When Life Gives You Doris
Yes, it’s true. My name is Doris Doykle-Dohnk. I used to think it was because God hated me, but then I decided there is no God. It was a decision I made during the time Mother spent at the hospital, her body being eaten by a disease whose name contained many syllables, and for which there is no cure. So I visited her every day, sat beside her bed and watched as her shell shrank and shrivelled and gripped air like a rope. She died with clenched fists, blue veins protruding from the back of her small, tight hands. I think the last thing she said to me was, I’m falling, although she may have said failing. Her lips were purple and puckered. It was difficult to decipher the words.
A day before she died, Mother insisted I buy new clothes. That’s literally what she said to me, stiff on her deathbed, with blood and urine and a milky, mildew-like substance collected in bags around her body: I insist you buy new clothes, Doris. Something less baggy, less brown. I’m being serious, now. Why must everything you wear always be so gosh darn baggy and brown?
I tried knitting a sweater that night, one with citrus and cinder rose lines dropping vertically beneath a rather revealing collar. But the sleeves didn’t turn out so well. One was longer than the other, and the yarn kept pulling loose. I wasn’t quite sure how to go about fixing it; I wound up using the sweater as a bathmat instead. But that didn’t work, either. Puddles still formed on top of and around the sweater, while wet crumbs of yarn stuck to the bottoms of my feet.
There were two reasons Mother suggested I buy new clothes: 1. I’m forty-two, and 2. I’m single. Mother believed an updated wardrobe might be the first step in making me somewhat more desirable to someone else. But the newfound lack of brownness in my attire still couldn’t hide the fact that I was what the flowchart at my doctor’s office referred to as an at risk patient.
Mother used to tell me it was on account of the popcorn I ate, or more specifically, the amount of mayonnaise I had a tendency to plop on top of it. But I’ve since stopped doing that. No more mayonnaise for Doris. After Mother died, I started using garlic or onion powder instead. Both are a lot less fattening, while still tasting just as good. Not to mention the fact I also purchased a treadmill online. It arrived the Christmas Eve following Mother’s death. It travelled all the way from Agra, India, and only cost me $300 Canadian. It also came with a free spray bottle.
I started walking for at least a half hour every morning before work, spraying myself enthusiastically with tap water as I went. The goal was to become the size of an average-sized woman by the following summer. I had my eye set on this particular bikini I’d seen at the outlet mall between a liquor store and the OshKosh B’Gosh. It was blue with glittery white clouds. I’d never been to a beach before.
I’ve always been heavy, ever since I was a kid. Carl used to say it was on account of the genes I’d inherited from him.
You were born into a long line of bigness, he told me one time, but it’s a beautiful brand of bigness, Doris. We in the Dohnk family, our bodies reflect the size of our dreams. So if shrinking’s what you want, then it’s best to keep awake forever. Otherwise, just shut your eyes and let things happen.
Carl was a big man, with bad knees and a red, pumpkin-shaped face. He worked at the elementary school mopping floors, replacing light bulbs, retrieving tennis balls from the rooftop and scooping feces out of the urinals.
Every day he wore black pants, a grey, button-up shirt, and boots with steel toes. The boots were my favourite part. I used to tippy-toe on top of them, our fingers curled over one another’s knuckles, and we’d dance, swaying around the kitchen instead of eating, with Carl humming Hank Williams or Arlo Guthrie.
I was shorter then, so my face was belly-height. It pressed into his gut, and I’d take deep breaths of his shirt, the smoke and sweat, the cleaning products. I tried to trap his scent inside my nostrils for the rest of the day. He always kissed me on the cheek at the end of our dance, call me his Little Lady and make his way out the door. Mother was the one who drove me to school. Her car smelled like perfume and breakfast.
When Carl died, Mother refused to believe it. She acted as if he was still in the house. He’s just in the other room, she’d say. Go fetch him for Jeopardy, Doris.
But he’s not here, Mom.
Nonsense, Doris. Fetch. Go on.
Mother continued to cook Carl’s favourite meal, preparing it twice, sometimes three times a week. I was forbidden from entering the kitchen, but I could smell it, this concoction of corned beef, mustard, pickle, coleslaw and garlic mashed potatoes. I used to close my eyes and breathe and swallow shots of saliva. Sometimes I’d even imagine my tongue was the food, and I’d gnaw it until my teeth turned red.
Mother walked slowly up the stairs, savouring each step. They whined under her slippers. She held the plateful of food in her hands and tucked a paper towel between her chin and chest. It was seven o’clock in the evening, always on the dot. I’d hear the door to the master bedroom open and close, and then the sound of laughter, crying, heavy breathing through the walls.
I was twelve, and remained seated on the floral couch in the living room, waiting for Mother to reappear. When she did, her face was shiny with sweat. She’d show me the plate. It was always empty, apart from a few breadcrumbs, maybe a couple drops of pickle juice.
You believe your father? she’d say. What a pig he is, stuffing that face of his the way he does. But God knows, I love him. Am I right, Doris? Am I right or am I right?
Mother left everything to me, and so I moved back into the old house soon after her death. It was located in a suburb called Aurora, a forty-five minute drive north of Toronto. The house had two floors and no basement. The walls were painted khaki, and there were brown marks on the white ceilings and white marks on the brown carpet. The same pea-coloured towels hung from a bar in the downstairs washroom. They smelled of perfume, cigarette smoke and sweat. The fridge in the kitchen was empty, the bulb flickering. Baby chick salt and pepper shakers balanced on the back end of the stove, tiny smiles carved into their beaks. One was wearing a white chef’s hat, the other black.
I walked upstairs and stood in the doorway to the master bedroom. There were yellow stains wrapped like ringworm on the comforter. Circles of urine, or mustard. I opened the closet door, finding a large mouse caught in a small trap. It decomposed next to a pair of vintage heels, about six sizes too small for me.
I’d become neighbours with a girl named Kim-Claire Beally, who lived across the street from me, and who was seven and three quarters, with brown hair and eyes and blue teeth on account of the candy she’d been sucking.
Hello, she said.
Hi.
What’s your name?
Doris.
What’s your last name? My mom says I need to call old people by their last name.
Doykle-Dohnk, dear, I said. My last name is Doykle-Dohnk.
Well, I’m Kim. K-I-M. Claire. C-L-A-I-R-E. Beally. B-E-A-L-L-Y.
She wore a blood orange summer dress and what appeared to be ballet slippers, pink with flat toes. Her smile was wide, and the features surrounding were perfectly proportioned. She was a beautiful kid.
K-I-M. C-L-A-I-R-E. B-E-A-L-L-Y. She stuck out her blue tongue.
Just looking at her, you could tell she’d have it easy.
Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk? Kim-Claire called. It was early one morning in mid-August and I was dragging my recycling bin to the curb. The weather was muggy, stale. I was wearing Mother’s peach bathrobe and a pair of plastic flip-flops. No makeup.
Kim-Claire sat behind a small table on the sidewalk across the street. The sign in front read LEMONAD ONLY 1 BUX. There was a stack of paper cups on the table beside a glass pitcher of pink lemonade.
It’s Ms. Doykle-Dohnk, I tried telling her. Not Mrs., but Miss. Call me Miss, dear.
Kim-Claire pulled a cup off the stack and tilted the pitcher toward it.
C’mon over, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk, she said. It’s only a dollar.
Shortly after moving back to the old house, I signed up for an online dating service called Cupid Cares. This was one of Mother’s dying wishes. Not that I participate in online dating, necessarily, but that I attempt to find true love.
Cupid matched me up with several men, all of whom were somewhere between forty and fifty, and, according to their display pictures, either bald, blotchy, bearded, bloated, or all of the above. The site also provided me with a catalogue of information, including a list of their personal interests and geographical locations. Based on the latter, the only bachelor close enough was a gentleman named Thomas Smith, whose profile picture presented him as a rather pale, emaciated optometrist from a neighbouring town called Oak Ridges. His interests included eyeballs, books about maps, and BBW (Big Beautiful Women).
Thomas left a comment beneath my profile picture:
I like what I see.
This was followed by a winky face, followed by several x’s and o’s, followed by a happy face with its tongue sticking out, followed by: Just tell me when and where.
We arranged to meet at an Italian restaurant called Barrels of Pasta. Thomas wore a striped suit several sizes too big for him. The cuffs drooped like a wizard’s, and his hands appeared childlike poking out of them. He touched me, his stubby fingers on the back of my elbow as we made our way to the table. Violin music vibrated out of old speakers. He pulled the chair for me, and I sat down and listened to the legs bend. We ordered drinks and food, and shared stories about our lives up until that point. Thomas told me he was a virgin. He said Christ burned in his soul and helped keep it clean.
I see, I said. I sipped red wine.
Thomas dabbed his lips, spaghetti sauce kisses on the cloth. He told me the second he saw my photo, he knew the search was over; he’d finally found the one. Your face did things to me, he said. When I look at you, I feel like I’m floating, like we’re all in space. Do you feel it too, Doris?
Bristly blond hairs sprouted out the corners of his dry mouth. There were pimples planted along the border of his head where a hairline should’ve been. When there were no more noodles left on his plate, he used his fingers to pick leftover tomato chunks from the sauce and toss them into his mouth, sucking on each like a mint.
He told me the meal was on him, then asked to borrow $16.
I handed him a twenty and never saw the change. He asked if we could meet again. I told him yes. My glass was empty. He let me finish his.
I started to hear voices shortly after moving back into the old house. They came from the master bedroom, the one Mother used to share with Carl. The words were muffled through the wall, but I could still recognize it was them.
Carl saying things, and Mother laughing.
I made sure their door was kept shut. I never went in there, or upstairs at all. I slept on the living room couch and bathed by flicking water at myself at the downstairs kitchen sink. I watched the shopping channel with the volume turned all the way up, cancelling their voices with the sound of people pitching necklaces, exercise balls, foot massagers. Grills. A device for squeezing lemons. Special scented soaps. I was aware my behaviour was irrational, but I also knew they were up there. Mother and Carl had found their way back inside the house.
I only ever opened the door to their bedroom once. It was on the day that should’ve been Carl’s sixty-eighth birthday. I prepared his favourite meal, carried it up to the bedroom the same way Mother used to, opened the door wide enough so that the plate fit through, and slid it along the floor and into the room. I didn’t wait to see if there was a hand inside to pick it up. I shut the door and ran, back downstairs and out the front door and across the street. Kim-Claire was still selling lemonade. I bought a cup and guzzled it like red wine. The lemonade was tepid and too sour, but I still asked for several refills. Kim-Claire wanted to know if I thought she was pretty, and I told her I did. She handed me my next cup at a 25% off discount.
When I was in kindergarten, the teacher used to project light against big sheets of brown paper that were stuck to the classroom wall. The sheets were taller than any of us, and we took turns standing between them and the light, facing sideways so that our profile became silhouetted on the paper. The teacher then traced our shadows, and we spent the afternoon colouring ourselves in. But my shadow appeared noticeably larger than the others; my belly was rounder, and I didn’t seem to have a neck. Every part of me toppled and began to blend like I was a melting snowman. One kid even called me doughy. Doughy Doris Doykle-Dohnk.
Later Carl found me spread in the middle of the street, arms and legs outstretched like I was trying to make an angel on the pavement. He asked what I was doing.
The kids at school make fun of me.
How so?
They think I’m fat.
Nonsense, Doris.
They call me Doughy Doris Doykle-Dohnk.
A car drove up and stopped in front of us. Carl bent down. He reached his hand for me to take, and I took it, and he lifted me up like I wasn’t heavy at all. He carried me back to the house with his hands under my bottom, and then sat me down on the front step and said, You need to quit doing that, Doris.
But Dad, I said.
It’s dangerous, Little Lady. No more lying in the street.
Dad.
Enough.
I looked at my feet. There were ants surrounding my shoes, all of them the exact same size, and I thought about how lucky they were. Carl went inside the house. I tried killing as many ants as possible, but they were too small. I’d lift my shoe and they’d still be there, scuttling around, not knowing how close they’d come.
I still smell Carl’s breath. Like fire. Scotch and Pepsi. The way his veins pulsated under my fingers, cheeks grazing mine like soft sandpaper. His lips, sharp kisses. His feet were wide. Yellow toenails and a white scar on his left ankle. He was barefoot. The oven door was open and loose on its hinges. The funeral was cheap. We buried him in a cardboard coffin. Mother sobbed into my hair as she hugged me from behind. I sat on the couch. She continued to cook for him. I watched her walk up the stairs. Sometimes it sounded like there were two pairs of feet.
Thomas rode a scooter. He picked me up for our second date wearing the same striped suit, the same ketchup tie. I told him he looked gentlemanly. You too, he told me. Pretty as a landscape, Doris. You make me wish I knew how to paint.
It was only five o’clock. Kim-Claire was still across the street selling lemonade. Thomas suggested we go buy some. She poured us two cups, asked Thomas if he was my husband.
Just friends, I told her. You know I’m not married, Kim-Claire.
Kim-Claire nodded. You’re a lot bigger than he is, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk.
Thomas took me to a Chinese food buffet. We sat next to the window, a setting sun landing in his eyes and making him squint. He rubbed his foot against my shin under the table. I could feel his big toe poking through a hole in his sock. I tried my best to blush. He blew me a kiss. I caught it, and for whatever reason, stuffed it between my breasts. He tried feeding me, holding a forkful of bean sprouts in front of my mouth, but I shook it away.
I just want to take care of you, he said.
The meal made me feel dizzy, like a head rush that wouldn’t slow down. Everything was cold and undercooked and I felt puffy afterwards. Even the beverages were bad. The coffee smelled fusty, and the lemonade was too sweet. Thomas asked if I’d like to go see a movie, but I didn’t; I told him my stomach ached like I’d swallowed a cactus. He drove me home on his scooter. The wind in my hair made everything feel lighter. It was only 6:30 when we arrived back at my place. He asked if he could smell me before I went inside. He said he wanted to sniff my armpit. I let him, and he said the Chinese food was caught in my pores. He asked to lick it, and I let him.
Carl and Mother met when they were teenagers. He was big, and she was little, and they dated for five years before eloping in Niagara Falls at the age of twenty. Five years after that, they had a child.
It wasn’t planned. Mother never wanted kids. She believed them to be a burden, stretching your body and shortening your lifespan. But the prospect of having a baby is something that excited Carl. He tried forcing Mother to keep it. She fought back. They reached their final decision over a game of chess.
Elderly men used to play in the park. Mother’s grandfather was one of these men. Every Saturday he was there from noon until six, and one afternoon, Carl and Mother sat on a bench and watched him. The deal was if Mother’s grandfather won, she’d get an abortion, and if he lost, me.
The game lasted maybe forty minutes. Carl held Mother’s hand the entire time. I couldn’t tell whose was sweatier, he told me, many years later, but our grip kept slipping. Your mother’s a difficult lady to hold.
Eventually, Carl had to let go. He stood up and paced in front of Mother, who remained seated, her back straight, her hand drawing circles on her flat belly. The chess game ended and Carl threw up into some bushes next to the garbage can. Mother rubbed his back as he spit the taste out of his mouth. She told him she’d changed her mind, and not to worry.
I arrived home early from work one evening, and Kim-Claire was still outside, seated behind her lemonade stand and yelling across the street to me, telling me what she’d earned that day. Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk! Today I made a whole entire thirty-two bucks! Thirty-two, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk!
That’s wonderful, dear, I said.
Kim-Claire looked both ways before running across the street.
How much did you make? she asked.
I was unloading groceries out of my trunk. Most of the bags contained healthy foods like hummus and bananas, so I wasn’t embarrassed. I pulled a lemon from one and handed it to her. She pressed on the toes of her ballet slippers and shut her eyes tight so I could see how long her lashes were.
Thanks, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk.
It’s Miss Doykle-Dohnk, dear.
That’s what I said.
She reminded me of a girl I knew in high school, a girl named Leah Carson, who told everyone I was a lesbian, and also that I diddled myself underneath the tables in the cafeteria while watching people eat.
I took back the lemon.
Hey!
I bet you aren’t even the one who makes it, I told her. I bet it’s your mother who does the work, and you just sell it. Tell me, Kim-Claire. Is it Quinlynn? Don’t lie.
Kim-Claire wasn’t listening. She was already halfway across the street by the time I started yelling. LIARLIARLIAR, and she was crying, lifting the pitcher of pink lemonade off the table and dumping it on the lawn. I hate you, she yelled back at me. I hate you, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk. You’re a fat stupid idiot and I hate you.
I’m lying in the middle of the road again, except now I’m middle-aged. My arms and legs are stretched as far as possible, and I’m dressed in an elegant white gown, or maybe a coral pink gown, or maybe the gown is cornflower blue. A car stops to avoid running me over. The driver gets out. Are you alright? he asks. I sit up and show him I’m fine. The driver is a man, and the man is tall and dark and handsome and whatever else women are generally looking for. He smiles, teeth like in a toothpaste commercial. He asks what my name is, and I tell him Doris, and he tells me I don’t look like a Doris. You look more like a Julia or Jennifer or Jacqueline, he says. Yes. A Jacqueline. I make a funny face, eyes crossed, tongue sticking out to the side. He tells me I’m funny, and that it’s quirky how I lie in the middle of the street dressed in a gown. He says he finds me odd, and that my oddness intrigues him. He wants to learn more about me. He brushes the hair out of my eyes with his fingers and tells me his name is Jack or James or Jonathan. My name’s Jonathan, he says in a voice so deep I can feel the words rumble my belly. He asks me for my number. I give it to him. He calls. He calls and I answer. It’s all true.
The last time I saw Thomas, he showed up at my house unannounced, carrying a six-pack of beer and a bottle opener in the shape of a cross. We ordered pizza and played Scrabble in the kitchen. Thomas poured his beer into a wine glass, drank it through a straw. I was wearing sweatpants and my faded Minnie Mouse T-shirt, but he didn’t seem to care. He told me I looked saucy and succulent.
Liar, I said.
I’m serious, Doris. God made you with all kinds of herbs and spices.
He wore a white T-shirt and jeans, and his bare feet smelled, but I didn’t say anything about it. When the Scrabble game ended, he kept forming words on the board like I and LOVE and YOU. He asked if we could go to the bedroom, but I said no. The upstairs was off limits. He made a joke about someone being up there, but it was only a joke. I took out the straw and drank the remainder of his beer.
Thomas swept the Scrabble board off the table with his child-hands. I’m not sure why he did that. The letters clattered on the tiles, and spread into a mess. He took off his clothes like someone was timing him. His frame, even scrawnier when naked, flesh pulled tight against jutted bones. He was hairless, apart from his pubes and the few blond curls spiraled around his nipples. I felt bloated. My stomach and throat gurgled.
It’s your turn, he said.
This was my first time taking my clothes off in front of a man. But I wasn’t nervous. I knew I was a BBW, exactly what Thomas wanted. He lay back on the floor with his penis stiff in the air. I was going to sit on top of it, but he instructed me not to. He said we couldn’t have sex because we weren’t married, that I should smother him instead.
Cover me entirely, he pleaded. Let me get lost in you, Doris.
I felt the hardness stab into my body. The tip was wet. I pressed my hands and toes into the tiles. It stabbed my flesh. I could hear Carl and Mother fighting on the floor above us. Someone threw something at someone else. The noise shattered across the ceiling.
Thomas moaned, but the sound was stifled under my breasts. I could feel his jaw moving up and down, trying to catch pieces of me in his mouth. He pinched my thighs when he was finished. His nails left lines on my skin. I rolled off of him, and onto my back, and he wiped my belly clean with Pizza Hut napkins.
I didn’t understand at first. My cousin tried explaining it. Uncle Carl died in the oven, she said. His head was in the oven, and then he couldn’t breathe anymore.
I thought this meant he’d cooked himself, or maybe burned his face until his head filled with so much fire everything stopped working. But Carl looked like himself at the funeral, lying there in the cardboard casket. I mean his face wasn’t burnt, and he didn’t look much like food either. He just looked like Carl, mostly. I kept expecting him to wake up and call me his Little Lady, let me step on his toes and sway for a while.
It was about a year after moving back into the old house. A car nearly hit me. I was standing in the middle of the road when it screeched and stopped and started honking. I looked at the ants on the ground, and myself. I was dressed in Mother’s bathrobe and broken flip-flops. The driver leaned his head out the window. It was a teenager with long hair and expensive-looking sunglasses. He yelled, Get off the road, crazy bitch.
I stepped onto the sidewalk. I was across the street from my house.
Are you alright, Mrs. Doykle-Dohnk? Kim-Claire asked.
Yes. Yes I am, Kim-Claire.
Why’d you run in front of that car?
I’m fine, dear.
She poured me a cup of lemonade. Maybe you’re confused, she said. My mom says sometimes old ladies get confused when they’re out in the sun for too long. That’s why Mrs. Mah called me Melissa at the street sale. My mom says it’s important that old ladies stay—
I was walking away, back across the street and up my driveway and into the house. I walked past the TV with the shopping channel turned up all the way, past the treadmill and the spray bottle half-empty in the holder. I managed to climb the stairs and open the bedroom door. Neither one was there, but their faces appeared in a photograph on the armoire: Carl and Mother in their mid-twenties, standing on a ferry with water sparkling black in the background, and Carl is holding me, cradling me in his big arms, and Mother’s touching Carl’s left bicep, and her cheek is on his shoulder, and both of them are looking down at me.
I looked up.
The ceiling fan had mahogany blades. It was spinning. The air circled coolly around the room, carrying the smell of corned beef with it, coleslaw, potatoes, pickles and mustard. Cleaning products. Lemons. My face puckered. I could feel myself budding, becoming bigger. I tried listening for the sound of Carl’s voice, or Mother’s, or maybe even Thomas’s. But the fat folded over my ears, and then my eyes, over my entire face, and eventually I was trapped inside of myself, unable to move, or hear, or see the parts of me growing. I could only feel it, the way my body filled the room until I was literally everywhere, not an inch left for someone to squeeze inside and find me.
