***
That afternoon, she bought all the women’s health and beauty periodicals that The Times Bookstore had, and poured over them. There were dozens of diets described, some very weird, like the one that suggested she eat nothing but grapefruit for six weeks. That one she rejected right away because she didn’t think she’d manage it, and anyway grapefruits were only on sale in Malawi for a short season which had just ended. There was one that advocated a vegan diet for weight loss, and another that insisted that a banana at every meal was magic. In the end, she settled on a low carb diet that was compatible both with food that could be bought in Blantyre and with Sarah’s normal food choices so wouldn’t be too hard to follow. It recommended that she eat as much as she wanted, so long as it was low in carbohydrate: no potatoes, grains or bread but as much meat and fat as she wanted. A lot of vegetables and fruit were forbidden, but a lot weren’t. She’d never eaten much sugar anyway, so giving that up would not be difficult. It also said that she should be very strict for the first three weeks, but could then break the diet occasionally without dire effects. That really appealed to her as she doubted her ability to stick to any diet for a long time. To help her, she found a photo that looked like the girl who she knew was Hunter’s current squeeze and taped it to the fridge with a sign that said, “Who Would YOU prefer?” in large red letters. It helped. Particularly the first few weeks, she very often opened the fridge door and then closed it almost immediately without taking anything out.
The first week, she lost 5 pounds, which seemed miraculous.
All the diets recommended increased exercise. Sarah considered a daily run, and tried it one morning, but after about five minutes saw that it was impossible. Five minutes exhausted her. Maybe later she could do that, when she was fitter. Then she tried walking, but found that it wasn’t hard enough to make her feel it was benefitting her, and anyway, getting to a place where she might enjoy walking, took much time and gas. She considered buying an exercise bike to use at home, but decided instead to join a gym because the initial outlay was less, and she could easily back out if she wanted to. The gym had aerobic exercises classes, and a routine on the weight machines that was set out in a circle, and she found that those suited her. It was very hard in the beginning but it wasn’t long before she began to make progress. She began to feel fitter and have more energy almost immediately encouraged her, and soon she became committed to a weekly routine of an hour a day four days a week.
On the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the diet she lost another 5 pounds, and 15 pounds lighter, she could see and feel the difference. Maybe nobody else would notice, but she did, and she felt good about it. By the end of the 3rd week, she had lost another 5 pounds and people began to notice. At first they were inclined to ask her if she was OK, but assured that her weight loss was intentional, were complimentary.
One effect which she hadn’t anticipated was that she needed new clothes. She went, as she always had, to the 2nd hand store for them. But except for one or two items, found that she wasn’t satisfied anymore with the way they looked. Her perusal of the women’s magazines had changed her ideas, so for the first time in her life bought some new ones. She felt mildly guilty, but had gradually come to realize that though some people might notice a girl’s inner beauty, most wouldn’t – at least unless they got to know her better than most people got to know unattractive girls. By coincidence, just at the moment when adjusting her wardrobe became necessary, she came across an article that talked about buying clothes that went with your coloring. She’d always liked bright jewel colors, but when she took the test in the article, it said that as she was an “Autumn” type she’d look better in earth tones. So she decided to try that and found by trying on things and taking a good luck at her appearance in them that it was actually true. So instead of scarlet and purple, she searched for beige and rust.
The result of all this was that in six months she was hardly recognizable. A pudgy drab, rather unkempt woman who didn’t know how to dress, had become a moderately attractive athletic woman.
She found that those she knew as friends became better friends, and some who hadn’t been friends became ones. She became used to being complimented on how she looked, especially by her fellow workers at the pharmacy who had come to know her well enough to like her no matter what she looked like. Several times when one of the girls at St. Andrew’s who had laughed at her, came into the shop, they didn’t know who she was at first, and did a surprised double take when they recognized her when she greeted them by name, something she would never have done before, but rather delighted in doing so now. All in all the world seemed a better place than it had. And she began to wish she would run into Hunter, who would surely now not give her the cold shoulder, but it seemed he was out of Blantyre.
There were several people whom she met regularly at the gym with whom she became quite friendly. One of them was a quiet young man named Eric with whom she seemed to have a lot in common. When she mentioned that she was about to finish the course work for her Pharmacy license, he admitted that though he was working as an ad writer for a local advertising agency, he had his Phd in chemistry. When Sarah asked him why on earth he wasn’t using it, he said that he’d grown so sick of it by the time he finished his degree that he never wanted to see another test tube. He told her it had almost been a year since and he was beginning to think he was ready to go back. He figured that he could easily get a job at the University of Malawi in Zomba, and was trying to get up the energy to apply.
He liked to cook, and began regularly to invite Sarah over to his apartment for a meal, after which they watched classical movies on DVDs or talked about a book they had both read. Although from a Zomba planter’s family, he shared Sarah’s distaste at the way most expatriates spoke of and treated blacks, which, together with their level of education, meant that they were isolated, and not really at home in Malawi’s expatriate community. To have serious conversations with someone with whom they shared so much common ground was a delight for both of them. Gradually they began to see quite a lot of each other and formed a warm relationship which nurtured both, increasing their self-confidence and improving their opinion of life in general. After two years, he had not made any sexual advances towards her, about which she was somewhat ambivalent. Not that she wanted to have sex with him, as she was still carrying a torch for Hunter, but she began to wonder if she was still not attractive enough to make men want to have sex with her. But being best friends was satisfying, especially as she had never had a best friend since primary school.
One of their common interests was Mt. Mulanje, the huge mountain range that dominated South-eastern Malawi, towering 5,000 ft over the surrounding plain, shooting up over half of that almost vertically. It had been a granite intrusion from which the surrounding softer rock had been eroded away, so it presented smooth granite cliffs, so there was no easy way to get on top, what trails there were, being little more than endless staircases. Once the plateau level was reached, there was lovely rolling grassland interspersed with a number of bare rocky peaks and deeply cut water courses, most of which ended abruptly in a 2,000 or 3,000 ft. waterfall. A number of forestry huts provided accommodation, but otherwise there was no development, and as relatively few tourists were intrepid enough to make it to the top, one was more often alone in a pristine African environment with stunning views in every direction. All supplies except firewood and water had to be carried up, but fortunately there were always porters available, and as there were very few jobs in the Mulanje area, one could feel virtuous offering jobs and at the same time avoiding the labor. The porters, in superb condition, could run up to the huts and back down again in half a day, and showed every sign of enjoying it.
Even Eric and Sarah, who were in very good condition from their gym schedule found the climb to the top challenging and whenever they could, spent 2 or 3 nights there before descending. The first time they went up, they chose the path from Likhubula to Chambe as being the least difficult. Neverthele
ss, Sarah barely made it to the top and was barely conscious when she got there. Upon reaching the hut, she fell instantly asleep on the bed and had to be roused at 7:30 to eat the dinner Eric had cooked for them. By the fourth trip, she was able to take the Lion’s Head path, probably the most difficult in her stride easily.
Aside from the blue monkeys and an occasional leopard, there was little game, but there were 50 or 60 species of birds, including the rare blue swallow and black eagle and also several species endemic to the mountain. It was natural for regular climbers to become keen birdwatchers, and Eric and Sarah did. In the rainy season, there were myriads of wildflowers, including a number of spectacular ground orchids, and Eric and Sarah set out to become expert in those too, and Sarah, a keen photographer compiled an impressive collection of photos, which she posted on the net.
They were never happier than when on Mulanje. Shared activity is almost as powerful creator of emotional bonds as sex, and they became very close. And on the long evenings in front of the fire, they shared themselves more openly with each other than they had ever done with anybody else. They were both wounded individuals, estranged from normal society. Eric, though physically fit, had never been interested in sports, and though he sometimes shared with school friends fictitious stories of sexual adventures, had never had any real ones, and wasn’t bothered about that. Sarah, of course, was very bothered that she had never managed to snag Hunter; it was like a continual crick in her side, and the original reason for her wanting to remake herself, though she never fully revealed that to Eric. They came to love one another as friends, though they insisted that they were not “in love” and after two years had never become lovers.
3 Book Romance Bundle: "Her Last Love Affair" & "Loving Him Peacefully" & "Unwelcome Reunion" Page 28