Big Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

obese. Borderline diabetic. I had sleep apnea. I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without needing to catch my breath.” By then, women would be nodding along with her, all of them listening raptly, even the ones who’d heard the very same litany the week before and the week before that. Valerie would lower her voice. “I’d tried it all. Grapefruit. Cabbage soup. Slim-Fast. Did I call 1-800-Jenny? You know that I did. And then…” She would pause, hand uplifted, looking over the room, making eye contact with different members. “Then I found this program. And this program…” Another pause. Valerie would put her hand on her heart and say, “This program gave me back my life.” I’d never been to church, but I imagined that church was probably something like Weight Watchers, with rituals and repetition, confessions