She set the bar high, and Kiki cleared it, going to Smith a few years later. But I was less disciplined than my sisters, my youngest-child charm helping me get away with things like handing in assignments late and faking my way through a piano lesson. （I could play by ear, so it was easier than you might think.） Yes, I worked hard and did well enough, but my superpower was my emotional intelligence—I learned at a very early age how to win friends and influence people, something that doesn’t necessarily come through on a high school transcript.
It is burned in my memory, coming home from school one day and seeing an envelope addressed to me sitting on the mahogany dresser in the living room that doubled as a mail table. It was from Smith. It was thin. I knew what that meant.
Apparently, Smith loved sisters, and having an alum in the family—not to mention two—was supposed to give you a leg up. Emily was Phi Beta Kappa, for God’s sake. But I didn’t even get wait-listed. （Maybe it had something to do with my interview, when I nervously told the admissions lady I admired FDR and the “Big” Deal.）
It was my first real disappointment. Which I dealt with by turning on myself.
Stealthily, I grabbed a glass from the kitchen cabinet and a spoon from the drawer, then rooted around in the refrigerator until I spotted the marigold-colored box with the Arm & Hammer logo. I headed to the bathroom, mixed some baking soda in water, chugged it, jumped up and down, and stuck my finger down my throat. A classmate had given me the secret recipe.
Body issues had been brewing long before Smith weighed in. I was nine when a waifish Twiggy frugged onto the scene in her Union Jack minidress. Stick-thin models pranced across the pages of my sisters’ Glamours and Mademoiselles; their gazelle-like figures seemed fantastical.
Dieting was a way of life in my house—my mom and sisters subsisted on cottage cheese and Tab. I remember making a tuna fish sandwich one night and Kiki, at a world-weary 17, saying, “Enjoy it, because you’re not going to be able to eat like that forever.”
My mom would regularly slip up, tossing a giant Hershey bar into the shopping cart; when one of us went searching for it, she’d sheepishly admit she’d finished it off. Her mother was that rare thing, petite and buxom, and I’m sure she got on her less petite daughter about what she ate.
And my mom got on me. Call it generational body-shaming. When I went off to UVA （which turned out to be a much better fit than Smith would have been）， she’d send me sweet letters in her controlled, blocky handwriting with advice and admonitions tucked in:
Do not get angry with me when I say to watch your diet—stay away from fried foods, starches and just use your head about keeping healthy.
My mother passed down so many wonderful traits, a positive relationship with food not being one of them.
The cycle started with deprivation. Knowing food was my enemy, I’d swear it off. Then I’d get hungry—famished, actually—which drove me to make terrible choices, grabbing a cookie （or 12） or a big handful of chips. Self-loathing and resignation came next; I blew it, I’d think, I’ll start again tomorrow, and eat anything that wasn’t nailed down—doughnuts, ice cream, cold spaghetti, bread slathered with butter—followed by panicky desperation to rid myself of the calories.
Now at the townhouse on Dent Place, the alluring packages of chocolate-covered graham crackers that Leslie kept in our refrigerator were taunting me. I’d finish off one of the sleeves—that’s 16 crackers, minus a couple that Leslie had eaten （the normal way people consume such things）。 Furious with myself, I’d reach for the baking soda and gulp the concoction while holding my nose, then expel my guilt. Afterward, it was off to the grocery store to buy another package, tossing out the top four to cover my tracks.
Starve, cheat, binge, purge—the cycle would take years to break.
6
Who Is That Girl?
MY TITLE AT CNN was assistant assignment editor—not much of a step up from desk assistant. But there was one big difference: Here, I actually got to be on TV （not the vote of confidence it might sound like—there was a lot of airtime to fill and they were desperate for people to fill it）。
On camera was where I wanted to be. After all, I’d been “on” my entire life, whether it was at dinner with my family or at the lunch table with my friends. I can’t remember a time I ever shied away from the spotlight. Which made me wonder: Why would I come up with the ideas, write the scripts, find the visuals, pick the sound bites, and not be front and center? Determined to get on camera, I would settle for scraps, gladly covering an obscure hearing on Capitol Hill or a no-news press conference at the Department of Transportation, hoping they’d turn into stories.