Candy and Me (22 page)

“I love you and everything,” I told Chris, “but this is still boring. Do you think we should be able to have fun under these conditions?”

“Only a little,” he said. “Did you enjoy your prime rib?”

“Oh yes!” It was true. I rarely ate meat, and prime rib always did it for me.

“Well, then,” he shrugged. “You’ve done very well.”

The next day, New Year’s Day, was as cold and overcast as every day before it. Chris had a cold that he couldn’t shake, but he went for a run down the beach anyway. I watched the news in the exercise room.

Later that afternoon we decided to go for a walk. I put the champagne we had brought—some Dom Pérignon that Chris had gotten as a gift—into a bag. I washed some local strawberries.

“Should I bring glasses or paper cups?” I asked Chris.

“Whatever,” he said. I packed the glasses. We walked down the beach to a little gazebo Chris had seen on his run.

“Is this good?” he asked.

“Too many people coming and going,” I said. It was more private farther down the beach, so we found a driftwood tree resting parallel to the shoreline. It was white as the sand and smooth with contour lines. We sat and drank our champagne and ate our strawberries. Because the sky was overcast, there was a silvery gleam to the ocean. We huddled for warmth.

“I’ve been cold for days now. Days!” I told Chris.

“I know,” he said.

I sighed. “This is pretty perfect. Would anything make it better for you?”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t change anything. What about you—would anything make it better for you?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Not even…” he reached into his pocket. As I saw his knuckles bend into his jeans, it crossed my mind that he might be going for a ring. We had never talked about getting married. When we moved in together, my friends and family started asking about our intentions. I thought we had a future together, but I didn’t think that we had to define it in order to try living together. All I knew was that I didn’t need anything more, any promise, ring, or guarantee to be happy with Chris. We were already more happy than imaginable. I figured if I started to feel unsatisfied, it would probably mean that I wanted to define our commitment (or that we were done with each other). But I couldn’t even picture when that might be so.

“Not even…these????” Chris pulled three packs of Bottle Caps out of his pocket. As quickly as the notion of a ring had entered my mind, it flew away.

“Where did you get these?” I demanded to know.

“I have my sources,” he said dryly.

“Name your sources!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said.

“I can’t believe we’ve been on vacation for four days and you haven’t given those to me. Four days. What were you thinking?”

“Aren’t you going to eat them?” he asked.

I thought about it, like the hypnotist lady told me to do. We were drinking fancy champagne and eating fresh strawberries. “Maybe we should wait until later,” I told him. “Let’s not ruin the champagne with refined sugar.”

Chris looked surprised. “I can’t believe you’re resisting Bottle Caps,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m just saving them for later.”

“That’s right. But you never save for later. I didn’t even know you knew those words. What is this ‘save’? What is this ‘later’? Chris no understand.” It was then that I realized that, finally, candy wasn’t the center of my attention. I felt no sense of desire or need. I still liked it and wanted to be friends with it, but I wasn’t about to call it in tears at two in the morning. It was just itself. Just a dessert.

Eventually Chris prodded me into cracking open the Bottle Caps. There, nestled among root beer, cola, and grape Caps, was an engagement ring. Some people fantasize for years about such moments, but I had never imagined it actually happening. It was a little out-of-body, so I decided to stick with the obvious.

“You got me a ring!” I said, and tried it on.

“I can’t believe it fits,” he said. We admired it. Then I realized something was missing. I turned to him.

“Excuse me? Is there something you wanted to ask me?”

“Oh yeah,” he said.

Meltaways

W
e got married on a cloudless day the following September. In preparation for our wedding, Chris and I purchased forty-five pounds of candy. I know it sounds like a lot. There were five pounds of jellybeans to be scattered on the tables, and forty pounds of Tootsie Rolls, jellybeans, Kisses, and Skittles to be sorted into little favor bags for the guests. We tied customized toothbrushes to each bundle. Instead of a dentist’s name, our names were printed on the brush stems. But I discarded the idea of having candy centerpieces. Flowers are nice too. And I wouldn’t want people to think I was obsessed.

On our wedding day I felt calm, happy, and overwhelmingly lucky to be so certain and so loved. Nobody gave me away. Chris and I walked down the aisle side by side and vowed to be grateful every day for each other’s love. The rings we exchanged are engraved on the outside with the words “Now comes the mystery”; we liked acknowledging that the unknown is always oncoming, and that we are committed to each other in spite of and because of that. As planned, candy was on the tables and in the goody bags, and a cupcake tree served as a wedding cake (plated with ice cream, of course). My sugar-nut nephew Asher was in heaven. But my focus was elsewhere—on the festivities, on the friends and relatives from far and near, and on the face of my beloved. Looking back, it occurs to me that in all the toasts, not one person mentioned my sweet tooth. I’m relieved—candy may have been the Elmer’s glue of my childhood friendships, but the most credit I’ll give it now is as friendship glitter.

Finding my mate hasn’t taken away my love for candy. My obsession with sugar may have commenced as a means of finding sweetness in life, but along the way it became a part of my identity. I’ll never be a celery-nibbling angel. Not only do I continue to delight in certain favorites, but the idea of a life without candy is gray and incomplete.

Keeping how much candy I consume down to “above average” will probably always be a struggle between taking pleasure and wanting to be healthy. I try making rules—one indulgence per week; only special hard-to-find selections; no candy, only ice cream (because ice cream is closer to being an actual food). So far I don’t take my own rule-making seriously, but there’s always hope.

I’m also still compelled by the illicit desire, the secrecy and guilt, and the rebellious urge to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and in whatever quantity I choose. Sometimes I’ll get on a candy-eating tear, and have to go cold turkey to bring myself back down to earth.

On one hand, candy is evil. It is bright, pretty, and sweet, but it is a quicksand lover. Once it has you in its grasp, it pulls you deeper and deeper into trouble. On the other hand, candy is a simple joy. It’s a fun, tasty snack reminiscent of childhood. For me, candy has been the complex flavor of doubt, fear, guilt, hope, and love. The best I can do is to try to limit it to a bit part in my life—the role of Occasional Indulgence played by rotating cast members.

One last thing: In a candy store in Maine, they sell a candy called Meltaways. As far as I am concerned, Meltaways are nectar of the gods. I could eat them ceaselessly. They are round, flat sugary disks that melt to a paste in your mouth. A candy couldn’t come much closer to sugar water if it tried. They come in mint flavors, but are best experienced in lemon, lime, orange, and lavender. I must have them. When I do get my hands on a box, I must eat all of it at once, while Chris tries to sneak one or two before they are gone. A genuine vacation candy, Meltaways are true to their name. They melt gently into nothingness, and with them go all the worries of the world. The three of us make a fine pair.

Epilogue: Candy West

O
nce we were married, it suddenly seemed inevitable that Chris and I would move to Los Angeles. What better way to celebrate our future together than to build it on new terrain? So we dug ourselves out of Brooklyn, packed it all up, and awoke on the west coast.

The plan for California was that candy would be a once-a-week treat. If I led a low-sugar life the rest of the week, I could indulge on Sunday guilt-free. This strategy was certainly not new, but the idea was that in California it would not be just a strategy. In California it would be a way of life. In California I would know no other sugar reality.

But California had a few tricks up its sleeve.

Not long after we arrived, I found myself in Rexall Square Drug. Rexall is a sprawling drugstore, the kind that impresses a transplanted New Yorker with its wide aisles, extensive variety of sunscreens, and friendly pharmacists who care about patients’ health. Rexall also has a sizeable chunk of real estate devoted to candy.

The first few times I went into Rexall I ignored the candy area. I was faithful to my one-indulgence-a-week California lifestyle and was holding out for the caramel-coated marshmallows I’d seen at the farmer’s market. But finally the time came when I examined Rexall’s candy offerings. There, sitting among dozens of other candies, were Bottle Caps. Sold by the roll, no less. Sitting there as if it were perfectly normal. As if I hadn’t scoured New York and other east coast stores to little or no avail. Now, I have never put restrictions on my Bottle Caps purchases. There was never a need to do so. I found them so rarely that I could just buy a load, eat them in one extended sitting, and go back to my regular life. But here they were, in great form and quantity, mere blocks from my house. I could buy them whenever I wanted. So the question was: how many would I buy?

I deliberated for a moment, then realized that there was only one possible answer. Total deprivation wasn’t an option—I couldn’t buy zero. And I couldn’t buy multiple packs, because where would I draw the line? The answer was simple: I bought one pack. I could buy more whenever I wanted. One was clear, simple, restrained. One meant I could come back next week (or tomorrow) for one more.

From the Bottle Caps windfall, I should have known that in Los Angeles I should expect the unexpected. But it was still a shock to me to enter Ralph’s, the local grocery store chain, and find old-fashioned marshmallow eggs displayed unceremoniously among the rest of the Easter candies. I’d been chasing them for years and here they were, simple as that. I picked up a pack and ran all the way to Produce to find Chris.

“Look!” I exclaimed. “Eggs!”

“You’re not going to get those, are you?”

“What? Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I?”

“What about the once-a-week thing?” Chris is really a stickler for details.

“I’m still on the once-a-week thing, but come on! I’ve been wanting these eggs for years! They don’t count.”

“But there’s always something else that doesn’t count,” Chris argued.

“I have to buy these,” I said. “Just one pack.”

Chris sighed. He knew it was hopeless. But I had hope for my new land of plenty. There would be no “stocking up” on candy. It was all right here. California wasn’t holding anything back. And maybe, just maybe, candy and I would find our balance.