Fran has just been released from an inpatient eating disorders unit after a 3 week stay. She meets her long term boyfriend Jack at their regular Saturday morning spot, a cafe called Anodyne. Over coffee and pastries, Jack pressures Fran to eat more which causes tension. It's revealed that Jack is leaving Fran to return to their old hippie commune and his ex-girlfriend Cally who recently came to visit him while Fran was in the hospital. Fran has a meltdown, throws her plate on the ground, and breaks up with Jack. She then sets off alone to explore the city, marking the beginning of her journey of recovery without Jack.

1. “Status Quo” By Carrie M. O’Connor
An April Saturday morning on Milwaukee’s lower east side. The emerging yellow-green leaves dance
delicately in the wind. Yellow tulips boldly grace lawns. City neighbors proudly tend their backyard victory
gardens. Vintage is in vogue when it comes to 1950s sundresses and heirloom tomatoes.
And in this calm and orderly existence, I whisper in the tradition of all mad women: “I’m dangerous!”
Last weekend, my boyfriend, Jack, picked me up from the inpatient ward.
The friends whom he met at the herb-drying seminar now try to console him.
“The eating-disorders ward, dude. It’s not that bad,” they say.
Indeed. It’s not like I tried to off myself with his newly refilled bottle of doxycyclene for acne or took his
Gillette blades, which are always dull, by the way, to my wrists.
Obviously, his friends have no imagination. Anorexia, after all, is a rather ancient form of prolonged suicide.
But Jack’s friends are single-minded and focused.
Jack and his bros are saving the world. From everything.
Today, the rain pelts against the thick glass of Anodyne Café and the slick sidewalks of Brady Street. Jack and I
found a small table. We brought a box of cannolis from the bakery across the street. The family-owned business
has been making fine pastries for about six decades. Our purchases are allowed in the door at Anodyne because
we know Kat, the barista.
I hand her tiramisu with a huge smile. “Here you go, babe.”
She is familiar with our Saturday-morning routine. Actually, everyone is familiar with our routine. The
landlady, our parents, our friends. It is a rather pathetic statement that, in our late 20s, we are creatures of
entrenched habits.
Every week, we sleep late, and emerge from our Prospect Avenue apartment in jeans and white T-shirts. In all
seasons, we walk around the lakefront. In the summer, we add rollerblading. The Art Museums’s Quadracci
Pavilion and fountain have always been a sacred site for us with the outstretched white wing-like brise soleil.
We make our way up Lafayette Hill, arm in arm, marveling at the old homes built by upper-class settlers. I can
sit in front of unique architecture for days. The east side offers German Renaissance Revival, Italianate and
Queen Anne all nestled against the expansive jewel-like water of Lake Michigan.

2. We stop at Koppa’s Fulbeli Deli where Jack picks up a pack of American Spirits for the weekend from a cashier
who burns sandalwood incense. We move on to the bakery, where we buy cannolis and settle in at Anodyne for
coffee, conversation and the New York Times.
This week is no different than any other week.
Except we no longer link arms. Oh, and of course, I just got out of the hospital.
Jack’s cigarette habit emerged when we moved here from Madison two summers ago.
And somehow by this past winter, when the icicles were hanging long and sleek from our window sills, our
communication had grown equally frigid.
My body temperature froze, as well. But, honestly, it’s not my fault. I’m an anorexic and as such, I am always
cold. In the unit, we sat huddled with thick, white cotton blankets drawn around us. Collectively, we tried to
draw heat from each other’s thin frames while talking smack about celebrities. I’m not one for celeb culture, but
when I was in the unit, I found myself watching a lot of bad television and seriously discussing whether or not
Angelina cried when Brad proposed.
“Do we have to sit here? It’s not very close to the heater,” I say to Jack, drawing my red cardigan closer. This is
a no-brainer.
“Do you see anywhere else to sit, really? Come on, Fran. It’s crowded. It always is,” he says, turning the
newspaper page and lifting the espresso cup to his lips. He cuts a piece of his second cannoli and brings it to his
lips, slowly chewing it. I can tell that he is enjoying the creamy taste. “Eat up,” he says with a smile.
I fell in love with that cute, sideways grin. Seven years ago. I was majoring in English at UW-Madison. That
was the year that I would walk around State Street with petitions to save the polar bears. I lived in an
environmentally focused commune based on New Age principles. We called it The Circle.
It was up to The Circle to save the Earth and each other from a path of destruction. We showered once a week,
flushed only when necessary and calculated our carbon footprint daily. One summer, we turned off the power
completely for a week. We said cosmic incantations before meals, donned capes at full-moon ceremonies, made
love during harvest festivals and read from an ominous Book of Shadows that we wrote ourselves.
My roommate, Cally, was dating Jack, who was a biology major. One night when he stayed over and she was
sick, he and I ended up in the kitchen, talking all night. He started sleeping in my bed every night after that.
There were never any hard feelings because Cally told me she was “finished with him.” And we lived in
community, after all.
Actually, there had been a discussion among the three of us over chai tea and Cally’s luscious cinnamon rolls
one morning as to whether or not ethical polyamory would be possible. You know, Jack and, well, us. While
Jack’s arguments were passionate, I did not bite. I heard them all before. “The Ethical Slut” had a prominent
place on our coffee table, after all. I pushed the roll away in disgust and cited a biological anthropologist’s
assertion that jealousy was a component of biochemical love chemistry and impossible to overcome.
In the end, I won.
When we graduated two years ago, I wanted to move from the commune and our Madison-based friends and
family. I sold it to him as a year to look at new things.

3. He got a research position at UW-Milwaukee. I started working as a technical writer for an engineering firm in
the Third Ward. I exchanged my hippie tie-dye shirts and blue jeans for crisp, cotton shirts and gray trousers. I
started to enjoy long, hot showers every night with French soap. Then, I bought a black Volkswagen Bug, while
Jack continued to take the bus on principle. The only thing “sinful,” as he calls it, that he indulges in is smoking
on the weekends. He continues to meet with his enlightened compatriots. I started going to book groups and
discussing whether Eliot’s “Middlemarch” was truly antifeminist.
Jack stares at me from across the table and frowns. “Eat up,” he says.
I look outside. The thick grayness surrounds everything. It wouldn’t matter if it were sunny, though. I’d still feel
gray inside. I’ve been out of the eating-disorders unit one week now, and my feelings swell and dance inside
my still shrunken stomach.
“Come on, eat it. I read the pamphlet on your dresser. A dessert is the equivalent of—“ Jack begins.
“A fat, a fruit and a grain. I know what they say, Jack. I was just in the hospital for three weeks,” I say.
But I say it smooth and nicely. Like a lady. I was raised to be a lady. Mary Janes. Biscotti dresses. Silence is
golden. Even in my state of rebellion — hippie commune — I was fairly acquiescent.
You know, desserts are always the hardest to justify in a meal plan. They say you aren’t fully recovered unless
you can eat them. But really, how can you feel right about eating white sugar, white flour and Crisco?
I cut off the beginning of the cannoli caterpillar and stuff it into my mouth. The cream smothers my tongue and
I feel nauseous. I make myself swallow it whole like a tablespoon of castor oil. I cut the thing into six more
distinct pieces. The last piece, the ass, I push to the very side and smash it down. I don’t need to eat that today.
“Swimsuit weather is coming,” I say.
“Well, that’s a non sequitur. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I hate summer and swimsuits. I wish that I could just cover myself up in a big, black burqa,” I say, shoving
another piece of the pastry in my mouth.
“You would love to be a woman with no voice?” he asks, starting on his third cannoli.
“No, I just want to hide my body that is gaining weight,” I say.
“I thought you threw away your scale. Wasn’t that part of the therapy?”
The truth is that I have thrown away a dozen scales in the last two years of treatment. I always buy another one.
Some people get up in the morning, pray and read the Bible. Each morning, I pee, step gingerly on the scale and
wait for the digital reading. Still, I have gotten better. I used to graph my weight daily.
“I had to know my weight,” I explain. “I could feel myself getting bigger. You have no idea what it is like to no
longer fit into your clothes.”
“Whatever. I love you. I try to understand,” Jack says, shaking his head.
I eat the thorax. I chew the fried dough and vanilla cream lightly and swallow. Again.

4. “So what are your plans?” he asks.
“Work. Therapy.” I smile. I don’t say, “Stay out of the hospital.” But that was at the forefront.
“I just don’t know how to help. I’ve talked to your family. I’ve read books. I don’t know what else to do. And
honestly, I’m getting tired. Jesus Christ, we’ve gone months without sex.”
“Yeah, I knew that would come up eventually,” I say.
“Well, it’s important to me,” he says.
“You make very clear what is important to you. The Earth. Peak oil. Protests. The compost pile. Oh, and yeah,
sex. We’re not in Madison anymore, Jack,” I say.
“What the hell does that mean? Look, I’m just not a member of the status quo,” he says. “I never have been.”
I put a piece of the sweet into my mouth, rolling it around and swallowing it like it’s a vitamin. “It means I like
getting up in the morning and not offering a sentiment to Gaia for my non-Fair Trade coffee. At the end of a
long work week, I like going to the spa for the occasional mani or pedi. I like watching ‘CSI.’ And, yeah, news
flash. I no longer think that the world is going to end tonight because of a fossil-fuel crisis,” I say.
“The world is ending because of a fossil-fuel crisis. Why don’t you think about what’s happening in the world?
Maybe that would help you. I think you are saying all these things to spite me,” he says.
I pout. He is partially right. “Sometimes it hurts,” I say, looking out the window.
“What does?”
“You. Us. Do you even know how much my family dislikes you? They think you are a lazy hippie. They could
handle my phase because they knew I grew out of it. I sacrifice a lot to go out with you. And that’s what amazes
me. That I actually go out with you and you could care less. That in spite of everything…I somehow love you,”
I manage.
“Hold on, hold on. You were part of The Circle first,” he says.
“Just a moment in time. An experiment. But you were more to me,” I say.
“Can’t speak for your family, Fran, or you. Can speak for myself. I’m going back to Madison. To The Circle,”
he says.
“In a recession where there are no jobs, you are going to up and quit a good position?” I ask.
“Well, you know at The Circle, it’s cheap living. We have the garden and chickens,” he says.
There is something wrong in his tone of voice. There’s a calculated self-assurance and I’m caught completely
off guard. Then, it all becomes clear.
“Ah. The commune. And Cally,” I say.
“Yeah. Well, she came out here, Fran. To tell you the truth,” he says.

5. “While I was in the hospital,” I say.
“Well— “ he starts.
“Yeah, right. In our bed? You did it in our bed?”
“No, Fran, I wouldn’t do that to you,” he says.
“But you wanted to,” I say. “Oh, God. How could I be so stupid? I was almost feeling bad. You are gone.
Tonight,” I say, brushing tears away. I can feel my face growing hot.
“Fran. Let’s not end it like this,” he says with tenderness.
“Go to hell. Bastard.”
I push my glistening black, empty plate forward. With the exception of the decapitated cherry, I have
successfully eaten Snack No. 1 of three today. A fat, a fruit and a grain. I stand up, holding the edge of the table
for support. And then I grab the plate and fling it to the ground hard. I crunch on the pieces as I walk past the
other tables to the counter.
“Kat, that’s on him,” I say.
“Frannie, you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. I will be back. With more pastries this week for us. And for the record, I am not the goddamn status
quo,” I say. I know people must be staring at my flushed face and I feel like I have consumed a jar full of
jalapenos.
Making my way out onto a crowded Brady Street, I try to decide what is next for the afternoon. The vintage
clothing store or the boutique. The museum exhibit or a movie. I head toward the Oriental Theatre, holding its
stained glass chandeliers, bronze Buddhas and East Indian décor in my mind.
The first day of my journey alone ― through the familiar streets, along the landmarks, past the friendly faces ―
is relatively uneventful.
But maybe this is enough for a girl who just finished snack one of three for the day.
And kicked her boyfriend to the curb.
The Vehicle is a literary journal published by the students of Eastern Illinois University