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“Merry Christmas, Portia.”
“Merry Christmas, Portia.” My aunt Gwen and Uncle Len walked through the door of the hotel suite bearing gifts and my uncle’s famous Christmas fruit cake. Frank Sinatra was crooning carols in the background, a giant, fully trimmed Christmas tree was the centerpiece of the spacious living room, and my grandmother and mother were sitting on chairs together in front of it, talking. Moments later, my cousins wandered in and the tableau was complete. I silently congratulated myself for providing this lovely experience for my family. This was what I could do with the money that was given to me in exchange for my freedom. I could create a Christmas where they could all relax and enjoy one another without having to worry about anything. I could create the perfect holiday.
The day started out perfect for me, too. I did sit-ups and leg lifts with renewed energy and vigor. I was eighty-nine pounds. It sounded so mysterious and magical I could barely say it out loud. It was special. Who weighed eighty-nine pounds? It was an accomplishment that felt uniquely mine, uniquely special. I went to the gym at 5:30 and ran up and down the hall for thirty minutes, waiting for it to open at six. I was the only one in the gym on Christmas morning, as I was the only one who took health and fitness seriously. In a way, working hard in the gym Christmas morning was the answer to the question I had asked of myself when I began this journey six months prior. This wasn’t a passing phase. This was my new way of life. On the day when everyone else slacked off, I worked because being thin was what I liked more than anything else. But something else happened in there, too. I felt lonely. For a brief moment, as I pressed the up arrow on the treadmill until the speed climbed to 7.0, I felt very alone. I heard the thud of my feet as they found the rhythm of the belt and wondered why I had a demanding taskmaster of a voice in my head that could be silenced only if I ran instead of slept, when everyone else in this hotel was waking up gently to a quiet voice that was telling them to stay in bed, that it’s only six, it’s not time to think just yet.
“Have some champagne, Porshe.”
“I don’t drink anymore, Ma. You know that.”
“Oh, come on. It won’t hurt you.”
My mother likes tradition and the idea that the family clan will pass on all the same habits and morals and ideas, generation after generation. A tradition in our family was to drink champagne with a pureed strawberry liqueur concoction my cousin made especially for Christmas morning. I felt that I couldn’t refuse.
I drank the champagne and my mother instantly looked relieved. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol from the champagne that loosened my tight grip on my diet, but the simple act of drinking a glass of champagne with my family was exhilarating. I was happier in that moment than I had been in eight months. For just that one day, I was going to put the “cushion” theory in play. Seeing my family relax as I drank the champagne encouraged me to continue to drink and eat and be merry. Next I ate turkey meat and my mother smiled. Then, at my family’s urging, I ate potatoes. They relaxed. They laughed. It seemed that my eating potatoes gave them more pleasure than opening gifts, not having to cook, and Christmas Day itself. So I ate some more. I felt invincible at eighty-nine pounds. And I loved that for the first time since I was a small child, I could just be like everyone else. I wasn’t a model or an actress who had to eat special food, nor was I an overweight girl who complained about her weight, making everyone else bored and uncomfortable. I was just one of the family at that dining table, partaking in their rituals, their food.
By the time everyone but my brother and my cousin, Megan, had left, however, I was no longer happy or relaxed. I was in shock. I had drunk a glass of champagne. I had eaten turkey roasted in its own fat. I had eaten beans glazed with oil. But what shocked me the most was that I had eaten potatoes. I had eaten two medium-sized roasted potatoes with oil and rosemary and salt. I started to panic. I clenched and unclenched my fists and started circling my wrists in an attempt to take the horror of what was digesting in my gut away from my mind’s eye. My body was shaking. I couldn’t control the shaking because the panic that was setting in to make it shake felt like itching. Somehow I had to get relief. I raised my arms above my head and shook out my hands as if to expel the energy. My cousin and my brother were still in the living room, sitting by the Christmas tree, but I no longer cared. In front of my cousin and my brother, I started jumping up and down with my arms above my head and shaking my hands to try to get rid of the calories in the potatoes.
“Porshe, what are you doing?” Megan asked me in a tone that suggested she wasn’t waiting for an answer. She had something to say to me. She was quite emotional. I could tell because when Australians are emotional, sometimes they can sound bossy.
“I pigged out at lunch and I’m just trying to work some of it off.” To downplay the fact that I was jumping up and down and shaking, I tried to sound nonchalant and used a smiley voice that was on a frequency that sat high above the panic. I smiled and in between bounces shrugged my shoulders in a “you know how it is” way that I was sure all women would understand. But I didn’t really care if I was understood. I just had to get rid of all that crap in my stomach. I felt so panicked I couldn’t be still.
“Portia. You ate potatoes, just some potatoes. They’re not going to make you fat, okay? What’s the big deal?”
They will make me fat because it’s not just some potatoes that I just ate, it’s the potatoes I know I’m going to eat in the future now I’ve allowed myself to eat those. That by eating those potatoes I could get back on the same old yo-yo dieting pattern and suffer in the way that I’d suffered from age twelve to twenty-five. Eating those potatoes could cost me my career, money, and my ability to make money. Eating those potatoes will make me poor. So eating those potatoes will make me fat. Because without any money or a career, I will definitely end up fat.
“I’m going for a run.” I quickly walked past her and my brother to the bedroom, changed into gym clothes, and strode past them again and out the front door. Compared to the earlier laughing and talking and singing, the suite was eerily quiet. I don’t think they spoke to each other the whole time I was changing. As I jogged down the hall, I replayed the scene in my mind. I knew I’d end up ruining Christmas no matter how hard I tried to make it perfect. I knew I’d end up upsetting the people I love with my selfishness and my lack of thought for others. I had tried so hard to make everyone happy and yet I just couldn’t lie well enough to do it. Lying was too hard. As I ran out of the elevator and through the lobby, I could sense that people were staring.
I wasn’t like everyone else. I was an actress. I changed my name, my accent, my nationality. I was gay. It was time to stop even trying to pretend.
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