F Paul Wilson - Novel 02 Read Free Page B

           She
just hoped they didn't wind up at a pasta place. That wouldn't be funny.
                 Pasta
. . . when had she picked up that name? Freshman year?
                 Somewhere
around the time her hormones had begun to flow. Overnight she'd seemed to
balloon. It was horrible.
                 She
couldn't squeeze into her clothes. Her breasts were growing, which was fine,
but so were her thighs and hips and waistline. She hadn't changed her eating
habits but her body seemed to have stopped burning off the calories she'd once
been able to pack away. She'd gone from slightly above average to obese in less
than a year. She'd wanted to die.
                 Her
father couldn't see a problem, "There's more of you to love!" was
definitely not a solution to her misery. Mama understood, and together they
started a diet, but already it was too late. The school comedians couldn't
resist "Pasta" Panzella.
                 She
changed internally as well, becoming moody and reclusive. Looking back now,
from the far side of a medical education, Gin realized Pasta had sunk into a
clinical depression. She'd tell people she didn't care about her weight or what
anybody called her, and to prove it, she'd binge. Especially on lonely weekend
nights. Primarily on chocolate.
                 Pasta
loved chocolate. Chocolate cake, chocolate donuts, Hershey's with almonds, and
Snickers. God, she loved Snickers. And bingeing only made her fatter, which
made her even more depressed.
                 Pasta
missed the junior and senior proms, and lots of other high-school activities in
her self-imposed exile. The only bright spots in those dark days had been her
novels and her part-time job in Dr. Lathram's office. Her grades began to slip
but not enough to keep her out of the Ivy League.
                 The
summer before going off to college she realized that she had a chance to start
all over again. The kids in Princeton had never heard her called Pasta. She vowed that none of them ever would. She
began a strict diet, no bulimia, no starvation, no trading one problem for
another, just low fat and calorie restriction, plus a grueling exercise
program. She remembered the constant hunger, the burning lungs, the aching legs
as she forced her body to jog one more mile . . . just one more. By the time
she registered at Princeton she was proud to be merely overweight. According to
her charts, her weight hit the fiftieth percentile for her age, height, and sex
during sophomore year, as a junior she overshot and got too thin, so she backed
off. When she graduated she was the person she wanted to be, She had her BS in
biology, was on her way to U. of P. med school, and she liked what she saw in
the mirror.
                 She'd
maintained that weight through four years of med school and three years of
residency. Pasta Panzella was gone.
                 Well,
almost gone. The ghost of Pasta still haunted her, and every so often she'd
propel Gin to the chocolate section of a candy store, and Gin would give in and
let Pasta have a Snickers. But only once in a while, and only one.
                 And
now Gerry Canney was asking her out. Strange how things come full circle.
                 She
frowned. Hadn't she heard somewhere along the line that Gerry was married? She
wanted to get to know Gerry, she certainly hadn't known him well in high
school, but she wasn't into games.
                 Pasta
Panzella had been a vulnerable adolescent.
                 Gin
Panzella, MD, was anything but.
                 '"Sorry
I'm late," Gerry said as he burst into Marvin Ketter's cramped officer on
the EYE
Street side of the Bureau building. He was puffing a little and he'd broken a
sweat on the rush up from the parking garage.
                 "Took
me a little longer than I planned."