Reconsider Me 4 страница

“Dear Mr. Deiffinger, ” I thought, walking the mile and a half from work to the Weight and Eating Disorders office where my first Fat Class was meeting. “Sorry you took offense at my description of Celine Dion’s work, but I actually thought I was being charitable. ”

I stomped into the conference room, seated myself at the table, and looked around. There was Lily, from the waiting room, and an older black woman, about my size, with a bulging briefcase beside her, poking away at one of those hand-held e-mail readers. There was a blond teenager, her long hair swept off her face in a hairband, her body hidden beneath a bulky oversized sweatshirt and gigantic droopy jeans. And there was a woman of perhaps sixty who had to weigh at least four hundred pounds. She followed me into the room, walking with the aid of a cane, and surveyed the seats carefully, measuring her bulk against their parameters, before easing herself down.

“Hey, Cannie, ” said Lily.

“Hey, ” I grumbled. The words Portion Control were written on a white wipable message board, and there was a poster of the food pyramid on one wall. This shit again, I thought, wondering if I could place out of the class. I’d been to Weight Watchers, after all. I knew all about portion control.

The skinny nurse I remembered from the waiting room walked through the door, her hands full of bowls, measuring cups, a small plastic replica of a four-ounce pork chop.

“Good evening, everyone, ” she said, and wrote her name — Sarah Pritchard, R. N. — on the board. We went around the table, introducing ourselves. The blond girl was Bonnie, the black woman was Anita, and the very large woman was Esther from West Oak Lane.

“I’m having a flashback of college, ” whispered Lily, as Nurse Sarah distributed booklets full of calorie counts, and packets of printouts on behavior modification.

“I’m having a flashback of Weight Watchers, ” I whispered back.

“Did you try that? ” asked Bonnie the blond girl, edging closer to us.

“Last year, ” I said.

“Was that the One Two Three Success program? ”

“Fat and Fiber, ” I whispered back.

“Isn’t that a cereal? ” asked Esther, who had a surprisingly lovely voice — very low, and warm, and free of the dread Philadelphia accent that causes natives to swallow their consonants like they’re made of warm taffy.

“That’s Fruit and Fiber, ” the blond girl said.

“Fat and Fiber was where you had to count the grams of fat and the grams of fiber in every food, and you were supposed to eat a certain number of grams of fiber, and not go over a certain number of grams of fat, ” I explained.

“Did it work? ” asked Anita, setting down her Palm Pilot.

“Nah, ” I said. “But that was probably my fault. I kept mixing up which number I was supposed to stay below and which one I was supposed to go above … and then I found, like, these really high-fiber brownies that were made with iron filings or something”

Lily cracked up.

“They had a zillion calories apiece but I figured it didn’t matter because they were very low in fat and very high in fiber”

“A common mistake, ” said Nurse Sarah cheerfully. “Fat and fiber are both important, but so is the total number of calories you take in. It’s very simple, really, ” she said, turning back to the board and scribbling the kind of equation that had confounded me in eleventh grade. “Calories taken in versus calories expended. If you take in more calories than you burn, you’ll gain weight. ”

“Really? ” I asked, my eyes wide.

The nurse looked at me suspiciously.

“Are you serious? It’s that simple? ”

“Um, ” she began. I suspected that she was probably used to fat ladies sitting meekly in the chairs, like overfed sheep, smiling and nodding and being grateful for the wisdom she was imparting, staring at her with abashed, admiring eyes, all because she’d had the good fortune of being born thin. The thought infuriated me.

“So if I eat fewer calories than I burn …” I slapped my forehead. “My God! I finally get it! I understand! I’m cured! ” I stood up and pumped my hands in the air as Lily snickered. “Healed! Saved! Thank you, Jesus, and the Weight and Eating Disorders Center, for taking the blinders from my eyes! ”

“Okay, ” said the nurse. “You’ve made your point. ”

“Damn, ” I said, resuming my seat. “I was going to ask if I could be excused. ”

The nurse sighed. “Look, ” she said. “The truth of it is, there’re a lot of complicating factors … and science doesn’t even understand all of them. We know about metabolic rates, and how some people’s bodies just seem to want to hang on to excess weight more than other people’s do. We know this isn’t easy. I would never tell you that it was. ”

She stared at us, breathing rapidly. We stared right back.

“I’m sorry, ” I finally said into the silence. “I was being fresh. It’s just that … well, I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but I’ve had this explained to me before. ”

“Uh-huh, ” said Anita.

“Me, too, ” said Bonnie.

“Fat people aren’t stupid, ” I continued. “But every single weight-loss program I’ve ever been to treats us like we are — as if as soon as they explain that broiled chicken is better than fried, and frozen yogurt’s better than ice cream, and that if you take a hot bath instead of eating pizza, we’re going to all turn into Courteney Cox. ”

“That’s right, ” said Lily.

The nurse looked frustrated. “I’d certainly never mean to suggest that any of you are stupid, ” she said. “Diet is part of it, ” she added. “Exercise is part of it, too, although probably not as big a part as we used to believe. ”

I frowned. That was just my luck. With all of the biking and walking I did, plus regular workouts at the gym with Samantha, exercise was the one part of a healthy lifestyle that I had down pat.

“Now today, ” she continued, “we’re going to be talking about portion size. Did you know that most restaurants serve portions that are well over the recommended USDA guidelines of what most women require over an entire day? ”

I groaned softly to myself as the nurse arrayed the plates and cups and little plastic pork chop on the table. “The correct portion of protein, ” she said, speaking in the slow, loud, careful voice commonly employed by kindergarten teachers, “is four ounces. Now, can anyone tell me about how much that is? ”

“Size of your palm, ” muttered Anita. “Jenny Craig, ” she said to the nurse’s surprised look.

Nurse Sarah took a deep breath. “Very good! ” she said, making a visible effort to sound happy and upbeat. “Now, how about a portion of fat? ”

“Tip of your thumb, ” I muttered. Her eyes widened. “Look, ” I said, “I think we all know this stuff … am I right? ”

I looked around the table. Everyone nodded. “The only thing we’re here for, the only thing that this program has to offer us, is the drugs. Now, are we going to get them today, or do we have to sit here and act like you’re telling us things we don’t already know? ”

The nurse’s face went from frustrated (and slightly dismissive) to angry (and more than slightly scared). “There’s a procedure to this, ” she said. “We explained it. Four weeks of behavior-modification classes …”

Lily started thumping her fist on the table. “Drugs … drugs … drugs …” she chanted.

“We can’t just hand out prescription medication”

“Drugs … drugs … drugs …” Now Bonnie the blond girl and Esther were chanting along as well. The nurse opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I’ll get the doctor, ” she said, and bolted. The five of us stared at each other for a moment. Then we all burst out laughing.

“She was scared! ” Lily hooted.

“Probably thought we’d crush her, ” I muttered.

“Sit on her! ” gasped Bonnie.

“I hate skinny people, ” I said.

Anita looked very serious. “Don’t say that, ” she said. “You shouldn’t hate anyone. ”

“Agh, ” I sighed. Just then, Dr. K. stuck his head through the door, with the chastened-looking nurse right behind him, practically clinging to the hem of his white coat.

“I understand there’s a problem, ” he rumbled.

“Drugs! ” said Lily.

The doctor had the look of a man who wanted very badly to laugh and was trying very hard not to.

“Is there a movement spokeswoman? ” he asked.

Everyone looked at me. I got to my feet, smoothed my shirt, and cleared my throat. “I think that it’s the feeling of the group that we’ve all been through different lectures and courses and support groups concerning behavior modification. ” I looked around the table. Everyone seemed to be nodding in agreement. “It’s our feeling that we’ve tried to change our behavior, and eat less, and exercise more, and all of those things that they tell you to do, and what we’d really like … what we’re really here for, what we’ve all paid for, is something new. Namely, drugs, ” I concluded, and sat back in my seat.

“Well, I know how you feel, ” he said.

“I doubt that very much, ” I shot back.

“Well, maybe you can tell me, ” he said mildly. “Look, ” he said. “It’s not like I know the secrets to lifelong weight loss and I’m here to tell them to you. Think of this as a journey … think of it as something we’re in on together. ”

“Except that our journey led us to the wonderful world of plus-size shopping and lonely nights, ” I grumbled.

The doctor smiled at me — a very disarming grin. “Let’s forget about fat or thin for a minute, ” he said. “If you guys already know the calorie counts of everything, and what a serving of pasta’s supposed to look like, then I’m sure you all know that most diets don’t work. Not over the long term, anyhow. ”

Now he had our attention. It was true, we’d all figured this out (from bitter personal experiences, in most cases), but to hear an authority figure, a doctor, a doctor who was running a weight-loss program say it … well, that was practically heresy. I half expected security guards to come rushing through the door and drag him off to be re-brainwashed.

“I think, ” he continued, “that we’ll all have much better luck — and we’ll be happier — if we think instead about small lifestyle changes — little things that we can do every day that won’t prove unsustainable over the long term. If we think about getting healthier, and feeling happier with ourselves, instead of looking like Courteney …”

He looked at me, eyebrows raised.

“Cox, ” I supplied. “Actually, Cox-Arquette. She got married. ”

“Right. Her. Forget her. Let’s concentrate on the attainable, instead. And I promise that nobody here will treat you like you’re stupid, no matter what your size is. ”

I found I was touched in spite of myself. The guy was actually making sense. Better yet, he wasn’t talking down to us. It was … well, revolutionary, really.

The nurse gave us one last disgruntled glance and scurried away. The doctor closed the door and took a seat. “I’d like to do an exercise with you, ” he said. He looked around the table. “How many of you ever eat when you’re not hungry? ”

Dead silence. I closed my eyes. Emotional eating. I’d been through this lecture, too.

“How many of you eat breakfast, and then maybe you come to the office and there’s a box of doughnuts and they look good and you’ll have one just because they’re there? ”

More silence. “Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kremes? ” I finally asked.

The doctor pursed his full lips. “I hadn’t thought about it. ”

“Well, it makes a difference, ” I said.

“Dunkin’ Donuts, ” he said.

“Chocolate? Jelly? Glazed that somebody from Accounting ripped in half, so there’s only half a doughnut left? ”

“Krispy Kremes are better, ” said Bonnie.

“Especially the warm ones, ” said Esther.

I licked my lips.

“The last time I had doughnuts, ” said Esther, “someone brought them to work, just like we’re talking about, and I picked out one that looked like a Boston cream … you know, it had the chocolate on top? ”

We nodded. We all probably knew how to recognize a Boston cream doughnut on sight.

“Then I bit into it, ” Esther continued, “and it was …” Her lips curled. “Lemon. ”

“Ick, ” said Bonnie. “I hate lemon! ”

“Okay, ” said the doctor, laughing. “My point is, they could be the best doughnuts in the world. They could be the Platonic ideal of doughnut-ness. But if you’ve already had breakfast, and you aren’t really hungry, ideally, you should be able to walk right by. ”

We thought about this for a minute. “As if, ” Lily finally said.

“Maybe you could try telling yourself that when you are really hungry, if what you’re really hungry for is a doughnut, then you can go get one. ”

We thought again. “Nope, ” said Lily. “I’m still eating the free doughnuts. ”

“And how do you know what you’re really hungry for? ” asked Bonnie. “Like, me … I’m always hungry for the stuff I know I shouldn’t be eating. But, like, give me a bag of baby carrots and I’m all, like, whatever. ”

“Did you ever try boiling them and mashing them with ginger and orange rind? ” asked Lily. Bonnie wrinkled her nose.

“I don’t like carrots, ” said Anita, “but I do like butternut squash. ”

“That’s not a vegetable, though. It’s a starch, ” I said.

Anita looked confused. “How can it not be a vegetable? ”

“It’s a starchy vegetable. Like a potato. I learned that in Weight Watchers. ”

“On Fat and Fiber? ” asked Lily.

“Okay then! ” said the doctor. I could tell from his eyes that the unruly chatter of five veterans of Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Pritikin, Atkins, et al., was starting to get to him. It couldn’t be fun.

“Let’s try something, ” he said. He walked to the door and flicked off the lights. The room dimmed. Bonnie giggled. “I want you all to close your eyes, ” he said, “and try to figure out how you feel right now, right this minute. Are you hungry? Tired? Are you sad, or happy, or anxious? Try to really concentrate, and then, try to really separate the physical sensations from what’s happening emotionally. ”

We all closed our eyes.

“Anita? ” asked the doctor.

“I’m tired, ” she said immediately.

“Bonnie? ”

“Oh, maybe tired. Maybe a little hungry, too, ” she said.

“And emotionally? ” he prodded.

Bonnie sighed. “I’m sick of my school, ” she finally muttered. “The kids say rotten things to me. ” I snuck a peek at her. Her eyes were still tightly screwed shut, and her hands were clenched into fists on top of her oversized jeans. High school, evidently, had not gotten any kinder or gentler since my own attendance ten years prior. I wished I could put my hand on her shoulder. Tell her that things would get better … except, given recent events in my own life, I wasn’t sure it was the truth.

“Lily? ”

“Starving, ” Lily said promptly.

“And emotionally? ”

“Umm … okay, ” she said.

“Just okay? ” asked the doctor.

“There’s a new episode of ER on tonight, ” she said. “I can’t be anything less than okay. ”

“Esther? ”

“I’m ashamed, ” said Esther, and burst into tears. I opened my eyes. The doctor pulled a small packet of Kleenex out of his pocket and handed it over.

“Why ashamed? ” he asked gently.

Esther smiled weakly. “ ‘Cause before we started I was looking at the plastic pork chop, and I was thinking that it didn’t look half bad. ”

That broke the tension. We all started laughing, even the doctor. Esther sniffled, wiping her eyes.

“Don’t worry, ” Lily said. “I was thinking the exact same thing about the pat of butter on the food pyramid. ”

The doctor cleared his throat. “And Candace? ” he asked.

“Cannie, ” I said.

“How are you? ”

I closed my eyes, but only for a second and what I saw was Bruce’s face, Bruce’s brown eyes close to mine. Bruce saying that he loved me. Then I opened them and looked right at him. “Fine, ” I said, even though it wasn’t true. “I’m fine. ”

“So how’d it go? ” asked Samantha. We were panting on side-by-side StairMasters that night at the gym.

“So far, not bad, ” I said. “No drugs yet. The doctor who’s leading the class seems okay. ”

We climbed in silence for a few minutes, the belts grinding and squeaking beneath our feet as a Funky Fitness class blared away beside us. Our gym seemed determined to attract new members by offering every flavor-of-the-week fitness class, so we had Pilates, gospel aerobics, interval spinning, and something called the Fireman’s Full-Body Workout, complete with hoses, ladders, and a one-hundred-pound mannequin to be hauled up and down the stairs. Meanwhile, the roof leaked, the air conditioners were iffy, and the Jacuzzi always seemed to be under repair.

“And how was the rest of your day, dear? ” asked Sam, wiping her face with her sleeve. I told her about Mr. Deiffenger’s angry defense of Celine Dion.

“I hate readers, ” I gasped, as my StairMaster kicked into a higher gear. “Why do they have to get so personal? ”

“I guess he probably figures that you were messing with Celine, so you deserve it. ”

“Yeah, but she’s public property. I’m just me. ”

“But not to him, you’re not. Your name’s in the paper. That makes you public property, just like Celine. ”

“Only bigger. ”

“And with better taste. And not, ” said Samantha sternly, “with any plans to marry your seventy-year-old manager who’s known you since you were twelve. ”

“Oh, now who’s being critical? ” I asked.

“Damn Canadians, ” said Samantha. She’d spent a few years working in Montreal, had endured a disastrous love affair with a man there, and never had anything nice to say about our neighbors to the North, including Peter Jennings, whom she steadfastly refused to watch, arguing that he’d taken a job that should have rightfully gone to an American — “someone who knows how to say the word about. ”

After forty miserable minutes, we adjourned to the steam room, wrapped ourselves in towels, and assumed prone positions on the benches.

“How’s the Yoga King? ” I inquired. Sam gave a satisfied-looking smile and raised her arms above her head, reaching toward the ceiling.

“I’m feeling very flexible, ” she said smugly. I threw my towel at her head.

“Don’t torture me, ” I said. “I’m probably never going to have sex again. ”

#147; Oh, cut it out, Cannie, ” said Samantha. “And you know this won’t last. Mine never do. ” Which was true. Sam’s love life, of late, had been uniquely cursed. She’d meet a guy and go out with him once, and everything would be wonderful. They’d meet again, and things would be clicking along. And then, on the third date, there’d be some horrible awkward moment, some unbelievable revelation, something that would basically make it impossible for Sam to see the guy again. Her last guy, a Jewish doctor with a fabulous ré sumé and enviable physique, had looked like a contender until Date #3, when he’d taken Sam home for dinner and she’d been disturbed to find a picture of his sister prominently displayed in the entryway hall.

“What’s wrong with that? ” I’d asked.

“She was topless, ” Samantha’d replied. Exit Dr. Right, enter the Yoga King.

“Look at it this way, ” said Samantha. “It was a lousy day, but now it’s over. ”

“I just wish I could talk to him. ”

Samantha brushed her hair back over her shoulders, propped her head on an elbow, and stared down at me from her perch on one of the upper tiers of wooden benches. “To Mr. Deiffledorf? ”

“Deiffinger. No, not him. ” I ladled more water on the hot rocks so the steam billowed around us. “To Bruce. ”

Samantha squinted at me through the haze. “Bruce? I don’t get it. ”

“What if …, ” I said slowly. “What if I made a mistake? ”

She sighed. “Cannie, I listened to you for months talk about how things weren’t right, how things weren’t getting better, how you knew that taking a break would be the right thing to do in the long run. And even though you were upset right after it happened, I never heard you say that you’d made the wrong decision. ”

“What if I think something different now? ”

“Well, what changed your mind? ”

I thought about my answer. The article was part of it. Bruce and I had never talked about my whole weight thing. Maybe if we had … if he had some sense of how I felt, if I had some inkling of how much he understood … maybe things could have been different.

But more than that, I missed talking to him, telling him how my day went, blowing off steam about Gabby’s latest salvos, reading him potential leads for my stories, scenes from my screenplays.

“I just miss him, ” I said lamely.

“Even after what he wrote about you? ” asked Sam.

“Maybe it wasn’t so bad, ” I muttered. “I mean, he didn’t say that he didn’t find me … you know … desirable. ”

“Of course he found you desirable, ” Sam said. “You didn’t find him desirable. You found him lazy, and immature, and a slob, and you told me not three months ago lying on this very bench that if he left one more used piece of Kleenex in your bed you were going to kill him and leave his body on a New Jersey Transit bus. ”

I winced. I couldn’t remember the line exactly, but it sure sounded like something I’d say.

“And if you called him, ” Samantha continued, “what would you say? ”

“Hi, how are you, planning on humiliating me in print again anytime soon? ” I’d actually had a monthlong reprieve. Bruce’s October “Good in Bed” had been called “Love and the Glove. ” Someone — Gabby, I was practically sure — had left a copy on my desk at work the day before, and I’d read it as fast as I could, with my heart in my throat, until I’d determined that there wasn’t a word about C. Not this month, at least.

Real men wear condoms, was his first line. Which was a hoot, considering that during our three years together Bruce had been almost completely spared the indignities of latex. We’d both tested clean, and I went on the pill after a handful of dismaying times when his erection would wilt the instant I produced the Trojans. That minor detail was, of course, notably absent from the story, along with the fact that I’d wound up putting the thing on him — an act that left me feeling like an overprotective mother tying her little boy’s shoes. Donning the glove is more than a mere duty, he’d lectured Moxie’s readers. It’s a sign of devotion, of maturity, a sign of respect for all womankind — and a sign of his love for you.

Now, the memory of the way he’d really been regarding condoms seemed too tender to even consider. And the thought of Bruce and I in bed together made me cringe, because of the thought that came dashing in on its heels: We’ll never be like that again.

“Don’t call him, ” said Sam. “I know it feels awful right now, but you’ll get through it. You’ll survive. ”

“Thank you, Gloria Gaynor, ” I grumbled, and went to take a shower.

When I got home, my answering machine was blinking. I hit “play” and heard Steve. “Remember me? The guy in the park? Listen, I was just wondering if you’d like to get that beer this week or maybe dinner. Give me a call. ”

I smiled as I walked Nifkin, grinned when I cooked myself a chicken breast and a sweet potato and spinach for dinner, beamed all through my twenty-minute consultation with Sam on the question of Steve, Cute Guy from the Park. At nine o’clock precisely I dialed his number. He sounded glad to hear from me. He sounded … great, in fact. Funny. Considerate. Interested in what I did. We quickly covered the basics of each other’s lives: ages, colleges, oh-did-you-know-Janie-from-my-high-school, a little bit about parents and family (I left out the whole lesbian mother thing, in order to have something to talk about in the event of a second date), and a little bit about why-we’re-single-right-now (I gave the two-sentence synopsis of the Bruce denouement. He told me he’d had a girlfriend back in Atlanta, but she’d gone to nursing school and he’d moved here). I told him about covering the Pillsbury bake-off. He told me that he’d taken up kayaking. We decided to meet for dinner on Saturday night at the Latest Dish and maybe catch a movie after that.

“So maybe this will be okay, ” I told Nifkin, who didn’t seem to care much, one way or the other. He turned three times and settled himself on a pillow. I put on my nightgown, trying to avoid glimpses of my body in the bathroom mirror, and went to sleep feeling cautiously optimistic that there was at least a chance that I wouldn’t die alone.

Samantha and I had long since identified Azafran as our designated first date restaurant. It had all the advantages: It was right around the corner from her house and my apartment. The food was good, it wasn’t too expensive, it was BYOB, which gave us the chance to a) impress the guy by bringing a good bottle of wine, and b) eliminate the possibility of the guy getting blotto, because there’d be nothing more than the single bottle. And, best of all, Azafran had floor-to-ceiling windows, and waitresses who worked out at our gym, who knew us, and who would obligingly seat us at the window tables — our backs to the street, with the guy facing forward — so that whichever one of us didn’t have the date could stroll by with Nifkin and scope out the prospect.

I was congratulating myself, because Steve looked eminently scop-able. Short-sleeved polo shirt, neat khakis that looked as though he might actually have ironed them, and a pleasant whiff of cologne. A nice change from Bruce, who was given to stained T-shirts and droopy shorts and who could, absent frequent reminders on my part, be somewhat haphazard in his deodorant use.

I smiled at Steve. He smiled back. Our fingers brushed over the calamari. The wine was delicious, perfectly chilled, and it was a perfect night, with a clear, starry sky and just a hint of fall in the wind.

“So what did you do today? ” he asked me.

“Went for a bike ride, up to Chestnut Hill, ” I said. “Thought about you …”

Something flickered across his face then. Something bad.

“Look, ” he said quietly. “I ought to tell you something. When I asked if you wanted to have a beer with me … well, I told you I was new to the neighborhood … I mean, I was really just looking for … you know. For friends. For people to hang out with. ”

The calamari turned into a lead ball in my stomach. “Oh. ”

“And I guess I didn’t make that clear enough … that, I mean that this isn’t a date or anything … oh, God, ” he said. “Don’t look at me like that. ”

Don’t cry, I told myself. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. How had I misread this so badly? I was pathetic. A walking joke. I wanted Bruce back. Hell, I wanted my mother. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

“Your eyes, ” he said softly. “Your eyes are killing me. ”

“I’m sorry, ” I said dumbly. Apologizing as always. This cannot get any worse, I thought. Steve stared over my head, out the window.

“Hey, ” he said, “isn’t that your dog? ”

I turned, and, sure enough, there was Samantha, and Nifkin, both peering through the window. Sam looked impressed. As I stared, she flashed me a quick thumbs-up.

“Will you excuse me? ” I murmured. I stood up, forcing my feet to move. In the ladies’ room I splashed cold water on my face, concentrating on not breathing, feeling the tears I couldn’t cry mass behind my forehead and instantly transform themselves into a headache. I considered the night ahead: dinner, then we were supposed to go see the latest world-ending disaster flick at the multiplex. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t spend the whole night sitting next to a guy who’d just declared himself an un-date. And maybe that made me too sensitive, or ridiculous, but the truth was, I couldn’t do it.

I went to the kitchen and found our waitress.

“Almost ready, ” she said, then looked at my face. “Oh, God … what? He’s gay. He’s an escaped convict. He used to date your mother. ”

“Along those lines, ” I said.

“Want me to tell him you’re sick? ”

“Yeah, ” I said, then thought again. “No. Tell you what … pack up the food, and don’t tell him anything. Let’s see how long he sits there. ”

She rolled her eyes. “That bad? ”

“There’s another way out of here, right? ”

She pointed to the fire exit, which was propped open by a chair containing a busboy on a break. “Go for it, ” she said, and a minute later, clutching two to-go containers and what remained of my pride, I slunk past the busboy and out into the night. My head was pounding. Fool, I thought fiercely. Idiot. Stupid, stupid idiot to think that somebody who looks like that would be interested in someone who looks like you.

I got upstairs, dumped the food, took off my dress, pulled on my ratty overalls, thinking furiously that I probably looked like Andrea Dworkin. I stomped down the stairs, out the door, and started walking, first down to the river, then north, toward Society Hill and Old City, and finally, west toward Rittenhouse Square.

Part of me — the reasonable part — was thinking that this was not a big thing, just a minor bump on life’s bicycle path, and that he was the idiot, not me. The single guy, he’d said. Was I wrong to think that he was asking me out on a bona fide date? And so what if this wasn’t a date after all? I’d had dates before. I’d even had boyfriends. It was completely reasonable to think that I’d have them both again, and this guy wasn’t worth another second of my time.

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