But though her weight seemed lower, Maddy’s clothes were never looser; in fact, they felt tighter, her shirts and her jeans squeezing her tightly like a full-body corset. It was like all her work was making things worse.
But after a month she had an idea; if mornings were rough, she’d switch to the evenings. The weigh-in moved to after her dinner, now a meal of hot water soup with a hint of scotch whiskey, and after she’d done slurping she would try on her clothes.
And so she did, and while the scale told the same lies the clothes now fit her better. So much better, in fact, that she felt like a woman again and not a tightly cased sausage. So she squealed with delight, knowing that this time it was different; this time her body was listening. And then she turned on the TV and soon fell asleep.
The next day she awoke with a smile and a deep pain in her stomach, and after a heavy breakfast of four oversized grapes, Maddy went to her closet to dress for work.
And the clothes didn’t fit; the clothes were too tight.
Maddy squealed in frustration.
And Alberich laughed. And then he mooed. And then he laughed again.
And Maddy felt he was acting a little suspicious.
She left her apartment and went across the hall, making sure that her house-elves had not come along. She knocked on the door of dreamy Benjamin Trasett, and he answered with a smile and a welcome fib about all the weight she had lost.
She asked for a favour, and Benjamin said yes; he always said yes, with a dumbfounded smile and a bulge of his eyes.
She went back to her apartment to lay out the trap. She needed a distraction, so she spun up her Tivo for the elves’ favorite show. And as every last house elf sat on the couch, eyes glued to The Donald and his tower of hair, Maddy laid out the sticky pads at the door to her closet.
And then she changed over to Runway and got ready for bed.
The next morning came and Maddy’s life changed. She passed on the grapes and a reheating of last night’s soup of hot water; she got out the frying pan and a big stick of butter. And she made a new breakfast to kick off her new life.
She’d used up all five of the sticky pads at once. She found five tiny house-elves stuck to those pads, each one brimming over with remorse and carrying a tiny needle and thread. She’d realized only then that it had been a team effort.
And for the first morning in months her pants weren’t too tight. And her shirts hung too loosely, and even her socks felt too big. Just one night was enough to show her what’s what.
Maddy McKay really was skinny; her time had finally come.
In fact, she could probably stand to gain a few pounds.
Maddy looked back to her breakfast, in the frying pan she’d rediscovered at long last. She’d had a full serving of food, at least. But she could eat more.
She went back for seconds, and thirds, fourths, and fifths. It was the best meal she’d had in forever.
Her five tiny house-elves were completely delicious.
8. The Ocean Goddess and The Home Run Queen
DANGER, MY goddess would whisper softly to me whenever The Wolfman would approach. Danger.
His thick and brown-black facial hair, his wet-dog musk and throaty New York accent, his ivory-white fake fangs sticking out against his yellowed smokers’ teeth.
He was my kind of danger.
My goddess would always tell me that The Wolfman was legit, that there was something supernatural about him. My goddess told me he was just like us.
But the rest of me knew it was an act, plastic wolf teeth and all. I’d met many fakers like him on both sides of Freak Alley, people so bored with being ordinary that they run straight to being monsters. I knew that The Wolfman had been a nobody before he’d gotten dressed up. But that didn’t bother me. Real or not, The Wolfman was exactly the kind of guy I’d like to bring home and check for ticks.
Not that he was the type to “go home” with anyone; he’d always been an open air kind of guy, preying on the fudgies mostly, sniffing out the prettiest tourists and taking them out to the woods like any authentic wolfman should. On occasion he’d go for one of the girls who worked at the carnival, but he hadn’t gone for me just yet.
I guess you have to work your way up to the Home Run Queen of The UP.
I saw him with Anastasia once, right before she left town without a word; I was pretty sure no one missed her. He’d swooped in and picked her up in his arms, carrying her like a golden-haired sack of potatoes dressed in a polyester-blend fish tail and plastic coconut bikini cups.
I’m not going to admit to watching them together, making love or whatever you’d call it, but I will say that they did it outside like the others, somewhere out in the forest that stretches from The Bridge to Cheboygan, and that when I’d closed my eyes it was me who was pretending to be a mermaid getting pounded by that broad-shouldered half-wolf, twenty feet away from the spot where they dump all the grease from the deep-fryers.
They’d still been going at it, when after twenty minutes I’d decided to go back to my camper and do something just for me. I no longer had hot water for my massaging showerhead but I found a way. And that was what got me started on thinking about the day when it’d finally be my turn with The Wolfman.
I’d seen how he looked at me.
I was sure if it wasn’t for my uncle I’d’ve already had a poison ivy rash between my thighs.
Wednesday started off badly when I realized I forgot my iPhone in the shower room at the bunkhouse. It got even worse after my first show, when Sandra the slime-mold talent agent stopped by my tank again, clapping like a blonde harp seal at the end of my act. She acted like she hadn’t already watched the same pearl-diving stunt of mine on both Monday and Tuesday.
“You were great, Vanessa,” she said once she had me trapped by the ladder, stuck between the tank wall and a crowd of sticky kids looking for autographs. “Sexy as always.”
“I’m not comfortable being hit on in front of children,” I said.
“I have another opportunity. Atlantic City. Brand new attraction. AC is on the upswing.”
“Have a good flight.”
“Hear me out. I can get you a real audience for once. Must get tough playing for a few bargain-bin tourists and a buttload of moose.”
“Look… I’m not interested.” I tried to sound a little more gruff than the last time, without letting on to the waiting ten-year-olds and a handful of lust-addled teenage boys that I was losing my cool. I didn’t want the attention you’d get from being that short-tempered diving chick. I didn’t want all eyes on me and the hard-to-see slits at the back of my neck.
“You weren’t interested in Sandusky. I get that. Barf. But this is Atlantic City. The Jersey Shore.”
“I’ll never be able to orange my skin enough for that,” I said.
“They’d love you just as you are. Girl next door with a touch of the exotic.” She took a deep breath. It might have been a dramatic pause. “Say goodbye to Mackinaw, hun. First you play AC for a few months. Then it’s the big time. Television. Maybe even basic cable.”
I tried to slip around her. “I really need to go.”
“Think about it, Nessie.”
“Nessie?”
“Nessa?”
“People are waiting to talk to me.”