Wilhelm’s has become an institution in the East 40s, and I am one of their cherished patrons. Who else but yours truly is intimately familiar with every one of their thirty-three sandwiches? Who else calls on them to cater parties? An autographed picture of me with my chunky arm around owner and sandwich meister Wilhelm Obermayer is mounted on the wall as if I’m a visiting dignitary. It says, “To Wilhelm, my hero.”
There is a reason for my devotion. A sandwich from Wilhelm’s isn’t a sandwich, it’s an indulgence. Who doesn’t wake up at night hankering for the smoked chicken salad, a marriage of white chicken, chunks of tangy blue-veined Stilton, ruffles of bacon and slivered red pepper, all lovingly dressed with a dollop of mayonnaise mustard sauce?
Or the Zeitgeist tuna salad blending white tuna with sun-dried tomatoes, mayo, fragrant dill and bits of sautéed Vidalia onions. Some prefer the Mediterranean version with chopped calamata olives, pimentos and anchovies.
In the mood for egg? Maybe the egg salad with caviar? The curried egg salad cradled in arugula and packed into a crusty French roll? Or the jalapeño egg salad?
For beef lovers there’s a hero, combining thin slices of rare roast beef, red onion rings and watercress, dripping with honey mustard and enjoyed with a side order of Wilhelm’s coleslaw made with thickly sliced green cabbage, chunks of carrots and a thick coating of mayonnaise.
Tamara’s face is familiar to the staff at Wilhelm’s, but when she orders the triple-size greens topped with potato salad, order turned to chaos. I double over, laughing in pain as she describes it.
“VAT?” Chief sandwich-maker Brunhilde Braun shakes her head in denial. “Nein, nein. Das is nicht for Maggie. Corned beef, eh? Das is guuuut.”
“You know you’re right. I got mixed up,” I told her.
Brunhilde shoots me a wide gold-toothed “I told you so” smirk, and I say, “It’s actually TWO orders of triple greens.”
According to Tamara, she was the only one smiling as Brunhilde attacked the luncheon board, lifting a lump of greens and looking at them disparagingly while shaking her head. Tamara stares at Brunhilde as she leaves. One sour kraut. It wouldn’t surprise me if she tries to right things by sending me a quart of fat-glutted chicken soup with a note, “Get Well Soon.”
So there we are, sitting on opposite sides of the desk, working our way to the bottom of the mountains of greenery.
“Damn this chomping. We sound like machetes cutting through jungle grass,” Tamara says.
“At least it’s high fiber. High-fiber foods are supposed to have high satiety value.”
Tamara gives me a blank look. “Like the movie, High Society?”
“They fill you up, keep you satisfied.”
She grimaces then smiles conspiratorially. “I have a bag of Doritos in my drawer. Want some?”
“Desperately, so would you please throw them out immediately.” Suddenly, I have this wellspring of self-control. But how long can it last?
“An unopened bag of Doritos, are you nuts?”
“Closet eating is not part of the plan.” Right.
“And what about this great potato salad?” Tamara asks.
From the corner of my eye I see the Gestapo. Justine, dressed head to toe in a bias-cut Donna Karan dress in navy blue velvet. Now I’m glad I ordered it. For camouflage.
“Cover the greens with it, quick.”
“Not MORE German potato salad. GIRLS, I swear you’re going to develop waistlines like the Hindenberg,” Justine says in her high-pitched, painful whine. She shakes her Frederic Fekkai–coiffed head. “Well, since no one’s going out, I guess I’ll head over to the park for a power walk. See y’all later.”
“Y’all? God, I hate her,” Tamara says. “I’d like to put fat pellets in her food.”
“She’s insufferable thin, can you imagine her fat?”
“What’s a power walk, anyway?” Tamara says.
“Something masochists do. Not bad enough they go on marathon walks, they shlep weights.” I consider stealing the running shoes she hides in her closet, so she’ll have to walk in stilettos, but decide against it.
“Never mind her, let’s dump this potato salad. It’s time to do the video.”
“Video?”
“Lose It with Lisa. For forty-five minutes, we’re going to work out in here.”
“Ugh, I’m getting indigestion already. We’re working out here?”
“Should I put on a thong leotard and breeze on over to New York Sports?”
“Maggie, how are you going to hide this whole thing anyway? It’s bound to come out.”
“I’ll cook up something. As you know by now, I’m a whiz at putting my spin on reality.”
She closes the door, and we turn on the video. The face that greets us looks like Britney Spears—three decades down the road. What should I expect when I pick up a fitness tape from the giveaway table at the used bookstore? I’m surprised I don’t have to crank up an RCA Victrola to hear it.
“Hi, I’m Lisa and I feel sooo good about exercising, sooo good about mySELF. That’s why I made this video. I used to be forty pounds heavier, imagine? I ate everything in sight. UGH! I felt down, depressed, all I wanted to do was sleep. Then someone told me about a system of doing aerobics with light weights. I tried it, adapted it to my own special needs and, girls, it forever changed my LIFE. I’m a CONVERT. Now I’m going to share my success with you, because YOU deserve it. Are you ready to work with me? Ready to develop the beautiful body that beautiful you deserve? You can do it, you know. All you have to do is stay with me. Give me a little itty bitty bit of time each day. Just forty-five minutes. Okay? LET’S EXERCISE!” The sound of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” pulsates throughout the room.
“I do not like her,” Tamara says, shuddering. “Something about her hits me wrong. Bitch,” she mouths at the TV screen.
“She’s thin, she did it,” I say, suddenly jumping to the defense of this baby-boomer Barbie. “That’s what’s so obnoxious. We have to show some tolerance, Tamara. We can’t victimize thin women. In their own way, they suffer as much as we do, maybe more. At least I hope so.”
“Right on,” Tamara says. “We’ll be PC. Equal opportunity haters.”
“Amen.” I wrap a pair of weighted cuffs around my ankles and wrists, then toss some to Tamara. We both start moving to the beat, ignoring the fact that outside the office door, someone is calling my name. There’s a lock on the door but I, of course, didn’t take the time to turn the brass knob, and already I’m regretting my carelessness.
five
I had this horrible nightmare last night. All about Jolie Bonjour. She was lying on a coffin-shaped tanning bed, her body slick with Chanel bronzing oil.
“Seulement cinq minutes,” she was mumbling. “Le tanning bed” wasn’t a good idea, “mais non,” she was telling Mike Taylor over and over, but she couldn’t resist “un peu” so that her skin looked, not bronze, mais non, but just “ze beige” to set off her white teeth, golden hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was the type, of course, that didn’t get freckles or mottling. She got tan. Just tan. A moment later, she jumped out of the tanning bed and headed for a quick swim, her leopard-patterned beach towel knotted smartly, sarong-style, around her hips.
There was Mike stretched out in the sun alongside his Olympic-size pool, scripts everywhere. He was contemplating a lead role as a marine biologist working out of a laboratory in Bora Bora. The biologist finds the