Free 150 Pounds by Kate Rockland

love that moves up from my toes to my heart while my feet are being scrubbed, washed, lavished with lotion, and pampered? We all like to pretend to be queen for a day (at least I do) and sitting there on that pedicure chair, well, one might just mistake me for royalty atop my golden plastic throne.
    For those thirty minutes of heaven, it doesn’t matter that I wear a size sixteen. Sure, I’m in public, but it’s a different kind of public in the nail salon. It’s all women, and believe me, no one is looking at how wide my ass is or how big my boobs are (and you all know from reading this column that they’re gigantic!) when there’s free issues of Us Weekly to pore over and important decisions to make such as how hot one likes their water temperature or choosing between Bikini Strap pink or Meet Me at Sunset red. I pick crazy colors: purples, hot pinks, blues, and greens. Because when you’re fat with a capital F you stand out anyway, so who cares if you have wild toes?
    I used to not like myself very much, and you all have heard about my struggles with depression. For so long in my teens and early twenties I denied myself the pleasures of getting a pedi because I thought, Shoshana, you are so fat you don’t deserve this. That’s for other girls, skinnier girls. Well, today I’m taking a stand. Or a seat, if you will. What you weigh does not determine your quality of life. If you want to have happy feet, you get happy feet!
    This theory works for bigger pleasures as well. Can’t fit into Theory jeans? So what? You still can take that vacation, drink that fine wine, buy that second home. Hedonism rules! So what if you’re Fat? It’s the good F -word. Say it loud and say it proud. Now close that laptop and go out there and get a pedicure!
    XO,
    Shosh

 
     
    Shoshana’s alarm clock went off early Thursday afternoon. In response, she chucked a pink ballet flat at it that had mysteriously ended up on the pillow next to her head. One of a set she’d bought just last week at Target, it was part of her attempt to look more grown-up, because she had to meet with advertisers in the city later in the week, and because of her look, which she liked to describe as “Stevie Nicks meets a fairy in the woods.” The shoe bounced off the alarm, hitting the button for the radio, and the sounds of Adele came streaming out.
    “I love you, Adele, but shut up!” Shoshana yelled. “It’s the break of dawn!”
    “It’s noon,” Andrea said, laughter in her voice, as she came into Shoshana’s room and plunked her petite body down on the bed. “You are so not a morning person, Shosh; it’s hilarious.”
    “In another part of the world it’s much earlier,” Shoshana moaned.
    “I brought you a cup of coffee,” Andrea said. The mug read DON’T ANNOY THE WRITER. SHE MAY PUT YOU IN A BOOK AND KILL YOU. It was a present from Shoshana’s father, who had salvaged it at a yard sale. (Her parents were suckers for a good yard sale. They’d been tickled with delight when they learned such an event held in Hoboken was called a “gate sale,” given the lack of yards in the city.)
    “Okay, now I’m suspicious,” Shoshana said. She sat up in bed and took a sip. She licked her lips. “Suspicious, but now in ecstasy.”
    “Can’t I just be a good friend and bring you a cup of joe to be nice?” Andrea asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
    “No, you cannot. Give it up.”
    Andrea was one of four women Shoshana lived with on Bloomfield Street, on the second floor of a five-story walk-up, above Empire Coffee. Luckily, they all equally prayed to the caffeine gods in the morning, so their four-bedroom apartment (Andrea and another roommate, Karen, shared) was in the perfect location. Shoshana woke daily to the faint vibrations of beans being ground.
    Andrea had jet-black curls, and large, almond-colored eyes. She was Puerto Rican and Dominican, and she’d been Shoshana’s roommate during their freshman year at Princeton. She’d