Miriam had made me an ice cream sundae. It was the perfect sundae you might see at a 1940s soda fountain or in a vintage housekeeping magazine. It was a throwback, food of another era, time-traveling to the Yo!Good counter. There was an innocence about it, a childlike quality. It was a treat that a child would receive from a caring older person who wanted to reward them just for existing.
When she handed me the cup, our hands touched. Her fingers were incredibly soft.
“Thank you,” I said.
I didn’t know what to do. I had forgotten how to say no, but I had also forgotten how to eat. I felt my hand tingling; the yogurt was heavy. I was unable to move the cup closer to me or farther away. Her hand touching mine had somehow paralyzed me. Maybe she’d cast a spell that was conveyed through touch.
Spoon, I thought. Get. Spoon.
I saw myself pick up a pink spoon from the dispenser on the counter. Stiffly, I lifted it up, then plunged it into the sundae. I penetrated the whipped cream and fudge down to the yogurt below. I wanted to taste all of it at once: yogurt, fudge, strawberry sauce, whipped cream, and peanuts. I brought the bite to my mouth. My mouth knew what to do. It opened. I shoveled the bite inside.
The taste was orchestral, so many different flavors in one. First the nuts blended with the strawberries, à la a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then the fudge cavorted with the nuts to create a candy bar essence. The whipped cream and strawberries were their own heaven: a strawberry shortcake of pleasure. I tasted them all in unison, but also separately. They coexisted in harmony, while each ingredient maintained its own identity.
“Good?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
I took another bite, savored it, then swallowed.
“I love it,” I said. “You’re really good at making sundaes.”
“Thank you,” she said. “When you work here, you start to know which flavors taste really good together. Next time you come I’ll make you my personal signature. I call it the Peppermint Plotz.”
“Yeah, that sounds really great,” I said.
Then she pointed to her mouth and said, “You have a little chocolate on your lip,” and giggled.
I admired how pale pink her lips were, like the pastel nonpareil white chocolates sold as toppings. When I wiped the chocolate off my lip and said “Thanks,” I realized that my messiness caused me no embarrassment. I hadn’t been propelled back through the portal from pleasure to shame. I felt like an innocent, a little girl who had done nothing wrong. I was cute in my joy and mess.
When I said goodbye and walked out, I already knew what was going to happen next. There was no way that I could calculate however many calories were in that sundae. I could get close, but the strawberry syrup and chocolate fudge and peanuts made it difficult, if not impossible, to discern quantities. I had crossed a line, if only for today, and there was no point in turning back now.
I would give myself just this one day to eat everything I wanted: all the things I had deprived myself for years. The day had already been claimed by the sundae, and the only logical next step was to bury it under more food. It would be like cutting off my head because of a headache. But I was so tired of my head.
CHAPTER 17
The first spot I hit was Immaculate Confection, a bakery I passed on my way to and from the office. I went inside and bought a slab of chocolate mousse cake covered with dark chocolate fondant, a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, an M&M cookie, a yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting, a chocolate chip cookie the size of my face, and a lone cannoli. It all cost $34.20, but I felt so proud to be a skinny person ordering all this cake—some fucking wonder of nature who ate and ate and showed none of it on her body—that I paid happily.
I brought the bakery boxes to my car, deep in the bowels of the parking garage. Then I got in the driver’s seat and turned the heat on blast. I opened each of the boxes, waving my fingers like a pianist. I stuck two fingers in the carrot cake icing, then licked. I began mixing and matching, dunking and shoveling: the M&M cookie in the chocolate frosting, the chocolate chip cookie in the cannoli cream.
“Hrrrrrrrrrrrm!” I made a sound as I jammed the baked goods in my mouth, feeling loose and primal.
I lifted the cupcake, stuck my face in it like it was a pillow. Then a wave of nausea hit. I wished that for just this one day, I could have infinite room in my stomach. I wanted to take the memory of the day and put it in a snow globe full of frosting. Then, when I returned to my calorie-counting life, I could always recall this binge and revel in the magnificence of it.
I decided I needed something savory to break up all the sweets. I put the half-eaten cookies and cakes in the boxes, then shoved them all under the passenger’s seat.
“See you soon,” I said to the baked goods, licking my fingers a final time.
I stopped inside Dr. Burrito. I had seen people eating burritos in there, so casually, and I wondered how they did it—just calmly ate something so fattening. The burritos always looked delicious, like warm babies swaddled up tight in blankets. I’d wanted to take a burrito and hold it to my cheek, or put it over my shoulder and soothe it.
I ordered the verde chicken burrito: strips of pulled chicken simmered soft and juicy in green sauce, guacamole, sour cream, cheese, Spanish rice, and black beans. I wasn’t physically ready to consume my baby yet, so I decided to just carry it.
“There there, sweet bundle of beans and cheese. You are wanted.”
Two blocks from the office, a cheese pizza called out to me from a window.
Rachel, said the pizza. We should be together.
I went inside and ate a huge slice in a front booth. I wanted the other customers to see what I was doing. I was a pizza-eating woman who somehow stayed slender. I was an amazing creature, a miracle. The sauce was sweet, and the crust was crispy. But it was becoming difficult to swallow. I felt like a landfill. Everything I’d consumed—the yogurt and baked goods and pizza—were piled on top of one another, teetering toward my throat.
I thought about ancient Rome, how they supposedly made themselves throw up so they could make room for more feasting. I had tried to purge many times, particularly when I was young and bingeing, but I’d never been successful. I’d jam my fingers down my throat and bring on tears, spit, mucus, a red face, the sensation that my head was going to fall off into the toilet. I’d come out with a few coughs into the toilet water, maybe a wet burp, but my guts refused to budge. Once a morsel of food made its way down my esophagus, my body took it prisoner and refused to surrender.
I’d been more successful with laxatives. I’d eat them just before bed at night, the chocolate-flavored ones, a hint of cocoa melting on my tongue as I eased into sleep. Then, in the morning, my ass would sound an alarm. I’d race to the bathroom still half-asleep, awaken fully on the toilet shitting forth streams of fire. For the rest of the day I’d be out of commission, hopping from toilet to toilet like a manic toad. Laxatives were a major time commitment, a second job, and the effort was never worth the payoff. I’d lose half a pound of water weight, only to gain it back the following day. In the end, I quit the purging game—revisiting it only very occasionally with diuretic pills or a lone secret suppository.
I was feeling sick. I threw away my paper plate and gathered up my burrito. But instead of returning to work, I found myself standing inside a candy store called Yummies.