Love in the Jar

My affair with Nutella.

As a child, I consumed the average amount of Nutella of any family member in a typical French household, spread on two white-bread slices, with butter on each one. Julia, our beloved nanny, picked my brother and me up every day from school with one of those for each of us wrapped in aluminum. She’d roll the foil in the palm of her hand for hours, turning it into a round and condensed planet. One ball from both wraps. She could have made two, but that would have formed too small of a planet.

Walking back from the park after school, she’d hand her prize to one of us. It was a badge of honor for which we often fought. Years later, I chatted with my brother, and we both remembered feeling slighted, not having gotten it as often as the other. Looking back, I think she alternated fairly. To this day, when I come in contact with aluminum foil, I roll and roll, but inevitably fail to make a planet that remotely resembles hers.

Our Julia died when I was in my early teens. My parents lied about it for months. They said she’d moved back to Barcelona and didn’t want to spend time with us anymore. What the fuck? Julia would never have left us to the wolves for any other reason than her own death.

My parents couldn’t deal with death. Exhibit A:  when Crunch-the-rabbit died, they replaced him with a very different looking rabbit, telling us they’d taken him for a haircut, but yes, we should trust them, this stand-in rabbit was definitively Crunch. It most certainly was not. Again, what the fuck?

 When she was gone, I continued with the Nutella, but upped my dose. I started eating it in secret, alone in my bed at night. With bread — or without. With spoon — or without. By the age of twelve, I’d mastered the art of scooping it with my finger. Pretty soon, I was eating entire jars in one sitting. I must have consumed hundreds in my time. That is how I got to 160 pounds spread out over my short 5”1’ ten-year-old frame. I would often wake up from a nightmare where I sliced open my fat thigh, and Nutella oozed out.  

I had fantasies that I would marry into the family that manufactured my Nutella, and it almost happened. At the height of my full-blown obsession, having now reached 220 pounds before my eighteenth birthday, I was invited to a chic dinner in the Alps. Getting myself to the mountains from Paris was easy. Finding an outfit to wear wasn’t. I ended up pulling together a look I’d just discovered and duplicated in various colors and fabrics. Long tunics, tights, and great shoes. I felt good walking into the party.

Once there, my friend Marc — an actual prince, from Geneva — introduced me to Pietro Ferraro. By the time I realized that he was the heir to the Nutella dynasty, we’d already wrapped up our brief conversation. But I stalked him all night. He probably thought I was flirting. Nope. All I could see was his head bobbing around on top of a giant jar of Nutella.

Meanwhile, back in Paris, my addiction continued to intensify. I would sneak out to buy my jars every day at the only supermarket in our posh neighborhood. Luckily, it was right outside our door, so I never disappeared for long. We lived in a 19th century, landmarked building on one of the most elegant streets in Paris. Added to the fact that it bordered the Parc Monceau — arguably the most prestigious park in Paris — which gave my father evidence of the social status he’d been craving since his arrival from Algeria as a poor but driven young man. Finally, life was good on his side of the street.

I didn’t know it was special to go to school with celebrities’ and ambassadors’ kids, to have nannies and cooks taking care of us. I didn’t know it took many gardeners slaving in the sun to keep our park immaculate. None of it registered as privilege until much later; I had no concept that it wasn’t like that for everyone. Both my parents had survived wars and were trying to give us a better childhood. In some ways it worked; pretty parks and country clubs were better than landmines, but our wars were no less destructive—they were just fought on the inside.

By now, my intake of Nutella was a jar — or two — every day. I would pick up my dose on my way back from school, making sure to get extra on Fridays —harder to sneak out on weekends. I had an arrangement with Mr. Kaiser, the owner of the shop downstairs: I would buy from him, and he wouldn’t rat me out.

From the moment I stepped into the store, the goal was to get to Aisle 3, where my jars were piled. I would circumvent and go to Aisle 1 and 2 first to divert attention. Getting to the desired aisle, standing in front of the coveted stack, I could feel my mouth drying, my pulse speeding in my neck, a knot tightening above my navel, and a gulp forming in my throat. Like a junkie about to shoot, I knew I was going to alleviate my anxiety with the first delicious spoonful — temporarily, anyway.

If Mrs. Kaiser was at the cash register, it was harder for me to score my fix.

“Encooooooore?” she would yell out, in a somewhat hysterical manner.

Her blond hair was always tightly wound on top of her head; and that was not the only thing tightly wound about that woman. I often wondered if her hysteria about my habit would loosen the hairpin holding her chignon in place, and from there, the rest of her would unravel.

Sometimes, I would meet Mr. Kaiser in back of the store. I’d hand him the exact amount — quatorze francs — and he’d hand me the goods. We’d make the transaction promptly, both scanning the place to be sure no one saw us.

Then I would run out with my fix, hoping no one was in the elevator; I didn’t want to deal with neighbors or their weather-centric platitudes. Although the jar was in my backpack, I was ashamed of what I was about to do, and I feared they’d see through me to my sweet secret.

There was a way that my key felt in the door when no one was home, and I released a deep sigh of relief when, indeed, no one was; no need to hide in the bathroom with my contraband, no need to delay my intake by having to answer the obligatory questions about my day to uninterested citizens of my house. I could just go direct to the spoon and the jar. The sooner that substance entered my mouth, the faster I would experience the delicious release all addicts know too well.

When I’d eaten every last gooey, sticky bite, I slipped the empty under my bed with the spoon still in it. My bed frame was high enough to conceal the jars, if I slid them back deep enough. Once in a while, I’d collect them; remove and wash the spoons; bring the empties down to the building’s trash.

One Tuesday, I heard Mom yell at Anna, our current nanny. Mom noticed the spoons were vanishing, and accused Anna of stealing them. I hated Anna. For one, she scared me; she only had one eye. For two, she replaced my beloved dead Julia, and I hated that. I returned said spoons the next day, letting Mom believe one-eyed Anna had stolen them. I didn’t care. Or, to be honest - I liked it.

A few Tuesdays later, I came home to Mom sitting on my bed, surrounded by empty jars, dirty spoons - and Anna. They had decided to clean my room. My brain flashed to how I’d wanted to trash the jars the night before, feeling stupid I hesitated and decided not. There was a grimace on my mother’s face that froze me in my tracks. She was wearing beige linen overalls and a sweet flowered shirt. I remember thinking that her outfit clashed with her face. I looked out the window, wishing I could fly away from this scene that promised nothing good.

Her lips were moving and yet I was so shutdown, I couldn’t make out what she was screaming, but most typically, it would have been in the vein of, “you’re a pig.”

At the time, I perceived my body mainly as a vehicle to transport my head, but in a moment like this, it acted as an alarm system, warning me a crisis was underway. Everything went into overdrive: heartbeat, breath intake, sweat glands, cortisol release, and my limbic brain urging me to get the hell out. But I was 12; so I stayed. 

Because my mother was so upset and the window so open, I had the passing thought that she might actually push me — we lived on the fourth floor. Mom most likely had an undiagnosed mental condition; she didn’t do well if her fragile equilibrium was threatened. When it was, I stayed quiet and shrank, so as to occupy as little space as possible, trying to minimize her target: me.

That Nutella bust didn’t help my inner life. Under my bed constituted the only “safe” space in that house and this invasion of privacy scarred my skin on the inside.

My pain called for hugs and chicken soup; not screams and visions of being pushed out the window.

Procuring my dope became a bit more problematic after that episode. The Kaisers were instructed not to sell it to me; so I had to find another dealer. Luckily there was a new supermarket in town, between school and house. More staff, more anonymity. So, I was back in business.

Around that time, I was taken to the school infirmary and diagnosed as obese. 180 pounds. For a 12-year-old, that’s no longer a little chubby; nope, full on obese. I wasn’t sure what that word meant. I knew fat but obese sounded worse. Like I had a disease, now. Judging by the look on my mother’s face when the doctor handed down the sentence, I could tell I’d given her one more reason to feel shame.

Dinners got even worse after that verdict. To manage the anxiety, mom would hum, dad would drink vodka, my brother, Laurent, would bite his nails, and I would avoid making any noise forking my green beans and chicken. The rest of the tribe was on a bread-and-cheese-and-lasagna-and-paella-and-dessert diet. Nobody knew I still had Nutella zippered into a stuffed leopard sitting on my bed. All was good. Or would be soon.

Typically, at our dinner table, the TV blasted the news; the dishwasher was started before we finished eating; there was always a bad grade or behavior for me to be scolded for, between my steamed green beans and their mousse au chocolat.

 “You’re an hour late,” my mom would say, almost every night, to my chronically non-punctual dad. 

“Just trying to do my part to support the family,” he’d shoot back.

“Like, what I’m doing isn’t important?” she’d tic-tac-toe.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I would mumble, getting up, towards the other place I kept a stash hidden behind the Windex under the sink.

“Sure, leave when it’s time to clear the table,” my ass-kissing brother would add, sucking up, and clearing the table.

When I was older, I’d eat at my friend Karine’s house, where her parents asked the kids what they’d done at school that day. We’d laugh as Louis, her brother, acted out his physics teacher’s mannerisms — a cross between a French aristocrat, and a rock-star wannabe. There was no yelling at that table, no TV blasting, no dishwashing. I hated dinners at my house so much.

One day, as I got home from school, I could hear my mom talking on the phone. I discreetly picked up a different receiver; it was a great way to get intel at my house. I heard my mom’s best friend Monique say, “She’s really fat. That won’t look very good around the pool, now will it?” My mother agreed with her, promising to find me a camp for the summer. That’s when I declared war on that bitch, Monique - safer than being angry at Mom - for coming along with this plot. My brother always said I shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations. Maybe he was right on that one.

I hung up and slowly walked away, debating if I should take the time to get a spoon from the kitchen; but decided my finger would be better today. Faster, anyway.