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under the table.
He looked across his table tonight, way across, miles out-
side of handholding range, at his dinner companion. She was
pretty. Her curly brown hair shined with megadoses of vita-
min A, the tawny bare arms glowed from adequate lutein
consumption, her eyes sparkled with high-concentrate beta-
carotene. He d never felt less attracted to a woman in his life.
Peter said, Explain it again. I have to pay for dinner,
plus your standard session fee?
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That s right, said Peggy McFarthing.
Since you re eating, shouldn t you pay for your own
food?
Peggy rearranged her napkin on her lap and said, Peter,
I wouldn t be here if I weren t working. This is your grad-
uation session. It s both a celebration and a lesson on how
to put your eating plan to practical use. Remember the
adage: Humans used to have to hunt for food; nowadays,
food hunts us. French cuisine is a particular challenge be-
cause of the sauces. And you were the one to suggest this
restaurant. I ve taken other clients to a Greek diner for the
final session.
Therefore, he d stewed himself in his own pot au feu. Yes,
he d suggested the restaurant. But for a specific purpose:
Peter planned on bringing Ilene back here to celebrate his
forty-five-pound weight loss, their upcoming eleventh
wedding anniversary, and her raise of $10,000 a year (not
much, considering that he d spent $6,000 on nutritional
counseling in the past seven months, at a rate of about
$140 per lost pound). Peter never thought Peggy would ex-
pect him to pick up her tab. He would order a la carte,
cheaper, by far, than the sampling menu. If she tried to get
the prix fixe, he d object. He corrected his posture in the
high, straight-back chair with the thin cushion (all cush-
ions felt thin to him these days), and contemplated making
a run for it. Did he really need Peggy to instruct him on
how to order a French meal? He eyed the breadbasket. The
baguette was particularly tempting.
Peggy said, I m very proud of you, Peter.
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The Not-So-Perfect Man
Thanks.
No, I mean it, she said, draping a napkin over the
bread, hiding it. When you first came into my office, I didn t
think you d have the discipline or the support system to
lose the weight.
He resented that remark, as he resented so much of
Peggy s assumptions about his weakness (the napkin over
the breadbasket, case in point).
You thought I d fail but you took the money anyway,
he said.
Perhaps spending the money was the motivation you
needed to succeed.
He hadn t thought of it that way. The money was cer-
tainly a motivation not to gain it back. He couldn t stand to
spend one more dollar on his vanity (don t think vanity ;
think health, he reminded himself). He would have spent
any amount of money to impress Ilene, but Peter hadn t
gotten the feedback from her he d hoped for; incredibly, his
weight loss dramatic, steady was observed but uncom-
mented upon by Ilene. He knew she noticed. How could
she not notice? He d had to buy an entire new wardrobe
(that was another $5,000 right there), and he knew he
looked sharp in his Hugo Boss summer-weight suits and his
ironed Levi s. He d taken to walking around in the nude,
just to make sure she could see the difference. Her expres-
sion, upon sight of him, didn t waver. It was confounding
to him that she kept her mouth shut about his weight loss,
when she had not been able to stop harping on his gain.
He wanted to ask Peggy about all this, if she d noticed, in
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her other clients, whether a drastic change in one spouse s
appearance affected a marriage adversely. But there was
that sticky point in his dealings with Peggy. Discussing his
marriage would cast light on her own and whatever ten-
sions existed there, in part, because Peter had fired Bruce,
her husband, all those months ago. Therefore, his marriage
was a taboo subject. Overtly, anyway. She alluded to it oc-
casionally. That comment about his support system, for
example.
Peggy said, Let s look at the menu.
Peter had been fingering the wine list. Alcohol was off
limits, a stop class of beverage. The only kind of booze
that could be consumed without offsetting his carefully cal-
ibrated carbohydrate intake was tequila. Mysteriously to
him, the Mexican panacea was low-carb. And there was
that piss-smelling low-carb beer from Michelob that was
offensive in taste and sensibility. But they d never serve
that here, he thought mournfully.
He said, Appetizer-wise, the goat cheese salad seems to
be the way to go. He dearly craved the paté de fois gras
with crisp toast wedges and pickles.
Peggy said, Actually, it s a good standard policy to skip
appetizers and dessert, of course.
So, then, we re looking at entrées, he said, happily en-
visioning a smaller bill. Two entrées only without cocktails,
wouldn t cost more than a hundred bucks. He could live
with that.
I will get the prix fixe, she said. And a few drinks.
God damn it. It takes over two hours to get through the
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The Not-So-Perfect Man
sampling menu, he said. And it wouldn t be fair to me, to
have to watch you eat all those courses, and dessert.
Peggy said, In the real world, your dinner companions
will order things that are stop foods. Part of the lesson
here is learning to handle the restaurant environment, in-
cluding what we call plate envy.
Grinding his teeth, Peter felt his blood pressure rising,
the thundering palpitations of his heartbeat. He turned his
eyes back to the menu and said, Plate envy.
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