Part III: What Happens a Cappella? (Chapter 58)

Have you thought about what you’d like to say to Nana?

Right here. I even used yellow paper, so it’d be easy on your eyes.

I’m not going to read it.

What???? What was the point of all this, anyway?

You’re going to read it to me. Today, I’m going to be your Nana. I told you that last time.

But I thought you were kidding.

I don’t kid. I’m a blockheaded shrink, remember? Now, let’s get started.

Time grows short.

Excuse me?

Just something Nana says all the time, especially when the meter’s running, so to speak.

Ah.

Okay. The letter to Nana ‒

As you read, look at me from time to time, just to help you keep focused in the present.

I’ll try. Okay. Deep breath. Here goes:

Nana, remember after graduation, when you sent me to California to get reacquainted with my mother, who I hadn’t seen in seven years? You thought I was going out there to find a job, but I was looking for something else. I was more than anxious to go because I had some other plans, which included more than getting acquainted with a mother who was more like an unfamiliar older sister to me ‒ mainly getting laid and sampling the pharmaceutical pleasures of the 60’s.

Of course, I couldn’t tell you my intentions....

I couldn’t believe it.

Mother took one look at me and said diet! More pills that made me want to shed my skin and more strange meals consisting of foods not found in Sioux City at that time ‒ broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts.

Within a month, I was down to a seductive 120 pounds ‒ Mother’s house painter made an obvious pass at me, only I didn’t realize it until it was almost too late; I had to break free from his hammerlock and run like the devil. I never told Mother the whole story ‒ even now, it’s too embarrassing to talk about.

But when I told her he was a “dirty old man,” she chewed me out for throwing myself at “that bonafide loser.”

“But, Mom,” I said, “I thought he was just being friendly, so I was just being friendly back!”

Mother just laughed and said, “Honey, you got a lot to learn about men. He was just priming you before poking you with that pathetic prick of his.”

I wondered how much she knew about his pathetic prick, but then I realized she was probably just speaking rhetorically, that a loser like him would automatically have a pathetic prick.

Shortly after the house painter incident, Mother helped me bleach my auburn hair a strawberry blonde. She also showed me how to use face powder and rouge, tons of mascara, and eye shadow and liner.

I have a snapshot of myself standing outside Graumann’s Chinese Theater in skin-tight shorts and top, metallic strawberry hair, looking more like a Hollywood hooker than a naïve 17-year-old girl. After the picture was snapped, this loopy teenager would be approached by a slick wannabe artist.

Paulie Quest.

He would tell her, on their first and last date, that he really wanted to “drop it in.”

Don’t worry, Nana. I wanted to get laid, but not that badly. Another pathetic prick, I’m afraid.

Then Mother introduced me to Tom and Rob, the sons of Monique Bodine ‒ you know, Mother’s best friend, the one who killed herself ‒ they turned me onto the drug scene and introduced me to their father.

Snake Bodine!

Once, the three of us rode around Malibu a few times in Snake’s maroon Camaro ‒ The Door’s “Light My Fire” blasting on the eight-track player ‒ drinking Bali Hai, smoking weed, and dropping acid. You know all the details about my drug use, so I won’t bore you with them again. Just suffice to say that I didn’t really need to diet during that part of my life. So! I shucked the thyroid and diet pills, never to take them ever again.

Then I met Doug. Who had time to eat?

Not until after Nikki was born did I start the diet cycle that has plagued me throughout adulthood: I had picked up 50 pounds during my pregnancy and lost only 20 after I gave birth to my baby girl. For the next 20 or so years, I alternated between dieting ‒ starvation diets, fasts, Weight Watchers, Diet Workshop, Nutri/System, blah, blah ‒ and out and out bingeing, stuffing my face until I was so sick that I couldn’t move.

Lose the weight, gain it back, lose it, gain it back plus some more, and ‒

You hesitate.

It’s just that I don’t want to think about what comes next.

And what’s that?

The big diet. The diet of all time, the diet that was supposed to solve all my problems. But as you can see, it didn’t solve a thing.

Tell me about it.

Uh ‒ I don’t want to.

So, the fat lady isn’t quite ready to sing yet.

I wish you wouldn’t use that expression with me. I hate it. It’s mean.

That’s not my intention. I’m just making a point, though obviously not too well.

Would you believe that when I visualize the Samantha Anne Mallory that I have gotten to know these past few months, I don’t really see the fat part?

Really? What do you see?

A strong, sexy woman who’s capable of just about anything.

But you’re paid to feel that way, Dr. Garrett.

Maybe so, but I am human, capable of establishing bonds with clients ‒ albeit limited ones. Don’t worry, Ms. Mallory. I’m not coming on to you.

That’s good. Who needs that?

I’m just trying to get you to see yourself as others perceive you.

You’re full of shit, Dr. Garrett.

We’ll save that topic for next time.

If there’s a next time.

That’s completely up to you, Ms. Mallory.

Let’s just say that if this fat lady ever decides to sing, her song will come straight from the gut, nothing fancy, mind you, just her real voice, true and clear and, and, and ‒

A cappella.

Yes, that’s it. A cappella.