by Dona Sarkar
“Absolutely none.” Alfreddo grinned and put an arm around Victoria. “We did miss you, though. Are you feeling all right? Did something happen?”
Leah could feel the probing eyes of everyone on her. Did they all know about Cillian? How she had thrown herself at him and how he had rejected her? Had he told them?
“Are you feeling all right?”
Leah shot a withering glance in Cillian’s direction as he asked the question. Jackass. Yeah, a girl recovered from being dumped in approximately twelve hours. That’s how things worked. “The heat. I, uh, got sunstroke.”
Victoria frowned, but before she could comment, the waiter arrived, notebook in hand.
Everyone placed their orders quickly. When it came time for Leah, she was ready with her standard answer of a side salad and a tall glass of lemon water.
Victoria cut her off. “My daughter and I will both have the leg of lamb. I’ll have a glass of wine and she will have a vanilla cream soda.”
Leah opened her mouth to protest. That would be two thousand calories. At least!
“Mom,” she whispered.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Victoria said quietly.
An uneasy silence fell over the table.
Leah could feel her cheeks heating up again. Why was Victoria doing this to her? She’d been on Leah’s case to lose weight for years. And now she was so close to fitting a perfect size 4 and her mother was sabotaging her. Was she actually threatened by her daughter? Well, it wasn’t going to work. Leah wasn’t going to touch a single bite.
She drank a whole glass of water as the conversation started back up. Cillian blathered about his light and how great his boss was, the models went on and on about how “fat” and “pasty” the other models were, Alfreddo made everything sound sleazy.
Business as usual.
The lamb arrived and Leah scowled at it.
“It’s really very good,” Cillian added helpfully.
“Really? I thought it was bad. That’s why they’re charging more than your annual paycheck for it,” Leah snarked at him.
He frowned and dug a fork into his peppercorn-sauce-covered steak.
After a few moments, the scent of the cardamom got to Leah and she picked up her fork. It was protein. She could have a small bite. This would help her shins heal faster so she could get back to running.
The lamb seemed to melt in her mouth and Leah almost moaned with pleasure. She hadn’t tasted that kind of flavor in weeks. It was divine. She took another bite and set down her fork as she chewed.
So good.
She took another bite and realized what she was doing. She’d played into her mother’s hands. She had to stop eating without making it look too obvious.
Victoria was gesturing toward Paula with her fork and talking to Alfreddo about Jade magazine’s November spread. Everyone else’s eyes were on Victoria. As usual.
Leah raised her napkin to her lips and spit the remains of the lamb into it. Just as she was about to lower the napkin, Cillian’s eyes caught hers and Leah froze. Did he know what she was up to?
Who cared? If he even thought about telling, she had far better blackmail material info on him.
She took a few more bites of lamb during the rest of the meal in between spits and left her Italian soda untouched. She rested her fingers on her lower belly. Still flat. She was okay. She was doing just fine.
“Cillian, darling.” Victoria’s friend Paula leaned back in her chair and touched Cillian’s shoulder. “You know that yoga move you were showing me in my room last night? Which body part is that for?”
“Lower back.” Cillian rose from his chair and rested his hands on Paula’s back. “These muscles get extremely tight and the cobra just loosens them up. Like this.”
Leah averted her eyes to the dessert menu in front of her. This explained things. Last night Cillian hadn’t been waiting by the phone for her call. He had been practicing “yoga moves” with Paula in her hotel room.
Leah bit her lip as tears threatened to fill her eyes. She was not going to cry in front of these people. She was better than this. She could feel herself losing control. She didn’t know what was up with her emotions lately. It felt as if she were on a hormonal roller coaster.
“Dessert, anyone?” The waiter arrived to clear the table.
“I’ll have a crème brûlée,” Leah said before she could stop herself.
All heads at the table swiveled in her direction.
“To be young again,” Paula sighed. “I haven’t tasted a dessert in eighteen years.”
Of course she hadn’t. Leah felt blood rushing to her head. And that was why Paula had the cute photographer in her hotel room at night instead of Leah.
The crème brûlée arrived in record time and the whipped cream seemed to stare Leah in the face. All eyes on the table still on her, she took a bite.
“It’s fantastic. Does anyone want any?” She forced a smile.
All heads shook.
One more bite. Just to show them up. Leah scraped the side of the dish and poised the spoon in front of her mouth. She could swear everyone was holding their breaths to see if she would really consume all those calories willingly.
She popped the spoon into her mouth.
And took another bite. A big one.
The perfectly whipped custard was too much for Leah to take. Within minutes, the dish was empty.
She sat back, stunned, staring at the empty dish until Victoria tapped her on the shoulder to go upstairs.
What had she done?
Leah groaned as she unlocked the door of the hotel room. Sacrificing a month of hard work for a crème brûlée.
“I’m going out for a bit.” Victoria hurried in behind her and exchanged her stilettos for flat sandals. “Alfreddo and I’ll only be a little while. He wants to take a walk on the beach. To talk about work.”
Leah felt ill at the thought of Victoria and Alfreddo. Hand in hand on the beach.
“Sure, Mom, go ahead,” Leah muttered and flopped backward onto the twin bed. She had other things to worry about.
Victoria was gone in a puff of perfume.
Why had she done it? For just two minutes of incredible happiness, she was going to gain back a week’s worth of hard work.
She was so stupid.
“I’m a moron,” she muttered and forced herself to sit up. Maybe there was a way to undo it. Some workout she could do tomorrow or some food she could not eat that would undo it.
She logged in to her e-mail account to see if DietDiva had responded. No answer yet. She surfed to the ANArexia Web site to see if DietDiva was online.
She skimmed over all the old posts and was disappointed to see there were no new diets to try.
Two members online for chat.
Why not?
I feel so full tonight. I got dessert. I can’t believe I did that! I’ve been so good.
She hit Send and waited. Nothing.
Oh, well, she was just about to go to ESPN.com when a blinking window caught her eye.
Hey, BBGirl! I know what you mean! That same thing happened to me last night! I was at graduation and I couldn’t help but have a piece of cake! God, I feel so bad!
The girl’s name was Wannabe.
Excitable. Jeez.
What’d you do? Leah typed back.
When I feel that full, I just make myself throw up. No more worries!
Leah blinked. Throwing up? Disgusting, yet…obvious. It was so obvious. If she overate, she could get rid of it. Just like that. So easy.
Thanks, she typed slowly. She logged off.
Throwing up on a regular basis was a problem. They’d learned all about it in health class. A disease. You could die from doing that.
But she wasn’t doing that here. It was just a onetime thing. It was like being sick. She’s eaten something bad and had to get it out of her body.
She flipped on the light switch in the bathroom. Already she could see her cheeks were puffing back up. No w
onder Cillian had dumped her. He’d realized there was no way he could be seen with a fat girl like her in his field. She let these calories sit in her body and she would be a hundred and seventy pounds by morning. No. Not a chance.
She stuck her finger down her throat and leaned over the toilet.
nine
Fight Club
151 lbs
Leah should’ve felt sick on the drive from O.C. back to L.A. The stop-and-go traffic and the way Alfreddo kept caressing Victoria’s leg as he drove should have made her ill and dizzy.
But it didn’t.
She’d never felt so fantastic in her life. A hundred and fifty-one pounds. Despite the dessert eating, she had lost around five pounds over the course of the weekend.
Her mood darkened for a second, thinking of Cillian, but she tossed those thoughts out the car window along with a sugar-free gum wrapper.
“Why don’t we have dinner together tonight, girls?” Alfreddo turned around just in time to watch the gum wrapper bounce down the freeway. Instead of a lecture about a litter-free earth, he smiled that Cheshire cat grin of his. “Me and the two loveliest ladies in L.A. at the Ivy.”
Food again! Could no one think of anything else? No way was she eating in front of people again. She was not going to have another dessert shoved down her throat.
“Yeah, I have homework,” Leah said at the same time as Victoria accepted the invitation saying, “Alfreddo, you’re a doll. We would love to.”
“Mama, really. I’ve been gone all weekend. I have a geometry test tomorrow and I’m not prepared at all. I need to read this book for English that’s really boring, and—what, you want me to fail school and have to repeat the eleventh grade?”
“Just you and I tonight, darling, then,” Alfreddo purred and put his hand back on Victoria’s leg.
Victoria gave Leah a look in the rearview mirror. “When I get home, I want to see all the homework you’ve finished.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she muttered.
Twenty minutes later, the Benz pulled up outside the Mandevilles’ house. Leah noted the day was still sunny and light. Perfect. A long run, and then she’d get to work on her studying.
“Have fun! Don’t end up in the Enquirer for making out in the bathroom!” Leah grabbed her duffel bag and slammed the car door before Victoria could change her mind.
Her mother was dating Alfreddo. Openly and obviously at that. Their cuddles and stupid lovey-dovey talk had crossed the line of agent-model long ago, but today’s open grope-fest and dinner date made it official.
Leah cringed. Her mother had almost married the last guy she’d dated. A creep with a goatee and a gold tooth who leered at her. And anything else female and moving. Alfreddo wasn’t much of a step up.
She ran into the house and dropped her luggage in the kitchen. She scooped up Espresso Bean and gave the cat a kiss on the nose.
“Hi, baby. Miss me? I missed you tons. L.A. is full of jackasses.”
Meow. The cat seemed to agree.
“Yeah, you’re right. Screw them.”
Grabbing the Ziploc bag of diet pills out of her bag, Leah counted them. She’d taken one every day during the weekend. She only had three left. She popped one with a big glass of water and laced up her running shoes, wincing at the sharp pain in her shins. She thought she would have recovered by now. Usually her aches and pains were gone by the end of the day.
She bent and flexed her right foot, trying to stretch the shin. “Ouch.”
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to put any more pressure on her shins. Maybe her homework should come first today. She had to finish How to Ruin a Summer Vacation by tomorrow for a quiz and she was still on the acknowledgments page.
But the modeling shoot. Just three weeks away. She still had to get into a size 0. Damn sample sizes. And maybe there was a chance of returning the size-large Snow Ball dress and getting a smaller size and redeeming herself in Shazan’s eyes. It was certainly no coincidence that she hadn’t heard much from her friend after the dress-shopping fiasco.
No, she had to get in a workout. Pain or no pain.
She plugged her Zune MP3 player into her ears. She had her Beyoncé and her Shakira. She was ready for her miles.
A wolf whistle greeted Leah as she emerged from the house in her brand-new workout clothes. A black midriff-baring tank top and low-riding striped shorts. It was the most revealing outfit she had ever owned, but it looked pretty okay on her. Good even, apparently, given Jay’s whistle.
“What do you want?” Leah asked, keeping her voice as cold as her muscles. “I need to get going.” She was in no mood to bicker with him about movie lines. He could act as though everything was normal, but she wasn’t good enough of a liar to do it, too.
Jay didn’t move, continuing to stare at her while the hose he was using to wash his Mustang leaked water onto the driveway.
Staring at her the way a man stared at a woman. Not the way a friend stared at a friend. Finally.
“Your hose is leaking.” Leah smirked, not able to resist the obvious double entendre.
“You look great. Have you been on your diet? These are really cool, by the way.” Jay reached over and removed her headphones from her ears. “Where did you go all weekend? I looked for you yesterday.”
“The L.A. modeling thing.” She grabbed the headphones back from him. “These came with the Zune.”
“Well, you look great. All tan. You’re kind of like a cross between Beyoncé and Shakira in that new song.”
Leah couldn’t help but blush. He knew they were her favorites. “You’re so full of it.”
Jay grinned. “I mean it. I hardly recognized you.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his camouflage cargo shorts. “Listen—”
“Jay! Come for dinner beta!” The telltale screech of Mrs. Dalal initiated in the kitchen and reached the driveway with hardly any decibel loss.
“Ma, come on!” Jay whined in return. Loudly.
“Jay! No more nonsense, come in at once.” Mrs. Dalal, a tiny, yet impressive woman with a dish towel tucked into the front of her sari appeared in the doorway. “Is that Leah talking to you? My God, she’s so thin. Ask her to come in as well, please. We need to put some food in her.”
“Ma.”
“Mrs. Dalal, really, I have to finish my run. And I have so much homework!”
“Leah, you must come in for dinner. I’ve made chicken biryani!” With that she disappeared.
“Coming, Ma,” Jay called back and turned to Leah. “And you better, too, if you know what’s good for you.”
“My run!”
“Later. You do not want to annoy a small Asian woman. It will not end well.”
The ends of Leah’s lips twitched. She had missed Jay. And his family. And the countless dinners she’d had at their place. The Dalal clan was a homey group of people, and being in their house instantly made you a member of their family…parental scolding included. “All right. But I won’t eat anything.”
Leah thought she heard Jay snort as he opened the front door for her.
“God, your poor cousin. You think they’ll really marry him off to some random girl?” Leah leaned against the pillar on the front porch, still wiping tears from her eyes. She hadn’t remembered laughing like that in ages. Jay’s cousin had been visiting, and all the family had talked about was his pending arranged marriage. The poor sap sat quietly in the corner the whole night while everyone argued over whether his future wife should be able to cook and sing, or was just cooking acceptable?
Luckily everyone had been so busy torturing the poor kid that no one noticed that Leah had pushed her food around for half an hour and had cleared her plate in the kitchen before anyone else had gotten up.
“He’s kind of a schmuck, so he might go for it. An arranged marriage, I mean.”
Leah watched Jay swat at a fly circling the lone bulb on the porch. Despite his all-American-boy attitude, she knew he valued his cultures and traditions. “What about yo
u? You think you’ll get arranged off? Not now. I mean when you’re old.”
“God, I hope not.” Jay laughed. “I hope I won’t be such a loser that I’ll need my parents to find me a wife.”
“Well, you will be a loser, but don’t worry, girls like that. You’ll have plenty of options.”
Crickets serenaded them as a gentle breeze blew strands of Leah’s wavy hair across her face. Jay caught hold of the ends of a lock. “I like your hair like this.”
Leah reached out and removed the strand from his fingertips, her hand touching his. “All for you.” Her tone was sarcastic, but her words weren’t.
She wanted to ask about Jennifer. Were they still together? If so, was he just playing with Leah out here tonight?
She was too afraid of the answers.
“I really need to go,” she sighed. She hadn’t done her homework. She hadn’t run her five miles. But the night had been worth it.
Jay kissed her forehead. “Good night, babe. Ride with me tomorrow?”
Ignoring the thudding of the heart, she placed a hand on her hip and was surprised to feel the jut of a hip bone.
“We’ll see. I have a line of hot guys from O.C. coming to see me.” Leah tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “They’re all into tall bikini models.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.” Jay’s eyes traveled over her again.
Leah brushed a hand up against his cheek and let it rest there for an instant. As she moved closer, the bare skin of her stomach grazed his belt. She touched her full lips to the stubble on his cheek. “Night.”
She could feel his eyes watching her as she walked away. He was still standing still as she reached her kitchen door. There was no way he could say they were “just friends” after that encounter.
Leah was still smiling as she unlocked her kitchen door. Her plan was working. By the time the photo shoot came around, Jennifer would be long gone. If she wasn’t already.
“Bye-bye, China Doll,” Leah murmured, twirling on her toes as she entered the kitchen.
