The Friends We Keep(62)

She was both horrified and relieved by her changing figure. The more weight she gained, the more Lance left her alone—other than to point out, as he was surely about to do, how fat she was, how disgusting. The passive-aggressive barbs had stopped long ago, replaced with disdain. His words still stung, but the knowledge that he no longer wanted to sleep with her, the protection the weight afforded her, was ample compensation for any sting she may have felt.

“You are enormous,” he whispered in disgust, shaking his head as she felt her breath catch in her throat.

Evvie would lie in bed at night and rest her hands on her belly, stroking the curves. She would walk into the bathroom and lift her pajama top, cup her heavy boobs, rub her rounded stomach, and think that if she weren’t in her midforties, she might be mistaken for being pregnant. And as much as she hated it, she recognized that she needed it, even though she struggled with her reflection in the mirror.

Her face had lost the sharp cheekbones of her youth, and although still exquisitely beautiful, she didn’t feel it; all she saw was her round face, her thick neck, the rolls of flesh around her back.

None of her old clothes fit. For the gala that night, she had bought a dress in a size she had never thought she would wear. She had been praised and rewarded for her beauty for her entire life, for her slimness, how perfect she was. And now? Now she had to buy her clothes online.

Once upon a time, men on trains would stop and stare at her, valets would rush to park her car, free gifts from beauty companies would arrive at the house. When she gained weight she became invisible, and the attention stopped, and when it stopped, as her marriage was disintegrating, Evvie’s confidence disappeared, leaving her quiet and withdrawn, a shadow of her former flirty, fun, sexy self.

She missed her old self. She pined for her confidence, for who she used to be when she knew she was beautiful and understood the power that came with that beauty, but that beauty wasn’t worth the cost of giving up the only thing that brought solace to her loneliness, the only thing that protected her from Lance. Her excess weight kept him well away from her, and as a result, Evvie, who now both hated and feared her husband, would continue to eat for as long as she could.

In the beginning Lance had insisted she diet, bringing in personal trainer after personal trainer, forcing her to work out in their home gym. She would lose a pound or two, but it always came back on, and she always found a way to get rid of the trainer. It was easier to blame hormones and early menopause rather than the cakes she had started buying and eating in secret.

Her weight enraged Lance, but she couldn’t stop eating. In every other area she tried not to displease him. She would tiptoe around him trying to make him happy, terrified of setting off one of his rages.

Over the years the rages became more and more frequent, more and more terrifying. Often, they started with derision, maybe teasing her size, poking a roll of flesh in her back. But they escalated quickly into verbal assault. At times like those, there was no shadow left of the man she had met. He became a completely different person.

He didn’t hit her, but she always expected him to. He loomed in her face, his jaw clenched in fury, unrecognizable in his ferocity as he spat out terrible things, hateful things, found her weakest spot, and went in for the kill.

Evvie had always thought she was strong. She had always been a fighter, and in the beginning, she had fought back. She screamed as loudly as Lance, got in his face, flounced out. But his rage was greater than hers, and eventually it wore her down—the never knowing what would set him off; the terrible, wounding things he said; the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. As the years went by, she became more and more reserved. As the years went by, she withdrew so completely, she forgot who she had once been.

Her real concern was Jack. Lance never went after Jack, but Evvie tried to protect her son from hearing, or seeing, how Lance treated her. She had done a good job, she thought. The rages almost always happened when Jack was at boarding school, and even when he was home, it was always behind their closed bedroom door. Jack didn’t know. She was sure he didn’t know.

Tonight was one she had been dreading. A gala at Sotheby’s, where she would be paraded around on his arm as he leered at other women with his male business associates.

Now, as they stood in the bathroom, he grimaced as he looked at her breasts, his eyes narrowed. Her heart started pounding in frightened anticipation of what he might say, of what he might do.

“A morbidly obese wife,” he sneered. “Jesus Christ. How in the hell did I end up with such a disgusting pig of a wife? It’s time you had a gastric bypass. I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier. We’ll get you looking halfway decent again. I’ll get Doris to make an appointment on Monday. I can barely even look at you now.”

He walked out of the bathroom then, and Evvie exhaled, unaware she had been holding her breath. She looked at herself in the mirror, trying to drown out his voice with more positive messaging of her own.

“You are strong,” she whispered. “You are a wonderful mother. You are smart and capable. You are a good person. You are beautiful.

“Don’t let him get to you,” she whispered to herself. “You know why you’re heavy. And you are better than he is. You deserve more.” She rolled her shoulders back, shook out her hair, and despite wanting to crawl into bed, she plastered on her best smile, and slipped on her shoes.