“Yes, boss. No problem.”
I called the director “boss” because I liked Chris, but I also had no problem lying to him. Because riding the bike fast was a big problem. Nothing hurt my knees more than pushing down on the pedals, especially if I had to lift myself off the seat to get speed. After two takes of riding as fast as I could, I wondered whether or not I would make my day. My ankles, wrists, and elbows hurt almost as much as my knees. My lungs ached with every deep breath. I couldn’t believe how unfit I was considering how much I worked out. I’d continued my regular workout routine while in Toronto—an hour on the treadmill at 7.0, 105 sit-ups followed by 105 leg lifts—the only difference being that it wasn’t as fun. I no longer had to lose weight and so there was no motivation, no lower number on the scale to look forward to, only a higher number to dread. I had weighed myself that morning. I was 96 pounds and I was never going beneath it. I didn’t want to. But what scared me the most was how little I had to eat to avoid gaining the weight back. I ate 300 calories a day and I was just maintaining. I felt trapped, knowing that I would have to continue to be this extreme just to maintain the body I’d starved myself to achieve. It was a realization that was hard to digest.
The next scene was the crying scene. Ironically, I need to be in a happy mood in order to cry; I need to feel pretty self-confident and strong before I can pretend to be insecure and fragile. Usually, crying in a scene makes me feel good, as I get to show off my acting skills. But there was no joy in crying about the death of my father. It was too real, too close to me. I shut down with pain, both physical and emotional. Despite my condition, I managed to cry a little for the scene, but by the end of the day I was crying a lot. I didn’t even need to cry anymore, the scene was over; my character was completely over her father’s death and on to falling in love with Christian Slater. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t over my dad leaving me and I wasn’t falling in love with anyone. I couldn’t stop crying. It was like a flash flood. Its onset and its end were unpredictable and uncontrollable. It just happened, and like a flood, it was devastating.
I was in pain, so I cried. I couldn’t move my legs, my wrists, and my fingers, so I cried. I had to be carried into the makeup trailer, so I cried. I was embarrassed, so I cried. I had ruined my career, so I cried. I had ruined my enjoyment of life and wanted to die, so I cried.
I wanted to escape just like my dad had escaped, to fly away, to fade gently into black.
I sat stiffly in the makeup chair to have my makeup removed. It was the first time I’d ever allowed that to happen because I didn’t like the makeup artist to see all the flaws I’d concealed before she began her work concealing my flaws—before she made my skin color more even, my eyes bigger, my lips fuller. It was ironic to me that I allowed this end-of-day pampering ritual for the first time on the last day of my career. It was over. I was over.
The lights around the mirror began to bleed into my face. I couldn’t quite see my face for the white light around it. I saw two ugly black dots that were my pupils until I couldn’t see them anymore either. I felt myself floating away, fading into black. I knew I was passing out, but I could no longer hold on. The last thing I remembered was a hot towel being pressed onto my face. Then I let go.
Out of the blackness came a vision of myself as a little girl spinning around in a tiara and a pinkish-red tutu with a rhinestone-sequined bodice. I’m spinning around and around, doing pirouettes in a church hall. My mother is in the center of the first row. I use her as a spot by focusing only on her, turning my body first before whipping my head around and back to the spot that is my mother’s smiling face. With each piroutte, however, instead of being more impressed, she is less impressed. With each spot she is smiling less. The smile turns into a frown and the little girl is no longer wearing a tiara and a tutu but jeans and a black tank top. The little girl has spun into an adult and my mother is no longer there. I search for her in the front row, but she isn’t there. Instead I see myself. I realize that the person in the front row, disapproving of me, unhappy with me is not my mother. It’s me. I look disgusted by the image of myself. It is clear by the way my head is partially turned away, my face contorted in a grimace, that I hate myself. I pirouette again fast, to spin away from the image, too disturbing to look at any longer. But I keep spinning and gathering momentum, the centrifugal force won’t allow me to stop. I can’t stop. Now I can’t see anything. I am tumbling now. I have fallen off my axis. I’m spinning into the blackness. The spinning suddenly stops.
I have escaped.
29
“MISS DE Rossi? I have Dr. Andrews on the line.”
I sat in my dressing room on the set of Ally McBeal, lit a cigarette, and breathlessly awaited my test results. I had to get off the treadmill to answer the phone and both the treadmill and the fan I’d rigged to blow air onto my face were straining and noisily whirring. It was quite an effort to get to the phone quickly because sharp movements caused me to feel a lot of pain, sometimes to the point of almost blacking out. I could barely work out anymore, not only because of the pain but because I was too tired. I was tired because I was often too hungry to sleep. When I did sleep I dreamt about food. Last night I had a dream that I took a sip of regular Coke thinking it was diet and the shock of accidentally ingesting real sugar catapulted me back into consciousness. Most times, though, I dreamt about willingly stuffing my face. I dreamt about eating a whole pizza or plate full of French fries. I tended to feel so bad about it when I woke up, I cried. I sobbed as if I’d really done it—it just felt so jarring, so frightening. I thought that I had a problem because I was scared to eat. I was actually scared of food. I no longer trusted myself. I figured I’d lost my willpower.
I felt nervous. Not that I didn’t feel anxious all the time, but I felt even worse knowing that what came next was going to change everything.
I can’t stay thin. I just wasn’t built for it. I wasn’t born with thin legs and I can’t keep them. For over a year I’ve managed to maintain my weight, but if I keep up that maintenance to the exclusion of everything else, then I’ll have anorexia.
As I sat at the desk and held for the doctor (didn’t he call me?), I felt a roll of fat on my stomach. I pinched it with my thumb and forefinger. There was about an inch of fat that went right around to the sides, and yet at 98 pounds, I knew I was grossly underweight. I almost laughed out loud at the irony of it. My rib cage and my hip bones were jutting out, yet there was a roll of fat on my stomach taunting me, letting me know that it had outsmarted me, that it had won. It was ironic also that in order to get rid of that fat, I’d have to have had the energy to do crunches, but without putting caloric energy in my body I didn’t have the strength to do them, so now it would just stay there on my stomach in triumph, never to be challenged again. As I sat and waited to hear my results, I felt a little relief knowing that everything was about to change. I couldn’t imagine living year after year constantly battling in a fight you could never win. Anorexia is exhausting.
I will listen to what the doctor says and do what he tells me to do.
After collapsing in Toronto, I had no choice but to get help. I blacked out in the makeup chair and my private medical information seemed to be passed around and shared with anyone who cared to ask. My body was no longer under my control. I woke up to the medic taking my blood pressure and ordering blood tests. He called my physician, who called specialists and within days I had undergone a battery of tests. Blood tests, bone density tests; I had to show up with my body to whatever test it was he thought might contribute a puzzle piece to his diagnosis. I couldn’t argue. I was under contract and I could barely finish the movie.