’s try it. For six months. And if it doesn’t work, we scrap everything and go back to our old ways.”

  I study Deb. Nancy’s preaching is wearing her down. I can tell she’s seriously considering this ridiculous diet business.

  “Actually,” Deb ventures, “I’ve been looking into weight-loss surgery . . .”

  “Weight-loss surgery!” Nancy snaps. “Are you kidding? Do you know that mortality rate? Weight-loss surgery is obscene.”

  “It was just a thought,” says Deb, who is easily cowed. “Anyway, Paul’s not keen on it either. He says he likes me fat and happy, so I guess I don’t have a real reason to lose.”

  “Except your son, whose graduation you’re not going to tomorrow because you don’t want to embarrass him.”

  Deb bristles. “OK. I’ll do it. But only for six months.”

  Nancy pats her hand. “That’s a good girl. How about you, Nola? Are you ready to get down to the weight your driver’s license says you are?”

  “Is this some kind of legal threat?” I ask.

  “I do happen to be on a first-name basis with several state police, and lying to the Department of Motor Vehicles is a punishable offense.”

  Unfortunately, I am not up to speed on New Jersey motor vehicle code, so I’m not sure if claiming that I am 128 pounds will get me thrown in the slammer. But I do know that Nancy will give me no peace unless I concur.

  “All right. Count me in. On one condition.”

  Nancy raises an eyebrow.

  “That in December we come back here and get the table by the window and shame Chester until he grovels at our feet.”

  “It’s a deal. And now a toast.” Nancy lifts her glass of water. “To the Cinderella Pact. If we don’t lose it now, we never will. So here’s to one last try.”

  “To one last try,” we chime. And clink our waters enthusiastically.

  I give us exactly forty-eight hours to cave.

  Chapter Two

  Being overweight hasn’t been all bad. Being overweight has made me more tolerant of other people’s foibles because I know that as humans we can’t help who we are or what we do one hundred percent of the time.

  And if I hadn’t been overweight, I’d never have become thin and famous—as Belinda Apple.

  Last year Managing Editor Lori DiGrigio decided what Sass! needed to distinguish itself from other gossip sheets was an ethics columnist. Not any ethics columnist. One who “could answer the personal, occasionally embarrassing, and always unique ethical issues facing women today. Someone edgy and biting.”

  At the time I had been editing columns at Sass! for four years, so I had a pretty good handle on what worked and what didn’t when it came to biting ethics columnists. Wait. That doesn’t sound right. . . .

  Anyway, I walked into Lori’s office with my application in hand, her “sample questions” answered with a fresh and original voice (mine), at which point Lori looked up at me and—I am not making this up—laughed out loud. She even snorted.

  “You?” she said.

  Seriously. That’s what she said. “You?”

  I was still naive, so I didn’t quite catch what she was implying. Stupid, silly me. I assumed she was referring to the fact that I was an editor, not a writer.

  “Actually,” I remember saying, “I’ve always wanted to be a writer here. If you look at my résumé, it says that my five-year goal is to become a columnist and, well, this is my fourth year so here I am.”

  Lori didn’t know how to respond. In retrospect, I realize her top concern was probably a legal one: How can I tell this frump that I’d no more have her writing ethics columns than resurrect John Candy to critique fashion?

  To that end, she shoved my application into a file and said with as straight a face as she could muster, “I’ll give it a thoughtful review.”

  “She’s not going to give it a thoughtful review,” Joel scoffed when I returned to my desk, blue and confused.

  “That’s what she said.” I tried not to sound defensive. But, really, she did say that.

  “Lori is a ruthlessly ambitious shrew who doesn’t give a gnat’s ass about you or anyone except herself. She wants to present Stanton with a new columnist who’s candy for the eye, because that’s what we turn out here at Sass! Readable eye candy.” Joel bit into his turkey sandwich and licked mustard from the corner of his mouth. “And, besides, she doesn’t like nice girls.”

&n
bsp; “Are you calling me nice? Take it back.”

  “Nice. Nice. Nice.”

  I punched him on the shoulder. If Joel and I were in grade school, they’d have to separate us even though he’s old enough to be my father and has the fashion sense of a high school janitor.

  Underneath the jokes, I knew the harsh reality of what he was saying. Lori didn’t want the picture of a fat chick accompanying a column that was supposed to appeal to hip, trendy twentysomethings with “personal, occasionally embarrassing, and always unique” ethical questions. She wanted Carrie Bradshaw.

  So I decided to test his theory. I dug out an old photo of me sans glasses taken for my college yearbook. In it I am leaning against a building on the Rutgers main campus, one cowboy-footed boot against the wall, my brown hair hanging across half my face (to hide my chin—fat-girl trick). I was at my thinnest then—relatively speaking—and, to be honest, I didn’t look bad at all.

  I scanned the photo into my home computer and then dug in.

  Three hours with Photoshop (O, that we could Photoshop our real lives) and Belinda was born—a much slimmer, red-headed version of me. For fun, I colored my brown cowboy boots pink and superimposed a bony chest on mine, but otherwise kept everything the same. I am still waiting for the day when a bored student in the Rutgers yearbook room comes across my picture and puts two and two together.

  Belinda’s résumé was trickier. I had hoped that, being foreign, Belinda’s background would be harder to check. I made sure that she had written for British publications that couldn’t be traced, because they were invented. For example, Belinda enjoyed an immensely popular stint as an advice columnist at the short-lived and totally fictional Go Fab! (The more British-sounding, the better, I figured.) As for her personal reference? None other than moi, followed by my home phone number.