The trap Why you should lie when she asks you the question BY CAITLIN SHETTERLY

I’m spending a lot of time commuting to Boston for a class I’m taking this winter. I’ve recently started taking Concord Trailways instead of driving because I can’t handle the drive at the end of a 12-hour day. This is great — I get to sleep, read the paper, do homework . . . and there is a McDonald’s in South Station.

I don’t know if it’s the winter blues, the financial constraints that made me take a break from regular yoga, or just that going back to school at 30 is a whole ball of wax added to my life that I hadn’t expected . . . but I’m getting soft and kind of fat. I think. And apparently Cowboy thinks so, too.

Okay, he might not put it that way. But last week I called him from my new Motorola flip-top phone, which was free when I switched to Cingular for the rollover minutes, and I confessed that for week four in a row, I wanted Freedom Fries with hot mustard sauce to take on the bus with me. Then I laid the trap:

"Do you think I’m getting really fat?" I asked, feeling my stomach bulge over my low-rider jeans just enough to make me want to put my arm in front of my waist in case anyone was looking. "I’m getting thick," I had confessed to my mother earlier that day. "Kind of like a tree trunk with a Krispy Kreme donut around it — or like one of those trees that’s been attacked by that fungus that makes it bulge — that’s my roll." My mother just told me I’m beautiful, but added wistfully, "You were in such great shape last fall."

I know. I was.

Cowboy used to tell me I had "rock-star arms." The teenage boys I teach said they thought I looked like I could take them. I could do 100 push-ups in 10 minutes.

Okay, maybe more like 25, but definitely 100 in a week. Or two.

Cowboy started to breathe heavily on the phone after my fat trap. "No." he said, totally unconvincingly.

I got more specific. "Do you think I’m getting fat . . . ?"

"No . . . ?" Less convincing and more vague, with that dumb question mark at the end like he was asking me.

"Ok, am I chubby?"

"Well, kind of, yeah. I mean . . . you’re not in shape like when we first started dating. But I think you’re beautiful."

"WHAT?" My hair stood straight on end (picture Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes with all his hair on end). Now I was definitely NOT getting those goddamn Liberate Iraq Fries, even though I could almost taste how great and salty and crisp they would be, and fuck him anyway. "How do you define chubby? I mean, Nicole Ritchie is chubby [next to Paris Hilton, at least . . . and did you hear about that phone list of Hilton’s on the Internet?]. I mean, I know what chubby is."

"Well, kind of bloated?" He floundered.

"BLOATED?" Gone in the time it would have taken me to eat three large Let’s Attack Iran Fries and a Coke, in a panic-comfort-me-eating kind of way were the pancake breakfasts of Saturday morning. Gone, the three-egg black-bean and tortilla brunches of Sunday. Gone ALL pasta for the foreseeable future. Gone everything but salad and soup and more salad and chicken. Gone.

"What about sex?" he asked meekly.

"Well. It burns calories. But you are so in the doghouse," I fumed. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t anyone train him to LIE? What’s so hard about lying? I mean, when I told him I never wanted to be lied to, I didn’t mean this.

He started to perk up. "Well if sex burns calories, maybe we can have more?"

"I’m so not talking to you anymore. Besides, the Nazi bus driver just told me no cell phones on the bus."

Later, after watching Anchorman on the little bus screen for the sixth time in two weeks, I put my coat over my head and called Cowboy. He answered trepidatiously.

Me: No hello. Just: "I can’t fucking believe you think I’m chubby."

"Honey. You only gave me three choices. I was choosing the lesser of evils."

"What about none of the above? What’s wrong with you?"

Then he got mad at me. Like I was being unreasonable. "I’m going to hang up if you don’t stop about this," he said.

"You WHAT? Well, I’m taking some space. Starting now." I hung up.

A few minutes later, I called again. This, by the way, is called Kamikaze calling. I do it when I’m going insane. And, no shock here, it drives men insane, too.

"CHUBBY?" was all I said and then hung up.

Around 1 a.m., he called to say goodnight. By mistake, just when he was hanging up, he told me he loved me. I didn’t quite hear him because it just slipped out. So I said, "What was that?" still angry, I was thinking it had something to do with my speltoatmilletricebuttercheesetortillaroll. "Nothing," he said.

"Tell me or I’m never talking to you again," I threatened.

"I just told you I love you."

" Oh." Silence. Breathing of statues. "Well, good night."

"Good night, beautiful."

Caitlin Shetterly can be reached at bramhallsquare@hotmail.com. She promises to pass along sympathy emails to Cowboy, who is obviously a saint.