The Friends We Keep(55)

Evvie paused at a picture of a model she had known well when she was young. A model who had a comeback career now that she was in her early fifties, her mane of blond hair now white, a handful of crow’s-feet around her eyes, but as beautiful as she always was. She had instigated a trend for older models. Lance climbed into bed beside Evvie, glancing over at the picture.

“Who’s that?”

“Arabella. We used to work together a million years ago.”

“She still looks fantastic. Look at that figure! How old is she? She must be younger than you.”

Evvie flinched at the barb. “No. She’s much older. She looks great though.”

“You used to look like that,” said Lance. “You should get into shape again. And stop with the late-night snacking.”

The words made her angry and tearful. She still carried shame about eating, about being seen eating, and shame about ever having been, or being, overweight. Lance’s comment burned. She felt her ears and cheeks grow hot. She didn’t want to eat the cereal at night. Lying in bed each night she told herself that tomorrow would be the start of a new day, that tomorrow she would begin the day with a smoothie, eat nothing but salads, and snack on fruit if she had to snack on anything at all.

Her mornings started well, but by midafternoon she was starving, and the cakes, the cookies, the furtive eating when Lance was at work and the housekeepers were on the other side of the house were both shameful and comforting. And every night, just like tonight, she lay in bed feeling her stomach growing more round, her breasts heavier as she vowed that she would start again tomorrow.

She knew that Lance wasn’t happy about it, but this was the first time he had said something outright, and she had no idea what to say, wanting only to bury herself under the covers and weep.

“Put the magazine down,” Lance said. “We need to discuss this.”

“Are you joking?” Evvie then turned to look at him. “You want to discuss my occasional bowl of late-night cereal as if it’s a serious issue?”

“The late-night cereal isn’t an issue, but I don’t want to be married to a fatty.”

Evvie gasped in horror. “First of all, are you really that superficial? And secondly, I’m hardly a ‘fatty,’ as you call it. So I’m not model thin anymore. I’m forty years old and a mother. I’m not supposed to be rail thin.”

“I’m just telling you what I’m attracted to. It has nothing to do with superficiality. I like my women to be thin. You have always been thin, but the last few months you’ve been gaining weight, and I would like to see you get back to your best self.”

“What if this is my best self?” Evvie’s voice was bitter, filled with disbelief that they were even having this conversation.

“Let’s just hope for your sake that it’s not,” he said.

“I hope you’re kidding,” Evvie said. “Are you actually fat-shaming me?”

“You can call it whatever you want. I’m telling you that in your role as my wife, you have to look a certain way, and I not only don’t want you putting on any more weight, I want you to lose the weight you’ve put on. What is it, ten pounds? Fifteen?”

“I don’t know,” said Evvie, which was true, as she had been avoiding the bathroom scale ever since her clothes started to feel tight. She blinked back the tears that had started to form, incredulous that her husband, the man she thought was her knight in shining armor, was turning out to be more controlling than she ever would have dreamed.

She should have known better. She should have known that you don’t get to have this kind of success, this kind of money, without being some kind of control freak, without being used to having everyone around you do everything your way.



* * *



? ? ?

When she met Lance, she was the single mother of a six-year-old boy. Since the day Jack was born, Evvie had devoted herself to being his mother. She worked sporadically, modeling, doing catalog work, but because she couldn’t make it to the go-sees, couldn’t travel at the drop of a hat anymore, the work slowly dried up. She found herself an ex-model and a single mother, willing to do whatever she needed to do to work.

The early days were easy. She had money to burn, dressed Jack in gorgeous Bonpoint outfits, the best of everything. She barely worked, and when she did, she found a network of babysitters to come and look after Jack. But every second away from him was hell.

Jack was the perfect baby. He was beautiful looking, with caramel skin and large brown eyes, and strangers would sigh over his dimples and adorable smile. His personality was equally sunny, and Evvie knew she had been blessed.

She left her downtown loft for a smaller two bedroom on the Upper West Side, and then, when the merry-go-round of private school craziness was about to start, decided to leave New York and head out to the suburbs. There, the schools were free, and a small yellow bus would pick her son up and drop him off at the end of the road every day.

She needed to be careful with money by that time. She was plowing through her savings rather than making more, and her bank account was dwindling. She needed to find somewhere with great public schools, and she wanted fresh air for Jack, a place where he could grow up bicycling.

She found a small house near the railway station in Westport, Connecticut. She started taking on work as a style consultant, helping women organize their closets, coordinating their wardrobes, shopping with them at Mitchells and the Darien Sport Shop. She was always elegant and immaculately put together, even though the designer clothes in her own closet were years old.