vegans

Jen pokes at her salad warily and says in her warm kiwi drawl.  “Of course the thing is when you’re doing a detox the trick is to treat it like a relationship –“ She looks up at Phil flirtily and fixes him with an arched expression.  “You can’t cheat.”  Phil shifts in his seat.  She continues.  “It’ s hard!  It’s really hard – I know - but the benefits are just amazing.”  Phil blinks. 

“I’m doing an amazing diet right now.”  She continues leaning forward confiding in him breathily.  “It’s fin-testic.” 

“How long you been doing it?”  Phil asks, hearing his own voice sounding strangely bumpkin-ish against her antipodean lilt. 

“Oh you know a couple of weeks , but I’ve noticed heaps of difference already – heaps!  And like, I’ll probably be doing it –“ Jen pauses as if signing off the years above her head “well maybe not for the rest of my life – but for at least the next year.”

“What do you do?”  Phil asks.

Jen takes an important breath.  “Well it’s no fruit, no sugar” she lists, “no dairy, no wheat – you have to be really careful.  I mean even in a place like this.”  She presses her nails delicately on the rim of the table, “you have to be. So. Careful.”  Her eyes are beyond him now furtively peering at the lanky man behind the food counter, his dreadlocks packed bulging into a hair net, reading a book.  “Places like these seem benign” she fixes her eyes back onto Phil and leans in with such secrecy that he has to bend his head to hear her, “but there’s no guarantee!  Greenwash is everywhere!  All it takes it one little inorganic mushroom grown on the shit of a dairy farmed cow and it’s over: you are directly contributing to the meat industry.  DyouknowwhatImean?”

Phil looks at her, she thinks a little helplessly.

“Don’t get me wrong!” She smiles brightly,  “I’m sure that tofu lasagne is spot on!  It’s just – if you want to be 100% on what you’re eating then to be honest – and this the best piece of advice I can give you -”  She reaches out and lightly pats the top of his hand, “the best thing you can do, when you eat out, is Go Raw.”  She nods at him with large brown eyes willing him to understand.

Phil looks down at his half-eaten tofu lasagne a little disappointed.  It was mostly lasagne sheets pressed together anyway, some tangy tomato sauce lining the dense wedge of pasta in his eco-box.  He’s fucked up, made the wrong choice – he should have had the cous cous.   “I drink smoothies.” He hears himself say a little too quickly. 

“Ah yeah!” enthuses Jen “that’s a great thing to do!”  Her hand is on his again and he feels a little squeeze of encouragement.  He looks up and Jen’s face has split into a wide grin, “I used to do that too!  All the time!” And then the tiniest shadow crosses her expression, like the smallest passing of trapped wind, “That is, until I stopped eating bananas.”