I.
The first day she crossed the line, she wanted a cookie and a grade change.
It was a warm June day. She was on campus taking an extra sociology class. She decided that before she went to her sociology professor's class to ask why she earned a C- on a paper she had written, she decided to stop by the local coffee stand for one of her favorite treats: a cookie.
She was waiting in line behind a guy who was engulfed in a spaceship game, who paid her no attention, as did most guys interacted with on a daily basis. She kept her head down and looked at her feet through her see through sandals. They were chunky and her tiny toes looked like sausages in wrapping paper. Disguised by her toes, she decided to look at something more favorable.
She lifted her head up to look at the cookies in the display case: Chocolate, Oatmeal Raisin, Double Chocolate, and M&M's. She was eyeing the front M&M in the front when out of the corner of her eye and within a good shot of her ear of a disturbance.
It was her professor who she was on her way to see. He was sitting with another woman at a table. She was blonde and had her hair pulled back into a pony tail. She seemed upset and struggled to wave hands over her head in her grey suit and blue blouse underneath. Next to her, the girl's professor was calmer and seemed to want to ease the tension and draw attention away from the crowd that was watching them. Unfortunately, he was not successful. People stopped to watch them as she yelled and called him names like 'dog', 'animal', and vermin' seemed to be very upset. The climax came when the woman grabbed a cup of coffee near hear, took off the lid, and threw it in his face. She then yelled a few words in Chinese and stormed off. The professor was left soaked by coffee with a crowd watching. He waved to them as if it were nothing then gathered his things and walked to his office.
Still in line, the girl looked at him in the distance and wondered what had happened. What went wrong? Why was the blonde woman mad at him?
When she came into his office roughly 15 minutes later, he was sitting at his desk working on his laptop. He wore a silver and red tie and white shirt, both splotches of brown on them. When she sat in front of him, there was silence. She could smell the coffee on him across the desk that separated them. From there she also saw his golden wedding band on his left finger. It shone in the sunlight, as did the framed picture of him and the blonde woman who threw coffee on him. She was his wife. She looked thin, happy, and beautiful, wrapped in his big arms. Then, she looked at his face not in the picture. His eyes looked tired and worn, instead of vibrant as they did in his wedding photo. His chocolate brown eyes drooped like a puppy and his coffee soaked black hair shined like licorice. He looked at the girl as she sat there with her hands folded in her lap ankles crossed, trying to be small and invisible even though she was everything but that in physical form. He smiled and reached across the desk and grabbed her hand. She felt his hand on hers and pulled away. Connections between men and her had not gone well in the past and she didn't expect them to change with him.
Her mother had always told her that she was a pretty girl underneath all the fat she had. If she lost it she would be pretty. Until then, no man would want her for anything more than a hook up.
And none did, that was until, that summer.
II.
She wasn't as big as she used to be a few summers ago but just because she wasn't big anymore didn't mean that she had a date.
No date tonight. No other person, man or woman would be joining her for dinner. It was just her and her ghosts of dinners past. She went to the refrigerator to get out her one course dinner: a salad of dark green spinach, light green romaine lettuce, cherry red tomatoes, and grilled brown chicken. Healthy, multi-colored, and fresh.
She looked at the food then looked at herself. She had always struggled with her weight but as of late had been able to take off quite a bit of it. To be precise 88 pounds. She wanted to keep it that way and loose more if she could. Her goal was to lose 100 pounds and the last 12 pounds were giving her a bit of a challenge to get down to 125.
"Eh...maybe after a good sweat session,"
She put the salad back in the refrigerator and went into her living room and put in a Jillian Michael's kickboxing DVD. She sat on the floor and laced on her running shoes as the DVD menu appeared.
She selected play and began to workout with the home trainer.
"Up, Punch, Up, Punch, Up, Punch, Come on! Keep Going!!"
Pre dinner workout to burn off the dinner calories.
"Up, Punch, Up Punch, Up Punch!"
Another distraction from the loneliness; for her, companionship via virtual reality was the only type of socializing she would do tonight. That was the benefit of workout videos in her mind. You didn't have to leave your home to feel like you were a part of the world. You could make the world come to you, or at least the utopian version of it that you had in mind. In this version, she had Jillian Michaels training her to a 100-pound weight loss.
"4 More. Up Punch Up Punch Up Punch Up Punch!! Good Job! Now jumping jacks!"
III.
The first time they had sex it wasn't planned. She was in the mall, looking for a bathing suit. She had been to Sears, JcPenny, Nordstrom's, and a series of other smaller boutiques. Despite the large quantity of stores that she had d been to, she couldn't find one in her size: a 24W. Everything was teeny-tiny bikini in neon green, pink, and yellow, sizes 0, 4, and 6. Nothing in midnight black, blue, or even svelte grey in a one piece. What type of mall was this?
She was about to quit trying to find one and take the bus back home when she caught his eyes. He was walking in the other direction while she was looking at the ground, again. Trying to be invisible or at least small in the big mall. He entrapped her foot in his and made her stop and look at in his eyes. Those chocolate brown eyes. From there he followed her, from store to store, not letting her go a few feet away from him without being in view. She never felt anything like this before or had anyone other than her mom go shopping with her. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was the first time she had gotten any good attention from a man that wasn't exactly negative. Eventually she found one with his help. It was a navy blue tankini tie up two-piece. It was nice; it made her midsection look smaller than it actually was.
After she made her purchase, she was preparing to catch the bus back home when he made an offer to her. The offer was that he would meet her for coffee at Starbucks in a few hours. Name brand coffee for a change.
She hesitated to answer him.
He was a married man, her professor nonetheless, and he was shameless in flirting with her. He was nice. He said she was "a beautiful bounty" and "that her eyes sparkled" and "that he wanted to know her on a personal level".
She wasn't going to let that go.
IV.
Her mom called, as she always did around 9'oclock after she'd worked out, showered, and eaten. She asked her usual questions: how she was, how her weight was, what she had eaten, if she had met anyone new, how work was. She said she good, that she hadn't lost or gained any weight which was better than gaining weight though loosing would have been better, she told her that had worked out an hour before dinner and that she had eaten a spinach salad for dinner with grilled chicken. No dressing of course and she said that there were no new guys and nothing interesting was going on at work.
Which was only partially true but she did not reveal this to her mother during her daily questioning session.
She met him at a bank. He winked at her and gave her his card with his cell phone number written on the back. She pondered calling or texting him for a few minutes. In the end, she told herself that Facebook stalking would be the best option. After ending her nightly call with her mom, she looked him up on the blue and white social site. He had graduated college, was working on his MBA at the University of Phoenix, and worked at the bank as a teller.
He had accomplished so much and was on a path to somewhere probably at the top of Wells Fargo or some other bank or credit union.
Much too different from her. He wasn't even worth considering. She had graduated 6 months prior and was still working at the boutique. A dual set of degrees in business and photography should have prepared her for a career as an independent photographer. But the season was slow and no one wanted an inexperienced professional photographer taking photos of their wedding, baby christening, or other special even. Therefore, she was sure what to do with her life other than work for $17.00 an hour managing people whose job it was to sell overpriced shoes and purses.
It wasn't fun but it was a paycheck.
V.
She met him for coffee. She noticed that he had taken off his wedding band as his right hand held her left. He pushed a piece of her hair back. They kissed in the corner in their seats around the aroma of coffee and black tea. After a while they're kissing extended to making out.
After getting some slightly strange looks from those watching them devour each other's face, they made their way for some intimate privacy in the alleyway in the back.
She could see that it was getting dark. The sky was orange and his eyes were brown. He kissed her in a way that she hadn't been kissed before. Fire filled his lips as he kissed hers. He pushed her against the brick wall of the building and pulled himself into her.
She turned her face away from him, to catch her breath out of the dream like situation.
"Hey. what's wrong?" He asked.
"Nothing, nothing, It's just ummm..."She stuttered and looked down at the ground.
"Is this your first time with man?" He asked her.
