Two days later, I rub my bloated stomach, reminiscing about the three full days of solitary competitive eating. If only I could be proud of such an accomplishment. I check my e-mail while stifling a Cheetos-scented yawn. My inbox has two messages, both equally important. The first is from Phatbands, an innovative lap band that curbs appetite while sending sonar pulses to the muscles’ memory cells, toning the body without exercise. For a brief moment, I believe that science has finally caught up with my needs. Then I remember that medical achievements aren’t typically announced through spam. Moving on, slightly dejected, I open Mr. Steterson’s response. “Anna, I am thrilled to hear that you have landed in New York and admittedly am not surprised that you are struggling a bit to get your foot in the door. It’s a tough city for introverts. I have taken the liberty of calling Martin Johnson, the head of the New York City Penn Alumni Group and a vice president at Goldman Sachs. He’s a sharp man with an excellent eye for talent. He’s expecting your call. All the best, Tom.”
I am thrilled that Mr. Steterson felt comfortable enough to sign his e-mail Tom. More than the introduction at Goldman Sachs, I am energized by the thought that “Tom” can now be considered a friend. Addressing each other on a first-name basis is the foundation of friendship, or so I’ve heard. Bolstered by my new friendship, I call Martin Johnson’s office, and to my surprise, they know who I am. The assistant even suggests an interview with human resources regarding an entry-level position. I accept, ecstatic. I’m heading to Wall Street! My business card will soon read Anna Norton, Badass Broker. I like the sound of that, and while I had always set my sights on a career in science, I have come to New York to change, so surely this is a step in the right direction. Now I can relax a bit and celebrate the new brokerage-bound, friendship-rich Anna!
Three semi-junk-food-filled days later, I travel down Broad Street in the Financial District, entering Goldman Sachs in a cheap, ill-fitting navy suit. The suit is less than stellar, but I don’t mind. I have a job to claim. Once I’ve earned the right to answer phones and fetch coffees, I’ll start amassing a sexy and sophisticated wardrobe. I will buy clothes that store clerks refer to as investments for their ageless style and high price. I am intoxicated by my life and my prospects. I’m not sure that this has ever happened. A small part of me wants to call my family and let them know that we aren’t serotonin challenged and incapable of experiencing optimism, as previously thought. However, I think better of it.
A weathered and grumpy human resource executive sits across from me, skeptically perusing my résumé. The deep crevices below his mouth speak to his proclivity for frowning. Normally such a persnickety old man would be enough to make me turn on my scuffed pumps and dash out of the building. But not today. I’m far too excited about my future to care about some near-suicidal executive. I don’t even mind if he offs himself, as long as he puts my start paperwork through first. Lowering his glasses to the end of his nose as Mother does, Scott Lantern looks up at me with a scowl. “Most of our trainees have a business or finance background.”
“Yes, I assumed as much, but with all due respect, Mr. Lantern, a degree in molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania along with a 4.0 grade point average undoubtedly demonstrates my superior work ethic and intellectual abilities. I have no doubt whatsoever that I am equipped to analyze market trends and compose investment strategies.”
Scott Lantern continues to stare at me over his glasses, his face a mélange of misery and resentment. “How are your interpersonal skills? This can be a very stressful environment; sensitive people are not encouraged to pursue employment here, as they rarely last the day, if you get my drift.”
“I definitely get your drift,” I say enthusiastically. “My nickname at Penn was . . . Lizard Skin. I take nothing personally.” Why did I choose Lizard Skin as a nickname? It’s so unflattering. He probably thinks I have psoriasis. I should have claimed to have a high-functioning form of Asperger’s syndrome.
“Uh-huh,” Scott says, nodding. “Well, I feel the need to warn you that the boys here can be a bit rough.”
“I can handle it,” I say with a confident nod that sets only a few chins aquiver.
“All right then, before I begin the formal interview, I like to take prospective employees to meet a few of the trainees. It lets you get a feel for the place. Follow me.”
Scott Lantern walks like a boxer preparing to enter the ring: strong, hard, and aggressive. Assistants and brokers move out of his way as he navigates a maze of cubicles and ringing phones. He pauses before an open door, grunts something, and enters the office. I follow him, but not before noticing an assistant’s sleek and wireless headset. I yearn to stomp around my corner office with a headset, yelling mean and nasty things in between the requisite “buy!” and “sell!” Scott nods toward three attractive and well-dressed young men.
“Morgan Atterson, Jonathan Door, and Eric Smith,” Scott smiles. “Three of our top trainees, all Harvard graduates. This is Anna Norton, a candidate for traineeship and a recent graduate of Penn.”
“Nice to meet you,” Morgan, Jonathan, and Eric offer flatly, holding out their hands.
“Nice to meet you as well,” I say, shaking hands with each one of them.
“Scott,” Morgan says with a snicker, “is this because of the Tiffany thing?”
“No,” Scott responds sternly before turning to me. “Anna, wait outside. I have a few more people for you to meet, but I need to make sure they’re in.”
“Um, okay.” I turn to the trainees. “Bye. Hope to see you guys around real soon,” I trill optimistically while heading for the door.
The three men don’t respond. Instead they smile insidiously, as if enjoying an inside joke. Oh, how I will love being part of an office, sharing jokes and smirks about bosses. I can see it now: hordes of smartly dressed men and women stopping by my cubicle to share lighthearted gossip. They will even call me Annie as a term of endearment. Occasionally while walking the halls, I will hear people whisper, “I can’t wait to tell Annie.” Distracted by thoughts of my new life, I lean against the office door.
“If you don’t stop boning all the hotties, Scott’s going to keep hiring fatties,” Eric’s voice carries into the hallway from the office.
This brings me back to reality quickly, dare I say too quickly. I have the emotional bends.
“That last chick was definitely to punish me. I’ve never seen anything quite so hideous,” Morgan says.
“Barely even human!” Jonathan chimes in, and the three men dissolve into laughter and high fives.
Here marks the spot where Miss Anna Norton dies of mortification. My face flushes, and a thick sweat moustache grows above my lip. Scott returns and beckons me to follow him. “Okay, Anna, they’re ready.”
I can’t move. I can’t respond. Scott stares as a tsunami of misery engulfs me. Tears poke through my mascara-covered lashes. I’m not even fit to be used as a form of punishment; I’m a fat ass crying in public. It’s pathetic, a testament to my weak character and inability to hack it in this city. Scott rubs his forehead with a look of resignation; he’s clearly been here before.
“Lizard Skin,” Scott says while handing me a tissue, “there’s another elevator around the corner.”
I want to say thank you, but I can’t. My voice box disappears along with all remnants of self-esteem. Moving quickly toward the elevator, every inch of flaccid skin electrifies, confirming the awful truth. I am disgusting, not just to myself but to the world. I am ashamed to exist and mortified to have thought that I could survive in such a place. I am the person who people mock and sneer at behind her back. People like me can’t change; we can only hide. I must return to Ohio and the heartbreaking truth I have tried to escape. I must own my caste and the arranged marriage with the misery that comes with it.
After putting down a deposit and first and last month’s rent on the cheapest apartment in four papers, charging large quantities of junk food to my “emergency only credit card,” I
am nearly broke. I never entertained the possibility of wanting to return home, so I took no measures to plan for such an occasion. I am totally alone. A phone call to Mother is out of the question. She would fish my overwhelming failure out of me, then force me to listen to her gut-wrenching disappointment. The phone call is more than I can handle. I would rather temp for two weeks and return home with stories of job offers and an epiphany about the importance of living near your family. I simply cannot stomach watching my failure reflected back in her eyes. I will lie with grandeur about my New York escapades before squirreling myself away to recover from this horrible ordeal. Then, when ready, I will reach out to Harry with the promise of a meal at Red Lobster and sex in his mother’s minivan. I pray that his cellulite-ridden arms haven’t found a new fatty to hold.
Chapter Five
I n a state of extreme stress and mild hysteria, I waddle out of the Financial District in search of a temp agency. Thoughts of FG and the sliver of optimism I clung to earlier make me cry even harder. There is a pain in my chest, a physical manifestation of melancholy. “Please . . . please . . . please . . . ,” I mumble, pushing past people on the crowded street. Next to a bodega, I spot my saving grace, Apple One Employment Agency.
Barging through the door without a résumé or semblance of mental stability is rather imprudent, but I cannot control myself. An older woman sitting behind a cheap fake wood desk spots me and immediately states, “No public restroom. Try Quiznos.”
“I’m here to get a job . . . any job. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in molecular biology,” I say, wiping the snot from my nose onto my hand.
“I’ll let you know if I hear of any molecular gigs,” the woman deadpans.
“I’m serious,” I plead. “You can call them.”
“Them? All those molecular scientists out there?”
“University of Pennsylvania.”
“Sure, I’ll just call the dean. He’ll know you?”
“Actually, he doesn’t know me, but the office has records. I usually have a résumé on me, but I left the last copy at Goldman Sachs.”
“Ah, at Goldman Sachs? Let me guess; they needed a molecular biologist?”
“They called me fat,” I wail, taking a seat in front of the woman’s desk.
“I always get the crazies,” she mutters to herself.
“I’m sorry, I need a job. Really, I’m not crazy, just fat.”
“Stop crying . . . please . . . no one hires crybabies.”
“Or fatties,” I stutter, holding back tears.
“So, you’ll take any job?” the woman says with a smirk. I nod, and the woman stands and turns the corner. Tears continue to well up in me, exploding down my bulbous cheeks every three to five seconds. My vision blurs desks, lamps, and people into one crazy color scheme as I choke on my sadness.
“Lady?” I hear the woman say. I immediately wipe my tears and swallow my spit. Before me is the same large woman I had only seconds ago spoken to, but oddly it’s not her that my eyes focus on. Down the hall, bathed in a flood of afternoon light, complete with a golden halo, a woman approaches. Dressed all in white, she raises her left hand in the air and points to the sky with a pen. In that moment, the woman’s sleek silver pen eerily resembles a wand. Well, at least to me.
“Lady? Hello?” the temp woman hollers, breaking my focus on my possible FG. “Here’s a piece of paper. Write me your résumé, include that Harvard stuff—”
“I went to Penn, not Harvard, although I did get in there,” I say proudly through my haze of humiliation.
“Just write it down. Company policy: no résumé, no job. And you can commit to a year?”
“Of course,” I respond, imagining disappearing after cashing my first and only paycheck.
“I may actually have a place that’s right for you,” she says with a hint of menace. “I think you’re just what she’s looking for. You’re willing to work for minimum wage, right?”
“As long as no one calls me fat, sure.”
“Excellent.”
“What’s the job?” I ask tentatively. Not that it would matter— I’ll take anything, especially since it’s only a temporary humiliation en route to a lifetime of the same.
“Caterer’s assistant. You’re meeting her at the kitchen in thirty minutes.”
“I should change and get a real copy of my résumé—”
“You don’t have time,” she interrupts. “I’ll photocopy this; it will have to do,” she says, holding up the legal pad on which I wrote my résumé. “Here’s the address. And if she doesn’t hire you, don’t come back— and that goes for her, too.”
“For her, too?” I repeat back with surprise.
“Yeah, you’re the eighth placement we’ve made this year.”
That can’t possibly be a good sign.
Two weeks, I remind myself while riding the industrial elevator in a Lower East Side building. I only need to stay here two weeks, and then I can quietly recede into my familial misery in Ohio. It’s less time than most kids stay at camp. I can do it. Plus, my placement in a food-related industry is very reassuring. If necessary, I can steal food and engage in secret eating in the bathroom to calm my nerves. I stop at a steel door with a small plaque that says D&D Catering. I wipe away any remnants of mascara from beneath my eyes and knock. I hear someone walking on the other side of the door, stopping to gaze through the peephole. “I’m from the agency,” I blurt out. “My name is Anna Norton.”
I hear the familiar sound of a deadbolt turning.
“Hello,” the woman says, eyeing me up and down.
I take a breath and step back, shocked. “You’re . . . you’re . . . you’re my FG,” I stammer ridiculously, staring at the woman I watched from afar at the temp agency. She’s casually sophisticated, dressed in a white linen dress with her soft golden brown locks pulled into a bun, displaying large diamond earrings.
“Your what?”
I continue to stare at her, dumbfounded. In a city this big, to see the same stranger twice in one day. Could this be the celestial sign I’ve been waiting for?
“Weren’t you . . . aren’t . . . you, did I just see you back at the agency?”
“Yes, I came back to meet you. What did you just call me? FG?” she asks suspiciously.
“It’s an abbreviation for . . . fute grane. It means ‘interview’ in Dutch,” I lie poorly.
“Are you Dutch?”
“No . . . I thought you were Dutch . . .”
“My name is Janice Delviddio. Does that sound Dutch to you?”
“Must have been the woman’s accent at the temp agency . . . sounded very Flemish . . .”
“Where’s your résumé?”
I hand her the photocopy of my “résumé.”
“Is this some kind of a joke? I get it, they’re punishing me for having high standards.” Exasperated, Janice opens the door wider and motions for me to come in. A strange calm settles over me as I accept the presence of FG. I can’t shake the image of her bathed in warm light and carrying a wand.
“So you went to Penn?” Janice says, inspecting the scrawled document before her.
“Yeah. I don’t usually handwrite my résumé, but you see . . . ,” I say before pausing to inspect the woman’s expression. My FG suddenly looks decidedly disappointed in me, as if she deserves better. What is going on? My FG is rejecting me.
“Is everything okay?” I stutter under her harsh glare.
“Not really, but I don’t have much of a choice.”
Behind Janice is a professional kitchen with stainless steel appliances and miles of counter space. There is a small sitting area set up between two framed vintage posters. The large loft space looks remarkably similar to a set for a cable TV cooking show.
“Nice place. I, um, well, I don’t know a lot about cooking,” I manage to get out, hoping that Janice will stop dissecting me with her emerald green eyes. “But I eat a lot, if that helps. Actually, not a lot, I may have a
metabolism issue,” I burble maniacally, “or maybe something with my thyroid.”
“A thyroid condition, you say?” Janice asks warily.
“Or a slow metabolism.”
“Interesting. And your doctor told you this?”
“Well,” I swallow hard, wondering how much worse my day could possibly get, “um, not exactly.”
“What exactly does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
“It varies, but in this case it means . . . no.”
“Do you have a problem with lying?”
“Not at all. I didn’t technically lie. I said that I may have an issue with my metabolism or thyroid—”
“And you came to this assessment because you’re fat.”
I don’t think I want an FG anymore. At least not one who calls me fat.
“She said you wouldn’t call me fat. She promised.”
“Sweetie,” Janice says with sudden compassion, “I’m an FF.”
“A what?” I ask, astonished. Is she owning up to being my FG but disguising it with a different letter?
“A Former Fatty. I’ve been there. Please don’t cry.”
“It’s just that this is the second time today I’ve been called fat. First the guys at Goldman Sachs, and now you.”
“Anna, I used to be fat, so I can call you that. Making fun of your own kind is an exception to the rules. I promise.”
I gape at the stylish woman before me, unable to process her remarks. Did she just tell me she used to be fat?
“This is America; eating is the national pastime,” she continues, smiling at my confusion as if to say “yes, I know, hard to believe someone as stunning as I once looked like you.” She says, of course, nothing of the kind, merely continues her sociological discourse. “We think the land of plenty refers to eating Carl’s Jr. and McDonald’s in our cars.”