My Year of Casual Acquaintances (South Bay #1)

6.

One week later, Judith and I are heavily into it. She begins by giving me a lengthy questionnaire to complete, in which I’m called upon to detail my belongings and state my goals for our project. This proves to be a useful exercise as it forces me to think about my possessions in a more clinical light.

We spend an afternoon at my mini-storage unit. Here, we divide the contents into three groups, color-tagging each item: green for must go, red for must keep, yellow for undecided. Somehow, Judith convinces me to relegate half my stuff into the must go category. She accompanies this with her usual unfiltered commentary. “A sleeping bag? A pup tent? Are you planning to pitch it in the middle of the fucking apartment?”

“I thought Benny might enjoy it when he’s a little older.”

“Buy him a new one when that day comes. Nobody uses camping gear like this anymore. This crap smells like it’s from the last millennium.” She divides the green items into two subcategories, the throwaways and the charitable donations.

“Can’t we give everything to charity?” I ask. “Like, why not this bed frame and headboard set? It’s got a few scratches, but it’s not in bad shape. We bought it from Ikea when Michael was in college.” I flash back to the day when Henry and I helped him move into the off-campus apartment, and how the three of us hugged at the end of moving day, emotional over this latest passage into adulthood.

“This bed is particle board,” Judith says, spitting out the term like someone spewing a mouthful of milk that’s gone sour. “Salvation Army won’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.” I defer to her greater wisdom upon learning that she will arrange for pickup of all the green-tagged items. “I’ll make a couple of calls to my people, and this stuff will be flushed out faster than shit through a sick goose,” she says in a cheery voice.

The “undecided,” or yellow-coded items, are trickier. These include a huge box of schoolboy memorabilia and cheesy plastic trophies that Michael earned on his various sports teams, from T-ball through middle school flag football. He was never a brilliant athlete, so most of these are awards for mere participation (good job showing up for the games), or for most improved player (you sucked to begin with, but you’re no longer a total embarrassment).

“Don’t make me throw these out. I can’t,” I say in weak protest.

“Honey, here’s what we’re gonna do. You tell your son if he wants the trophies and shit, it’s his call. He’s got six months to move them outta here, and if he hasn’t taken them off your hands by the deadline, you’re chucking the whole sorry lot.”

I have to admit this is a good idea. Judith assures me this is the biggest obstacle that all her clients face. They can’t bear to part with sentimental junk from the past, but who the hell wants this worthless crap? She makes me sign a form agreeing that in six months, any possessions that remain unwanted or unused must go. It’s like a contract with myself. She also directs me to post the deadline on my cellphone calendar. It’s bossy but effective. If I can stick to Judith’s plan and rid myself of enough additional junk in the next half a year, I’ll be able to downsize from my current premium storage room to a smaller and more economical locker.

Hiring Judith to create order out of my new life is a stroke of genius. She’s competent and efficient, yet entertaining too – outspoken and irreverent. In some regards, she reminds me of me. But whereas I’m forever regretting my verbal indiscretions, Judith seems unfazed by hers. What must it be like to say anything you want without shame or remorse? It might take the sting out of my uncomfortable brushes with Michael.

Maybe I could learn to follow this woman’s example.

Famished after hours of sorting and tagging, I dig a nutrition bar out of my purse. It’s a popular brand, rich dark chocolate filled with chopped toasted almonds. I peel off the foil wrapper and hold it up to Judith. “Would you like half? Happy to share.”

Her eyes narrow into disapproving slits. “Why don’t you hook yourself up to a cyanide drip instead?”

“Meaning what?”

“These bars are full of pesticides. There should be a law against marketing this crap in the ‘nutrition’ category.”

I flash back to the day when she expressed similar disapproval over my alkaline water.

Undeterred by Judith’s dire health threat, I shrug and take a bite of the tainted snack.

The next day, working together at the apartment to organize the rest of my belongings, Judith rips into me big-time. She starts with my super-comfy Israeli walking sandals, which she deems too extravagant. “You could buy U.S.-made shoes that are as good for a third of the price.”

“I know, believe me. They were a gift from my ex the year before we broke up.”

She freaks out when we open a large bag containing about ten pairs of patterned workout leggings, all with matching tops. “I didn’t realize you were opening a Lululemon outlet here. Guess I’ll earn my money figuring out where to fit all this stuff.”

“Not Lululemon. These are knock-offs.” It’s true I’ve been updating and expanding my wardrobe for a fresher look – but I’ve always been frugal, and I pride myself on being low-maintenance. “Except for a few new outfits, I’ve been working on downsizing,” I say. “Like I only own this one little TV. We had a movie-theater-sized set in my old house, but I left it for the buyers. And I bet I’m the only tenant in this building who isn’t leasing an Audi or BMW.”

“If you want to help the planet, get yourself an electric plug-in model like mine,” she says, referring to a vehicle scarcely larger than a golf cart.

We proceed to the kitchen, where I continue to self-promote my modest lifestyle. “This is the only appliance I use regularly.” I point to the wall-mounted microwave.

Sitting on the counter is a new refillable plastic water bottle, the price tag and label still affixed. She examines it and says, “This bottle isn’t BPA-free,” and emits a dejected sigh as though she’s already written me off as a hopeless case. I’m not sure what BPA is, or why it’s advisable to be free of it. I don’t ask.

Judith glances inside the refrigerator and then opens the pantry door, looking up and down as she surveys the shelves. I await a compliment on my healthy food choices. She says, “This is what you eat? Jesus.”

I can’t imagine saying this to anyone, even if I were to unearth a stash of Doritos, sugary desserts, and institutional-sized tins of mashed potato buds. I believe my own selection of vegetables, dried beans, whole grains, and other “good” carbs should be commended, but she tells me all the foods I once thought to be healthy are apt to cause premature death or dementia.

“Then what should I be eating?”

“A strict anti-inflammatory diet like the kind I’m on,” she says. “It’s all about the lectins.”

“What are those?”

“Lectins are proteins that occur naturally in a lot of plant foods.”

“Well, plant protein is good for you, right?”

“Not in this case,” she says with authority. “Lectins block the absorption of nutrients, which makes them bad actors.” Then comes the grim news – the list of lectin-containing no-nos. All legumes and beans. Wheat. Gluten. The nightshade vegetables (my favorites): eggplant, tomatoes, peppers. Most dairy foods. Any food that’s white.

“How about nuts? Those are healthy in moderation, right?”

“Not if they’re almonds, cashews, or peanuts,” she says, reeling off three of the staples in my pantry.

“If I can’t eat any of those foods, what’s left?”

“Oh, lots of yummy things. Fatty fish. Broccoli. Berries. Oranges. Avocados. And olive oil. You can slather everything in as much olive oil as you like.”

Can I survive on a diet of nothing but these half-dozen items? I think not. Trying to put a cheerful face on it, I point to the big bag of fresh kale in my crisper bin and ask, “I can eat this stuff till it’s coming out of my ears, right?”

“Wrong,” says Judith with a contemptuous snort. “Kale is full of heavy metals like aluminum, lead, and nickel . . . not to mention thallium, which is used in rat poison, for Christ’s sake. Let me dig into this pantry and throw out everything that’s past its sell-by date. That’ll free up some space.”

“No.” I slam the pantry door. “I mean—that won’t be necessary. I bought all new groceries when I moved in here.” No way is she tossing my beloved ancient grains. Judith’s unexpected push to reorganize not only my closet contents but also my stomach contents has left me unsettled. A little chardonnay might help to calm my nerves. I followed my humiliating performance at the Mexican restaurant with a record period of abstinence – not a drop of alcohol in days. But if I’ve been waiting for the right moment to resume drinking, surely this is it.

When I invite Judith to join me, she gives me a disapproving look and I brace myself for another lecture. “I never drink white wine. It sends my fasting glucose up into the stratosphere. Red wine is so much better for you. Would you mind if we open a bottle of red?”

“Be my guest.” Relieved that she’s onboard with the drinking, I’m hopeful a little wine will make Judith more mellow as well. I uncork a Malbec and pour a generous glass for her and a chardonnay for myself.

“I’m starving,” I say, pulling out a wedge of cheddar from the fridge and slapping it on a small cheese board with a few whole wheat crackers. Then I remember Judith will not touch this. “Is there anything in my kitchen you can eat?” I ask. “Help yourself to whatever you like.”

Judith retrieves a large avocado from a bowl on the counter, slices it in half, removes the pit, and fills both cavities with olive oil – it must be half a cup. Then she slurps it up with a spoon, the way one might enjoy a bread bowl of chowder, as she swigs the Malbec. Halfway into the first glass, Judith kicks off her shoes. The wine is doing its job.

“How did you get into this line of work?” I ask her.

“Hah. For years, I drove my husband nuts, keeping detailed inventories of our stuff, alphabetizing the magazine rack—”

“You have an alphabetized magazine rack?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” she says with a wink. “Anyway, one day he said, ‘Why don’t you channel all this energy into something profitable?’ When I decided to become an organizational consultant, he was all for it.”

“You enjoy the work?”

“Oh yeah. It’s gratifying to be helping people so much, even if the money isn’t so great.”

Right now, I’m not all that positive about her helpfulness. And when I think of the big fat checks I’ve been writing to Judith, I’m not sure I agree about the money either.

“I meet interesting people too. Last month I had a hell of an experience. Wanna hear about it?” Before I can respond, she barrels ahead with her story. “Okay, so this lady hires me and tells me she’s a recent widow, which is surprising because she’s pretty young. We need to get rid of all her late husband’s stuff because she can’t bear to see it around the house, you know? I arrange for charities to pick up his clothes and shit. There’s also this big easy chair, like a brown leather BarcaLounger type of deal, and when they’re about to haul it away, she fricking throws herself across the chair and starts sobbing, the perfect picture of a grieving widow.” She chuckles at the recollection.

“How is this funny?”

“Just wait. The next day she asks me to come back to take care of a few final things, and in walks the husband. The dude is definitely not dead. Can you fucking believe that?”

“No, I can’t.”

“He notices right away that his favorite chair is missing, and he goes to the bedroom and discovers that his half of the closet is empty. He turns to me and says, ‘What the hell is going on?’ I tell him, ‘Your wife said you’d passed away.’ Then he gets all mad at me, like the whole thing is my fault. Can you fucking believe that?”

“No, I can’t. Do you think he came home early from a business trip or something?”

“No, I think the wife set the whole thing up. She wanted him to walk in on us getting rid of his stuff. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

“But why would she do that?”

“I’m coming to that. She screams, ‘Serves you right, you goddamn cheating son of a bitch.’ Right to his face, she accuses him of being unfaithful to her every time he travels out of town. Can you fucking believe that?”

This strikes a bit too close to home. I stiffen my back at this latest revelation and say to her, “That I can fucking believe.” I’m so rattled, I’m not sure what to do but self-medicate with more food and alcohol. I pull a container of hummus from the fridge and offer her some.

“No way,” she says with a fierce shake of the head. “Lectins.”

“Oh, hummus has lectins too?”

“Honey, I told you beans are off-limits. Hummus is full of garbanzo beans.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” I say, though my tone is unapologetic. “I’m the editor of Powder World – not Lectin World.”

How did I ever find this woman agreeable? Her opinionated responses and endless guilty verdicts are rankling. I’m not sure why she’s getting under my skin so deeply, but I come up with a new and even better nickname for her: Judge Judy.

. . .

Maddening as she is, Judge Judy creates order out of chaos over the following week. We finish sorting through all the boxes, discarding unwanted items; and she organizes my storage space with shelf dividers, hanging racks for shoes and accessories, and various-sized plastic stacking bins. She finds a file cabinet that’s a perfect fit for the corner of my office and a bookcase for the adjacent hallway. Appreciating that I’m in a rental unit, she takes care to avoid any built-in carpentry work. “We’ll only use storage components you can take with you when you move,” she says.

She’s good at what she does, I’ll give her that. She has rid me of clutter and helped me in my quest to continue shedding my former skin. And I still enjoy her sense of humor. On her final visit to my place, she brings me a BPA-free water bottle and a cookbook titled Lose the Lectins, presenting the gift to me with a wink and one of her honking laughs. But I no longer want to emulate her mean-spirited behavior, nor do I want her in my daily life. I’ve figured out why she bothers me so much – the last thing I need is another person who makes me feel bad about myself. Michael is already doing a bang-up job of that. I will be polite to Judge Judy at Seaside Fitness, but I won’t hang out with her.

To celebrate this decision, I order dinner delivery from a nearby Italian restaurant. Not only do I ignore as many of Judge Judy’s food prohibitions as possible, but I also put aside my own healthy Mediterranean diet preferences for the night. While I’m entering the online order, my mother calls from New York. We haven’t talked in a couple of weeks, but that isn’t unusual. She has always taken a hands-off, almost indifferent parenting approach to me, her only child.

“Margy, dear.” Margy is the pet name Mum has called me since childhood. She pronounces it with a hard g, as in margarita. Though she moved to New York from London as a teenager, Mum still retains more than a trace of an English accent and a lifelong adherence to that old-fashioned, never-wear-your-emotions-on-your-sleeve school of manners.

“Hi, Mum. I’m in the middle of something. I’m getting ready for a lasagna dinner.”

“Lasagna—how fattening, dear. Are you layering it?”

“Have you met me? Of course I’m not layering it. I’m ordering it.”

“I’ll make it quick. I got a call from Henry today.” She emphasizes his name in a breathless, almost worshipful tone, as if it were Brad Pitt who’d phoned. Mum has always been partial to Henry – even now, after all that’s happened. She seems to blame the collapse of our marriage on some deficiency in my character rather than Henry’s infidelity. It’s that slippery charm of his. “He’s concerned about you,” she says.

“Henry? Concerned?” He didn’t seem so concerned when he dumped me for Alice.

“Michael told him you’re cramped in a tiny apartment, and you’ve had to put half your belongings in storage. He wishes you were in a better living situation.”

I groan. “My apartment is cozy, yes, but it’s great. Right on the water. I’ve got a gorgeous view of the harbor.”

“You know, most men want their ex-wives to live in a smaller place after the divorce, not a bigger one. You’re lucky Henry is so generous.”

“Yeah, I’m lucky, all right.”

“Glad you agree,” she says, my sarcasm sailing right over her head. Mum places great importance on the comfort and financial security that Henry gave me and Daddy gave her. In her view, being a good provider is a husband’s number one job.

“Listen, Mum. You know Henry always wants to look like a good guy. That’s what this is all about.”

“You really think so? Oh, he also mentioned he’s getting ready to go to Mammoth Mountain, but he’s missing a box of ski accessories. He thinks maybe they got mixed in with your things.”

“Aha. Now we cut to the chase. Henry has sent you on a spying mission.”

“Well, you won’t communicate with him, and he doesn’t like putting Michael in the middle.”

Last week, that box – which contained ski gloves, goggles, and other top-of-the-line accessories – went out with the charitable donations. I can’t hide my annoyance as I say, “You can tell Henry I don’t have it.” Which is true.

“All righty then. No need to shoot the messenger.”

“Sorry, Mum. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

While I’m unpacking the food delivery, I munch on a few metal-laden kale chips from the pantry. Then I settle down to dinner, a generous helping of lasagna. It’s delicious and cheesy, with a rich pink sauce, and the house-made white noodles are tastier than the high-fiber whole wheat pasta I’m accustomed to eating. Henry wasn’t crazy about lasagna, so I never served it when we were married. This makes my enjoyment even sweeter.

Also on the menu is a savory vegetable side dish laden with forbidden ingredients. I’m up to my eyeballs in nightshades. Eggplant! Tomatoes! Peppers! I tear off a crusty heel of Italian bread, also white. And though the meal might pair best with a nice Italian red, I’ve decided instead on a chilled pinot grigio with a crisp, clean flavor and straw-colored hue. Maybe I’ll allow myself a full bottle tonight.

At the end of this enormous meal, I stretch out on the couch with my final glass of glucose-elevating white wine.

Happy to eat and drink what I please, when I please, I pat my belly with contentment – sated, blissfully unencumbered, and oblivious to the hot mess of lectins churning in my gut.