Summary: Scales and Other Lies

Scales and Other Lies

In the Middle Ages, they had guillotines, stretch racks, whips and chains. Nowadays, we have a much more effective torture device called the bathroom scale. Stephen Phillips

Summary:

Vick Gaiya, kind and loving to everyone, cultivates the art of being invisible. Her family and students are happy; she tells herself everyday.

Her life changes dramatically after a student posts a video online of her head on a dancing pig.  When she becomes the target of student cyber bullying, the tension exacerbates her pre-diabetic condition. She needs to lose weight for health reasons but she faces diet sabotage from the family she loves.

The cyber bullying and the diet start Vicki on a collision course with her family, her job and herself.

Outline:

Vicki Gaiya uses her fat as armour against self-revelation. Focussed totally on others, she rarely looks after her own needs. Her currency of life is having people like her and her greatest fear is losing their goodwill.

Her principal, Ron Tuff calls Vicki into his office because there is an internet video of her head on a dancing pig and he is worried this will embarrass the school.  The principal of the small town high school in the Finger Lakes where Vicki teaches likes to say “we are getting to the bottom of this” but he rarely makes the effort.

At home, Joe, her husband of 27 years and IT security analyst for a large doughnut manufacturing company, tries to comfort her. He feels personally attacked when Vicki is cyber bullied, but he really feels threatened when she loses weight. Vicki’s daughters, Miranda, a naïve perfectionist, who unwittingly helps Vicki’s cyber bully and Suzie, a wannabe plus model, who is obsessed with the appearance of herself, her house and her four year old twins, try to comfort Vicki. But Vicki is too busy soothing everyone else to let them.

Lunette del Gratto, the teacher across the hall, tries to help Vicki when she is late to her first period class. Large, both in size and enthusiasm for living, Lunette describes herself as ‘in your face, fat’.  At first, Vicki is horrified by Lunette but Lunette proves to be a valuable friend.

Vicki meets her skinny cousin, Cyndi Znace , who undermines Vicki, yet demands constant sympathy because she was orphaned at a young age. Vicki questions Eleanor Roosevelt’s statement that no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent since Cyndi makes her feel inferior all the time, and she has never given her permission.

Vicki has a car accident on the way home and blacks out on the living room floor. Joe begs her to go to the doctor.  With a family history of diabetes and symptoms of fatigue, thirst and bruising, she is not surprised when Dr. Silverglass diagnoses her as pre-diabetic. Dr. Silverglass’ counselling and her weekly support group help Vicki choose a diet and stick to it.

Although open and gregarious to her family and friends, Vicki’s life is full of secrets; many from herself.  She lies when she says, ‘No, I would really prefer that you have the last piece of cake, the better seat, the new clothing’ but cannot stop.

When Vicki and Joe met, they were thrilled to find each other. Vicki, amazed that Joe finds her attractive, is too busy carrying about others to know herself.  Joe, the cyber geek loner, finally feels connected to people because of Vicki’s warmth.

Vicki and Joe celebrate their wedding anniversary in style with a fancy dinner in a beautiful restaurant. Joe is uncertain about Vicki losing weight and pushes food at her. Cyndi, who failed to entice Joe when he first visited their town, sends Vicki a nasty e-mail suggesting Joe is having an affair.

Vicki doesn’t really want to make the effort to lose the weight and tries a spell from the internet. After a horrific day of cyber bullying from students with cell phones, Vicki returns home and has a huge fight with Joe.  Journaling helps her decide to follow the doctor’s diet and deal with the parents.

The family annual Harvest Party is held at the home of Vicki’s mother, Ivy, who is housebound with arthritis complicated by morbid obesity. Ivy has covered every surface with baked cookies and cakes, her love offering to her daughter.  In a confrontation in the bathroom, Ivy dares Vicki to make the effort to be as pretty as Cyndi.

Vicki is challenged to think beyond the fat door at the meeting of Dr. Silverglass. She imagines a new life in sexy shoes, dancing Salsa and cooking gourmet diet food. Out for coffee with new friends, Cyndi greets her by saying, “Miriam Silverglass’ fat lady club, I presume?” and demands that Vicki let Cyndi organize her diet.

Vicki makes a strong commitment to doing low-carb right. She cleans the house of the foods she should not eat. When Joe gets advice from Cyndi about Vicki, the couple have a huge fight about food but manage to embrace their differences. At school, teachers distance themselves from Vicki.  Although Lunette is supportive, other teachers attack her diet choices.

Vicki’s salsa class with Lunette prompts a huge fight with Suzie who accuses Vicki of not loving her granddaughters; Tiffani and Stephanie. Vicki reaches inside herself and discovers she has fostered Suzie’s dependence on her. Miranda picks stupid fights with Vicki to sabotage her mother’s goal and because she misses the treats and Vicki’s special cooking for her. But she is feeling guilty about being involved with Justin, the boy responsible for initiating the cyber attacks on her mother.  Miranda points out to Vicki that to be fair there should be food for everyone. Why should she have to suffer because of her mother’s diet?

Vicki opens up to her friends in her support group and tells them, “The only game I could played was the dieting game and I always lost. No matter how completely I followed complex and rigid detailed rules there was always the constant struggle against eating too much.  The game was everywhere and the scale ruled my life.  I tried all kinds of physical and psychological rewards and punishments depending on the scale’s morning verdict but the scale ruled.”

Vicki feels as if life could not get any worse.  Conflicts escalate with the family and at school. When Vicki brings her own meal to a family dinner, Ivy cries out, “You are making me feel like a failure.” Cyndi suggests she keep all her old clothes just in case. When Vicki eats cake, all her carb cravings are back in full force.

Ivy calls from the hospital and Vicki fears she has broken her hip. Turns out that Ivy faked the fall because she is lonely. Joe gifts Ivy with an old computer and Miranda helps her learn the internet. Cyndi tries to convince Vicki that it is her duty to take her mother into her home.

Vicki discovers another secret about herself. She has always loved dancing and wanted to be a hot dancing momma but only ended up being a momma to everyone. Dancing feels like flying with her feet on the ground in her own personal party.

Ron Tuff demands Vicki take on the yearbook and when she refuses; he threatens her job. He chides her for the problems she has created with the cyber bullying and possible legal costs for the board.

Feeling overwhelmed, Vicki seeks help from Dr. Silverglass who asks her, “Why are you keeping your life so busy you have no time for yourself? What are you hiding from? What are you willing to sacrifice for a healthy body?”

But Vicki doesn’t have time to think about herself because Suzie calls in tears that her marriage is falling apart and begs Vicki and Joe to look after the twins during the March Break. Suzie phones from their Island vacation, complaining that a terrible storm cut the electricity and there is nothing to do.

Ron and Cyndi continue to attack Vicki but Dr. Silverglass, her salsa class and surprisingly, Lunette support her. Family support is iffy, sometimes degenerating to outright sabotage but Vicki perseveres.

The cyber bullying escalates with Vicki receiving instant messaging on her cell phone. It is now even more personal. Vicki changes her cell phone number and still the messages and text bombing continue.  The carrier won’t let Vicki block a specific number for texting and they even charge her for changing her telephone number again and the huge volume of unwanted messages.

Joe sets out to discover the identity of the cyber bully. He phones up friends who are involved in computer and data forensics and starts learning. One negative comment on a site rating teachers leads to many more about Vicki‘s professional and personal life. Teaching class is very disruptive and Vicki faces more disrespectful behaviour leading to problems disciplining her class. Ron blames Vicki.

Cyndi warns Vicki she is losing the weight too fast and will become ill. Joe gets busy, distant, and angry when Vicki wants to take a summer course at a local university.. Cyndi offers to teach Vicki how to become a ‘Real Women’ who will attract Joe. Brilliant Miranda fails a test and bristles when asked about Justin. Vicki sees herself as a failure. Cyndi snickers at Vicki and tells her that now she has started to lose a little bit of weight she can really make the effort and properly loose.

Joe receives a notebook computer to repair. He checks the hard drive to recover the data and discovers deleted files about Vicki. There are images of his wife with a pig’s body and uploaded dated files to online social networks.  The file’s metadata gives him a clear timeline of Justin’s progression of cyber bullying. Joe runs software to recover deleted emails. There is a large digital footprint of Justin’s cyber bullying on the notebook computer plus numerous emails to Miranda. Joe realizes that Miranda is involved.  Vicki is shocked when Joe tells her. Joe explains that it is not possible to totally erase files from the hard drive. With the right software it is always possible to find traces of the deleted files.

Miranda confesses her relationship with Justin but tries to defend him. Justin defends his right of free speech under the First Amendment and tells Vicki that he is really a hero because he has “helped Vicki” lose weight.

Suzie confesses she knew about Justin and her sister. She tells Vicki that every time she looked in the mirror and she saw her own weight, she was reminded that Vicki was loosing and she felt even fatter and a greater failure.

Miranda pleads with her parents that she had no idea that Justin was the one who hurt her mother.  He just asked her to use her cell phone and that’s how he got the number to text horrible messages to Vicki. She was thrilled Justin wanted to date her.

Joe hands Vicki a box and asks her to open it. Inside is a beautiful pair of red satin high heels with bows at the heel. Tucked in the shoe is a small plastic boat with the words: “I love you.” Joe announces he has finally found a present for her that is not food. They are going on a belated honeymoon cruise to Alaska in the summer with salsa classes and low-carb cuisine. He has been working on repairing computers for extra money.

Suzie laments that nothing is working out for her and she is pregnant. Vicki and Joe exchange glances and say together: “March Break and nothing to do.” Miranda offers to help her sister so her mother can enjoy her summer trip..

They decide to hand over the computer to the police and let their data forensic experts check it for further evidence. Justin’s parents phone Vicki because they are worried that their son is applying to university and this will mess up his life.  Vicki asks them: “What about my life this year?”  They answer that they have called Ron Tuff and he will speak to Vicki about their son’s needs.

Vicki confronts Ron Tuff.  She finally has the direct proof that Ron has demanded. Ron belittles Joe’s findings and tells them that it would be silly to bother the police at this point and she will embarrass Joe with this impractical plan. Vicki tells Ron they intend to take the computer to the police and asks Ron how he will look if he has refused to co-operate with the police in this investigation. Vicki remembers a grade school incident involving Justin but the teacher making the accusation of bullying left teaching in disgrace shortly after Ron vouched for Justin.

Cyndi visits Vicki to taunt her about Joe not caring for and her weight loss effort. Joe declares his love for Vicki and suggests Cyndi beg Vicki to help her grow up and become a woman. Cyndi thinks about Vicki’s full life and decides to accept the offer.

Joe and Vicki snuggle on the couch. Joe tells Vicki that he admires the new improved Vicki and it’s not just the physical changes. She is happier, more open and present. Vicki looks at the man she loves and tells him, “I never thought I was good enough. I was the background builder. I could taste the person I wanted to be but I buried it in food. I told myself it was less painful to bury the taste than be disappointed when I would be hurt again.  I have tried to work hard, be invisible and make others happy. It’s not hard to be invisible.  I just ask questions and let others do the talking. I never interrupt. People rarely notice that you’re invisible; they call you a good listener. But now I am listening to me.”

Joe asks her what she would really like to do with her life. Vicki says she would like to open her own low-carb catering company. Joe asks her why not and she answers, “Why not indeed”.