As Andy predicted I sleep well, and when my phone’s alarm wakes me the next morning I wonder why he thought I wouldn’t. Nobody likes being dumped, obviously, but we hadn’t been more than a diversion to each other so losing him doesn’t much matter.
What does matter is when I step onto my bathroom scale for the first time in a month and almost pass out.
One hundred and twenty-seven pounds? No wonder I’ve been feeling squished in my work clothes.
If I don’t fix this right now I won’t even need my work clothes. Elle Warhol, my hugely successful designer boss, has made a career of never making a dress larger than a size six and since she requires her female staff to wear her clothes our office is full of skinny women. I’m usually a four, which makes me one of the biggest employees, and now I’m more like a six. If I gain even a few more pounds, I’ll be pushed out of my job. It won’t be the official reason, of course, but everyone will know the truth. I’ve seen it happen to others and I can’t let it happen to me. George Slattery aside, I love my job and I’m perfect for it.
I shower and blow-dry my hair to sleek glossy perfection over my shoulders and moisturize my body and do my morning skin-care and my makeup, then after putting on my bra and underwear and wriggling into my Spanx I go to my closet and run a doubtful eye along my dresses and jackets and skirts.
Which of you, I ask them silently, will allow my bulk into you today?
None of them seem likely to comply, but the third thing I try on, a size six short-sleeved navy dress I bought with my first paycheck from Elle to remind me never to get bigger than a six, looks sleek enough over my Spanx so I decide it’ll have to do although I’d far rather be in a four. After adding my favorite classic silver hoop earrings and matching necklace I scan my neatly racked work shoes before choosing the leopard-print pumps Elle complimented last week. They’re only three inch heels, which still leaves me one inch shorter than my 5’8” boss, but at least I’ll be close to looking her in the eye if I see her today.
Which, frankly, I hope I do not. Not until I’ve lost some weight.
I leave the room once I’ve checked that it’s spotless, pick up my touch-up nail polish in case I chip again and the materials I need for Mara’s wedding-food tasting later today, and go upstairs to pack my work bag and head out.
I check each pocket of the bag, and though I’m worried about my extra pounds I have to smile when everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be: the paperwork I finished on Saturday in its folder, my three pens clipped to their spot on the inside flap, my office ID card in the front left pocket, my wallet in the middle one, and my subway MetroCard in the right one. I don’t remember transferring those last two things from my purse when I got home yesterday, but apparently I did, and I love that I’m organized even when I don’t realize I am.
I wish, as I stand on the crowded platform waiting for the subway, that the transit system were half as organized. As always, it seems to take forever for my train to arrive, then another forever once I reach Grand Central to wait for the 7 shuttle across to Times Square, and then several forevers to make my way down Seventh Avenue through the crowds of tourists to the office. For the first time I really do regret letting Andy dump me; it was so much easier to get to work from his place.
While I stand at my smoothie shop watching my second-favorite breakfast smoothie being prepared since they’re out of strawberries for my favorite orange-strawberry-banana one, I pull out my phone and begin entering its ingredients into my diet app as they’re dropped into the blender. One banana, one cup pineapple, one cup spinach, one cup kale, half a cup mango, half a cup pineapple juice. I’m fast with the app, after years of practice, so I have it all entered and a total of 343 calories calculated by the time the worker, a new one as far as I can tell, pours the drink into its cup.
“Here you go,” she says, holding it out to me.
My eyes flick to the blender, which still holds some smoothie. An incalculable amount of smoothie. “I need all of it, please.”
“All? But…” She looks down the shop, clearly trying to get help, but every other worker is distracted by the morning rush.
“Yes,” I say firmly, waving my phone at her. “I tracked it all, so I need it all. In a second cup, please.”
She frowns at me, then at the cup, then back at me. “But…”
“It’s fine, they always do it,” I say, though they don’t. I’ve usually not worried about the extra bits, but inaccurate tracking is part of how I got to be so overweight so I will be completely accurate from now on. I should have known better than to slack off at all, but Andy and his relaxed attitude toward life were a bad influence on me. I glance behind me at the waiting line. “Besides, you’d just have to throw it out anyhow. Right?”
She nods slowly, also looking at the crowd behind me, then her hand shoots out and she grabs a second cup.
Out on the street, a smoothie in each hand, I have a moment of feeling guilty for harassing the new employee, but it passes quickly. I was right that she would just have to throw out the leftovers, and this way I will drink them and maybe even not need lunch later as a result.
A win-win.
*****
I drink the smaller smoothie on the sidewalk a few doors down from my building, not wanting my coworkers to see me with two breakfasts and snicker to each other about my weight, then take the other one inside. A woman I don’t know stands in the lobby frantically digging through her bag, no doubt seeking her ID card for the turnstile, and I feel safe and secure as I easily pluck my card from its assigned place and stride past her.
I have to wait a bit for an elevator, because I haven’t trusted the first one since it malfunctioned a year ago and trapped our former receptionist for an hour, but I do arrive at the fourth floor on time, where I find half my coworkers half-dressed.
“Already?” I look around at the clothes Elle must have sent, trying to hide my horror. I can’t take part in our monthly fashion show for her at this weight. “It isn’t Friday.”
Our advertising manager and payroll specialist pull their own dresses back on and depart each clutching a new one, and Jaimi peeks around a corner. “Yeah, but… hold on a sec.” She disappears, then reappears wearing a sleek kelly green sheath dress that fits like it was designed for her alone. The receptionist oohs at her, and she smiles with more happiness than the small compliment seems to deserve and says, “Great color, isn’t it?”
It is. And it’s also at least a size smaller than I could wear today, probably two. “That green is different,” I say, not able to bring myself to compliment my tiny pretty protégée. “Didn’t her last email talk about a leaf green?”
Jaimi nods. “But she decided she didn’t like it so she’s trying other greens. That’s why the stuff’s here early,” she says, turning from side to side before the full-length mirror I was surprised to see in our common area during my interview four years ago. “She wants to test them on us before she announces them next Monday. I do like this one, though.” She points at the closet by the mirror. “Go check out the rest.”
Holding the smoothie cup in one hand I search the closet, in vain, for a size six, then take a stunning red skirt and jacket in a four that I hope I’ll be able to squeeze into to my office. By leaving the skirt zipper mostly down I manage it, then suck in my gut hard as Jaimi opens my door a crack and says, “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I say without releasing my stomach muscles, and she slips that perfect body into my office and closes the door behind her.
“Nice suit! That red with your dark hair is awesome. I wish I weren’t a blonde.”
I don’t believe that for a second, but I can’t find a comeback before she goes on with, “Have you heard?”
I shake my head. “Just got here, you know that. Heard what?”
She blinks. “I guess I thought they’d call you at home but— never mind. Anyhow, there’s a company-wide email from Elle saying George Slattery is retiring.”
My turn to blink. I spoke to George the useless chief financial officer last week and he didn’t say anything about leaving early.
“Wants to spend more time with his family, apparently, so they’re looking for his successor. You have to apply by May 8th, and by the end of the month they’ll decide who goes on to do a ‘where I see the company going’ presentation for Elle and the board sometime in June.”
Two weeks to have my application perfect. Not a ton of time depending on what it requires, especially with my maid-of-honor duties, but doable. I take a breath to thank her for the heads-up then she clears her throat and says nervously, “I’m going to start preparing my presentation at lunch,” and the words freeze in my throat.
“Yours?”
She nods, and that bright happiness I saw in her earlier reappears and wipes away most of the nervousness. “I know, it’s earlier than we planned for me to get promoted—”
“By about ten years,” I put in, shocked that she’d think she has a chance.
“—but I just have to go for it.” She gives me a grin and an embarrassed shrug. “I might not get it, probably won’t actually, but it’s too good an opportunity to pass up.”
Probably won’t? More like definitely won’t, because I will. Jaimi’s come a long way in the two years I’ve been mentoring her at Elle’s request, moving from the receptionist pool to financial controller, but I’m still ahead of her. True, she’s younger and prettier and thinner, but I have experience she can only dream of and I will get the promotion. Unlike her, I’ll follow my plan, and this is the perfect time for me to move up.
A tap on my door ends our conversation, which is good because I can feel Jaimi expecting me to wish her good luck but I can’t find the words to lie like that, and that receptionist whose name I can’t remember sticks her head into my office. “Ms. Malloy? Ms. Phillips? I’m off to get coffee. Would you like anything?”
“Skinny latte please.” Feeling the waistband of the skirt digging into me, I add, “Just a small, okay? And make sure it’s skinny. Watch them make it. Sometimes they screw around.”
“Got it,” she says. “Anything to eat?”
I shake my head and point to my fruit smoothie. “I’m good.”
She nods and turns to Jaimi.
“First off, Andrea, I keep telling you it’s Jaimi not Ms. Phillips,” Jaimi says, smiling. “And I’d love a skinny latte too. Elle topped up that payment card, right? I’d hate for you to get dinged for it like last time.”
Andrea grins back. “She did, but thanks.”
They leave, and I close the door behind them and thankfully get out of my too-tight suit and back into my dress even though I’ll have to change back when Elle comes down to see us, thinking as I do that Jaimi is too nice for her own good. No need to be cruel to the staff, of course, and you can even gift them occasionally, like Elle, who makes up for barely-adequate-in-Manhattan salaries with free clothes and caffeine. But being friends is a mistake. As bitter experience has taught me, getting too close to people is never a good idea.
*****
Elle arrives about an hour later, and when I hear her low but commanding voice in our common area I cram myself back into the red suit then walk out to see her because I know I have to.
Her sharp green eyes take me in with one quick scan then she says, “Valerie, doesn’t Jaimi look nice?”
Jaimi, almost vibrating with excitement, says, “Aw, thank you. It’s the dress.”
“Nonsense.” Elle tweaks the dress’s hem then catches the side seams at the waist and pulls it tighter. “If anything, it’s making you look bad. Should be more fitted. And I don’t think this green is quite right. But you’re making it work somehow.” She fiddles with the dress some more, then says, “You’re aware of the CFO job opening, right?”
I take a breath to answer, but realize just before I speak that she’s actually talking to Jaimi so fortunately do not humiliate myself.
“I am,” Jaimi says, almost in a whisper. Then she clears her throat and adds, “I’ve applied already, and I’ll be starting to work on my presentation today.”
“Excellent. I look forward to reviewing your application.”
She does? Why would she? She asked me just a few weeks ago how Jaimi was doing and I said she had a long way to go to be a great controller, so why would Elle think she’d be ready to be CFO?
“Thank you.” Jaimi does whisper this time, then she gives a squeak of surprise as Elle tightens the dress even more so it matches how her own dress clings to her tiny figure. Though Elle is in her fifties she’s in spectacular shape.
“Yes,” Elle says, studying Jaimi’s waist. “That’s what I want. Sleek and clean and a close fit. I’ll adjust it. Thank you, Jaimi. You’re the perfect Elle Warhol woman.”
Jaimi mumbles something, clearly overwhelmed, and Elle goes on to check how the new clothes fit everyone else. I listen to her criticisms, while the fruit smoothie and latte turn unpleasant somersaults in my grossly oversized belly, until she comes to me.
“Hmm,” she says, like a doctor seeing something horrific on an x-ray. “Hmm. That’s not right, is it?”
I pull in my stomach harder, though it makes me feel even more sick, but she’s actually looking at my arms. “The sleeves are… well, are they too skinny or are you…”
She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t have to. “I think I’d be more comfortable in a six,” I have to say, though it hurts.
“Comfortable,” she echoes. “Why not buy a muumuu and give up entirely?”
I can’t look at the others. They’re either amused by my embarrassment, which would be awful to see, or feeling sorry for me, which would be worse. I don’t take well to sympathy.
“I’ll fix it,” I say softly, looking up into her cold eyes and wishing I’d worn higher heels so I wouldn’t feel like a child begging for forgiveness. “When we try on clothes for you next month I will be a four again. A four at worst.”
“I hope so,” she says, equally softly. “I’d hate to have doubts about your commitment to your job.”