Sabotage Feeding in NYC
By Jafa

So, I'm sitting in this bakery-cafe downtown. The place is crowded with NYU students and Wall Street Warriors. I take a table up front near the window. Next to me sit two women, young twenties, model quality. Neither is thin; both have that "was slender" quality, like they lost the battle of their college-days binge, and never looked back. One is about 15 pounds heavier than her friend. She's the one with the plan.

Both women are eating crepes, salads and what looks like tabouleh. Hey, it's New York.

"So good," says the woman with the plan.

"I don't know," says her friend. "It's not so good for my diet."

This is when I stopped reading and started listening.

"What are you talking about?" says the woman with the plan. "It's salad."

"Yeah. It's salad and about 1000 calories worth of butter and eggs and nutella."

Nutella, I'm thinking.

"It's healthy," says the woman with the plan.

The talk turns to Bridget Jones. I'm not kidding. Then a cell phone rings. The woman with the plan answers, says, "It's Komiko, I'll be a minute," and asks her slightly thinner friend if she can go and get them both some more water. Here's where the plan kicks in. As soon as the thinner woman rounds the corner (this is where I got the idea that at least one of them was newly fat. Jeans and top were tightly fitting. There was a considerable amount of pulling and tucking) the woman with the plan starts spooning tabouleh, then salad, then a gob of nutella on to the thinner woman's plate. All this without missing a syllable with Komiko.

The thinner woman reappears with a fresh pitcher of water. The phonecall is over and dinner resumes.

"You know," the not-as-fat woman says, "this really is good." Then, "too bad. Because they have such great desserts."

"Why 'too bad'?"

"Oh, Stace," says the not-as-fat woman to the slightly fatter Stace. "I can't. I mean, I've gained sooo much weight this year."

"This again." Stace rolls her eyes. "You mean 'I gained so much weight since I moved in with you.'" Then Stace looks at me and says, "Sorry we're disturbing you."

"I'm just fine," I say. I go back to my book.

But the not-as-fat woman had more to say. And while she said it, she absently runs her hands along thick love handles that kept her top riding a little higher than it was supposed to. "I've really got to stop eating like this."

"Well, do what you want," Stace said. "I'm getting dessert. What looked so good?"

"Fruit tart."

"Which one?"

"All of them."

"I like their brownies."

"They have brownies?"

"Go and look."

And as soon as she went to take a look, more of Stace's food landed in small spoonfuls on her friend's plate.

She came back to the table to announce: "Nope. No dessert. I'm just going to finish this. Gawd, the portions are so big here."

The two ate. They finished. They sat silent. Then Stace said, "You want a brownie, don't you."

"You're really terrible," her friend said.

Stace got up and caught me looking. She was wearing this knit top that rode up high, showing quite a bit of skin. I wasn't the only one looking; the guy sitting just opposite was gawking.

She returned with two large brownies, two coffees, and a bag.

"What's in the bag?" her friend asked.

"Fruit tart. For later," Stace said.

"Stacey, you're terrible."

"Yeah, Mon," Stacie said to her feedee roommate. "Like I'm forcing it down your throat."