Sarai Walker - Dietland

“I get it,” said Verena. “Your fat body isn’t the result of some deep psychological trauma. This is me you’re talking to, remember? I was at a conference recently and an acclaimed psychotherapist said that women become fat because fat protects them from unwanted male attention, like a suit of armor.”

I pictured myself as Joan of Arc, whom I had portrayed in a third grade play. “But I’ve always been this way, from the beginning.”

“Like your grandmother, I know. Let’s move on.”

There was silence again. She was waiting for me to say something more. I thought of the scarlet dress on my bed. I knew she’d seen it. I thought it was best if I brought it up first.

“The dress on the bed is mine.” I was like a nervous criminal, blurting out a confession. “What I mean is that it’s for me.” There was no point in saying the dress was a gift for someone else.

“You’re buying clothes for your post-surgery self?”

I nodded. “I have a closet full.”

“I’m not surprised. You believe there’s a thin woman inside you, waiting to be set free.”

“You sound like Eulayla now.”

“You’ve internalized her ideology, haven’t you?”

An image in my mind: Eulayla Baptist holding up her fat jeans. Burst!

“What’s the name of the thin woman who lives inside you, imprisoned under all those layers of fat?”

“She’s not a separate person; she’s me. Or who I’ll be eventually.”

“All right, but let’s give her a name.”

I wanted to scoff, but then I remembered that when I was a teenager on the Baptist Plan I had thought of my thin self as Alicia.

Alicia is me but not me.

“I guess we can call her Alicia,” I said. “That’s my real name.”

“Your real name for the real you.” Verena turned to a fresh page of her notepad. “What will Alicia be able to do that Plum can’t?”

I immediately thought of the “When I’m Thin . . .™” booklet from my first day as a Baptist member. Ever since meeting Verena and reading her book, these flashes from my past kept coming back. They didn’t belong here in my present life. I wished they would go away.

Verena pushed me to answer, so I told her that Alicia would be able to walk down the street and no one would look at her in a bad way or say something mean.

“What do people say to Plum?”

I liked this, thinking of Plum as a separate person, one who would soon be consigned to the past. “They say, Go on a diet. They make oink and moo sounds. A few weeks ago I crossed the street in front of a car and the guy shouted out the window, ‘I’m glad I didn’t hit you, girl!’ Everyone turned to look. People laughed.”

“And what do you say to people who make these rude comments?”

“Nothing. I just pretend like I didn’t hear it or that it didn’t bother me.” If I ignore it, then it isn’t real.

“In an ideal world, what would happen?”

“I’d like to see them get what’s coming to them.”

“Such as?”

“Pain and suffering. Death. ”

“That’s honest. Do people often make rude comments?” I told her that I tried to avoid situations where that was likely to happen, but I still had to go out. Every morning before I left my apartment I felt dread.

“What kind of places do you avoid? Be specific.”

“Parties, clubs, bars, beaches, amusement parks, airplanes.” I told her that I hadn’t been on a plane in four years. One time a man asked to be moved because he said I spilled into his seat. I couldn’t always buckle the seat belt around me and it was embarrassing if I had to ask for an extension. The flight attendants weren’t always nice about it. Once the plane was delayed from taking off because they couldn’t find an extension for me and I feared I’d have to disembark in shame. The flight attendant at the back of the plane became so exasperated that she spoke over the loudspeaker to the flight attendants at the front. “Can’t you find a seat belt extension for the lady in twenty-eight-B?” Passengers looked in my direction. For more than twenty minutes, the stares and murmurs persisted, until an extender was found on another plane. People complained they’d miss their connecting flights. I offered to get up and leave, but they said I couldn’t. My luggage had already been checked. That was the last time I had flown.

“My mother has to come to New York if she wants to see me.”

“What about your father?”

“He can’t afford to visit New York. I haven’t seen him in five years.”

“Will Alicia be able to visit her father?”

“Alicia will be able to go anywhere.” I felt a momentary, inexplicable flare of resentment toward my future thin self. “Do you understand now why I want the surgery? Don’t you see?”

“Of course I see,” she said, writing something on her pad. I wished she would leave. I had already decided to have the surgery. There was no need to excavate these depths of humiliation.

“What else can Alicia do that you can’t?”

“Everything!” I said, snapping at her. “She won’t be alone all the time, she won’t spend all of her time in this apartment, she’ll dress in pretty clothes, she’ll travel, she’ll have a job that she likes, she’ll host dinner parties.” This last comment must have sounded silly, but I had always wanted to host dinner parties, with candles stuck into empty wine bottles, the orange and red wax dripping down the glass like stalactites.

“What else?” Verena was digging for more, scraping out the cavity until she hit the nerve.

“Alicia will be loved,” I said, at last.

I hadn’t wanted to say it, but she’d pushed me. She knew what she was digging for and I had said it and now it floated in the room between us like a big black cloud of shame. It was so thick, I couldn’t see through it.

“Isn’t Plum loved?” she asked. I told her that my parents loved me, but I wanted more than that.

“Let’s talk about men,” Verena said. “Or are you interested in women? Or both?”

“Men,” I said. “And what about them?”

“Do you want to be in a relationship with a man?”

“One day.”

“When you’re Alicia?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hope to marry?”

“One day.”

“What about babies?”

“One day.”

“When one day finally arrives, it’ll be an exciting time for you.”

I looked at her pale, delicate face and felt scorn. She thought she could judge me, but she couldn’t last five minutes living in my skin. I remained silent. Sulky.

“I want you to consider something, hon. What if it’s not possible for you to ever become thin? What if there is no one day? What if this is your real life right now? What if you’re already living it?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if you are? What if this is your real life and you’re fat and that’s that?”

“Then I wouldn’t want to live anymore.” As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them. “I’m not suicidal.”

“I didn’t say you were,” she said, and then after a few seconds she asked if I took any prescription medication. She was looking for evidence. I told her that I took thirty milligrams of Y—— every night and had done so since college.

“That’s a powerful drug. Who prescribes it for you?”

“Just my regular doctor.”

“A general practitioner?”

I nodded and Verena frowned. She wanted to know why I had started taking Y——and I told her it was because of depression, obviously, but she asked if there was a “precipitating event.” I told her I didn’t want to relive the drama, that it was too long ago. I gave her the short version. “There was a boy in college. It was just silly.”