95
On December 19, I hit 95 pounds. It was poetic, really, that the day I returned home was the exact day I accomplished this amazing feat. Ninety-five pounds gave me the cushion that I needed to go home for Christmas and eat and drink with my family. Ninety-five pounds would impress them. It might also slightly concern some of them, no doubt, as I had recently become aware that there are certain body parts that looked a little strange. I was okay with that, though. They needed to know that my life wasn’t a never-ending Hollywood party; that my money wasn’t just given to me, that I had to work hard for all of it. I had been worried that my friends and family might feel jealous of my success. As long as I worked really hard and made sacrifices that were obvious to other people, I wouldn’t feel guilty that I made more money than my brother or had a more exciting life than my Australian friends could ever dream of having. Mostly though, they seemed to be more interested in Hollywood at large than they were in my success. I was tired of telling stories about the celebrities I’d met. I’d started to feel like my mother had sent me out as a spy or an undercover reporter to mingle with the special people and bring back the news of what it was that made them special when all I really wanted was for her to think that I was special. Sometimes, if I found a celebrity to be abrasive or rude, she’d disagree with me, citing a tabloid story about the kind acts they did or the fact that other people seemed to like them. She’d always laugh and agree when I told her how ridiculous it was that because of a tabloid she thought she knew better than I did, but her comments came with a subliminal warning: the written word is a powerful thing. The perception of who you are is more important than who are. You are what other people think of you.
The aging stewardess came back, eyes cast downward at her notepad while surfing the tide of turbulence like a pro.
“Can I take your lunch order?”
Something happened to me when flying. I felt that either the calories were impossible to quantify and so that meant that the food had no energy or matter so I could eat everything, or because the calories were impossible to quantify, I could eat nothing at all. Another factor was time. If y equaled 300 calories consumed over a 24-hour period, then what was x if I left Los Angeles at 10:00 p.m. and after fourteen hours of travel I arrived in Melbourne at 6:00 a.m. two days later? How many calories and how many days should I account for? Eating nothing was really my only option.
“I’m not eating lunch today. I had a big meal already.”
Why I had to tell her about having a big meal I don’t know. I hate it when I do things like that.
When the stewardess came around to deliver the meals, she asked again if I wanted anything, perhaps thinking that the smell of hot beef would send me into a frenzy of regret that it wasn’t going to be plopped down in front of me. I reassured her that no, I really didn’t want anything. I could resist dead rotting cow on a plastic plate.
After lunch the stewardess rolled a silver tray of cookies and ice cream down the isle.
“Dessert, sir? Would you like some dessert today, ma’am? Dessert, sir?”
She made her way through the seated strangers up the aisle to where I was sitting. She stood in front of me with her cart full of sugar and lard and instead of simply asking me if I would like dessert, she decided to inject some personality into it.
“I’m sure you don’t, but . . .” Her sentence trailed off. She had an apologetic look on her face like she was sorry for me that I didn’t get to partake in this joyous activity, that being an actress precluded me from all the fun that cookies and ice cream bring. Her droopy eyes seemed to say, “I’m sorry you can’t have this. Actresses don’t eat cookies.” Maybe she was sure I didn’t want a cookie just because I’d not eaten any lunch. Then again, what if I had skipped lunch just so I could eat the cookie? How could she have known what I wanted?
By the time dinner came around, I was asleep. Actually, I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want anyone to know that I didn’t eat anything during the fourteen-hour flight. Something like that could leak into a tabloid. And while I enjoyed the speculation that I was too thin, I didn’t want them thinking I was sick. I wanted people to admire my tenacity and self-control, not to feel sorry for me for starving myself into the shape of an actress.
The long, sleepless night of listening to the drone of the engines was punctuated by the stewardess asking if I’d like to have anything to eat with a cute smile and a “How about now?” in half-hour intervals, which finally trickled down to a raised eyebrow and a quick glance every two or three hours. As breakfast was being served and I asked for black coffee, she could no longer contain herself. I could see that she was gearing up to say something and I thought it would be along the lines of how in her twenty-year career as a mile-high waitress, she’d never before seen a person refuse food. I had clearly made an impression on her and that was something I really didn’t want to do. I didn’t want her telling anyone that the Australian actress on Ally McBeal, the “thin one” (I could just hear it now, “No, not Calista, the other one!”) didn’t eat and is therefore sick. But to my surprise, her expression changed as she leaned in slightly to speak to me. Her face went from a tired, concerned expression to a hint of a smile. Her droopy eyes became animated.
“You’re being so good!”
Yes, lady. I’m always this good.
“Oh! No. I’d love to eat, believe me, but I have this slight stomach virus and you know how awkward that could get on a plane!”
She laughed. Why does everyone think toilets and what goes on in them are funny?
“Well, I hope you feel better.” She refilled my coffee cup and I wondered if someone with stomach flu would drink black coffee. I wondered if I’d blown my cover. I pulled out my diary and wrote an entry. I told it that I had eaten nothing and if I weighed more than 100 pounds in Australia it was because of water retention. That’s what happens with plane travel. It was good to write it down to remind myself, and the explanation could come in handy if I found myself in a panic in my mother’s bathroom on her old pink and black scale.
To say that I hit the ground running isn’t an overstatement. When I got off the plane, I began a slow, steady jog through the terminal. There was nothing wrong with that, I thought, as I could just as easily be running to make a connecting flight as exercising my body, limp from sitting for fourteen exercise-less hours. I ran to the airport bathroom to begin my ritual of trying to look fabulous for my mother. I always tried to make a good impression with my hair, makeup, and wardrobe for my mother, as I knew that seeing me looking great always made her happy. But this time was even more special because this time I was skinny. I had the thinnest body I’d ever had to show off to her and so I didn’t feel as though I needed the extra-special hair and makeup to counteract my ordinary, girl-next-door body. The package had to say “star” and now my body was helping me deliver that message. After I changed out of my loose clothing and into my skinny jeans and a tight tank, I headed home.
“Mama!” I got out of the cab and ran into my mother’s arms, leaving my luggage in the trunk for the cab driver to deal with.
“Bubbles!” My mother dubbed me that when I was a little kid. She still calls me that sometimes. I really like it.
“Darling.” She pulled away from the hug and looked me up and down. “You’re too thin!” She blurted it out in a way that seemed uncontrolled yet premeditated, like her nervousness had built with hours of rehearsal and had culminated in an explosive delivery.
Clearly, she had been lying in wait for me. She was ready for me, armed with evidence. A month ago, Suzanne had called her and tipped her off to my weight loss. According to my mother, Suzanne said my weight loss was extreme and that due to her lack of being qualified in the field of eating disorders, she was racked with guilt and feeling responsible that she had helped cause me to have one. I told my mother that if Suzanne admitted that she was not qualified in the field of eating disorders, how could she possibly diagnose them? It was my mother’s lack of common sense that irritated me at that moment standing before her in the driveway, because I knew that she couldn’t possibly be concerned by how I looked, only by what she’d heard. Even if I convinced her that Suzanne was wrong, then she would eat up those goddamn tabloid stories about how I was starving myself. She was just waiting for me to arrive so she could levy the insult after a cursory up-and-down glance, a feel of my back when she hugged me, a quick confirmation that the tabloid journalists had once again got it right. This was not the reaction I was hoping for. I wanted her to hug me and look me up and down and tell me that I looked great. I wanted her to tell me that it was obvious that I was working hard, that I had finally got it together after all the years of hell my weight had put the two of us through. Instead she looked horrified.