Bikini Season

by Sheila Roberts

  “Where are you having the wedding?” asked Hope.

  “At the Heart Lake Lodge.”

  “Oh, lucky you,” breathed Hope.

  “It’s going to be perfect,” Erin predicted. In spite of all the corners they were cutting. Anyway, it wasn’t how you got married that counted. It was who you married.

  “What are your colors?”

  “Brown and green.”

  “Nice.” Hope began typing. “I could make you a bouquet with white and chocolate roses, baby’s breath, and plumosa.”

  “There’s such a thing as a chocolate rose?”

  “Absolutely. Do you have a favorite flower, by the way? Something you’d like to incorporate?”

  “Well, I like daisies,” said Erin. “But they stink,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

  “Daisies are sweet, though. You know they symbolize innocence.”

  “Bag that, I guess,” cracked Erin.

  Hope grinned. “Maybe you won’t want white roses then. They symbolize purity.”

  “I still have a pure heart. What do chocolate roses symbolize?”

  “You know, I don’t know,” Hope said, still typing away. “We could incorporate some stephanotis in the arrangements up by the altar. For good luck. And carnations. A lot of people don’t like to use them. They don’t have the cachet roses do, but you can do a lot with carnations. And they’re affordable.”

  “Affordable is good,” Erin said quickly.

  “So are huckleberry branches and salal, and they look great in a big arrangement. Chocolate mint is nice, too. Is this an evening wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’ll want candelabras?”

  Erin nodded. She closed her eyes and envisioned herself in her wedding dress, walking toward Adam in a romantic haze of candlelight. Thank God he’d finally come to his senses and turned over the creative control to her.

  “Oh, I know something really cool we could do for your centerpiece on the refreshment table.” Hope’s typing got faster. “A big platter piled high with limes and Granny Smith apples and pears.”

  “Wow,” Erin breathed. She’d never thought of using fruit as a table centerpiece. In fact, she hadn’t thought of much of anything Hope was suggesting. She made a mental note to file Hope’s number in her computer so she could use her for events in the future.

  She was a little less excited after Hope had entered all the information into her computer and printed out prices. Even with the carnations it wasn’t cheap. But Hope was creative, and she would be more affordable than any of the other florists Erin had checked into.

  Still. “I’d better think about this,” Erin said. “I think I’ll probably have to scale back some. Can we finalize this in a couple of weeks or so?”

  “No problem,” said Hope. “We’ve got plenty of time. And don’t worry if you have to cut a few things,” she added. “We’ll make it nice for you no matter what you decide on.”

  Erin thanked her and bought a hyacinth. It was just one little flower, but it was sweet and it made her feel good. And that would be her motto when making her final decision on flowers for the wedding. She didn’t need to go on flower overload for the wedding. She would think small but tasteful. Less was more.

  “And if you want to bring your fiance in …” Hope began.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Erin said quickly. “He trusts me.” Anyway, the last thing she needed was the man who had wanted his cousin the happy gardener to do their flowers helping her make her final decision.

  Outside the shop, she closed her eyes, took a sniff of her hyacinth and smiled. Hope would help her make the wedding beautiful. Everything would be perfect. This day was perfect.

  Until she opened her eyes and saw Dan Rockwell coming down the street.

  Nine

  Erin wanted to turn and run somewhere, anywhere—across the street, back into the flower shop. But it was too late. He’d seen her.

  The sudden halt in his step indicated he was feeling the same way. She watched as Dan mentally gathered himself and moved forward, giving her a salutary nod. “How’s it going?”

  He sounded as stiff as she felt.

  Be polite, said her inner mother.

  “Fine,” she said. “I was just looking at flowers for the wedding.”

  He pointed to her hyacinths. “Pretty small bouquet.”

  “The bouquet will be gorgeous,” Erin said. “This was just a little something extra to make me feel good.”

  “You just ordered flowers for your wedding. You should feel great.”

  “I do,” she insisted. “But who can resist hyacinths?”

  “Someone with hay fever? Here, let me smell it.” She held the flower up to his face and he took a deep sniff, then produced a huge, fake sneeze.

  “Very funny,” she said, trying not to smile.

  “No, that does smell good. Are you having some of those?”

  “I’m not sure they’ll be in bloom in June. Anyway, I’m happy with what I’m getting.”

  “Glad to hear you’re getting what you want.”

  “Well, within reason,” she qualified, and then realized she’d just opened the door for Dan to insult McDoodoo. McDreamy, she quickly corrected herself. Grabbing for something to turn the conversation, she pointed to Dan’s grubby jeans, speckled with paint and the tattered tennis shoes. “You’re not working at the store?”

  “They give me a day off once in a while for good behavior.” He looked down at his jeans. “I was working on a project. Just came to town to pick up some dinner.”

  Good. At least he wouldn’t be going to the gym. Her curiosity got the better of her and she couldn’t help asking. “What kind of project?”

  “I’m fixing up a house on the other side of the lake.”

  She cocked her head. “I didn’t know you moonlighted as a carpenter.”

  He grinned. “Like someone recently said, ‘You don’t know anything about me.’”

  Okay, he was starting to irritate her.

  He began speaking again before she could tell him. “I bought a little place that I’m going to fix up and flip.”

  He wasn’t staying forever at the grocery store, checking groceries and stocking the freezer? Who’d have thought it? “Are you going to be one of those guys who makes his fortune in real estate?”

  He smiled. “Maybe. Got a lot of things I want to do. Money’ll help ’em happen.”

  A lot of things he wanted to do. He was right. She didn’t know him.

  And you don’t want to; you’re engaged, her inner mother reminded her.

  Happily engaged. “Well, I’d better get going,” she said. “Good luck with the house.”

  “Good luck with the flowers,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she murmured, and hurried away. But partway down the street she grew thoughtful and slowed down. Was that man with the plan really Dan Rockwell? And, more to the point, why, when he wasn’t irritating her, did he interest her? She half turned and looked back down the street. No sign of him. He’d vanished, like an angel.

  She frowned. Or a ghost. She firmly shook Dan Rockwell out of her mind and continued on. She was only interested because he was a childhood … something. Who cared about Dan and his get-rich plan? She had plans of her own, weight to lose and a wedding to pull together. Have a nice life, Dan.

  She sped to the gym and jumped on the treadmill. And started running. And running. And running.

  It was Tuesday, lunch hour, and Megan finished her chicken salad in record time. It was filling. She wasn’t hungry, really. But her taste buds were just itching for trouble. If she didn’t get out of this office, she was going to wind up down at the lobby coffee shop that doubled as a muffin land mine. Maybe a change of pace, a change of place, would be good. She needed to do something to keep herself from falling off the wagon, and she needed to do it quickly.

  She looked at her commuter tennis shoes that she wore for her bus ride into the city every morning, sitting in a bag under her des
k. A walk. She could take a lunch-hour walk. Why not? It beat sitting here fantasizing over muffins.

  She picked up the bag and opened her office door. Then she looked to see if anyone was coming. Like it mattered if anyone was coming? What did she care if someone saw her waiting for an elevator with her tennis shoes in a bag? Ridiculous. She yanked open the door and strode out into the hallway.

  She had just pushed the down button when Pamela Thornton pranced up behind her. “Erin, off to get some lunch?”

  Coming from any other person that would just be a conversation starter. Coming from Pamela the Pencil it was an opening shot.

  “Just out to run some errands,” Megan said, and kept her gaze on the closed elevator door. She felt rather than saw Pamela leaning over to look in her bag, and moved it away.

  “Running. Literally?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “Walking. Literally,” Megan snapped. The elevator doors slid open and they both stepped inside.

  “Walking off your frustrations? Having a bad day?” Pamela taunted. “How are things going on Newton v. Owens?”

  “Okay.” Brilliant answer, Wales.

  “I hear Tanner is a bastard to work for.”

  “He’s successful and driven, and he’s a man.”

  Pamela rolled her eyes. “He’s going to break you, you’ve got to know that.”

  Oh, now she got what was going on. “And then, when he breaks me I’ll scuttle away and no longer be an embarrassment to the firm? Is that it?”

  “No, of course not,” said Pamela. “I just meant—”

  Megan held up a hand. “I know what you meant. And what are your chances of making partner?”

  Pamela’s mouth turned down and her eyebrows dipped—as much as Botoxed eyebrows could. “Damned good. I do my part for the firm.”

  “Yes, you do,” Megan agreed. “You keep up … morale.”

  “Hearsay, darling. You should know you can’t build a case on that. But here’s something you can build a case on: facts. Fact: there are only so many partnerships available this year. Fact: the firm wants rainmakers. Who are they going to choose, a bitter big girl who couldn’t bring in a new client unless she kidnapped him or someone with legal brains and a personality? I wonder.” The doors swished open and Pamela gave her long hair a shake, then stepped out.

  It was all Megan could do not to kick her in the butt and help her on her way. She followed Pamela out the elevator into the lobby, then marched toward a grouping of chairs and sat down to put on her shoes. Bitter big girl? Who did that pencil think had made her bitter? Women like Pamela!

  Shoes laced, she steamed out of the First Orca Trust Tower and down Second Avenue, her mood a perfect match for the gray Seattle sky. Bitter big girl. Humph! Talk about someone living in a glass house throwing stones. Pamela wasn’t all sweetness and light.

  Megan swallowed and realized that she actually had a bitter taste in her mouth that had nothing to do with the fumes from the diesel bus roaring by. Bitter big girl. Was she?

  Of course she was. She thought back to her first taste of bitter. She’d been eight. Paul, her new daddy, had just shooed her away from the potato chips at the neighborhood barbecue. She’d grabbed one last handful and he’d given her a swat on the bottom to help her on her way. That had been humiliating.

  But not half as humiliating as hearing Paul say to Angela’s dad, “That kid is such a pig. At the rate she’s going she’ll be the size of the Goodyear blimp by the time she’s twelve.”

  Well, she showed him. She didn’t turn into the Goodyear blimp until she was fourteen. And every year along the way she missed her real daddy who died when she was six. Her real daddy would put her on his feet and dance with her and call her Peanut and Princess. Paul only called her fat.

  Someone must have told him not to do that, because he finally stopped. But by the time he did it was too late. She knew what he thought of her. And although she tried to salve the hurt with contraband cookies and chips, she never succeeded. The times when they clashed she found herself wondering why a man who smoked three packs of cigarettes a day got to defy statistics and keep living when her real dad had to get in a car accident and die. All that resentment helped her build a chip on her shoulder the size of an eighties shoulder pad, and she’d worn it right into Wise Ass and Greed.

  Her steps slowed as she remembered the first time she’d met Pamela Thornton and her friend Ashley Paine, Megan’s competition at the firm. It had been at a cocktail party that Grant Waters had hosted for some of the new members of the firm. She’d walked into that elegant drawing room with its ancient carpets and Queen Anne furniture and tried not to gawk at the Chihuly glass. Pamela and Ashley stood by the fireplace, drinks in hand, talking to Jonathan Green. Instead of joining them, Megan had frozen in her tracks. The only thing that saved her was Tanner showing up at her elbow and saying, “Isn’t this your dream come true? Why do you look like you’re in a nightmare? Go mingle.”

  She’d tried, she really had. She drifted to the edge of the group and pretended like she belonged. But she didn’t. She knew it and they knew it. They gave her a crumb—neeting smiles—then turned their rapt attention back to Green. She’d broken off from the magic circle and drifted toward the bar, stopping on the way to put some caviar on a cracker.

  “Way to have them hanging on your every word,” Tanner said at her elbow.

  She took in a deep breath. He’d been one of the partners who interviewed her. He’d probably recommended her to the firm. He was invested in her success, although why, she had no idea. Why was she here at all? She clearly wasn’t what they wanted.

  “They’re too busy getting their noses brown to want to listen to anything I’ve got to say. Their brain size probably isn’t any bigger than their bra size,” she’d added under her breath.

  Tanner had let out a bark of laughter that turned heads in their direction. “Oh, you ladies are going to get along well,” he predicted.

  As the night wore on, Megan felt the womens’ assessing gazes on her. Once Pamela even smiled at her, but she hadn’t been able to smile back.

  Would things have turned out differently between them if she’d smiled? Megan sighed. Probably not. She was pretty sure someone had overheard her comment to Tanner and went running to Pamela and Ashley with it. Whatever had started the nasty rivalry, they’d been shooting barbs back and forth practically from the beginning. And with each encounter the barbs had gotten sharper.

  Bitter big girl. Maybe she was. What did she have to be bitter about, really? Nothing but her weight. And whose fault was it that she was fat? She could blame it on a lot of things, a lot of people—especially her stepfather—but the truth was she was the one who had forked all that food into her mouth. A woman could only go so long blaming her childhood for her problems as an adult. It was time to stop.

  She picked up her pace and walked down the hill toward the Seattle waterfront where ferryboats, shops, restaurants, and seagulls all vied for attention. Down here the air took on the salty tang of the sea. Megan took a deep breath, filling her lungs with it. A weak winter sun found a small corner of sky and brightened the gray just a little. This was a beautiful city. She had a great job. She could have a great life. And she didn’t have to be big or bitter. It was really her choice.

  A woman in jogging shorts and a sweatshirt with an iPod plugged into her ears ran past her. Megan stopped and watched the woman. She looked so graceful, so in control of her world.

  Running. That was a goal to work for. Megan would like to become a runner, jogging about the city in cute little shorts, a ponytail swinging. She took some experimental jogging steps and found herself quickly winded. Okay, maybe not quite yet, but soon—maybe by summer. Perhaps even by spring. She didn’t have to run a marathon. She could start by running a block and work up from there. She turned and started back to the First Orca Trust Tower. On the way she went into the Hallmark store and picked up a card. It was time to stop feuding with the skinny women of the world. If yo
u couldn’t beat ‘em, join ’em. She was ready to join the club.

  It was Friday night, and the members of the Teeny Bikini Diet Club showed up with tales of both diet tragedy and triumph to share.

  Angela had come up with a new diet idea, and she shared it as they sat around Kizzy’s dining room table, sampling Angela’s ham and asparagus antipasto. “When you’re out to eat, have someone in your family order dessert. Then, when they’re eating it, you chew along with them, and it’s almost like you’re getting to eat it.”

  “Did you read this on the Internet?” Megan asked suspiciously.

  “Well,” Angela hedged.

  “Have you tried it?” Megan persisted.

  “Not yet. But it sounded good. And I thought it might help me next time we take the kids to McDonald’s.”

  “Ordering a salad next time you go to McDonald’s will probably help more,” Megan suggested, dishing up an Angela offering that she’d interestingly dubbed Italian stir-fry.

  “I don’t know,” said Erin. “If somebody sat down next to me and started chewing on chocolate cake I’d strangle her.”

  “You’re right,” Angela decided. She pushed her vegetables around her plate. “I hate my life. And I only lost one pound this week. Every time I feel bad I eat something bad.”

  “If that’s the case, be glad you lost even one pound,” Megan told her.

  “And at least you lost a pound,” added Erin. “You’re on your way. Pretty soon you’ll be so hot Brad won’t even want to leave for work.”

  What should have made Angela smile instead set her lower lip to wobbling.

  Kizzy laid a hand on her arm. “Angela?”

  “Uh-oh,” said Megan. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brad is having an affair,” Angela wailed and started crying.

  “Shut up,” scoffed Erin. “He’s Mr. Family Man of the Century. No way.”

  “Well, he is,” Angela insisted. She gave a red pepper in her stir-fry a vicious stab. “I overheard him.”