“Sign here, please.” The delivery man handed me a pen, and I scribbled my name. A minute later, he was driving away. Meanwhile, the guys had already torn open the box. Within minutes they had dumped the old menus into the trash can and replaced them with the Skinny Menus.
I put a hand to my heart. Now that they were actually here, I was filled with worry. What if this didn’t work? What if all the effort we put into this new menu didn’t improve the business one bit?
“Don’t look so glum. This was your idea, remember?” Charles said.
“I know we set the launch of our new menu for tomorrow, but are we ready? Do we have all the ingredients we need?”
He waved my concern away and tore open one of the boxes. “We’ve had the ingredients stocked ever since we started developing the skinny recipes.” He pulled out a stack of menus and handed one to Jake and one to Marley. “They look amazing,” he said, running his finger down the list of dishes.
“Really good, Nicky,” Marley agreed. He put down the menu and grabbed a bunch of flyers. “And so do these.” His face lit up. “I have an idea. I’ll take some with me tonight and deliver them in my neighborhood.”
Jake handed one to me. “You look great. Feel proud.”
I’d only lost a bit over fifteen pounds for the after shot, yet I looked sooo much thinner. Toni had done my makeup, and I looked almost beautiful. Suddenly, I couldn’t stay inside anymore waiting for customers to magically appear. It felt so passive. What I would do was go out and get them myself.
“Charles, take over the cooking tonight. I have to go.” I grabbed a pile of flyers and hurried out.
what color will you
paint the nursery?
At home, I printed out a full list of Weight Watchers meetings, picked a comfortable pair of running shoes and put Jackie on her leash. A few minutes later, I was on my way. I decided that the first area to target was St. Clair and Avenue Road. I parked my car on a side street and walked Jackie up and down the streets, slipping flyers under windshield wipers. By the time I ran out of flyers, I was just getting into the groove. “What do you say, Jackie? Want to keep going?” She wagged her tail.
I picked up a fresh pile of flyers from my trunk and walked up and down the surrounding streets, stuffing flyers into mail slots. By the time it grew dark, my legs ached and my feet were in blisters. Even Jackie was dragging. “I don’t know about you, little girl, but I’m exhausted. Let’s go home.” She glanced at me with a sudden spark of excitement.
* * *
The message light on my phone was flashing. “This is Tina from the dog groomers to let you know we have an opening tomorrow for Jackie.”
“Did you hear that? Tomorrow you’re getting a haircut, shampoo and blow dry.” Jackie looked at me in disgust and marched off to her kennel. “You’re an ungrateful dog, Jackie Chan,” I called after her. “I, for one, would love to go to a spa. Do you realize that I spoil you more than I spoil myself?”
The only answer I got was ruf.
“You’ve got that right. My life is rough.”
* * *
The pretty blonde girl behind the counter picked up Jackie and ruffled her hair. “Good morning, Jackie. Are you ready for your bath?” Jackie looked at her warily. The girl wrinkled her nose. “Oh, is that skunk I smell on her?”
I nodded. “It sure is. She got sprayed over a month ago, and I’ve shampooed her at least a few dozen times. She smells good for a few days, but the odor keeps coming back.”
She nodded, sympathetically. “I’ve come across this before. The smell gets absorbed into the fur, and the only way to get it completely out is a full shave.”
Jackie’s ears popped up, and she looked at me with imploring eyes.
I gave her a reassuring pat. “Oh, I don’t want her shaved.”
The girl chuckled. “She’s got such long hair. I think if we just get rid of a few inches, that’ll do it. How about a puppy cut?”
“That sounds perfect. Can I pick her up around one o’clock?”
I left the groomer’s, went straight to Skinny’s and picked up another pile of flyers. I took a peek at the evening’s bookings. Eight customers! That was more than we usually had. I walked to my car with a new skip in my step.
* * *
By one-thirty, I’d delivered another two bundles of flyers, and my feet were killing me. I returned to the groomer’s. The blonde was behind a glass wall, combing out a humongous sheep dog. She waved, disappeared into a back room, and reappeared a moment later with a shivering but perfectly coiffed Jackie, who threw me a reproachful look.
“Oh, Jackie! You look so bee-oo-tee-full.” I gathered her into my arms and buried my nose in her neck. “And you smell so good.”
“You should have told me that she’s pregnant,” the girl said, writing up the bill. “How far along is she?”
“Jackie is…pregnant?”
Now it was her turn to be surprised. “You mean, you didn’t know?”
“I—I had no idea.” I looked at Jackie, and her ears perked up. “How the hell? Jackie, I thought you’d been spayed.”
* * *
Jake was putting down the phone as I walked into Skinny’s. “Hey, where did you disappear to last night?”
I plopped into the nearest chair and pulled off my shoes. “I told you. I went to deliver flyers.”
“All evening?” he asked, flapping a tablecloth.
I threw him an injured look. “I delivered more this morning, and I have the sore feet to prove it.”
“I delivered some, too,” he said, smoothing the cloth over the table. “I must have dropped off a couple of hundred all around Little Italy.”
I bent over and massaged my feet. “I just hope all this pain pays off.”
Jake set salt and pepper shakers on the table and turned to me, grinning. “It already has. We had a group of women around eight o’clock last night. They had a million questions about our skinny menu. When I asked them where they’d heard about us, they said they got flyers on their cars.”
I sat up. “Really? They came in because of the flyer?”
“Sure did, and guess what? They loved us and promised to come again.”
The front door swung open and Toni waltzed in, wearing a contented smile. Her expression was one of such bliss that I couldn’t help but poke fun at her. “You look like a well-loved woman this morning.”
She wiped the smile off her face and replaced it with a neutral expression. “How many reservations do we have for tonight?” she asked, all business.
Jake strode over to the reservation desk and picked up the book. “Ta-da!” With a flourish, he handed it to Toni.
She ran her finger down the list, and her eyes nearly popped. “Did Sugar’s kitchen catch on fire again?”
“Better than that,” I told her, beaming.
“The only thing better would be if the place burned down completely.” She raised her right hand. “And if it did, I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
“Much better than that.” But before Jake could explain, the telephone rang again. “Skinny’s on Queen,” he answered in an affected tone. He gestured to Toni to hand him the reservations book. “A table for three at seven-thirty. We look forward to seeing you, Mrs. Margate.” He hung up and turned to Toni. “We’ve even got some reservations for tomorrow.” He flipped the page, pointing to a couple of entries. “See? I know there aren’t that many, but when was the last time we had any customers reserve a full day ahead?”
Toni looked from Jake to me and back again. “But how?”
“It’s the flyers,” Jake replied. “Nicky and I delivered hundreds of them.”
Toni threw her arms around him in a hug, fulfilling a fantasy I bet she’d long held. “This is wonderful, Jake. Thank you, thank you.”
I gave Toni an offended look. “Yeah, why don’t I get a hug?”
Toni laughed and walked right by. “This calls for a celebration. Drinks for everyone in the house, my treat.”
“Hey, big spender,” Jake said, sardonically. “There’s nobody here but us.”
“I’ve always wanted to use that line,” Toni said, laughing. “And I couldn’t afford to say it if the place was full, now, could I? So unless you want to look a gift chardonnay in the mouth, I suggest you go get that bottle right now.”
“Right away,” Jake hurried to the back.
“By the way, we have another reason to celebrate,” I announced.
Toni looked at me, puzzled. “What?”
I grinned. “Jackie is pregnant.”
“She’s pregnant?”
“So it seems. But I have no idea how that could have happened.”
“I suspect it was the usual way. You know, little boy doggie meets little girl doggie, the birds and the bees and all that jazz.”
“But I thought she’d been spayed. I got her when she was already a year old. I guess I just assumed…”
Toni wagged a finger at me, and I realized I’d set myself up for another of her zingers. “Well, you know what they say about people who assume…”
“Ha-ha. But shouldn’t the vet have told me she’d never been spayed? I don’t even know if she can carry the pups to term. She’s such a tiny thing. What if the father is a Great Dane?”
Toni slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, shit! That would be terrible.”
“On the other hand, if the vet tells me she’s in no danger I’ll have to start preparing for puppies.”
Toni whooped. “What color will you paint the nursery?”
now that he’s seen my fat behind
The next morning I was at the vet clinic, watching like a nervous parent as the doctor gently palpated, then listened to Jackie’s tummy. Dr. McNeil, a pleasant-looking woman in her late thirties, took the stethoscope out of her ears and wrapped it around her neck.
She turned to face me. “You’re right. Jackie Chan is pregnant.”
Jackie looked at me with a fooled-you expression.
“Oh, my. This is—” I stopped as I realized what that meant. A houseful of puppies, all of which would need training, all for whom I’d have to find a home. Let’s be realistic, I’d fall in love with all of them and never give them up. I gathered Jackie into my arms and she buried her nose into the crook of my elbow. “Is she all right? What about the pups? Can she carry them to term?”
“Without knowing the date she was impregnated I can’t tell with certainty, but from what I can determine, she’s probably about one month into her pregnancy.”
“I know when it happened.” I pulled out my cell phone and clicked on the calendar.
“Dogs gestate for two months, give or take a couple of days, which means Jackie is due in about four weeks. I can make out two heartbeats. The father must have been tiny because the pups are very small.”
This came as a surprise. “Only two? I always thought dogs had large litters.”
“Bigger dogs have larger litters, but tiny dogs like Jackie often have only one or two pups. Mind you, there might be more than two. I can’t tell unless we take an X-ray.”
“Not too many, I hope. I don’t know what I would do with a houseful of puppies.” I hesitated. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. When I adopted Jackie, I took her in for a checkup, and nobody told me she hadn’t been spayed.”
Dr. McNeil picked up Jackie’s file and flipped back a few pages. “Here’s the answer.” She pulled out a form and handed it to me.
I recognized it as one I’d filled out myself three years earlier during Jackie’s first visit. I looked at the spot she indicated. In the yes box next to Spayed was a checkmark. “I guess I took it for granted.”
Dr. McNeil nodded. “Little dogs often bleed so lightly that, unless you’re really looking for it, you might never notice. In the same way, tiny dogs have tiny organs, and we wouldn’t be able to tell whether a dog was spayed or not from a physical.” She chuckled. “I hope you’re looking forward to an expanded family.”
I smiled. “I’m getting more and more used to the idea, as long as Jackie isn’t at risk.”
“Don’t worry. You have a healthy little dog, and she’ll be around for a good long time. Smaller breeds like Yorkies have a life expectancy of fifteen to sixteen years.”
A few minutes later Jackie and I were on our way home, and I was eighty dollars poorer. “Listen, little girl, business may be improving, but you can’t make a habit of going to the groomers and the vet every other day, or I’ll go broke.”
Ruf.
“‘Rough’ is your answer to all my complaints, isn’t it? You couldn’t care less about my financial woes.”
She sauntered ahead happily. I glanced at my watch and decided I had time for a brief walk in the park. I turned around, detouring down the block with Jackie trotting happily along.
Once in the off-leash area, I directed Jackie to our usual spot and released her. Instead of staying by my side, she darted off to another little Yorkie a few hundred yards away. Ah, Charlie was here. I strode over to join Charlie and Kim.
“It’s been ages since I saw you,” Kim said in a reproachful tone. “Every time I take Charlie to the park, he gets so excited, and then he’s so disappointed when we leave without seeing Jackie.”
I laughed. “We’ve been working really hard at the restaurant. I haven’t been taking Jackie out nearly as often as I should. And now, Jackie might not be able to come to the park for a while. I just found out she’s pregnant. I’ll have to keep her in once the pups are born, at least until they’re weaned.”
“You decided to breed her?” she asked.
“Actually, it was a surprise.” I related the story of Jackie’s wild night.
“When was this exactly?” she asked, suddenly rapt.
“About a month ago.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Charlie pulled a disappearing act around the same time. The next morning I picked him up at the clinic on Church.”
I looked at her in amazement. “Do you think…?” I stopped. This was too much of a coincidence.
“It couldn’t be.” But there was something false about her reaction. It was as if she’d already known. Jackie was busy licking Charlie’s nose. “I think maybe you and I are about to be grandparents,” she said. “We’ll be sort of related, in a way.”
As I walked home, I couldn’t help wondering if Kim had anything to do with Jackie’s disappearance that night. Her dog just happened to disappear and turn up at the same clinic. It was all too fantastic to be a coincidence. And if she did have something to do with it, what did that mean? Why would she have engineered that kind of a stunt—unless it was to search my house.
Crap, I really was losing it. Was there anyone I didn’t suspect?
* * *
It was six forty-five in the morning, I was dripping wet from my shower, and Jackie was already whining to go out. I realized, now, that Jackie’s behavior over the past few weeks was simply that of a mother-to-be. She spent more time sleeping, and when she needed to pee, it was now.
“Okay, okay, Jackie. I wish you’d let me towel myself off.” I hurried downstairs, tying my bathrobe. “It’s not even seven yet. Can’t you wait a few minutes?”
She scurried out and made a beeline for the side of the house. Oh, no, don’t tell me the gate is open again. I ran out, and sure enough, not only was the gate wide open, but Jackie was nowhere in sight.
“Jackie!” I yelled at the top of my lungs and ran down the side of the house. When I got to the sidewalk, I spotted her squatting on Mitchell’s front lawn. “Jackie
, come!” She saw me, and she dashed off. “Jackie!”
Barefoot, I chased after her up the street, screaming like a banshee and with the fronts of my bathrobe flapping about. God only knows what I was exposing. Thank goodness it was early, and the street deserted. Three doors up, Jackie came to a stop and sniffed the ground.
“Jackie,” I yelled again. She turned and looked at me and, just as I was about to grab her, she shot away. I was sprinting as fast as I could, holding up the bottom of my bathrobe to keep from tripping. At last I got close to her. If I didn’t grab her now, she’d be at Dundas in two seconds, and the traffic there was murder. She’d get herself killed.
In a last explosion of energy, I went into a football lunge, landed on my belly on the lawn and slid to a stop. The back of my bathrobe flew above my waist and came swooping over my head. Jackie, however, was safe in my arms, and that was all that mattered. I was scrambling to my feet, trying to hold Jackie while simultaneously rewrapping my robe, when…
“Oh, good. You got her.”
I spun around, and not ten feet from me Mitchell was grinning like a kid who’d been served his favorite dessert.
“Oh, er, Mitchell. Hi.” The blood rushed to my face. I could only imagine the spectacle he’d just witnessed. Too bad it’d been my fat behind. Now he was bound to have lost interest in me.
“I haven’t seen much of you lately. That is,” he continued with a playful twinkle in his eyes, “until now.”
My embarrassment turned to anger. “I’m sure you enjoyed the show, didn’t you? If you were any kind of a nice guy, you wouldn’t purposely embarrass me.” I marched off toward my house with as much dignity as I could muster in my grass-stained bathrobe.
Behind me, Mitchell called out, “Hey, I was just trying to help.” I heard him chuckle. “By the way, that was a damn fine dive. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
I walked around to my back entrance, locked the gate and slammed the door shut behind me. I was furious, but was my rage directed at him or at myself for caring what he thought? If only I hadn’t invited him to dinner on Sunday. A few days wasn’t nearly enough time for me to get over this awkwardness.
Getting Skinny Page 23