Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 136(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 136(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
She shakes her head as the server comes over with her martini and our two Shirley Temples balanced on a tray.
The weight battle has been ongoing since my childhood. Mom was a former Miss Indianapolis and three times Miss Indy 500. She puts image before substance in almost all areas of life, especially physical appearances. Her go-to line is, ‘If you don’t respect yourself, how do you think anyone else will respect you?’
Which, as I got older and became aware of the way she disappeared into the bathroom after every meal and kept a detailed chart of her weights at exactly eight am, noon, and eight pm, made me question her version of respect. Because turning your body inside out several times a day in order to keep that magic number in the green on the chart did not seem to track.
But we all have our shit, that’s for sure. I’ve gotten bigger, this is true, but that’s not a conversation I’m willing to entertain as I prepare to spend Christmas alone in a house devoid of any gifts or decorations, all in order for me to spend some quiet time reflecting on my priorities and lack of commitment to the church of write-a-big-enough-check-and-you-are-forgiven.
Fuck that. I’ll string popcorn on a thread and wrap it around a pine tree before I’ll pretend to be something I’m not. They’ve pushed me more the last couple years to join the church officially as an adult which, of course, they will cover the ‘donation’ that’s required to do so.
It came to a head two weeks ago when I refused to complete the application from Paster Roger Morgan that appeared in my email box with a personal note about his ‘excitement’ to have another member of the Houser family in their fold.
I replied thanking him, but declining the invitation to apply on the grounds that his enforcement of ‘traditional values’ for the church members stood in direct contrast to my personal sighting of him in a Bozeman bar kissing a woman who was most certainly not his wife.
That did not go over well. He denied it of course. My parents believed him and told me my priorities needed attention.
My parents are not evil, though. Colbert has never treated me like anything less than a daughter.
He’s stiff and sometimes lacks insight into what it might be like to go from a tri-plex in Indy to living home-on-the-range with a rich new step-dad in Montana, but I’m grateful that he loves my mother and me, and he provides a wonderful lifestyle.
It was to my mother’s disappointment that I decided to go into pre-law with a future focus on being a public defender. Very non-glamorous. But I have to thank Colbert for supporting my academics when my mom would have been more than happy for me to get implants at sixteen and use college more as a search for my MRS degree, rather than a path to law school.
I never knew my own father. As cliché as it sounds, my mom was waitressing at the bunny club in downtown Indy, where she met a traveling salesman one night who baited her with hundred-dollar tips and a whirlwind week of I’ve-never-met-someone-quite-like-you.
Then, poof. Mr. Potential Daddy Warbucks was gone, leaving behind only his fake name and a sperm donation.
Mom opens her mouth to say something else, likely about my weight gain, but in usual Isabel form, she raises her glass, shifting the energy at the table with her magic smile.
“Here’s to me, here’s to you, here’s to no one getting the flu!”
“Cheers to that.” I clink her glass, then hold mine out to my mother’s, and she clinks the rim of her glass to mine as we call a silent truce.
I stare out the restaurant window as I sip the sweet, chilled liquid, seeing my stepfather’s black Ford F350 King Ranch pickup pull up, which, for the rest of the world that might not know, costs more than my mom’s Mercedes.
I raise a hand and wave as he comes around the front of the truck, catches my eye through the glass, then Isabel leans across and does the same.
“Hi, Dad!” she yells at the glass as he breaks into a slow cowboy loping jog toward the door, appearing around the corner inside a few seconds later.
“Look at this.” He smiles and brushes the flakes of snow off his suit jacket, leaving his black Stetson El Presidente on his head. In Montana, your cowboy hat is pretty much a permanent part of your anatomy, unless someone is singing the national anthem, praying, or you’re getting in the shower. I’m pretty sure cowboys even fuck with their hats on. “My three most favorite women. My whole family together again. Surprised the table isn’t surrounded by men trying to horn in on my territory.”