Fat Chance. Deborah Blumenthal

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      While Voltaire might not have been thinking about the fleshy woman when he said, “Le superflu, chose très nécessaire”—the superfluous, that most necessary stuff—his words make biological sense too. The generous female body is the fertile one. Anorexics don’t menstruate, well-fed women do, a fact that tells us that we need sustenance to nourish our children and continue the species; reserves to carry us through periods of disease; and ample stores to sustain us in case of starvation. So bless your flesh. Look at your generous, sensuous, nubile body as a miracle of scientific engineering, a delicate, responsive, harmonious creation designed to perpetuate life and keep the human spirit burning.

      At the very least, your lush human fat cells now come with a newer, higher price. Stem cells, harvested from fat, represent the new frontier for scientists in search of high-tech treatments for disease.

      Why? Because they have the magical ability to turn into a variety of other types of cells. In other words, sometime in the near future, stem cells taken from your glorious globules may be used to replace injured or worn-out cells.

      “It’s not a static spare tire around our waist. It’s really a dynamic tissue, and there are a lot of things in it that could help us fix people with diseases,” said Dr. Marc H. Hedrick, a University of Pittsburgh researcher.

      So next time you look down at the scale, smile, don’t frown.

      two

      To know Tex Ramsey is to love him. I’m perched on the corner of the Metro desk—he’s the big honcho, Metro editor—with my legs crossed coquettishly, chewing a wad of purple bubble gum to get myself noticed, reading People magazine and waiting. You always have to wait for Tex, especially when it’s dinnertime. It’s not that he doesn’t have an appetite. Just the opposite. It’s just that dinnertime is synonymous with deadline, and the phone next to him rings constantly. He glares at it momentarily and then looks back at the computer screen.

      “Don’t we have a secretary around here?”

      “Out sick, Tex.”

      “Sick of what, this joint? Anyone think to call a temp?”

      “Don’t think.”

      Business as usual.

      “T E X, you cut half the story,” the police reporter’s whine fills the room. “I spent three hours with the commissioner and you give me four hundred words?”

      “No space. We’ll do a follow.”

      “Follow? He won’t spit at me after this abortion.”

      “Bring me a hankie.”

      A general assignment reporter shows up next, a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism graduate, with no obvious pathology, who in two short years at the paper has developed a tic. He’s smacking a copy of the newspaper against his hand in fury and grousing about a typo in his story about a hero cop. He closes his eyes, dropping his head in despair.

      “We said he’s been with the department for ONE HUNDRED years.”

      “Only an extra zero,” Tex says, waving it away with his hand. “Look at the bright side. Now the department thinks they owe him 90 years of back pay, the guy’s rich, and he’s eligible for immediate retirement.”

      He winks at me, then fogs his glasses, wiping them on the sleeve of his shirt, before turning back to the lead story on his screen about a supposed affair between the mayor and his press secretary. At the press briefing, they decided, uncharacteristically, to take the high road and play it down, hiding it deep inside. The mayor already hated the press. They had alienated him sufficiently with their in-depth probe right before the election. But now that every gossipmonger in the city had weighed in, it would be the cover.

      Tex stretches his legs up over the desk, crossing his scuffed Tony Lamas. “Here’s our head: CITY HALL HOTBED. What the hell—it would sell papers. If the megalomaniac mayor couldn’t stand the…”

      “I’m starving….” I sing out sweetly. “Ribs encrusted with honey and teriyaki glaze.” I dangle the thought before him. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to start filing my nails. Bingo. He looks out at the copy desk.

      “Okay, bro’s, put it to bed. I’ll be at Virgil’s if you need me.”

      “You and Maggie eatin’ Pritikin again, eh?”

      Tex snorts. “Not likely. No spinach salads and Diet Sprites for her,” he says, punching my arm. “She’s the only girl I ever met who knows how to eat.” That’s a compliment, I think. He grabs his coat and we hail a cab. I can’t wait to tell him about California.

      I gnaw off all of the red caramelized beef on the baby back ribs and then soak up the remaining droplets of amber glaze on my plate with a slab of doughy bread. The oval platter between us that had been heaped with crisp golden brown shoestring fries is now bare except for a sprinkling of burned crumbs and flakes of coarse salt.

      I lean back on the thick wine velvet banquette and sigh. “So then the phone rings, and guess who called yours truly?”

      “The papal nuncio?”

      “Negative.”

      “Temptation Island?”

      “No, and I’ll spare you your remaining eighteen questions. A hotshot from L.A. who wants me to fly out there and help with a movie they’re making.”

      Tex closes his eyes and looks down. “You’re such a pushover. It was Alan Barsky.”

      “It was not Alan Barsky.”

      “How can you be so sure?”

      “Alan Barsky would have said he was Steven Spielberg.”

      “Hmmm…I see your point…so what did you say?”

      “I said I’d drop everything and be there in a heartbeat.”

      Tex guffaws. “They sending a Lear?”

      “No, a Peter Pan Bus ticket.”

      He shrugs. “Hell…you’re on a roll, why not? You’ve got the media eating out of your hand, go for it. It could beef up your career even more. Celebrity fat columnist reaches to the stars. Definitely a sound career move.”

      I’m suspicious now. “Why are you so gung ho?” I can’t help but think of Tex as, well, my protector. Maybe it’s his build. Former star tackle—the kind of guy who’d smile as he was hauling your couch up a flight of stairs. He hoists his beer bottle and drains it. That’s the sum total of his daily exercise, not counting the jaw work of the job.

      “You’ll be the next IT girl and I can say I knew you when.”

      “Naw, it’s not me…. I’ll just forget the whole thing,” I say, flicking bread crumbs into a miniature replica of the pyramid at Giza. “I mean, even though it probably means mega bucks—you know how these movie companies pay consultant fees when they want help—I despise L.A. anyway. I mean who doesn’t?”

      “Remember СКАЧАТЬ