There’s a psychology to food consumption.
Major food companies keep a team of witch doctors hidden away. They’ve got PhDs in fields that sound harmless, like Consumer Behavior and Cognitive Psychology. Every once in a while, their corporate overlords let them out of the lab. When they do, there’s one question on the table.
How can we get people to eat more?
Ever looked at a nacho cheese corn chip and wondered why the hell it’s covered with a hyperactive orange coat of Maltodextrin and artificial flavoring? The first chips had the nacho flavor mixed in with the corn, but companies told their super scientists to deliver better sales. Research shows that taste buds metabolize powdered flavor faster and send high priority happy happy signals to the brain. The stomach doesn’t get a chance to say it’s full. It’s the definition of mindless eating.
Sure, some of the food scientists want to use their power for good. They’ll tell you about the Delboeuf illusion. This is the idea that people serve themselves more food if given a larger plate. The brain thinks things are relative. Prefer small portions? Get a small plate.
For the most part, though, food companies want your money. And need you to loosen that belt and help yourself to a second serving.
Which brings me to Donutville.
I show up at the tiny doughnut and coffee shop a little after six.
Steve’s working at the baker’s table, punching a large ball of dough. He never says what his age is, but if I had to guess, I’d go with midfifties. He’s sort of like a Pete’s Dragon–era Mickey Rooney. He doesn’t have any kids and maybe that’s why he takes care of me. When I get to Donutville, he’s got stacks and stacks of boxes of doughnuts that are “left over” from the earlier shift. But they’re fresh and warm.
“Say hi to your boyfriend for me,” Steve calls as I leave.
“Tommy’s just a friend,” I tell him. But I blush. I guess I’ve realized I no longer want that to be true and have no idea what to do next.
“Right,” Steve says, pulling down the brim of his Donutville hat.
I load my car, pray my last gallon of gas holds out and drive over to the Riparian Preserve. It’s just before dusk at the landscaped desert park that serves as a sanctuary for Arizona’s birds. It’s actually kind of pretty out here. A narrow stream runs into a small lake that’s bordered by yellow flowering graythorn. Off in the distance, a few snowy egrets hop on their spindly legs.
The Astronomy Club members are there, setting up their telescopes. Tommy is waiting for me with a jug of 5W-30 motor oil and an iced latte. “You know, you’re not supposed to hear that ticking noise,” he says as he pops the hood and empties the contents into my car.
I take a sip of caramel yumminess. “Thanks for the joe.”
He nods, gets out his own telescope and a few minutes later he’s being crowded by a gang of ten-year-olds jockeying for first place in line to look through the lens of the scope.
They all take turns. Tommy shows off Arcturus, which is low off the horizon. The boys are way more impressed by the moon, rising with a silver shimmer into the night sky. The craters have names. This is what Tommy tells them as he swivels the telescope in that direction.
“All of them?” one of the boys asks.
“They’ve named a couple of hundred at least. Some after astronauts like Neil Armstrong. Some after the ancient Greeks. Um...Aristotle has a crater. And Euclid.”
“Why does it look so big?” I ask.
“The moon?” He’s surprised by the question.
“It looks so much bigger when its low and then when it’s overhead it’s so small.”
He smiles. It’s his wide-eyed, goofy grin, the expression of a boy who stargazes with his dad and builds robotic cars out of Lego. “They think it’s an illusion.”
He explains about the Ponzo illusion. It’s the idea that the brain compares objects when it judges scale. Something on the horizon looks big because the brain compares it to trees and buildings and other things it expects to find in that space.
When the moon floats alone, high in the sky, the mind has nothing to gauge its size by. It’s like the small portion of food on the giant plate.
It turns out that relativity is everywhere.
I set the doughnuts up on a picnic table and spend much of the rest of my time wiping sticky hands and chasing away random cats.
We’re packing the boys back into the church van when another car pulls into the parking lot. A shiny black German car that barely makes any noise as it arrives.
There she is. Slumming around in a distressed Wildfox sweater covered with blue stars and a pair of cutoffs that fall an inch below her ass cheeks. Kennes Butterfield.
“Hurry,” I tell Tommy. “If we can get everything loaded in the next thirty seconds we won’t have to talk to her.”
There’s a pause.
“I invited her.”
My heart drops into my stomach. For the first time since camp at Fairy Falls, I want to kick Tommy. After buckling the last kid in a seat belt and slamming the side door, I whirl around to face him. “What the hell—”
Kennes is coming closer and Tommy whispers, “She doesn’t know anybody. If you don’t want to talk to her, you can take the boys back to the church.”
“How will I get back here to get my car?”
I’m making no effort to keep my voice down and Tommy has his hands up defensively, trying to calm me down. “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes and give you a ride back here.”
Kennes is standing a few feet from us now. She scrunches her nose and gives a cute little wave to the boys in the van. “Hi, Tommy. Hi, Cookie.”
Hi, Cookie?
I’m silently willing her to call me some sort of name so that Tommy will be forced to choose where his loyalties lie. But she doesn’t. She just stands there with her perfectly straightened hair and perfectly glossed lips and a pleasant but confused expression on her face. Like she’s baffled by the fact that I hate her.
“Fine,” I snap at Tommy.
I grab the extra boxes of doughnuts and put them in the back of the van. As Tommy tosses me the keys, I call back, “Ten minutes.”
Of course he doesn’t come for me.
Most of the parents are already in the Christ the King parking lot, waiting when I pull in with the white van. Only little Eddie Marshall’s mom isn’t there, but she shows up after about five minutes.
Then I wait.
I stand there holding on to the extra doughnuts for dear life, like they’re a fucking security blanket I can’t live without.
I wait as the church building empties out. As the lights go off. And until Father Tim comes out. “Tommy’s supposed to come and drive me back to the park.”
“You can’t stand out here all night.”
The gray-haired priest doesn’t like to talk. He avoids doing counseling and discourages people from coming to confession. But I appreciate his silence as he drives me to the Riparian Preserve in his old minivan.
The park is empty and completely dark with only the parking lot lit by a series of creepy yellow lights. My car is alone in one corner. Dilapidated and used. Like me.
“Can I assume that bucket of bolts has enough gas to get you home?” Father Tim asks.
“Yes.” I say it so fast it sounds like a lie even to me.
Father Tim reaches into his glove compartment and presses a ten-dollar bill into my hand. “Just in case.”
“I—”
“Let’s not have a big scene, eh, Cookie? Just get home safe.” He starts to walk away but turns back. “You know, every time your dad sends in one of his mission reports, he asks about you.”
“He knows where to find me.” If possible, I feel even more alone.
Father Tim waits until he sees me get in the car and then drives off in the direction of the church.
Just in case. Those words keep echoing in my head like a scene in a really cheesy movie. I never thought I’d need a backup plan to prepare me for the moment my best friend left me for dead.
Father Tim’s money gets me a few gallons of gas and I get home around eleven. Grandma is already asleep. I know this isn’t a slight. The lady gets up at 4:00 a.m. But it makes me feel even more abandoned.
At the kitchen table, I’m looking at the half-full boxes of glazed doughnuts and can taste the sugar dissolving on my tongue. I could eat a dozen by myself. It won’t fix anything, but I’ll feel good again.
For a little while.
I guess this must be what Amanda Harvey meant by emotional eating.
Scooping up the boxes, I march out the wooden door and into the darkness of the backyard. Underneath the porch light Grandma’s dog, Roscoe, is eating a ham sandwich off a plastic plate. He glances up but doesn’t bark as I head back to the trash can. I open the boxes and dump the doughnuts on top of the rotting banana peels, clump of aluminum foil and discarded cereal boxes. I don’t want there to be any chance they can be recovered.
Inside the house, I rummage through my fabric box. I spend the rest of the night furiously sewing a midi skirt from some stretchy, caution-sign-yellow jersey that Grandma picked up on sale at Sally’s Fabrics. I even add special, loopy, heirloom stitching to the hem, which is a real pain in the ass with jersey.
Kennes Butterfield has shot me forward like a rocket into some future space. She’s taught me a lesson. There’s a hunger stronger than the desire for food. The hunger for revenge.