Free Dating Big Bird by Laura Zigman

memos, message slips—containing only the requisite minimalist accoutrements befitting someone in her position: a huge television with built-in VCR for screening our latest ads and analyzing our runway shows; a cordless phone and three sleek black speaker units placed strategically around the office; a long white straight couch and two upholstered armchairs on an expanse of wheat-colored rug; an enormous high-backed ergonomically engineered futuristic leather swivel chair that, when she sat in it, dwarfed her and made her look like a child impersonating a boss; a laptop computer blinking and glowing on the low built-in credenza behind her; an open Palm Pilot in the center of the desk; and a bud vase full of deep-red grease pencils—her signature writing implement—that produced notes that looked as if they’d been written with lipstick.
    “I don’t know,” I said, trying to come up with a Renee-proof excuse for my stupidity (even though I never could). “She’d been away for a while, so I thought she’d gotten carried away with the Belgian chocolate, but I guess I was just in denial.”
    “That’s the understatement of the century.”
    “I don’t think anyone else has figured it out either, but I’ve suspected for weeks,” Simon said. “Ever since I noticed that extra finger or two of padding around the hips when she gave me a ride downtown recently. Sitting in the back seat with her, I couldn’t seem to get our body parts not to touch, no matter how much I squirmed or how close I sat to the door. I felt rather—well,
suffocation
is the word that came to mind.” A shiver seemed to undulate vertically through his wiry body, and he shook himself rid of it.
    His reaction didn’t surprise me, though I was sure it had less to do with Karen’s weight than with the fact that Simon seemed to avoid close proximity to all human bodies. And while I was never quite sure about his sexual preference, I came to assume that whichever church he belonged to, he didn’t much like going. Not that he’d have much opportunity anyway, given the fact that he lived with his mother—something he was surprisingly unashamed of at age twenty-seven. “My mother is a
saint
,” he’d say whenever her name came up—which was all the time, it seemed—genuflecting with his hands in the praying-tower position at his chest. “I re
vere
her.” Which is what he could, on occasion, be overheard to say over the phone during the course of a normal business day about Karen, although when he said it about Karen, one couldn’t help but detect a bit of a sneer.
    I turned back to Renee, annoyed. I hated when other people knew things before I did. “Well, so, what, you figured it out immediately? Like, the morning after the fertilized egg implanted itself in her uterine wall?”
    “No.” She shifted in her chair, which made me immediately suspicious. Renee was never uncomfortable.
    “How did you know, then? Did she tell you?” Even though I thought myself above petty jealousy, I felt myself get hot with indignation at the idea that Karen would confide in Renee and not me.
    “No.” She took a long drink from her coffee and played with the tassel on her gray suede loafer. “Arthur did.”
    Simon’s neck craned so much, I thought he might pull a muscle. He scampered into the empty chair beside Renee as if we’d been playing musical chairs and the song had just stopped. “Arthur told you?”
    She looked at each of us. “So?”
    “So?” I mimicked. “Since when are you and Arthur such bosom buddies?”
    “We’re not bosom buddies,” she mimicked back. “He was at the Dia Foundation fund-raiser a few weeks ago without Karen, and I asked him why she wasn’t there.”
    “And he told you?” Simon assumed he was an equal partner in this interrogation, but I stared him down and he retreated to his chair.
    “Well, he didn’t mean to, but it just slipped out. You know how he is.” She snapped her hand open and shut quickly—yap