A knock on her door made her jump. She didn’t even have time to call “come in” before Tanner stepped into the room and started sucking out all the oxygen. He had the kind of body that could model suits in a catalogue, and a perfect, adversarial lawyer’s face, with sharp features and eyes like a hawk. And he had an air about him that just automatically made criminals squirm and lawyers bristle. He was in his middle forties and rumor had it he’d gone through two wives. He’d probably scared them to death.
Megan took a deep breath and raised her chin. She refused to be intimidated by this man.
“How are you coming?” he asked.
“Rotten, thank you.” She shouldn’t have said that. What a non-team-player thing to say!
Half his mouth lifted. Only Tanner could manage to smile in a way that made a person not want to smile back. “This is called paying your dues, so don’t bitch. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that we go to trial in sixty days.” And with that, he turned and left her office, shutting her prison door with a snick.
Who did he think she was, Criss Angel in drag? Was she supposed to say, “Abracadabra,” and make something appear out of nothing? Damn the man!
She threw a carrot stick after him in a postencounter fit of rebellion and it hit the door and bounced down onto the carpet with a soft plop. “No problem,” she grumbled. “I have no life. Maybe I’ll get a sleeping bag and move in here.” She laid her head on her desk and blinked back tears of frustration. What she needed now was a little man to suddenly appear and promise to help her turn this crap into gold. She’d gladly promise him her firstborn child in exchange for the help, just like the woman in the old fairy tale had done. That would be a contract she’d never have to honor since she’d never have a child. She was never going to get married anyway. Who’d want a whale?
“Stop that,” she ordered herself. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and put an end to the pity party. Then she dug out another carrot stick and got back to work. There was gold in here somewhere and she was going to find it.
By Sunday night Angela had convinced herself that she was being silly. Of course Brad wouldn’t cheat on her. But then this morning she’d called the office just because, well, maybe she needed to pick up a gift.
She’d gotten Marion the receptionist. “Brad asked me to get a present for the big surprise party coming up,” Angela had told her. “What would the guest of honor like?”
“What big surprise party?” Marion had asked.
Dread unfurled itself inside Angela’s chest, pushing hard against her heart, but she gamely soldiered on. “You know, the office surprise party? Brad was talking about planning one for someone, but he didn’t give me very many details.”
“Oh,” Marion had said. And that was all she said.
“You don’t know about any surprise party?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. If it’s a surprise, there are probably just a few people planning it.”
Yes, of course, that made sense.
Almost. Except if anyone would know about a surprise party it would be Marion. She knew everything that went on at the office. Angela’s woman’s intuition went on red alert. Someone was being very sneaky, and it wasn’t her.
“Want me to ask him?” Marion offered.
So he could make up another lie? “No, that’s okay. I’ll ask him when he comes home tonight.” Or maybe she’d just kill him when he came home.
Anger stewed inside Angela the rest of the day. She helped at Gabriella’s preschool, which involved dropping Mandy at her mom’s, then picking Mandy up at her mom’s, which meant staying for a quick lunch at Mom’s and acting as if everything was fine. And the pressure built. In the afternoon she hosted a scrapbooking party and sat around pretending everything was fine while she and five other preschool moms turned pages with family pictures into works of art as their children ran around the living room in dress-up clothes. She found an old picture of herself and Brad in her overflowing shoebox. They were at a Halloween party, all dressed up like Batman and Catwoman. There they stood, fake cartoon characters, posing and yucking it up. They’d long since lost the costumes but they were still fakes, pretending to be a happily married couple, solid and devoted. Well, one of them was devoted. The other was a no-good bastardo. Anger possessed her hands and she began cutting the picture into tiny pieces, starting with a strong snip right up the middle of Brad’s crotch. And all the while Josh Groban warbled “You Raise Me Up” in the background.
“Oh, that was a cute picture,” chided one of her guests, bringing her back to the moment at hand.
Of a stupido wife and her bastardo husband. Cute. “It was a bad one of me,” she lied, too embarrassed to confess the real reason behind her scissor mania to women she was just getting to know.
After the party ended it was time to pick up the house and start dinner, although she wasn’t all that hungry after spending the afternoon noshing on cheese and grapes and veggies with dip. She’d originally planned to serve tiramisu cake, but now that she had to get hot, tiramisu had to be a thing of the past.
As she worked, she kept thinking about the picture she’d destroyed. Their life had been fine when she’d been skinny. All she had to do to put it back together again was to look good. She could do this. She could get her husband back.
But maybe she didn’t want him back, she thought after he came home from work that night and gave her a big, old sloppy kiss like he was the world’s most loyal husband. He clowned around for the girls at dinner as though they were one big, happy family. This, she’d heard, was how it was in Italy. The men had their family and then their mistress on the side. The tangy sauce from her chicken parmesan (the diet version, no breadcrumbs) suddenly felt like acid on her tongue. Why did she want to go to Italy anyway? Why was she learning Italian? So she could commiserate with other women whose husbands were cheating bastardos?
She shoved aside her plate and watched Brad through narrowed eyes while dancing an angry staccato on the table with her fingernails.
He stopped in the middle of pretending to dangle broccoli spears from his ears like earrings and gave her a “what’s wrong” look.
Oh, yes, she should have been playing along and smiling, saying things like, “Silly Daddy.” Well, excuse her if she didn’t want to play. She pushed away from the table and took her plate to the sink.
“Baby?” Brad said from the table.
Baby. Did he call Miss Hottie “baby”?
“I’m not hungry,” she said, and left the kitchen.
Behind her she heard Brad say, “Finish your dinner, girls. Mommy and Daddy will be right back.” She was as far as the living room when he caught up to her. “Ang, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said stiffly, and kept going.
He dogged her all the way through the room and up the stairs. “Well, something’s wrong. What’d I do?”
What did he do? Was he serious? “What did you do? You have the nerve to ask me that, you big, fat liar?”
“Well, yeah, since I don’t know. And I don’t appreciate being called a liar.”
“And I don’t appreciate being lied to,” she retorted, and stormed into the bedroom. She tried to slam the door after her, but that didn’t work since Brad was right behind her, pushing it open. She turned and glared at him, putting a hand on her hip. “You can quit playing dumb. I called the office today.”
He threw up both hands. “And?”
“There is no surprise party for anyone.”
He looked at her like she was one of the girls and she’d just done something naughty.
He had a lot of nerve. She wasn’t the one being naughty. “I was going to get a gift, so I called Marion. And guess what? She didn’t know a thing about any party.” Angela stabbed a finger at him. “So, that means you’re lying.”
His jaw began working the way it often did when he was ticked and trying hard not to blow up. “Well, guess what. Marion’s the one the party is for.”
“Ma
rion?” squeaked Angela. Oh, no. She plopped onto the bed. Oh, boy.
Brad shook his head, looking thoroughly disgusted. “Ang, will you just trust me? Please?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“Daddy,” Gabriella called from downstairs. “We’re done.”
“Okay,” Brad called back, “I’m coming.” To Angela he said, “I’m going to go back downstairs to our daughters now. Then, after they’re in bed, I’m going to go have a big friggin’ affair with my damned La-Z-Boy.” With that he marched out of the bedroom.
Angela fell back on the bed. That had been bad. But at least she didn’t have to worry about her husband. She let out a sigh of relief. Okay. She’d been silly and insecure all along. Brad loved her and she loved him and everything was fine.
Except, wait a minute. Friday night he’d told her he was planning a party for someone who was retiring. Marion was forty. Who retired at forty?
“Lion, I’m trying to finish making dinner here,” Kizzy said, and gave Lionel’s hand a playful slap.
He unclamped his hands from her breasts, but continued to peer over her shoulder at the pots on the stove. “Okay, Kizzy girl, where are you hiding that fried chicken? I smelled it as soon as I came in the door. Got it stuck in the oven?”
“There is chicken in the oven,” Kizzy said.
“All right.” Lionel rubbed his hands together.
“But it’s baked.”
Lionel made a face. “Baked? Baked?”
“And we’re having acorn squash to go with it.”
“And garlic potatoes?” Lionel asked, lifting the lid on one of the pans. His frown got a little smaller. “Okra. Well, that’s something good. What’s over there?”
“Green beans with bacon bits.”
“That’s okay. Except the bacon’s probably fake.”
Kizzy made no comment.
“But where are the potatoes?” Lionel continued.
“No potatoes tonight.”
Lionel grunted. “Are we ever going to have mashed potatoes again? Or potato salad. Why can’t we have potato salad?”
“Because I don’t want to tempt myself,” Kizzy said simply.
Now Lionel was actually pouting. “Kiz, you’re going way overboard with this thing.”
“Not really.”
He disappeared from the kitchen, then returned a minute later with a plate laden with …
“Cheesecake.” Kizzy’s taste buds started doing the happy dance. She frowned at Lionel. “Now, what are you doing with that?”
“Carol brought it in to work today. I told her it was your favorite and she insisted on me bringing it home. And it’s a good thing I did,” he added, “since there’s nothing good to eat around here.”
“There’s plenty good to eat,” Kizzy informed him. “We’re changing our definition of good, remember?”
“No, you’re changing our definition of good. And girl, your definition stinks.”
“Well, you can eat that, but I’m not going to.” Kizzy said, and turned her back on the cheesecake.
“I’m sure not letting it go to waste,” he said. “You can go ahead and be miserable if you want. I’ll eat your piece and mine.”
“Fine. You go right ahead.”
But she knew it was there. And she thought about it as they sat at the kitchen table, eating her nutritious, nonfattening meal. And afterward, when Lionel helped himself to a piece and forked a huge chunk of it into his mouth she really thought about it. One little bite, how much harm could one little bite do?
As if reading her mind, he said, “Here, have a bite of mine before you drown in drool.” Then he softly added, “Anyway, I brought it home for you, Kiz.”
One bite turned into two, then three, and before she knew it, he’d fed her two thirds of the dangerous stuff. She scowled at him. “You let me eat almost that whole thing!” No, she’d let herself eat almost the whole thing, and that made her even angrier. She walked over to the dishwasher and shoved in her plate. Then she turned and pointed a finger at him. “I swear, Lionel, if you bring home anything else I can’t have I’m going to club you with a rolling pin.”
He held up both hands. “What? You’ve been working hard at this. I was just bringing you a treat to reward you.”
She suddenly remembered something she’d read in one of the diet books she’d just bought. “No,” she said slowly as she processed her revelation, “you were sabotaging me.”
He reared back. “What?”
“You don’t want me to succeed on this diet. Even if it kills me, you’d rather have me fat.”
“You’re not fat, you’re big. And that’s a rotten thing to say.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Well, I don’t want you to be a twig. If I wanted a twig I’d have gone and married some skinny girl.”
“Skinny can be pretty,” Kizzy pointed out. “Look at Oprah’s friend Gayle.”
“I don’t want Oprah’s friend Gayle. I want a woman with some junk in the trunk and something on the front end, too.”
Kizzy pursed her lips together. There he was, her husband, her friend, the man who was supposed to always want her best. She was trying to lose weight and what was he thinking about? Himself. “The doctor told me to lose weight, Lionel. If I don’t, I can’t get healthy. Is that what you want, for me to be sick?”
His bluster fell away and he looked stricken. “No. Good God, no.”
She walked over to him and poked him in the chest. “Then you’d better quit trying to mess me up. ’Cause if you don’t stop, I’m going to go live with my sister and leave you to eat KFC until you grow feathers and a beak.”
His jaw dropped. “You’d do that? You’d leave me, Kiz?”
“For as long as it takes to get these pounds off, yes. Remember those wedding vows you took? Well, they said in sickness and health—and that means skinny or fat. You’ve had the sickness part with a big, old wife who can barely walk a block without getting winded. In another few months you’re going to have a wife who you are going to have to run to keep up with. You’d better get used to it.” She picked up the plate with the last of the cheesecake.
“Oh, no. You wouldn’t.”
She did. Into the garbage can it went. “Don’t do that to me again, Lionel. I mean it. I need to get healthy.”
Lionel scratched the back of his head. “Well.”
“Well, what?” Kizzy demanded.
He heaved a big sigh. “I guess Oprah’s friend’s not so bad looking.”
Kizzy smiled. Now that was the Lionel she knew and loved. “Come here, you.”
And he came, like a man running for his last meal.
Erin decided it would be best to go to the gym weekday evenings, when Dan Rockwell was working. She didn’t want any more gym encounters or coffee counseling sessions. No more contact. Period. Dan Rockwell was developing upsetting her into a fine art.
Before going to the gym tonight, she had an appointment with Hope Walker, the owner of Changing Seasons, Heart Lake’s new flower shop, who was staying open late just for Erin. Hope was supposed to be a genius with flowers. Maybe she could be a genius on a budget.
There was something about flower shops, Erin thought as she walked through the door, that made you want to have a party. Everything was so festive and pretty. And this shop really said party. Refrigerated cases held arrangements of all sizes: large ones in antique pitchers, tiny ones in teacups. Buckets bloomed with long-stemmed roses, carnations, baby’s breath, and mixed bouquets. In one corner sat what looked like the world’s largest Christmas cactus, still blooming and housed in a fat yellow pot supported by ruby slippers. A little sign next to it said, “Feed me, Seymour.” A collection of helium balloons danced above one corner of the counter, ready to grab for a last-minute birthday present or get-well gift. Potted plants of every variety decorated shelves, and in the window a huge Valentine display complete with both flowers and heart-shaped candy boxes reminded passersby that February 14 was righ
t around the corner. Erin sniffed. Something in here smelled really good. And then she saw the little, foil-wrapped pots of hyacinths, all dolled up with pastel bows. She would have to take one of those home with her.
“Hi,” Hope greeted her. She looked a little like a flower herself, with her ruffled long-sleeved pink top spilling over her jeans—a pale flower, the kind you might just walk past and not see at first. Except for her hair. The extreme short growth on her head practically screamed post-chemo grow-out. She looked to be somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties—way too young to have to cope with something so awful.
“I love your shop,” Erin said.
Hope looked around and smiled. “So do I. It’s been a godsend.”
“That’s some plant,” Erin said, pointing to the cactus.
“That’s Audrey, the shop mascot,” Hope said. “I’ve had it for years.”
“I’ve never seen such a big plant,” Erin said. “You’ve sure got a green thumb.”
Hope smiled. “Plants are my thing. So is doing flowers for weddings,” she added, motioning Erin to a small wrought-iron patio table where she’d laid out an album full of sample pictures of floral arrangements.
They settled in, Erin with the photo album, Hope with her laptop.
The minute Erin started looking at the arrangements she knew she’d come to the right place. They were gorgeous—striking and modern: delphiniums and some kind of unusual greens in a tall vase, passionate pairings of reds and oranges in an arrangement that made you think of sex, tranquil arrangements of light shades of green, misty blues, and other cool hues.
Bikini Season Page 9
