in & tossed her purse on the floor by the door, already very much at home. “I guess I’ll start upstairs today?”
“Well—” I said. “Well.”
I felt the need to make lots of excuses for the state of the upstairs but I couldn’t really think of any that would not call attention to my weight. Which does not need to be called attention to. So all I said was that I thought it was probably very dusty and I apologized.
Without waiting for me to say anything else, she went to the kitchen and got her bucket of cleaning supplies and then trotted gaily up the stairs & for the first time I noticed that she looked like someone in love.
I heard by her footsteps that she had gone all the way to the top floor & I wondered what she would find.
Meanwhile I sat up very properly on my couch. I cannot move myself around quickly so every time she has been here I’ve been careful with what I’m doing & watching & reading & eating. She could catch me at any time doing anything. So while she is in my house I generally don’t have anything to eat, nothing at all. Today I tried to read at first but my eyes wouldn’t focus on the words and I kept reading the same paragraph over and over again. So then I tried turning on the television and Dr Phil was on, who, I am reluctant to admit, is a special favorite of mine. Bald, ursine, mustachioed Dr Phil wears gray suits and pink shirts, invites fat ladies onto his show, and then tells them why they are fat. The ladies cry & agree with him mostly. Many of them have been molested or abused. Many of them have husbands who say terrible things to them about their weight. Dr Phil tells these husbands that they are no prizes either. I have a hopeless halfhearted fantasy of going on this show and receiving a benediction from Dr Phil, a hug, a promise of rescue and relief. You don’t deserve this, he says to the ladies. You deserve better than this.
I watched him for an hour. The story was a very pretty young woman and an ugly young man on the verge of divorce and disaster. They could not get along you see, and Dr Phil was finding out why not by watching the footage from hidden cameras that he had put all over their house.
O shut up, shut up, the woman was saying. On camera. And at one point her terrible husband took her by the shoulders and squeezed her, sort of, & Dr Phil paused the tape there, which is where I also would have paused the tape, and said What are you thinking.
Suddenly I realized I was hungry. It was past noon and I had not eaten for a couple of hours. But I did not want to eat when Yolanda was in the house because I did not want her to be disgusted by me. I was contemplating going into the kitchen to get the healthiest thing I could find when Yolanda’s phone rang. I heard it from inside her little black purse. It was some sort of high, high whine & a rumbling beat below. Rap music.
It was just out of my reach, on the floor between the couch and the front door. I scooted toward it. I waited to hear if she would come pounding down the stairs for it, but she didn’t. For reasons I can’t explain I rocked myself off the couch and timidly approached it, and then I reached down into her purse—the ringing had already stopped—and brought out the cell phone, which was pink and covered in rhinestones that looked as if they had been applied by Yolanda herself.
I flipped open her phone. There, in a bubble, it said 1 missed call: Junior Baby Love. 12:56 p.m.
Then I heard the sprightly Yolanda’s footfall on the stairs and I dropped the phone into her purse and hastened back to my place on the couch but I was breathing quite hard when I sat back down and I realized that I had forgotten to flip her phone shut.
She appeared very quickly, confirming my theory that I always have to be on my best behavior when Yolanda is in the house.
She looked at me suspiciously.
“My phone ring?” she asked.
“Is that what that noise was?” I asked. Innocently.
She went to her purse and
“Well—” I said. “Well.”
I felt the need to make lots of excuses for the state of the upstairs but I couldn’t really think of any that would not call attention to my weight. Which does not need to be called attention to. So all I said was that I thought it was probably very dusty and I apologized.
Without waiting for me to say anything else, she went to the kitchen and got her bucket of cleaning supplies and then trotted gaily up the stairs & for the first time I noticed that she looked like someone in love.
I heard by her footsteps that she had gone all the way to the top floor & I wondered what she would find.
Meanwhile I sat up very properly on my couch. I cannot move myself around quickly so every time she has been here I’ve been careful with what I’m doing & watching & reading & eating. She could catch me at any time doing anything. So while she is in my house I generally don’t have anything to eat, nothing at all. Today I tried to read at first but my eyes wouldn’t focus on the words and I kept reading the same paragraph over and over again. So then I tried turning on the television and Dr Phil was on, who, I am reluctant to admit, is a special favorite of mine. Bald, ursine, mustachioed Dr Phil wears gray suits and pink shirts, invites fat ladies onto his show, and then tells them why they are fat. The ladies cry & agree with him mostly. Many of them have been molested or abused. Many of them have husbands who say terrible things to them about their weight. Dr Phil tells these husbands that they are no prizes either. I have a hopeless halfhearted fantasy of going on this show and receiving a benediction from Dr Phil, a hug, a promise of rescue and relief. You don’t deserve this, he says to the ladies. You deserve better than this.
I watched him for an hour. The story was a very pretty young woman and an ugly young man on the verge of divorce and disaster. They could not get along you see, and Dr Phil was finding out why not by watching the footage from hidden cameras that he had put all over their house.
O shut up, shut up, the woman was saying. On camera. And at one point her terrible husband took her by the shoulders and squeezed her, sort of, & Dr Phil paused the tape there, which is where I also would have paused the tape, and said What are you thinking.
Suddenly I realized I was hungry. It was past noon and I had not eaten for a couple of hours. But I did not want to eat when Yolanda was in the house because I did not want her to be disgusted by me. I was contemplating going into the kitchen to get the healthiest thing I could find when Yolanda’s phone rang. I heard it from inside her little black purse. It was some sort of high, high whine & a rumbling beat below. Rap music.
It was just out of my reach, on the floor between the couch and the front door. I scooted toward it. I waited to hear if she would come pounding down the stairs for it, but she didn’t. For reasons I can’t explain I rocked myself off the couch and timidly approached it, and then I reached down into her purse—the ringing had already stopped—and brought out the cell phone, which was pink and covered in rhinestones that looked as if they had been applied by Yolanda herself.
I flipped open her phone. There, in a bubble, it said 1 missed call: Junior Baby Love. 12:56 p.m.
Then I heard the sprightly Yolanda’s footfall on the stairs and I dropped the phone into her purse and hastened back to my place on the couch but I was breathing quite hard when I sat back down and I realized that I had forgotten to flip her phone shut.
She appeared very quickly, confirming my theory that I always have to be on my best behavior when Yolanda is in the house.
She looked at me suspiciously.
“My phone ring?” she asked.
“Is that what that noise was?” I asked. Innocently.
She went to her purse and
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