“For God’s sake,” she muttered. “Fine.” She sighed, then hugged him. “I’m sorry. I love you, and I’m really proud of you, okay? I just didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to bake for anyone anymore.”
“I’m an addict,” he said. “Please be more respectful of my issues.”
He only lost four pounds that month. Her fault again, he said, for bringing him to her office party and letting Angela and her mother make Christmas breakfast.
The gym became his favorite place. Those long hours at the law firm weren’t as carved in stone as they’d seemed. In fact, the partners were all thrilled he was taking better care of himself.
So was Emmaline.
Except she barely saw him anymore, and, when she did, all he could talk about was food and exercise.
They couldn’t go out to eat with friends because the temptation was too great. If Emmaline went out with friends from college or coworkers, Kevin asked her not to bring home the leftovers. They couldn’t go to the movies. Night after night, they stayed home, Kevin falling asleep in the chair, exhausted from his workout.
Occasionally, they’d go for a run together, but Kevin mapped their route with painstaking care because God forbid they pass a bakery or hot dog vendor. “Naomi says it will take an entire year for my resistance to strengthen,” Kevin said as they ran through a deserted industrial park at seven o’clock one Saturday morning. “Until then, I have to be really careful.”
Emmaline went along with it, eating what Kevin ate, not buying anything that wasn’t listed on the Naomi-approved list, not smuggling in Ben & Jerry’s, no matter how much she missed it.
Kevin had taped Naomi clichés on the fridge, which made eating at home a guilt-riddled affair. Whatever you eat in private, you wear in public. Abs are made in the kitchen. Don’t kill your workout with food. The question isn’t can you, it’s will you. Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels. Em had to dispute that last one. Ben & Jerry’s definitely tasted better than being thin was. Not that she was thin. But she wasn’t fat.
Not yet.
As Kevin lost weight, food became more seductive than ever to Emmaline. It was all she could think about. Time became measured in the hours until she could eat. She fell asleep thinking about food, and as soon as she was done with one meal, she started imagining the next.
While once she’d brought a yogurt and an apple for lunch, she now started eating a huge meal at work. Philly cheesesteaks and burgers and nachos, clam chowder and the Scrammy Hammy at Big Boy. She craved cherry pie, a Michigan specialty.
One day, she came home from work to find Kevin there, a rarity since he’d discovered the gym. “Hi, babe!” she said happily, dropping her bag on the floor.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, hugging her close, and for a second, she felt such a surge of love and longing it nearly made her stagger. She hugged him back, noting that her hands could now touch. He really was melting away.
Suddenly, Kevin stepped back. “Are you trying to kill me?” he said.
“What?”
“You! You smell like...yes! You went to Ray’s Red Hots today, didn’t you?”
He made it sound as if she’d just kicked a baby panda in the stomach. “Guilty, Your Honor.”
“It’s not funny, Emmaline,” he said, sounding like a sulky kindergartener. “You reek of Diablo Dogs.”
“Well, I had two, Kevin. Okay? Sue me.” The hot dog stand was an icon in Ann Arbor, and, back in the good old days, she and Kevin had stopped there often.
He glared at her, then grabbed his gym bag and left.
“Oh, for crying out loud, Kevin!” she yelled down the stairs. “I’m not on a diet! You are! I think I’m allowed to go out for lunch.”
He didn’t come home that night.
First time ever.
She didn’t want to speculate about where he might be.
Instead, she went to the store and bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and ate the entire thing. Peanut Brittle. It was flippin’ delicious.
When Kevin came back the next night, they made up. Sort of.
By March, he’d lost seventy-seven pounds, and Emmaline noticed something one night as he dozed in the chair, exhausted from the fresh gym hell Naomi had invented for him.
Kevin was gorgeous.
Oh, she’d always thought he was good-looking. But now his face was emerging from the chubbiness of jowls and chins. He had beautiful cheekbones and a square jaw. His eyes, now closed, seemed bigger, his lashes a dark smudge on his cheeks.
If only she liked him the way she used to.
It had been a long time since they’d had fun. Or sex. Or fun sex. It’s just a stage, her conscience told her. He’s still your Kevin.
Except he wasn’t.
Once, Kevin had been easygoing, funny, mellow and kind. These days, he was vain, obsessive and...mean. There was no other word for it.
He hated fat people. Stared in disgust. Clucked in disapproval. He also hated people who got gastric bypass. “Cheater,” he said one night when they were watching the news about a person who’d lost three hundred pounds. “He’ll gain it back. Health is like marriage. You can’t cheat on it and expect it to work.” One of Naomi’s quotes.
“Speaking of marriage, hon,” she began, but the phone rang, and it was Naomi, who was also watching the “cheater” on TV.
One day, when they were standing in line to get into a concert at the university, he saw a chubby little boy, about eight or nine years old. “You don’t have to be this way,” he said. “I was fat once, too.”
“Kevin!” she admonished. “Stop it!”
“You’re not doing him any favors, letting him eat junk,” he said to the boy’s mother, who gave him the finger.
“Honey, you can’t be so judgmental,” she told him later. “I know you just want to help, but that was mean.”
“What’s mean is his mother setting him up for diabetes,” he said.He had a point. But his point wasn’t backed by kindness.
When Naomi gave him the green light to eat out in public, Emmaline almost cried with relief. Finally, she thought, they’d return to their regular lives. Sure, they were eating a lot healthier (except for her secret lunch binges). But not eating out or going to friends’ houses for dinner...it was hard! Finally, she thought, they could be normal. Go out for dinner, see a movie. Talk.
That night, Em was thrilled. Wore a dress, did her makeup with care, left her hair down because Kevin liked it that way. The restaurant was French and romantic, candles flickering, their server soft-spoken and attractive.
“Would mademoiselle care for a drink?” he asked.
“I’ll have a glass of pinot noir,” she said. Kevin glanced at her, and she hoped he’d order one, too. He was edgy, poor thing, in a restaurant for the first time in months and months.
“And you, monsieur?”
From the table behind her, someone cleared her throat. Twice. Three times. Emmaline turned around and looked.
It was Naomi, her glittering eyes fixed on Kevin.
“Ice water,” Kevin said tersely. “And don’t bring any bread.”
“Please,” Emmaline added. She looked back at Naomi. “Hi. Want to join us?”
“You passed your first test, Kev,” Naomi said, ignoring her. “You’re doing great. What do you see on the menu that you can have?”
Em sighed.
Thus went dinner. Naomi would cough or hack at each wrong answer. Green salad? And what type of dressing would monsieur care for? (Hack.) No dressing? Very well. Grilled salmon? (Cough.) Make that haddock. Brussels sprouts (cough) no salt, no oil. No potatoes.
“I’ll have what he’s having.” Em sighed. It wouldn’t be fair to order the roasted duck with Gruyere bread pudding and butter-glazed asparagus. Forget the chocolate soufflé that was already calling to her from the dessert menu. Anyway, she’d gained a few pounds over the winter, and her jeans had been a little tight last time she’d worn them. That being said, the woman at the next table was cooing over something cheesy and delicious smelling. Em’s stomach rumbled.
Naomi came over and bent down to murmur to Kevin, her ass practically in Emmaline’s face. “Look around, Kev,” she said. “You wanna be like those heart attacks waiting to happen?”
Emmaline looked past Naomi’s perfect ass. Didn’t see anyone abnormal. Her eyes stopped on a middle-aged couple, normal enough in build. The server was bringing them dessert.
“One piece of cheesecake? Five hundred calories. Seventy grams of fat,” Naomi said. “Picture your heart, Kev, slimed up with that shit, the muscles pumping slower and slower, clogged with cheesecake.” Kevin stared as if hypnotized.
“That’s not really how it works,” Em murmured. They both ignored her.
“Champagne on the house,” the server said to the older couple. “Happy anniversary, and thank you for sharing it with us. How many years?”
“Twenty-five,” the woman answered, smiling. They were a nice-looking couple and clearly very happy together, holding hands, smiling.
“All those two have to do is get off their lard-asses and move and stop indulging themselves at every turn,” Naomi went on. “But no. They’re here instead, stuffing their fat faces—”
“Okay, thanks, Naomi! Nice seeing you,” Emmaline interrupted.
“She’s right, Em,” Kevin said.
“What’s life without cheesecake, though?” Em said with a smile. “Just once in a while, of course.”
“See, that’s the attitude that will keep you fat, Kevin. The attitude that will keep people staring at you, wondering why that lard-ass doesn’t look in the mirror once in a while and see how repulsive—”
“Stop,” Emmaline said. “Just... Naomi, Kevin and I are out to dinner, and I appreciate you helping him get healthy, but please. You’re just being cruel.”
“She’s being honest,” Kevin said hotly.
“Well, she’s also being mean and nasty and hateful!” she snapped. “Who wants to live the way she does, in the gym all day long, never able to enjoy a meal, drinking those disgusting shakes! I’d rather be like them over there!” Em pointed to the couple. “They don’t look like lard-asses to me!”
Whoops.
The restaurant had gone silent, and the anniversary couple sat frozen, the man with a forkful of cheesecake halfway to his mouth.
Naomi lifted an eyebrow and went back to her prison rations.
Kevin asked for the check. He didn’t speak to her in the car, even when she tried to make light of the night. When they got home, he went into their bedroom and closed the door. A second later, she heard his voice as he talked on the phone. “Hey, Naomi. It’s me.”
* * *
WHEN KEVIN HAD lost a hundred pounds, he asked to speak with Emmaline.
“I think we should break up,” he said calmly. “My life is taking a different direction, and I need to focus on that.” He didn’t meet her eyes.
“We’re getting married in two months,” she whispered.
Nothing she said made a difference. She tried not to cry and failed. Tried not to beg and failed there, too.
“You don’t support me,” he said, the accusation dripping like melted butter.
“I do support you,” she said. “You know I do.”
“No, you don’t. You keep talking about the old me.”
“I miss the old you! You were happier, Kevin! I’m not talking about being fat. You were funnier and happier and enjoyed everything more. Now all you do is go to the gym and count calories. That’s no life!”
“Naomi says—”
“Please! Not another one of Naomi’s famous quotes. Not when you’re breaking up with me!” She started to sob. “Kevin, I’ve loved you since I was thirteen.”