Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner Read Free Book Online Page A

Did I eat when I was upset? Yes. Did I eat when I was happy? Yes. Would I be tearing through those bagels and that funky-looking cream cheese at this very moment, were it not for the present company? You betcha.
    On to the psychology pages. Was I frequently depressed? I circled sometimes. Did I have thoughts of suicide? I winced, then circled rarely. Insomnia? No. Feelings of worthlessness? Yes, even though I knew I wasn’t worthless. Did I ever fantasize about cutting off fleshy or flabby areas of my body? What, doesn’t everyone? Please add any additional thoughts. I wrote, I am happy with every aspect of my life except my appearance. Then I added, And my love life.
    I laughed a little bit. The woman stuffed into the seat next to mine gave me a tentative smile. She was wearing one of those outfits I always thought of as fat-lady chic: leggings and a tunic top in a soft, periwinkle blue, with silk-screened daisies across her chest. A beautiful outfit, and not cheap, either, but play clothes. It’s as if the fashion designers decided that once a woman hit a certain weight, she’d have no need for business suits, for skirts and blazers, for anything except glorified sweatsuits, and they tried to apologize for dressing us like overaged Teletubbies by silk-screening daisies on the tops.
    “I’m laughing to keep from crying,” I explained.
    “Gotcha,” she said. “I’m Lily.”
    “I’m Candace. Cannie.”
    “Not Candy?”
    “I think my parents decided not to give the kids on the playground any extra ammunition,” I said. She smiled. She had glossy black hair twisted back with lacquered chopstick-y things, and diamond studs the size of cocktail peanuts in her ears.
    “Do you think this will work?” I asked. She shrugged her thick shoulders.
    “I was on phen-fen,” she said. “I lost eighty pounds.” She reached into her purse. I knew what was coming. Regular women carry pictures of their babies, their husbands, their summer houses. Fat ladies carry pictures of themselves at their skinniest. Lily showed me the full-figure view, in a black suit, and then the side profile, in a miniskirt and sweater. Sure enough, she looked terrific. “Phen-fen,” she said, and sighed gigantically. Her bosom looked like something governed by tides and gravity, not mere human will. “I was doing so great,” she said. Her eyes took on a faraway look. “I was never hungry. It was like flying.”
    “Speed’ll do that to you,” I observed.
    Lily wasn’t listening. “I cried the day they took it off the market. I tried and tried, but I gained everything back in, like, ten minutes.” She narrowed her eyes. “I would kill to get more phen-fen.”
    “But…,” I said hesitantly. “Wasn’t it supposed to cause heart problems?”
    Lily snorted. “Given a choice between being this big and being dead, I swear I’d have to think about it. It’s ridiculous! I could walk down two blocks and buy crack cocaine on the corner, but I can’t get phen-fen for love or money.”
    “Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    “You never tried phen-fen?”
    “No. Just Weight Watchers.”
    That brought a chorus of complaints and rolled eyes from the women sitting around me.
    “Weight Watchers!”
    “That’s a crock.”
    “Expensive crock.”
    “Standing in line so some skinny thing can weigh you”
    “And those scales were never right,” said Lily, to a chorus of enthusiastic uh-huhs! The size six behind the desk was looking worried. Fat lady insurrection! I grinned, imagining us surging down the hall, a righteous, stretch-pant-wearing army, tipping over the scales, toppling the blood-pressure machine, tearing the height-weight charts off the walls and making all the skinny clinicians eat them, while we feasted on bagels and fat-free cream cheese.
    “Candace Shapiro?”
    A tall doctor with an extremely deep voice was calling my name. Lily squeezed my hand.
    “Good luck,” she whispered. “And if he’s got any