Abby lifted a triangle of bread, blistered light brown on the outside, pillowy-soft on the inside, and swiped it through the hummus, popping it in her mouth and chewing blissfully.
Mark’s smile looked a little tense as he scooted the basket across the table, so it was closer to Abby. He’d told her, over and over, that it didn’t bother him to watch her eat the foods that he couldn’t. She still wondered if he could smell the warm bread, if the scent bothered him, if he ever dreamed about a feast of carbs, pita and bagels and soft cinnamon rolls slathered in icing.
She watched as he picked up a slice of red pepper. Holding his knife in one graceful hand—surgeon’s hands, Abby always thought—he spread the thinnest layer of hummus on the pepper, popped it into his mouth, and chewed… and chewed… and chewed some more, twenty times total (Abby had counted once, early on, and realized that Mark chewed every bite twenty times).
That night, they’d each ordered their usual selections, apportioning the food in their usual manner. Abby got all of the buttery phyllo dough from the spanakopita. Mark got the spinach-and-cheese innards, plus the hummus and baba ghanoush, sans pita. His main course was a Greek salad with grilled chicken, dressed with just red vinegar. Abby got a lamb tagine, rich chunks of braised lamb shoulder in a pyramid of couscous studded with plump sultanas, slivered almonds, and dates. It was one of her absolute favorite dishes in the world. That night it tasted like wet cardboard, and she had so little appetite that, halfway through, she’d pushed her plate away.
“So what do you think?” Mark was asking. “You should probably let your landlord know if you’re not going to be renewing your lease.”
“Oh, Kate’s not going to have any trouble finding a new tenant.” Abby lived in Bella Vista, a neighborhood that wasn’t as fancy as Mark’s. The rowhouse whose top floor she rented had been built in the 1870s, while Mark’s twenty-eight-story building had been constructed more than a hundred years later, but Abby loved her place. Even though the hardwood floors were a little tilt-y, and the closets were shallow. Even though her bathroom floor and walls were covered in salmon pink tiles, and she was pretty sure the fixtures hadn’t been updated since the invention of flush toilets.
“Still, you should let her know.”
Abby nodded. She imagined herself carrying all her belongings back down the stairs, giving Kate the keys, moving into Mark’s place. Instead of picturing the two of them in prewedded bliss, she found herself thinking about the moment when they’d walked into the restaurant. The hostess had given Mark a slow, approving up-and-down. Then her gaze flickered over to Abby, and her face had cramped, briefly, with what looked, to Abby, like a combination of confusion and disgust. Abby had felt herself stiffen, then relax as Mark had pulled her closer, keeping his hand on the small of Abby’s back, pulling her chair out for her, kissing her cheek before he sat down.
Abby knew that, by now, she should be used to it. She and Mark didn’t match. Mark was as good-looking as a movie star (albeit a slightly miniature one, like he’d been left a little too long in the dryer). He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a sharp jawline and skin that glowed gold even in the winter, and a lean, muscled body kept trim with the six-mile runs he did seven days a week. Mark ran in the rain, in the snow, and, once, in a polar vortex.
“You know, you can take a day off,” Abby had told him that morning, watching as he’d swathed himself in layer after layer of technical, water-repelling fabric, while her phone buzzed with warnings, telling people to stay indoors. “Or run on a treadmill. They’re saying it’s actually dangerous to be outside today. And it’s not like you’re going to end up on My 600-Lb. Life if you miss one run.”
“No,” said Mark. “That won’t happen unless I miss two.” He’d kissed the tip of her nose and headed out the door.
Abby was not a runner. Nor would anyone think she looked like a movie star, shrunken or otherwise. Abby was short and pale and round, with curly light-brown hair and skin that burned and freckled. Even though she’d been an ardent cyclist for years, she was not what people saw when they pictured an athlete. When she was with Mark she’d see people staring at the two of them, trying visibly to make it make sense. She’d think about what she’d say to them, if she were brave enough: I have a great personality, or I’m incredible in bed, or maybe just the truth: he used to be fat once, too.
“I saw my mom today,” Abby said, desperate, for reasons she didn’t completely understand and did not want to dwell on, to move the conversation away from the topic of her lease.
“Am I still Eileen’s favorite?” Mark asked.
“I think you’d have to actually kill someone to not be her favorite. And, even then, she’d probably think it was the victim’s fault.”
“Any news?” Mark asked.
Abby rolled her eyes. “Where to begin. My cousin Rebecca is engaged, my brother got a promotion, and my sister and brother-in-law are redoing their bathroom. Heated floors, and a shower that converts to a sauna. Eileen told me all about it.” Abby did not bother sharing the subtext of Eileen’s report, which was that Abby, who hadn’t been promoted and who did not own a house, was a disappointment. Unlike her sister, Marni, who’d earned an MBA from Wharton, and her brother, Simon, who did something finance-related in New York, unlike her father, who was a rabbi, and her mother, who’d say she was a homemaker but whose real job was full-time dieter, Abby had still not identified anything resembling a career path, had failed to provide her mother with even a minimum allotment of nachas. She was still working at Pup Jawn; still picking up the occasional odd job or dog-sitting gig. She knew she wanted to do something bigger, something that made a difference in the world, but, so far, she hadn’t managed to figure out what that something might be.
And that was one of the many reasons Mark was so appealing. Marrying Mark, having a family with Mark, would fill in the blanks. It would give her a life to step into, with all the milestones preordained. She’d have his babies. Manage their house and their schedule and, eventually, their family’s schedule. She would book their vacations, buy their clothes and groceries, do their laundry, prepare their meals—or hire someone who would. It was a world at the ready; a carriage with luxurious fittings and a destination selected. All Abby had to do was climb aboard.
And it wasn’t like she doubted Mark, who’d been her summer camp sweetheart; who’d met her when she was thirteen and had loved her when Abby had been in desperate need of love and affirmation. Mark wasn’t looking for a skinny girl, nor was he convinced that there was one residing inside Abby, just waiting for the right set of circumstances, or some combination of surgical interventions and weight-loss drugs, to emerge. He understood that Abby had made a different set of choices from his own about weight and food and her body, and he respected those choices. At least, he did his best, although she’d caught him relocating her ice cream to the very back of the freezer (where it would, inevitably, get freezer burn), and, once or twice, he’d thrown out her leftover samosas or pork buns. Accidentally, he’d said. Abby wasn’t sure.
Mark didn’t eat carbs. Mark didn’t eat desserts. He’d once told her that, if he wanted something sweet, he’d brush his teeth, or floss with cinnamon dental floss. When Abby told him that was the saddest thing she’d ever heard, he’d stiffened, looking chagrined.