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“How tall are you?”
“Five six.”
“And what’s considered to be the medically healthy weight for a woman your height?”
“According to the Mayo Clinic, between one hundred twenty-three and one hundred thirty-seven pounds.”
It didn’t surprise me that she knew the Mayo Clinic’s clinical answer off the top of her head. “And how much do you weigh?” I asked, reiterating my original question.
“Can we just talk about my period some more? I prefer Motrin for cramps but Aleve will do in a pinch.”
“Thanks for sharing, but I think I already know all I need to know about you on the menstrual front. What I want is for you to tell me how much you weigh. I want to hear you say the number out loud.”
“Why?”
“So I can tell you how nuts you are.”
“You don’t think asking a woman her weight is a little bit personal?”
“You’retellingmeabout personal?” I said. “I’m currently breaking the record for the world’s longest public hard-on here. I’m pretty sure you owe me one.”
“I’m pretty sure I already gave you one.”
“Very funny,” I said. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a wiseass?”
“Yes.”
“How much do you weigh!”
She scrunched her face like a stubborn kid whose mommy was forcing her to say she was sorry. “How much doyouweigh?”
As if any man who wasn’t a professional wrestler was embarrassed to admit his weight. “One hundred eighty-seven pounds. Five foot eleven and three quarters, starting to gray at the temples, and eighteen years old with another freshman from my dorm. And last but not least,” I said, pointing to my groin area, “this is how I spent the entirety of tenth grade geometry class because Mr. Foley justhadto seat me behind Elena Rodriguez. So there, I win. Let’s see you out-personal that.”
She knew she’d been beat. You can always count on a good old-fashioned open-air erection story to outdo everyone else in the conversation circle. You should hear me at Christmas dinner. I’m the goddamned life of the party.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m a hundred and thirty-seven pounds. Top of my weight class. Feel free to congratulate me.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “I happen to think you have a very nice body.”
“In a fetish magazine sort of way.”
“For the last time, you’re not overweight!” I said. “Or hefty or pudgy or pleasingly plump!”
“How abouton the heavy side?”
“If by ‘on the heavy side’ you mean that you have a sweet cuddle body, then yeah,” I said, “you’re on the heavy side.”
“Oh my God!” she said. “Did you just say I’m on the heavy side?”
What was it that Freud said again? Wait, now I remembered—Give up, Ian, you’re never going to win this one. But I refused to back down. I’d seen too many of my father’s wives and lady friends obsess over their weight, only to look about ten times worse once they’d starved their way into skeletal versions of their former selves. Clara was beautiful the way she was, and if any sexist pig thought otherwise, that was his problem, not hers. “If your healthy weight is between one-twenty-three and one-thirty-seven, then one-thirty is the median, right?”
“Right.”
“So that means you are, in fact, seven points in favor of the heavy side. Which, in my personal opinion, is not and should not be a problem.”
“Tell Tyler that,” she said, turning away with a huff.
I felt instantly guilty. For a minute there, I’d forgotten that tomorrow was supposed to be her wedding day, and that the reason it wasn’t was the fifteen pounds that were the topic of our current discussion. But to be fair, she made it easy to forget she had a freshly broken heart. If she hadn’t told me about her breakup, I never would have guessed. She didn’t act like someone who’d just been unceremoniously dumped. When Greta fired me, I was a total basket case for months, and anyone standing within a mile of me could see it.
