She pours the cream and sugar in her cup.
"When I was married, we ate super-healthy,"
she says with scorn. "No margarine, no white
flour or sugar. Why? Because I lived
with the Food Dictator. When I came home
he would inspect the grocery receipts.
Then he would check my pockets, to make sure
I hadn't snuck in anything forbidden."
She tastes her coffee. "After the divorce,
literally my first thought wasn't for
the house, or even for my kids. It was
I can eat absolutely any thing
I want. I can have any thing I want,
right now. I made a pan of brownies, cut
the whole thing into two gigantic pieces
and ate them both. First one, and then the other."
Triumphantly she smiles. She holds the cup
with both hands wrapped around it, like a chalice.
There's latent fire in the carbohydrate,
a secret alchemy best known to women
with world-starved souls. This is the way we eat
our freedom — ravenously, with both hands.
May 18, 1998