150 Pounds Part 22
Alexis blew out a deep breath, as though she'd been holding it since she'd walked into the cafe. "Things are improving, though. After I left Connecticut last month, after the huge fight with my dad, I got a letter from Bunny, who checked herself into an expensive rehabilitation facility in Arizona. I don't know how that came about, especially since I'd been begging my dad to admit her since she started drinking, but however it happened I'm thrilled and we've started up a tentative relationship again."
"That's great!" Shoshana couldn't imagine being lucky enough to have two parents and yet not feeling close to either one of them.
"Yeah. Well, the important thing is that when I told Mom about Billy, she sent me a check. And every week since, she's been sending the inheritance that my grandparents left me, and I've been using it to pay off Billy's medical bills. I don't think my father knows about it."
"Wow!"
"I know. It sounds like we should be on All My Children, right? We're a pretty f.u.c.ked-up family, but I have to admit, I really love these letters from my mom. My dad still says I'm dead to him, but I don't think anything I can do would change his mind. He's an a.s.shole, always has been. The fact that my mom is helping me and Billy, and is interested in her grandchild ... I don't know. She mentioned visiting me when she gets out of rehab, so I think I'm going to let that happen. I'm a little freaked out by it, but I love my mom, you know?"
"I think this is great. Whether you ever make up with your dad or not, at least you'll have more family in your life. The more family, the better!" Shoshana said.
Alexis chuckled, and Shoshana was again struck by how different her demeanor was.
"Can I get you a cup of coffee?" Alexis asked.
"Sure! I'll have a medium hazelnut with extra cream and extra sugar."
Alexis paused. She'd been about to stand. "So I guess you're not watching your calories, then."
Something came to a halt inside Shoshana. The b.i.t.c.h! She was about to say something snappy right back, but something in Alexis's face stopped her. The thing was, the tone was off. If Alexis was saying it to be hurtful, surely her face wouldn't look so open and relaxed. Shoshana almost felt sorry for her. It was as if Alexis had said it without thinking, that her old mind-set of counting calories hadn't quite caught up with her current rounder self.
And wasn't that a little bit like Shoshana and her weight loss? Why else was she purposefully eating two dinners a night, and sometimes even two desserts, in some silly effort to gain a little of her weight back, for fear her readers would think she was a fraud? She didn't think she'd ever be besties with Alexis; the girl was still too caustic. But wasn't there perhaps some similarity to be found in their experiences over the last year?
So instead of starting another war, Shoshana simply relaxed. She crossed one sole of her sneaker over her leg and smiled. "You know what? I lost this weight by starting up a farm, out in Chester. I didn't change my diet too much, and I still heart calories!"
Alexis smiled back, though the expression still seemed foreign on her face. Like she was trying it out. "Well, isn't Fat and Fabulous always talking about listening to your body? Your body wanted to change, and you listened. You should be proud of yourself."
Shoshana was surprised Alexis had read her blog. "Thanks. You should see the farm sometime. You can come pick your own apples on the weekends."
"I can't wait to hear all about it."
"How's your best friend doing now?" Shoshana asked.
"Billy's in remission, actually. I just found out this morning. His latest tests showed him as cancer-free. But I almost lost him." Tears sprang to Alexis's eyes. "Sorry. I seem to cry all the time now. It's the hormones. They really f.u.c.k you up."
"That's okay!" Shoshana said, digging in her purse and coming up with a crumpled napkin for Alexis. "I'm a really emotional person, and I'm not even pregnant!"
Alexis laughed, sniffling and reaching for the napkin. "Let me go get our coffees, then we can talk."
As Alexis stood up and awkwardly eased her b.u.mp around the table, Shoshana silently observed how much better she looked. She was still wearing four-inch heels (didn't those make her back hurt?), but the tank top was fitted to her stomach, and she wore maternity skinny jeans and a pretty, knee-length brown sweater with ruffles running down it. Her face, always so angular with high cheekbones, had softened with the additional weight and rounded slightly. She'd grown out her trademark stick-straight blond bob to mid-shoulder-length. Shoshana always thought girls looked better with some shape, and she admired Alexis's b.u.t.t in an offhand way in her jeans as she walked up to the counter. In all, she looked curvier. Shoshana approved.
Alexis brought the coffees over, along with a banana nut m.u.f.fin she cut in half to share with Shoshana, who thought inwardly that maybe Alexis hadn't changed that much, as who wanted to eat only half a m.u.f.fin? But she was surprised when Alexis suddenly spread her hands on the table and looked earnestly at Shoshana.
"I wanted to thank you for sticking up for me in the Post," she said.
Shoshana chewed her half a m.u.f.fin, listening.
"You had the opportunity to get me back and you didn't take it. That takes guts. I ... I know this is going to sound crazy, but I really admire you. I always have. I was, well, I was jealous of you, really."
Shoshana opened her eyes wide. This is hard for her, Shoshana realized. Much harder for her than it is for me. My mom was right. "Jealous? Of me? What for?"
"You just always seemed so happy. Blogging about your mom, sister, and that wild pack of roommates. Before Noah came along I had no family that was speaking to me. It was just me and Billy. He was the only friend I had in the world. I guess I've softened up a bit. I used to see the world in black-and-white terms: skinny or fat. It seemed so clear to me that excess weight meant a lack of self-control. Now I see there are a million reasons for it."
Shoshana smiled and tentatively put her hand on Alexis's arm. "Including happiness," she said.
Alexis blushed. Shoshana realized how pretty she was, the rose in her cheeks spreading all the way to her straw-colored hair. She looked so much better at a normal weight, but it wasn't just the weight gain that had her looking better, it was something that radiated from within, a shift in thinking.
"Right. Including happiness," Alexis said softly.
They ended up talking for two hours, as the golden light outside turned to dusk and customers walked in and out in bright, colorful streaks. She eventually felt sorry for Sinatra and smuggled him underneath the table. The hum of grinding beans drowned out their voices. Muted conversations took place around them, and Shoshana came to a place of relaxation finally, within this conversation with a woman who had once been her enemy. A deep calm spread across her chest; her shoulders dropped from around her ears.
It fascinated Shoshana to learn that Alexis had experienced a similar backlash of hate mail from readers because of her change in weight. Alexis had been too afraid to blog about her weight change, but the Post story had seen to it that everyone knew. Both girls agreed they couldn't please everyone, and their core readers, the loyal ones who had stuck by their blogs, were the ones giving support and who would stay on. She wasn't sure she and Alexis would ever be super close, but she knew she'd just collected another friend, as Pam would say. She was over the Oprah fight; she was through with worrying about whether her readers would drop her because of the weight loss. She was just herself, Shoshana. Her father would be proud.
When they got to the dressing room, Shoshana and Emily found Alexis struggling with a pair of Spanx.
"You know that's totally insane, right?" Shoshana told her new friend.
Emily eyed Alexis warily. It had taken the entire flight from New Jersey to Chicago to convince Emily she shouldn't kick Alexis's a.s.s.
"Let me get this straight," Emily said to her sister, as they flew over Pennsylvania. "We like her now?" The hum of the motor from the belly of the plane made it hard to hear Emily, who was sitting on Shoshana's left, her mom on her right. Oprah had flown out her immediate family again, much to the delight of Pam and Emily, whose tattooing had slowed. (Her business was highest in the summer months, when New Yorkers showed more flesh.) At the hospital, many of the younger nurses had been let go due to cutbacks, and Pam was working four shifts a week instead of three. She needed the diversion from work.
In recent weeks, Shoshana experienced an overwhelming response to her orchard; after the New Jersey Monthly profile came out with glossy spreads of Shoshana surrounded by Greta, Joe, and all her friends with the trees in the background, she'd had an influx of customers and was baking apple pies around the clock. Greta took over the orchard while she was away.
Now, on the plane, while popping peanuts into her mouth, maneuvering them around her lip ring, Emily said dryly, "I still can't pop blondie one?"
"Right," Shoshana said, taking a sip of her free Coca-Cola, which the cheerful stewardess brought over a few moments ago.
"And you two are going on Oprah to make a big announcement that you won't even tell your only sibling in the world, who adores you."
"Or her mother!" Pam chimed in, folding her colorful Food Network magazine in half. She'd become a huge Paula Deen fan lately, cooking up big batches of comfort food like lasagna and various ca.s.seroles for everyone at the farm.
"Correct," Shoshana said. An announcement came on the loudspeaker from the pilot, informing them to begin preparation for landing. Shoshana always found this ridiculous; what was she supposed to do to prepare, ease up on the throttle? The crew came by with a trash bag, and Shoshana leaned over Emily to throw her plastic cup inside.
"But Shosh!" Emily cried. "I can't stand the suspense."
"Well, you'll just have to," Shoshana said, cackling like Dracula at her sister.
When they'd boarded, a painfully thin redheaded woman wearing a gray St. John suit had leaned over and whispered something in the ear of her husband. Shoshana was the closest and overheard: "I thought they had weight restrictions on airplanes now."
Then, unbelievably, she'd pointed to Pam, who, luckily for the woman, hadn't heard her, and nor had Emily. Shoshana could just picture their trip starting out with bailing Emily out of jail.
"They also have restrictions against a.s.sholes," Shoshana had said, leaning over and whispering to the woman. "But I see you slipped right past security."
Ignoring the woman's shocked face, she'd sat down. Having always been heavy, she was hyperaware of the way people viewed her mother and sister these days. She sometimes felt as though she were wearing a fat suit like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal. An invisible line of energy, about two inches from her body, which pulsated invisibly to everyone else. Some days, her new body felt like a costume she'd tried on. But she was getting used to it. Her roommates took her shopping recently, after tiring of seeing Shoshana wearing ridiculously baggy pants, held up by belts and even string. She grudgingly admitted it was fun shopping at J. Crew and H&M, with all their pretty displays and attractive clothing; before, their sizes had not run high enough to fit her body.
So when she came into the dressing room backstage at Oprah and found Alexis struggling with a tan-colored Spanx bodysuit, she grabbed it out of her hands. They'd talked on the phone twice since meeting at Empire. "These are not a friend of the pregnant lady," she told Alexis wryly.
A deep baritone resonated behind Alexis. "Thank you. I tried to do the same, but she wouldn't let me. She seems determined to squash our baby into a pancake."
"I keep telling her b.u.mps are chic, baby," said a slight Asian man with a short buzz of hair growing on his scalp. He had a wary look on his face, like he'd been beaten up recently, but a bright spark of mischief lay just beneath the surface.
"Hi. You guys must be Noah and Billy. I'm Shoshana, and this is my mom, Pam, and sister, Emily."
Introductions were made all around.
Pam walked over to Alexis and put a plump arm around her shoulders. Emily looked at Shoshana and raised one eyebrow.
"Everything okay, dear?" Pam asked Alexis, who had tears in her eyes.
"I refuse to go out there looking like this. Everyone is going to compare me with how I looked the last time I was on the show, when I was skinny."
Pam looked taken aback. "But you're pregnant, love. The baby needs you to put on weight. You look wonderful."
Noah took a sip of his coffee. "I agree. And besides, you were too skinny before," he said gently. Then he impishly reached out and pinched her on the behind. "You know I love that booty."
Shoshana was surprised when Alexis laughed. She was able to see why the two were such a perfect pair: Noah extinguished Alexis's neuroses. It happened like that sometimes, she mused, as the soundman fitted her for a microphone, his cool hands on her lower back snaring a wire up through her shirt. This time she didn't flinch; she was an old hand at this. It was someone different, this time.
A person wanders the planet lost, split in half. Then she finds the right person, and wham! She's whole, the anxieties and twitches slow down and dissolve, and the brightness that had always shone within her somewhere is allowed to emerge. Shoshana felt she'd always been a bright spirit and didn't think the man she'd someday end up with would be the one to bring it out of her. Whoever Shoshana would meet and fall in love with would be getting almost two persons: the 150-pound woman, and the Fattie who still lived inside of her. Both versions loved dirty jokes, pillows with weird statements on them, and chick flicks. The boy she chose someday would have to love both versions of her.
Emily was begrudgingly admiring Alexis's high heels, which were quirky and had a taxicab pattern, the toes being yellow, the rest black-and-white-checkered. "They're very punk," she said, which made Shoshana and Pam exchange a look because that was Em's highest compliment to pay someone.
"Five minutes until set," a short woman with red hair and freckles who was wearing a headset said, spreading her fingers like a starfish to show how much time was left. Shoshana glanced at the monitor. The show had not begun yet, and she saw Oprah, which gave her a rush of excitement. Oprah was already sitting on the stage and going over notes with an a.s.sistant while simultaneously getting her makeup retouched.
"Okay, I'll give up the Spanx," Alexis said, sighing and, after some struggle, ripping the hosiery down the middle with her bare hands. Everyone cheered. Alexis plopped down on the brown leather couch and poured herself a sip of water into a tumbler gla.s.s. "The baby was protesting it, anyway." She rubbed her stomach, which was a perfect beach ball.
"Yeah. If I can't wear a fat suit to try and be who I used to be, you definitely can't try and squish into Spanx," Shoshana said, sitting down next to her.
As their friends and family mingled, s.n.a.t.c.hes of their conversation reached Shoshana's ears as she leaned close to Alexis. "Are you ready to do this?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
Alexis smiled. "I was born ready. Let's show the world what we're made of."
"Two minutes," the stagehand called.
Shoshana and Alexis stood, and Shoshana found herself watching Alexis maneuver in her heels down the same hallway with the large black-and-white photos of celebrity guests she'd eyed last time she was here.
"Knock them dead!" Noah shouted.
"Make sure you mention our clothing line!" Billy called out.
"We love you!" Pam and Emily called. Shoshana watched their figures get shadowy and small as she turned and walked down the hallway, b.u.t.terflies in her stomach but a steely resolve in her heart.
"What clothing line?" Shoshana whispered to Alexis as they walked.
"Oh! I totally forgot to tell you. Billy and I designed these chill robes for cancer patients who are undergoing chemo. We have leopard-print and zebra and there's even a cartoonist in the Village drawing prints for us. They're going to be awesome!"
"Wow," Shoshana said. "I never would have pictured you doing something like that when I first met you."
Alexis sn.i.g.g.e.red. "Why, because I was a total selfish b.i.t.c.h?"
"Well, yeah."
"Well, I bet you never thought you'd open up an apple orchard, either," Alexis said, her eyes bright.
"You're right about that." They giggled, as they heard Oprah announcing their names to the audience.
The two women entered the stage holding hands, a show of unity that came naturally and spontaneously to them. They sat on the couch to thunderous applause.
"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," Oprah said, turning her warm gaze on them. She wore a brown wrap dress that matched her eyes, and large teardrop diamond earrings that shone under the lights. Shoshana admired her blue eye shadow and wondered if she herself could pull it off. There was no way to find out but try!
"We are so lucky to have two special guests back on today's show, Alexis Allbright, founder of Skinny Chick, and Shoshana Weiner, who writes Fat and Fabulous."
Another round of cheers. Shoshana could make out the faces of Noah, Billy, Emily, and her mother. They were sitting in the second row. She winked at Emily, who gave her the rock 'n' roll devil horns. Shoshana ran her hands through her short, wavy bob.
"Now, before we begin talking to these fascinating guests, I'm going to show a brief clip."
Alexis and Shoshana exchanged an oh-s.h.i.t glance, as the screen behind them rose and the scene between Shoshana and Alexis from last year played out before their eyes. The light bounced in such a way that dark blues ran across Alexis's face, giving her the appearance of having two black eyes.
What Shoshana couldn't believe from the video was how tense she herself looked. Her hands balled into fists, a frown on her face as she countered Alexis's accusations. A stranger. It was also strange to see herself fat again. Like looking at one's baby pictures. How could she have morphed and shifted and become someone else in just a year?
Alexis was so upset by how aggressive and nasty she'd been that she kept her eyes on Shoshana's face. She knew if she watched the video she would only feel worse, which would ruin the fun of making their joint announcement. She heard herself shouting statistics about obesity at Shoshana, and cringed. She literally slunk down in her seat when she heard her old self say, "Her father died of a heart attack. Four years ago. He was only forty-nine. He was mowing the front yard of his quiet suburban home in New Jersey, and he simply dropped dead right there."
"I'm so sorry," she whispered to Shoshana.
"I know you are," Shoshana whispered back. "I am, too."
Some of the audience hadn't seen this particular episode, and gasped at some of the segments, clapped at others. The clip seemed to go on forever, though it was probably only a minute at most. The girls suffered through it, trying not to wiggle around awkwardly on the sofa.
The lights went back up to full tilt. "I saw the two of you come in here holding hands," Oprah said. She smiled her thousand-watt smile. "After everyone at home watched that video, I have to ask: Y'all worked things out, didn't you?"
Scattered laughter.
"We did, indeed," Shoshana said confidently. "And we're here to tell the audience about it."
"Wonderful. But first, I think the question on a lot of people's minds is, tell us about the baby b.u.mp and the weight loss! Is it true you both weigh the same now, a hundred and fifty pounds?"
Thunderous applause.
Alexis blushed. "Well, yes. But also, a lot of things have changed for myself and Shoshana over this past year. My best friend was diagnosed with cancer but he's now in remission, thank G.o.d. Hi, Billy!" She waved, and Billy stood, doing a little twirl as the cameras zoomed in on him.
The audience clapped for Billy.
"I met a man who ... put things in perspective for me, to put it mildly," Alexis said.
"Yes, and I've been to his restaurant, Off the River Ale House in New York," Oprah said. "It is worth the calories, people." She turned on the couch to Shoshana. "Now, Shoshana, you've lost a good deal of weight."
Clapping thundered off the walls, the sound bouncing up, up, up to the ceiling like bright, shiny bubbles. The cameras panned the audience; the lights moved and changed direction on the floor of the stage to illuminate Shoshana's face.
"Yes, that's right," Shoshana said.