Waking her up, somehow within moments she is talking about ballroom dancing
(" And I was very light on my feet too!")
Normally contemptive, ZeeZee is veering to obsession about remembered slights.
Apparantly she weighed over 300 pounds. ("None of it was real weight you know, it was just water a Doctor told me years later.") ("My husband never believed it. He always told me I had a sweet tooth and most be sneaking chocolates or cookies.")
Her husband had a grand position with a MultiNational company and part of his job was to entertain important clients. On the occasion she is remembering with such vividness it was a formal dinner/dance at a swish dinnerclub.
" I lived on the scent of bananas and lettuce leaves and got myself down to under 150 pounds. I looked very very good. So I went out and got myself an elegant black dress with layers of crepe and tulle. And I LOOKED MARVELLOUS! I wasn't just slim I was really slim."
Oh how intently she reminded me of this.
Imperitive that I know that she truly was slim.
The happy couple went out with another to aforesaid swish spot, and immediatly the band began to play, her gentelman husband swooshed the client's wife out onto the dance floor.
" And then, as that woman walked all over my husbands feet, and my toes started twitching, the husband leaned forward and engaged me in desultory conversation.
"I never did get to dance that evening but his wife was absolutely exhausted. On the way home I said to my husband in the car ' I never even got one dance out of him.'"
ZeeZee rolled her chair closer to me and stared into my eyes.
" And do you know what he said? He looked at me and said: ' Well dear, face it. No man wants to drag a heavy woman across the dancefloor.
" He never even noticed that I was no longer heavy, but you see he could no more change his nature than turn into a toad."
Poor dear ZeeZee sitting in her beautiful home reflecting on 90+ years of ZeeZee-ness and her primary memory of the man who was her beloved is that.
I am glad she lives on in the Waterfront mansion and he is feeding the worms.
