150 Pounds Part 20

No, dear readers, I lost weight because I inherited this old farm I've been blogging about, and I set out on a one-woman crusade to turn it into a real working apple orchard. Since spring I have been weeding, walking strange dogs with Irish names, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g trees into half their former size, lugging bushels of brown apples across the orchard to make cider, and painting, sweeping, hanging shelves, and learning how to retile a bathroom.

I've also been buying my groceries at the local farmers' market, a habit I strongly recommend if it is available where you live. Walking into town and asking a farmer what vegetables are in season is education, exercise, and also you get to chat up farmers, who know their produce in and out. We've had posts about buying in season before, but I have to admit I never actually did it! The richness in flavor of a fresh zucchini or tomato is nothing to sneeze at.

This blog has grown exponentially in the last three and a half years. Without all of your pretty little fingers clicking and navigating onto my site, recommending it to friends and family, I'd be nowhere. I know I can give just as good advice chubby instead of Fattie, continue to post great nutritional and funny stories, and be your rock when this c.r.a.p society we live in tries to make you feel unworthy due to your weight. I am here to accept all your comments and questions. That's what Fat and Fabulous is all about. Plus, when I gain back the weight (which is a very likely possibility) I know you'll have my back! Shoshana's Apple Orchard is opening. A lot of you who live in the Tri-State are coming. I can't wait to welcome you with open arms and free cider! More posts soon. Wish me luck, I'm more nervous than when I lost my virginity. Maybe because I was drunk when I lost my virginity. But, as always, I digress.

XO,.

Shoshana.

"Oh, my G.o.d, have you seen this yet?" Emily sang out, throwing a New York Post onto the kitchen table with such unrestrained glee in her voice that Pam looked up from her position by the table where she'd just placed two steaming-hot plates of bacon and scrambled eggs. The table was handmade with a piece of driftwood Shoshana bought on eBay, and propped up with two crates. The eggs were laid that morning up the road at a farm where Shoshana donated a lot of firewood, and in return received free eggs. Things in Chester were done this way, an old-fas.h.i.+oned trading of amenities. There was a trust system here.

As Emily breezed into the kitchen from her trip to town and Andrea brewed a fresh batch of coffee, Greg and Shoshana went over the business plan for her orchard on an Excel sheet that made Shoshana slightly cross-eyed. They weren't getting much work done. Suddenly she got a pop-up message on her computer that there was a problem. Did she want to send an error message to Dell to report the issue?

"What are you doing?" Greg asked, looking over her shoulder.

"I'm sending an error message to the server so they fix the problem."

"What, you mean, like, that little message box that pops up when your computer can't load something on a Web site?"

"Yeah. That."

"Shoshana. No one actually looks at your error message, you know."

"Of course they do. I always click the b.u.t.ton that says 'send error message,' and someone reads it and maybe fixes the problem for other browsers."

"And who is this person who does it, like, some little old guy with a white beard and silver wand who sits in a cardboard box all day with a laptop, wires running every which way, and he just solves all of the world's computer problems?"

"Perhaps..."

Greg laughed. "You are such an optimist. I love it."

"Would you two shut up for one second?" Emily shouted, pointing to the paper. "You gotta read this, Shosh."

Shoshana picked up the paper. As she skimmed the page, her eyes widened. Page Six held a photograph of Alexis Allbright, looking shocked as she exited a Whole Foods supermarket, a strikingly handsome and built black man carrying grocery bags beside her. They were both midstride, and it appeared her companion was shouting at the photographer, making a fist in the air with his free hand. Andrea, who sat across the table and read the article upside down, let out a gasp in the room, which had grown quiet.

MOO! HAS NEW YORK'S MEDIA QUEEN GONE TO THE COWS?

As this picture shows, blogger and socialite Alexis Allbright has put on weight. One Upper East Side doctor we queried estimates seventy-five pounds. Famous for lambasting in the press everyone and anyone whose BMI wasn't up to snuff, it's ironic that the queen of mean is now, well, fat as a cow herself.

"Isn't that the young woman from Oprah?" Pam asked, pouring coffee into several mugs. Then, "Gregory, get your feet off that chair."

Abashed, Greg said, "Sorry, Mrs. Weiner."

Shoshana giggled. Pam felt Greg was the son she'd never had, and was known to spit into her palm to fix his cowlick.

"That's the b.i.t.c.h who tried to show up Shoshana," Emily said. She smacked her fist down on Alexis's surprised face, causing the plates on the table to clatter. "And now she's a Fattie! I love it! Serves her right." Frank Sinatra, lying underneath the table in the hope of swallowing a bit of dropped food, let a bark in agreement. Andrea snuck him a slice of bacon.

Shoshana still was in Hoboken several times a week, but her pooch had quickly acclimated to country life, chasing rabbits in the orchard and getting spoiled on sleepovers at Greta and Joe's, where he had oddly enough fallen deeply in love with P-Hen, the peac.o.c.k, and wouldn't be deterred, even when she pecked at him constantly. He was also best friends with Patrick O'Leary. Both dogs kept Joe Murphy company on his walks around the hills. Greta bought Sinatra a bed monogrammed with the words OL' BLUE EYES.

Shoshana frowned, holding the newspaper closer to her face. Alexis looked caught unawares, her eyes wide and confused, trying to s.h.i.+eld her midsection with a shopping bag. Shoshana frowned.

"She might not be the nicest person, but I don't think she deserves being called a cow in the Post," she said finally, setting down the paper. "It's not exactly a win for feminism today. Besides, she definitely did not gain seventy-five pounds."

"She looks about fifty pounds heavier, at most," Andrea said. "The Post always exaggerates."

It was the weekend, so everyone was gathered at the farm. Emily had moved in three weeks ago, and took the train into the city every day. Andrea, Pam, and Greg slept at the farm Fridays and Sat.u.r.days only. They'd stayed up last night playing The Sopranos Trivia Game. Pam had shocked everyone by winning with the correct answer to: "Who helped Christopher bury his first victim in the start of season one?" Shoshana and Andrea guessed Paulie, but it was Big p.u.s.s.y. Emily and Shoshana had collapsed in a fit of giggles at their mother saying, "Big p.u.s.s.y," and even Greg kept asking Pam for the answer again, just to hear it.

Joe Murphy was often ill these days, but he and Greta came by for the game. Shoshana worried about his health from time to time, but she figured at his age he was not about to quit drinking whiskey or smoking cigars. Shoshana had never had this much fun, surrounded by the people she loved most. The farm was a magical place.

Emily was still stuck on the Post article. "Shosh, don't you see you've won? She might have had the last word on Oprah, but she looks like a fool in the paper! You deserve to gloat over this. Please gloat." Emily was wearing two slim silver rings in her nose, and she'd dyed her hair flamingo pink. Today it was in pigtails, and she wore black-and-white-striped tights and yellow overalls the color of a parakeet. She looked like a plus-size punk-rocker bee.

"I don't know." Shoshana glanced down at Alexis's picture once more. "It doesn't feel like a win. I just feel sorry for her, to be honest with you guys."

After breakfast she wandered upstairs to make her bed and get out the old junior high school yearbooks of her father's she'd found in the attic. He'd been on the basketball team, a surprise to all. The pictures were hilarious; he had long hair to his waist and a sweatband wrapped around his forehead. He'd been a big guy even then, the number 5 on his jersey stretched out across so it looked like an s. A Superman costume.

"h.e.l.lo, honey." Pam wore scrubs with puppies on them; she was about to leave for work at her nursing job in the pediatric ward. Shoshana could hear her ragged breathing as she caught her breath after walking up the flight of stairs, and wished for the thousandth time there had been some way that instead of losing seventy-five pounds all herself, she could have taken the pounds from her mother and sister, with all three of them losing twenty-five each instead. Emily and Pam couldn't be happier for her, which made it somehow all worse. Or, as Emily put it, "h.e.l.l, you lost the weight through hard work fixing up this dump. You should be f.u.c.king proud."

"Hi, Mom. Driving to work?" She hugged her mother, inhaling her sweet smell of soap and cinnamon.

Pam looked around the room. Mimi's quilts still hung on the wall, and Shoshana had added some personal touches with Lilith Fair posters, her father's pretty paintings, and small, colorful blue and green vases of different sizes carefully placed on the fireplace mantel.

"Yes, just leaving, sweetie. Hey, I don't know if I've said it enough, but you know how proud I am of everything you've done with this farm. Your father would have loved to see it fixed up."

Shoshana rolled her eyes and smiled. "I know, Mom. You say it, like, a hundred times a day."

"Well, it's true. Your sister and I love spending time here with you." She sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. Shoshana wished Pam didn't always look guilty about sitting down on beds, chairs, and people's living room couches. She seemed constantly aware of her weight, as if it were an evil twin who went around offending people.

"I wanted to tell you that I agree with what you said about that girl from Oprah, the one in the picture?"

"Alexis?"

"Right. Can you call the newspaper up, maybe give a counter-quote?"

Shoshana stared at her mother. She fingered the patches on the quilt bedspread, and placed the yearbooks beside her. "Mom, she was horrid to me on TV. I feel badly that the press is slamming her, but I dealt with people judging me because of my size my entire life. And she's not even a Fattie! She probably weighs the same as me. I don't think it can hurt for her to walk a mile in my shoes for a little while."

Pam looked thoughtfully out the window, which had a stunning view of the orchard. A crow flew by, its wings spread widely. Fall was her favorite season, always so beautiful in New Jersey. It had been Bob's busiest time for work, tending to people's lawns after summer droughts, planting new trees and bushes.

She paused before answering her daughter. "I understand what you're saying. But I disagree with Emily. I don't think people watching Oprah that day saw you on the losing side of the battle. I think they saw you as victorious, because you took the higher ground. You didn't get personal, the way she chose to do about Dad. You kept things professional, and even made everyone laugh."

"You're just saying that because you're my mom," Shoshana said, smiling slightly. But there was bitterness in her words. The Oprah experience had truly hurt her feelings-crushed them, really. She was fine with being questioned about the motivations behind Fat and Fabulous; it was a fight she was willing to take on, for all the fellow Fatties out there. But when Alexis brought up her father, and the way his weight had contributed to his death ... it knocked all the air out of her chest, left her defenseless. It was like the scene in Gladiator, where Joaquin Phoenix stabs Russell Crowe in the chest quickly and stealthily, seconds before battle. Russell fights back, but he's been weakened by the wound. Alexis was a dirty fighter.

"Of course I'm saying that because I'm your mom," Pam said, throwing her arm around her daughter. "But I also mean it. I'm not alone in thinking you took the higher ground. All my girlfriends in my book club agree with me. I'm asking you to consider standing up for her."

"But isn't it enough if I just privately agree the article is mean?" Shoshana asked. "Calling up the paper and making a statement just continues this stupid rivalry the media has made between us. The press loves instigating fights, and this would add fuel to their fire."

"Just think it over, honey. That's all I'm asking."

"Will do, Mom." She pulled the yearbooks onto her lap. "Hey, guess what? I found these old yearbooks of Dad's. From junior high." She called loudly to her sister. The farmhouse was small enough that you could easily hear from one level to the other. "Emily!"

Her sister peeked her head in the room a few seconds later. "What?"

"Come see these crazy pictures of Dad with hippie hair!" The three Weiner women lay on the bed and pored over the yearbooks, another present from Mimi unearthed.

"He looks so young," Pam breathed. "I hadn't ever seen these."

"He must have forgotten Aunt Mimi'd had them all these years," Emily said. Then she hooted with laughter and jabbed her finger at a page. "Look at this one, from shop cla.s.s! Who knew Dad hung out with all the stoners?"

Bob stood surrounded by a s.h.a.ggy-looking group of lanky, long-haired adolescents and holding a boat he'd carved out of wood. He wore red bell-bottoms and a tight blue-and-white-striped boat s.h.i.+rt.

"I know that boat, I used to play with it when I was a kid!" Emily exclaimed.

"Yes," Pam said, smiling. "I just never knew he made it."

There was another photograph of their father dancing awkwardly at a school prom, his date so short she looked like a midget. He wore a plaid jacket and his long hair was tied back in a ponytail. His hands rested on her pet.i.te shoulders, and he looked so uncomfortable that Shoshana burst out laughing, her mother and sister following suit.

"Oh, my G.o.d, how freaked out does Dad look?" Emily said, pointing. Shoshana noticed she'd gotten a tattoo across her knuckles that spelled out LOVE.

"Bob was not much of a ladies' man," Pam said, chuckling. "That was one thing I never had to worry about, your father running around with other women."

She clipped her badge to the pocket of her scrubs and gave each girl a kiss before leaving for work.

Emily was still sifting through the yearbook, looking for more pictures. "It was just the two, believe me, I looked," Shoshana said, pus.h.i.+ng herself farther back on the bed so she could rest against the bentwood frame. Emily s.h.i.+mmied over, placing her head on Shoshana's shoulder.

"Dad would have loved knowing we're living here," she said. "Remember he used to always bring us here when we were kids? It felt like an obligation, like going to temple. But now I've fallen in love with the place."

"It's cast its spell on all of us," Shoshana agreed. Then, "I feel badly I didn't come more after Dad died."

"Eh." Emily waved her arm in the air. "Get over it. She knew we loved her. Besides, she got crazy as a fox. Remember when she made us egg salad with the sh.e.l.ls still in it?"

"Totally. That crunching sound was awful." They both giggled.

The sun moved in the sky, slanting in through the window, warming their legs.

"I feel closer to Dad here," Emily said softly. She shut the yearbook and looked at Shoshana.

"Me, too," Shoshana said. "I think ... I think that's why Aunt Mimi left the house to me, to us. It was like somehow she knew it would help us heal after he died, even though she made out her will years before."

"And I love it that you turned it back into an orchard. I can't wait for people to start showing up to pick their own! I asked at the tattoo shop, and I can work there mornings, so I'll be here afternoons to help you. I can woman the stand. I'll bring in lots of business. Everybody likes a woman with a big a.s.s."

Both sisters giggled.

"Awesome." It was perfect placing Emily in charge of collecting the five-dollar entrance fee, since she was open and friendly and would talk to anybody. "I was actually going to go out there and pick some of the less ripe apples to make cider, do you want to come?" Shoshana asked.

"Totally."

And so they spent the afternoon in the fresh air, collecting apples in wooden barrels found in the back shed. Joe Murphy had taught her to leave the ripe ones alone. (You could tell they wanted to be picked if they were yellow around the stem.) Frank Sinatra ran around the orchard, digging holes and chasing sticks. They had to use the pick 'en poles a few times for the higher apples, but the rest were reachable. Ripe apples twisted off easily, but since they were going for nonripe, they had to really struggle to get some off the branches. Bees and other insects hummed in the gra.s.s, and Shoshana worked up a sweat even with the cool breezy afternoon. Emily made for good company, telling funny stories about big, tough rock musicians who came into her tattoo shop, only to freak when she brought out her needles.

That night, Shoshana decided to host a wine-tasting. She had a full house, with all her Hoboken roommates plus Emily. When she'd moved into Mimi's house, so many neighbors had brought over bottles of wine (made at local vineyards) she felt like she'd stepped back in time and it was ancient Greece, with the wine flowing freely, women in white togas lounging and feeding their young lovers grapes by the bunch. So she made everyone wear white sheets, finding several extra ones in the linen closet outside her bedroom. She and Emily made headpieces out of vines plucked from the orchard. She dragged a wrought-iron table out from the shed and cleaned it off.

On the wine bottles, she put numbered pieces of paper over the labels. She put out pens, paper, and a basket of bread to cleanse the palate between tastings. Last, she neatly arranged blue and green gla.s.s goblets for the wine. She was glad Pam was at work, especially when things got a little wild and witching-hourlike, with some friends stripping and running through the fields, Sinatra barking at their heels.

Greg brought over his new girlfriend, Jessica, a hairdresser at a Hoboken salon. She was tall and blond with a Jersey spray-tan, and had a large nose that Shoshana found charming. Shoshana had always liked women with big noses; it gave their faces character. After several bottles of wine, Jessica came up behind Shoshana, who was sitting on a kitchen chair. Jane and her new husband, Andrew, were telling a story about their honeymoon in Venice. Apparently Jane had fallen into a ca.n.a.l, whereupon she was told by an old woman in the street that she'd never be able to bear children as a result of the contaminated water. Shoshana sat hugging her knees to her chest, something she'd never been able to do when she was heavier. She felt hands running through her hair. Jessica patted her shoulder. "You know, with your cheekbones you would look fabulous with a pixie cut," she said.

Shoshana reached over the table and poured herself another gla.s.s of Pinot Noir, then refilled a gla.s.s for Andrea, who winked at her.

Shoshana smiled. "Thanks, but females of the plump persuasion don't get short haircuts," she said.

Jessica looked around to see if perhaps she was missing something. "Yeah, but ... you're not plump," she said. Shoshana blushed. It was so hard to remember this very obvious fact: that she was, indeed, no longer fat. She was the size of the average American woman. Smaller, even. There were so many ridiculous rules she'd cordoned off in her mind. Having short hair was on her list of things Fatties couldn't do, like wear miniskirts or cross-country ski. She knew it was ridiculous and the very sort of prejudice she rallied against; if any of her readers had stated such absolutes she would have asked them what they were afraid of.

There was a flip side to this mind-set. Before losing weight, she'd fantasized that life would be easy when she was thin. That she'd have no trouble finding a boyfriend. Never feel sad again. Become really outdoorsy, go backpacking with Outdoor Bound armed only with half a granola bar and a tarp. Wear four-inch f.u.c.k-me heels.

Thus far, she still hadn't found a hot guy who loved former fat girls who ran a blog and an orchard at the same time. (But she hadn't given up hope. She was cute and now an entrepreneur; who didn't think that was s.e.xy?) She still felt sad from time to time, but no more than the average human being. The only outdoors traipsing she'd done was around her farm, and that had been in the beat-up sneakers she'd had since high school. As for the four-inch f.u.c.k-me heels ... let's just say she was happy in either sneakers or the heavy plastic orange Mario-Batali-like gardening clogs Mimi left behind.

She forgot her weight loss constantly; but it was like a limb that had been sawed off, and she still felt tingling and itching sensations where it had once been attached to her body. She'd worn her plus-size bra until Emily had grabbed at the extra fabric through her dress a few weeks ago.

"Your t.i.ts are hanging loose, babe," she said, in her usual tactful way. "We need to take you bra-shopping."

So they'd driven to the Short Hills Mall, and Shoshana had nearly fainted when she was measured for a size 36C. "I haven't breezed past the letter D since the sixth grade," she'd said to the saleswoman, who hadn't looked in the least bit fazed by this proclamation. Pam came along, insisting on helping Shoshana shop, although she'd refused to buy something nice for herself in any of the stores, saying she preferred to "just order something from the catalogs."

Emily and Shoshana had exchanged a look while strolling through the mall, hordes of yuppies getting an insanely early start on holiday shopping. It broke Shoshana's heart that her mother never did anything nice for herself. It was as if by being heavy she felt she had to keep saying, "Excuse me," simply for existing. Buying clothing in a department store was a simple experience for most women; for Pam it was sheer torture. "Everyone stares at me," she said softly, when Emily pressed her.

So when Jessica stated the obvious, that Shoshana was no longer big (Jessica hadn't known Shoshana before, of course, and saw only the curvy yet fit young woman in front of her), Shoshana responded, "You know what? f.u.c.k it. Let's do it. Cut away."

And that was how she found herself with an adorable bob. She had to run into the bathroom and stare at her reflection several times; it was her, and yet it wasn't. The haircut framed her face, light and whispery. All the years she'd had that long mane because she thought her face was simply too round to look good with a bob. Her long hair had been a curtain she'd hidden behind. She'd thought it was the only thing pretty about her, when in fact her deep brown eyes and clear, porcelain skin were there all along. And it took a complete stranger, a new friend, to show her the light.

The following morning, Shoshana woke around eight-thirty. Frank Sinatra lay snoring on the pillow next to her, and woke with a snort when she opened her eyes. She was waking earlier and earlier these days, juggling both the blog and the orchard. Just yesterday Emily had pointed out that the Red Delicious were ripe. Today she would have her first customers coming to pick their own. Last week she hung signs in town and placed an ad in the local paper beside sales of tractors and hens.

She scrolled through her e-mails. It was pretty much what she'd expected. Half her readers were shocked and horrified at her weight loss, accusing her of being a "sell-out" and "fraud." She wanted to scream, I'm the one who freaking started this blog! I get to weigh whatever the h.e.l.l I want to! But she'd been heavy too long not to understand that their feelings and negative feedback were rooted in fear and confusion. They'd looked up to Shoshana. She was expected to be the most self-deprecating, the most fat, the funniest. Their idol had changed, and the fans were displeased.

However, the other half of the responses to yesterday's post were warm and positive. It was always that way with the Internet, wasn't it? Shoshana developed a thicker skin since starting Fat and Fabulous, although she still wanted to please everyone, though she knew that was impossible.

"You should be so proud that you lost weight through walking and eating fresh foods," Amy from Des Moines, Iowa, wrote. "Not dieting or running yourself into exhaustion, like most girls. I can't wait to see what your next blog posts are about. Keep up the great work!"

And from Mary Lenihan from Poughkeepsie, New York: "Shoshana, I have followed your blog posts for three years. I've always known you to be nothing but genuine and funny. Your posts brighten up my day. I love you at any size. Three of my girlfriends who read your blog are going to make a trip in a few weeks to buy apples from your farm! Here's hoping there's an apple pie left for me. Hugs, Mary."

She edited tomorrow's post, a response by Dr. Amanda Weber to a report recently released from the American Heart a.s.sociation that stated fatter patients were more likely to survive hospitalization and invasive treatments. The doctor's writing was getting better and better; Shoshana was proud she'd found her articles on positive messages for heavier women in a small newspaper and recruited her to write for Fat and Fabulous. Dr. Weber had become a gem. At first her writing and tone were stiff and doctorly, but after a few gentle edits she'd really figured out F&F's breezy, girlfriends-chatting type of dialogue.

After checking all her messages, some which made her cry (in a good way), others that made her laugh out loud, and still more that made her cry yet again (in a bad way), Shoshana shut down her computer and sat on her bed, thinking. The house was silent, everyone tucked into their beds, sleeping off hangovers. She ran her fingers through her hair, enjoying the way it swept across her neck.

She walked to the bathroom and discovered there was a note sticking to her bathroom mirror, along with a photo. She reached up and slowly peeled off the tape that held up the photo, studying the image. It was a picture of Shoshana at five years old, her cheeks round and red. Her auburn hair was in pigtails, tied with two red bows. Two giant hands held her up, and by his slim gold wedding band she recognized them as her father's. A Post-it was stuck to the picture: You have always been our sweetie pie. Please consider calling the newspaper. Shoshana sighed. She'd be fifty and her mother's guilt trips would still resonate.

She dug around in her bedroom until she found the unflattering picture of Alexis from the Post. The section was edited by someone named Judy Price. Shoshana pictured her: English major, sleek hair, gla.s.ses on top of her head, lives in Brooklyn. She Googled the Post's main phone number and asked for Judy Price, who miraculously was in.

"This is Price."

She had a smoker's deep, throaty voice.

"Hi ... Price. This is Shoshana Weiner, I run a blog called Fat and Fabulous."