Breaking the Mold
“Don’t change your body, change the rules.” Those aren’t my words, they’re Jennifer Portnick’s. Jennifer who? A girl after our own hearts. Jennifer, who weighs 240 pounds, and is 5' 8", is an aerobics teacher who reached a settlement with Jazzercise Inc. after being rejected as a Jazzercise franchisee because of her weight—she then proceeded to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
In a decision that every plus-size woman should rejoice over, Jazzercise said, “Recent studies document that it may be possible for people of varying weights to be fit. Jazzercise has determined that the value of ‘fit appearance’ as a standard is debatable.” The announcement was made at the 10th International No Diet Day in San Francisco, which was dubbed a celebration of “diversity in shape.”
Ms. Portnick’s lawyer, Sandra Solovey, who is the author of Tipping the Scale of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination, told the New York Times that Ms. Portnick was lucky to be a resident of San Francisco, one of only four jurisdictions in the country where it’s against the law to discriminate on the basis of weight.
“On one side of a bridge you can be protected from weight-based discrimination,” she said of the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland, “and on the other side you’re vulnerable.”
I’m about to press the send key on the column when Tamara struts in like a windup doll on a talking tirade that has a long way to go before it fizzles.
“So I’m in your office, on my way home, about to turn out your office light.”
I wait.
“I’m about to flick the switch on the M&M’s lamp, and what do I see?”
“I give up.”
“Your pink phone-message pad with doodling all over it.”
“Your point is?”
“Not just any doodles, Maggie….” Her voice begins to trail.
I won’t go for the bait.
“Mike Taylor doodles in all kinds of cutesy-poo little writing.”
Unmasked.
“Block letters, puffy pastel two-dimensional letters, calligraphy, flowery script, and then little red hearts.”
I’m not in the mood now for the drama queen who is studying me. She switches gears and is trying another approach as she drops the armload of mail she’s been holding onto my desk.
“You okay, Maggie? You been acting a little strange lately, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Strange how?”
“Strange like…” She drums her iridescent green fingernails on top of a thick hardcover book called Aberrant Eating Behaviors. “Uh, aberrant…you’re not here, your mind is elsewhere.”
“My mind’s right here, Tamara, you want to take a CAT scan?”
“I’m not your doctor, babe, I don’t want to take no CAT scan. But I’ll tell you that you are most definitely not your ever-lovin’ self. You are adrift. Something bothering you?”
“My job, my column, a water pill, my next meal, the exchange rate of the yen, that’s what’s bothering me, okay? What else could be on my mind? WHAT? WHAT? There is nothing else whatsoever. End of discussion. You read me?”
Tamara holds up her hands in surrender. “Not another word from me, I swear. I’ll just sit myself back down outside and let you have your estro/progestero hissy fit. I’m out of here.” She cha-chas toward the door.
I should let it go, but I can’t. “Come back.” I point to a chair opposite my desk. My pencil turns into a drumstick. Tap tap tap tap. “You’re right. You know me. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can’t hide anything from you…although Lord knows I try.” We eye each other over a drumroll.
Tamara crosses her legs and leans forward, twirling a corn-row around her finger. She raises her eyebrows and checks her watch. Then she sits back, and uncrosses her legs.
“H-E-L-L-O—”
“WHO has a body like no other man?”
She screws up her face. “Fabio?”
I fling open the paper to the TV page. “Ever heard of a show called The High Life?”
“Starring that lowlife…er…what’s his name?”
“That gorgeous lowlife, yes.”
“So?”
“So? The SO is that that sexy lowlife, Mike Taylor, called me last week. He needs my help. He wants me to fly to L.A. and help him with a movie he’s making.”
This is apparently the funniest thing that Tamara has ever heard. “You’ve been had, girl. Barsky’s at it again. That guy slaughters me, I swear—” She smacks her thigh and laughs harder.
“No, my child, no no no no—”
“That man should sell a CD. ‘Get ’em going with Alan Barsky.’ God, he EXCELS! Barsky RULES!”
“Fine then, ask for a transfer and work for him if you’re so tickled with his bullshit. Of course, you won’t get Godiva truffles, chanterelles, tins of Beluga caviar. On Metro you’ll get Tic Tacs. You like Tic Tacs, Tamara? What color? Or more likely you’ll get gift baskets of poison apples and hemlock.” Vicious pencil tapping now.
Tamara waves her arms over her head as if to clear the air.
“Girl, you are a pushover. Barsky is head and shoulders above you in the pranks department. You are just not up there in his league. Boy, do we have to bring that boy to his knees, make him pay. Oh, I love this…it’s gonna take some thinking, but we can do it, we—”
I stare at her unflinchingly. “Barsky was out on assignment.”
One perfect eyebrow arches up, then her whole body slumps. “You mean…?”
“Yes…it really was—”
“Mike Taylor?”
“Mike Taylor.” I take an Internet picture of him out of my desk drawer. We both stare at it for a moment. “How could anyone not want to help that?”
“Lord have mercy. What are you going to do, Maggie?”
“After I have my heart massaged? What do you think? I’m going to give him the name of a diet doctor I know out on the coast, and then go back to my column and forget the whole thing. Do you think I’d just take off because I get a call from a smart-ass in Hollywood? Yes he’s gorgeous, but out there they’re all gorgeous—”
“Well, they’re not all THAT—”
“They’re plaster casts created in operating rooms. The plastic surgeons out there can carve George Clooney’s face out of Danny DeVito’s behind. Tight skin, nipped eyes, shaved noses, chins, cheekbones, six-pack abs. The only thing they don’t do yet is head transplants. That is one sick universe. So that’s your answer. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Good for you, Maggie.” She high-fives me. “You are your own person.” She walks toward the door, and then does a 180-degree pivot.
“Want me to arrange transpo?”
“Done.”
“Huh?”
“DreamWorks booked it. How’s that for a perfect name?”
Tamara