“Or something.”
Without thinking, she placed her hand on his, ignoring the increasing warmth flowing through her and settling in places ignored for too long. “I don’t know what to say, except I’m here if you need me.”
Her eyes widened when she felt him raise her hand to his lips. She swayed toward him while her core flowed with slip-sliding anticipation. His brown eyes held hers while he kissed her fingers. “Thank you. Your eyes are an unusual ratio of green and hazel.”
She leaned away from him, even though every skin cell on her body rose like goose flesh, reaching toward his touch.
“One pair of genes didn’t win. My father tells me that’s why I can be determined.”
“Determination is a fine quality when you begin a career. What’s your major?”
“Human resources.”
“In anthropology, human resources are the key to many communities. We’ll talk about that some day.”
“Okay.”
After she closed the door, Robbie leaned against the cool metal and slid down to the floor with the weight of wanting more of him than he could give when his life was in chaos and she had the little problem of her other persona.
“Enough.” She stood and marched herself to her computer chair. Experimenting with a new identity added more depth to her conclusions than she would have imagined. When she was being Robin around Jake, he seemed more relaxed, a genuine friendship was being nurtured. She hoped that it was because his internal borders were down and he didn’t need to keep up the professor-student relationship, or perhaps because he associated Robin with a maternal love that had loved him unconditionally and it was easier to be friends.
She stared at the empty space where her final thesis copy used to be. She had dropped it into the office bright and early before many students and professors were roaming the halls. Nadine had date stamped it and carried it through to Professor Clinton’s office. Now all she had to do was wait.
The next morning, Robbie posed in front of her magnifying mirror and inserted her brown contacts. When she brushed on a plum eyeshade, she thought, Robin, you have style.
Before her next field trip, grocery shopping, she wanted to relax and enjoy a few minutes to herself. So half an hour later she stepped up to the counter at her local Tim Horton’s. Her favorite server was behind the counter. She opened her purse. “Morning, Ryan, I’d like my usual, please.”
When Ryan didn’t move and tugged at his earring, a clear indication that he was stressed, she shrugged her shoulder. “Large coffee with double, double, please.”
When her neighborhood server didn’t recognize her, she knew the ancient art of illusion was working. She should be proud of her accomplishment rather than allowing Clifton’s subjective and nonacademic research remarks battle for room in her brain. She shivered and understood the old saying that someone had just walked over her grave. It was lonely knowing that she could disappear so completely.
“Coming right up,” Ryan said.
From a chair along the side, Robbie scanned the other clientele.
A little boy pulled at his mother’s leg. “Mommy, look at the fat lady!”
The mother in her dress slacks and high-heeled boots and long coat, bent and looked to where the boy was pointing. She smiled at Robbie and then spoke to the boy. “Yes, Owen, and over there is a tall man and over there a senior and right here”—she poked him in the tummy—“is a little boy.”
Robbie saluted the young mother and waved at the boy when they left the coffee house.
Robbie buttoned her coat and put on her mittens before she opened the coffee house doors. The parking lot was the only thing that separated her from her field trip to the grocery store. She watched a woman bend into the wind. She could easily wear a size zero. Robbie had an urge to catch up to this woman with red-tinged hair that sat on top of her head like a scrub pad and ask if she was ill. But her petite size could have to do with genetics, or stress, which she knew could affect the human body in many different ways.
Half an hour or so after, Robbie wound through the grocery store aisles, noticing the Christmas-themed plastic storage containers for cookies or cupcakes. Christmas was right around the corner. She hummed along to carols playing on the store’s communication system. She continued to shop, ignoring the fruitcake display, which tempted her. Ever since she tasted Mavis’s recipe, she’d acquired a taste for the dried-fruit studded Christmas tradition.
She approached the checkout cashier with her normal weekly fare, as well as sales specials that she usually shared with her parents. The clerk, a thin young blonde with an asymmetric hairstyle, scanned the groceries. “Did you find everything you needed?”
“Yes, thanks,” Robbie said.
The third box of barbeque potato chips caught the young woman’s attention. She stared openly at Robbie’s bulky body with a look that seemed to say, No wonder you’re fat.
Robbie’s face burned. “They’re for my parents,” Robbie said quickly and wiped her moist hands on her coat. She knew they weren’t on any food guide for healthy eating but she and her parents enjoyed them every once in a while. The clerk seemed to want to bag the boxes without touching them. “Good call. Have you read the fat content on these?” She swiveled, causing her tight little top to rise, and flashed a tiny navel piercing. The jewel seemed to wink at Robbie under the hard fluorescent lights.
“Sometimes we all need a little fat,” Robbie replied.
“Not for me, ever,” the clerk said while the total of Robbie’s purchases flashed on the cash register.
Robbie swiped her debit card and waited for the receipt.
“Good luck with that no fat thing,” Robbie called back to the clerk while steering her cart toward the exit.
Darn, Robbie thought ramming her cart through the snow. She’d fallen into the trap of justifying her potato chip purchase. The clerk had turned into the food police and she’d crumbled. Would she have done that if she weren’t dressed as Robin? No, she realized glumly. She’d failed her walk in the mile of someone else’s sensible shoes.
Shoes. She remembered how gently Jake had placed her shoes on her feet, like Prince Charming to Cinderella. But dressed as Robin, she was no Cinderella. How did he learn to look past the weight?
She pictured Jake as a little blond-haired boy holding onto his grandmother’s hand and hearing and seeing insidious incidents day in and day out. That had to have made an impact on such a young mind. How many women lived through humiliations like this every day? Maybe if there were enough men like Frank and Jake, the prejudices would cease to exist. Until then, she hoped they had a safe place to be themselves with people who loved them.
Mavis related to her how some of her customers had told her to stop sampling so much of her baking. “They just don’t understand that a qualified baker knows by texture, aroma, and appearance as well as a tiny taste that a recipe turned out as expected.”
Sharon worked part-time at a women’s fitness club. She told the Fat Like Me group one day that a woman decided not to join the club because if Sharon was an employee then obviously the weight loss program didn’t produce the advertised results. Sharon replied, “I could have told her that I’d already lost fifty pounds and counting on the program but I wouldn’t waste my breath.”
Jake drove through the parking lot at the local grocery store looking for a place to park. He’d rushed out of the office between appointments because Frank had asked him for a special kind of rice pudding from this particular store. A glimpse of a brown Ford caught his attention followed by the ample black haunches bending into the trunk. He frowned. Their lives kept colliding. He could park on the other side of the store and she’d never know. What are you thinking? Robin has gone out of her way to spend time with Frank and I want to sneak away without acknowledging her? Remember the !Kung San.
> He honked his horn. Robin looked out and shaded her eyes against the sun. A grin beamed across her flushed face. The wind flapped her coat like a flag.
“Need any help?” he asked.
“No, thanks. On your way to see Frank?”
He nodded. “How’d you guess?”
With her hands on her hips, she said, “Because I know this neighborhood and it’s the closest store to Care Manor.”
“He craves Mrs. Chandler’s rice pudding, no substitutes. I’m between student appointments.”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “I know where it is. Want me to show you?”
“Meet me at the front door.”
He stood just to the side of the electric eye that swung the doors open and watched her push her cart to the corral.
She parked the cart and swaggered toward him with confidence.
“Going somewhere special?” he asked.
“Not particularly. Why?”
“You’re wearing lipstick.”
“Dr. Watson, the lady always wears lipstick,” she kidded him.
She stood for a moment. “Would you do a favor for me and follow my lead?”
“Sure.” Lead? What was she up to? She reached for his hand. When he clasped her palm, she blushed, then looked down and shrugged. “In for a penny, in for the pound,” she said under her breath, then stepped in front of him and strode through the door head held high as he followed.
When she bumped him with her hip, he tugged her arm and she moved closer to his side. When she rounded the end display, she knocked the cereal pyramid and the display wobbled. She gasped and then laughed. Her laughter was contagious and he joined in her hilarity all the way to the refrigeration aisle. He believed that neither of them actually knew what was funny but laughing felt good.
She pointed to the rice pudding. He scooped two containers into the crook of his arm and they hurried toward the express cashier.
Robbie swiftly maneuvered him behind a customer whose cart was overflowing. The clerk chatted as she scanned the order. Jake didn’t know what Robin was up to but he’d spare a few minutes to find out.
Although she looked formidable, she seemed vulnerable as well, especially when she chewed the inside of her lip as she was doing now. He placed the containers on the conveyer belt and reached his hand out and tapped her cheek just like his grandmother had done some many years ago. “I’m here.”
Robbie swayed toward the checkout counter until the clerk with her bubbly voice called, “Did you find everything you needed?”
He felt Robbie straighten and heard her answer sweetly, “Yes, we have. Thank you.”
The pretty young clerk ignored Robin’s reply and leaned toward him, her light blue eyes dancing. “And you, sir? Did you find everything you needed?” She batted her lashes.
“Thanks to my friend. She knew just where to find this specialty.” He indicated the rice pudding. Robbie placed a fruitcake she picked up from a promotional display onto the belt. “Do you mind? I have a craving for an early taste of Christmas.”
Jake handed the clerk a twenty-dollar bill. “Whatever you need.” He winked at Robin.
The clerk ran her finger down the nutritional value list. “Are these calories for your parent’s, too?” The clerk brushed the long side of her hair away from her face and snorted.
“No, all for me.” A saucy smile slid across her lips.
Ignoring Robin, the clerk slowly counted the change into Jake’s palm focusing a flirty smile on him. “Come back again soon.”
After Jake pocketed the bills and coins, he found Robin’s hand in the fold of her coat and anchored her to him. He knew enough about Robin to realize that this charade must be important to her.
They bent their heads into the wind as they hastened to her brown sedan. He held open the driver’s side door while she settled into her seat. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Miss Flutter Eyelashes and flashing belly button stud turned into a food police when I went through her register earlier. I didn’t like how she made me feel.” Robbie swallowed. “It seemed important but not now. Thanks, anyway. Give me a minute and I’ll pay you for the cake.” She opened her purse.
“The clerk had a belly button stud?”
Robbie swatted his arm with her mitten.
“Honest, I didn’t notice. I was concentrating on you.”
“Come on.”
“No, Scout’s honor. And don’t even think about paying for the cake. It was worth the fun.” He held up the grocery sack. “I’d better deliver this to Granddad. I have a student appointment in thirty minutes.” He glanced at his watch.
She started the engine and held out her hand. “Let me. I’m going as soon as I take my groceries home.” Jake glanced at his watch again then back at her. “Generosity’s a compelling trait.” He handed her the pudding. “Tell Frank I’ll see him at lunch. I’m bringing a colleague to meet him.”
Her shoulders sagged and she licked her dry lips. Maybe he’d found someone else who would marry him before Frank passed away. “Should I tell Frank who you’re bringing to visit?”
“I told him earlier.” He backed away, allowing the door to close but hesitated and leaned forward again. “I need to squeeze in a bit of exercise. Want to work out at the fitness room at the hotel later?”
“Pardon me?” What was he thinking?
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. There’ll be both men and women there.”
“No, thank you. I’m not worried. I don’t work out in mixed company. It’s distracting.”
“We could walk in the park instead.”
He began to push the door closed.
“Okay, I’ll meet you by the gates at nine after visiting hours. No running, just walking, agreed?”
He nodded. “Only walking, I promise. I’ll see you there.”
She shouldn’t do this. When he’d held her hand and laughed with her in the store, her insides quivered and felt all mushy warm. She’d felt protected, cared for, respected, and honored. Just for a moment, she considered giving up everything and explaining her field study. Then they could get married. It would be their secret when she wore the fat suit at the wedding. Frank would witness the marriage and everyone would be happy.
Robbie struggled to hold on to all this while she watched Jake for as long as she could in her rearview mirror. He didn’t turn around. Don’t be silly, I belong to a family, community, student body, and soon to an exciting career. As she drove home, parked, and bumped bags of groceries to her stairs, she rationalized that it was an approaching end to the familiarity of the university routine and her uncertainty of the future that made her think she was looking for someone special. Her future was going to be wonderful.
Chapter 12
After she unpacked her groceries, Robbie tucked the rice pudding into her purse and drove the short way to Care Manor. Just outside Frank’s door she lifted the pudding from her purse and stuck her head and her hand into his room. Dangling the sack, she sang out, “I’m delivering Mrs. Chandler’s rice pudding.”
Frank waved. “I send my grandson and a bird of paradise returns. How lucky can one old guy get?”
A heart spasm jolted through her chest as if hit by electricity. He was lucky enough to be nearing the end of his life, lucky enough to be moderately pain-free right now, and lucky enough to have a grandson who loves him. “So if you were going to share with Jake, can I, please, have his portion?” she asked. Seemed like justice to her. “I really shouldn’t, should I?”
“Sure you can.” A twinkle of life sparkled in his eyes when he grinned, as if they were sharing a big conspiracy.
“It does happen to be my favorite, too.” She popped the lid off one container and divided it equally. “Should we save the other container for Jake so he can
have some too?”
“One helping’s enough for me right now. How about you?”
“Me, too, it’s so very creamy.”
“Jake told me he had meetings. Said he’d be here for lunch. Said he was bringing a friend.” He spooned pudding into his mouth.
Even though winter’s sunlight flowed through the window, it didn’t provide any patches of warmth. Frank’s skin seemed thinner, his lips bluer, and a tinge of dusk hung around his nostrils.
“Mmmmm.” She held the spoon below her nose. “Reminds me of my granny’s house and how much she loved me. I buy it when I need to be kind to myself.”
“Mmm,” he said. “Reminds me of Mabel, before we worried about triglycerides, fat grams, and whatever else we were told to worry about.”
They ate in silence. “That’s enough for me,” he said.
Robin scraped every kernel of rice from the bowl and licked her spoon. “Love.”
“A poor substitute for sure, but a substitute.” His eyes closed.
She settled into her chair. “Would you like to tell me more about your life with Mabel, or would you prefer to be quiet? I can, you know, be quiet.”
“I’m going to tell you some of the end.” He seemed to be all black-framed glasses on a skull. “Mabel went out of her way to make people happy. They accepted her generosity as part of who she was. Sometimes, though, she’d confess that she was pretty tired of others always assuming she’d be there to fill in, bake, and organize the canvassers.” Frank turned his face to the window. “But you know, Robin, at the end, when I could have used some help, all those she had helped kept complaining that they were busy and only dropped in occasionally with a knickknack or flowers for her. And that includes Jake. It made me so angry no one thought I’d like a pot of someone else’s cooking once in a while. We came here, to Care Manor, so we could be together and have help. She didn’t last too long after the move. She was sure I would be taken care of.” He reached forward as she extended her hand. “I want you to know that I appreciate every visit you’ve given me. You’ve helped bring back happy memories in these last days.”
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