How did the man ever expect to get ahead with that kind of attitude?
She paused to run her fingers over Cole’s handwriting before catching herself. She was getting all sappy. Next she’d be writing his name hooked with hers and putting little hearts around it.
Not allowed. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of her main goal—regaining her modeling mojo. She also couldn’t afford to have her heart broken again.
Sue Ellen stared down at her Blizzard and wondered where the coach was. He said he’d meet her at four at the Dairy Queen and here it was a quarter after four and no sign of him. The coach valued punctuality.
Had she done something wrong? Something to upset him? They’d gone out to see a movie at the Tivoli over the weekend and everything had seemed fine. He’d kissed her at the end of the evening and fondled her breast just as he always did. No change. Nothing new.
Not that she wanted something new. She was perfectly happy with the coach. She’d totally forgotten about the vibe she’d felt when Donny had wiped chocolate from her mouth.
Another ten minutes passed before she saw the coach pull into the Dairy Queen parking lot. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he slid into the seat across the table from her.
“That’s okay. I hope you don’t mind that I got my Blizzard without you.”
“That’s fine. They’ve got too many calories for me. I’ve got to start watching my weight.”
Sue Ellen instantly lost her appetite. “Me too.”
This was where the coach was supposed to jump in and say that she was perfect just as she was. Instead he said, “Maybe you should join me in running a few laps around the track at school.”
She shoved her Blizzard away.
“Something wrong?” the coach asked.
Sue Ellen shook her head. She wasn’t ready to have
the talk
with him just yet, but she realized that talk was going to come at some point in the next few weeks. The where-is-this-relationship-going talk. She needed to lose some weight first.
She also needed to figure out how to use the Remote-Control MegaMax. Hey, if it was good enough for her model sister, it was good enough for her. And orgasms burned up calories, didn’t they? Did sex with a vibrator count? Because it didn’t look like she was going to have sex with the coach anytime in the near future.
He was a gentleman. That’s why he didn’t push her into going to bed with him. That or he thought she was too fat to see naked.
She eyed the Blizzard, wanting it so badly that it almost hurt. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was racing. Not because of the coach but because of the smooth ice cream concoction. She was a Blizzard addict. She had to have it.
Her hand reached out. She caught the disappointed look he gave her and instantly returned her hand to her lap, gripping her fingers together.
“Something wrong?” he asked again.
Sue Ellen shook her head.
“What do you think about running laps with me?”
“Okay.”
Sue Ellen was having two conversations at once—one with the coach and one with herself. The one with herself was the more interesting of the two.
Why don’t you tell him the truth? Tell him you want to run laps as much as you want a root canal. Why can’t you stick up for yourself? You’re such a doormat. He walks all over you.
He does not,
she answered herself.
He’s concerned about me. About my health.
Why doesn’t he ever take you out somewhere nice? Why do you hang out at the Dairy Queen?
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“For what?”
“Heading to the track now.”
“Right now?”
“Sure. No time like the present, right?”
As Sue Ellen followed him out of the Dairy Queen, she cast one last longing look at her half-finished Blizzard. The present wasn’t looking all that great and she was beginning to have doubts about the future as well.
“I’m glad you decided to join us,” Skye said as Leena accompanied her sister to belly-dancing class after work that evening. The cinder-block walls of the Rock Creek Community Center, like the town, looked a little worse for wear.
Leena had decided it was time to face Skye head-on rather than avoiding her and living in fear of what she might say. There was no way Skye could know for sure how intimate Leena and Cole had been when she’d interrupted them yesterday. It’s not as if they were rolling around naked on the floor or anything—though that would have happened a few minutes later, probably.
Besides, Leena needed to work off steam after spending the day with her own version of McDreamy. The
work
day. When she should have been focusing on work. Not on how hot Cole was. Not on the curve of his lips or the downward slant of his bedroom eyes. And certainly not on the fly of his faded jeans.
That was a real no-no.
But Leena hadn’t been able to help herself. Which was why she was here. To help herself. To regain some control. Back in Chicago she’d visited the ritzy health club Oprah belonged to at least three times a week.
No wonder she’d never been able to afford a bigger apartment. She’d spent so much money on clothes and accessories and the health club that there wasn’t much left over.
Since returning to Rock Creek, Leena had fallen into some bad habits: inhaling Cool Ranch Doritos, Hostess Ding Dongs, and Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt. Not all in the same bite, of course. That would be yucky.
As yucky as lusting after the boss?
her inner critic demanded in a snotty voice reminiscent of one of the meanest contestants on
America’s Next Top Model
.
Lusting was legal. There was no law against lusting. No law against acting on that lust either.
Okay, right, there was no
law
requiring her to say no. But there was a little something known as common sense. Leena needed her paycheck as her ticket out of town.
So she couldn’t afford to fall into bad habits. She needed to resume her modeling regime, which meant exercising. Belly dancing burned off four hundred calories, or so Sue Ellen had told her before hauling her in here.
There was only one problem. Well, there were many, but only one pertaining to belly-dancing class.
“I’m really not dressed for this,” Leena said, looking down at her tailored black pants and plain white T-shirt.
“I brought something for you. Your T-shirt is fine.” Sue Ellen reached into a huge leopard-print bag and pulled out a pair of pink floral leggings. “I’ve kept them with me in case you ever wanted to join us.”
Leena knew she’d look like Laura Ashley wallpaper if she wore those. If only she had her yummy Eileen Fisher workout clothes with her. But she’d left them in the storage unit back in Chicago, figuring there’d be no use for them here in Rock Creek.
I used to have a life.
The thought hit Leena hard.
And she’d get that life back, she vowed.
Fake it till you make it.
That was her motto before and it was still her motto now.
Leena quickly changed in the bathroom and returned to find Skye—looking slim and athletic in a cropped T-shirt and black yoga pants with a coin-covered scarf wrapped around her hips—making some hip moves that Leena doubted she could ever manage in this lifetime or any other.
“Leena, you know several of the people here,” Skye said, not pausing in her moves as she went on with the introductions. “You’ve met Nancy Crumpler, Cole’s aunt. And Lulu. And this is my grandmother Violet.”
A Betty White clone in a powder blue jogging outfit came forward to shake hands. “My granddaughter Julia went into labor at your place of employment.”
“On my first full day at the job.” Leena nodded. “Not something I’m likely to forget.”
“Yes, well the Wright women do have a certain reputation for walking a little on the wild side. Except for me,” Violet added modestly.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Skye said, finally stopping her hip swivels before turning to face Leena. “Violet is just as infamous as the rest of us. She was almost arrested for frog assault.”
“You assaulted a frog?” Leena stared at Violet. She looked like such a sweet white-haired old lady.
“No, she assaulted a bad guy with a frog,” Skye said. “Fred the Frog, to be exact.”
“I caught him,” Sue Ellen bragged.
Leena frowned. “The bad guy?”
“No, silly. The frog. Remember how I used to catch them from the creek out behind the trailer park—I mean, the mobile home community?”
Leena nodded.
Skye proudly pointed at Violet. “But it was my grandmother here who was the real star of the confrontation.”
“Along with Fred the Frog,” Sue Ellen said.
“Fred who? Who are you all talking about? My hearing-aid battery died again.” This complaint came from an elderly woman wearing purple sweatpants and T-shirt.
“This is Fanny Abernathy,” Skye said, raising her voice to continue the introductions. “She lost her hearing using power tools without proper ear protective gear.”
“And who are you?” Fanny asked Leena.
Sue Ellen leapt in to answer for her. “This is my famous sister Leena, the plus-size model.”
“You don’t look plus-size to me,” Fanny said, giving Leena the once-over. “I saw a story on
Access Hollywood
, or was it
Entertainment Tonight
? One of those shows. Anyway, they had a three-hundred-pound American model working in Paris. She was plus size.”
“Models that are size ten or larger are considered plus size,” Leena explained.
“Says who?” Fanny demanded.
“The business. The clients who hire models want a certain look.”
“The emaciated look.” Fanny shook her head. “I remember when women were women. The classic Hollywood stars like Betty Grable and Ginger Rogers had curves. My favorite was Olivia de Havilland.”
“Mine was Loretta Young,” Violet said.
“Mine was Katharine Hepburn,” Nancy said. “Now there was a classy dame.”
“How about that blonde that married Humphrey Bogart? What was her name . . . ?” Fanny frowned, trying to remember.
“Lauren Bacall,” Violet said.
Fanny nodded. “She had curves. She was slinky but she had curves. All those movie stars did. Not now though. Now you can see their bones showing through their skin on their rib cages and their backs. It’s not natural and it’s not healthy. Especially when young girls are looking up to them as role models.”
“I read a recent study that showed eighty percent of ten-year-olds worry about their weight,” Nancy said. “Society does that. These kids view celebrities who are painfully thin and think that’s what they should look like. Skeletons. It’s so unhealthy.”
“It’s not society; it’s the media,” Skye said. “They are the ones that show those images over and over again, on magazines and TV.”
“Personally, I think it’s those white foam take-out containers. You know, that terrible squeaking noise they can make?” Sue Ellen shuddered. “I feel ill just thinking about it. Makes me want to hurl.”
Yet again Sue Ellen had her own vision of the world around her. A vision no one else seemed to share.
Leena had first realized Sue Ellen was . . .
unique
when an eleven-year-old Sue Ellen had told a four-year-old Leena that Sue Ellen was really the secret love child of Prince Charles of England while Leena was a baby their parents had found in the junkyard and brought home. A few months later, the story was that aliens in their UFO had come to visit Sue Ellen and that they’d wanted to take Leena away, but Sue Ellen had talked them out of it.
For six months after that, Leena had panicked every time she saw lights blinking in the night sky; her mom finally assured her they were only airplanes, not UFOs.
The stories had trailed off once Sue Ellen turned twelve but were replaced by wild New Year’s resolutions. At age thirteen Sue Ellen announced she was going to be a teenage millionaire that year. When that didn’t come come to pass, the next resolution was that she was going to marry a millionaire when she turned eighteen. Instead Sue Ellen had run away and married Earl a day after her eighteenth birthday.
Leena hadn’t seen much of her sister for a few years after that. Once Sue Ellen divorced Earl, she moved back home for Leena’s senior year in high school. Leena hadn’t made resolutions, hadn’t bragged she was going to be a model someday. Rather, she’d quietly done whatever it took to accomplish her goal.
A goal she’d attained and would recapture again.
“Sorry I’m late.” The apology came from a young black woman who hurried inside. She had flawless skin and excellent bone structure. And she had curves. Not as many as Leena, but she was no beanstalk. “I had to speak to one of my student’s parents and the meeting ran late.”
“Tameka is an English teacher at Rock Creek High School,” Skye said. “This is Leena, Sue Ellen’s sister. She’s joining us in class today.”
“Wait a second,” Tameka said. “You’re Leena? You work for Cole?”
“She’s just helping him out temporarily. Because she feels guilty for punching him when they were kids,” Sue Ellen said.
“Sounds like that TV show
My Name Is Earl
. Where he goes back and tries to make up for all the bad things he did so he’ll get better karma. Is that what you’re doing here in Rock Creek?” Fanny asked Leena.
“Ladies.” Tameka clapped her hands and used her teacher voice. “If we can get back to me for a moment. Leena, I have some information regarding Cole that you might find interesting,”
“I know, I know. You heard that Cole was listed as one of the state’s sexiest bachelors, right?” Sue Ellen eagerly jumped it to say. “Rumor has it that my sister Leena here is the one who nominated him.”
All eyes turned to Leena.
“No comment,” Leena muttered, feeling more and more like a stuffed floral sausage in the borrowed pink pants. Faking it was much harder without the proper outfit to boost your confidence.