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

  I was rambling.

  Until my grandmother stopped me and motioned for her whiteboard. I held it steady for her while she inscribed, slow enough to build suspense:

  “Motto—Who Needs It???”

  Then she burst out laughing, which made me crack up, and we both dissolved into a fit of giggles.

  Who needs it? In other words, enough, let it go, next.

  Toward the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, I had been consumed with considering every angle of interpretation, every possible misstep I might have taken, every potential outcome that didn’t come true. But with one simple phrase, my grandmother had offered an instant dose of perspective.

  Perspective doesn’t mean seeing all; it means seeing what matters.

  My grandmother had never been the most reflective person. She couldn’t afford to be. Growing up in very difficult circumstances taught—or forced—her to act instead of ponder, to escape instead of fix, and to move on instead of regret. This may not be the perfect way to live, but it was the only way she could survive.

  I grew up the child of several troubled marriages. I am the watcher, the thinker, the healer. I read people, I adapt, I fix—or try to. And if it fails, I stew on all the ways it could’ve gone differently. This is not always a bad way to be.

  But it’s not always good.

  Bad things happen, and dwelling about how they’re bad, why they’re bad, doesn’t make them any better. Sometimes you need to ask yourself, “Who needs it?” Evaluate your present, not only your past. See if what you’re doing to yourself is helping you. If the answer is no, then “Who needs it?” Let it go.

  There were so many times before that day that I worried that my grandmother wasn’t having the best hospice experience, although I had no idea what that might be. When my grandmother rejected the sentimental stuff, the nostalgia, the goodbyes, I feared we weren’t creating the right environment or supporting her correctly so that she could process and make peace with what was happening.

  But who needs it?

  My grandmother didn’t waste her last days looking backwards. There was nothing that needed processing. Life happens, whether we approve it or not. Instead, she chose to live in the moment, to savor, to laugh, to enjoy those around her.

  This was the way she lived, and the way she died, and it was the wisdom I most needed to hear from the only woman who could give it.

  Rollin’ On

  By Lisa

  The great thing about friends is that sometimes they realize what you need even before you do.

  For example, my bestie Laura gave me a bicycle last Christmas, and I thought it was a really cool gift. But I hadn’t ridden a bicycle in about three hundred years, and this bike had so many bells and whistles that I didn’t know if I’d ever figure it out.

  Plus no kickstand.

  I mean really.

  I wrote about the bike but worried that might be the most use I got out of it.

  Once again, I was wrong.

  It was a beautiful Saturday in spring, after Mother Mary had passed, and I was looking for ways to distract and/or amuse myself.

  Grief is a funny thing, it settles into your bones like a dormant virus and becomes a part of you, lying in wait to flare up. Most of the time, it behaves itself, but sometimes it doesn’t, and I found that keeping myself busy works wonders.

  I know this isn’t a new idea, that’s the kind of girl I am. I reinvent the wheel, every time.

  I was about to work on my next book, but on impulse, I turned to the bike. I didn’t really know where to ride it, and there are way too many hills in my neighborhood.

  I’m looking for distraction, not a cardiac.

  So I threw it in the back of the car, drove to the park, spotted a bike trail, and hopped on. True, I couldn’t figure out the gears, but it turned out not to matter, because whatever gear it came in was great, and in a matter of minutes, I had joined a flock of noisy and unruly eleven-year-olds on the bike path.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  There’s nothing like a group of giggling kids to lift your mood, especially when they’re somebody else’s.

  Also I got to ride behind them, acting like I was being a considerate adult, instead of an immediately exhausted one.

  Meanwhile, the trail was beautiful, with the trees budding green, the baby birds chirping, and the smooth asphalt making a path for the menopausal.

  Nature has its limits. If you can pave something to make it easier on your knees, fine by me.

  Surprisingly, you really don’t forget how to ride a bike, and I began to enjoy the sensation of the sun on my SPF and the balmy breezes cooling my sweaty armpits.

  I’m a poet, right?

  I let my thoughts run free, and happily they didn’t return to anything morbid, but rather my brain seemed to empty out, an altogether pleasant sensation.

  I think this is called relaxation, but I’m not sure.

  I’m a relaxation virgin.

  And then I realized that I was having fun, all by myself except for the laughing kids, and in time I felt eleven years old myself.

  The kids had fun pretending to swerve their bikes into each other, and I wondered if they would be friends five years later, or ten, or even twenty, like Laura and me. I thought of Franca, Sandy, and Rachel, my friends of forty years’ standing, who have been so wonderful to me about Mother Mary’s passing. I even have friends like Nan and Paula, whom I’ve been close to for fifteen years, which qualifies them as new friends.

  How lucky am I, in these loyal friends?

  How lucky are you, in yours?

  Keep pedaling, my friend.

  Life is a bike path through the woods, generally smooth, but not without its bumps and turns.

  Hang on.

  And ride together.

  Laughing.

  We Knew You Wouldn’t Amount to Anything

  By Lisa

  I’ll never forget the day my high school guidance counselor told me I was an overachiever.

  I said, thank you.

  Then I went home and looked it up.

  Since then, “overachiever” has become one of my favorite words of all time.

  I like its honesty.

  It means, none of us thought you would amount to anything, but it turns out that you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

  Can you think of a better insult-compliment?

  Really, you’re doing a lot better than anybody thought you would with what God gave you. Will wonders never cease?

  By the way, when I say I went home and looked it up, I looked it up in something we used to have in the olden days, called a dictionary. This was a big thick book, from when we used to have books. The pages of a dictionary were thin and crinkly, and there were little black half wells in the side for your finger, which provided hours of enjoyment in ancient times, back when there were kickstands on bicycles.

  Did I mention that my bicycle doesn’t have a kickstand, either?

  Why there are no more kickstands on bicycles is a complete mystery to me. A kickstand is one of the most useful things ever in the whole wide world, and now I have to lean my new bicycle against the wall instead of having it stand up all by itself.

  Why?

  I see nothing wrong with having a kickstand on a bike. In fact, I wish I had a kickstand on my body.

  I can’t tell you the number of times I’m in a conversation with someone and I think, I’m going to lean against the wall while we have this conversation, because it’s taking a long time and I don’t want to have to hold myself up.

  But I digress.

  I am an overachiever, so it follows naturally that I would overdo things.

  One of the things I’m overdoing is over-improving my home.

  I also love the word “over-improving.”

  It’s another great insult-compliment, isn’t it?

  In other words, you’re fixing up your house, but none of us thinks you’ll ever get the money back for it. We knew you’d do s
omething stupid eventually and now you’ve gone and done it. You haven’t improved the kitchen or the bathroom, which are the two places that everybody knows increase the value of your home. So, as we predicted all along, you’re blowing your hard-earned money on dumb stuff, which makes a lot of sense to us, though we never thought you’d make any money in the first place. It figures that you’d make it writing books, since the only people who buy books are the people who like dictionaries, and we all know how plentiful they are nowadays.

  Like that.

  Okay, so let me tell you about the dumb thing I’m doing, which is putting on a room. I don’t know what the room is called but I can tell you how it came about. I love being outside in my backyard, playing with the dogs, reading, or writing by squinting at the laptop in the sun. I’d been thinking a lot to myself that it would be great to have a room that I could work in and be sort-of inside and sort-of outside, to save myself from squinting, which as we all know gives you wrinkles and I have plenty of those.

  I told this idea to someone and she said, you mean a “three-season room.”

  This term appealed to me instantly, as it sounded exactly like the kind of thing an overachiever would do, spend money to make a room that you can only live in for three seasons.

  Also it sounded better than that no-squinting room.

  Or wrinkle-free room.

  So they’re building my three-season room right now, and it has windows on three sides, with a flagstone floor, and I can’t wait until it’s finished, so I can go inside and sit around with the dogs.

  And overachieve.

  Because it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks you can do, only what you think you can do.

  Ha!

  Know what that was?

  The last laugh.

  Hardball at the Gym

  By Francesca

  After my breakup, I recommitted myself to fitness. I had a case of long-term-relationship body, a “my best angle is your love” situation, and I needed to get back to “howdy, stranger.”

  I also recently learned that loyalty’s got nothing over shiny and new.

  My ex-boyfriend didn’t teach me that, my gym did.

  My gym and I have been seeing each other, off-and-on, for five years. I didn’t want to break up, I only wanted to change locations within the same company, but my gym is unsupportive.

  If I were a new member looking to join, the gym would waive more than half the initiation fee. But for a lousy old member, simply switching locations slaps me with a “transfer fee” that exceeds the initiation offer by $150!

  I should’ve known. This gym and I have baggage.

  When I first joined in 2009, I wanted the most basic membership. But I was informed that I had to buy the most expensive option, the “All-Access Pass,” which afforded me admittance to any of the chain’s gyms in the country, for a much less affordable price.

  “It’s a required upgrade,” the consultant explained, as if that were an explanation.

  Isn’t an upgrade, by definition, optional?

  “Normally yes, but this is a Flagship location.”

  A red flagship.

  Fast-forward five years, I’ve moved farther from my old gym and closer to a newer location—and this one has a rooftop pool!

  Finally, I’d be able to get some of the perk I’ve been paying for since 2009, right?

  “I’m sorry,” the guy told me when I tried to check in last month. “This gym is excluded from All-Access.”

  Uh, you’ve been charging me for “All-Access,” not “Some-Access.”

  “You need an upgrade for Destination locations like this one.”

  Even if the destination is four blocks away?

  I explained that while I understood he doesn’t make the rules, the rules are really stupid.

  He glanced over his shoulder and leaned in. “Look, I hear you. You can skip the upgrade and join only this location. It’ll even be cheaper than All-Access.”

  Where do I sign?

  Then he added, “Are you familiar with our transfer fee?” and introduced me to my new arbitrary charge.

  Hello, Transfer Fee? Meet Sucker.

  As much as I wanted in, I couldn’t accept their gouging. I left to think about it.

  Read, stew about it.

  I was determined to get out of the fee. I tallied up how much I had spent as a five-year member, a sum I’m too ashamed to print, because for that price, I should be so much hotter.

  It was during my online research that I discovered the new-member promotion. I thought there was no way they could justify rewarding the newbies while punishing the faithful. I was sure I’d persuade them to waive the transfer or at least meet the new member price. I called to make my case.

  I tried honey, I tried vinegar, appeals to logic and emotion.

  He shot down every argument.

  I said I’d cancel at my old location and re-up with him as a new member.

  “If you cancel, you stay in our system for three months, so you’d miss the whole summer.”

  He had the pool card, and he knew it.

  Despite my indignation, I knew that by not joining this gym, I’d be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

  Or keeping my fat to spite my thighs.

  I conceded, my credit-card information tasting bitter on my tongue.

  Don’t get mad, get even. To stick it to them, I go to the gym every day, front and center at all the classes, and I use a vindictive amount of free conditioner in the showers.

  My hate-workouts are paying off. I’ve lost seven pounds.

  Shiny and new, here I come.

  Credit Where Credit Is Due

  By Lisa

  I just came back from New York City and I learned an important life lesson, but not until I got home.

  Let me explain.

  I was in New York for Book Expo, which is a book trade show for authors, agents, publishers, librarians, and booksellers. It’s totally fun, and I love to go, not only because I love book people, but because I get to see an agent who rejected me a long time ago, when I was looking for a publisher. I’ll never forget his rejection letter, which read, “We don’t have time to take any new clients and if we did, we wouldn’t take you.”

  I’ve held a grudge against him for twenty-five years, because Mother Mary taught me to keep hate alive.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see him at Book Expo, and I’m hoping he’s dead.

  Too dark?

  And even if he is, I still hate him.

  That’s how good at hating Mother Mary taught me to be, and believe me, if she were still alive, she would want him dead, too.

  To come to my point, I went to Book Expo with Daughter Francesca to promote our book Have a Nice Guilt Trip. This was the first time that Francesca and I had promoted a book together at Book Expo. I just happened to be standing on the trade-show floor, but at a distance, when she got recognized by some wonderful librarians who were walking behind her, but in front of me.

  I overheard one of them say, “I think that’s Francesca Serritella, who writes those funny books with her mother. My daughter loves her writing.”

  It was a lovely thing to hear, and Francesca must have heard it too, because she turned around, smiled, and introduced herself to the librarians, thanking them for their support with a hug.

  I had a heart attack, but in a good way.

  Happiness and pride attacked my heart, causing it to explode with Crestor and estrogen.

  Okay, just Crestor.

  For me, estrogen is a thing of the past.

  Like sex.

  In any event, what happened next was that Francesca introduced me to the librarians, and we all hugged each other, making happy noises about mothers, daughters, and books, which is the girl trifecta.

  And one of the librarians said, “Francesca is her mother’s daughter, isn’t she?”

  To which I replied, “I can’t take any of the credit.”

  Which is what I believe.


  But I didn’t realize why until I left Francesca in New York and came home, where I got out of the car and the first thing I saw was my garden.

  You may remember that I started a garden last year, and I planted a zillion perennials, making every rookie mistake in the book—placing plants too close together, digging too deep, putting the plants that needed sun in the shade, or watering everything so much that I broke an underground water pipe and had to have the whole lawn excavated to install a new pipe.

  I have a gangrene thumb.

  But when I got home, I was astounded to see that while I was away, the plants had sprung up out of nowhere and burst into glorious bloom. The phlox had vivid pink flowers, the catmint smelled minty, and the purple coneflower opened up their spiky faces. Red and yellow roses scented the air like perfume, and the sun shone so prettily on the flowers that I had to take a picture.

  In the photo, you can see the sun rays, and honestly, it looks like God himself.

  I’m amazed by both!

  Nobody can take credit for a perennial garden, because we’re not the gardener.

  He is.

  And that’s true of daughters, too.

  Guilt Tripping at 65 MPH

  By Francesca

  My mom trusts me to coauthor a series of books, but she doesn’t trust me to drive.

  And she might be right.

  We went to the Nantucket Book Festival on tour for Have a Nice Guilt Trip, our fifth book. I feel like our working partnership is better than ever. We’ve gained an easy rhythm at our speaking engagements.

  We trust each other.

  Just not in the car.

  I realized this on the drive home from Nantucket. We couldn’t stay for the whole weekend, because my mom is on deadline crunch, so we arrived on Friday and were driving back to my apartment on Saturday night. Everything was fine until darkness fell on I-95. We were in Rhode Island when I felt my mother riding the brakes.

  I looked over at her. “Everything okay?”

  “Yup.” She was white-knuckling the wheel. The speedometer needle hovered around 40 mph. Cars and trucks were whizzing by us on both sides, several honked in frustration.