The Secret I was Given, Part II

"Okay, I promise I will never tell another living soul the thing that you're about to tell me, and I'll do this favour for you." (Yes, I realize that at least three people are about to find out the secret I was never supposed to tell.)

"I need you to weigh me. Once a week, I want you to come to my house, first thing in the morning, and weigh me. If I do it, I'll obsess about the numbers all the time. If I don't know what the numbers are and you just tell me if I'm up or down, then everything will be okay."

My first thought was, "Oh my god! This is fantastic! I am living an utter, undeniable, science fiction life!" but what came out of my mouth was, "Yeah? Okay. When did you want to do this?" because despite the fact that I didn't like her, and despite the fact that I thought that if she just quit lying to herself all the time and faced up to the fact that she had some serious issues that needed dealing with by someone with a professional background, I actually could do this and be helpful about it. I didn't hate her, I just didn't respect her very much and didn't particularly like her. At the same time, I knew she felt terrible about her (really, quite lovely) body and if she wanted a bit of help, then I could help. At the same time, I knew that it was unlikely that she'd even go through with the first weigh-in, because she would see that it wouldn't really help the situation. Or she would just back out of the whole thing. Or who knows. Anyway, I said yes, whatever my own motivation and whatever the end result.

It was a curious, intimate, and yet totally detached relationship. I was relieved to get away from her when I moved to the east coast, and then of course eventually she moved back there too, because she always said she would. (And people from the east coast who don't live there spend their entire lives trying to move back. They're worse than spawning salmon.) I would see her mother in Winners, and then I would eventually see her too, and every time it was, "Oh, hello Very Thin Person! You have two kids now?! And still so thin!" which just made me feel sorry.

Anyway, I weighed her every Friday morning for eight weeks, and then she didn't want to do it any more because her weight wasn't changing, which I knew it wouldn't because she didn't have any weight to lose. She ran all the time, she was solid muscle except for the boobs, and she didn't eat that much. She'd go up a pound, down a pound, but that could just as easily have been a big poop as actual weight loss or gain. Who knows, I didn't ask about what she was eating, I just recorded the numbers and didn't tell her what they were, just whether there was a positive or negative change. I'd get a phone call, "Don't come this morning, I know I'm up," and then eventually, after a couple more weeks, I was told not to bother any more.

After she moved back to the east coast, I was at the downtown Farmer's Market one Saturday morning, and I saw her and her sister walk past me. I was with my kids and Hub was off getting some bread, and the kids were a bit fussy about something so I was kneeling down to talk to them. I saw the sister first, I looked her in the eye in fact, but was also dealing with the darlings so said nothing. Because I can read lips pretty well, I saw her lean over to Barbie and say that I was there, did she want to say hi? And Barbie didn't say anything, just looked at her and made that throwy-up face and they kept walking. I thought to myself, "Well, it's one of the rare instances that you've actually told the truth. Good for you. I hope you keep on with that."