In Your Dreams

“Very empowering,” Mom said, pretending she had something in her eye.

Dad cleared his throat. “This is a healthy decision. We support you.”

All three of them knew they couldn’t fix her or her problems.

In a sense, she was running away, but the idea of leaving her mean-spirited peers filled her with such relief and excitement that she didn’t care.

The kids in Manningsport viewed a native Californian as exotic and fascinating, not minding that she didn’t talk a lot and, when she did, viewing her stutter as a little bit glamorous.

Em’s relationship with her parents improved, too; she had more to say, not having to look into their faces; the phone and email made communicating a lot easier. And telling them that she, who had never joined any school club before, was now on the hockey team and in chorus, because singing didn’t awaken the stutter like talking did... Well, she could hear their relief.

Nana’s house was a cozy bungalow with clever little cupboards and wide windowsills, and a stained glass window on the way up the stairs. In the nice weather, Nana sat on the sweet little front porch, chatting with passersby (which just didn’t happen where Em was from), sometimes inviting a neighbor to come up and have a glass of wine or iced tea. Em’s grandfather had died when she was small, and Nana had the occasional date, which Emmaline thought was adorable.

And it was nice being useful to Nana, shoveling the sidewalk and scraping the car, running to the grocery store three blocks away. Em was needed. It was a great feeling. Sometimes schoolmates would come over to hang out and study and eat Nana’s fabulous desserts.

Another benefit of living in New York—she could be closer to Kevin.

They were still hours apart, but they planned it carefully; if her grandmother would drive her down to Connecticut once in October and once in February (and Nana would—she was a big believer in romance), and Kevin and Em both went home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break, then they could see each other almost every month. They wrote, emailed, talked on the phone, and it was always the same, always great. Kevin was funny and nice and...safe. He would never make fun of her. Never reject her.

In February of that first school year, Em got a call from her mom.

“We have a wonderful, wonderful surprise for you,” she said. “You’re a big sister! Here. Want to talk to her?”

“W-w-what?”

“Hello?” came a voice. “It’s Angela.”

And so she had a sister. Angela Amarache Demeku Neal, adopted from Ethiopia. Her name, roughly translated, meant angelic, beautiful, brightly shining champion.

Emmaline meant little rival. Also laborious. Her middle name was Mara, which meant bitter.

Only child psychologists could mess with their kid’s head like this.

Angela was ten years old. Her biological parents had died long ago, and she’d been raised in an orphanage. She was very nice. And smart—she could speak three languages. And beautiful, even at ten, big exotic eyes and long graceful limbs. She was extraordinarily polite and called their parents Mama and Papa, with the emphasis on the second syllable, so much more aesthetically pleasing than plain old Mom and Dad.

It was hard not to feel a little...replaced. Her parents would call to list Angela’s accomplishments and qualities. Sometimes, Em wondered if they were punishing her for living with Nana, but they did seem to genuinely adore Flawless Angela. Who wouldn’t? Angela loved nothing more than the times Em was home on break. She’d leave bouquets of flowers on Em’s pillow, tuck little notes into her suitcase. For that first Christmas with the Neals, she made Emmaline a beautiful scarf she’d woven herself in the Ethiopian tradition.

So sure, Emmaline loved her little sister. She didn’t get to see her much, and it took some getting used to, but Angela was great.

In the meantime, she and Kevin stayed together. With him, Emmaline felt most like herself—her wisecracking jokes didn’t get so strangled by the stutter. With him, she could drop the tough act and relax a little. Even though the kids in Manningsport were nicer, Em was still on guard. She had trust issues, according to her parents.

But with Kevin, she was normal. All through high school, their romance continued. They both went to the University of Michigan. And then, one day during her sophomore year, something miraculous happened.

In Shakespearean Tragedy, the professor told the students they’d be reading aloud, just a few lines each.

Emmaline’s heart sank. Her stutter had quieted down over the years, but it was still there, especially when she was forced to perform. Her heart thudded, and she could barely see the passage from King Lear. Morgan, the boy who sat in front of her, was a drama major, and he read in a beautiful British accent, quite embracing the part of Bad Guy Edmund.

Then came Em’s turn—King Lear with the body of his beloved daughter. The most important part of the play. The stutter rubbed its bone hands together in glee. Her classmates waited.

She closed her eyes, imagined herself as Sir Ian McKellen, then looked at her book and read.

“Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!”

The stutter’s jawbone dropped in shock.

Her words had come out with a British accent, too, and she hadn’t stuttered once.

“Nice, Emmaline,” the professor said. “Meggie, take it up.”

Em noticed that her hands were shaking, and a strange sensation filled her chest.

It was joy.

From then on, if she felt her throat lock up, she’d imagine the words in an accent, and her brain and throat detoured around the stuck sounds like a car veering around a roadblock. After all those years, her problem, which had made her so miserable, such an outcast, was gone. When she told her parents, they were quiet for a minute. Stunned.

“That’s wonderful!” Mom said. “You must feel very empowered.”

“We’re glad for you,” Dad said from the other phone (they always talked jointly).

“We’re getting a divorce, by the way,” Mom said. “But we’ll be living together. Nothing will change for Angela. Or you, for that matter.”

One day about a month later, she and Kevin were at his off-campus apartment, lying in his queen-size bed. He was quiet.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

After a long minute, he said, “You don’t stutter anymore.”

She didn’t answer, not wanting to jinx it.

“It’s a little weird,” he said. “I don’t know. We both had a...thing...when we first met. And now yours is gone.”

“Well. You never know.” She paused, feeling almost guilty. “I feel it there. Like it’s lurking, waiting to come back.”

He sighed. “Well. It’s good, I guess.”

It would’ve been nice, she thought later as she walked through the bitter wind to her dorm, if he’d been thrilled. After all, few knew better than Kevin how the stutter had paralyzed her, marked her, locked her in an invisible prison.

But she understood. He was afraid.

Kevin, you see, hadn’t lost the thing that had made him an outcast. He was still fat. He was, in fact, obese. When she’d met him, he was perhaps thirty pounds overweight. He’d gained possibly fifty more pounds at Choate.

The weight kept on coming in college.

Though he never told her what he weighed, she guessed he was at least a hundred pounds above where he should be.

Maybe more.

They never talked about him losing it. With other people, Kevin cheerfully acknowledged that he was fat, or “a big guy.” He loved food, loved to eat, and he didn’t just eat junk food and pizza (though he didn’t abstain from those, either). He’d cook for her, and, yes, his portion would be huge. But Em loved to eat, too, and the last thing she wanted to do was pass judgment or make him feel unattractive. Kevin knew he was heavy. It wasn’t a secret.

Besides, she loved him. Truly was attracted to him. His dark eyes were so beautiful, his smile and laugh were totally infectious and he was a great kisser.

But as college passed and he started law school and continued to gain weight, she worried.

They both went home to Malibu for the holidays that year, and Kevin had to buy an extra seat on the plane. His face was fiery with embarrassment, but the thing was, he really did take up two seats.

He didn’t speak the entire flight.

“I’m gonna join a gym when we get back,” he said in the car.

“Great,” she answered calmly. “I’ll join, too, if you want. It’d be good for both of us.”

He grunted.

And join they did. Kevin went once. Em went five times, then stopped, worried that it wasn’t helping. Besides, she ran five miles a few times a week, even in the winter. As ever, she was a strapping woman; she’d topped out at five-ten and had muscles and an ass and some padding. Here in a normal state, her size ten (and sometimes twelve) was deemed quite average. In Malibu, the size “Large” didn’t fit her.

Kevin graduated from law school and accepted a very decent offer from a big firm. They both stayed in Ann Arbor, that lovely little city. Em had a pleasant job at a newspaper, trying to put her English major to work by writing obituaries, checking movie schedules and, later, doing some features.

It was oddly thrilling to be able to order a drink and pay bills, talk about coworkers and go shopping for a couch. Both of them liked their jobs and got promoted, moved to a nicer apartment and seemed well on their way to becoming full-fledged adults.

Kevin proposed at an Italian restaurant over eggplant parm and garlic bread, getting down on one knee and presenting her the ring. She said yes instantly and kissed him. Had to give him a hand getting up, but she covered well, pulling him into a hug. The other restaurant patrons clapped politely, but Em saw a few puzzled looks.

He’s wonderful, you jerks, she thought even as she smiled. He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever known.

And he was.

He was also lazy, unhealthy and could easily leave her a widow.

So Emmaline made the mistake that changed her life.

She joined SweatWorld, the gym nearest their apartment. She’d never liked gyms, preferring to run. But Kevin hated running (not that he’d tried it in the past decade).

So SweatWorld it was, one of those horrible places with too-loud music and mirrors and complicated machines.

Her plan was to learn what she could and then gently suggest that he give it a try, using the wedding as motivation. They’d set their wedding date for June, and it was August now. Almost a year to get healthy, and then to stay healthy, because Emmaline had loved this guy since she was in eighth grade, and she wasn’t about to lose him.

But boy, she hated going to the gym. All that sweat, the smell of bleach-soaked wipes that people used to swab down their machines, the clack of weights and the grunts of humans, the whirring of spin class, the shouts of the staff.

There was one woman in particular Emmaline avoided. A hard-muscled trainer named Naomi Norman who stared as Em ran on the treadmill. Naomi’s modus operandi was to scream at her clients, using words of encouragement such as, “Don’t be such a fucking pussy! Get your fat ass in gear!”

Rumor had it that Naomi had been a marine, a convict, a gym teacher and raised by wolves. All seemed true. Em did her best to pretend to be in the zone, earbuds firmly in place. When she did ask a SweatWorld employee for help with a machine, she made sure it was one of the nice people.

After a month, Em broached the idea of Kevin coming with her, and she used Naomi. “Babe, you have to come with me. You know that woman on The Biggest Loser?”

“Not really, no,” Kevin said, not looking up from the paper.

“Well, Naomi is like her, except with very large hemorrhoids. She’s evil. I’m scared of her.”

“So find another gym.” He got up to pour more coffee (adding half-and-half, not the nonfat creamer she’d bought).

“Well, this one’s two blocks from here. You should come one day, honey. To protect me from Naomi.”

He smiled at that.

It was a start.

She knew Kevin didn’t like being overweight. She knew his blood pressure and cholesterol were high. She also knew he was aware of how to lose weight and why he should.

And she knew that her telling him to do it wasn’t going to do the trick.

A week or two later, on a quiet Sunday morning, she bit the bullet. They were finishing breakfast (pancakes and bacon...a lot of bacon). “Hon, why don’t you come to the gym with me today?”

“I’m really busy,” he answered instantly. And it was true; his job as a corporate tax attorney kept him at the firm till late in the evening, and he did work at least for a few hours each weekend.

She covered his hand with hers. “Kev, I love you. You know that. And I’m so excited to be married and have kids and all that good stuff. But I want us to have a long and happy life, and...well...I’m worried that we won’t if you don’t get healthier.”

She knew not to use words like diet or portion control or exercise more and the like. Focus on health and love, the literature had said. She’d read dozens of articles on the subject. Obesity interventions, they called them, and she cringed a little at the phrase.

Kevin looked at her for a long minute. There was hurt in his eyes, and her own welled with tears.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, babe,” she whispered.

“I could get hit by a bus crossing the street,” he said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice.

“I know. So could I. But—”

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“I’m not making any promises. I’ll go once.”

“Thank you.” She kissed him, and he smiled. Her sweet Kevin, the nicest guy in the world. She took him to bed first, to show him how she felt. Yes, he was a big man, but she felt so safe with him, her head on his chest afterward, his heavy arm around her.

They had to stop to buy gym shorts that fit, and Emmaline was horrified at how big they were. The weight had crept on, ten pounds here, another ten there, and somehow or another, Kevin had become immense.

He was quiet on the way to the gym. “You okay?” she asked.

“I’m disgusting.”

“Oh, Kevin! You’re not!” She squeezed his arm. “Honey, you have a big frame, and, yeah, you’re heavy. But we’re doing something about it. Okay?”

He gave a dejected nod.

Em held the door for him, chattering away, hoping to God Naomi wasn’t there. Her goal was just to get him to walk a little on one of the treadmills, make it fun, chat about the wedding, try to keep him distracted, because Kevin hated exercise (obviously). The more painless this could be, the better it could work.

Kevin registered as Em’s guest, signing the waiver they made people sign if they topped the scales at more than 30 percent of their ideal weight.

Kevin weighed almost twice what he should, the skinny, muscular man with bleached teeth told them. His ideal body weight was 188; he weighed 354.

“It’s fantastic that you’re here,” the man said. “Congratulations.”

Kevin mumbled in response. He didn’t make eye contact with Em as they walked to the treadmills, past the weight machines and the muscle-heads screaming with exertion. Kevin was out of breath by the time they got there.

He was dying inside, Em knew. She smiled at him and set the treadmill at the lowest speed. Set hers at the same.

“This was probably the hardest part,” she said in a low voice. “Just walking in the doors.”

Kevin didn’t answer. He bumped up the speed a little higher and started jogging.

Em knew he wouldn’t be able to keep that up. Too much, too soon.

Sure enough, he had to lower the speed a minute later. She pretended not to notice and kept walking, though if she were alone, she’d be running at her usual seven miles an hour.

Then she saw Naomi.

The trainer was wearing microshorts and a sports bra. Her arms curved with perfectly defined, elegant muscle, and her stomach was flat and lean but not ripped. Long, tanned, beautiful legs. Her body was perfect. Not unappealingly muscular...just perfect. There was no other word for it.

And evil personified, because her face changed as her gaze stopped on Kevin. Her hands went to her hips, and she sauntered over, slowly, her eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing in my gym?” she asked Kevin, her voice just shy of yelling. “Really. What the fuck are you doing in my gym?”

All around them, people grew quiet.

“How dare you,” Emmaline said. “Back off, Naomi.”

“Is this your man? Are you here to be supportive? Huh?”

Kevin’s face flushed even redder.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Emmaline bit out. “He’s here. He’s taken the first step, so shut up.”

“Oh, how sweet.” Naomi sneered. “Guess she has the balls in the family, huh, fatty?”

It was nearly dead silent now.

“I’m reporting you,” Em said. “You can’t talk to us this way.”

“Is that right? We’ll see, won’t we?”

“Be quiet,” Kevin muttered.

“Yeah,” Em echoed. “Shut up, Naomi.”

“I was talking to you,” he said.

Emmaline stopped walking, then jerked to a run to avoid being thrown off the treadmill.

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