The
Expert

Why am I paying to talk about this anyway? Therapy will not solve my fat problem. Nothing will solve it because the day I fainted in my dorm room shower from bulimia, I did not stop scheming. "Why are we talking about this?" I say, "This is stupid."

The therapist says this is not stupid. She asks if I think I have a healthy body.

I say, "Yes, maybe. I don't know." I say, "I can leg-press more than any one I know."

She nods like she is talking to a delusional psychotic.

"Four hundred pounds," I tell her.

She raises her eyebrows. "That's a lot," she says.

I flex my calves in case she's looking.

She says, "Do you eat healthy food?"

I say, "Yes."

She says, "Do you eat low-fat, no sugar?"

Is she kidding me? She is going to tell me, the Eating Disorder Queen, what is healthy eating? I am sure I know more about food that she does. Food is not her job.

I say, "I presented a contract to Tano that says if he is still with me when I am thirty-six then he will have a baby with me and he won't sign it and I think he is immature and selfish."

The therapist, whose arms are getting flabby, says, "Do you notice that you're falling into the pattern of focusing on having children instead of focusing on the real problem?"

"OK," I say, "The real problem is that I don't want to have to take fertility drugs and have ten Tanos running around my apartment."

The therapist rests her arms on the sides of her chair, and they are not really that flabby, her arms, but I notice her chair is way more comfortable than my squishy and warm-from-the-last-person chair. She says, "Do you want to have children?"

I say, "Yes."

She says, "Then you will. You are the type of person who makes sure you get what you want. If you want children, you'll get them."

I am stunned.

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