Part 1 (1/2)

150 Pounds.

Kate Rockland.

In person, Oprah had the clearest skin Shoshana had ever seen. Her eyes were a dark liquid brown (the same shade as her own!) and her smile was a flash of diamonds. She a.n.a.lyzed Oprah's body unknowingly; thinking about the female form was what she did for a living. Shoshana was astounded at the recent tabloid headlines that called Oprah ”fat” and ”hefty.” The reality was she was at least four dress sizes smaller than Shoshana, and looked more like a curvaceous aunt who wanted to hold everyone to her bosom than someone with a serious weight problem. f.u.c.king media, she thought.

Sitting backstage in The Oprah Winfrey Show's green room on the West Side of Chicago, sipping a paper cup full of mint tea, Shoshana let out a deep sigh. It was a cliche to state that Hollywood, and by extension American culture, was shallow and held ridiculous standards for female beauty, but as she watched the American icon on the monitor, five minutes away from being on national television, the truth hit home.

She looked down at her own body and imagined her stats being shouted into the microphone at a boxing match: And in this corner, weighing in at two hundred and fifteen pounds, standing five-foot-seven, with bouncy, achy, size-EE b.r.e.a.s.t.s ... Shoshana Weiner! And the crowd goes wild.

She ran a trembling hand over her midsection, smoothing down the cute purple polka-dot dress she had paired with silver leggings and the purple headband with a sparkly sequin bow (a splurge at J. Crew!). She was a sucker for any accessory and loved loud, wild patterns. (She liked to think her personality was so outrageous, the rest of her might as well match.) Her own touch calmed her quaking nerves. Her body was solid, strong. She was proud of her large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, small waist, and curvy b.u.t.t. All of the walking she'd been doing lately was giving her toned calves. She was willing to bet that was one place people never looked: her calves. They were too busy checking out her gigantic b.o.o.bs, probably. Her ”Twins of Doom,” as she referred to them on her blog.

Shoshana was nervous about being on television, her round face shown to millions of people. She threw back a sip of the tea like a tequila shot.

”First time on TV?”

A middle-aged, tall, and slender black man approached her holding a clipboard and wearing headphones. He'd had his eyebrows waxed, and smiled with the whitest teeth Shoshana had ever seen. He had three squiggly waves shaved into the left side of his head. His expression was kind, and she wondered if he was sent in to relax her, like the opening act in a comedy show. There were only three guests today, including her. The first was Kirstie Alley, who was seated on Oprah's yellow couch in a plum-colored long dress, one leg crossed over the other. The theme of today's show was women and their views on weight; Kirstie was laughing, her bleached-blond head of hair thrown back, wide pink lipsticked mouth open as she told a funny story about dating younger men in their twenties.

A smooth voice tickled her ear: ”This might feel cold,” the stagehand told Shoshana in a gentle voice, his hands comfortably slipping down the back of her dress, attaching some kind of black box with a wire to her thick waist.

”Just remember, talk regularly when you're up there; this baby mike will make you sound perfectly clear to the audience.” He sounded affectionate about his microphone, as if he were proud of what it could accomplish. Shoshana appreciated people who took pleasure in their jobs, who felt pride in their work. In Hoboken, New Jersey, where she lived, she liked talking to the garbage man who picked up the trash on her street and learning from him the different fabulous items people threw away. Once, he told her, he'd found an engagement ring that fell out of a Raisin Bran cereal box.

”Oh ... okay. Thank you.” She pushed some thick flyaway locks of hair out of her eyes and set down her tea on a nearby high table. It was whisked away a second later by another stagehand, this one blond and pet.i.te. It was as if the woman had been trained to antic.i.p.ate Shoshana's every move.

”Don't be nervous, honey. A lot of our guests whisper their secrets to Oprah,” the male stagehand said, his dark eyes twinkling. He squeezed her arm and she smiled at him. Hey! It was working. He was definitely making her feel calmer. Palm tree waving in the wind on a tropical island, palm tree waving in the wind on a tropical island. Her sister Emily had suggested earlier at lunch that she project a calm image behind her eyelids when she felt nervous.

Suddenly her phone rang. The sounds of Lucinda Williams's ”Are You Alright?” filled the room, causing the other guest to stare at her. The call was from Shoshana's mother, and she'd programmed her phone with this ring because her mother was always calling Shoshana and asking if she was all right.

”Mom!” she hissed. ”What are you doing calling me now? I'm about to go on.”

”Honey, I know that. That's why Em and I are calling. We snuck into the bathroom when Kirstie went on stage. She's looking good, isn't she? The woman is over sixty, you know.”

”I thought she looked just as pretty when she was a chunker.”

She heard a little chuckle come from the stagehand, but he quickly covered his mouth to hide it.

”Are people allowed to talk on the phone in here? Isn't there some rule against it?” The other guest was standing nearby, with her arms crossed against her bird-thin chest. Shoshana saw the stagehand offer her a chocolate-chip cookie from the goodies on the table. The woman declined it by shaking her head so hard Shoshana feared it might slip right off her neck.

”Mom, I have to go. Just have that bottle of scotch ready for when I totally make an a.s.s out of myself.”

”Shoshana Jane Weiner! That is why your sister and I called you. We wanted to let you know what a talented, beautiful, and smart woman you are. You're going to knock their socks off out there. Just remember how many girls at home are watching and looking up to you. This one's for the Fatties.”

Her mother always knew how to make her feel better.

”I love you, sis!” her sister yelled in the background. ”Knock 'em dead!” Emily worked in a tattoo shop on the Lower East Side, had pink-and-black-striped hair, and (at last count) thirteen pierced holes in her body. She'd even had her belly b.u.t.ton done, which impressed Shoshana to no end because Emily was a big girl like herself and didn't exactly have washboard abs. Emily was also her best friend and lifelong confidante.

Shoshana had never told her this, but Emily was the reason she'd started the Fat and Fabulous blog. At 315 pounds, she'd had s.h.i.+t shoveled at her by people her entire life. Elementary school, high school, neighbors, cousins ... everyone seemed to think they were the first one to mention that maybe, they didn't mean to pry, just worried about her health, of course, don't take this the wrong way ... but did Emily know she could stand to lose a couple of pounds? Sure, Emily was tough as nails and as a child would beat the living daylights out of anyone who teased her about her weight, but Shoshana couldn't help feeling overprotective of her. Kids could be so mean. Shoshana remembered Emily being poked with a pencil in the third grade by Steven Myers, because, he said, ”She probably can't feel it.” Emily subsequently was suspended for two weeks, after breaking the pencil in half and stabbing Steven in the arm with it. (It had left a scar, which he still showed them. It was ironic because Emily would later date him briefly in high school, and soon grow bored and dump him.) Shoshana watched her younger sister try every diet under the moon and stars. At one point she'd gotten down to 125 pounds, but it was the toxic result from a liquid diet that caused her to faint at work and have bright blue, Avatar-like p.o.o.p. Then there was Atkins, which called for drinking straight whiskey, to avoid the calories in beer. After one particular night of too much fun in a West Village cowgirl bar, Shoshana rode with her sister to the emergency room to have her stomach pumped. In the end, the result was always the same: Emily put the weight back on, then hit a downward spiral of depression as a result of the shame and guilt.

This finally led Shoshana to start Fat and Fabulous, a blog that began as a simple battle cry and went on to pick up millions of loyal readers. Its popularity was the reason she was here today-Oprah's producer had called two weeks ago to ask Shoshana to speak about the experiences she'd faced as a larger woman, as well as what her readers had gone through. Shoshana called her fans ”Fatties,” affectionately, of course.

Her mother, Pam, had also been on yo-yo diets her entire life, starting in her teens when her bell-bottoms began getting more and more snug. She was the heaviest now since Shoshana's father died several years ago, and she was a compulsive overeater. Today, her weight hovered close to three hundred pounds. Because Shoshana was always the smallest Weiner girl, her mother and sister tried to protect her from becoming large. She'd still been skinny up until she hit p.u.b.erty at fourteen; Pam and Emily would dive at her if she opened the freezer on a quest for Haagen-Dazs, emitting that slowed-down, Hollywood freeze-frame ”Nooooooooo...” when she'd select ice cream from the freezer.

Pam felt her own fat reflected poorly on who she was as a person-that she was weak somehow. Shoshana remembered one frigidly cold day last winter when her mother discovered she'd gained too much weight to fit into her winter jacket; and yet she refused to buy a new one. Shoshana and Emily had tried everything in their power to get her a new coat, even getting her a gift certificate from Bloomingdale's for Hanukkah. Only Pam used the money to buy matching purses for her daughters.

They brought home catalogs from the few plus-size stores that existed. ”So let me get this straight. You are going to freeze instead of buy a larger coat?” Shoshana had asked her mother, who only shook her head, the glitter of tears in her eyes. ”Pick out something for yourself, girls. I don't deserve to buy any new clothing until I lose this weight.” It was such a vicious cycle, because she never would lose it, and instead went around town with an open jacket, freezing. It broke Shoshana's heart. She knitted Pam four scarves last winter, trying to keep her warm.

After starting Fat and Fabulous, Shoshana grew closer to her mother and sister than ever before-it was like she'd given them permission to open up about being big. She wrote a memorable post about the coat aversion and received hundreds of positive e-mails from her readers. One posted a similar story on the comments page; she'd felt too humiliated about being heavy to buy maternity clothing when she was pregnant. ”I thought obese women didn't deserve to wear them. I'm already fat, and being pregnant didn't allow me to feel that glow that other expecting mothers do. Besides, you could barely tell I was pregnant anyway, because of my weight problem.”

Shoshana ached for this reader-unable to celebrate one of life's greatest moments with fun, feminine maternity clothes. It was what kept Shoshana going, women just like her sister, like her mother. They deserved to love themselves. They deserved to have people not look at them like criminals because they were big. They might be Fatties, like her, but they were also Fabulous!

Shoshana stole a quick glance at the other guest; her blond head was bent as she pored over carefully typed notes. Shoshana sighed. She'd planned on just winging it.

”Three minutes!” the stagehand said, holding up three fingers and muttering quickly into his headpiece.

Shoshana squared her broad shoulders. Lifted her chin. Opened her purse and ran a swipe of pink gloss over her lips for the thousandth time. She was sure she single-handedly kept the lip-gloss economy running. Buying a small, sparkly tube or a lovely round gla.s.s jar with beautiful packaging was a cure-all to any bad day. Some people did drugs. She had a twenty-bucks-a-week pucker-spoiling habit, which she figured was better than a heroin addiction. Or gambling. Or even smoking cigarettes.

”One minute.”

For luck, she stuffed into her mouth a Hershey's Kiss, which had been sitting in her pocket since she'd left the hotel, and ignored the glares she received for this small act from the other guest. A woman should have a piece of chocolate every day. It made life so much richer. Besides, doctors say it's good for your heart. At least the dark chocolate kind. But she'd just had milk chocolate. Oh, what the h.e.l.l. Shoshana figured one day they'd come out with a study saying every kind of chocolate was good for you. She might as well not pa.s.s it up now, just in case.

”All right girls, it's time!” The female stagehand smiled at both women. ”You'll both be wonderful!”

”Thank you!” Shoshana said. She wasn't sure why she was whispering like she was in temple. Oprah gave off a bit of a holy aura, perhaps. ”I'm nervous!” she admitted to the other guest, who, not responding, set down her notes and brushed past, knocking into Shoshana slightly in her determined walk. Shoshana frowned, following her. She'd read the girl's blog and knew her subject matter to be slightly militant in its message, but she didn't know she would be the same way in person ... Palm tree waving in the wind on a tropical island, palm tree waving in the wind on a tropical island.

The sound of the woman's stilettos echoed in the hallway. Shoshana sometimes wore heels, but only on special occasions. Like ... that time her landlady died and she went to her funeral. Six years ago. Okay, so maybe she really didn't ever wear heels. But why did she need two plastic contraptions on her feet, designed to make her already-aching back hurt even more and push her Twins of Doom forward until she toppled head over heels? With her tiny, size-five feet, wearing heels would be like foot binding.

When she heard her name called, she immediately stood still, unable to walk another foot. She was frozen to the spot, the high-decibel sound of two hundred women clapping at once was.h.i.+ng over her, a shower of noise. Since she'd started her blog five years ago after graduating from college, she'd never imagined it would take her to this moment. It had been just for fun, a lark, while she looked for her first job. Then it became her first job. Her only job.

”Oh, my G.o.d, are you having a panic attack or something? Maybe a sugar rush from all that saturated fat you consumed in the green room? Let's go.”

Shoshana realized the skinny girl was screaming at her, which broke her daze. ”Oh, don't get your size-zero panties in a bunch,” she shot back, rolling her eyes and strutting past her, entering the soundstage first. She hadn't gotten this far in life to be bullied by the prom queen. The prom queen could go f.u.c.k herself.

The floor was marked with taped arrows, and Shoshana followed them, the soft fabric of her dress swis.h.i.+ng between her thighs. And-oh, my goodness! Suddenly there was Oprah, like a mirage in the desert. She prayed to the no-trip G.o.ds as she climbed several steps onto the stage and took a seat on a yellow couch next to Oprah's brown leather chair. Shoshana immediately reached for the mug of water on the table in front of her. It was pure instinct; if there was food or beverage of any kind in her peripheral vision, she'd make a beeline for it. Having something to consume always felt soothing.

While bending toward the beverage Shoshana remembered millions of women were watching her at home, and she'd just given them a shot of her ample bosom. Great. She made a mental note to keep the girls in check, and fought the urge to apply more gloss. The tube was tucked into the right cup of her bra, along with the Hershey's Kiss wrapper.

”Please welcome to the show Shoshana Weiner and Alexis Allbright.”

Tentative clapping now. The audience wasn't sure yet how it felt about its guests. A sea of faces, mostly female. Some black, white, shades of brown. They wore red sweaters, s.h.i.+ny white pearls, and print dresses. They crossed their legs and folded their hands, pleased to not be waiting outside in the cold anymore. Some fiddled with jewelry. Others placed their pocketbooks beneath their seats and whispered excitedly to their friends and sisters seated nearby.

Oprah s.h.i.+fted her body toward one of the three cameras. Shoshana, having no clue which one to look at, stared at Oprah. She was mesmerizing. She seemed to sparkle everywhere, from her light blue eye shadow down to her expensive-looking peep-toe pumps. She looked like someone's fairy G.o.dmother.

Oprah started her opening monologue: ”Alexis and Shoshana have the two most popular blogs on the Web today that cover women's weight issues. Next to my own, of course.”

A light scattering of laughter.

”With millions of hits a day, and a slew of advertisers and press hanging on their every post, these rising stars are two young women to watch. As Americans continue to obsess over celebrities and their ever-changing bodies, and contradictory studies seem to emerge daily from scientists debating health concerns in regards to weight, I thought we could have an open and real discussion about how women feel about their bodies today, as Alexis and Shoshana have completely opposite viewpoints. All I ask of my audience is that you listen to both sides before drawing any conclusions. I have to admit to you, you know my history and relations.h.i.+p with weight has been well doc.u.mented by this show and the paparazzi, whether I like it or not...”

Strong laughter.