“No, I mean it. I really do. I’ve done it before. Not as fast, of course, but I know I can do it.” I looked into the mirror at Gail’s reflection. “We’ll have another fitting in six weeks. If the dress needs to be let out more, we’ll let it out then. If not, then I’ll get two weeks to enjoy fitting into my dress.”
“If that’s what you want.” Gail nodded. “You’re the bride.”
I smiled at her words. I liked how they sounded. I was the bride. I was going to marry the man of my dreams. If that wasn’t motivation enough to get my weight loss back on track, I didn’t know what would be.
“Sure, I just need to monitor my diet and ramp up my exercise. I’ll lose the weight in no time.” I stepped away from the mirror. As I did, I caught a glimpse of my wide round white rump in the dress.
“Oh!” I cringed. “And squats, lots of squats.”
“You can do it, Samantha.” Stephanie smiled at me. “But even if you can’t, Max will still think you are the most beautiful bride that ever walked the face of the earth.”
“You’re probably right.” I laughed.
As I changed out of the dress I knew that Stephanie was right. Max had gushed about my beauty when I was at my heaviest point. But this wasn’t about Max—not entirely. It was about me being the bride that I’d always imagined myself being.
Gail collected the dress from me with a wistful smile. “Every time I help a new bride prepare for her wedding it reminds me of my own.”
“Was it everything that you’d hoped for?” My heart swelled at the thought of it.
“Oh no, not at all. It was a disaster.” She shook her head. “The cake was knocked over, there was a surprise rainstorm that collapsed the tent on all my guests, and the groom got his shirt stuck in the fly of his pants. I was in tears most of the day.”
“That’s horrible.” My eyes widened at the thought of that happening to me.
“Yes, I thought it was too. But then my husband rescued the minister from under the tent and whisked me away to an old half-collapsed barn on the property, and the moment the minister told him to kiss me, a rainbow sprung across the sky. So to me, it was magical.”
I smiled at the sweetness of her memory. I could understand the lesson—that a wedding was about love, not about all the details. But I wanted the details to be perfect too.
“Thanks, Gail. I’ll see you in six weeks.”
Chapter 2
As I left the boutique with Stephanie, the sky rumbled. My attention was drawn to it. It reminded me of the story that Gail had just told.
“I’ve got to lose the weight, Stephanie.”
“I’m sure you will, but try not to forget that you’re getting married. It’s supposed to be fun.” She gave me a quick hug. “I’d better run before I get caught in this rain. Where are you headed?”
“Dinner with Max.”
“Wonderful! Have fun!” She waved to me as she walked around the boutique to the parking lot.
I knew that I should rush to my car too, but my mind was on the sky. The way the dark clouds rolled in seemed like an ominous warning. When a flash of lightning tore across the heavy clouds I jumped and ran for my car.
As I ran, I fumbled for my keys in my purse. I found an old wad of gum, a set of earbuds—that I didn’t remember were in there—and some dryer lint from when I worked at Fluff and Stuff. What I did not find were my keys.
Suddenly I remembered that I’d held them in my hand when I went into the fitting room. I must have set them down on the bench in the fitting room instead of putting them in my purse. Stephanie was already gone and I could feel the first drips of the approaching torrential downpour.
I hurried back to the front of the boutique. When I tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. I saw that the sign had been changed from Open to Closed. I must have been Gail’s last appointment.
The sky rumbled again. Rain splashed down on the top of my head. I ran back to my car and checked to see if any of the doors were unlocked. Of course, they were all locked.
The rain began to pour down in sheets. I pulled out my phone and dialed Max’s number.
“Hey, babe, I’m waiting for you at the restaurant.”
“Well, it might be a while.”
“Huh? Why?”
“I’m locked out of my car.”
“Oh no! In this rain? I’ll come and get you.”
“It’s okay, you just enjoy your dinner. I’m not far from my apartment. I’m just going to walk home and get my spare key.”
“No way, I’m coming to get you.”
“Really, Max, it’s alright. I can use a walk in the rain.”
“Sammy, I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I sighed and hung up the phone. Max knew me very well. I would have enjoyed the walk in the rain, but not the lightning in the sky.
I ducked under the awning of the boutique. I watched the other people on the street scramble for cover. Within a few minutes Max’s car pulled up right in front of the boutique.
“Need a lift?” He grinned at me through the window.
I scrambled into the car and laughed as I pulled the door shut. “I didn’t expect a monsoon. I guess we’ll have to stop so I can change.”
“You look gorgeous to me.” Max leaned over for a kiss. I smiled through it. Max always had a way of making me feel amazing, no matter how self-conscious I’d been the moment before.
“Well, I’d prefer to eat my dinner dry.”
“Okay, okay, you can change. But only if I can watch.” He winked at me.
“Stop it!” I laughed.
He drove the few minutes to my apartment.
I grabbed dry clothes and rushed into the bathroom to change. As soon as I stepped into the bathroom, my scale greeted me. I stared down at it. I’d been avoiding it lately—most likely because I knew that my diet hadn’t been the best and that I’d been skipping my exercise.
But after the morning at the dress fitting, I knew that I needed to have an idea of how much weight I had to lose. I took a deep breath and stepped on the scale. The numbers spun and then settled. I stepped off the scale.
“That can’t be right.” My heart started to pound. I stepped back onto the scale. The numbers spun and settled again.
“No!” I cringed. I thought maybe I’d gained ten or fifteen pounds, but the scale told me it was closer to twenty. Twenty pounds in six weeks? I groaned and looked away from the number. All of the hard work I’d done and just a few months of slacking off had led to this. I was so disgusted that I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I pulled my clothes on and sulked my way back to Max.
“Ready to go?” He smiled.
“Sure.” I couldn’t look at him.
“Great, I’m starving.” He grabbed my hand and led me out of the apartment.
Chapter 3
When we arrived at the restaurant a gloomy cloud still hung over me. There were so many different emotions rushing through me. I was angry, disappointed, and scared. When I looked at the menu, all the words blurred together. The delicious scents of the food around me were torturous.
I thought about all the people who followed my blog and read my books. What would they think of the mistake that I’d allowed myself to make?
“What are you going to order?” Max peeked over the top of the menu.
“Just some chicken.”
“Okay, sounds good. I’m going to have steak.” He set the menu down as the waitress approached.
“I’ll take the chicken breast, but please hold the sauce.”
“I’m sorry, you don’t want the sauce?” The waitress looked at me with disbelief.
“That’s right, just the chicken, please.”
“But, the sauce is what makes the dish.” She smiled. “We could always put it on the side.”
“No, thank you. No sauce at all, please.”
“Sammy, the sauce is fantastic. It’s one of your favorite dishes.” Max frowned.
“I don’t understand why this i
s a problem. I just want you to hold the sauce, okay?” I raised an eyebrow at the waitress. I didn’t need to be reminded of how much I loved that sauce.
“Sure, no problem, you don’t have to be rude.” The waitress snatched up the menus.
As she walked away Max reached across the table and took my hand.
“You doing okay?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He smiled.
“How are the plans coming for the honeymoon?”
“Honeymoon?” He furrowed an eyebrow. “Is someone getting married?”
“Ha ha.” I sighed. “I’m serious, Max. You can’t leave that until the last minute. We have to make sure it’s ironed out. We only have two months left, you know.”
“Sammy, relax.” Max patted my hand. “I said I’d handle it, and I will.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t reassured. Max was very responsible, but I wasn’t used to giving up control. He’d asked to plan the honeymoon to take some of the pressure off me, but I wasn’t feeling any less pressure. So far, the plans for the wedding had come together easily, but the dress not fitting was a big fat monkey wrench in my plan. I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to lose enough weight to fit into it.
When our food arrived, I was taunted by the scent of butter sauce. I looked down at my plate to see that my chicken was smothered in it.
“Uh, I asked for no sauce.”
“I’m sorry, the chef must not have followed my directions.” The waitress frowned. “It’ll take twenty minutes if we have to make a new plate. Would you like me to send it back?”
“Just eat it, Sammy, you know you’ll enjoy it.” Max shook his head as he cut into his steak.
I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to ruin our meal.
“Fine. Okay.” I nodded.
“Great.” She smiled and walked away.
I pushed the chicken around on my plate. The buttery sauce mocked me.
Max’s voice drew me out of my war with my sauce-covered chicken.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Sure, I just might finish it later.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not getting sick?”
“No, I’m not. I just don’t want to gorge myself on this overpriced slop.” I turned up my nose.
“This is your favorite restaurant.” Max frowned. “That’s why I invited you here.”
“Not tonight it’s not.”
“Why not? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just don’t think I like this place any more. Really, it’s fine, Max. The company more than makes up for the food.”
“Okay.” He smiled at me. “How did your dress fitting go? Do I get to see it yet?”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t see the dress before the day of the wedding. It’s bad luck.”
“Oh, trust me, if I’m marrying you, it isn’t possible for me to have bad luck.”
“You mean worse luck?” I stared across the table.
“No! That’s not what I meant! I meant, it’ll be the luckiest day of my life. No superstition can change that.”
“Aw.” I grinned at him. “You’re so good to me.”
“I try.” Max finished the last of the food on his plate. He looked over at mine. “Are you really not going to eat that?”
“No.” I tried not to make eye contact with the sauce. “No, I’m not.”
“Alright, well can I have it? It looks really good.”
My nostrils flared. I wanted to wrestle the plate right out of his hands as he picked it up. But that wouldn’t be very ladylike. “Sure, enjoy.” I shrugged and tried not to choke as I salivated. The hunger that gnawed at my stomach was so intense that it hurt. I knew it was the right choice to avoid the high-calorie dinner, but as I watched Max mop up the butter sauce with the chicken a wave of dizziness washed over me. I didn’t think I was ever going to make it through the evening if I had to watch him eat it.
“Excuse me, I’m just going to use the restroom.”
As I walked past all the other diners savoring their delicious food, I felt even worse. Was this what the next six weeks would be like? I didn’t think I was going to make it.
Inside the restroom an older buxom woman sat on a metal folding chair. She glanced up at me with disdain when I stepped inside—apparently I’d interrupted her crossword puzzle.
“One’s busted, use three.”
“What about two?”
“What’s wrong with three?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t know why I couldn’t use two if only one is broken.”
“Trust me, you want to use three. It’s more spacious.” She winked at me.
“What is that supposed to mean?” All of my frustration that had been building up—since I’d seen those numbers on my scale—threatened to boil over.
Chapter 4
The woman shook her head. “Look, lady, use whatever bathroom you want, alright?”
I frowned and pushed the door to the second stall open. As the woman had said, it was quite narrow. In fact, I had to straddle the toilet in order to get the door closed.
The only good thing was that I didn’t actually have to go. I just needed to get away from all the delicious food. I sighed as I tried to get control of my emotions. All of my self-confidence seemed to disappear when I’d seen those numbers on my scale. No matter how I tried to tell myself that it would all be fine, panic caused my heart to flutter.
“You alright in there?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m just asking.”
I was mortified that she would think it was okay to talk to me while I was in such a private space. Irritated, I stood up and tried to open the door. When I did, I found that I couldn’t get it open far enough for me to get out. I backed up as far as I could, but the door would not swing past my knee.
I tried to lean forward and climb over the toilet at the same time, but that only caused me to slip and nearly launch my foot into the toilet.
“So, are you still okay?” The woman’s voice came from just outside the door.
“No, I guess not.” I frowned. I was sure there had to be a way to get out of the bathroom stall. I just had to focus. But every way I could think of only led to me getting more frustrated. The space under the door was far too small to fit through. The walls of the stall went all the way up to the ceiling. “I can’t get out!”
“Hm. I guess you wish you’d used three now, huh?” The woman chuckled.
“This isn’t funny! Could you please stop laughing and get me out of here?”
“Oh, there’s no way out. Do you have your pants up at least?”
I looked down at my pants. Luckily, I’d never pulled them down. “What do you mean there’s no way out?”
“I mean, I’ll have to get the maintenance guy to take the door off.”
“Why would you let me go in here if you knew that I wouldn’t be able to get back out?”
“Hey, I tried to warn you, but you wanted to get all snippy with me, so I thought I’d let you learn from your own mistakes.” She laughed again.
“Please help me!”
“Alright, alright, I’ll be right back with Rocco.”
“Rocco.” I winced.
“Sammy?” Max’s voice made my body jolt. It sounded like he was right outside the bathroom door. “Are you in there? Are you okay? I just wanted to know if you wanted dessert.”
My eyes filled with tears. I was stuck like a sardine inside a public restroom stall waiting for a man named Rocco to pry me out, and my fiancée was asking me if I wanted dessert.
“No. I don’t want any dessert.”
He must have heard the tears in my voice because he sounded more concerned when he spoke again. “Sammy, are you sick?”
“No worries, bro. She’s not sick, she’s stuck.” The second voice sounded rough and his presence was accompanied by a strong scent of cigarette smoke.
“Stuck?” Max repeated.
“M
ax, please, just wait for me at the car.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please, Max!” I was already embarrassed enough, I didn’t want him to see me stuck in a bathroom stall.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have you out in a jiff.” Rocco went to work on the door.
I wiped away my tears. I didn’t want Max to know that I’d cried over being stuck in a bathroom, but I knew that if I’d been just a few pounds slimmer, I would have been able to squeeze my way out through that door.
“Pearl, why didn’t you tell her to use the other stall?” Rocco clucked his tongue.
“I tried. She didn’t want to listen.”
“Bet you will next time, eh?” Rocco chuckled as he pulled the door right off the hinges.
I hurried out of the stall.
“Thank you.” I couldn’t quite look at him.
“No problem.” He started putting the door back.
“Towel?” Pearl held out a folded-up paper towel.
I scowled at her and made my way out of the bathroom. Max was waiting for me just outside the door.
“Max I told you to meet me outside!”
“What is it with you thinking I would ever leave you stranded?” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Rough night, huh?”
I nodded. I felt tears threaten my eyes again. I knew I should tell him about my weight gain so that he could understand why I was upset, but I was too embarrassed. Max never had to worry about his weight. I doubted that he could understand what I was going through.
As he drove me back to my apartment, I was quiet.
“Sammy, is everything okay with us?” He glanced over at me.
“Of course it is.” I squeezed his hand.
“Are you excited?” He looked into my eyes.
“Of course I am.” I smiled. “I’m over-the-moon excited.”
“You don’t seem very excited. I mean, yesterday yes, but today—well, it seems like you’re a little off.”
“We all have our off days.” It made my palms sweat to lie to him, but I didn’t want to tell him the truth. How could I admit that I’d slacked off and gained back twenty pounds? He wasn’t going to understand, when he’d never had to diet in his life.
“Really?” He parked the car outside my apartment.
“Why do you think it’s not?”
Single Wide Female in Love Complete Bundle: Books 1-4 Page 20