Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions Page 4

  Get over it, Clare, we have a game to win.

  She forgave him. And from then on, Juan-Pablo’s bad behavior played into my bets perfectly.

  When his dopey conversation irritated Sharleen enough to bail—great, I had her down as the one to leave of her own accord.

  When his narcissism became a deal breaker for Andi—even better, I always had her in the third-place spot.

  Juan-Pablo’s wrongs were all right with me.

  Finally, the unmagical journey was at its end. The two remaining were my star player, Clare, and Nikki, a dark horse I didn’t have anywhere on my team. The stakes were high.

  For me and my ten bucks, not for the people choosing a spouse on TV.

  I invited my girlfriend and fellow fantasy-league competitor over to watch the finale, a typically bloated and boring episode.

  Not this time.

  Juan-Pablo outdid himself, whispering something to Clare in the helicopter—always a helicopter—that, according to her, was so disgusting and offensive, she couldn’t repeat it.

  My friend and I had a field day trying to guess what it was.

  But then Clare cried. And I was reminded this wasn’t a fantasy league of well-compensated professional athletes. These were women like me.

  Okay, like me but with better hair and makeup.

  Ultimately, after endlessly jerking her around, Juan-Pablo rejected Clare. And she wouldn’t hug him.

  Instead, she told him off in the best way possible.

  As she said on the after-show, “I had never been able to stand up for myself to a man before. It was so liberating to be able to stand there and say, this is exactly how I feel, and it’s not okay.”

  We were so proud of her, we applauded the TV.

  Twitter exploded, along with my fantasy bracket.

  But I’ve never felt so genuinely happy at the end of a Bachelor season. For once, the show and the viewing audience seemed to be on the side of the real woman, instead of just the fantasy.

  I lost.

  Women won.

  Geared Up!

  By Lisa

  They say that you never forget how to ride a bicycle.

  Once again, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

  I say this because I got a bicycle for Christmas. And I forgot how to ride one.

  In fairness to me, this bicycle came with fifty-four-page instruction booklet and a CD.

  Let me first say that I love my gift, which was given to me by my bestie Laura. I know how lucky I am to have a great friend like her, as well as a cool new bike. So don’t think I’m ungrateful, but I never thought I’d have to study to ride a bike.

  Isn’t Step One, Put butt on seat?

  Step Two, Point front end forward?

  Step Three, Place feet on black things?

  Step Four, Press down.

  Step Five, Don’t fall.

  If only it were that easy.

  The last time I rode a bicycle was in high school, which was forty years ago. When I got the new bike, I hopped on and tried to ride it around the driveway. I managed not to fall, but I was no Lance Armstrong.

  857,938 gears, but no kickstand!

  Except not even Lance Armstrong is Lance Armstrong anymore.

  Bottom line, nothing about bicycles is the way I remember.

  I realized this as soon as I tried to brake by pedaling backwards and almost rode into a tree.

  What happened to coaster brakes?

  Were they too perfect and too simple to survive the modern era?

  I know there’s such a thing as hand brakes, but I couldn’t find them on the short black stick that is now called the handlebar. My old handlebars curved around to meet me like a warm hug, but this new handlebar is something you have to lean forward to put your hands on. You know you’re in the correct position when your back spasms.

  And when you look up to see where you’re going, you can break your own neck.

  Wow!

  These new bicycles are so technologically sophisticated, you don’t even have to crash to injure yourself.

  Plus, I can barely perch on the hard sliver of black plastic they want me to use for a seat. My old bike used to have a cushy black seat shaped like one of those paddles they use for pizza. In fact, my old seat was big enough to accommodate the butt I get from eating pizza.

  I miss my old bike seat. If I could stick a Barcalounger on a bike, I would. Maybe I need a recumbent bike, or Craftmatic adjustable bed on wheels.

  Then there’s the matter of adjusting my new bicycle. The bike allegedly came adjusted, but sitting on the seat was like a do-it-yourself Pap smear.

  I tried to figure out how to lower the seat, but I couldn’t understand the manual, so I tried to lower the handlebar instead. But I couldn’t figure that out from the manual either, and this is why. The manual said, “Your bike is equipped either with the threadless stem, which clamps onto the outside of the steerer tube, or with a quill stem, which clamps inside the steerer tube by way of an expanding binder bolt.”

  What?

  The manual told me to ask my dealer whether I had a threadless stem or a quill stem, but I’m not asking my dealer.

  He doesn’t know me that well.

  Also, “steerer” isn’t an adjective, no matter how you slice it.

  I thumbed through the rest of the manual to learn about the gears on my new bike. I remember that my old bike had three gears, which were: the one I always use, the one I hope to use, and the one I will never use.

  Then I remember when ten-speed bikes were invented, a certifiable scientific advance. I begged my parents to get me one, and they did, but I never used any gears beyond the aforementioned first three.

  My new bike has 857,938 gears.

  Guess how many I will use.

  Mother Mary Gets Religion

  By Lisa

  I’m worried about Mother Mary.

  Because she found religion.

  In a manner of speaking, anyway.

  We begin when Brother Frank tells me that he’ll call me on Sunday, “after church.”

  I don’t understand. No Scottoline has gone to church in centuries, least of all my mother, who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church after she got divorced and remarried.

  Can you imagine Catholicism without a Mother Mary?

  I asked, “Frank, did you and Mom start going to church?”

  “No, I meant we watch on TV.”

  “You and Mom watch church on television?”

  “Yes, every Sunday morning, we watch Mass together.”

  I don’t understand this. I didn’t know this was possible. Church on TV? Are there commercials? “Why did you start doing this?”

  “Mom wants to. It was her idea.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I ask a few more questions and ascertain that they started a few months ago, and though I feel touched, I’m also worried. My mother isn’t in the best of health and though her mind is as quick as ever, lately her speech has slowed. She has a speech therapist, and her doctors say there’s no cause for alarm, but still, I wonder if the TV-church thing means she is worrying.

  I’m worrying about her worrying.

  If she’s worried, then I’ll be doubly worried. Maybe triple. If you didn’t think you could quadruple-worry, you haven’t been a daughter.

  Or a mother.

  So I tell Frank to put Mother Mary on the phone, which he does. “Mom, do you and Frank really watch church on Sunday mornings?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  I let that go, because you may remember that Mother Mary always answers a question with a question. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Do I have to have a reason?”

  “No, but if you have a reason, I’d like to know it.”

  “Why do you want to know? You have to have a reason for asking me what my reason is.”

  Now I’m getting confused. “I’m just curious.”

  “I like it. Th
at’s the reason, okay? It makes me feel good. Is that a good enough reason for you?”

  “Yes.”

  Mother Mary snorts. “I’m glad you approve.”

  I feel heartened. If she’s sarcastic, she’s fine. “Mom, I have an idea. If you want, Frank can take you to church. I looked it up online and there’s a church three miles from your house.”

  “No, I don’t want to go.”

  “Why not?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Well, it seems like part of going to church is being part of the community, and you might like it more if you went, instead of watching it on television.”

  “I don’t want to be part of a community.”

  “But it would be fun, Mom. You can get to know the people, meet the priest, and get out of the house.”

  “I don’t want to meet anybody or get out of the house.”

  I switch gears. “Okay, how about this? I did a little research and I found out that there are ministers from the church who will actually come to your house and visit you, if you want.”

  “I don’t want a minister to visit me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why are you asking me all these questions?” Mother Mary blows her top. “Do you want ministers visiting you? Are you going to church? What community are you part of?”

  I sigh inwardly. “Okay, fair point. It just seems like it’s second-best to watch it on TV.”

  “Why? What do you watch Sunday mornings?”

  “Meet the Press.”

  “Why do you watch that?”

  “It’s important.”

  Mother Mary snorts again. “You want to know what’s important? Watch church.”

  Howdy Neighbor

  By Francesca

  I’m currently sitting in front of my computer not wearing a bra. This is pretty standard for me, not usually an issue, except I just made eye contact with a construction worker standing one foot outside my window.

  I’ve got scaffolding problems.

  Construction is a fact of life in New York City. Real estate is to New York as oil is to Texas, it’s where all the money is, and for real-estate barons, maintaining and improving their most valuable asset takes precedence over any resident’s needs.

  Capital capital trumps human capital every time.

  Excuse me, Trumps™.

  I was used to construction noise, the jackhammering, the beeping as trucks reverse, the once-concerning booms and bangs. I walk through a neighborhood in perpetual semidemolition without a second thought. It’s debatable whether or not I need a hard hat to walk the dog.

  The sounds still alarm my mother, even when she hears them over the telephone.

  “Are you okay?” she’ll cry. “What was that?”

  “Hm? Oh, they’re destroying a preschool to build another Marc Jacobs.”

  Alarming, but in a different way.

  I didn’t fully appreciate how awful construction could be until it hit close to home.

  About four inches from my home, to be exact.

  Without warning, the management started some surface renovations to the façade of my building this spring. I live in a small duplex on the ground floor, my bedroom sits on the lower level, and the first thing the crew did was rip out the wrought-iron fence outside my bedroom windows.

  At first, I was delighted. Food deliverymen serving my neighbors’ late-night cravings often chained their bikes on that fence, and the sound of jangling chains would wake me up.

  Oh hey, guys.

  It was like the ghost of Jacob Marley was coming to bring me vegetable lo mein—dual harbingers of regret.

  So, I was pro construction! Until the next morning, when I awoke to steel scaffolding being hammered into the exterior wall.

  The noise made a bike-chain sound like wind chimes.

  The following morning, I thought my clock was wrong—quarter to eight and completely dark outside? Then I realized my apartment had been mummified.

  They had wrapped the outside of my apartment with a thick mesh netting to protect it from whatever Smash Bros. “improvements” they were doing to the exterior.

  I was living inside a gypsy-moth nest.

  Upstairs, things really got awkward. The scaffolding is level with my second floor, so the workmen look like they’re in my living room.

  Sitting at my desk beside my window, they’re so close I feel like I should offer them a soda.

  What’s the social etiquette here? If I don’t acknowledge them, I feel like a snob. If I do acknowledge them, it’s like I’m on an all-day blind date.

  With six men. For the next eight weeks.

  Even closing my windows feels personal, like I’m closing it in their face. For the first two weeks, I said, “sorry” every time.

  How about the etiquette on their end? Getting checked out by construction workers is a hazard for any woman, but I’m not used to it when I’m sitting on my couch.

  To be fair, the crew has been respectful. They don’t smile or interact with me when I’m inside the apartment.

  However, as soon as I walk outside, all bets are off.

  When I heard one mutter something behind me on the sidewalk, I wanted to turn around and say, “We’ll talk about this when we get home.”

  So I feel a low level of self-consciousness all day. When I’m eating at my table, I use my restaurant manners instead of my lives-alone manners.

  Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.

  And when I’m writing at my desk, I try to look busy and not surf the Internet.

  So maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

  The main inconvenience is I’ve had to dress better—or, more—during my workday.

  Dreams do come true.

  People who go to an office every day may not understand, but I work at home; dressing like a homeless person who may have a gym membership is not just my choice, it’s my right.

  Believe me, if I wanted to wear pants to work, I’d have a job that offered health insurance.

  I should have a needlepoint pillow that says, “Home is where the bra comes off.”

  So, I decided, screw it. Deal with it, boys. I’m working here.

  And as if by magic, my super told me the scaffolding comes down tomorrow.

  Because nobody wants to see that.

  Home improved.

  Fight the Power

  By Lisa

  Now is not the winter of our discontent.

  Now is the winter of our stressed-to-the-max, pull-out-our-hair, if-we-get-more-snow-I’ll-move-to-Florida. Because we have lost heat, electric, and Internet, and we have salted, shoveled, and plowed through snow, sleet, and ice.

  But to me, the problem isn’t heat.

  It’s ventilation.

  As in, we need to vent about how much this winter sucks.

  Who says talking about the weather is boring?

  All I want to talk about is the weather.

  I’m lucky enough to have a generator, but it didn’t work in the beginning even though it cost a small fortune. Then when I finally got it working, I had light and heat only in the kitchen, where I had a laptop and a refrigerator.

  And a burglar alarm.

  To protect the refrigerator.

  Also I had a book deadline, because I arrange my book deadlines to occur at the worst possible times for my continued solvency.

  I got enough propane refills to keep me working for six days, during which I had no Internet or cable, no communication with the outside world except when I called my electric company, which was very concerned about my power outage.

  I know, because their recorded message told me so.

  All monopolies have recorded messages that tell you how much they care about you.

  It’s like the worst marriage ever.

  To a really controlling robot.

  Who can only estimate how much he costs you, but it’s still way too much.

  Every night I called and followed their mechanical pro
mpts to plug in my phone number, tell them I was still out of power, and find out when my power would be back. And every day, the recording told me that my power would be restored in two days. Then I realized that no matter when I called, they always said the power would be on in two days.

  It wasn’t a deadline.

  It was a dead lie.

  Two days turned out to be like the twenty minutes they tell you to trick you into staying on the phone for technical support, or into waiting for a table in a restaurant, or into filling out this simple and easy credit application.

  We are all rendered powerless by our power company.

  They win every power struggle.

  Because they have the power.

  Day after day, I stuck it out, living in my coat and forehead flashlight, like a demented gynecologist.

  When the eighth day came, I made my deadline but I still had no Internet connection and couldn’t email my book to my publisher.

  So I packed my laptop and fled to Daughter Francesca’s apartment in New York City, which always has power.

  It’s a powerful town.

  You know why New York always has heat, light, and shoveled sidewalks?

  Lawyers.

  Every building owner knows he will get his ass sued if you fall on yours.

  As a result, snow is salted, shoveled, and plowed before it hits the ground. Really, people are hired to run around and catch snowflakes in their cupped hands.

  The lawyers keep New York hermetically sealed in a cushioned bubble, like Planet Manhattan, and the only problem with Planet Manhattan is that no one there wants to hear you vent.

  They will listen for about one minute.

  The proverbial New York Minute.

  So I emailed my book to my publisher, met my deadline, and kissed my beloved daughter goodbye.

  I came home to Pennsylvania.

  Where I’m happy to listen to you vent.

  Go for it.

  Your feedback is very important to us.

  The Truth Tastes Delicious

  By Lisa

  I’m trying to lose weight and I wonder if I need a nutritionist.

  Or a miracle.

  Our story begins when I notice I’ve gained seven pounds over the winter.

  This can’t be my fault.

  I blame the snow.

  Don’t you?

  Let’s all blame the snow!

  And instead of running around with yardsticks, we’ll use tape measures. In fact, we should redo the snowfall maps on the TV weather report and put up the inches we gained on our waistlines.