150 Pounds Part 4

"Of course I am," Shoshana said. "So what will it be this week ... still the Lyme disease? Or have you a migraine?" She rubbed her eyes, her auburn hair framing her face like a lion's mane.

"You look like the exorcist," Andrea told her.

Sinatra saw something outside the window he didn't approve of. Possibly a stray cat; Hoboken was full of them.

"Do you want my help or not? Sinatra, please stop barking. We all know you're very tough and masculine and scary." His high-pitched barking coming from a pint-sized throat was definitely not helping her slight hangover from the wine she'd consumed last night. She wasn't a big drinker, but she loved to have a good time and try different types of reds from the Tuscany region. She and Andrea would sip out of the pretty, stemless gla.s.ses their roommate Jane got as an engagement present for her upcoming summer wedding, and make up wine reviews such as, "This merlot has a distinct flavor of tree bark."

Andrea sat behind her, braiding her hair. Shoshana had beautiful, stunning hair. A cross between brown, red, and spun gold, she'd not cut it since middle school and it looked prettiest up in a messy ponytail, as it was naturally wavy and tendrils would fall throughout her day and loop around her face like a mermaid's. She rarely wore it down, but would from time to time take it out of its rubber band, letting it swing down her broad back nearly to her waist. Her skin was luminescent, a smooth white, causing people to state that most annoying of all idioms, "You have such a pretty face!" as if having a pretty face meant she held some kind of responsibility to be thin, as if she were throwing away a genetic gift.

"I was thinking chicken pox," Andrea said.

"Andrea, no one over the age of five gets chicken pox. a.s.shole Boss Man will never believe you!"

Andrea chewed this over.

Shoshana suspected Andrea had ADD and therefore waitressing was the worst possible job for her friend, but she'd never say so, as it wasn't encouraging. Andrea had to wear a black miniskirt that was so short she couldn't bend over to put people's drinks on their table, placing them in their hands instead.

"Okay, okay," Andrea said finally. "The Lyme disease, then. Web MD says four weeks after the initial red rash I'd start developing flulike symptoms, so maybe you can tell a.s.shole Boss Man that I'm throwing up and feverish?"

"You looked up symptoms on a health Web site to obtain more information so your made-up disease would sound more believable?"

Andrea nodded. "Of course," she said, like it was the most normal behavior in the world.

"Okay, that's just sick," Shoshana said, laughing. She started gathering up empty winegla.s.ses and a bottle friends had strewn around her room.

"What are you blogging about today?" Andrea asked, changing the subject, her dark eyes wide. One of Shoshana's biggest supporters, she often read and helped edit her posts before they went live. She'd once written a very popular story for Fat and Fabulous about Latin men and how they appreciated the rounder booty. And how she appreciated them appreciating it.

"I just posted a column on how pedicures are the friend of the Fat," Shoshana said. "The concept was that even if people are making me feel like s.h.i.t about being a big girl, I can go get a pedicure and the sun comes out and birds chirp and a rainbow suddenly fills the sky."

"I know what you mean!" Andrea said. "I love pedis. I'd give up s.e.x before I'd give them up. I'd give up o.r.g.a.s.ms for pedicures."

Shoshana laughed. She had a loud, infectious boom of a laugh, which filled the room and bounced off the walls. "Liar."

"Hee, hee. You got me there. Now you have to call a.s.shole Boss Man."

"Okay, okay," Shoshana said, shifting over and feeling around on the ground for her purse. "Can we just call him ABM from now on? Saying the whole word takes too long. What's his real name, anyway?"

"No idea. I almost called him a.s.shole Boss Man to his face the other day, it was crazy-town. That's the trouble with changing waitressing jobs every month; your bosses' ugly faces start to blend together." Andrea's jobs were short-lived, mainly because she was known to tell off customers if they got on her bad side, not to mention her unreliability when it came to showing up for her shifts.

Shoshana finally found her purse under the bed and lifted it up.

"Ew, what is that bag made out of?" Andrea asked, pinching shut her nose.

"Um ... it's hemp. Why?"

"It smells funny." Andrea was on a mission to rid Shoshana of her hippie attachments. She'd once thrown Shoshana's Birkenstocks down the garbage chute in college.

"Do you want me calling or not? Because I have a life."

"Okay, we both know that's a lie, but I do need the favor. Pretty please? I'll bring you breakfast in bed."

"Done."

Andrea scurried off to pop a bagel into the toaster. The toaster had been another one of Jane's engagement presents her roommates apprehended for general use. In addition to the winegla.s.ses and toaster, they'd recently held a romantic-yet-ironic Taco Bell dinner with candles from Tiffany's (a present from Jane's grandmother), eaten Triscuit crackers with Cheese Whiz on a Bloomingdale's silver platter while watching a Giants game, and taken long, luxurious showers, then wrapped themselves in Jane's new fluffy Bloomingdale's towels. "Grown-up stuff," they'd whisper reverently, excited to finally have nice things, even if it didn't exactly belong to them.

Jane's fiance, Andrew, did something mysterious for a hedge fund and made a c.r.a.pload of money-neither he nor Jane cared if everyone used their stuff. As she could never get a straight answer about what he did for a living, Shoshana liked to start the rumor that Andrew was probably running a Ponzi scheme, which Jane would then laugh nervously at, also in the dark as to what her fiance did.

Shoshana rooted around in her hemp purse, which she could admit did smell a tad like dirt, and found the cheap cell phone that had come with her phone plan. It had a Fat and Fabulous sticker with pink lettering on the back of it.

As she flipped open the phone it rang, playing Sheryl Crow's "Leaving Las Vegas." It was the ringtone she'd programmed for her lawyer friend Greg, who loved to fly to Vegas on a whim (he could afford it) and play blackjack, often taking his girlfriend of the week with him. Shoshana and Greg dated during their freshman and soph.o.m.ore years at Summit High, realized they had very little interest in ever seeing each other naked again, and remained close friends ever since. Greg was handsome albeit short, about five-foot-seven, with soft, receding brown hair he wore cut close to his head. He had a large, hooked nose, olive-toned skin, and a sculpted body from all the time he spent in the gym. His intelligent hazel eyes were his best feature. He came from a wealthy, old-Jersey family and had nice Jewish good looks. Shoshana had practically lived at his house in high school. She loved Greg's mother Shirley, a real wisea.s.s who often said she would trade Greg for Shoshana as her child any day.

"I think my mom likes you better than me," Greg would complain.

"Of course she does," Shoshana said. "I visit her more."

"The problem with her liking you so much is she acts rude to all the girlfriends I bring over to meet her."

"Well, what can I say? You can't top perfection," Shoshana would say, running her hands over her plump body, her eyes twinkling.

The fact that Greg was short didn't put off the models he dated.

Shoshana's mother, Pam, once said her youngest daughter was good at "collecting people," and it was true. She always stayed friends with ex-boyfriends, much to the astonishment of her roommates, whose relationships ended with the occasional restraining order or car-egging.

"Hey, Greg."

"Hey, Shosh."

She smiled. He sounded hungover also.

Andrea wrung her hands and left the room, shooting annoyed looks at Shoshana.

"How's it hanging?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, shriveled and a little to the left as always. Sounds like you have the Irish flu." She leaned over and turned on her iPod. Strains of Feist began to play.

"A little. How's the crazy henhouse?"

"Gregory, just because I live with four other women doesn't mean it's a henhouse, you misogynist pig." His mother called him Gregory, and Shoshana did as well, because she knew it annoyed him.

"Well, how's it anyways?"

"Crazy."

They both laughed.

"I hear you're listening to your usual v.a.g.i.n.a music," Greg said scornfully.

"Okay, seriously? I've been telling you this for ten years. Just because I only listen to female musicians doesn't mean it's v.a.g.i.n.a music," Shoshana said. "And please don't say 'v.a.g.i.n.a.' It just sounds weird coming out of your mouth. Sorry I don't like frickin' watered-down nineties rock." She imitated his voice. "Oh, I'm Greg Hirsch. Excuse me while I turn the ladies on with Three Doors Down."

Greg laughed. "I prefer Spin Doctors."

"Of course you do. So enough chitchat. How was the date?"

As a lawyer in the district attorney's office in Trenton, he often dated other lawyers, and went out last night with an attorney who worked on child custody disputes. That was all Shoshana knew about her, but she was eager to learn more. "By the way, points for not dating another model. Those girls were sweet, but I'm glad you're starting to broaden your horizons."

"Well ... it went okay, I guess. But I don't think I'd see her again."

Shoshana sighed. Greg was ridiculously picky when it came to women. She still couldn't believe they'd once dated, as they'd been so ill matched romantically and physically. (She was at her heaviest in high school, at nearly three hundred pounds.) Greg was the only short guy Shoshana had ever gone out with. Her dream boyfriend would look like a cross between Keanu Reeves and Zac Efron, and be strong enough to pick her up and swing her around.

"What was the problem with her, exactly? Wait. First things first. Tell me where you ate," Shoshana asked.

Greg smiled from his bed in the Shipyard, an upscale lifestyle building built in uptown Hoboken along the waterfront with stunning views of the Manhattan skyline. His building had a doorman, elevator, pool, and workout center. Shoshana made fun of him for living in what she called "Yuppie Paradise," but at the same time would force Greg to hand over his pool pa.s.s to her when the mood struck. He joked that he was "roughing it" when he walked the nine blocks downtown to Shoshana's prewar walk-up.

When he took women out, which was pretty much every night, Shoshana needed to know what restaurant he ate in and what they ordered for dinner-food was always on her mind. Just one of the many things about her that amused him. He appreciated her friendship and held her opinion above his buddies'-she always told it like it is.

"We went to Strip House in the city," he said.

"Oh, my G.o.d, I think I just came," Shoshana said. "Keep going." Andrea came back into the room, shot Shoshana an odd look, and walked back out.

Greg laughed. "We started with sides of b.u.t.tered spinach and potatoes, and then we both had the ribeye."

Shoshana was a vegetarian (she thought it was mean to eat something that had dreams), but she appreciated a finely made meal when she heard about one.

"And did she eat?" she asked.

She always asked him this, weeding out dates that ordered only salads and picked nervously at them. She didn't care how thin the women were that he took out, but they had to have a healthy appet.i.te if they were to earn Shoshana's approval.

"She ate everything on her plate. Oh! And she licked the knife at the end," he said.

"Promising! And for dessert?"

"I told her I was stuffed, so she went ahead and ordered a chocolate mousse for herself and finished it off solo."

"I love her already!" Shoshana squealed. "When is the second date? Wait, I know. We'll do it here! We'll throw a party, you can bring her, and then I can meet her all casual-like."

"Okay, but don't get your hopes up. There were a few red flags."

Shoshana got out of bed and started searching around her room for her towel and the new Malin+Goetz facewash she'd recently emptied the last of her checking account out to buy.

"What red flags? I swear if you say one of her toes was longer than the big toe, or that she had lettuce stuck between her front teeth, I am hanging up the phone."

"Would you just listen? After dinner we went back to her place."

"This is getting good. Get to the juicy parts."

Andrea came back into the room for the third time and held her palms up, mouthing, Did you call my work yet? She placed a plate with a bagel and cream cheese on Shoshana's bedside table on top of a pile of beach read novels. Shoshana shook her head and shooed her away, slamming the door. She heard a sharp kick sound from the other side.

"So she opens a bottle of red wine-"

"I love red wine!" Shoshana interrupted.

Greg laughed. "You love any kind of wine, as long as it has alcohol in it. Would you let me finish?"

"Sorry. Please continue," she said. She opened her door and walked in her pretty Hanes plus-size pink cotton bra and underwear past Andrea, ignored her glare, opened the door to the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet. "By the way, I'm peeing while I'm talking to you."

"Of course you are," Greg said. "Okay, so anyway, we're making out on her bed-"

"Greg, no one says making out anymore. That's so dorky." Greg sometimes was too serious and lawyerish. Shoshana saw it as her duty to shake him up. She went to wipe and discovered there was no toilet paper. Again.

"Agh!" she shouted. "Is it really that hard to refill the toilet paper? How many times is a girl expected to drip-dry?"

"Gross," Greg said.

"Aggie used it all up for a sculpture," Karen said calmly from inside the shower two feet from where Shoshana was peeing.

Shoshana screamed. "Karen, I didn't know you were in there! What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" She dropped the phone from her ear and fished around on the floor for it, Greg's voice calling out, "h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo?"

Karen stepped out. "Just drying myself off. You're the one who came barging in here to pee, lady, without checking the shower to see if there was anyone in it."

Shoshana giggled. "And do you check the shower every single time you come in the bathroom?"

Karen wrapped the towel around herself. She was tall, five-eleven, and in her second year of Columbia Law School. She had short wavy brown hair, bright green eyes, and played volleyball at Chelsea Piers on a compet.i.tive women's team throughout the year. At Princeton, she and Shoshana would often work out at the gym together, Karen cheering Shoshana on. Despite being a large girl, Shoshana loved working out at the gym (if only to stare at the cute b.u.t.ts of the boys in the weight room).

"What kind of sculpture is she making that she needs toilet paper?" Shoshana asked, doing a little shake sitting down. "Hold your horses," she bellowed to Greg, who was emitting loud, annoyed sighs.

"I don't know. Last week she'd stolen my Kashi cereal to sculpt with. I made her give me five bucks for it."

Their roommate Aggie, short for Agatha (named for a very dead grandmother on her mother's side), was a sculptor. She often used various odd things from around the apartment in her work. One time she'd asked Shoshana for three tampons and made dreadlocks out of them for a self-portrait and displayed it at PS1 in Queens. She was always late on the rent, but the rest of the girls forgave her out of love. Once, Aggie paid rent in change, all $400 of it. Shoshana had to drive her to their landlord's office on Adams Street, Aggie hauling into the backseat large zip-lock bags filled with quarters and dimes.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" Greg shouted, his voice sounding small and tinny through the phone.

Shoshana rolled her eyes at Karen and mouthed, Gregory, to her as Karen slipped gracefully out of the room to continue getting ready for cla.s.s.

"I do, I do," Shoshana rea.s.sured Greg. She did one last shimmy, kicked off her undergarments, and hung them on the back of the door. She felt an immediate pinch in her back as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swung forward. Her bra looked like a parachute next to her roommate Karen's size-34A bras, all hanging on a nearby hook to dry after she'd washed them in the sink. She turned on the water.

"Shosh, are you still there?" Greg's voice came through to her on the phone.

"Yes, Greg! Did your fragile ego take a blow because I wasn't paying attention to you for five seconds?"

He laughed. "It did, actually."

She rolled her eyes.

"So we're starting to kind of dry-hump on her bed-"

"Wait, what? You said you were only kissing! You have to fill in the good parts!"

"Shoshana, I'm hanging up the phone. I am not telling you about the s.e.x! You're supposed to be giving me advice!"