21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter 21
Leslie
W hen the battery of test results came in, they showed minimal heart and organ damage. By following a tightly controlled meal plan, together with daily check-ins and therapy, the team seemed optimistic about my chances for a full recovery.
A week into treatment, my energy and mindset were both improving. So much, Dot had agreed to let me drive myself back and forth to the hospital unsupervised. I pulled into her driveway and cut the engine, proud of how far I’d already come.
Eating still triggered me, but I started stuffing a cork in Little Diana’s mouth so I could feed mine. The first few days were rough. Two minutes after I finished a meal, the next one arrived. Or so it seemed. The perpetual fullness spiked my anxiety, but therapy provided new coping skills. Those helped me stick to the dining plan when every brain cell screamed, Resist! the moment food arrived.
The doctors said my hunger cues would return once I healed from malnourishment. But hunger was normal for me, though I never recognized it as anything but the undercurrent of my life. Losing that anchor left me floating untethered in murky waters. My longtime friend and protector had vanished, with no one to replace her.
A tap on the driver’s window jarred me back to the present.
“What are you doing in there? You’ll fry.” Dot pulled my car door open, and a floral breeze blew in from her gardenia bushes. Their sweet scent, clean and unapologetic, lifted my spirits.
“Sorry. Lost in a daydream.” I grabbed my handbag and slammed the car door firmly behind me.
But Dot hadn’t moved. She stood assessing me, and I’d forgotten I now lived around people who both knew me and cared about my well-being. At home, I was typically alone. That made it easy to mask low moods for a few hours while visiting with friends. They’d be there for me if I asked for help, but it pissed me off to be on the needy end. Weakness had never been my strong suit.
“Let’s go sit on the porch.” She walked gingerly, using the handrail to support her as she took the stairs. “I want to hear how it went today. If you’re comfortable sharing, that is.”
With all my personal drama, I’d forgotten that Dot was still recovering from surgery. Her stitches had to hurt. If not, she’d already be back to her yoga class.
She noticed me staring.
“I’ve overdone it the last few days. Everything hurts, and my incision yanks whenever I move.” She dropped onto the swing, lifting her feet to the ottoman with a sigh. “Okay, out with it.”
I sank into one of her white wicker chairs nearby, leaning forward to rub my hands. There were too many contradictions running through my brain to form a coherent thought.
“Everything the care team says makes sense to me. But at the cellular level, I’m struggling. Every bite feels wrong. Negative thoughts bombard me while I’m chewing, telling me embracing food is a huge mistake. I wish I could flip a switch and make it all go away.”
“You’re a person, not a lamp. It’ll take time.”
I huffed a laugh. My aunt had a habit of stating the obvious in an instructive way. Mom’s rules were no longer my guidebook, and I was still getting oriented to my new North Star. That had me defining my worth by something other than my weight. If you’d asked me two weeks ago what I thought of myself, I’d have told you I was proud of my career accomplishments. Being a journalist defined me. In reality, work kept my mind occupied so I didn’t have to examine the tough questions about my life and relationships. It also helped me avoid a shallow truth: my lean physical appearance factored heavily into how I navigated the world. I wanted people to think well of me, beginning with how I looked. But would they approve if I showed up in a different-sized body than they were used to?
I tuned back into my conversation with Dot, who I now realized had been talking.
“Deprogramming from the diet culture is hard because the messages are all around us. Even more so for someone like you who has basically been in your personal Minnesota experiment since you were a kid. I swear, your Uncle Arty had to hold me back a few times with your mom. I had words on more than one occasion with my beloved brother. He should have done better by you, but he was too busy trying to keep the peace in the house at your expense.”
It was hard to picture her and Dad arguing about my health. I thought I had slipped through life, unobserved. That was the farthest thing from the truth. Dot noticed things I didn’t notice myself, and that kind of love and attention were priceless right now.
“Would it be okay if I stayed here for a while? I’m going to need all the help I can get with all this.”
“Of course, sweetie. You stay as long as you like. You’re always welcome here.”
“Thanks.” I stood. “Want anything from the kitchen? I’m thirsty.”
“I’d love a big glass of water with lots of ice. There’s lemonade in there, if you’re interested.”
My first instinct was to decline the sugary drink. Wasted, empty calories. But if I was to truly embrace this journey and remove the power food held over me, I had to take the process seriously.
“One water and one lemonade coming up.” I said and went into the house.
Later that evening, Dot and I sat together in the living room watching a reality show where people were doing risky challenges. A contestant had just crawled into a box full of big, hairy tarantulas.
“I can’t believe she’d do that. They’re venomous. She could die!”
I swiveled to see my aunt’s skeptical face smirking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Says the person who has literally slept in the same bed with a gang leader who had a loaded gun under his pillow.”
I sighed. “Only once. And we had our clothes on the whole time. What did you expect me to do? I was trying to blend in. If I made a big stink about it, he’d know I was faking my identity and would never have spilled the location of the kidnapped woman.”
She slow-blinked at me to show she wasn’t having it. In Dot’s world, what I’d done for stories was just as crazy as lying in a box with spiders. Right now, the gal was smashing her lips together to keep hairy legs from crawling in her mouth.
Not the same thing at all.
“What I do saves lives.”
“Not yours.”
“Pardon?”
“You might be helping other people, but your whole life is a frantic marathon. Chasing stories. Running after fame. Getting that network job. Doesn’t it ever seem like too much?” The smooth skin of Dot’s age-defying face crinkled in worry.
Since arriving here, a peace had settled over me that I’d not had in ages. The ravages of hunger had lessened. Instead of keeping busy and pouring my soul into my next story, my mind between meals was surprisingly quiet. It wandered while I walked Pepper in the morning. Images of Risto cooking for me in the kitchen, then the bedroom, danced across my field of vision. We hadn’t yet kissed beyond his brotherly pecks to my forehead. But even those shot pangs of longing to body parts I’d long since forgotten. Another benefit to my new dining regimen. One walk, the sensations were so real, memories of his tender touch rippled across my skin. So much so I nearly smashed my face into a telephone pole.
That peace could very well evaporate once I left this idyllic bubble. But I couldn’t stay here forever. Could I? Besides my show-prep meetings in Manhattan and the Saturday night tapings, I could work anywhere. And that included right here with Dot and Risto. I selfishly dreaded the outcome of Risto’s investor visit. I wanted him to be happy, fulfilled, and successful. But in my head, our future was here in Pennsylvania. I liked myself here so much more than the person I became in the City. Shouldn’t I be the same me everywhere? Had I worn character disguises for so long chasing stories that I’d forgotten who I was?
Dot still waited for an answer. Doesn’t it ever seem like too much? Of course, my life was a lot, but there was too much clanging around in my brain to formulate existential answers. Luckily, a call from Viraj buzzed through, rescuing the day once again.
“I gotta take this.” I lifted the cell to my ear, plugging the other with my finger as my aunt turned up the TV volume to show her displeasure.
“Hey, what’s up?” I unfolded my legs to walk to the quieter breakfast nook.
“The Saturday night gig is technically locked up, but I fear you being out of sight all summer will somehow prompt them to shift priorities,” Viraj said.
My stomach dropped. Having a permanent host spot on a cable news program was a tremendous honor. I didn’t want my break at Dot’s to jeopardize the opportunity.
“What do I need to do?” I asked, ready to do near anything he mentioned.
“Post videos to that YouTube channel of yours. It’s been awhile, but you have a decent following. I can redirect traffic there from the Dear Diary website. It might be enough to keep your name circulating while you’re out there.”
My last series of videos focused on the behind-the-scenes dirt of my streetwalker investigation. That exposure and the resulting buzz was partly what prompted the network to add me as the Saturday host. He was right to fall back on proven methods to ensure the network suits didn’t forget why they hired me. Plus, it helped raise the profile of Dear Diary. With Viraj coming from fashion publishing, my articles stretched the online magazine beyond lifestyle coverage into investigative news.
“Have I mentioned my next story to you?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered.
I relayed my plan to expose the colossal lie behind the diet industry. How mounting research showed that dieting didn't work and made us less healthy. I also shared that I was going through eating disorder recovery myself.
“Are you okay doing videos? Why not take time off?” Viraj asked.
“Nah, I need the distraction. I’ve had entirely too much ‘me’ lately. I know that’s part of the process, but I’m at my best when working. The restlessness is way too overwhelming.”
He was leery but dropped the issue, too lost in excitement about the new article.
“Being in the fashion industry for as long as I was, I contributed to the diet culture you’re talking about. I’m eager to correct the record.”
Before co-founding Dear Diary with Rebecca, Viraj was a senior editor at the world’s top fashion magazine. He was, quite literally, at the epicenter of setting beauty standards. But Viraj wasn’t alone. There was a gigantic machine from publishers to design houses to retailers that were all major contributors. Together, they amplified the anti-fat bias that surrounded us. The more I learned, the more absurd it all seemed. Like the world had gotten swept up in a Salem-like witch trial, with fat people on the losing end.
Repent or perish .
I shuddered, hugging myself as Viraj talked on.
We discussed how to shape each article in the series, since there was too much information to cram into one installment. Sidebars would share the progress of my recovery. Mixing personal takes with news set our coverage apart from other outlets. Our competitors professed to be fact-based and non-biased, but that didn’t stop them from presenting their opinions as straight news. Our savvy readers knew the difference and appreciated the raw passion reflected on our digital pages.
“Okay, the first article installment will hit in early August, but since you’re comfortable sharing, you should begin posting this week about your personal food journey.”
This week? My blood drained. What the hell was I supposed to say? Suddenly the big, bold, mob reporter fled the building, replaced by a scared-shitless woman about to tell her 44,000 YouTube followers that she had an eating disorder.
“You there?” Viraj asked.
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t want to post about your personal stuff, that’s fine. Focus on the industry story.”
“No. I’ll do it. It’ll be a way to hold myself accountable.”
“It’s your private medical information. Please, I don’t expect you to share. I’m sorry if I misunderstood, but I thought you’d already decided to chronicle it.”
His ears worked fine. But now that I had a deadline, it felt too real. A clock began ticking, and soon my personal story would be splashed across screens worldwide. No more hiding in dark corners. I had to face my fears. Sharing it with my fans might provide the encouragement I needed to stay focused. I’d claim my truth and let the chips fall where they may. I liked the sound of that.
“Count me in. I’ll start tomorrow.”