Slim to None by Jenny Gardiner Read Free Book Online

the conviviality involved in gathering family and friends and food and wine, really, the recipe for a happy life, if you ask me. When I’ve succeeded with this, I’ve accomplished my goal.
    So, then, I’ve answered my own question. The choice is I have no choice. I must lose weight. And fast. Six Months to Slim . Ha! Take that for a headline, you smarmy New York Post . Six Months to Less-Than-Morbidly Obese is more like it. I always pictured "morbidly obese" as someone who needs a crane to get them out of their apartment, because they’re too large to fit through the doorway. I fit through my doorway quite well, thank you. But with the less-than-generous actuarial scales (scales! Those miserable bastard devices), if I’m really honest, I think it’s probably true that I would be considered morbidly obese.
    Now it’s a question of how to diet. I know, I know, this is something about which there are vast reams of information. I’ve just never paid attention to any of it before. Someone in my position just doesn’t do that. Or doesn’t think she needs to, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Like Flexee failure and such. Dieters view food as the enemy. But guess what? There have been times in which food has been my very best friend. Food has been there for me when my life has been at its worst. How can I abandon it now, then? Food is not only a crutch for me, it’s a damned wheelchair. It’s a prosthesis, a replacement limb. And I don’t exactly know how to dismember it, frankly. Even if it’s become cumbersome and useless.
    I get up out of the chair, knowing what I have to do. I walk to the kitchen desk as if headed to the gallows. I open my laptop and pull up the email from Jess with the phone number she sent to me after hearing about my meeting with Mortie yesterday. And with one brief phone call, I make my date with destiny.
    * * *
    Two hours later I find myself precisely where I’d totally not like to be.
    "Mrs. Jennings! So glad the doctor was willing to squeeze you in this afternoon. It seemed...urgent," the receptionist greets me. "I’ll just have you fill out this paperwork before the doctor sees you."
    She hands me a clipboard with a stack of forms on it, and I get to work. All of these medical questions are making me feel sick: numbness, fatigue, seizures, heart disease, kidney problems, trouble breathing. Sheesh, all of these serious conditions they’re asking about. Mine pales in comparison. So much so that maybe I should just go ahead and leave. Good ol’ Doc Crenshaw doesn’t need to be bothered with little ol’ me. Or not so little ol’ me.
    Just as I ponder slipping out discreetly, a perky middle-aged nurse calls out, "Abigail Jennings?" and since I’m the only poor slob in the waiting room, she stares straight at me, curling her finger to beckon me to follow her. Which I do obligingly. A sheep being led to the slaughter.
    I know what’s next. We both know it. Only I suspect she secretly relishes this, while I dread it with the same sort of anticipation one would if sending their only child off to war.
    "Now, if you’ll just hop up on the scale." She points to the torture device and actually smiles as she says this. What I’m hearing, however, is this: "Now, if you’ll open wide and just let me carve out your tongue, we’ll be done!" And I don’t think hopping is an option, frankly. I picture the springs blowing on the thing, setting off alarms and all sorts of mayhem ensuing.
    I feel like a dog about to be beaten with a newspaper for pooping on the carpet. My frowning eyebrows implore the nurse to change her mind. I swear I’m tempted to whimper.
    "Is everything all right, Mrs. Jennings?" she asks.
    Surely she jests. Is everything all right? Sweet God in Heaven, nothing could be more wrong at this moment in time, short of imminent mutual destruction by the world’s super powers.
    I point to my shoes. "Can I take these off?" I choke out.
    I wonder how much added weight my