"I'm thirty-six."
Not what I meant, but good to know. "Okay, old geezer. And what about the kid thing?"
He bumped his hip into me. "Geezer? That's cold. Colder than this wind. And I'm not sure either. Sometimes I think yes, but all my friends with kids are so exhausted."
"Yeah. Only one of mine has a kid, and she is dead tired all the time but she also seems really happy." I shrugged. "I'd be so afraid I'd mess up."
"No way." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "You'd have it all planned down to the last detail. You might turn the kid into a robot, but other than that you'd be fine."
I elbowed him lightly for the robot comment, knowing he both expected and enjoyed my mock outrage at his insistence that anyone with my level of planning, focus, and attention to detail couldn't be human but not wanting to make him think I didn't want his arm around me. "Might be fun to have a robot baby. Less messy, probably. But I do wonder if I'd be any good as a mom. What if my poor kid ended up as obsessive about stuff as I am?"
Andrew pulled me to a halt and turned me to face him. "It'd be lucky. You do amazing things because you're so focused. You stick to that diet when—"
"It's not working?"
"—it's not even necessary, and it would be so easy to quit," he went on without acknowledging me, and a warm glow hummed in my chest at the 'not necessary' comment. "And you work out every day, and you've made huge progress on your new area even with all the other work we've done lately."
I grimaced at his reference to the time we and the rest of the staff had spent hunting down and fixing the sabotages a disgruntled layoff victim had left in her wake. It had been exhausting, but it was also what had drawn Andrew and me together so I couldn't complain too much.
"Plus, I bet you've done lots of stuff at work no one even knows about."
He held my gaze and I fought to keep my face blank. Had he guessed I'd created the database of game information that was making everyone's lives easier at work? I wouldn't admit to it, even if he asked me flat-out: it had amused me to do it anonymously and I didn't want credit, didn't even want the bonus the bosses had offered to the database's creator. It was enough that something I'd created was helping us improve the game I loved.
After a moment, he said, "You'd give everything you had to take good care of your kid. I think you'd be an amazing mother."
I slid my arms around his neck and he pulled me close. We'd hugged several times already but it was still new enough to be exciting. "You'd be the best father ever," I said into his ear.
He tightened his arms around me then leaned back enough to see my face.
My heart picked up speed at the intensity in his eyes. Were we about to have our first kiss? Was I ready? I thought so. My first kiss since—
As he began to lower his face to mine, as I began a moment later to raise mine to his, a crowd of laughing jostling frat-boy types tumbled out of a nearby doorway and crashed into us.
Andrew pulled us to safety. "We'd better get out of here before we get trampled, huh?"
His expression held exactly what I felt: amusement mixed with disappointment. We set off again, and I just knew he'd kiss me when he took me home.
Chapter Three
I open my eyes, feeling dazed. That memory was so vivid I actually forgot where I am. The wind snapping its fingers against our faces, the strength of Andrew's arms around me, and my absolute certainty I wouldn't go to sleep that night without knowing how he kissed. I'd been scared, but I'd also wanted it, and I'd been sure it would happen.
But I'd been wrong. He took me home all right, and even came in to give the cat a hug, but Ruby got more action than me that night. He kissed her furry forehead and squeezed her tight, then set her down and hugged me, but he seemed shy and distant and left with only a "see you tomorrow".
I rest my head against the airbag. If he had kissed me then, would everything have been different? Would I have responded differently to Joel the next night? Would I have been better able to handle the worst sabotage of all at work? Maybe.
But maybe things would have been even worse.
I hate maybes. I love plans and certainties and clarity. Since Bill died I've worked hard to lock my life down, to make sure I'm always doing the best I can. I don't remotely think Bill wasted his life, but there were so many things he wanted to do that never happened. I use my scheduling, and my nightly review of everywhere that I've fallen short, to make sure I get it all done.
All? No. Not the one thing I wanted to do the most after Bill. To honor him. To draw some tiny piece of beauty from the horror of what happened to him.
My mind skitters away from a millionth rehashing of Bill's death and bounces around in search of something better to think about.
Andrew. Sandra. My parents. Mom's cookies.
Oh, hell. I've been blocking out their presence but now they're back, dancing around in my head, begging me to eat them. A chorus line of chocolate chip cookies.
One wouldn't hurt, would it?
I visualize the dress Sandra's other bridesmaids picked for us to wear, which I pretended to like too since my other options weren't much better. That sleek gown will show every last cookie I eat, so it would hurt. I can't afford to slack off, even now. I have to focus.
A wave of exhaustion sweeps me. It's so hard to stay focused all the time. I have to, though, because if I relax my control everything will fall apart, and I'll hate myself for letting that happen.
There's such a split in me. I know I do good work. Sometimes I do amazing work. I'm reliable and driven and I don't give up. But no matter what I do, it never feels like it's good enough. I know it's good, but I can't feel it. I've talked to Andrew about it, and Sandra has spent hours trying to help me, but to no avail.
It hits me that I've never really thanked them. They don't understand why I can't let go of my self-flagellation, which isn't a surprise since I don't get it either, but they listened and tried to understand and tried even harder to help me overcome it. I should have thanked them. I should have told them both, especially Sandra with how wonderful a friend she's been for so many years, how much I appreciate them.
I sigh. I won't die here, I know, but if I did there'd be so many things I'd wish I'd said, to Sandra and Andrew and all the other people I care about. So many things, and at the moment there's no way to say them.
No, but I could type them. I check, and my laptop's got just over an hour of battery life left. With my typing speed and accuracy, that's more than enough time to write letters to everyone I know. True, if I get rescued ten minutes from now I'll feel over-dramatic having written my final goodbyes. But nobody needs to know, after all. I could delete the letters.
Delete the things I should have been saying all along?
I promise myself that when I get out I will give what I've written to my loved ones and make sure they know how I feel about them.
When I get out.
I consider another escape attempt but I can't bring myself to do it. Even with the blizzard I saw one or two other cars on the road, so someone will find me soon. Pulling at my leg again won't do any good.
No, I'll wait, and think about the important people in my life and then write their letters. I toy with starting with Andrew but Sandra's been my friend for so long that she deserves to go first. I'll have to think about Bill if I'm here much longer, but I'm not ready yet. Sandra it is.
*****
Sandra's first marathon, back in June, fell on a particularly hot and muggy day. I waited near the finish line, watching people run and walk and stagger the last few feet, and with each finisher I grew more interested in running a marathon myself. Their pain and fatigue should probably have discouraged me, but instead the idea of testing my body and spirit like they were fascinated me.
I'd started running two years before to hang out with my then-boyfriend, and though I still wasn't anywhere close to fast I could go for an hour with no real trouble. Sandra had encouraged me to try the half marathon, but even t
hirteen miles had seemed insane. Watching these people, though, I could see the appeal.
Then I saw Sandra approaching the finish. Pain clear on her face and in her awkward stride, her sweat-soaked hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks, and such joy and fierce pride shining in her eyes that I could barely breathe. She'd worked so hard, given everything she had, and as I waved and clapped I vowed that I'd be running this race with her next year.
Except I'd given up that dream before it began.
Sandra had gone home to shower and sleep before the celebratory dinner some friends and I had planned for her, then had arrived at the restaurant, her eyes shining in a different way, and announced that she and her long-time boyfriend were engaged.
After a few minutes of hugging and congratulations, she took me into a private corner. "Look, I know it'll be really hard after Bill and I will so completely understand if you don't want to, but would you be my maid of honor?"
As soon as she'd said she was engaged I'd known this was coming, and there was only one answer I wanted to give. "If you can handle me being sad sometimes, I would be thrilled."
She hugged me. "There's nobody I'd want to have more, sad or not. And I'll be sad with you at times, too." Her grip on me tightened. "It's not right. I hate that it happened. I so wanted to be your maid of honor."
I took a shuddering breath to fight my rising tears. "I know. Me too. But let's give you the best wedding ever, okay?"
"I love you, you know," she whispered.
I lost the battle and a sob escaped me. "I love you too, buddy." We squeezed each other even harder, and before we could break down completely, I said to lighten the mood, "But let's not tell Mark."
We giggled through our tears, and she said, "Yeah, he'd say, 'Can I watch?'"
"Totally. Pervert."
She grabbed napkins from a nearby table so we could wipe our eyes. "He is that, no question. But I'm still going to marry him. And I'm thinking Lynne and Christine for bridesmaids. Is that good?"
Lynne and Christine put together probably weighed less than I did. "Whoever you want. They're nice. Just don't pick a dress with a huge butt bow."
She laughed. "Too late. The one I like has three."
I rolled my eyes, and she hugged me again and bounced off to ask the other two. I returned to my seat and chatted with our friends and tried not to think about bridesmaid dresses.
Sandra and I had been bridesmaids for our friend Kathleen a year or so ago. A size four maid of honor, size six Sandra, and size sixteen me. Kathleen had done her best to pick dresses that suited us all, and I'd thought I looked decent in the silver silk.
After the honeymoon, Kathleen and Jeff had invited their friends and family to watch the wedding video. Kathleen's grandmother, a bitter old shrew who'd made her cry right before the ceremony by criticizing the white lace shawl she'd spent months knitting, had unfortunately chosen a seat next to the videographer, and her muttered comments on the church and its decorations were indistinct but clearly not complimentary. Everyone in Kathleen and Jeff's living room ignored her, but tension was rising.
When I started down the aisle, though, Kathleen's grandmother raised her volume and her words were all too clear. "Girl looks like an elephant. Doesn't Kathleen have any pretty friends? Why put someone so fat front and center?"
Everyone froze. I'd defended Kathleen's knitting, and I'd known her grandmother hadn't exactly appreciated my words, but to say something like that on her granddaughter's wedding video? Fury and shock and a terrible sadness flooded me, leaving me shaking and blushing so hard it hurt.
For a moment that lasted a thousand years, nobody spoke. Bill slipped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me in silent sympathy but I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Instead, I sat staring at the screen even after Kathleen's mother turned on her mother-in-law. "Ann, how could you? I told you that camera would pick up everything you said."
Sandra and Bill told me later that the old bat's mouth had twisted into a smile that said she'd done the impromptu voice-over on purpose. That probably explained why Kathleen's mother snapped, "You will apologize to Rhiannon. Now."
Oh, please, no. You'll make it worse.
"I'll do no such thing. I only told the truth. Look at her, she's a lump. And as for Kathleen, her wedding only got worse from there. Such cheap food! Kathleen doesn't deserve such a nice boy if she can't plan a decent wedding."
As Kathleen's grandmother had previously called Jeff "that obnoxious jerk who got his hooks into my Kathleen", her supposed affection for him didn't ring true, but her words had the desired effect. Kathleen burst into tears and fled, Jeff went after her, and the party broke up leaving Grandma as the center of attention.
I slunk away, unable to stay in the old harpy's presence another moment and equally unable to face anyone's commiseration, and after spending the afternoon berating myself despite Bill's insistence I had no reason to I emailed Kathleen that night to apologize. She called me immediately, still crying.
"Don't you dare. It's so not your fault. I picked the people I wanted to have with me and I didn't care how the pictures looked and I still don't."
She went on, about how her parents were going to get the videographer to put music in instead of her grandmother's comments, but all I could think of was how she hadn't cared how her pictures looked. Had I ruined those too with my elephantine body?
In the end, the redone video was beautiful, the pictures were actually very nice even though I did look huge in comparison to the others, and Grandma wasn't invited over much any more. So everything worked out fine.
Except that I couldn't stop seeing myself walking down the aisle, or standing smiling in the pictures dwarfing everyone else.
After Bill died I'd half-heartedly continued the weight loss and exercise plan we'd begun together, with no real results, but with Sandra's engagement I kicked it into high gear. She and Mark set their wedding date for exactly a year after the engagement, so I decided to lose forty pounds in ten months to be ready for our dress fittings.
Basically a pound a week. It should have been fine. But despite my fanatical adherence to my diet and exercise plans, my weight has never permanently moved far from the two hundred and seven point six pounds I'd weighed on my first day. I've been losing and gaining the same five pounds for six months.
At first I'd thought marathon training would be a good way to lose the weight. All that running? But Sandra had mentioned once that she'd gained a good ten pounds over her training because the long slow running didn't burn as many calories as her previous harder but shorter workouts.
So I'd forced the marathon idea out of my head. I couldn't bear to gain that much weight.
*****
I wrap my arms around myself, longing for comfort, but let go when my fingers register the fat at my sides. I hate not having my body under control. My personal planning document is a good six pages long but the weight loss goal matters more to me than all the others put together.
I'd had such high hopes of the WeightAway diet clinic. After spending hours researching various programs, I'd been convinced these guys knew what they were doing. Their program seemed scientific and precise, which appealed to me, and their web site full of before-and-after pictures gave me even more confidence that this time I'd succeed.
On my first visit to the clinic, I'd embarrassed myself by bursting into tears when Joel, my assigned counselor, had asked why I wanted to lose weight.
"Don't worry." As he patted my arm his cologne, which might have been sexy if it hadn't been so heavily applied, wafted over me. "We'll make it happen."
I pulled myself together and explained about Sandra's wedding.
Joel did some calculations and confirmed what I'd already figured out: a pound a week was more than reasonable. He grilled me on my current diet and exercise, then spent a few minutes on his computer to set up my plan.
I was still dangerously close to crying so I distracted myself by studying the pictures on his bulletin boa
rd. He obviously played a lot of sports: there he was with a hockey team, with a bunch of guys in football gear, in a wetsuit with his arm around a surprisingly large blonde girl. Given his job and his pretty-boy good looks, I'd have expected him to be into girls whose collarbones stuck out so far they could be classified as lethal weapons, but the blonde, while beautiful, was easily my size.
"My college girlfriend."
Startled, I looked at him, and he pointed to the picture. "First and only time I went scuba diving," he said, studying the image as if he'd never seen it before. "She was great at it, swam like a fish. I swam like a dead fish."
I laughed, and he turned away from the picture and smiled. "All right, let's go through the plan and then you can go start losing weight."
The plan was simple: eat what I tell you, no more, no less.
"Especially no less," he said, pointing at me to emphasize his words. "You don't want your metabolism to shut down."
"Definitely not. I need it to rev up for once."
He pointed again, and frowned for good measure, then grinned. "You'll follow the plan, I can tell. You know what you want and you'll get it."
My throat tightened and I had to blink hard.
Joel squeezed my shoulder. "This will work for you, Rhiannon. It's simple mathematics. If you eat less, if you follow our plan, you will lose weight. There's no other option."
I'd followed the plan, but Joel was wrong: there was another option. By the fourth week, he was nearly as confused and upset as I was. "I don't understand this. You must be cheating."
"I'm not." I tapped an angry finger on my tracking sheets. "It's all here. I haven't slipped off the program once." And I hadn't. I'd turned down Sandra's birthday cake even though she'd insisted I'd love it, I'd eaten pre-packaged meals until I'd wondered if the cardboard wrapper might be tastier than the food inside, and I'd tracked every last atom of food that went into my mouth, right down to the sugarless gum I chewed in the afternoons to convince myself I wasn't hungry.
Toronto Collection Volume 1 (Toronto Series #1-5) Page 55