CHAPTER 14
A great miracle occurred. Adiv returned.
“Shalom!” I called out when I saw him behind the counter.
“Shalom,” he said, looking confused.
Never, I was sure, had any customer been so happy to see Adiv back at it. This was my burning bush, my Noah and the Ark and the dove. I was to be captain of my dessert realm again: no more peer-pressured extras or yogurt in conversation.
I wondered how his experience in Israel had been, what his views were. But a food-service interaction seemed an inopportune time to say, Hey, any thoughts on a two-state solution?
“I’ll have the cheesecake,” I said, omitting any discourse on land disputes.
Then Miriam emerged from the back.
“Hey, Rachel!” she said, signaling that she’d handle me.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“Be useful and go unbox the pretzel cones,” she said to Adiv.
Adiv complied. I watched her grab a 16-ounce cup and pull the lever on the machine.
The yogurt began its ascent, swirling upward until it overtook the brim, entering the unsafe space above it. But then it transcended that realm, soaring to a new, unthinkable altitude before reaching a summit that was miles above where she began. Even for Miriam’s style, the serving was absurd.
“I want to give you a free topping,” she said. “Because you didn’t like your last yogurt.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t want one.”
“Come on,” she said. “There has to be something you like. What about sprinkles? I’m just going to put sprinkles on it, just a little.”
“Rainbow,” I said instinctively, then thought, Fuck.
I watched her spooning on the sprinkles and noticed, for the first time, that she had lovely fingernails: smooth and egg-shaped, trimmed neatly. She wasn’t a biter like me, a compulsive habit that began in childhood as something of a snack. Now I painted my nails red as a deterrent, but I only ended up biting off the polish too—spitting flakes of crimson.
When she handed me the yogurt, every inch of that mammoth peak was covered in rainbow sprinkles. It was gorgeous, seamless, as though the yogurt were a rainbow itself: no separation between dessert and topping. Its beauty made me think for a moment that it should have always been this way.
I stared at the sculptural masterpiece in my hand. I wanted to kiss it, to make out with it, to touch it with my tongue and lips and explore what those tiny textures felt like. Simply holding the cup, I was rocketed back to sprinkles past. I remembered that they were actually made of tiny bits of dried frosting, and the way you could dissolve them in your mouth, suck until they softened back to frosting once again, completing one of life’s great cycles of transformation.
“See?” said Miriam. “Everybody loves a topping.”
I smiled at her and felt weak. Then, as though compelled by an otherworldly force, I brought that majestic mountain to my mouth, licked it, and took a bite.
“Mmmmmmm,” I said with my mouth full. “Thanks.”
I closed my eyes. The sprinkles were so delicious, melting there on my tongue, that my throat began to call out for them.
What would be the harm? What would be the harm? said my throat. What would be so bad about just swallowing?
Of course, I knew what the harm would be. Sprinkles were loaded with sugar, and there was no way of knowing how many of them were packed into any given mouthful. From one bite to the next, it would be impossible to calculate a caloric load.
Panicking, I spun on my heel and headed for the door. I hoped that I could keep the concoction in my mouth long enough without swallowing to get to the trash can on the curb. But when I reached the can, my lips would not open to relinquish the mouthful. I stood there and swallowed it down my gullet.
Then, to my horror, I found myself sticking my tongue into a crevice between yogurt and cup, where a small pile of naked sprinkles had fallen. I licked them out. I didn’t stop, but pressed on to where the sprinkles and some drips of melted yogurt had formed a viscous union. I chewed these bites up quickly and swallowed again and again, as though this were the fastest way to get rid of them.
While I ate, I watched myself—like I was hovering up above, split into two beings. One of me was the one doing the eating. The other observed myself in shock as I continued to devour it all. Stop! Stop! called out the observer me, but it was no use.
I was consumed by the yogurt, all five senses bathing in its drips and swirls, as though I had entered some yogurt door, no thought, no vision or sound but the yogurt and its sprinkles, any fear or hesitation fully eclipsed by sensation, the crunch, the slurp, the melt, the heavenly feeling of cleaning each side evenly with my tongue—hardness and softness, sweetness and more sweetness—a prism of beauty on Earth and above it, and me, the me on the ground, nothing but a giant mouth and tongue, eating and eating for nothing, not one thing, except sheer pleasure alone.
I don’t know how long I stood there in front of the trash can: devouring, licking, swallowing. I only knew that when my mind and body were finally united again, the first thing I noticed was the sour smell of trash in the warm sun. I felt afraid, then a hot shame. It had really happened. I’d eaten the whole thing. All that remained was a dribble at the bottom with two sprinkles floating in it: one pink and one blue. I dug them out with my spoon and put that last little bite in my mouth.
Something had taken me over, possessed me, some phantom transmitted from Miriam to me, or a demon lurking latent all these years, now suddenly awakened. I had not lost control like that with food since I was sixteen. I’d thought the demon was dead.
No, that wasn’t true. I’d sensed the demon in me all along, waiting for the right moment to open my mouth, suck the world down my throat. All of my restriction, my efforts at control, as I tiptoed daily around the edge of hunger, were enacted in the name of keeping that demon shut up: sleep late to delay calories, write everything down, eat ice, avoid friends. But in all that busywork, I’d forgotten what made the demon space so dangerous in the first place. When you were in it, it felt fucking great.
On the way back to the office, I stopped off at my car in the parking garage. I opened the trunk and rifled angrily through the trash bag of clothes where I’d dumped the sculpture I made in therapy. Fucking Mahjoub. I’d show her honoring the work! I pulled out two black dresses, a dirty black T-shirt, and a pair of old Nikes. No sculpture. I took out a black blouse with a hole in the sleeve, a bralette, one black patent leather high heel, a black skirt. Now the bag was empty. Still no sculpture. Maybe it had fallen out of the bag and gotten loose in the trunk?
My trunk was filled with so much shit. The thing could be anywhere under all of that crap! I began pulling items out and placing them on the floor of the parking garage: sunglasses, a box of broken planters, my college diploma, a case of Coke Zero, wiper fluid, a spare tire, my missing copy of The Fran Lebowitz Reader, three empty cans of Coke Zero. No sculpture. It was gone.
CHAPTER 15
We were invited to a party for the cast and crew of Breathers, to celebrate their second season renewal. I dreaded these kinds of events. The rooms were always filled with the professionally skinny, the skinny-for-pay, the ultra-ultra-skinny. I knew it would be impossible to shrink myself down to that next tier of skinny without suffering more than I was already suffering. On the suffering scale, I was currently at about a seven-point-five. I felt unwilling to go up to a nine or ten. But when I observed the ultra-ultra-skinny, I forgot about that suffering and saw only the ways they appeared to be protected—cocooned by an absence of flesh—from judgment, hurt, or shame. When I looked at the ultra-ultra-skinny, I thought: safe.