I look at this boy, this man who loved me, had married me not knowing what anorexia was. This boy who, in spite of it all, still loves me, is still sitting across from me.
I cannot love you and let you order your pizza without the cheese. I cannot love you and let you kill yourself.
I talk about guilt too, toward him.
For not being the wife he had married, not being what he had signed up for. For the empty bed in our apartment, this date and the others I ruined. Most of all, worst of all,
For not being pregnant. You deserve to be a father.
I choke.
We stop talking.
Matthias and Anna. Where had Matthias and Anna gone? We hold hands until we find them. Then we hold hands while we kiss with cheesy, salty lips and ask for the check.
While Matthias is away washing his hands, the friendly waitress returns. She looks at me nervously.
I hope this is not too forward of me, but I understand what you are going through.
I am sure I have misheard. I look at her carefully. I have never seen her before. She looks like a girl who enjoys pizza, and life. Calm and comfortable in her skin. We could not be more unalike. How, what could she possibly understand?
17 Swann Street? I was there last year.
I am too stunned to speak. She shuffles her feet uncomfortably and continues:
I am much heavier now, and I probably look like your worst nightmare, but I am happy and I am alive. I would not give that, or the pounds, up for anything.
She clears a few crumbs off our table, I suppose to give her hands something to do.
I just wanted to tell you that I know it looks hopeless, and I know you want to die. But it gets better, I promise.
Then hurriedly,
Sorry to have bothered you. Good luck.
She walks away.
Matthias returns, pays the bill, and tips well. The service really was excellent. We drive back in the twilight, my hand on his switching gears. In the driveway, he kisses my hands and lips. I kiss him all over his face. I tell him we should have pizza again soon. And again, and again.
And I tell myself that perhaps I will enjoy it one day too.
Seven thirty, tomorrow night?
I ask.
Seven thirty. I’ll be back.
And I will bring Anna back too, I promise Matthias in my head.
I wave the car goodbye, on the porch, thinking of all the girls who have lived here. The girls who really understand hunger, cold, and fleeting heartbeats. The Valeries and Danielles, but also those who are now waitresses, accountants, astronauts. Who go to movie theaters and theme parks, have babies and scones and lemonades on Sunday afternoons.
These strangers who no longer live here, these now not so invisible girls, looking after those who are still pale, still at risk of fading away.
78
The light is on in Julia’s room. I pass it on my way to mine.
I wear my pajamas, the gray ones, and go back downstairs for bathroom access. Permission granted, I wash my face and scrub the taste of pizza out of my mouth. I wish I could do the same to the guilt in my head and stomach. Back upstairs, I sit on my bed, waiting for it to subside.
Julia’s music is playing through our wall. I wonder if she is okay. I get off the bed. I want to thank her for recommending the restaurant anyway.
It takes a few knocks on the door of Bedroom 4 for the music to stop and Julia to come out. Her eyes are bloodshot from tears or something else. She is not okay.
She seems happy to see me, though:
Hey! You’re back. How was the pizza?
Delicious. Thank you for the recommendation.
Anytime. They make the best pizza in town. I used to work shifts there; I should know.
She winks.
Did you get the window table?
Yes, we did.
Her face lights up.
Awesome! You were in Megan’s zone. Was she on shift today?
So the waitress was called Megan. The sweet ex-anorexic who had understood.
She was wonderful,
I tell Julia.
She told me she had been a patient here.
Julia knows I have more to say and waits. I search for the appropriate words:
Dinner was … not easy.
No. Second try.
Dinner was extremely difficult. I am still not over it. But I did it.
Yeah you did!
She high-fives me then, still beaming, motions me inside. Amid piles of dirty laundry, books, records, and empty wrappers, we sit down on her floor.
Megan understands. That’s why I wanted you to sit in her zone. I figured pizza would be hard tonight.
She was very patient with me. She really helped. Thank you so much, Julia.
She shrugs and smiles.
It’s what we do.
Emm had said something similar.
It is my turn:
Are you okay?
Julia thinks for a moment.
No. No, I’m not. I haven’t been for a while.
I give her space and time to talk, or not, if she wants.
Megan is the reason I came here, actually.
Really? How so?
She chuckles.
Well, working the same shift at a pizzeria, she and I discovered early on that we lived on opposite sides of the same problem.
Food?
We both wish it were as easy to sum up as that.
When you’re fifteen and you love pizza, you eat pizza five dinners a week. When you move out of your parents’ house and into a crowded dorm, you have it for breakfast the next day too. Pizza, my friend, is a remarkable cure for everything from hangover to heartbreak. Pizza replaces that 2:00 A.M. cramp in your stomach and mind nicely, with warm, salty, gooey lethargy.…
She pauses, presumably, to picture the pizza.
And then it’s time for something sweet.
I can relate to the angst and the appeal of comfort food. I have spent my own share of time torturing myself in front of rows of crisps, crackers, and ice cream in supermarket aisles. The difference between Julia and me is that I cannot bring myself to eat them. The temporary comfort does not, in my mind, validate the guilty, nauseating knot in my stomach that follows. I ask her:
What were you anxious about?
Oh, nothing in particular at first, then everything, then nothing again. Uncertainty, I guess. Unfairness. Boredom, maybe? Pizza, ice cream, milkshakes, fries—they’re reliable friends.
In a way, like hunger. At the other end, as Julia said, of this sad spectrum we are on. You cannot control your life, love, future, past, but you can choose what you put, or not, in your mouth.
College is hard,
she says. I agree. Like moving to a new city.
It wasn’t at first, though,
she reflects,
I was on the coed basketball team. My teammates and coach were the family I sweated, showered, and pigged out with. I wore workout clothes all the time and actually worked out. I never worried about what I ate. I was always relaxed, with myself and the boys.
Nonchalantly, she adds:
Until one of them raped me and, that same night, I discovered I could binge and purge.
There is nothing to say. I put my hand on her knee. She gives me her Julia smile.
Don’t worry about me. It’s fine. I’m fine.
It is not, nor is she. We both know that, but I do not want to interrupt.
Anyway, comfort food was comforting, but purging was a revelation. It solved so many problems, Anna. It drove the feelings out—like constantly hitting restart. Have you ever done it?
I have. Most anorexics do, at that breaking, starving point when the body turns on its brain and sets loose on carbohydrates, sugar, fat. Bread, berries, chips, lettuce, a raw onion or pickles in the fridge. Chocolate, cookies, cake, leftover food in the trash.
Then the tsunami of guilt, paralyzing. The rush to the toilet bowl. Fingers in, food out. Fingers in again. Speed is key, before the body can absorb any more nutrients and calories.
Yes, but rarely. Only when I lose control. The purging is punishment.
Interesting. For me, it’s an addiction. That complete absence of energy and feeling, lying on the bathroom floor. I could stay there all day—and I did. All day every day for days.