((art-a-day)): Food Weakness- Short Story

Everyone has some sort of food weakness. Well I guess I don’t know that for a fact, but everyone I know does. For Jill it is chocolate, for Thomas (he’s French so it’s pronounced toe-MAs, just so you know) it’s potato chips, for Louise it’s brie cheese, and for me it is spinach. Now if you have any intelligence at all, you will know that this is a weird food weakness. All the people at ‘weight counseling’ tell me I’m lying, but no, I got fat off of spinach. There is only so much of one food that someone can eat before it turns into extra pudge. Everyone tells me that’s impossible, that spinach has no fat, and therefore cannot make someone fat. Well, people have said a lot of things that eventually were proved wrong. People used to think the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the moon. Both of these things are very much false. The whole spinach thing could be the same.

Earlier I was talking about the people I know: Jill, Thomas, and Louise. Jill is my roommate. In high school, Jill’s parents hosted a French exchange student for a year. This student was Thomas. After High school he went to college here, and now lives next door. Louise is our landlord and lives upstairs. When I say landlord, people automatically think they’re a drag. Louise is not. She comes over every Thursday evening to join us all for tea and catch up on our weeks.

Today was Thursday, and I was cleaning and getting ready for the get together. I have wanted to keep the place nice and clean ever since Thomas started joining us. I am in love with him. He does not know this. It is a very secretive love, but I try little things to make it known. I always give him his tea cup first. I give him more sugar than the rest, and I listen to all of his stories, no matter how painful they are to hear. You may wonder what stories he could tell that would be painful to me. He and Jill like to tell each other about their ‘conquests.’ Who they have had sex with. It’s a game they’ve had since exchange student times. After they’ve slept with someone, they give it a number. Certain things get more or less points like: alcohol consumption beforehand, if this was someone they’ve slept with before, certain poses, how attractive the other person was, how good it was, and other things that I can’t remember or wish to remember right now.

Me and Jill are sitting in our living room waiting for Thomas and Louisa to show up. I decide that now is a perfect time to tell Jill I don’t want to hear about her and Thomas’ sex lives this evening.

Don’t be such a prude.

This word is one of my pet peeves of Jill. This and the fact that she forgets her clothes in the bathroom every time after she showers. I tell her that it really bother’s me, and her look changes from dismissive to inquisitive and teasing.

Does someone have a crush on the French guy?

At that moment I notice Thomas in the doorway. He obviously heard. I knew at that moment that I couldn’t sit through that Thursday night in that apartment. I grabbed my purse off of its hook by the front door, passed Thomas, passed Louisa, and left the apartment. I looked at my watch and saw that the grocery store would be open for another 20 minutes. I walked to the store and bought a bag of spinach. I walked to the park a few blocks away from my house, sat down on a swing, opened the bag of spinach, and began to eat.

I folded the empty bag and placed it in my purse. I looked at my watch, and calculated how much longer the three of them would be chatting. I swung to pass the time. Pumped my legs just as my father had taught me when I was five. The air rushed through my hair, pressed upon my skin.