LITMIR.BIZ

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sent a flicker of recognition through my brain. I have a skirt like that, but it looks much better on…the little black strip over the face had served its purpose until that point. My stomach dropped into my shoes. The chunky girl billowing out over the waistband of her skirt, squeezed into a tank top, was me walking in Soho with my uncle. I’d gone to visit him in New York for a week. He looked fabulous. I, however, seemed to be both bending and twisting, creating a sea of fat waves and three extra chins.

      Panic.

      I scrambled to snatch up all the copies left in the 7-Eleven. Sweat stung my forehead. I tried to keep my voice from quavering. “I’ll take these.” I plunked down the half-eaten bag of chips and twelve magazines.

      “These are all the same, you know,” the petite blonde girl behind the counter chirped.

      I swiped at the sweat on my face with a grungy sleeve. She knows it’s me. She’s read the magazine. I became acutely aware of the fact her thighs and my upper arms were the same size.

      “Yeah, my friend is in one of the fashion shoots.” Any attempt at flippancy was sabotaged by the three-octave hike in my voice.

      For what seemed an eternity, the girl, whose nametag labelled her Cheri, snapped her gum and stared at me. “Whatever.”

      Half an hour later I slumped onto my couch, exhausted. The sheer terror of anyone seeing this magazine had led me to buy up all the copies at every store in my neighborhood. I examined my trembling fingers. They were fatter than before. When did that happen?

      I reopened the glossy back cover. Did they use a wide-angle lens on the camera? Were there support groups for the people who have appeared in “Glamour Don’ts”? Could I sue for mental anguish and get enough money to hire a personal trainer?

      I crawled to my bed with a pair of scissors, a pint of ice cream, a two-litre bottle of Pepsi and a pack of cigarettes. I wept into my Häagen-Dazs, chain-smoking and cutting the rolls off my hideous magazine debut.

      Two days later, I discovered that when you have prescriptions delivered, the pharmacy will also send smokes and chocolate. Before the delivery arrived, I’d begun to glue my fat cuttings onto my uncle. I envied the lady wearing too many animal prints; at least she only looked genetically spliced. I looked like Jabba the Hut in platform sandals.

      The door chimed. Usually, I change several times before finding the perfect outfit in which to answer the door. At that moment, I only cared that there were no M & M’s stuck in my teeth.

      The lanky, greasy-haired delivery guy, wearing a faded Black Sabbath T-shirt, stifled a gasp when I opened the door. I was unable to find the energy to be insulted. It had been days since I’d changed my clothes. I envisioned stink lines rising from me.

      “That’ll be, uh, $38.98.” He looked at the small bag quizzically and checked the receipt. “Whoa, I didn’t realize they could sell you that much Valium at once.”

      He made my change, slowly. It was at this point that I noticed the commotion outside. A moving van was emptying its contents into the condo across the street. The relative silence of our upscale Toronto condo-complex was shattered by a very thin woman yelling orders. Under her arm was a Dachshund wearing a mauve sweater. In her hand she held the largest martini glass I’d ever seen.

      The woman seemed concerned the movers might ding the Mercedes that was parked at a jaunty angle on the sidewalk.

      I retreated inside and watched her from my sofa. She spent most of the morning motioning wildly with her drink and sloshing gin on the grass. I fell asleep watching her dog poop in my parking spot.

      Monday held nothing in the way of joy. My answering machine blinked incessantly. I feared messages regarding my sausage attire and chose to ignore it. Instead I submerged myself in work: decorating for the aesthetically challenged.

      After an hour of staring at the snapshots I’d taken of my latest client’s home, I was thoroughly disgusted. They should have decorating Do’s and Don’ts. My client’s bedroom was whorehouse pink. Her comforter looked as though it had been caught in a tornado in Las Vegas. A rose-smattered valance with lilac sheers accosted the window, and her wallpaper had stripes and paisley and kittens. My sugar-ravaged body suppressed a retch at the sight of the gold-smoked mirrors in the hall. The task at hand began to overwhelm me. She loved the work I’d done with warm neutrals and stark minimalist furnishings in a mutual friend’s apartment. How did someone who could appreciate the sleek lines of Corbusier go so drastically wrong when left to her own devices? Where the hell was her husband when these atrocities were being purchased? I studied the pictures further. He could have been in the shots. Had his wife dressed him he would have blended right in with the rest of the chaos. Perhaps my client was afflicted with the same illness that allowed me to walk through one of the most stylish areas of New York looking like a small water mammal in drag.

      Frustrated with the enormity of the project, I gave up and headed for the shower. Green tea shower gel soothed my bruised spirit. I had nearly relaxed when the doorbell started ringing with frightening repetition. By the time I flung open the door, I’d assumed it was stuck or someone was on fire.

      The martini lady and her dog greeted me. “Hello, Chloë dear.” She looked me up and down, carefully.

      “Ah…” I managed, while cinching my towel and raising my hand self-consciously to my suds-covered head.

      “I am Ms. Leopold. This is Mr. Oodles. We are your new neighbours.” Leading with her martini glass, she pushed past me into my living room.

      I stood frozen in my empty doorway. The Mercedes was now nestled against the mailbox.

      Hearing tuts and hmms from the living room, I closed the door and joined Ms. Leopold.

      “I must say you do have quite an interesting touch, darling.”

      “This really isn’t a good time, I…”

      “Go put on a robe, darling.” She swivelled, leaving an arc of gin on my footstool. “We must chat about what can be done with my condo. You wouldn’t believe what they did with the bathroom, dear. I know you were just fabulous with Bunny, and let’s face it, it couldn’t have been easy with Edgar, the pompous old goat, breathing down your neck.”

      Bunny Birk had been a client the previous year. A woman with more money than God, Bunny also possessed the same surgically enhanced ageless quality I saw on Ms. Leopold’s tight face.

      “Well, I…I…” Then the shopaholic deep inside me remembered Bolt Grenfrew was opening a new store, and I was almost entirely broke. “I’ll be right back.”

      I returned in a robe with a towel for my hair. Mr. Oodles hopped effortlessly onto my leather love seat. He was wearing a pastel blue Pashmina wrap.

      “You’re a friend of Mrs. Birk?” Opening my portfolio, I tried to seem professional. “I hope she’s well.”

      Ms. Leopold’s eyebrow arched impossibly, nearly disappearing into her hairline. “I should say so. Her new pool boy is named Miguel, and he’s an aspiring gymnast.” A sly, crimson smile followed. “I’d say Bunny is behaving quite like her namesake these days.”

      Pushing Bunny and her flexible Latino lover from my mind took some effort. I felt another shower was in order. “Would you like to see my other work, Ms. Leopold? I have a variety of…”

      “No, no, no. I like what I’ve seen already. Bunny simply raves on and on about you. And, although you could obviously use a maid, your home speaks for itself.”

      I’d almost missed the last part, being more concerned about Mr. Oodles, who was licking himself on my Calvin Klein throw.

      “We’ll have lunch together at the Château Poivre.” Ms. Leopold scooped her dog up, anointing him with martini. “Here you are, dear.” A cheque was pressed into my hand. $5,000.

      “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I hadn’t

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