Size eight.
That would be me, Tracey Spadolini. A size eight.
Can you believe it?
No, not my shoe size. My size, size.
I'm actually wearing a size eight dress -- without one of
those stretchy tourniquet tummy bulge compressors I used
to live in -- and I'm not even holding my breath.
When I started my summer diet, I figured I had about forty
pounds to lose. But I'm down at least fifty, melted off
with good old-fashioned diet and exercise, and kept off
thanks to the little pink pills I take daily.
No, not the kind of little pink pigs in a plastic baggie
that you buy in a dark alley.
We're talking a prescribed drug here.
Officially, I'm taking it to stave off panic attacks.
According to the pharmacy's insert, potential side effects
included diarrhea, constipation and severe flatulence. Not
pretty, right? So I spent the first few medicated days
close to home, not wanting to find myself on the crowded
subway with a severe case of the runs -- or, worse,
uncontrollable gas.
But I've had nary a disgraceful rumble or abdominal cramp.
In fact, aside from banishing my anxiety, the pink pills
have brought on only one glorious side effect: a
diminished appetite.
Happy Pills, my friend Buckley calls them.
He's the one who referred me to the shrink in the first
place, after the whole anxiety thing started this past
summer. I thought I was just freaking out because my
boyfriend, Will, had abandoned me. Technically, Will was
away doing summer stock, but, essentially, he abandoned me.
Anyway, after a few sessions Dr. Schwartzenbaum suggested
that although Will's leaving probably triggered the panic
attacks, I might have an underlying chemical imbalance.
That must be true, because I've been on the medication for
almost two months now, and haven't had a single panic
attack. Factor in that I'm rarely hungry and voilà --
Happy Pills.
Back to the dress: scarlet and snug; a slinky cocktail
dress with a high hem and a low bodice that, last June,
would have revealed alpine cleavage. But I certainly don't
mind that my boobs shrank along with the rest of me. In
fact, I barely notice. I'm too busy admiring my protruding
collarbones -- the protruding collarbones I've coveted on
many an award -- show red-carpet walker.
"Tracey?" Kate Delacroix taps on the dressing room door.
"It fits!" I squeal, turning away from the trio of full-
length mirrors only for the second it takes to open the
door and allow Kate to poke her blond head in.
"Wow. Tracey, you look ravishing in that."
Ravishing. There are very few people who can get away with
using a word like that and come across as genuine. Kate is
one of them, Southern drawl and all.
Embarrassed that she might have caught my admiring gaze at
my own reflection, I make an attempt to portray
uncertainty.
I shrug. Tilt my head. Pretend to ponder. "Oh . . . I
don't know. I mean, I look okay, but . . ."
My jutting collarbones might be red-carpet-worthy, but an
actress, I'm not. My brown eyes are still enraptured by
the mirror, and I can't seem to keep an exultant grin from
tilting the corners of my -- um, chapped lips.
Okay, it's possible that I've' been so focused on myself
from the neck down that I've neglected the rest of me.
Mental Note: buy ChapStick at Duane Reade on the way home.
P.S. Make appointment for lip wax ASAP.
P.P.S. Haircut, too.
Back to skinny, ravishing below-the-neck moi. I look ten
times better in this dress than I did in the silky teal
shirt I wore into the dressing room. Kate gave the shirt
to me for my birthday. It has a designer label and I know
it cost her a fortune. But the cut and color are all
wrong. Her taste is expensive, but not necessarily good.
At least, not when it comes to others.
Kate's big on teal. Aqua, too. Shades that complement her
bluish-green colored contact lenses and year-round tanning
salon glow. Shades that seem to cast the same sickly tint
to my skin that fluorescent lighting does.
Naturally, I told Kate that I love the shirt. Naturally, I
feel compelled to wear it. But only to places like the
ladies' dress department in Bloomingdale's, where the
chances of meeting a potential boyfriend are about the
same as finding one strolling along Christopher Street in
Greenwich Village on a Saturday night.
"You don't think this dress is too skimpy for a corporate
Christmas party?" I ask Kate now, tugging the hem
southward.
She dismisses the query with a wave of one French-
manicured hand. "Nah."
"Are you sure? Because the last thing I want to do is look
cheap."
"Tracey, that dress is almost two hundred bucks on sale.
It's not cheap."
"I know, but sometimes expensive things can look -- Kate,
what the hell are you wearing?"
She shrugs.
I grab her arm and pull her all the way into the dressing
room.
"That's a wedding gown!" I accuse.
"Yup."
"Are you and Billy . . . ?" Still clutching her white-
satin-encased arm with price tags dangling, I jerk it up
to examine her fourth finger for a telltale diamond.
Nothing.
Kate is unfazed. "I'm thinking we'll get engaged at
Christmas. He's coming to Mobile with me to meet my
parents and . . . well, he knows I'm not going to keep
living with him forever without a commitment."
"Forever? Kate, it's been three months."
Will McCraw and I were together three years. Three years,
and instead of moving in together, we broke up. To be
blunt, he dumped me. No, first he cheated, then he dumped
me. And when he did, I passed out cold. Literally. I
collapsed in an undignified, heartbroken heap on the
parquet floor of his twenty-sixth-floor studio apartment.
But that was almost three months ago.
A lot can happen in three months.
Clearly, Kate thinks so. She sways her narrow hips
slightly, the long white skirt rustling above her
pedicured toes as she undoubtedly imagines herself at her
reception in Billy's arms.
I glance down at her feet. Pretty pink polished toenails
in the dead of November. Huh. That Kate sure thinks of
everything. I don't even shave my legs at this time of
year unless I think somebody's going to see them.
Maybe that explains why she's standing there in a wedding
gown with a damned good chance of becoming a bride
momentarily, while I don't even have a date for the Blaire
Barnett Christmas party next weekend.
But I'm not the only one. Brenda isn't bringing her
husband and Yvonne isn't bringing her fiancé and Latisha
isn't bringing her boyfriend. It's going to be Girls'
Night Out -- to celebrate my triumphant return to the ad
agency.
I quit my job back in September; in fact, on the same day
the dumping/fainting incident took place. But Blaire
Barnett, unlike Will, wanted me back.
What happened was this: the temp secretary who replaced me
filed a sexual harassment suit against my ex-boss, Jake.
Long story short, he wound up getting fired, and they
offered me my old position back.
I was reluctant to take it, because I was making more
money working for Eat Drink Or Be Married, a Manhattan
caterer. But waitressing is hard, dirty work, it
encompassed my nights and weekends and there were no
benefits. Besides, I missed my old friends at Blaire
Barnett; I was offered more money, and they promised me
the opportunity to interview for the next junior
copywriting job that opens up over in the Creative
Department. Meaning I won't be a secretary -- or broke --
forever.
All in all, it's good to be back.
In fact, all in all, there's not much about my life right
now that isn't good. My regular life, that is. My love
life is a different story. The kind without a happy
ending. At least, so far.
Kate -- currently a vision in Happy Ending -- gathers her
long blond hair on her head with one hand while running
the other along the row of satin-covered buttons at her
back, feeling for gaps.
I step toward her, my legs engulfed in yards of swishy
white, and attempt to fasten two buttons near her
tailbone. It isn't easy. They're slippery, and the size of
those mini M&M's I haven't had since July.
She says, "I swear, Tracey, three months is long enough to
live together without a commitment. If Billy doesn't get
me a ring for Christmas, I'll be shocked."
"So will I." "I thought you just said -- "
"It's only been three months. That's what I said. I didn't
say I don't think you and Billy should get engaged."
Nor did I say that I like Billy about as much as I like
the teal silk hanging on the hook above my head. Kate is
myfriend, and Billy -- like that ugly designer blouse --
comes with the territory.
Besides, I can't help wondering if maybe I'd be rooting
for Kate and Billy if I had somebody, too. It isn't easy
to watch your best friend fall madly in love when two
complete seasons have turned since you last had sex.
"Raphael doesn't think I should have moved in with Billy,"
she says, as I triumphantly manage to hook one minibutton
into its microscopic loop. "He said something about Billy
not wanting to buy the cow when he's getting the latte for
free."
I roll my eyes, muttering, "Raphael has given out so much
free latte, he should have Starbucks stamped on his, um,
udder."
"Tracey!" Kate giggles. "Raphael is the first to admit
he's a slut, especially now that he's not with Wade
anymore."
"He was a slut even when he was with Wade," I point out.
"Exactly. But he has old-fashioned standards when it comes
to me -- "
"And me," I interject.
"Right. He wants to marry off both of us, so that we can
make him an uncle."
"He said that?"
"He said aunt. Auntie, to be specific."
"Oh, Lord. I can see it now. Auntie Raphael." I shake my
head. Raphael is one of my best friends, but he's
definitely out there. In a good way, of course.
"Whatever you do, Trace, don't tell Billy what Raphael
said."
"About the free latte?"
"About being the aunt to our future kids. He'd probably
consider that grounds for a vasectomy. You know how he is
about gays."
Gays. That's what conservative Billy calls Raphael and his
kind.
His kind being another charming Billy phrase.
What Kate sees in him, I'll never know. Yes, he's as
beautiful as she is, and yes, he's rich as a Trump. But
he's shallow, and opinionated and ultraconservative -- the
latter being his worst crime, as far as I'm concerned.
I was raised in Brookside, New York, a small town so far
upstate that it might as well be in the Midwest. The
people there -- including my own family -- are
overwhelmingly blue-collar Catholic Republicans.
Billy might be a white-collar Presbyterian Republican, but
there's little difference between him and my great-aunt
Domenica, who is convinced that homosexuals will burn in
hell alongside Bill Clinton and the entire membership of
Planned Parenthood.
"Speaking of Raphael," I say, changing the subject as I
fasten Kate's last button, "what time did you tell him
we'd meet him for the movie later?"
In the midst of studying her bridal reflection, Kate drops
her eyes.
Uh-oh.
"I can't go," she says.
"Why not?"
"Billy -- "
Of course, Billy.
" -- is taking me to see Hairspray."
"You already saw Hairspray." Raphael got us both comp
tickets when the show first opened, back when he was
dating the wardrobe master.
"I know, but Billy has orchestra seats, and we're going
with his boss and his fiancée. It's like a work thing. You
know how it is."
"Yeah, I know how it is."
There's an awkward silence.
She knows how I feel about her blowing me off for Billy.
This isn't the first time it's happened. And Raphael is
going to be pissed when he finds out that she's not
coming. These Saturday-night outings have been a regular
thing for the three of us ever since Will and I broke up.
Kate and Raphael teamed up loyally to make sure I wasn't
lonely.
But Kate didn't come last week, either. Billy was sick,
and she didn't want to leave him.
You'd have thought he had pneumonia, the way she went on
about it. Turned out it was just a cold. But she spent
Saturday night being Martha Stewart-meets-Clara Barton:
making homemade chicken noodle soup, squeezing fresh
orange juice, hovering with tissues and Ricola.
Raphael and I spent Saturday night drinking apple martinis
and bitchily dissecting the Kate-Billy relationship.
"Come on, don't be mad, Tracey," she pleads.
I sigh. "I'm not mad, Kate."
After all, back when I was desperate to keep Will, I'm
ashamed to admit that I'd have dropped my plans with Kate
and Raphael, too.
But I didn't like myself very much back then.
And sometimes, as much as I love Kate, I don't like her
very much when she's with Billy.
I check out our reflections.
Six months ago, I couldn't handle standing next to Kate
anywhere, much less in a three-way dressing room mirror.
Now, it's not so bad. We're like Snow White and Rose Red --
literally, in these outfits. Svelte Kate with long fair
hair and big blue eyes. Not-quite-as-svelte-but-no-longer-
zaftig Tracey with long dark hair and big brown eyes.
She catches my eye in the mirror. We smile at each other.
"You really do look good in that dress, Tracey."
"And you look beautiful in that. I hope he gives you a
ring for Christmas. It would be fun to shop for wedding
dresses, wouldn't it?"
She turns a critical eye toward the gown in the mirror.
"Yeah, but remind me that I don't like gowns with full
skirts, will you? This one makes me look huge."
"Huge? Come on, Kate. You're teeny."
"Not in this. It's too froufrou. When I walk down the
aisle, I'm going to go for sleek and sexy." She reaches
for the row of buttons. "Help me get out of it, will you?"
I oblige, still wearing the red dress. I've made up my
mind to buy it for the Christmas party. Who knows? Maybe
I'll meet somebody there. Blaire Barnett is a huge agency
that employs plenty of single men. And a corporate
Christmas party is as good a place as any to hook up,
right?