Toronto Collection Volume 3 (Toronto Series #10-13)

by Heather Wardell

  I posted my words on the site then skimmed through emails from readers complimenting me on recent posts or asking me to cover an issue that particularly affected them, as always deleting them all unanswered. Responding took far more time than I wanted to spend, and it got repetitive saying the same things over and over. Besides, I'd learned early on that being too responsive led to an even greater flood of emails. It was a vicious circle, which would be even more vicious once I won the competition and had an even bigger audience sending messages to me. Even now, though, it was far more efficient to talk to everyone through the site than to a single person through email.

  Inbox emptied, I pulled up a fresh document and typed 'Good to Yourself' at the top.

  Then I stared at the words.

  Felix sidled into my mind, that hungry-sexy light shining in his eyes as he looked at me, but I tried to shoo him out. I needed to focus.

  He wouldn't leave me alone, though, so I bought a cookie to pamper myself and flood my system with sugar instead of hormones. Pleased I'd thought of a way to be good to myself, I nibbled away though I wasn't remotely hungry as I tried to guess what categories my readers would suggest.

  In the two years I'd been with the site, I'd basically gone with whatever the readers wanted to discuss, although always with a 'single-girl' vibe. Shopping suggestions, fashion tips, diet advice... I did all the fluffy stuff, and also covered career issues and romantic dilemmas.

  Would I basically handle the same things for these four weeks, only with a clear 'good to myself' bent?

  Would sleeping with Felix be good to me? It would feel good, no doubt.

  I sighed and took another bite of my cookie. What I'd never told my readers was how tired I was of the whole dating thing. They knew I'd never had a serious relationship and they ate up my reports of the weird and wonderful (mostly weird) guys I got involved with. But they didn't know how many there had been. I hadn't felt able to reveal that, too afraid some of them would judge me and my site traffic would go down.

  Really, though, there was no justification for judgment. I was thirty-nine now, so I'd been dating for twenty-three years. "A lot of men under the bridge," as my friend Larissa put it. I'd had years where I was only with Damien and years where I played the field like a top football star, but on average I'd been with four guys a year. Multiply four guys by twenty-three years...

  I knew all their names, first names anyhow, and when I added a new name to the written list I kept safely stored in an old shoe box in the back of my closet I could skim through the list and remember every guy.

  Sometimes I thought I should feel ashamed of the number, but I never had. Every one of those guys had changed me in some way, made me who I was.

  And Damien, on and off for twenty-two of those twenty-three years, had changed and shaped me more than I could ever have expected.

  *****

  I sat staring at the over-sized diamond in Catherine's engagement ring and wondering what kind of ring Damien would have bought me. If he'd wanted to marry me. He'd sworn he wasn't the marrying kind, and like a fool I'd believed him. What ring had he bought for the woman he married instead of me?

  "Are you listening?"

  I raised my head to meet my sister's eyes, the same dark brown as mine but aggressively makeup-less because she insisted makeup was nothing but a way to make women feel they weren't good enough naturally. "Not really. Are you saying something worth hearing?"

  She gave an annoyed and annoying sigh and pushed her long dark hair over her shoulder. "I don't know why I bother. You're never going to help out."

  Stung, I flipped my own brown hair over my shoulder to imitate her and said, "I don't know why I bother. You know I visited them last week. More recently than you, I think."

  "Because you wanted a meal you didn't have to microwave yourself, not to help them."

  Largely true, but I wouldn't admit it. "I listened to two hours of their various excuses for why they couldn't move, ranging from 'I don't want to pack' to 'your mother wouldn't like decorating a new place' to 'your father would hate a condo', and I didn't strangle even one of them. That's worth a little roast beef."

  "But you didn't change their minds."

  I leaned back in my chair and stared at her. "You've been on them about it for three years, since Mom broke her hip. What makes you think I could do it when you can't?"

  "They can't stay there any more," she said, not answering my question since we both knew there was no answer. "All those stairs? Not to mention the gardens and the lawn."

  I almost pointed out that 'gardens' was a strong word for the little bed of flowers in front of our childhood home and the even smaller vegetable patch in back, both currently buried under a good foot of snow, but my older sister always wanted to make things seem grander than they were and I didn't feel like beating my head against the brick wall of her need to be superior. "And the snow shoveling."

  "At least they finally agreed to pay someone for that. But they really need to be in a condo so they don't have to do any of that work."

  My mother's broken hip had frightened me, and when I looked at my parents I now saw old people, people in their seventies, instead of just my parents, so I did agree that they should move. But as always when Catherine brought it up during the monthly lunch she insisted we have 'so we wouldn't drift apart' I felt myself filling with an irrational but no-less-real rage. "It's up to them, isn't it? They're grownups, after all."

  She took a breath to respond and my red-hot anger faded to a dead gray coal in an instant as fatigue smothered its energy. I couldn't rehash this yet again. "Catherine, please. Yes, they should move. They aren't. Can we drop it just this once? How are the kids?"

  She wavered, obviously not thrilled I'd get the last word, but she let me change the subject. "They're good. Jefferson's hockey team is going to Calgary next month for a tournament and Marshall is upgrading them all to first class flights with his travel miles from work."

  "Cool. Is Wash going too?"

  She narrowed her eyes and I corrected myself. "Washington, sorry. I just think Wash suits him."

  Given the embarrassment and mocking she and I had faced when our respective English classes studied "Pride and Prejudice" and learned that Catherine and Lydia had been silly and flirtatious and eager to engage in a little disgraceful behavior with soldiers, I'd never been able to understand why my Canadian sister had named her boys after American presidents. At least our names had made sense, since our mother adored Jane Austen's most famous novel, but Catherine and Marshall's name choices had never seemed to fit their two skinny goofy little boys.

  "Well, his name is Washington, so call him that. And yes, he's going. He's hoping someone on Jefferson's team gets hurt and won't be able to play, and no amount of telling him he's two years too young to fill in on a ten-year-olds' team makes any difference. Do you know what else he said? He..."

  I nodded and smiled and let Catherine ramble on and thought again about Damien. We'd connected for the first time the day we learned my namesake was a promiscuous lightweight. I knew him before, of course, and thought he was hot with his messy brown hair and the brooding expression in his dark eyes, but when he caught up to me after class and murmured, "I bet that other Lydia wasn't anywhere near as sexy as you," I was lost.

  We flirted and joked and teased each other for the next week or two, then gave each other our first kiss behind the bleachers during a basketball game. First kiss, and later first fooling around then first sex, and though we'd never had more of a commitment than "want to get naked Saturday night?" I'd somehow always thought someday we would--

  "Feel naughty?"

  I jumped and looked up at the waitress, who was holding a tray of tempting desserts.

  Catherine shook her head. "I can't risk gaining any more weight. I'm huge already."

  If someone took me by the feet and head and stretched me a good five inches, I'd be as tall as Catherine but probably still bigger around than my gym-obsessed sister. At my
current five feet five, I was far rounder. The last guy I'd been with, nearly three months ago, had called my body 'lush'. I'd quite liked that, although he'd probably only said it so I'd sleep with him. It was better than how I imagined my body: as a tube of bread dough, currently held in some semblance of control but liable to explode everywhere with no notice.

  I didn't need a dessert. I frankly didn't even feel hungry enough to eat one. But as Catherine's "huge" rang through my head I reached out and took a strawberry cheesecake from the waitress's tray.

  "Good girl," she said, smiling at me. "Treat yourself."

  Yes, that was what I was doing. A little treat. Being good to myself. Just what Felix had ordered. My readers would love it too.

  Catherine pointedly ordered a black coffee for herself, and I worked my way steadily through the cheesecake.

  "How is it?"

  I swallowed. "Fine." The strawberry topping was pretty good, but the cheesecake itself was a disappointment. Almost completely flavorless and also denser than I liked, it was certainly nothing like the slices I regularly bought from Jack's Restaurant, which were so delicious they ought to be illegal. But it was cheesecake and I would persevere.

  With about four bites to go, I felt the dessert hit the bottom of my stomach like a strawberry-flavored brick. I hadn't been hungry before, and now I was stuffed.

  I eyed the remains. What would be better: make myself eat them and face Catherine's disapproval of my gluttony, or leave them and face her disapproval of my wasting food?

  "Want a bite?" I tried.

  She shook her head. "I'm satisfied."

  I doubted it. Though Catherine had everything she'd ever claimed to want, a husband and two kids and a big house and frequent vacations and luxury cars, she'd had a pinched look about her face for ages.

  I took another nibble of the cheesecake, and realized she'd looked like that since we'd received our grandmother's inheritance. She and Marshall had decided to spend the money on renovations to their house, a vacation, and a new car. But now the house needed more renovations and the vacation was long forgotten and the car had been replaced. Catherine had made a few veiled references to how much better I'd used the money. Her house was far bigger and fancier than the one I'd bought, but she didn't have anything particularly permanent to show for her inheritance.

  I tried to swallow the cheesecake but my stomach put up a 'no room at the inn' sign. I washed the bite down with water anyhow since I couldn't spit it out then said, "I'm done. I can't eat another molecule."

  "Pack it up for Paddington."

  I looked at her, surprised. "I can't feed cheesecake to the dog."

  "Why not? You feed tons of it to you."

  Not tons. Just whenever I felt sad or angry or annoyed or had something to celebrate. Just whenever I wanted to be good to myself.

  Chapter Three

  Full of both cheesecake and the usual Catherine-related frustration, I went back to the office to work but left again immediately because when I walked in Sasha said, "Felix is in a meeting right now but he's looking for you," and the mere thought of talking to him made me snatch up my laptop and flee.

  Back yet again at Starbucks, where I didn't get my favorite table but did find a reasonably secluded corner, I sipped a cinnamon latte topped with whipped cream to be good to myself and wondered why I so didn't want to see Felix.

  The first time I'd seen him, at my job interview, I'd nearly fallen over. He looked so much like Damien that for an instant I'd wondered if someone was playing a trick on me. Now that I'd been working for him for two years I could see the differences, but he still had the dark dangerous sexiness that had attracted me since I'd first fallen for Damien back in high school. All of the guys I wanted had that quality, and Felix had more than most.

  So why was I resisting now that I could have him, at least for a little while?

  Well, from what I'd seen of Felix and his dating life filled with short-term girlfriends, he enjoyed the chase more than the capture. Playing a little hard to get, even if I didn't know why I was playing, would only increase his interest in me. I'd just have to relax and see what happened.

  Relax. I'd trained myself to respond to that word, and almost without thinking I hung my head down, trying to press my chin to my chest, in an attempt to loosen the tightness in my neck.

  Since my teens I'd suffered from headaches whenever I was overtired or overworked or spent too long at a computer, so now they were a daily occurrence. A chiropractor I'd dated for a few weeks had taught the stretch to me, suggesting I link it to words like 'relax' and 'calm' and 'peaceful' so I'd do it frequently, and it did help although nothing loosened my neck completely. Another medical boyfriend had pushed me to take muscle relaxants, but the one time I did I ended up dancing through a fountain at three in the morning so I'd dumped both the drugs and him before I could get arrested for public weirdness.

  After a few more moments of stretching, my neck and I were on slightly better terms so I fired up the laptop and began reading my readers' responses to the morning's posting.

  They were excited about it, commenting in greater numbers than usual, which rocked because Felix would see I'd be a great replacement for Cassandra because I had a strong following already. I did have more readers than Sasha or Patricia, but they had more who read and commented every single day. I'd have to work at getting mine that loyal, but their interest in this project would help.

  Unfortunately, their excitement hadn't translated to any sort of a clear plan for me to use. Since the vast majority of them were single they wanted me to cover romance and sex, of course, so I'd leave that on Friday where I'd always discussed it. Finances were a huge issue too, and though I had no advice beyond "be smarter than me" I'd make up something to post. But after that they were all over the map.

  Just like me.

  I didn't know what 'good to yourself' really meant, other than that if I turned out to be good enough I'd get the job of my dreams. I'd wanted Cassandra's job from my first day of work, wanted the recognition and attention and dollars, and now I was closer than I'd ever been. But I still didn't know how to get closer. I hadn't realized it before, but now I knew I'd been hoping my readers would drop the perfect organizational structure into my lap.

  They hadn't, though, so I spent the next two hours trying to combine their collection of responses into something like a schedule, typing and deleting and glaring at the screen and occasionally stretching my neck when the frustration tightened my muscles. Three times I thought I had it then realized I'd need more than seven days in a week to make it work. My readers liked to know what kind of post they'd see every day, so I wanted each day to have its own focus.

  When I finally hit on a plan I couldn't quite believe I'd done it, so I reviewed it three times to make sure then at last posted it for my readers.

  My lovelies! Thank you so much for your great suggestions and advice. I've had a wonderful time figuring out how best to do this project to serve us all, and I think I have the perfect schedule.

  Mondays are often rough for us, because they start the work week. So we'll talk about how to spoil ourselves. On Tuesday let's think about how to handle our money so we CAN spoil ourselves. Wednesday, 'hump day', is career day so get ready to talk about your job! Thursday is about that gorgeous body of yours: your health and weight loss questions will be answered here. On Friday, let's take that gorgeous bod out for a hot night with the soon-to-be-discovered love of your life.

  Saturdays are for family and friends, and we'll come up with some tips on how to be good to yourself while still being good to them, and then on Sunday we'll take a look back at the week and see what we've learned and wallow in how wonderful we are.

  Tell me what you think! Sound good? I hope so!

  I definitely did hope so, because I couldn't stand the idea of doing it again. I would stick to the plan like Paddington on his favorite rubber bone, and I would give my readers exactly what they wanted to see, and soon I'd be the next Cassand
ra instead of Canada's Carrie Bradshaw.

  Pleased with what I'd put together, I took a break for a peek at what my competitors had done so far.

  Patricia, despite her technological inferiority, had managed to post a strangely formatted note to let her readers know she'd be teaching them all how to get what they deserved. I didn't see 'how to get what you deserve' and 'how to be good to yourself' as the same thing. Interesting that she did.

  I stretched my neck again while wondering what the difference was between those two concepts. I felt like there was one, but I didn't know how to articulate it. But if you deserved something and got it, wouldn't that be good? So maybe there wasn't really a--

  "Lydia, want a cookie? Fresh ones just came in."

  I raised my head and looked at my favorite barista, clearing a table near me. "I had cheesecake at lunch."

  "So? It's three-thirty." She grinned at me. "White chocolate macadamia. You love them, right?"

  Indeed I did. I found my wallet and headed to the counter, calling, "You're a bad influence," over my shoulder.

  She laughed. "Hey, you deserve a treat. You work hard."

  I claimed my cookie and returned to my table, and when I took the first nibble from the cookie's crunchy edge I knew she was right. I did work hard, so I should treat myself. That was what being good to yourself was about, wasn't it?

  As the sweet buttery taste spread through my mouth, I checked Sasha's website and discovered she'd apparently missed the 'yourself' in Felix's description of the competition. Her site, with its hyper-focus on what she insisted on calling 'mommies', now promised that they'd talk about being good to kids, extended family, coworkers, friends, husbands, and society at large. She did note at the end, "And of course we'll think of a few ways to take care of yourself as well," but I couldn't imagine they'd have the time and energy after doing everything for everyone else.