Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells

by Lisa Cach

  S. has compared Author’s gait to that of Bigfoot, with hunched shoulders and head jutting forward as if chewing berries off a bush. S. employs her cane to whack Author in appropriate body locations to improve gait: head up, shoulders back, hips forward.

  Author is exhibiting signs of Pavlovian fear response to presence of cane, including tic under one eye.

  June 28

  Author’s mental health status is showing signs of decline, including obsessive thoughts of violence toward Sophia and contemplation of theft of Valium from S.’s medicine cabinet to medicate self. Both are early indications that the pursuit of sex appeal leads to mental illness and drug addiction in women.

  CHAPTER

  9

  “Come on! Faster! Faster! Faster! Hup, hup, hup!”

  Grace gulped in air, her thigh muscles burning, her lungs raw, the blood pounding in her head. I’m going to have a stroke, oh God, I’m going to die right here on these freakin’ stairs. Below her the waves of the Pacific washed against the shore of the cove, their rushing sound lost in the louder rushing of her breath. The wooden staircase bolted to the cliff face had become her personal torture rack as she climbed it for the third time.

  “You’re almost here! Hup, hup, hup!”

  Grace glared at the overlord above her: a personal trainer with a blond ponytail and an infuriatingly perky disposition. Grace had been under Cyndee’s thumb for only three weeks, since late June when Sophia had changed training tactics, but it felt like she’d descended into an eternal hell. It was PE class all over again, only this time the teacher was smaller, younger, cuter, and deeply concerned with the flabbiness of Grace’s upper arms and buttocks.

  Her legs so weak she could barely feel them, Grace sank to her knees and crawled the last few steps to the top, collapsing on the ground at Cyndee’s feet.

  “Good job, Grace! Way to go! Okay, let’s do a cool-down walk through the gardens and we’ll call it a morning. Don’t forget to hydrate!”

  Grace rolled onto her back and opened her mouth. “Just pour it in.”

  Instead, Cyndee reached down and grabbed Grace’s hand, her wiry strength dragging Grace upright. “Come on! We don’t want you to stiffen up!”

  Too exhausted to curse, Grace let herself be dragged upright. She took a swig from the proffered water bottle, blinked stinging sweat from her eyes, and trudged after Cyndee down the garden path. Being transformed into a bombshell bore a depressing resemblance to fatty-weight-loss camp. Not only was she subjected to Cyndee’s death marches but a nutritionist also had taken up temporary residence specifically to feed Grace, his ascetic presence in the kitchen infuriating Renata and destroying any interest Grace had ever had in healthy food. There was only so much tofu and broccoli a girl could eat, and she did not and never would consider five raw almonds a sufficient midday snack.

  She had lost twelve pounds in the past three weeks, but was convinced that at least a third of that weight had come from brain matter. She felt light-headed and stupid most of the day.

  The sweat was beginning to dry in her hair and the salt to crystallize on her face by the time they finished the mile-long twisting loop of path across the headland, and it was with the happy trot of a horse returning to its stable that she approached the stretch of grass below the terrace. After ten minutes of stretching exercises, she’d be done for the day. She’d have a blissful hour to herself before Sophia began her afternoon lessons. At the thought of her reprieve, her mood began to improve, and she felt almost cheerful.

  She was sitting on the ground with her legs parted wide, trying to touch her right toes, when Declan appeared like an evil spirit conjured from the bushes. Her cheerful mood, fragile to begin with from hunger and exhaustion, plummeted.

  He looked fresh and relaxed in a pale blue T-shirt, khakis, and deck shoes. The thin shirt hinted at the square, sculpted pectoral muscles of his chest, and where the shirt met the waistband it lay flat and smooth, with no hint of love handles or a beer belly. Grace noted with a faint sense of despair that his waist size was probably smaller than her own.

  “I was surprised to hear you’d hung around,” he said, standing over her. “I didn’t think our company was to your liking.”

  Grace glared from under her salty brows.

  “Hi!” Cyndee said, bouncing over to him, her ponytail swinging. “I’m Cyndee! Grace’s trainer!”

  “Hi!” Declan said back. “I’m Declan! I’m single!”

  Grace ignored them; she would not sink to his level.

  She reached for her left toes. Her pale leg looked like an unformed log against the emerald grass. From the corner of her eye she could see Cyndee’s toned and tanned legs, each no bigger than Grace’s upper arm.

  Cyndee giggled and poked Declan in the gut. “It doesn’t look like you need a trainer.”

  “I can see a reason or two I might want one. Could you pencil me in for tonight?”

  Cyndee’s giggles rose an octave. “I might be able to find some time for you, but you’d better be ready to work hard.”

  Declan took out his phone and programmed in Cyndee’s number. “Do you like seafood?”

  “Hee-hee!”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Cyndee bounced around and spied Grace. “Okay, Grace, good job! Hit the shower!”

  Grace lumbered to her feet, feeling like the sediment at the bottom of Cyndee’s bottle of bubbly.

  “Grace,” Declan said, “after you’ve cleaned up, why don’t I show you a bit of the area? We could stop and have lunch somewhere while we’re out.”

  “Lunch?” How on earth could he possibly think she’d want to have lunch with him? “No, thank you.”

  “No?”

  A tempting black bean burger with soy bacon (or maybe real bacon? She could be forgiven real bacon, couldn’t she, under such trying circumstances?), avocado, and a heaping side of fries appeared in Grace’s imagination, rich in salty deliciousness. She’d almost be willing to endure Declan for an hour if it meant wolfing down that puppy. She mentally scooped a big blob of ketchup onto a fry and bit it. Ohhhh …

  Cyndee was bouncing in the corner of her eye, lithe and full of energy, her clothes betraying no unwelcome bulge. Cyndee drank wheat grass and eschewed sugar, wheat products, and potatoes. Grace swallowed her saliva, thought of twenty thousand dollars, and shook her head. “Thanks, but no. I’ve got stuff I need to do.”

  “Surely nothing that can’t wait a few hours?”

  “Sophia needs me this afternoon.”

  Cyndee sucked her front teeth and smiled with closed lips, eyes going back and forth between them, the hope plain on her face that Declan’s attention would return to her.

  Declan was not yet ready to oblige. “I’ve already received Sophia’s permission to steal you away from your duties, whatever they are.”

  She wasn’t about to enlighten him. “I appreciate the offer, really, but today’s not a good day. Some other time, perhaps,” she lied. “Why don’t you take Cyndee to lunch?”

  Cyndee grinned.

  “Because I asked you.”

  Cyndee’s grin lost a few watts.

  He was determined, Grace had to give him that. He must have enjoyed making a fool of her that night on the couch and be eager for another chance; or maybe he didn’t realize how deeply he’d affected her. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was that callous. “Look, it’s very nice of you to try to entertain me, but it’s not necessary. Really. Thanks for the offer, but no.” Together the group started walking back to the house.

  Declan’s jaw worked. He obviously wasn’t used to hearing a rejection. “You’d make your aunt happy if you came out to lunch.”

  “Oh, I doubt it,” Grace said lightly, then lifted her arm and poked a finger at her underarm flab. “I think she’d rather see me losing some of this academic weight. I don’t want to embarrass her by being a porker.”

  She was rewarded by a look of distress on Declan’s face. “Good God, you’re not a porker.
Did she call you one?”

  Grace realized she was on dangerous ground, and couldn’t give Declan a real explanation about why she had a trainer and needed to lose weight. “Sophia mentioned being concerned about my health. In modern euphemism, that means I’m a porker,” she said cheerily, as if it didn’t bother her in the least. “Have you noticed how delighted people are to have health as an excuse to chide other people for lugging around a few extra pounds? It gives them a coded way to say, ‘I think you’re fat and unattractive.’”

  “But fat is a very important health issue!” Cyndee cried. “It’s not about appearance!”

  “She’s putting you on, Cyndee,” Declan said. “Don’t listen to her, she doesn’t mean it.”

  “Think what you want,” Grace said, and then wagged a finger at Declan. “But when the day comes that a girlfriend says she’s worried about your getting cirrhosis, it’ll be because she thinks you’re obnoxious when you drink, not because she cares about your health.”

  Declan scowled.

  Delighted by his reaction, Grace laughed. “Someone has told you that!”

  They reached the terrace and Grace trudged up the stone steps, her legs protesting each movement, her butt protesting that Declan, a few steps behind, was in too good a spot to watch it jiggle. She resisted the urge to pull down the hem of her shorts.

  “I’m not giving up yet,” Declan said behind her.

  “But you will sooner or later,” she said brightly. She waved good-bye over her shoulder and went into the house, headed for the sanctuary of her room, hoping with every step that he’d stop following her. Playing Miss Cheerful had taken the last reserves of her energy.

  Halfway up the main stairs she realized that he hadn’t followed, and an inexplicable disappointment made her turn and look back at the empty staircase. No doubt he was still out on the terrace, his arm round Cyndee’s slender waist, letting her pant and squirm and lick his face like an eager puppy.

  So be it. He was a horrible man. Besides, she had Dr. Andrew to think about. Aunt Sophia had an appointment with him the following morning, and Grace’s heart thumped a little more strongly at the thought of Andrew noticing the weight she’d lost.

  She pushed open the door to her room, and was startled by a wild flutter of color. A confusion of blues, greens, corals, and yellows resolved itself into Aunt Sophia, Darlene, and a few dozen dresses, tops, skirts, and shoe boxes scattered over the bed, the furniture, and hanging on a rolling clothes rack where gossamer hems and dangling sashes floated in the breeze from the open windows. Grace gaped at the feminine chaos, her gaze flitting from sea green chiffon to orange floral print to black satin. There was not a single item that looked like something she had ever worn, and they were all … beautiful!

  “Quickly, darling, into the shower with you, and be sure to shave your legs and under your arms,” Sophia said from her perch on a Louis Quatorze chair, a garment of teal blue silk spilling over her legs. “We don’t have much time to get you ready for your outing with Declan.”

  Grace barely heard, her eyes still greedily taking in the wondrous clothing. So many pretty, pretty things. She’d never worn pretty things; she hadn’t had the money, or the places to wear them. “I’m not going out with Declan.”

  Darlene looked up from the box of shoes she was unpacking, wadded paper in hand.

  Sophia blinked. “Didn’t he invite you?”

  “Yeah, but I said I didn’t want to go.”

  “Nonsense! Into the shower!”

  Grace shook her head, her wide eyes fixed on the fabric flood, a haunting sense of guilt creeping over her at her lusting reaction to the Vogue-worthy collection. Shopping for trendy, sexy, expensive dresses had never been a politically correct activity in her home, landing somewhere between reading Cosmopolitan and learning to pole dance on the list of Things Serious Women Do Not Do. “You were going to teach me how to walk up and down stairs today.”

  Sophia waved away the protest. “That can wait. How you could possibly think descending stairs more important than lunch out with a handsome young man, I cannot fathom.”

  Grace barely heard her. She went to the rack and ran her fingertips over the sea green chiffon, feeling the forbidden desire tremble through her. A hangnail caught in the fabric, pulling a thread and causing a pucker. She winced and tried to pull it out flat. “You didn’t buy all these for me, did you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” she said, disappointed.

  “They’re on loan from shops in Carmel. We’ll only keep the ones that look good on you.”

  She brightened. “And that I like?”

  “Your taste is not to be trusted.”

  Grace turned to her. “It’s my body being clothed.”

  “While you’re in my employ, your body belongs to me,” Sophia said, meeting her eyes with a solid gaze that had “twenty thousand dollars” written across it. “Darlene, please go see that Declan waits for my niece. Keep him entertained.”

  “I think he’s being entertained quite well by Cyndee,” Grace said as Darlene clumped from the room.

  Sophia sniffed. “Cyndee and her type are inconsequential. They’ll never capture the type of men we’re after.”

  “I’m not after anyone. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “I didn’t say you had to keep them. But learning to be charismatic without men on whom to practice is like learning to ride a bicycle without a bike.”

  “So that’s why Declan asked me out—you put him up to it! Does he know he’s your guinea pig?”

  “As far as he knows, all I want is for him to show you around and rescue you from my tiresome company.” Sophia smiled angelically. “What you can make him do beyond that is your first test.”

  Grace felt a flutter in her stomach. “I don’t like him.”

  “I don’t see how that matters.”

  “Aunt Sophia, you don’t understand. I really don’t like him,” Grace said, her voice cracking, and to her mortification, tears welled in her eyes. Goddammit, he wasn’t supposed to upset her like this!

  Sophia’s gaze rested on her for a long moment, assessing. “He did something to upset you, didn’t he? Something beyond being rude at tea.”

  Grace sniffled and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “I didn’t want to say anything to you. It happened that first night I was here.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  She shook her head.

  Sophia raised an eyebrow and waited.

  Grace moaned in defeat, and gave a short, bare-bones account of what had happened. “So you can see why I don’t want to spend the afternoon with him or, God forbid, flirt with him!”

  “On the contrary. It makes him perfect for your practice.”

  “But, Aunt Sophia!”

  “If you don’t care whether he likes you, you can work on seducing him without fear of failure. If he doesn’t fall for you, what do you care? The hunter is not personally offended when the prey eludes her. She simply adjusts her tracking skills until she’s successful.”

  “I don’t want to be successful with him.”

  “Grace, darling. You aren’t thinking this through. What do you do to the prey at the end of a hunt?”

  “I don’t know. Kill it and mount its head on your wall?”

  Sophia smiled sweetly.

  A bubble of surprised laughter popped in Grace’s throat. “You mean I could take my revenge.”

  “He’ll be a challenge. You’ll have to have him tightly caught before you deliver the death blow.”

  An image of a lovesick Declan down on one knee, proclaiming his adoration of her, filled Grace’s mind. My, you are full of surprises, she would say. I was wondering how far you’d go with a woman you once called dumpy. His face would fall, his heart crumpling like tinfoil as for the first time in his life he had his heart broken and was made to feel a fool.

  Why are you doing this to me? he’d ask.

  Bec
ause you let me, she’d say.

  And because he was a rotten bastard who deserved to have his heart trod upon. Grace had never been one to seek retribution for wrongs done to her, trying instead to take the moral high road, but it was luscious to imagine having the power to humiliate Declan. If she was honest with herself, hadn’t she only developed her “it’s better to rise above it” philosophy because she was too cowardly to take action against her enemies?

  Not only did Declan deserve such treatment, he would benefit from it. He’d learn empathy, a trait crucial to developing a strong, loving relationship with a woman. Grace didn’t believe that anyone was pure evil. Declan was callous because he hadn’t ever experienced the pain of being rejected by someone he wanted. She would be doing him—and any future women he dated—a great favor by squishing his heart.

  Grace’s delight faded at a suspicious thought. “Declan is your friend. Why would you want him hurt?”

  “Blood’s thicker than water, Grace. He hurt you, which is as good as hurting me.”

  Grace narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. No … you don’t think I’ll succeed! You don’t think I’ll ever have the power to hurt him!”

  Sophia shrugged. “The man’s a player. More talented women than you have tried and failed to capture his heart.”

  Grace propped one hand on her hip. “I thought native talent had nothing to do with it. You said you could teach me how to be the woman no man could resist. No man.”

  Sophia sighed. “Players are different. It would require too much of you.”

  “How much?”

  “Everything.”

  “You mean … ,” Grace trailed off, her stomach sinking.

  “He won’t fall completely for someone he can never touch. He will be intrigued by you, he will pursue you and perhaps even become obsessed with you—which is good, and necessary—but he won’t lose himself entirely without the bonding that comes with physical contact and with sex. He will eventually—not too soon, but eventually—need that, and the burst of hormones that comes with sexual release. Without that, he’ll never believe himself wholeheartedly in love; but even with sex, love is no guarantee. He is as likely to lose interest in you after sex as to bond with you.” Sophia watched her dismayed reaction, then nodded. “So you see why it’s much better that you use him for harmless practice. To sleep with a man you dislike, in the faint hope of exacting revenge … it’s too much, Grace. You couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t want you to.”