Slim to None by Jenny Gardiner

Author:Jenny Gardiner [Gardiner, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780984515127
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2010-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

Food is the most primitive form of comfort.

Sheila Graham

Truss Feelings with Butcher’s Twine, Steep in Juices

Well, that didn’t go too terrifically, did it? Get off your high horse? I’m not on any high horse. In fact I’d hardly fit on a horse. It would be like a horse hauling a cow. Unwieldy, that’s for sure. I’d never force that sort of torture on any animal. Hell, I won’t even do that to my hot pink Vespa.

Besides which, I’m perfectly happy, thank you very much. Sure, I might be feeling a little uptight, but who wouldn’t be under the circumstances? I mean, in one of those Glamour Magazine stress test, I’d be off the charts right about now. First I lose my coveted job, then my absentee father shows up out of the blue—in the midst of dying, no less. Then my husband decides to tighten the screws by forcing the breeding issue. My former colleague—with whom I thought I was on good terms—is waging an all-out campaign against me and I know not why. I have an argument with my best friend, who is having a very public affair with my doctor, and if nothing else I could never double-date with them! I mean, my God! He knows my weight! He’s seen me in a hospital gown! If anyone knows my Achilles’ heel, it’s that man. Seems the only really uplifting thing in my life right now is my dog. And I can only walk him so much before he’ll start refusing to cross the threshold of the door, his legs will be so tired out.

Right now I’m still reeling from that phone call with Jess. The more I think about Jess and her marriage-busting behavior, the more I think about my father and his marriage-busting. And maybe that’s why I can’t seem to let go of my anger toward her right now.

It was hard enough that my father left us the way he did. But then when I found out he’d had another family—his good family—all along, well, that was more than I could bear.

I don’t like to talk about that day. I’ve never even told William about it, it’s so raw to me, even still. My father had been gone a few months at that point. My mother whiled away her days submerged in gloom beneath her down comforter in the shade-blackened living room. Grandma Gigi tried to keep me from the house as much as possible, so she’d decided to take me to the shopping mall. We’d gone there because her rubbers had sprung a leak. No, not those sort of rubbers. The kind little old ladies and dentist-types used to wear, the ones you’d pull over your shoes to protect them in wet weather. Her rubbers were letting in water and the forecast was for continued rain, so when I got home from school that day, Grandma Gigi and I hopped the 22B bus and rode it to the mall.

We’d just come from Sears Roebuck, the store’s usual odor of new tools, lubricants and hard work still lingering on my nose.

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