Vibrating Men.

Barbara, also single and on a tear worked in the same office as Anna. Their vibrating cell phones often interrupted peals of laughter as they compared Saturday night date stories on Monday mornings. Those vibrations were the Saturday night men calling. Sometimes they'd stop laughing long enough to take a call. That was depending on who was calling of course. Naturally some men were more worthy than others.
However, Anna was finding it increasingly difficult to juggle the vibrating men. Not because she was having 24/7 sex but because under Anna’s hot new attitude the heart of a good girl still beat.
Tina advised Anna to bang all of them all the time. Anna loved her to pieces but what a whore Tina could be.
Then there was that pressing problem of what to do about Mr. MBA and Gian. Mr. MBA didn't know about Gian. He would be hurt. But Gian knew about Mr. MBA. In fact, Gian was the one who started calling him Mr. MBA.
Poor Mr. MBA. Gian was just a bad ass Wop.

Happening or not?

They sat in a sexy little bar on Bloor Street. It was late one night in early April and snowing outside. Unnatural she thought, kinda’ like what was going on inside the bar. Mr. MBA’s upper lip was sweaty. Why the hell was that? It was really getting on her nerves. It was just so creepy. Then she noticed a miniscule hole in his sweater. First, she couldn’t stop focusing on his sweaty lip. Now this hole was, in Anna’s mind morphing into a crater size rip of proportions capable of causing dinosaur extinction.
Anna’s beautiful expensive boots were killing her and she was freezing. Okay, so I’m either getting the flu, or I need to have another martini or I need to dump Mr. MBA she thought.
She’d been seeing Gian every Friday night for the last month and a half. Sort of. Anna hadn’t had sex with him. Sometimes they’d go for drinks. Sometimes dinner. Sometimes an art film. He’d want to come home with her every time. She said no every time.
The night before he stood on the subway platform and kissed her neck. This is never going to happen is it? That's what he whispered to her.
Something had to give.

On a Petrie Dish.

They left the bar and stood on the street talking. While he talked Anna listened. She studied him carefully. Very carefully. Like he was lying flat out on a petrie dish. Under a microscope.
She was definitely attracted to him. No doubt about that. She no longer had any interest in the Nordic looking guys who used to turn her on. Gone with the strudel.
Still, despite his good looks Anna decided she wouldn't be sleeping with him. Ever.

Trouble.

And so for the lack of any remotely inspiring men on the horizon she went out one more time and met one more twenty something. He was at the bar drinking rye and coke. Anna didn’t remember the date they met but she clearly remembered what he was wearing. A dark shirt and black striped pants with a chain attached to his wallet. His earrings. His chin stud. His ink. Typical bad ass looking Italian. Probably lived in Woodbridge. She'd asked to see some ID. It was meant as a joke but he pulled out his driver’s license. At least he was a late twenty something she thought. His hair was very long in the photo. He talked a lot about his hair that night. How he liked it, its effect on women, and how he felt when he got it chopped off. Apart from his crazy love for his hair Gian seemed like the rest. Persistent about getting Anna into the sack.

Jaded was good afterall.

But hey, maybe jaded wasn't that bad after all. Jaded women always smoked and drank martinis. And they never, ever had cats. A pitcher of ice cold martinis in the fridge wasn’t half bad. She’d have to nix the ciggies though. Terrible for the skin. Jaded women had lip wrinkles that defied even those most expensive Socialite Collection of lip liners. And wrinkles anywhere were infinitely worse than pissing cats. The more she thought about it the better jaded sounded.
But deep, deep, down inside her still shredded Valentine of a heart she knew she would be neither a cat lover or a drunk.

Men or Cats?

Eventually and not unpredictably Anna's interest in twenty somethings began to wane. This included Mr. MBA. She wanted to meet someone inspiring. Or something like that. Maybe that was asking too much. Maybe she didn’t know what she wanted. God, she hoped she wouldn't become lonely. Or jaded. Lonely women always kept cats. Lots of them. Pissing all over the place. The thought of cats pissing all over the furniture convinced her she could never be lonely.

Like mother, like daughter.

She was on a tear, as her mother would have called it. When Anna was a kid her mother had gone on one hell of a tear when Anna's father left. She said it was something every woman should do when the man she loves dumps her. That was just her mother’s style. And she had one of those fling things with a very hot young guy. Anna had been mortified to see them sitting at the kitchen table having a glass of wine. Later that night Anna pointed out to her mother it was not really appropriate. But the real problem was not a moral issue. Anna had been in serious and secret crush with this guy.
Anna would google Mark later to see if he was fat now.

Mr. MBA.

Until she started dating one. He was studying for his MBA and loved sports as much as sex. He loved to drive to the Air Canada Centre in the middle of the night and neck in the parking lot. He'd ask her to wear her glasses. The school teacher look. When Anna told her about this Liz laughed so hard she almost pissed herself. And if not the Air Canada Centre then some other outdoor spot. Like the power generating windmills on the shores of Lake Ontario. The windmills captivated Anna. While Mr. MBA had his tongue down her throat she would try to calculate the megawatts of power the windmills generated. Beautiful endless revolutions of flight. Under a half moon. When Anna and Mr. MBA weren't having sex in god forbid, semi public places he'd explain Business Economics 101 to her. Ever patient. In the hot tub at his parents' cottage, Anna would lie back and listen to him drone on. As the water swirled over her breasts her mind would wander to the scene that would explode if his parents showed up unexpectedly. It struck her as quite funny. She laughed out loud. Mr. MBA thought Anna was laughing at Chapter Three. Supply and Demand.

Anna tests the water.

Anna went out almost every weekend after that. For the most part she had fun. Sort of. In a vague way. Mindless distraction.

Eventually she took the occasional 20 something home. Not always. Thank god. Like the fuckingly gorgeous Greek who told Anna his ex-girlfriend had herpes. Mentally she thanked him for the head's up. But if Anna wouldn’t sleep with him did she have any Greek girlfriends who would? Moron.

Most of the twenty somethings were very sweet. More than a few wanted to keep seeing her. Anna dumped them the morning after. Usually.

The fun begins or does it?

It was around this time Tina decided they should take Anna out. Out to find a man. That's what they said.
Anna seriously wondered if she wanted another man right now or ever again. But the thought of martinis and cigarettes and laughter was too tempting. Okay, so maybe it was time.
Anna came to think of this as her Resurrection. Tina referred to it as Anna's night to get laid. Liz gave her a Durex box tied with a pink bow.
The bar was really dark and really noisy and really full of twenty something men. Liz had vanished and Tina was talking to some guy who looked no older than nineteen. For Christ sake.
It wasn’t long until one of the twenty somethings appeared at Anna's side. Look at those legs he said. Will you let me buy you a drink? Sure, if you'd like . He bought her too many drinks. They laughed all night but she didn't go to bed with him. Not for his lack of trying. Tina found out and gave Anna hell. Anna told Tina to piss off.

In the Beginning...

Anna couldn’t bear the thought of taking another step. But not because her high heels pinched her toes. They always did but they looked great. She stood at the subway platform and seriously considered throwing herself in front of the next train. A la Anna Karenina. The train hurtled into the station causing a shockwave of wind. Immediately the vision of her body, broken and bloody and stuck to the front of the train put her off. The drama queen blown away. Self preservation kicked in at the last minute. She decided there and then to go get herself a good shrink, a wack of Prozac or whatever the drug du jour was, and get on with things.

The problem with Anna's plan was that the Prozac and the sleeping pills made her feel really spaced out. So she took a month off work and stayed home. In bed. The only time she really made much of an effort to do anything was to walk to the bakery to buy pastries. Religiously before going to sleep each night she’d eat one large piece of Baklava, two medium sized slices of strudel and one blueberry square. Then she'd put out the light hoping her pastry sins would be absolved. The strudel was the only fruit, and things cultural Anna craved these days. Under the weighty effects of a sleeping pill she reminded herself this was the way Sumo wrestlers got fat. Morbidly obese they called it. Only with the wrestlers it was huge portions of bad Western food. Two whole roasted chickens and mounds of mashed potatoes slathered in gravy made from the chicken fat. All this at one sitting. Then bed. Not a bean sprout in sight. Food and sleeping equals fat. Her mother had said so. Fat and happy. She'd wondered about the latter. So there it was, bouts of tears, living under a blanket with a box of Kleenex and Oprah at 3 in the afternoon. Jerry Springer when she was feeling extra gloomy.

She emailed her sister every morning. Carol knew more about men than anyone in the world and told Anna she’d get through this. "Are you sure there’s no hope? Really? Okay, in the meantime email or phone me whenever you feel the need. Even if its in the middle of the night. Promise me? You just need time to forget". Carol emailed her a great recipe for tuna casserole. The tuna casserole would become another lame cultural statement one day. Right now just getting through the day was a statement.

Anna loved bed time the best. With the pills of course. Anna's mother told her once that she was like a character from the unrelentingly bad novel “Valley of the Dolls”. But that was when Anna was younger. Her periods hurt so much only coedine could dull the pain. Her mother was unaware of the drugs that were part of Anna's life now. Carol swore she'd never tell their mother, or any other living soul for that matter. Carol was true to her word. There was never any doubt about that. Carol said she'd never repeat any of the dirty little secrets people told her. If they ever found out she'd blabbed then the secrets would dry up and that was no fun.

Anna didn’t remember a whole lot about her therapy except that Dr. Komar was annoying as hell. Sometimes she daydreamed her 50 minutes away in a blissful Prozac haze while he talked. And he could talk a lot. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? Or else she cried. Actually she cried a great deal of the time. Dr. Komar assumed he was breaking through her emotional walls. He seemed relieved whenever she cried. As if finally he knew he was making real inroads towards dissecting her psyche. Deconstucting her. Slowly but surely. The truth was Anna was crying because she just wanted her Prozac and for him to shut up. She didn’t want to answer any questions about her childhood. Water under the bridge as far as she was concerned. She knew herself better than any shrink ever could. Just bring on those mind numbing prescriptions. Solace from the scribble of a shrink's pen.

Anna stuck her head out from under the covers and looked at the clock. She had an appointment with Komar. She’d do a pastry run at the same time. How efficient she thought. Killing two birds with one stone. Efficiency. Now there's a breakthrough Dr. Komar. Because her mother hated that expression Anna used it as often as she could. When her mother was a teenager she'd been playing with a shotgun and shot a bird. An accident. Shot it right out of its nest. Nest, air, ground. That was all there was to it. That was exactly how Anna felt. Like she’d been sitting in her nest whistling away in the sunshine. Bam. A blast from nowhere. Nest, air, ground. Only the blast didn't come with a bullet but with a voice message. She should be happy he was gone. She wished she was.

Another problem with Dr. Komar was he was inexplicably tight with the Kleenex box. What kind of issues could he possibly have with Kleenex? How much was he billing OHIP for this? If her eyes and nose were going to be red and blotchy and her face streaked with mascara with no Kleenex in sight, she at least wanted to be well dressed.

Anna went to the closet and took out a very expensive black skirt. She hadn’t worn it in several weeks. She was putting on her sexiest black bra and panties when she felt a sudden, very strong craving for the last piece of strudel. She went to the kitchen to get the strudel, a cup of coffee and returned to the bedroom. Strudel for the road so to speak. Anna put her coffee down on the bureau. With a large piece of strudel in her mouth and strudel in one hand she slid the skirt up over her knees. Up towards her waist. That’s where it stopped. The skirt must have shrunk. What did Mr. Wong, her oh so careful drycleaner, do to her skirt? In the creeping way it is want to do, reality sunk in. What had been a perfect waist had grown into something else. The skirt wouldn’t even fit over her brand new thighs. Where had her size 7 disappeared to? Anna was astonished at her new and most decidedly unimproved physical reality. All her life she'd been slender.

Now here was a real disaster Dr Komar. Anna spat out the strudel. Spat it right onto the floor. The strudel lay in a white and red blob at her feet. Anna stood in front of the mirror and looked at her thighs. Then quite calmly she put on the highest heels she owned. The shiny black ones. The ones that pinched her feet the most. And then much to her own surprise she stepped down, stepped down really hard on the lump of half chewed strudel. Anna scraped the strudel and two raisins off her shoe, called her boss to say she was coming back to work, poured a big glass of wine, lit a cigarette, opened the fridge and gathered anything with more than five grams of fat and stuffed it into a garbage bag. Christ, she thought. There was a lot.

Anna tied the bag with a twist tie, opened the side door and tossed it out. The bag hit the flagstone walk with a crash and split open. She took a long drag on her cigarette and watched the fat leak out. Garbage bag lipo. She tossed the butt into a trail of whipping cream trickling down the stones. She went straight into the bathroom and dumped her sleeping pills and anti depressants into the can. Just to be sure the pills were gone she flushed twice. She lit another cigarette and stood looking into the toliet bowl, then tossed the cigarette in.

True to her word bright and early the next day she was back at her desk. And she was at the gym every morning before work. And faithfully lunching on salads and dining on tofu. Tofu prepared in a myriad of ways. Only a few weeks into her diet Tina and Liz took a photograph of her. It showed a distinct roundness to her body. A roundness Anna thought wasn't disappearing fast enough. At first she'd freaked out. Later she hugged her friends. The photograph served to cement her inspiration. Romaine salad and tofu. Always the same. She came to detest tofu. But she suffered. She went to the gym twice a day then and frequently skipped meals. Skipping tofu was a blessing.

Slowly the tofu trauma paid off. Tight skirts and dresses looked oh so good on Anna. Never would she eat tofu again.