Sarai Walker - Dietland

Kitty was far ahead of me down the sidewalk, and I considered turning around and running away. I hadn’t committed a crime, after all, and maybe it was better to go home and send her a letter of resignation in the mail. Then I wouldn’t have to face her. I slowed my pace, about to change direction and blend into the crowd, when I saw something ahead that made me stop and suck in my breath.

Leeta’s face was on the side of a building.

I lifted the hood of my raincoat and wiped the wet hair from my face. The rain continued to splatter, but even through the water and the fog I could see Leeta’s face.

Kitty noticed I wasn’t beside her and started walking back toward me. “Hurry up, it’s pouring,” she said, but I was frozen in place. It was really Leeta.

“Plum?” Kitty said. “What’s wrong with you?”

I pointed to Leeta on the screen. “Do you see that?”

There was her face, then the faces of the Dirty Dozen, then the faces of Stella Cross and her husband, then the other faces associated with Jennifer, all flashing on the jumbo screen in Times Square. Leeta, with her thick black eyeliner and long dark hair, was staring out at the New York masses the way she’d stared at me in the café. It was her face on the screen, and now everyone was looking at it.

“Plum?” Kitty said again, but I was walking back to the Austen Tower and into the lobby. I went through the metal detectors and asked the guard to call Julia Cole in the Beauty Closet, but he said there was no answer. I could have used my employee ID to go past the guard and find Julia myself, but Kitty was behind me. “I’ve had enough,” she said. “You’re fired.” Her words echoed around the marble lobby. Fired, fired. People turned to look.

“I allowed you to write in my voice. I trusted you to pretend to be me, ” she said, “and you threw my girls in the trash. Thousands of them.”

There were things I could have said to Kitty, but without the hair she had lost her power. I pushed past her, heading out into the street to find a taxi.

“Did you hear me?” Kitty shouted, but I had already left her behind.

When I arrived at Calliope House, I was in a state of near panic. I opened the door without knocking and was enveloped by the comforting red walls. Verena came from the back of the house, her pale hair and skin a light moving toward me through the long, dark hallway.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” she said.

“Leeta.” That’s all I could say.

“You’ve seen the news.”

“This can’t be happening. Is this real? I don’t know what’s real anymore.” I went into the ruby red living room and sank into a chair, wetting the fabric.

“No one knows what’s happening,” Verena said, with Marlowe at her side. “Leeta’s wanted for questioning, but she’s disappeared. The police are looking for her. I’m sure she hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Then why are the police looking for her?”

“It must be some sort of mix-up,” Marlowe said.

I was vaguely aware of the news playing on television or radio, a monotone recitation of events. “My life is unraveling and now this, now Leeta. It’s too much.”

Verena knelt down next to my chair and pushed the strands of wet hair from my eyes. “I think you’re ready for the last task of the New Baptist Plan.”

“I’ve had enough of your stupid plan. Before I met you I had some semblance of a life. I had a job and now that’s gone. I had plans for surgery and now I’m confused about that. Everything is slipping away from me.”

“I never said the New Baptist Plan would be easy.”

“No calorie counting and no weighing, right? If I don’t become thin, what’s going to happen to me?” I saw a calendar reaching years into the future and every page was blank.

“Let’s finish the New Baptist Plan,” Verena said. “You can do it right here at Calliope House. We’ll take care of you.” Being taken care of is what I needed.

Marlowe said, “Please stay here with us, Plum.”

And I did.

I followed Verena and Marlowe outside into the rain, down the front steps of Calliope House. To the right of the steps, unseen by passersby, there was another series of steps leading down to a red door, its frame overgrown with ivy. This was the door to the basement.

I followed them down the steps. Down we went, down to the very bottom.

The New Baptist Plan, Task Five:

Disconnecting and Reflecting

The underground apartment was nestled into the earth beneath Calliope House, deep in the place where roots grow. The walls vibrated faintly whenever a subway train passed by. This dark, cool space was where I landed after weeks of falling. It was Leeta’s appearance in the café more than two months ago that had caused me to lose my balance. I tripped into a hole, where strange things happened and even stranger women dwelled. Spinning and falling, trying desperately to steady myself, I kept reaching for something to cling to on my way down.

In the underground apartment, darkness wrapped itself around me. I didn’t resist. I’d taken my last half-tablet of Y—— and a handful of Dabsitaf the night before I went underground. I slept deeply, but I was also restless at times, rolling around in the twin-size bed, sweating into the sheets. My body was screaming for Y—— in those moments, but it wasn’t going to get it. I was finished with drugs.

When I finally opened my eyes after many hours, I swung out of bed and placed my feet on the floor. There was a lamp on the nightstand and I switched it on, surveying the bedroom, only vaguely remembering my arrival hours—days?—earlier. I was dressed in a baggy beige shift and black leggings, which Verena and Marlowe had given me after I’d followed them down the stairs. The clothes were my size, so they’d prepared for my arrival. Verena had given me her phone and told me to call anyone who would notice I was missing. I called my mother and Carmen. There was no one else. I made up a story about going on a retreat with Kitty and her staff. I explained that it was a last-minute trip because Kitty had forgotten to invite me, which is something that could have been true.

Then Verena and Marlowe left me alone. In the bed, on the edge of sleep, I recalled Leeta’s face on the screens in Times Square and hoped I’d been hallucinating.

My bedroom in the underground apartment contained only the starkest, most minimalist furnishings. The furniture and walls were white, the linens were white, everything was white—I was living inside an aspirin. In the dresser, more beige shifts and black leggings, plus pajamas and underthings. I didn’t know what had happened to the backpack I’d brought to Calliope House. My laptop and wallet and everything else must have been aboveground, in that world I’d left behind.

On top of the desk was a stack of books, including Adventures in Dietland and Fuckabilty Theory, a cup full of pens in different colors, and a notepad with a message on top:

Plum, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.

Rest until then.

Love, V.

Tomorrow afternoon meant nothing to me. I had no idea what time it was or even what day it was. There were no windows or clocks in my bedroom. I opened the door and peeked into the hallway, then stepped out in my bare feet. It was quiet and the overhead lights were dimmed. The underground apartment was a maze of underlit hallways. I ran my hands along the walls as I walked, feeling my way.

There were three other bedrooms along the narrow corridor outside my room, all of them unoccupied. At the end of the corridor was a bathroom, with the usual toilet, sink, and tub, but there was no mirror on the wall. Around the corner, down another narrow passage, there was a cramped kitchenette, with a refrigerator and microwave, a sink and cupboards, a table and chairs. Like the rest of the apartment, it was pill-white, but in the semidarkness looked dullish gray. In the cupboards I spotted boxes of cereal and crackers; in the refrigerator a jar of pink yogurt and a sandwich on a plate, wheat bread with a ruffle of green lettuce sticking out. I assumed the sandwich was for me, but I still didn’t feel like eating. Before going underground, I’d been weaning off Y—— for more than a month and experienced loss of appetite; before that I’d been following Waist Watchers obsessively. For as long as I could remember, I’d been coasting on a near-empty belly. I guessed I had lost at least thirty pounds, maybe more.