at her neck. Behind her Margery is grinning and Henriette is scowling.
“Your name is Slim?”
“Well--no,” I say, blinking up at her, but I don’t tell her what my name really is because I’m certain she won’t like that either. Her eyes journey up and down the limited expanse of me, taking in the pink t-shirt, the skimpy Chinese slippers, and what isn’t there, the other 10 –to-40 pounds I can’t allow. She opens her sensual mouth to say something but Mr. Jenkins, thankfully, waves her away.
After signing papers, Mr. Jenkins points to what will be my office, in the corner off the main room. My own office! Me! At twenty-one! I walk in, lay my own purse down on the desk, and spin around in the space. Mary Tyler Moore’s triumphant hat-throw to her own independence on the streets of Minneapolis springs to mind. But I don’t dare do anything but turn around and around and take in the space: paneled walls, grey metal desk, black plastic trash can, rolling chair, three large windows with colorless metal school-room blinds. And one troubling detail I did not expect: a door that opens onto to Linda’s office. Which she gets up now and, because she is on the telephone, slams.
My head hurts. For breakfast I had half an English muffin with a teaspoon of sugar-free strawberry jam, and now, although it is only 9:30, there is an ancient, gnawing hunger in my stomach. I know better than to let this happen. I know better than to eat sixty or seventy-five calories and call it a meal, but without my mother standing over me in my kitchen there is what feels, to my unrecovered self, like a well of freedom, into whose dark maw I will be content to tumble for many more months. It is a part of the anorexic play book: the joy of realizing no one (and by no one I mean my mother, eyeing me over her own dry half-bagel) is dictating my food choices, leaving me free to make what I know to be terrible ones, followed by pounding hunger headaches and the embarrassing roar of my own caved-in stomach, all reassurances that I have won—i.e. that for one more day, I have not displaced an ounce more space in the universe than I did the day before. I close the door to the main room, sit down, and lay my head on my desk. Slowly, stealthily, my hands find their way into my shirt, and I feel for the pudge underneath.