“I had to run errands for Gregory the tyrant out here and I got done early and decided to call in sick for the afternoon. Which was no lie,” Erin added. “I’m sick of Gregory micromanaging me. Plus he’s given me a workload that should be getting done by two people. Between him and planning for the wedding, I feel like my head’s going to pop off.”
“I’m sorry he’s turning out to be such a pain to work for,” said Angela. But not half as sorry as I am about you showing up right in the middle of my baking binge. Darn, darn, darn!
“So, aren’t you going to ask what this is?” Erin pointed to the mat she was carrying.
What Angela really wanted was to ask Erin to scram so she could finish baking. But she’d be a terrible friend if she did that. Left on her own in this kind of mood Erin might do something crazy like dive headfirst into a bag of chips to drown her sorrows.
So Angela pretended she wasn’t a cookie criminal and put on her best welcoming face. “What is it?”
“Something fun for us. I think I’ve found a way to …” Erin stopped talking and pointed to Angela’s mouth. “You’ve got something stuck in the corner of your mouth.”
Angela pressed her fingers to her lips. Oh, no. Chocolate! Evidence right there on her guilty face.
Erin’s expression turned suspicious. “Wait a minute.” She sniffed. “What’s that I smell?”
Angela popped her eyes as wide open as they’d go. “What’s what?”
Erin wrinkled her nose. “It smells like Pine-Sol and …” She dropped the mat and, like Sherlock Holmes on the trail of a villain, marched to the kitchen.
“I had a scented candle burning,” Angela said, trotting after her. “Maybe that’s what you smell. Go on out in the living room. I’ll bring us a diet …”
“Chocolate chip. It smells like chocolate chip cookies in here.”
“That’s just the candle scent,” insisted Angela. “You’re hallucinating, having food flashbacks. Very common among dieters.”
They both saw it at the same time, the one thing that, in her panic, she’d forgotten to hide. There it sat on the stove, the murder weapon left at the scene of the crime.
Erin picked up Angela’s WearEver AirBake cookie sheet. “Still warm.” She narrowed her eyes. “Okay, where are they?”
“Gone,” said Angela, forcing herself to look innocent.
Erin’s face collapsed like a bad soufflé. Angela might as well have said, I stole your Lotto winnings and ran away to Vegas. “You ate them all?”
No, and she wasn’t about to share her last meal. Or, worse yet, have Erin toss it out in a misguided effort to save them both.
“You’re not supposed to be eating cookies,” Erin scolded.
“We haven’t set our goals yet.” That excuse had about as much substance as cotton candy. Angela felt her face warming.
Now Erin was opening cupboards. “Okay, what’d you do with them? You know, it doesn’t do any good to get rid of everything on Friday night and then make more on Monday.”
“It doesn’t matter now. They’re gone.” Was her nose growing?
Erin pointed a finger at her. “You’re a terrible liar.”
She was, but she kept up her bluff. “Okay, search every cupboard,” she said with a careless flick of the hand. “You’re not going to find anything.”
Erin got a knowing smirk on her face. “Maybe they’re not even in the kitchen. Maybe you hid them somewhere. Maybe that’s why it took you so long to answer the door.”
Uh-oh.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Erin crowed. “Where are they?”
Angela scrunched her lips together. No way was she telling.
“Come on,” Erin said, her voice softening. “I’m only doing for you what I hope you’d do for me.”
It would be really immature to keep lying. It was time to give up. “Oh, all right.” Angela led the way to the laundry room. She opened the dryer and dug out the incriminating evidence.
“Great hiding place,” said Erin, pulling out the cooling rack. She picked up a cookie from the bottom of the dryer and set it on the rack, then licked chocolate off her fingers. “Except it could be a little hard on your clean clothes.”
“I had to think fast.” Angela looked at the pile of crumbled cookies now sitting on the plate. “You know, I did start out trying to make something good for all of us.”
“What happened?”
Angela shook her head. “It wasn’t good. Anyway, I was going through withdrawals. I just wanted one.” She gave a helpless shrug. “I think I’m addicted to sugar. Can you be a sugar addict?”
Erin sighed. “Probably.”
“This is going to be harder than I thought,” Angela confessed. She gave a reluctant smile. “Thanks for coming in time to save me from myself. I’d have probably wound up eating half the bowl.”
Erin smiled and gave her a consoling hug. “More cookies for the shelter, I guess.”
“You’d better stay while I finish baking them. I think I need a bodyguard.”
Erin’s smile widened. “I’ve got your back.”
So, Angela thought, as she poured Diet Cokes for them, that takes care of today, but who’s going to have my back tomorrow?
“And now for the surprise,” Erin said. She retrieved the mat, then handed it to Angela. “Here, spread these out in front of the TV. I’ll get the rest of the stuff.”
“What is this?”
“Be right back,” Erin called.
The mat turned out to be two. With all those circles, they reminded Angela of the old Twister game.
Erin returned with a PlayStation. “Are we going to play Twister?” Angela greeted her.
“No. We’re going to move it. I borrowed this from my cousin. She said we could use it till she gets home from college in June.”
Angela watched as Erin began hooking the box up to the TV. “Have you heard of Dance, Dance, Revolution?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Angela, suddenly excited. “I’ve been wanting to try that.”
Erin turned on the big-screen TV, stepped back, and started pressing different parts of the mat with her toes, setting up the program.
Now Angela was interested. “We really are going to dance?”
“Sort of. It’s mostly jumping around, putting your feet to the side or the front as the screen prompts you. We stand with our feet on these circles,” she said, positioning herself on the mat, “and then we do whatever it says. The goal is to keep up. I’ll show you.” She selected a song. “We’ll do beginner level.”
“Drop the Bomb” began to play, and the TV turned psychedelic with a punked-out skateboarder doing acrobatics while arrows started to glide up the screen. Erin demonstrated. “See? When the arrow points to the side you’ve got to step to the side. Up means in front of you, down in back of you.”
“Oh, fun!” cried Angela. “I can do this.”
Almost. It turned out to be a lot harder than she imagined, and she felt like a fool as she stumbled and bumbled along next to Erin, who was, like her, letting out a series of “Eeks.” But it was fun. “This is great,” she said after they’d finished.
“That’s what I thought. I figured we could do this a couple of times a week, then maybe graduate to some dance workout DVDs.”
“Ooh, I saw the Dancing with the Stars workout DVD for sale on eBay. Maybe I’ll get that for us.”
Erin grinned. “Great idea. Now, what do you say we get those cookies baked and packed up and do a little more DDR?”
They finished baking the cookies, then went at it until Angela finally collapsed on the couch. “I am so out of shape it’s pathetic. Forget the DDR. I need R and R,” she moaned.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Erin said, hauling her to her feet. “You’ve got to work off those cookies.”
“I’m never baking again as long as I live,” Angela decided. “It’s not worth the pain.”
They went at it some more, then, both rubber legged, they agreed it was time to quit with the exercise already and f
lopped on the couch.
“We have to have lost at least a pound, don’t you think?” Angela asked.
“Probably not,” Erin said regretfully.
“Oh, well. Greece wasn’t built in a day,” Angela told her. “Or something like that.”
“Something like that,” Erin agreed.
“Mommy, what are you playing?”
They both turned to see Gabriella coming down the stairs, wiping the sleep from her eyes, dragging her favorite teddy bear. “Looks like it’s time for you to get on the treadmill now,” Erin teased. Then she called, “Who’s this cute thing?” to Gabriella.
That woke her the rest of the way up. “Aunt Erin!” she squealed, and came running.
Erin picked her up and swung her around. “Oh, look how big you’re getting!” She set Gabriella down and pretended to examine her back. “Okay, where are you hiding your wings today?”
Gabriella giggled. “Aunt Erin. You know I’m not an angel. I’m a girl.”
“You’re a girl angel,” Erin told her.
“Can I play what you were playing?” Gabriella asked.
“Not right now,” Angela said. “Mommy needs to rest.”
“I can leave it here for later,” Erin said. “Would you like that, Gabby?”
Gabriella was now starting the steps to a dance that every mother of small children recognized. “Right now you need to fly off to the bathroom, girl angel. Hurry up. Make it in time and I’ll give you a treat.”
Gabriella ran out of the room, dark curls bouncing.
“And that is why half the women in America are now struggling with their weight,” observed Erin.
“She can do some DDR with Mommy after dinner,” Angela said. “If Mommy’s legs ever stop feeling like cooked spaghetti.”
“Tell me about it. Okay, I’m going to go. You sure you’ll be okay here with the cookies?”
Angela nodded. “They won’t be here much longer, anyway.”
She said good-bye to Erin, and then cut up apples for Gabriella and Mandy, who also had decided it was time to come back to life. After their snack she and the girls walked down to their neighbor Faith’s where Angela unloaded the fat bombs she’d baked earlier. Erin had wrapped them in foil for her so she couldn’t look at them and be tempted to eat one. Or two. Or six. When they got home she and the girls cuddled on the couch and watched Sesame Street, and then Angela made dinner and tried not to think about the chocolate chip cookies that got away. Think, instead, about how you beat the cookie monster, she told herself. Well, sort of, with a lot of help from her friend. She had inhaled some before Erin stopped her. But she could have eaten the whole batch. It was a victory, she decided.
So she couldn’t help bragging a little when Brad came home.
He’d taken a minute to appreciate Gabriella’s latest preschool artwork. Now he smiled at Angela and asked, “And how about you, babe? How was your day?”
“Perfecto,” Angela replied. “Erin came by and we exercised.”
“Way to go,” he said. He lifted Mandy from his lap and loosened his tie. “Do I have time to take a shower before dinner?”
“Sure,” she said, giving their tossed salad a final toss.
He was back five minutes later, looking hunky in jeans, his chest bare. “Do I have any more deodorant?”
Brad’s Right Guard—she’d meant to pick that up when she was shopping for the goodies for the cooking club meeting. “Oh, I forgot to get it. Just use mine for tonight,” she said, pulling the chicken breasts out of the oven.
“And smell like baby powder?” he protested.
“Well, there might be some in the downstairs bathroom.” The words were barely out of her mouth when she had a flashback: herself stuffing chocolate chip cookies in the medicine cabinet. “I’ll go check,” she said. Then later she’d destroy those damning fat bombs.
But Brad was already ahead of her. “Don’t bother. I can look.” “I can find it faster,” she insisted, trying to slip past him.
He gave her a funny look. “It’s not like I don’t know where the medicine cabinet is.”
“I don’t think it’s in there. I think it’s under the sink.” She ducked into the bathroom and pulled open the vanity door. “You just go on upstairs and I’ll bring it up to you.”
It was too late to head him off. He was right there. He leaned over her and opened the medicine cabinet and started rummaging around. Two chocolate chip cookies jumped out and dove into the bathroom sink.
He picked one up and looked down at her, eyebrow raised.
Uh. “Surprise?”
“For me?” Brad teased.
Gabriella, who seemed to have antennae for finding juicy moments, had followed them and her eyes lit up at the sight of the cookie. “My treat!” she cried, jumping up and down.
Angela took the cookie from Brad and handed it to her. “Here,” she said, pulling the other one out of the sink. “Give this to your sister.” So much for giving them healthy treats.
Gabriella took the cookies and scampered off.
“I gave the rest of the batch away,” Angela said.
“All except for those two? They didn’t want to leave so they ran and hid?” He smiled and shook his head. “I swear, Ang, being with you is like living in a sitcom. I never know what kind of crazy thing I’m going to come home to.”
She wasn’t sure that was a compliment. “Okay, when Erin came over I didn’t want to get caught, so I hid the evidence. But she caught me anyway. So that’s why there aren’t any cookies. We really did give the rest away,” she finished. That sounded so lame. Rachel probably never hid cookies in medicine cabinets. Rachel never baked cookies. That was why she was hot.
“Next time, don’t give away all the evidence. I’ll help you get rid of it.” Brad said, searching the medicine cabinet. He found a surplus can of deodorant. “Thank God. Now I don’t have to smell like baby powder.”
“I really was good,” Angela insisted as he turned to leave.
“Ang, I’m not your keeper. If you want to bake cookies it’s fine by me. I like cookies.”
“But you don’t want a fat wife,” she told him. Enough of this terrible cheating! She was not only sabotaging her diet, she was sabotaging her marriage. If she wanted to keep her husband she was going to have to get serious about dieting. “I have to be good.”
Brad pulled her against him. “I like you better when you’re bad.”
“You’ll like me more when I’ve lost forty pounds,” she assured him.
“I like you fine the way you are.”
Of course he was just saying that to be nice. She thought of Rachel the hottie. No more cookies. Ever. And for sure not before Friday.
Seven
It was Friday night, the night of the first official meeting of the Teeny Bikini Diet Club. Everyone showed up bearing salads and diet and exercise books.
“Cabbage salad with shrimp,” Kizzy announced, setting her teak salad bowl down on the granite counter. “And that looks good,” she said, pointing to Angela’s tomato, basil, and mozzarella mix.
“It is,” Angela said. “I tried some before I came.”
Kizzy nodded at the carrot salad in the glass bowl. “And this is the salad you said you were going to make?” she asked Megan.
Megan nodded. “I’m calling it Practically Perfect Salad. Carrots for carotene, green peppers and celery and onion for seasoning, and tuna fish for protein. Just a little low-fat mayo to hold it together.”
“So what keeps it from being perfectly perfect?” Kizzy asked.
Megan picked up a small bowl filled with chow mein noodles. “These are the culprit. You’re supposed to put about a cup worth in the salad, but I think just sprinkling a few over our plates will do the trick as well.”
“I think you’re right.” Kizzy surveyed the growing selection of salads, well pleased. “It looks a lot different than the last time we met, doesn’t it?”
Erin nodded. “It sure does.”
“Thi
s really looks impressive,” Megan said, pointing to Erin’s seafood salad contribution.
“It’s one of my aunt Mellie’s recipes,” said Erin. “She’s like Kizzy. She makes cooking look easy.”
“Cooking is easy,” said Kizzy. “It’s controlling how much I eat that’s hard. And, speaking of eating, let’s try these salads.”
“And then we can talk about our diet plans,” said Angela.
“Lifestyle changes,” Kizzy corrected her. “I’m done dieting. I’ve got to change the way I live. Period. And maybe change husbands if Lionel doesn’t shape up,” she added.
“What’s Lionel done wrong?” asked Angela.
“He keeps bringing home things I can’t have and telling me one bite won’t hurt me.”
“And do you bite?” asked Megan.
Kizzy frowned. “More than I should.” She squared her shoulders. “But no more. I need to take care of me. The next time Lionel brings home something bad for us I’m going to let him have it good. He needs to respect what I’m trying to do. Come to think of it, so do I.”
“What do you mean?” asked Erin.
“I’m just thinking that if I really respected myself I’d have taken better care of me over the years. I mean, if I don’t care about me, who will?”
“Good point,” said Megan.
“You’re off to a good start tonight,” added Erin, digging into her seafood salad.
“This looks awesome,” Kizzy said as she dished up Angela’s Italian salad. “If I get enough recipes like this maybe eventually I won’t miss potato salad.”
“Oh! I know a way you can still have it,” Angela told her. “I learned something really awesome when I was at the store yesterday. I met this woman in the produce department and she told me how you can make potatoes calorie free.”
“Do tell,” said Kizzy, sounding doubtful.
“You know how when you boil them, you get that kind of frothy stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that froth is the sugar in the potatoes. You pour that off before you mash them and then all the sugar is gone.”
Kizzy raised an eyebrow. “I always pour the water off before I mash potatoes. Trust me, it doesn’t take out the sugar.”
Bikini Season Page 7
