“He’s a cool guy,” Dan said, nodding approvingly.
“And I was able to get the Heart Lake Lodge,” Erin offered. “I’m going to surprise Adam with it.”
“Ah-huh.”
“I’ve always wanted my wedding there,” she rushed on.
“Then you should have it there.”
She bit her lip, and Dan cocked his head. “And will Mc …” He caught himself and switched gears. “Will the groom be cool with that?”
Erin suddenly found she was the one staring into her coffee cup. She looked up to see Dan studying her. “He will be when I explain to him how lucky we were to get it.”
Dan didn’t say anything. Instead he nodded and took a long drink of his coffee.
“Okay, this is a pretty crummy shrink session I’m getting,” Erin cracked. “What are you thinking, doc?”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “You don’t want to know.”
He was probably right, but she still said, “Yes I do.”
“I think your mom would have found a way to have the champagne and the shrimp and the salmon. And the band.”
“But she wouldn’t have wanted me fighting over all that with my fiancé.”
“You’re right. She’d tell you to keep the band and find a different fiancé.”
His words knocked the breath right out of her.
He gave a shrug and got up. “Forget I said that. It was a shitty thing to say. You know I’ve always been good at putting my foot in my mouth. Thanks for the coffee,” he added, and left her there, wishing she had flattened him with her car.
What did he know about what her mom would have done? What did he know about anything?
Erin left the coffee shop intending to go home, shower, call Adam and get her head on straight—get both their heads on straight. Instead, she found herself on her aunt Mellie’s doorstep, holding out a box of vanilla tea, her aunt’s favorite.
“Hi, there. I was just thinking about you,” said her aunt, hugging her. “Come on in. Let’s have some of this. You know you don’t have to bring me something every time you stop by.”
“But I like to. You’re my favorite aunt.”
“Also your only aunt,” Aunt Mellie teased.
“Favorite even if I had a million.” Erin stepped into the entryway and was greeted by the faint aroma of lemon, her aunt’s favorite candle fragrance. She followed Aunt Mellie into her big kitchen and parked on a barstool at the granite counter, swiveling to look at the lake, framed by a big picture window. Even on a gray day, it was beautiful. In fact, Erin decided she liked it best on days like this. It was fun in the summer to see people out playing with their boats and Jet Skis or lazing around on those colorful blow-up mats, but on a drizzly day like this when the lake lay quiet she found it settled something deep inside of her. It had been fun living in the city, but she’d missed this.
Aunt Mellie, who didn’t know the meaning of the word “fat,” set a plate with freshly baked scones in front of her. “How are the plans for the wedding coming?”
Erin moved the plate out of reach. “Rotten. I can’t fit in to my wedding dress.”
Aunt Mellie patted her arm. “Well, you’ve got an aunt who is the queen of alterations, so not to worry,” she said, but she kindly took the plate away, replacing it with a cup of steaming water, the box of teabags, and a pottery dish filled with packets of sugar substitutes.
Erin opened a vanilla teabag and dunked it into her cup. She could feel her aunt watching her, but she kept her gaze on the darkening water in the cup.
“You know, everyone gets nervous before her wedding.”
Since when did her aunt turn psychic? Erin occupied herself with pulling out the teabag, putting it on the saucer, watching the stained water pool out around it. “I’m not nervous, I’m just stressed.”
“You’re planning a wedding single-handed. That’s enough to stress anyone.” Aunt Mellie paused a moment, then added, “Remember, I’m here to help. Free labor.”
Erin smiled at her. “I think you’re doing enough with the free rent.”
Aunt Mellie shrugged. “That’s not much, not for my favorite niece.”
“And your only niece.”
“Favorite even if I had a million,” Aunt Mellie quoted back to her.
Just like Brett was her favorite nephew. She and Uncle Jake had three kids of their own, but they’d had no problem adding Erin and Brett to the mix. Aunt Mellie had sometimes even treated Mom as if she were one of the kids. It had been hard on Aunt Mellie to lose her baby sister, and her blond hair had frosted over during Mom’s final battle with lupus.
She leaned on the counter and cocked her head at Erin. “So, what’s really bothering you, sweetie?”
This antsy, weird thing growing in her was hard to put into words. And maybe she shouldn’t. Like her aunt said, everyone got nervous before her wedding. “I guess I’m just jittery.”
“I was a mess before your uncle and I got married. I almost called the whole thing off two different times.”
“Why?”
Aunt Mellie shrugged. “Oh, this and that. He wasn’t making much when we first got together and he was a bit of a miser. I thought we’d spend the rest of our lives eating beans and tearing paper napkins in two to make them last longer.”
Looking around at her aunt’s big house with her state-of-the-art kitchen, her Pottery Barn pretties, and her expensive art, it was hard to imagine money ever being an issue. “I guess he turned out not to be cheap.”
Aunt Mellie smiled. “I wised him up. Anyway, once he started moving up the corporate ladder and making good money, he stopped worrying about every penny.”
“So, he changed.” That was encouraging to hear.
“We all do.”
“Was that the only thing that worried you?”
“There were others. Where we wanted to live, for one. He wanted to go live in some big city. I wanted to stay here, near my family. I gave him a chance to find out how wrong he was.” She smiled at the memory. “Before we got married he had an opportunity to work in L.A. and I encouraged him to take it. He hated it down there, missed everybody. The poor man could hardly wait to get back here. And then there was the little matter of the wedding night. Your grandma and grandpa were great sticklers for making sure your mother and I behaved ourselves. I was pretty inhibited.”
Her aunt, the karaoke queen? “Um. You don’t exactly strike me as inhibited.”
“Well, in some things I was. And I was actually worried about the great unknown, so we took care of that after the rehearsal dinner.” Aunt Mellie’s cheeks flushed pink. “After that I could hardly wait for the honeymoon. So, you see, things have a way of working out.”
Her mother’s marriage hadn’t. “How about Mom? Was she nervous?”
Aunt Mellie sobered. “She should have been. I think she always knew, deep down, that she was making a mistake, but your mother could be stubborn.”
“So, if you’re nervous, you’re doing the right thing. If you’re not, you’re making a mistake?” That sounded ridiculous.
Aunt Mellie shook her head. “There are nerves and there are nerves. You know how sometimes you just shiver a little when you open the refrigerator or you look outside and see it’s snowing? And then other times, you’re shaking like crazy because you’re in the middle of an earthquake and the ground underneath you is shifting? You’re shaking both times. One you should simply shrug off. The other? You should move someplace where they don’t have earthquakes. Figuratively speaking,” she added with a grin. “It’s been years since we’ve had an earthquake in this area and I’m not going anywhere.”
Erin sighed and took a sip of her tea. “I guess I’m just seeing snow.”
“Probably,” her aunt agreed. “But keep in mind, if the ground starts shaking, it’s never too late to run away.”
“Thanks, I will,” Erin said. And all the way back to her place she kept asking herself, Would I know if the ground started shaking?
Erin pulled up to find Adam’s car parked outside. As soon as she’d stopped in the driveway he was out of it and striding toward her like a man with a purpose. Uh-oh.
But what was this? He was carrying a greeting-card-shaped envelope. He barely gave her time to get out of her car before he caught her by the shoulders, crushed her against him, and kissed her. What was this about?
She found out as soon as they came up for air. “We are not going to fight any more,” he informed her, and handed over the card. “Read it.”
She tore open the envelope and pulled out a card sporting a picture of a donkey wearing an old-fashioned dunce cap. Inside the caption read, “I’m a dumb ass.” She couldn’t help smiling. Then she read what he’d written and she almost cried. No more fighting over the wedding. It’s your day, baby. She looked up at him. “You mean it?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
“Oh, Adam!” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I do love you.”
“Arid I love you.”
“And don’t worry. I promise I’m not going to spend a fortune on this wedding,” she couldn’t help adding.
He nodded. “I just want to be kept in the loop. That’s all.”
“Of course,” she said. “I want this day to be special for both of us.”
“It’ll be special for me no matter what,” he assured her.
That was what he was doing, wasn’t it, assuring her? Or was he trying to encourage her not to spend money? She decided not to ask. There was no sense ruining a perfect moment.
Angela had awakened on Saturday with the best of intentions. She would get breakfast for everyone, and then jump-start her diet with a trip to the gym. All the teeny bikini dieters would be so amazed when they all met next Friday and she announced that she’d already started working out. Maybe she’d even drop a pound before her first diet book arrived. She got out of bed and pulled on her sweats. Hmmm. She’d sure have to get some better-looking workout clothes. Maybe she should go shopping before she went to the gym.
While she’d been deciding which to do first Gabriella climbed the counter in search of the Twinkies, which were now hidden, and fell in the process, giving herself a nice goose egg on her forehead. This required ice and much rocking, comforting, and a little bit of scolding, followed by a story. Angela then made breakfast (you shouldn’t work out on an empty stomach—she’d read that somewhere): French toast with strawberry jam, which she’d promised the girls the day before. She boiled herself an egg and had half a grapefruit. And the little bit of leftover French toast from Mandy’s plate. But she’d work it off when she went to the gym.
She’d been about to put on her tennis shoes when Rhonda, her fellow committee chair, stopped by to discuss the fund-raiser for a Big Toy gym set for the preschool playground. And, of course, Angela had to offer her a cup of coffee.
After Rhonda finally left it was time to get lunch. Grilled cheese sandwiches and apple slices and chips for Brad and the girls and a salad for her. And the leftover bite (okay, two) of sandwich that Mandy had left on her plate. Well, she’d get to the gym in just a little bit.
But first it was time to supervise Gabriella while she changed her gerbil’s cage. Then it was time to find Happy, who, with the help of Mandy, managed to escape during the cage cleaning. Then it was time to chase after Mrs. Fields, the cat, who had found Happy. Now it was time for more rocking and consoling, followed by a trip to the pet shop.
Next, Brad, who was balancing the checkbook, had required her presence to explain some of her checkbook entries—he claimed they were cryptic. Why he always said that she had no idea. She always knew exactly what she was doing.
Finally, she had to run to the grocery store, something she often did on Saturdays so she could leave the kids with Brad and be able to actually hear herself think.
By the time she got home she could have cared less about the gym. She could have cared less about anything. She had just set the last bag on the kitchen table when Brad wandered into the room and asked, “What’s for dinner?”
“McDonald’s,” she decided. “An early dinner would be great. That would give any calories she collected plenty of time to burn up before bed. Although she was just going to have a salad, and there weren’t any calories in that.
At McDonald’s, she did, indeed, get a salad. But then she finished off Mandy’s ice cream cone. It was dripping everywhere.
Kind of like her fat. “That was not good,” she told her reflection in the mirror later that evening. “You have to do better.”
She would. And like Rhett Butler said, tomorrow was another day. She’d do better tomorrow.
Except tomorrow was Sunday, and they always did something fun as a family on Sundays. Going to the gym was not fun.
Well, then, she’d go to the gym on Monday. She smiled, pleased with her decision. Rhett Butler would have approved.
Six
PRACTICALLY SINLESS
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
¼ cup oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
cup carob chips
Mix oil, applesauce, and egg. Sift dry ingredients and …
Angela dipped a finger in the bowl of cookie dough for a sample. “Then toss the whole mess,” she concluded with a scowl, lifting her kitchen garbage can lid and disposing of the failed experiment. She crumpled the sheet of paper with the failed formula and hurled it in after. Who wanted to be practically sinless, anyway?
She got two cubes of butter out of the fridge, then set them in a bowl in the microwave and melted them. Quick as a cat burglar, she pulled brown sugar, salt, and baking soda from her baking cupboard and dug out fresh measuring cups. She knew this recipe by heart. It didn’t require much time to magically take eggs, flour, sugar, and butter and turn them into cookie dough. And then add some baking soda and salt, a whole bag of chocolate chips, and, voilà, you had … heaven.
She’d never hear the end of it if any of her teeny bikini club members got wind that she was already a diet dropout, cheating only three days after vowing to change her wicked eating ways. But it wasn’t really cheating when they hadn’t had their goal-setting meeting yet. That wasn’t until Friday and this was only Monday. Anyway, she was only going to eat one.
Mrs. Fields the cat wound around her legs as she worked, begging.
“Chocolate will kill you,” she told the cat. Or maybe that was dogs. “It’s probably not good for you, either. And besides, you don’t deserve anything after what you did to poor Happy.” Hopefully, Happy was living up to his name up there in that great gerbil cage in the sky.
Mrs. Fields, unrepentant for her cat behavior, continued to rub against Angela’s legs until Angela caved and fed her. Canned cat food, of course—no cookie dough. The cat settled down and began to delicately lick it.
Speaking of licking. Angela dipped a finger in the dough and sampled it. “Now, that’s what cookie dough ought to taste like.”
What a pain, she thought as the first batch baked, filling the house with the scent of chocolate. It was completely unfair that women had to go through so much suffering to look good when men could eat and eat and never get fat.
She sighed. “Yeah, I know,” she said to Mrs. Fields, who was now on the counter, watching her lay the cookies out on a rack to cool. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but I just need a taste. I can’t quit cold turkey. I’m only going to eat one, then I’ll give the rest to Brad when he gets home.” And that would make him happy. Whoever said the way to a man’s heart was past his stomach sure knew what she was talking about.
Angela picked up a warm cookie and took a bite. That glorious combination of brown sugar, butter, and chocolate hit her taste buds and she moaned in delight. “Better than sex, and they last longer,” she informed the cat. “But don’t tell Brad I said that.”
The doorbell rang and Angela gave a guil
ty start. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Who would be stopping by in the middle of the afternoon? Her mother, maybe? Hopefully, no one who knew she was dieting. She ran on tiptoe to the door and put her eye to the peephole.
Erin! What was she doing here? The psychic cookie connection, of course. Erin always seemed to know when Angela was baking. Except Angela wasn’t supposed to be baking.
The doorbell rang again and Angela raced to the kitchen to hide the evidence. She grabbed the bowl with the leftover dough and the rack of cookies and looked frantically around her. She couldn’t hide them anywhere in the kitchen. That would be like leaving the murder weapon at the scene of the crime.
The doorbell continued to summon her. What was Erin doing here, anyway? Why wasn’t she still at work?
Angela raced to the laundry room, dropping cookies as she went, then yanked open the dryer which, fortunately, was empty, and stuffed the whole mess inside. On her way back, she picked up the two that had fallen on the floor, calling, “Coming!” For only a nanosecond she thought of tossing them in the garbage. That would be a terrible waste. She ducked into the bathroom and stuffed them in the medicine cabinet.
Another cookie had rolled into a corner to hide, and Angela caught it and stuffed it in her mouth. Chewing frantically, she ran back to the kitchen, grabbed a can of Lysol from under the sink, and sprayed her way into the living room. Then she ditched it behind a chair and went to let Erin in. She almost choked swallowing the big lump of cookie in her mouth.
“I was beginning to think you were dead in there.” Erin stepped inside, holding what looked like a white plastic mat.
“I was in the bathroom. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Sorry, but I had a miserable diet day. I thought I’d stop by for moral support.”
Moral support was good, but the timing sucked. “Why aren’t you at work?” It was only two in the afternoon. The girls were still napping. No one should have been around to catch her. Did she have chocolate breath?
Bikini Season Page 6