? ? ?
In the empty parking lot outside Del Taco, he sits in his Honda and drinks his super-size Coke, shoving damp chili fries into his mouth gluttonously, staring neither at the bug-streaked windshield nor at the starless night but straight ahead. Back when Beth first lost the weight, she used to treat herself to a biweekly plate of cheesy fries, which they’d get at a sit-down fast food place that had big fake leather booths with phones in them where you placed your order. She’d eat them with a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise. Even though he grew up in the state where they invented this concoction, it grossed him out slightly, watching her greedily whip the red and white gloops together with a matchstick fry until they formed an obscene bloody pink. He even made a face once at the sight. She saw the face and cried. Didn’t eat anything but her draconian fare in front of him for months afterward.
A call from Beth is making his cell vibrate on the passenger seat for the fourth time. He ignores it. When he gets home he’ll tell her the phone fell between the seats.
? ? ?
When he gets back, she’s curled on the couch, flipping through a cookbook called Roast Chicken and Other Stories, watching America’s Next Top Model. The only thing more disturbing than when she does this is when she watches the Food Network with a legal pad on her lap, taking notes for decadent meals he knows she’ll never make.
“Went for Wendy’s, did we?” she says, not looking up from the screen.
“Course not.” It isn’t a lie.
He sits beside her on the couch. She’s watching the final episode of cycle ten. He knows this because this is the one cycle she has on iTunes, the one she watches the most often, where a plus-size model wins. The first time they watched the fat girl win—he didn’t so much watch as look up every now and then from playing World of Warcraft on his laptop—even he was moved. He thought, Good for her. Good for society. He turned to look at Beth thinking she would be ecstatic, and was surprised to see a punched-in look of abject pain on her face.
“Jesus, Beth. What is it?”
“I just think that Somalian girl should have won. She had prettier features. Overall.”
Despite this stance, she still watches this episode every so often, always with a shameful fascination. When it’s over, she turns off the TV, closes Roast Chicken and Other Stories, and looks at him.
“Are you coming to bed?”
“In a bit. Think I’ll just fuck around on the computer for a while first.”
? ? ?
Dickie won’t shut up about the fat girl. Tom figured after a few weeks, Dickie would have moved on to other pastures. That once more, he’d start telling tales about a hot receptionist’s subpar blowing technique or how he got one of the Goldman Sachs girls who work nearby drunk enough on Tito’s to dress up as a furry. But no, every time Dickie opens his mouth it’s to tell them about this chick. How it’s the best sex he’s ever had. He can’t even quite put it into words, it’s so good. It’s like they’ve reached a higher sexual plane or something. Really, it’s enough to drive anyone crazy. He talks about it over Fireballs at Dead Goat. Pizza benders at the Italian Village. The free lunch buffet at the nearby strip bar, Southern X-posure, where Dickie’s eyes don’t even graze the firm curves of the glaring dancers whom he describes as hot but dead inside. Over cigarettes in the office parking lot, the exhaust from the nearby interstate blowing in their faces like an end-of-the-world wind, Dickie tells them it’s getting serious. In fact, he thinks he might be in love. Last night, he’s pretty sure they broke some records. After, they got high and made butter tartlets. He brings in a Tupperware container full of them and offers some to the fat secretaries, all of whom snatch greedy handfuls and say they’re just scrumptious. “Aren’t they, though?” Dickie winks.
He offers one to Tom, who coldly refuses.
? ? ?
Saturday. Fourth of July. He and Beth are driving toward Hot Pocket’s house for the staff barbecue. She’s sulking in the passenger’s seat, hunched over a veggie platter with a ramekin of fat-free hummus in the center. Hunched as much as she can be, given that she is wearing yet another far-too-tight dress. New. Black, like she’s in mourning. Patterned with small, prim flesh-colored flowers. Fishnets. Heels. To a barbecue.
“Is it too much?” she asked him on their way out the door.
My god, yes.
“You look great.”