I shook my head, hoping that wasn’t some personal-trainer stuff I should have known about.
“It’s what girls get from sitting all day. Kind of spreads them out, so they take up more room.”
“Oh. Yeah, I … guess so.”
“Well, see, that’s what I was. A secretary, I mean. In fact, I worked for my husband. He wasn’t complaining about my fat ass back then, believe me.”
I made some sound, just enough to tell her I was listening. Anything I said out loud would be a mistake—I knew that much.
“I don’t think he says it to be mean, but it kind of hurts my feelings, you know? And he … well, maybe he’s thinking he didn’t get what he paid for?”
“Paid for?”
“I just mean I’m not the same girl he married.”
“How could you be?”
“What does that mean?”
“Nobody stays the same forever. Does he look just like he used to?”
“Charley? You must be joking. Oh, that’s right; you’ve never even met him, have you?”
“No.” I said it the same way you’d say a weather report. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t want to meet him, but I didn’t want to talk to him, either.
“It’s not the same for men,” she said. “They can get fat and bald and … anything they want. It doesn’t matter. That’s if they’ve got money, I mean.”
“I guess that’s so.”
“But I don’t want to be unfair. Charley treats me like a princess. Anything I want. So, I was thinking, maybe he makes those cracks—you know, like I said before—maybe he’s just trying to make sure I’m like you said. Healthy, right?”
“That’s what I said, sure.”
“But it would be a great present for him, too, don’t you think?”
“That kind of thing never works,” I said. Not a chance in the world I was going to let myself be played into training her husband—I’d end up having to move.
“But you just said—”
“Sure. But when you give someone a gift certificate for training, most times they kind of resent it. And even if they do show up, they’re not really motivated. Once they see how hard it’s going to be to really reshape themselves, they don’t stay with it, anyway. So you’d just be wasting your money.”
“Not for Charley, silly! I mean, yes, it’d be for Charley, but the present wouldn’t be some gift certificate; it would be me.”
Stepped right into that one, you fucking mope, I was thinking, but I didn’t say anything, just tried to look surprised.
“You know what my measurements were when I first went to work for Charley? I was a C-cup thirty-seven, twenty-four, thirty-eight.… I guess I was always a little hippy. I weighed a hundred and nineteen pounds. That wasn’t so long ago—our tenth anniversary is next year. You know how much I weigh now?”
“I couldn’t even guess.”
“You don’t want to know, trust me. Don’t you think it would be a wonderful surprise if I could squeeze myself into one of the outfits I wore back then? I’d probably give Charley a heart attack, I did that.”
“You couldn’t do that.”
“What?! Why would you say such an awful—?”
“No, no. I don’t mean you couldn’t train to whatever shape you wanted. I just meant, something like that, it’s gradual. So it wouldn’t be a surprise, see?”
“Oh.”
“It’s not like you could wake up one morning and be all changed. That’s the hardest thing for people to swallow, patience. They want to work out for a month and turn into something different.”
“Well … it kind of depends on the person, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m not exactly an elephant, right?”
“Of course not. But if you want to do it correctly, it always takes time to—”
“Fair enough. But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, it depends on how much you get noticed, right? For it to be a surprise, I mean.”
“Like if someone hadn’t seen you in a couple of years?”
“Or if someone hadn’t looked at you in a couple of years.”
“I … guess that’s right.”
She stood up. “I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. If you ever need—”
“No problem,” I said. That’s what people say when they want to get rid of you.
She walked over to the staircase. It was only a couple of seconds, but I could see she didn’t walk like a woman who thinks she’s too fat.
There were a few places I could walk in and some people there would know me. Buy me a drink, slap me on the back, tell me the last