I stood up out of my stretch, reprimanding myself lightly. I didn’t know where all of these thoughts about Braden had been coming from lately, but I was pretty sure that I needed to get them in check. I didn’t want any weird feelings interfering with our training sessions, or more importantly, the awesome friendship that we’d developed over the past months.
I sighed, thinking again about the appointment I had scheduled for later in the day with Judy. I was feeling better this morning, as I’d suspected that I would be after some focused healthy time on myself, but the thoughts that had almost instantly come into my mind last night—about not being good enough for a man so handsome—caused me some concern.
And where were all these ideas about dating again coming from anyways? Just because Danielle was planning a wedding and everyone around me seemed to either be in a relationship or set on finding one didn’t mean that I had to deviate from my own solo adventures on the way to discovering more about who I was.
Judy would help me sort it out. If I could only keep my mouth shut during my visit with Madison, I might have a chance of not thinking about it until my afternoon therapy session.
Chapter 11
I watched Madison scurry around the kitchen and really, it was something to see. She’d been the one, out of the two of us, to help our mother when it came to any type of domestic chores while growing up. I was most often with my father, helping him tinker on a car or build something or other in his woodshed. I smiled at a flash of memory, of when someone had asked the two of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Madison had resolutely proclaimed that she wanted to be a mother and a housewife. I, on the other hand, had mulled the question over the entire night, before finally deciding that I wanted to be either the President of the United States or the president of my own company.
Of course, Madison had gotten exactly what she’d stated so resolutely all those year ago. I, on the other hand, had not done anything remotely political and I didn’t foresee becoming the president of the bank where I worked anytime in my near future. The memory, though, of wanting my own company was an interesting one and for some reason it made me think about Braden’s words to me the other day. I needed to add this coaching idea to my to-do list of things to research.
Madison was setting the table in front of me with her good dishes and elbowing me to get my attention.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“I was just asking you about your weight loss. How’s it going at the gym?”
Madison and her husband, Grant, had given me the year’s gym membership as a gift for my last birthday. Grant was a doctor and he’d made some speech at the time about how he wanted to see me adding years to my life instead of potentially decreasing my life span.
I wondered if Grant had ever seen a picture of Madison when she was overweight—really, at her heaviest she’d been nearly the same size as me. I had the feeling, when Madison had made me and the rest of the family swear to never speak of her previous weight issue, that it was something Grant would never know about her. I thought this was weird—to be married to someone that didn’t know this about her. Really it was an accomplishment that Madison should have been proud of.
I turned my attention back to my sister. “Madison, can you please give the weight loss thing a rest?” I eyed her carefully. “I mean, I know you mean well. I do. But I’ve told you—it’s not just about the numbers on the scale for me. I am losing. Yes. But I don’t weigh myself, and I focus on how much more fit I’m getting and how much stronger I am. And on those two counts, I’ve made a huge improvement.”
“Well, you do look like you’ve lost weight.”
“Thank you.” I was grateful for the compliment from her—something that wasn’t typically given so easily. “Now where are those rug rat nephews of mine, anyway?”
Madison laughed. She knew how much I adored Alex and Chase. “Alex had soccer practice. Grant should be home with them soon. I packed a picnic for them though, because I wanted a chance for us to catch up over lunch.” She motioned to the beautiful salad that was in the center of the table. “Dig in, by the way.”
I helped myself to a heaping bowl full of leafy greens and thick slices of peanut-flavored chicken pieces. I was silent as I felt my sister’s eyes on me. I had the suspicion that there were more things that she wanted to ask me about, as was normal for her meddling in my life.
“So what’s on your mind? I can tell that there’s something else you want to ask me about?”
“Okay.” She looked somewhat afraid.
“Go on. Out with it.”
“Well, it’s somewhat related to the weight loss issue.”
“Well, what is it?” I swallowed a big mouthful of salad.
“I was just wondering how the dating thing was going—if you’ve met anyone?”
I put my fork down and looked at her. “Madison, how is that even remotely related to the ‘weight loss issue,’ as you put it?” I emphasized the words—her words—with air quotes—something that I knew drove her crazy.
“Well, you know. I just think that if you want to get the right guy interested, you’re going to need to shed a few more pounds. That’s all.” She eyed me carefully. “Look, I know how it is, remember? I was there too once, you know. I can feel your pain, Ca—Zara.” She reached across the table to put her hand on my arm, which I promptly shook free of.
“Why don’t you get it? Why don’t you believe me when I say that nothing about what I’m doing has anything to do with meeting the ‘right guy’?” I used the air quotes again, pleased that I’d been able to do so twice in one conversation already with her. I looked at her, wondering if I dared. “Are you telling me that Grant was only interested in you because you looked a certain way?”
I noticed the telltale color creep into her face. Madison’s face always went a bit red when she was feeling even the slightest bit uncomfortable.
“Well, I don’t think Grant would have been interested in me had I weighed two hundred pounds, no.”
“And what if you gained weight now—after you’re married, I mean?” Madison had been the picture-perfect healthy pregnant woman, gaining hardly an ounce more than what had been deemed healthy by her doctor, and had shed any excess weight with a few months after giving birth.
Even though Madison was ticking me off, I felt a twinge of guilt for asking the question. When she’d been feeling particularly hormonal and down during her last pregnancy, she’d confessed to me that Grant had told her that he wasn’t attracted to her when she was pregnant.
Honestly, at the time, it was all I could do to keep from going off on him, but Madison had made me promise not to say anything. I hadn’t liked him ever since that day.
Chapter 12
I heard the laughter and fast footsteps of my nephews getting out of the car in the driveway. Madison looked at me and put on one of her best smiles. “We’ll finish this conversation later, okay?”
I nodded.
“I just really want you to be happy—to have a nice home and kids of your own.”
I noticed Madison didn’t mention anything about the happy marriage bit. It was a good thing that our conversation was about to be interrupted by my nephews because I had a lot of hard questions for her. I wasn’t convinced that she was so happy in her home at all. Oh I knew she loved her boys more than anything, but the rest of it was all a load of crap as far as I could see. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted, but for some reason I could never convince my sister of that.
“Aunt Zaaaaaaa!”
My two-year-old nephew, Chase, had gotten the first syllable of my name down perfectly. I laughed as he came running at me full force, scooping him up in my arms and covering him with so many kisses that it made him squirm to be released.
“Hi Zara.” Four-year-old Alex came over to give me a big hug, looking adorably disheveled in his grass-stained soccer clothes.
I grabbed him in a hug and managed a quick kiss on his cheek, which he promptly wiped off with h
is hand.
“Hey there. How was soccer practice?”
“Good. Are you going to come to any of my games?”
“You’d better believe it. I can’t wait.”
I made a mental note to be sure to get the schedule from Madison. I looked up as Grant entered the room, walking over toward me to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. I felt like rubbing it off the same way that Alex had rubbed off my kiss. I stifled a giggle at the mental image of it.
“How’s it going, Zara?”
I thought Grant was looking at my body too long. Not in a creepy, sexual way, but in a way that he might look over one of his investment properties that were getting remodeled. He was checking out his “investment” in my gym membership to see if it was paying off.
I brought my attention back to Grant and his question, doubtful that he really wanted to know how I was doing.
“I’m doing great, thanks. How are things with you?”
“Good, good. You know, the usual.” He looked toward Madison, who was smiling broadly from where she sat at the table picking at her salad. “I’m going to go upstairs and do some reading. Nice to see you, Zara.”
I nodded, and I didn’t miss the frown on my sister’s face as he left the room. I had noticed that he hadn’t even bothered to give her a kiss or hug—something that she’d told me once shortly after they’d been married that she loved about him. It would appear that the honeymoon was way past over around here, but more than that, I sensed some real unhappiness with Madison—not that she’d ever admit that to me, or anyone for that matter.
Madison could be a real pain, but the last thing I wanted for my sister was to be in an unhappy marriage—or worse yet, an unhappy life. I caught her eye across the table and there was the smile again—she was very good at faking happy.
I glanced at my watch, knowing I’d have to be leaving before too long to make it to my four o’clock appointment with Judy. “Come on, boys. Let’s go outside so you can show me your new trampoline.”
I played outside with my nephews for a while, thinking how playing with kids really must add years to one’s life. I loved that feeling of abandonment—of being kidlike myself as we jumped on the trampoline together.
With promises to see them again soon, I said goodbye to my nephews and Madison to make the thirty-minute drive to where Judy’s office was downtown.
I didn’t usually have to psych myself up nowadays when I was going for a therapy appointment like I did during the early days of seeing Judy. Back then I’d been quite nervous and never knew what to expect. I’d also been in a lot more emotional pain, the breakup still raw, and almost every session had me uncovering new thoughts and ideas about how I was genuinely feeling about myself at the time. Most of it wasn’t so good, but it was very enlightening, which I quickly grew to appreciate.
I did find myself feeling slightly nervous now, though. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was going on with me, but it felt similar to those early days—which was a period of time in my life that I did not want to revisit. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror as I came to a stop at the traffic light.
“I am strong. I can handle anything that comes my way.” I turned my attention back to the steering wheel as the light turned green. “Insecurities acknowledged only serve to make me stronger.”
I smiled at the new mantra that had appeared out of the blue, mentally memorizing it so that I could write it down in my affirmations book to use again later.
Chapter 13
I sat back in my favorite chair in Judy’s office—a place which had become quite comfortable to me over the past months. The fact that I’d opened up to her early on hadn’t shocked me all that much as I didn’t consider myself to be a private person. But if I really thought about it, I knew that the things I’d shared during therapy were the uncovered honest parts of myself—that not even I had been fully aware of. Judy had a way of drawing that out of me, and even though it was often uncomfortable, I knew enough about the process now to know that a relief and sometimes a huge life-changing epiphany would often follow those times.
Judy sat across from me with her pad of paper and pen, jotting notes every now and again but not in a way that was distracting. I always knew that she was listening to me. I tried to explain to her what had happened to me the other night when I’d left the restaurant in tears.
“And why do you think that you got so emotional about it?”
I’d already told her about the “chubby chaser” realization I’d had when I’d been looking through the dating profiles—how much it had shocked me and set off such strong feelings. I brought my attention back to Judy’s question.
“I think that when I saw how handsome the guy at the bar was; I just knew that he had to be attracted to me because of some fetish or something. And then I realized how twisted that was and that it meant I wasn’t feeling nearly as confident about myself as I’d once been—or at least as much as I thought I was.”
“Okay. Let’s talk about that. Do you believe that a handsome guy without a fetish—as you put it—could be attracted to you, Zara?”
I let myself think about the question for several seconds before answering.
“I mean, it feels like a newer thing. But then again, throughout most of the time I’ve spent in therapy with you, I’ve mainly just been focused on myself. It’s really only lately that I’ve even been thinking about men or dating. I guess I hadn’t really felt that I was ready for that to be a part of my life again.”
“And do you feel like you want to start dating now?”
I thought about how I felt when Danielle had talked about spending time with Greg the other night. I thought about how I felt when Braden talked to me about wanting to find someone. And then I thought about my sister and the way that Grant was around her.
“Well, I think I’ve come to the realization that I do want to find love, yes. Real love, I mean. I suppose dating comes along with that and honestly, I’ve never really dated a lot, so I guess it could be that I’m pretty nervous about meeting men in general. I mean I feel so confident in most other areas of my life now. It’s hard to believe that I don’t have slightly more confidence when it comes to meeting men—and just trusting that they actually might like me for being myself, I mean. Does that make sense?”
I desperately wanted to make sense of the whole thing, but I was already feeling much better just for talking about it with Judy.
“It does, yes.” Judy was nodding her head and writing something in her notepad. “I think there are two issues—or points to address here. One of which you and I will continue to work on together.”
“My self-esteem issue, you mean?”
“Yes, but Zara—really, I think you’ve come so far that maybe it’s not as big of an issue as it might feel. I think the dating site and ‘chubby chaser’ comments got your mind going in one direction, but I honestly don’t believe that only men with fetishes for a certain size woman are going to be attracted to you. You’ve got way too much going for you, for the right man not to see everything that you have to offer.”
Judy smiled widely at me and I let her words sink in. I knew she was right. I was a good catch and any man would be lucky to have me. Okay, so maybe I was pretty much thinking what I knew would make me feel better, but I’d continue to go with those thoughts because they seemed to be helping.
“Thanks for saying that.” I smiled back at Judy.
“Do you believe it?”
“I do.” I nodded. “And the other issue?”
“Yes. I know someone who I can recommend to you. Dr. Reese—she’s a love doctor, so to speak.” Judy laughed. “She’s a dating coach with a background in psychology. She’s actually a good friend of mine. If you’d like, we could get you set up with a consultation to see if it’s something you might be interested in.”
The idea of hiring a dating coach intrigued me. It certainly wasn’t anything I’d ever thought about doing—but if I was going to be serious about fi
nding love, it seemed like a good idea. And Judy hadn’t steered me wrong yet with any of her advice.
“I’ll do it. Can we call her?”
Judy smiled at me as she pulled the number up on her phone. One time she had shared with me that she thought my boldness was one of the qualities about me that she admired most. I’d never forgotten that statement, and I tried more than ever nowadays not to second-guess something when I had a strong reaction or feeling about a certain course of action.
Chapter 14
Judy put the phone on speaker so that we were both listening to it ring.
“Hello, this is Dr. Reese speaking.”
I liked the sound of her voice instantly.
“Carol, hi. It’s Judy and I’m sitting here with one of my clients—Zara—whom I’d love for you to meet.”
“Oh, great. Zara, it’s nice to meet you over the phone.”
I could almost sense the smile on her face as Judy handed the phone to me to speak.
“Thanks. Hi. Yes, Judy tells me that you’re a dating coach and I think I’m getting ready to dive into the somewhat scary world of dating. I guess maybe that’s where you can help me?”
Dr. Reese laughed on the other end of the line. “It’s not so scary. You’ll see how much fun this can be. I happen to have an opening tomorrow at three. Does that work for you?”
“Yes. Three would be great. Thanks for seeing me so soon. Is there anything I should do to prepare?”
“Have you started doing anything yet? As in, do you have any dates set up? Any men that you’re interested in?”
“Hmm. Well, I do belong to this online dating site. I haven’t really been active there but I have received a few matches.”
“That’s perfect. Are you up for an assignment to complete before me meet tomorrow?”
Becoming Zara Page 4