It was all Meg could do not to shove the pillow aside and put in her two cents’ worth. What she should’ve done was order them out of the bedroom, but she was actually curious to hear what they had to say.
Her divorce hadn’t been as bad as all that. She and Dave had made the mistake of marrying far too young. Meg had been twenty-two when she’d had Lindsey, and Dave was fresh out of college. In the five years of their marriage there hadn’t been any ugly fights or bitter disagreements. Maybe it would’ve helped if there had been.
By the time Lindsey was four, Dave had decided he didn’t love Meg anymore and wanted a divorce. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did—and it hurt. Meg suspected he’d found someone else.
She was right.
For a long time after the divorce was final, Meg tried to convince herself that her failed marriage didn’t matter. She and her husband had parted on friendly terms. For Lindsey’s sake, Meg had made sure they maintained an amicable relationship.
Dave had hurt her, though, and Meg had denied that pain for too long. Eventually she’d recovered. It was over now, and she was perfectly content with her life.
She’d started working at Book Ends, an independent bookstore, and then, with a loan from her parents she’d managed to buy it.
Between the bookstore and a fifteen-year-old daughter, Meg had little time for seeking out new relationships. The first few years after the divorce she’d had a number of opportunities to get involved with other men. She hadn’t. At the time, Meg simply wasn’t interested, and as the years went on, she’d stopped thinking about it.
“Mother, would you please get out of this bed,” Lindsey said, standing over her. Then in enticing tones, she murmured, “I have coffee.”
“You tricked me before.”
“This one’s real coffee. The other stuff, well, I apologize about that. I guess I misunderstood the lady at the health food store. You were right. According to the directions, you’re supposed to use it in the bath, not drink it. Sorry about that.”
Meg could see it wasn’t going to do the least bit of good to hide her face under a pillow. “I can’t buy my way out of this?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“You’ll feel much better after you exercise,” Brenda promised her. “Really, you will.”
An hour later, Meg didn’t feel any such thing. She couldn’t move without some part of her anatomy protesting.
“You did great, Mrs. Remington,” Brenda praised.
Meg limped into her kitchen and slowly lowered herself into a chair. Who would’ve believed a workout DVD, followed by a short—this was the term the girls used—one-mile run, would reduce her to this. In the past hour she’d been poked, prodded, pushed and punished.
“I’ve got your meals all planned out for you,” Lindsey informed her. She opened the refrigerator door and took out a sandwich bag. She held it up for Meg’s inspection. “This is your lunch.”
Meg would’ve asked her about the meager contents if she’d had the breath to do so. All she could see was one radish, a square of cheese—low-fat, she presumed—and a small bunch of seedless grapes.
“Don’t have any more than the nonfat yogurt for breakfast, okay?”
Meg nodded, rather than dredge up the energy to argue.
“Are you going to tell her about dinner?” Brenda asked.
“Oh, yeah. Listen, Mom, you’ve been a real trooper about this and we thought we should reward you. Tonight for dinner you can have a baked potato.”
She managed a weak smile. Visions of butter and sour cream waltzed through her head.
“With fresh grilled fish.”
“You like fish don’t you, Mrs. Remington?”
Meg nodded. At this point she would’ve agreed to anything just to get the girls out of her kitchen, so she could recover enough to cook herself a decent breakfast.
“Brenda and I are going shopping,” Lindsey announced. “We’re going to pick out a whole new wardrobe for you, Mom.”
“It’s the craziest thing,” Meg told her best friend, Laura Harrison, that same afternoon. They were unpacking boxes of books in the back room. “All of a sudden, Lindsey said she wants me to remarry.”
“Really?”
Laura found this far too humorous to suit Meg. “But she wants me to lose ten pounds and run an eight-minute mile first.”
“Oh, I get it now,” Laura muttered, taking paperbacks from the shipping carton and placing them on a cart.
“What?”
“Lindsey was in the store a couple of weeks ago looking for a book that explained carbs and fat grams.”
“I’m allowed thirty fat grams a day,” Meg informed her. “And one hundred grams of carbohydrates.” Not that her fifteen-year-old daughter was going to dictate what she did and didn’t eat.
“I hope Lindsey doesn’t find out about that submarine sandwich you had for lunch.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Meg said. “I haven’t been that hungry in years. I don’t think anyone bothered to tell Lindsey and Brenda that one of the effects of a workout is a voracious appetite.”
“What was that phone call about earlier?” Laura asked.
Meg frowned as she moved books onto the cart. “Lindsey wanted my credit card number for a slinky black dress with a scoop neckline.” Lindsey had sounded rapturous over the dress, describing it in detail, especially the deep cuts up the sides that would reveal plenty of thigh. “She said she found it on sale—and it was a deal too good to pass up.” She paused. “Needless to say, I told her no.”
“What would Lindsey want with a slinky black dress?”
“She wanted it for me,” Meg said, under her breath.
“You?”
“Apparently once I fit the proper image, they plan to dress me up and escort me around town.”
Laura laughed.
“I’m beginning to think you might not be such a good friend after all,” Meg told her employee. “I expected sympathy and advice, not laughter.”
“I’m sorry, Meg. Really.”
She sounded far more amused than she did sorry.
Meg cast her a disgruntled look. “You know what your problem is, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Laura was quick to tell her. “I’m married, with college-age children. I don’t have to put up with any of this nonsense and you do. Wait, my dear, until Lindsey gets
