The Ivory and the Horn

'I think you've got it bad, pal,' he said finally.

'I guess I do.'

'How does she feel about you?'

'I think she likes me,' Jim said.

Scotty set the pen back down on Jim's desk.

'You're a lucky stiff,' he said.

15

I've decided that the ghosts are simply hallucinations, brought on by my hunger. Never mind what Jilly or Christy would say. That's all that makes sense. If anything makes sense anymore.

I've been on this diet for almost four weeks now. Popcorn and lettuce, lettuce and popcorn. A muffin on Wednesday, but I won't let that happen again because I'm really losing weight and I don't want to screw anything up. From a hundred and twenty-six to a hundred and four this morning.

Once I would have been delirious with joy to weigh only a hundred and four again, but when I look in the mirror I know it's not enough. All I still see is fat. I can get rid of more. I don't have to be a cow all my life.

I still haven't had a cigarette either and it hasn't added anything to my weight. It's as bad as I thought it'd be— you never realize what a physical addiction it really is until you try to quit— but at least I'm not putting on the pounds, stuffing my face with food because I miss sticking a cigarette in my mouth.

I'm so cranky, though. I guess that's to be expected. My whole body feels weird, like it doesn't belong to me anymore. But I kind of like it. There's a down side, like my clothes don't fit right anymore, but I can deal with it. Since I can't, afford to buy new ones, I've been taking them in— skirts and jeans. My T-shirts and blouses are all getting really loose, but I don't mind. I feel so good about the way I'm starting to look now I know that I can never let myself get fat again. I'm just going to lose a few more pounds and then I'm going to go on a bit of a more normal diet. I'm sick of popcorn and lettuce.

The diet's probably making me cranky as well, but I know I'll get past it, just like I'll get past the constant need to have a cigarette. Already it's easier. Now all I've got to do is deal with the financial mess I'm in. I don't know how to handle it. I'm not spending any money at all— mine or the paper's— but I'm in deep. My phone got cut off yesterday. I just didn't have the money to pay the bill after covering my other expenses. I guess I should've told the bank manager about it when I went in for that loan, but I'd forgotten I was overdue and I don't want to go back to his office.

What I really want to do is just go away for awhile— the way I'm pretending to Jim that I have. Before my phone got cut off, I was calling him from these 'hotels' I'm supposed to be staying in and we'd have nice long talks. It's the weirdest romance I've ever had. I can't wait to see his face when he finally sees the new and improved me.

But I'm not ready yet. I want to trim the last of the fat away and put the no-smoking jitters aside first. I know I can do it. I'm feeling a lot more confident about everything now. I guess it really is possible to take charge of your life and make the necessary changes so that you're happy with who you are. What I want now is some time to myself. Go away and come back as an entirely new person. Start my life over again.

Last night one of the ghosts gave me a really good idea.

16

Wendy slouched in the window seat of Jilly's studio while Jilly stood at her easel, painting. She had her notebook open on her lap, but she hadn't written a word in it. She alternated between watching Jilly work, which was fairly boring, and taking in the clutter of the studio. Paintings were piled up against one another along the walls. Everywhere she looked there were stacks of paper and reference books, jars and tins full of brushes, tubes of paint and messy palettes for all the different media Jilly worked in. The walls were hung with her own work and that of her friends.

One of the weirdest things in the room was a fabric mache self-portrait that Jilly had done. The life-size sculpture stood in a corner, dressed in Jilly's clothes, paint brush in hand and wearing a Walkman. No matter how often Wendy came over, it still made her start.

'You're being awfully quiet,' Jilly said, stepping back from her canvass.

'I was thinking about Brenda.'

Jilly leaned forward to add a daub of paint, then stepped back again.

'I haven't seen much of her myself,' she said. 'Of course I've been spending twenty-six hours a day trying to get this art done for this album cover.'

'Do they still make albums?'

Jilly shrugged. 'CD, then. Or whatever. Why are you thinking about Brenda?'

'Oh, I don't know. I just haven't seen her for ages. We used to go down to the Dutchman's Bakery for strudels every Saturday morning, but she's begged off for the last three weeks.'

'That's because she's on a diet,' Jilly said.

'How do you know?'

Jilly stuck her brush behind her ear and used the edge of her smock to rub at something on the canvass.

'I ran into her on the way to the art store the other day,' she said as she fussed with the painting. 'She looked, so thin that she's got to be on another diet— one that's working, for a change.'

'I don't know why she's so fixated on her weight,' Wendy said. 'She thinks she's humongous, and she's really not.'

Jilly shrugged. 'I've given up trying to tell her. She's like your friend Andy in some ways.'

'Andy's a hypochondriac,' Wendy said.

'I know. He's always talking about what's wrong with him, right?'

'So?'

'So Brenda's a little like that. Did you ever know her to not have a problem?'

'That's not really being fair,' Wendy said.

Jilly looked up from her painting and shook her head. 'It might not be a nice thing to say,' she said, 'but it is fair.'

'Things just don't work out for her,' Wendy protested.

'And half of the reason is because she won't let them,' Jilly said. 'I think she lives for extremes.'

Putting her palette and brush down on the wooden orange crate that stood beside her easel for that purpose, she dragged another orange crate over to the window and sat down.

'Take the way she is with men,' Jilly said. 'Either nobody's interested in her, or she's utterly convinced some guy's crazy about her. She never gives a relationship a chance to grow. It's got to be all or nothing, right off the bat.'

'Yeah, but—'

'And it's not just guys. It's everything. She either has to be able to buy the best quality new blouse or dress, or she won't buy it at all. She either has to eat five desserts, or not have dinner at all.'

Wendy found herself reluctantly nodding in agreement. There were times when Brenda could just drive her crazy, too.

'So does it bug you?' she asked.

'Of course it bugs me,' Jilly said. 'But you have to put up with your friends' shortcomings— just like you hope they'll put up with yours. Under all her anxieties and compulsive behavior has got to be one of the nicest, warmest people I know. What's saddest, I suppose, is that she doesn't know it.'

'So what should we do?'

'Just like we always do— be there for her when she needs us.'

'I suppose,' Wendy said. 'You know, I hate to say this, but I think what she really needs is a man in her life— a good, solid, dependable man who cares about her. I think that'd straighten up half the problems in her life.'

'I think she's got one,' Jilly said. 'That is, unless she screws this one up by going to the other extreme and suddenly playing too hard to get.'

'What do you mean?'

Jilly leaned forward. 'You know the guy she met at the bus stop?'

'Jim?'