Part 16 (1/2)
She punched him in the arm. ”I'm serious,” she said, but she was smiling now.
”Look, Shosh. Your whole blog ... its purpose is to make chubby chicks feel good about themselves, right? Give them self-esteem, all that good stuff? Be yourself, healthy at any size, isn't that your motto?”
”Right,” she said, picking up a circular pillow (a gift from Emily) that had the words I HEART APPLES sewn on it. She hugged it to her chest.
”So? Can't you continue to do that? You're not going to lose your audience if you're honest with them.”
”Greg, you don't know my readers. Some of them get mad if I even mention that I like whole wheat bread. They think I'm going outside of the rules of Fat and Fabulous and dieting, or watching what I eat. If they find out I've lost weight, my career is over.”
He wasn't going to be easily put off. ”Since when are you someone who pays attention to rules? Besides, aren't there always extremists in the blogosphere? Didn't you tell me that once?”
”s.h.i.+t.” She blew hot air out through her mouth, pus.h.i.+ng a thick lock of auburn hair from her forehead. ”I did say that, didn't I?”
”From what I can tell from reading your blog, which I do once in a blue moon, is that a woman's main goal is to be true to herself. If you've dropped some pounds because you got this farm and you've turned it into a beautiful thing, a real working orchard, shouldn't you tell your readers about it? Your real fans will still respect you. They're not going to stop reading all of a sudden just because you've lost weight. You can still help them feel good about themselves through your positive att.i.tude, Shosh. People just like talking to you, or reading your posts. Your job is to make them feel good, and you can do that at any weight.”
Shoshana was taken aback.
”Wow. Who would have thought you'd give this, like, beautiful feminist speech? My Greggie, the biggest misogynist on the East Coast!”
She didn't say it, but it was also out of character for him not to talk about himself for so long. But she realized he was right. She'd been hiding from her readers. It was all too convenient to set up others to blog for her while she was fixing up the farm and shedding weight. It was time to reclaim Fat and Fabulous. And, as Greg had so eloquently pointed out, surely by America's standards she was still fat. The idea cheered her up. She closed her eyes and leaned forward to give him a hug.
Suddenly she felt a wet warmth on her mouth, followed by a tickling brush of lip hair.
”What the h.e.l.l?” She jumped up from the couch.
”What? You wanted me to kiss you! You were totally moving toward me!” Greg had jumped back, and was cowering on the couch as she smacked him with a nearby copy of Us Weekly Andrea had left on the coffee table. ”Stop hitting me! What is the big deal? I've, like, seen you naked a bazillion times before.”
”That was in high school! Oh, my G.o.d. It was the mustache. The mustache is turning you into a crazy p.o.r.n star! Besides, you only want to make out with me because I'm skinny now.”
”Shosh, you're not exactly skinny.”
”Well, whatever. Shut up, Greg. Besides, you know it's true.”
He gave her a brooding look. ”I really did think you wanted me to kiss you.”
They looked at each other and burst out laughing. Then they fell off and rolled around on the new carpet.
”p.o.r.n ... 'stache...” was all she could get out.
”Thought you wanted ... me to kiss you...” Greg said, hiccuping.
”Let's shake on never doing that again,” Shoshana said, putting out her hand for him to take.
”Okay. Promise,” Greg said.
”Pinkie swear, just to be safe.”
”Shoshana, we're not five years old.”
”Just do it!”
”Okay, okay.” So they did, linking their smallest fingers, making the shape of the letter W with their pinkies.
She sat up on the floor. ”Seriously, though, what's with that fuzz on your lip? It looks like the pubic hair of a twelve-year-old boy.”
Greg bristled, picking up his brown leather overnight bag. ”The new girl I'm seeing from my gym asked me to grow it. She likes men with facial hair.”
Shoshana giggled. ”Okay, whatever you say, David Ha.s.selhoff.”
”He's more famous for having a lot of chest hair.”
This made Shoshana giggle even harder. ”Thank you for educating me on the finer points of the Hoff. Want some lunch? Get you settled upstairs? Then I want to hear all about this new girlfriend. First of all, does she eat dessert?”
They spent the day eating fresh food from the local farmers' market, then strolling around the hills surrounding the farm with Sinatra in tow.
She'd saved the best part of the farm for last. Joe Murphy had paid to replace the rotting fence surrounding the orchard. She swung the gate closed behind her. Sunlight beamed across their faces, and Greg popped the collar of of his polo s.h.i.+rt, his eyes wide.
”This is ... this is unbelievable.”
She beamed. The apple trees were now just the right height, the branches perfectly horizontal. (She'd cut off all the ”suckers” that grew the wrong way.) The apples were the size of golf b.a.l.l.s now. Healthy, dark oval-shaped green leaves had formed on the branches. She'd gotten rid of all signs of apple scab, and as long as they didn't have too much rain this summer, she'd have a fully working orchard ready for picking in September. A small gray rabbit hopped behind one of the nearby trees. Greg reached his hand out to pull a branch close to his face, inspecting the tree as though it were one of his legal briefs.
”At one point in the fifties Mimi grew ten different varieties of apples,” Shoshana said proudly.
”How many will you have?” Greg asked, picking up a leaf that had fallen, twirling it in his fingers like helicopter wings.
”Three!” she said, beaming, reaching out to rub one of the tree trunks like a proud mother patting her infant. ”We were able to save almost all the trees for McIntosh, Winesaps, and Red Delicious. Some trees were too old, and the fruit they'd produce would be too small. So we cut them down, then removed their roots, and used the wood for firewood. We've got seventy-five trees here.”
”We?” Greg asked.
Shoshana laughed. ”Everyone's been so amazingly involved. Joe Murphy down the road, Greta, my mom, Emily, all four crazy girls I live with, you encouraging me on the phone ... This isn't my orchard. It belongs to everyone. I think that's what Mimi had in mind when she gave it to me.”
Having lived in her house for three months, Shoshana felt she was communicating with the essential Miminess. Even more important, with her father.
”I can't believe I didn't visit for years,” Shoshana said, tearing up. ”We were always playing here as kids, but in recent years Mimi had Alzheimer's so bad ... just my mom came. I should have been here,” she said, a tear spilling onto her cheek.
”Hey. Mimi knew you loved her. You always talked about her. Shosh, you're the kind of person everyone feels loved by.” He hugged her, which was funny because she was an inch taller than him, so she was able to rest her head on his shoulder.
”You're not going to try and kiss me again, are you?” she asked, wiping her eyes.
”I don't want to get my a.s.s beat, no.” He smiled. ”Hey, did you ever go on that date?”
”What date?”
”The guy with the funny name you told me about ages ago. Lowc.o.c.k, something like that? The nose, ear, and throat doctor from JDate?”
”I completely forgot about him,” Shoshana said. She'd been so busy getting the orchard together, she'd forgotten about the e-mail she'd received months ago. He'd had a cute profile picture, too.
”Maybe I'll e-mail him back,” she said finally.
”You should. He'd be lucky to go out with you,” Greg said.