Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions Read online

  Yo!

  Interestingly, the kit can also tell you about your own ancestry. Both my mother and father were Italian-American, so I always assumed I was a purebred.

  But maybe not.

  And if I’m not Italian, somebody has to explain my nose.

  The test can even determine what percent of my DNA comes from Neanderthals, which the website calls a Neanderthal Percentage.

  I thought we all came from Neanderthals, but maybe not. Maybe there are other kinds of Thals.

  The website says that Neanderthals have a bigger skull, which sounds exactly like me. Mother Mary always said I have a hard head, and now I have an excuse.

  It’s in my DNA.

  In fact, it’s her fault.

  But will you be the one to tell her?

  Back to School

  By Francesca

  I wasn’t sure what to expect for my five-year college reunion. All I knew was that it wasn’t going to be a victory lap.

  I feel lucky to have gone to Harvard. I got a great education, and I made a handful of very close friends and lasting connections with professors. But I didn’t always love Harvard, and Harvard didn’t always love me.

  I had crazy roommates. I had a couple friendships that went down in flames.

  I had one professor who hated my guts. I had many more who couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.

  I wasn’t the president of any clubs. I co-founded one, but I left after my co-founder demoted me for rejecting his sexually offensive behavior.

  I tried to have fun and find myself along the way, but mostly I worked my butt off and kept my head down.

  So my thoughts about going to the reunion were mixed. But nervous energy and curiosity are closely related, and I had far too much of both to skip it.

  The only thing I wasn’t worried about was running into my college sweetheart. And not because I’ve matured beyond ex-boyfriend-anxiety—God no, do we ever grow out of that?—but because I knew he wouldn’t be there. He’s in the military and married. I expected the former would keep him too busy to come, and on the off chance he did show, the latter lent a finality that made things no longer interesting.

  And anyway, I was much more intimidated to see ex-friends than ex-lovers. Women are ten times scarier than men. And I had some straight-up mean girls in my collegiate past. These were the interactions I was rehearsing in my head on the train ride up to Boston.

  My plan was to take the high road, and take it fast. I wanted to rip off the Band-Aid and avoid an evening of side-eye over drinks. So I made a point to say hello to the Queen Bee as soon as I saw her.

  She’s a doctor now, so at least if she cut me, she could also stitch me up.

  We shared a stiff hug and some small chat. It wasn’t as bad as I thought.

  I had the Hippocratic Oath on my side.

  Or maybe she just didn’t scare me anymore.

  I counted that a win.

  Later, a guy I sort-of knew, a biochemistry major, now PhD student, came over to say hello. I remembered him as nerdy but sweet. He was one of those guys you’re not interested in when you’re young, but then you think back on with a little regret. As we were chatting, I thought, maybe I had judged him too superficially, I bet he’s going to make some girl really happy.

  “So, are you married?” he asked.

  “No. But I’m dating someone,” I said.

  “Are you engaged?”

  I held up my bare hand. “Nope. Are you?”

  With some friends who made Harvard wonderful

  “No, but,” he placed his hand on my lower abdomen and said, “Clock is ticking.”

  I looked down at his hand and then up at him with a look that drained the color from his face.

  “Sorry, that was weird,” he said.

  “Ye-ah.” I backed away.

  Some people are best left in the lab.

  The rest of the evening, I had a good time with my friends, although most of them were the same people I still hang out regularly with in my adult life.

  At the end of the night, in the ladies’-room line, I ran into a girl I knew only tangentially because she dated a friend of mine. In college, she seemed to have it all—she held a prestigious position in her activities, she did well in her classes, she was ambitious and outgoing. Back then I’d heard rumors she didn’t like me, but because I have the type of self-esteem only an Italian mother can instill, I didn’t believe it. How could she not like me when we hardly knew each other?

  That she struck up a conversation with me now only seemed to confirm my sense that we were on the cusp of being friends. I greeted her warmly.

  “So I just got to have a half-hour conversation with my asshole-ex-boyfriend. Isn’t reunion the best?” she said.

  Game for girl-bonding, I commiserated. “Exes are the worst. I’m lucky, my college boyfriend isn’t here.”

  “I know who that is. You dated…” and she said my ex’s full name for the whole line to hear, which struck me as edgy. Maybe we weren’t about to become new pals.

  She didn’t leave me wondering long, as she added, “He’s an assassin now, right?”

  I recoiled. “He’s serving in our armed forces, if that’s what you mean.”

  “He shoots people out of an airplane, doesn’t he? What’s the difference?”

  “There’s a pretty big difference.” With the “ABORT” alarm blinking in my brain, I tried to escape her when it was my turn in the restroom, but she found me again by the sinks. I refused to meet her eyes in the mirror, but I could feel her reflection glaring at me.

  “He’s married now, you know,” she said.

  I walked away; she followed. “I do know,” I said, “and we’re on good terms. I’m proud of him, and I wish him the best.” I was now striding away from her, but she was literally jogging to keep up.

  “They have a child, did you know that?”

  I didn’t. And hearing it from her first embarrassed me. But I was more flustered by this near stranger’s animosity toward me and overinvolvement in my life. I turned to face her, held up my hand, and said only, “Stop.”

  She laughed in a weird way, and I wasted no time getting away from her. When there was some distance between us, I heard her shout:

  “Their baby’s name is Henry!”

  I could only shake my head.

  Thing is, I’ve moved on. My ex has moved on. For some reason, this girl had not.

  I felt sorry for her.

  So my reunion reminded me that college wasn’t the best time of my life. The men there weren’t my best options. My friendships weren’t the best I would ever have. I wasn’t my best self.

  Thank goodness.

  We Have a Winner

  By Lisa

  I just got back from a book tour through ten cities—including Las Vegas.

  Jackpot!

  Remarkably, I had never been to Vegas before.

  I was a Vegas Virgin.

  How did I get to go to Las Vegas on book tour?

  I’m lucky.

  Did I test this on my trip?

  No. I didn’t even step foot in a casino.

  But I did get crazy in a Barnes & Noble.

  Fun for bookworms!

  So what happened?

  Why didn’t I lose my Vegas virginity?

  Let me give you some background. The reason I got to go to Vegas was because I asked. I get a lot of email from fans who live there, and in twenty years of touring, I had never been to their town. They were beginning to feel dissed. One wrote me, “People don’t think we read in Las Vegas.”

  So I went, signed at the bookstore, and am here to tell you that people read in Las Vegas. Better yet, they read me, and that’s all that really matters.

  So did I gamble?

  Well, I intended to. In fact, I was psyched. I had seen The Hangover three times, not only because Bradley Cooper is so crazy hot.

  Oops. Did I say that out loud?

  Anyway, if you’ve never been to Vegas, the fun begins
on the plane. Everybody going to Vegas is in a great mood. I flew there from Minneapolis at ten in the morning, and everybody ordered a drink as soon as we had liftoff.

  Or they did.

  Only the hard core didn’t party on the plane. They studied magazines about card-playing.

  See, Vegas reads!

  Anyway, I was ready to gamble. Anybody who knows my marital history knows this already.

  And I could have started as soon as I got off the plane, because there were slot machines in the terminal. And near the ladies’ room. And at baggage claim.

  So efficient! You can lose your luggage and your retirement fund at the same time.

  I figured I could gamble at my hotel, but when I checked in, I found out it didn’t have a casino.

  Evidently my publisher knows my marital history, too.

  So I ate dinner and did the signing at the bookstore. It ended at nine o’clock, which left plenty of time to gamble. So why didn’t I?

  In my own defense, I tried.

  I walked to the Bellagio, because a neon sign said that they had an exhibit of Andy Warhol paintings, and I figured that art would be a palate cleanser after all that commerce.

  But when I saw how big the Bellagio was, I got intimidated. It was like Wegman’s, only without the fun.

  People were flooding in the big doors, which was when I also realized I don’t know how to play poker. I don’t know how you get the coins for the slot machines. I can’t push my way to a roulette table; I can barely push my way to the deli counter.

  I realized my gambling days were over.

  Before they had even begun.

  I work hard for my money, and I’d rather invest my earnings.

  In shoes.

  So I went back to the hotel, feeling vaguely like a loser.

  But when I got to my room, I had the time of my life.

  In fact, I had the most fun you could have in Vegas, or anywhere else.

  How?

  I read a book.

  Judge Not, Lest Ye Be a Pain in the Ass

  By Lisa

  Mother Mary always says, everybody’s got problems.

  Once again, she’s right.

  I say this because the other day, I was talking with a group of women and the conversation turned, as it naturally would, to our problems. One woman complained about her cholesterol problem, another about a mechanic who ripped her off, and I started complaining about how the cable repairman left without giving me a new remote.

  Then somebody in the group said, “These are really First World problems.”

  And we all shut up, having been told that our problems didn’t matter.

  I myself didn’t even know what that meant, but I wasn’t about to say so in front of everybody else, having already been informed that my conversation was unworthy.

  So I went home to look it up and found that First World problems are those experienced by people in wealthy, civilized countries, as compared with the problems experienced by people in Third World countries, like malaria.

  Still I was kind of bugged, because everybody knows that the Third World has king-size problems, but that’s not where we live.

  So we have First World problems.

  We never said we had Worst World problems.

  They’re still problems, to us.

  And if we can’t talk about First World problems, I might never utter another word.

  Also, I wouldn’t have anything to write about.

  I read online that people were talking about rich-people problems and poor-people problems, and black-people problems and white-people problems and so on, but if you ask me, we’re always being told to stop whining, even though we have an absolute, God-given right to whine.

  And while we’re on the subject, how annoying is it when the remote control doesn’t work?

  Yes, we’re going to talk about that now, because it’s still on my mind, and my bet is that it’s on yours, too.

  Granted it’s not cholera, but don’t you hate it when you have to push the OFF button four hundred times to turn the TV off?

  And then through some mysterious mechanics in your remote, it turns off the cable but not the TV, or the TV but not the cable, and blue, green, and red lights are blinking like crazy? So you stretch your hand way up in the air and wave it back and forth like you’re making semaphore signals, trying vainly to get the right angle on the TV and the cable box so that you can finally turn them both off at the same time and get to sleep?

  I know it won’t kill me, but honestly.

  Do you really expect those of us in the First World to walk to the TV and turn it off?

  We can’t even find the button.

  We hire people to do that for us.

  Also, why don’t they make a remote control that lights up at night, so you can see the ON and OFF buttons in the dark?

  Daughter Francesca has one of those in New York, and it’s awesome. Yet those of us in the First-and-a-Half World, namely the Philadelphia suburbs, have to hit three hundred different buttons at the top of the remote, praying that one of them is the OFF button, but instead is the AUX button, whatever that is, or the SETUP button, so we can screw up our television permanently by setting the language to Czechoslovakian.

  You guessed it, this is what I was whining about when someone reminded me that people are starving in Africa.

  Yet you’re probably having the exact same problem with your remote control, or a series of related problems, as remotes manifest an array of maladies, none of which involves tsetse flies.

  Also, it drives the dogs nuts when the remote control doesn’t work because they sleep clustered around me, and every time I start sitting up and waving the remote control, they get disrupted and it ruins their beauty sleep.

  Yes, I have First World dogs.

  American dogs.

  You got a problem with that?

  I don’t.

  City Mouse, Country Cat

  By Francesca

  It was like the opening scene of a horror film. I was playing the oblivious blonde chatting with her friend over the phone, home alone—or so I thought. The minute I end the call, I see it: a flash of movement in the dark corner of my living room. Fear flickers across my face, but I shake it off, while any sentient audience member wants to yell at the screen.

  But I start to look, first casually, then frantically, for the intruder that, deep down, I know I saw. Using the flashlight of my iPhone camera, I shine a light behind every door, around every corner. I flatten myself on the ground and squeeze myself under the couch, fumbling to bring the flashlight app back up for one excruciating minute, and when it finally turns on …

  The mouse is right in front of my face.

  Don’t believe me? I took a picture. The mouse was so audacious in staring me down that it stood for a portrait session.

  That’s a city mouse for you.

  I’ve dealt with his kind before. Mice are a horror movie, and there’s always a sequel. The original Squeak was set in my old apartment in a crummier building that sat above two restaurants. The mice there were so well established, they paid rent.

  But my new apartment is better run, so I thought I’d be protected from Squeak 2, I Know What You Ate Last Summer.

  The mouse appeared the day I was leaving for Thanksgiving, so I hastily set a few wooden traps, snapping them on my finger only twice, and rushed to make my train.

  At home, I was telling my mom the story at the kitchen island, when one of our cats, Mimi, sprang onto the countertop.

  A lightbulb went off.

  I’d take this country cat back to the city with me as an all-natural, rodent-killing machine.

  It seemed like a perfect plan. I love Mimi, and Mimi loves mice. What she doesn’t love is living with the mini-mafia of five dogs in my mom’s house. I have only one dog, Pip, and he hardly counts.

  My only concern was the kitty-litter smell in a small apartment. So I went to Petco to educate myself on deodorizing.

  Kitty
litter is way more confusing than it needs to be. Only the Sphinx could answer the riddle of kitty litter, and even she gave up and opted for plain sand.

  How am I supposed to choose between Tidy Cat Instant Action and Tidy Cat 24/7 Performance? I don’t want to smell cat excrement now or later. Why not combine the technology? Is this a conspiracy to make me buy both? Arm & Hammer Double Duty litter touts that it eliminates feces and urine odors. Isn’t that a given? Rare is the customer who thinks, “Cat pee is the worst, but cat poop—not bad.”

  Overwhelmed by choice, I went overboard. I bought a covered litter box with an air filter at the top, scented liners, deodorizing powder, and whichever litter brand was nearest when I got tired of trying to make sense of them. Not to mention all the fun stuff I bought for my new pet, like toys, food bowls, and a little flowered collar with a personalized tag.

  At checkout, I wondered if this was actually cheaper than hiring an exterminator.

  Still, I was excited. Mimi was going to solve my mouse problem and be a beloved addition to my little family.

  But Mimi did not rest at all during the three-hour drive back to the city. She crouched at the back of the crate with eyes the size of saucers. I started to worry the country-to-city transition wouldn’t be as easy on her as I’d thought.

  I made it back to my apartment dragging my suitcase, the dog on a leash, the cat carrier under my arm, and what felt like sixty pounds of deodorizing, multicat, extra-strength, instant and round-the-clock kitty litter.

  As soon as I opened the front door, a putrid stench struck me like an olfactory freight train.

  Dead mouse.

  One of my wooden traps had worked, and a while ago, by the smell of things.

  I opened the cat carrier and Mimi instantly fled deep into my closet. Pip chased after her. The mouse was dead as a doornail.

  The kitty litter, however, smelled fine.

  Baby Me

  By Lisa

  My life just got awesome.

  Yours can, too.

  What changed my life?

  The perfect chair.

  In the movie theater.

  I’m not even kidding.

  Relax.

  Sit down.