“Maybe not yet,” Blair says. “But you will be at some point. It’s going to feel strange at first, but eventually you’ll want to meet someone new.”
Luckily, Natalie is saved from the rest of this conversation by Jessica, their instructor, coming over and telling everyone that class is starting again.
Everyone follows Jessica to an area near the front of the gym, where Natalie is surprised to see boxing gloves that come in a rainbow of colors. They even have girl colors like pink and fuchsia.
“What color do you want your wrap?” Jessica asks Natalie, pointing to another student who’s already wrapping her hand with boxing tape.
“Purple,” Natalie says without hesitation, since it’s her favorite color. Jessica helps her and Blair and the other new students wrap their hands before putting on boxing gloves. Blair chooses green, while Lindsay does her own wrap in red.
For someone who works with her hands all day, it feels strange to have them encased. The gloves seem huge. Excitement drums through her when they’re led over to rows of punching bags in the center of the room.
Natalie spends the next half hour doing various drills. She learns punches, hovers, and jabs. Her hands and arms feel sore at first, not to mention her shoulders, but after a while, they become numb. She keeps thinking of everything she’s been going through the last few months. Lena and Peter. The end of her marriage. All the stress it’s put on Chloe. She thinks about Anthony and her embarrassment.
By the time the class is over, Natalie is exhausted and dripping with sweat.
“So what did you think?” Lindsay asks.
Natalie smiles. “That was awesome.”
FOR THE FIRST time in her life, Natalie finds herself in a situation she couldn’t have imagined. Not only does she sign up for boxing classes twice a week, but she also calls Carlos’s boyfriend, Ryan, and hires him as her personal trainer.
He comes to the house for the first time after work to show her how to use the equipment in her home gym.
“I’m still kind of sore from the boxing classes I started a couple of weeks ago,” Natalie explains.
“Are you stiff?”
“Yes, though it’s getting better. Thank God, I had the day off after that first lesson, because I could barely get out of bed.”
Ryan chuckles. “If you’re still sore, you should take it easy. You don’t want to cause an injury. Let’s at least look over your equipment though and talk a little about your expectations.”
An hour later, after he’s gone, Natalie takes a shower and decides to do something she hasn’t done in a long time.
She walks over to her bedroom closet and opens the door. There’s a full-length mirror on the wall. For a moment, she gathers her courage and then lets her bathrobe slip from her shoulders to the floor, so she’s completely naked and looks at herself.
“Aaaah!”
The urge to grab her robe and scurry away is overpowering, but Natalie holds her ground.
I can do this.
She forces herself to check out her naked body. At first, she’s horrified, but then decides to try approaching it from a different mindset.
What if I only focus on the things I like about my body? Surely, there’s something.
She also decides not to compare herself to Lindsay. She’s been comparing herself to her sister her whole life, and maybe it is time to stop. After all, they don’t look anything alike. For starters, she’s three inches shorter than Lindsay and far more curvaceous.
And that’s where she decides to begin.
Okay, I’ve got curves. Lots of them. There’s enough here to open my own boobs and butts store.
But as she studies herself, she realizes something else. “I’ve got a waist!”
And it’s true. Her dieting has made a difference because it’s clear she has a waist again. She puts her hands on hips and sucks in her breath.
Now we’re talking. She turns this way and that. Her stomach looks almost flat. If only she could walk around like this all the time. Still sucking in her stomach, she walks into the closet where she keeps her scale. It’s in the back, buried behind some shoes, so she has to wrangle it out.
Finally, the moment of truth. She gets on it and looks down.
At first she’s confused by the number she sees, but then it dawns on her. I’ve lost weight. Natalie does some quick calculations in her head and discovers she’s lost somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty pounds.
Thirty pounds! Can it be?
She gets off and on the scale about five more times and the number doesn’t change. She puts her robe back on and sits down on the bed, letting reality sink in. All the comments people have made about her losing weight are true. Natalie is amazed. Yes, she’s been dieting and exercising like crazy, and yes, she’s even started spitting out the pastries she’s had to taste test instead of swallowing them, because—let’s be honest—she used to eat the discards, but somehow she never expected this.
Wow.
When she finds Lindsay and Chloe downstairs, she makes an announcement.
“I want to go clothes shopping.”
“Oh, my God!” Lindsay shrieks. “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life!”
Natalie rolls her eyes.
Lindsay and Chloe are in the living room, dancing and rocking out to the new Muse album. They used to ask Natalie to join them, but she always said no, so they don’t bother anymore.
Lindsay turns down the music. “Can I burn your old clothes? Please, pretty please?” She puts her hands together in prayer and closes her eyes. “It would give me such awesome pleasure.”
“Burning my clothes? I don’t know about that.” Natalie frowns.
“We’ll start with those hideous mom jeans. And then I’ll burn those big white sneakers, too.” Lindsay is nodding.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Chloe chimes in. “But Aunt Lindsay is right. Those sneakers are really ugly.”
“That horrible brown Lord of the Rings hoodie will be next!” Lindsay says, clapping her hands.
“Hey, no one is burning my Lord of the Rings hoodie! And I don’t know about getting rid of my white sneakers, either. Those are very comfortable.”
“Don’t worry, Mom, we can get you a super cute Lord of the Rings T-shirt with Legolas on the front,” Chloe assures her.
“Yes, a woman’s T-shirt,” Lindsay agrees. “Not that huge over-sized hoodie which is obviously meant for a man twice your size.”
“I prefer Aragorn,” Natalie says, trying to salvage some of her dignity. “Legolas is cute, but I’m an Aragorn girl all the way.”
“Definitely.” Lindsay nods. “Whatever you want. When can we take you shopping—this weekend?”
“I thought you had to work this weekend?” Lindsay recently won a bid to create a sculpture for the public library in Tacoma.
“I’ll work at night. I also want you to go see my hairdresser.”
“I don’t know.” Natalie puts her hand up to touch her ponytail.
“Trust me, you need a decent haircut and some color to fix those grays.” Lindsay gets up. “Damn, where’s my phone? I have to call Blair. I know she’s going to want to be in on this.”
While Lindsay is looking for her cell, Natalie wonders what she’s getting herself into. She hasn’t gone clothes shopping in years. Paying attention to styles has never been her thing.
She heads into the kitchen to make herself a salad for dinner. Despite all the insults being slung around about her current wardrobe, there’s a bounce in her step. She keeps thinking about that bathroom scale.
Thirty pounds!
Lindsay has finally found her phone and Natalie can hear her talking to Blair.
“Yes, she’s agreed to a makeover!” There’s a tiny shriek projected through the phone, which Natalie can hear all the way over by the fridge.
Natalie listens to them as they decide on clothing stores and which salon spa is best. They sound like two generals planning a military campaign.
Except, I’m the battlefield.
The rest of the week is a blur as Natalie pretends she isn’t nervous about the coming weekend. She’s not quite sure how going clothes shopping has suddenly turned into a makeover, but it has. Lindsay made a salon appointment for her that’s alarmingly called “The Works.”
Peter phones to discuss the holidays. He wants Chloe to spend Christmas with him and Lena.
“I doubt she’ll go for that,” Natalie points out. Their parenting plan said Chloe was to spend part of Christmas day with Peter, but Chloe didn’t want to go if Lena was there. She wouldn’t even go over for Thanksgiving.
“Help me out, then. My parents are coming down to meet Lena for the first time and I’m hoping it will help Chloe warm up to her.”
“Let me get this straight. You want me to help Chloe warm up to Lena?”
“Yes, as a favor to me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it will make all our lives easier.”
“You mean your life, don’t you?”
Peter lets out a frustrated sigh. “Just forget it. Lena is right about you. You are totally closed off.”
Natalie pushes down her anger. How did I become the bad guy in all this? “Lena doesn’t even know me.”
“She’s been trying to reach out to you, but you keep shutting her down. You know she’s a life coach, right?”
“Are you talking about those awful texts I keep getting?”
“There’s no reason for any of us to have bad feelings toward each other. I’m hoping we’ll all be friends someday.”
Natalie scoffs. “What happened to her wanting to take out a restraining order against me?”
“We talked about it and realized you lashed out because you’re hurting, but she wants to help you move past that.”
“Lena wants to help me?”
“Yes, Natalie,” he starts in with his phony dentist’s voice, “she helps people all the time. If you give her half a chance, you’ll understand she’s a great person.”
“What planet are you on?” And what kind of drugs are you smoking there?
“Very funny. The truth is, I feel like a new man.”
“How nice for you.”
“Don’t be like that. You could benefit from her advice, too. Lena’s got me doing yoga and eating healthy. None of those rich pastries you’re always making. We eat everything raw.”
“Raw?”
“That’s right. Just raw fruits and vegetables. Lena doesn’t cook anything.”
“Is that safe?”
“Of course it’s safe. It’s a very healthy way to eat.”
“You seriously don’t cook anything at all?”
“No. Nothing.” Peter’s voice takes on an annoyed tone. “We also don’t eat meat, dairy, sugar, or wheat. I feel incredible. You should try it.”
Natalie decides she’d rather fall on a sharp stick than give up chocolate or butter, but decides to keep that to herself. Even with all her dieting, she still has the occasional treat. Life’s too short for anything less.
“Will you talk to Chloe about coming here for Christmas or not?” he asks.
Natalie thinks of all the ways Peter has hurt her. “Sorry, but I’m done fixing your messes. Ask Chloe yourself.”
After hanging up she has a pang of regret. Maybe I should be nicer about all this. But then she thinks about the last time she saw Peter and how he’d threatened to sell the house. He’d created this situation and now he could deal with it.
They have a short bakery meeting that afternoon. The kitchen staff gathers in their tiny backroom where the television is playing As the Clock Ticks, a favorite soap opera. It occurs to Natalie that her life has become like a soap opera. She decides to apologize to everyone for the way she behaved with Anthony recently.
“I’m sorry you guys had to see that. It was very unprofessional of me to insult our landlord.” Even if he is being a pain in the ass.
“Don’t worry,” Ginger, one of their part-time bakers, says. “That was nothing. I’ve seen plenty worse in some of the kitchens I’ve worked.”
“Oh, yeah.” Zoe tells a story about how she worked with a sous chef once who used a knife to threaten anyone who disagreed with him.
Natalie nods. “In truth, I’ve seen some crazy stuff over the years, too, but it’s not the way we want things to run here.” She and Blair agreed from the start that their bakery’s kitchen was going to be a calm workplace.
“Besides, we know you’ve been under a lot of pressure lately,” Zoe says. “Nobody thinks less of you. You’ve never been anything but generous with us.”
There are murmurs of agreement around the room and Natalie is touched.
Unfortunately, she’s still waiting for Anthony to come in so she can finally apologize to him. She even rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror at home. The problem is, he hasn’t shown up.
“Are you sure you haven’t seen him?” she asks Carlos the next day. “Doesn’t he come in every week?”
“Usually, but I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“Let me know when you do.”
She heads back into the kitchen to finish the piping on a chocolate dome cake and wonders if Anthony is avoiding her. Was I really that awful to him? Unfortunately, the answer she keeps coming up with is yes.
By the time Friday rolls around and he still hasn’t shown, she decides to take action.
Natalie goes out to find Blair, who’s building a three-tiered cake with lace fondant. Ginger is helping her.
“Are you still seeing Graham?” Natalie asks.
Blair attaches candied white pearls to the side of the cake where the corners of the lace meet. “Still going strong.”
“Do you think you could ask him for Anthony’s cell phone number?”
Blair glances at her. “I suppose. Why do you want it? I’ll need to give him a reason.”
“I want to apologize. He hasn’t been in for a while and now I think he’s avoiding me.”
“I see.” Blair nods, considering things. “That’s probably a good idea. Let me finish this up and I’ll give him a call and see what he says.”
Later that afternoon Natalie is in the back office working on payroll when Carlos tells her there’s someone here to see her.
“Is it Anthony?”
“No, it’s some woman. I asked her if she wanted to order a cake, but she said she needed to talk to you.”
Natalie follows Carlos out front and is disturbed to see Lena standing near the pastry case. Her long, blonde hair falls in a cascade over her shoulders. She’s wearing a short beige raincoat that’s tied at the waist and high-heeled black boots.
Lena is examining the display, but looks up when Natalie approaches.
“It’s that lady over there,” Carlos motions toward Lena and heads back behind the counter.
Natalie can’t take her eyes from Lena. It’s like discovering there’s a shark swimming in your pool.
“What are you doing here?”
Lena gives her a phony smile. “You came to my place of business, so I thought it only fitting that I come to yours.”
“I know you’re not here to buy a cake, so what do you want?”
“There’s no reason for that tone.” Lena rearranges her features into what Natalie imagines is her life coach-yoga teacher face. “Peter told me about your phone call a couple days ago. I really want to help you move past all this anger.”
“I don’t want your help and I like my anger just the way it is.”
Lena shifts uncomfortably. “Do you mind if we have a seat and talk? My feet are killing me in these boots.”
“I’m actually kind of busy at the moment. Why don’t you come back another time? Like—never.”
“This will only take a minute.”
“Fine.” Natalie leads Lena over to a table in the corner, so no one overhears their conversation.
After they sit down, Carlos comes over and asks them if they’d like anything.
/>
“I’d love some herbal tea,” says Lena. “Mint, if you have it.”
“Nothing for me, thanks.” She turns back to Lena after he leaves. “I thought this was only going to take a minute.”
Lena smiles and considers her. “You look different. Have you lost weight?”
Natalie shrugs. “A bit.”
“You should try yoga. It’s amazing for your health. Come by the studio sometime if you’re ever interested.”
“Is that why you came here? To get me to join your yoga studio?”
“No, I’m hoping we can talk woman to woman, Natalie.”
“About what?”
“The man we both love.”
Natalie blinks. Tries to hide the effect those words have on her. “I see.”
“Peter is really unhappy that you’re struggling so much with all these changes. And when he’s unhappy, I’m unhappy, too. What can we do to make it right?” Lena looks at her earnestly.
Carlos brings her the tea and Lena thanks him.
Natalie studies her as she pours the hot water into her cup and adds the tea ball. Lena’s fingernails are long and glossy, painted with a French tip. They’re very stylish. Her gold hoop earrings catch the light when she moves her head. Natalie has to admit she’s glamorous, and even though Lena is more than a decade older than her, she could probably have any guy she wanted.
“Why Peter?” Natalie finds herself asking. “Of all the men out there, why have you decided on being with Peter?”
Lena’s eyes widen with surprise, but then she smiles. “Many reasons. He’s fun and I enjoy spending time with him. He’s a good listener.”
“But why choose a married man who has a family?”
“I didn’t choose him,” she says, still smiling. “The universe chose him for me.”
“So the universe chose my husband to be your lover?”
Lena’s purses her lips and Natalie is happy to see that it ages her about ten years. “I see you only want to judge.” She takes a breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the yoga teacher face is back. “But why not leave that behind? Look to your future and all the beautiful things that are waiting for you.”
Year of Living Blonde (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 1) Page 11