He Loves Lucy (24 page)

“Theo sends his regards, but he’s feeling so under the weather that he thought it was best not to expose anyone to what he’s got.”

Yeah
, Lucy said to herself.
He’s got shit for brains; that’s what he’s got
.

Lucy kept her eyes on her shoes. She was able to remain like that, lifeless and out of focus, for several long minutes while Tyson regaled everyone with tales from his college football days and his aspirations to be a TV sports announcer.

Lucy didn’t mind one bit that he was using this appearance as one giant job interview. It was fine with her. Anything was fine with her.

Then it was time for the weigh-in, and it surprised her just how little it bothered her that Tyson was doing the weighing.

“Great job, Lucy!” Tyson said. “Another eight pounds and one and three-quarter inches!”

The audience began whooping and hooting and chanting, “Go, Lucy! Go, Lucy!”

And all she wanted to do was go home, put on her pink sweatpants, and eat.

August

Journal Entry Aug 4

Breakfast:
2-egg-white omelet with 1/4 c low-fat ched-dar, 1/2 c onion, pepper, and tomato; one slice whole wheat toast; 1 tbsp no-sugar-added apple butter; decaf with splash of skim milk

Lunch: 3
oz broiled salmon; 1 c steamed broccoli; 1
c
salad with 1 tbsp oil and vinegar; 1/2
c
brown rice

Dinner:
A Wendy’s Triple with everything; a large fry; a large Frosty

Evening snack:
1 qt butter brickie ice cream; 1 box of ginger snaps

Affirmation for Today:

Lucy woke up the next morning, looked in the mirror, and said out loud, “Get your shit together, quick.”

She refused to even attempt to wear anything without elastic embedded somewhere in the waist and found a pair of khaki crop pants that would do fine for the day. She had no pressing appointments.

Then she shoved her feet into a pair of slides and yanked a white cotton twinset out of her closet. She tied a paisley silk scarf around her neck for color, ran a brush through her hair, and smeared some coral pink gloss over her lips. That would have to do. It was all she could handle that morning.

There would be no breakfast. The idea of food made her wish she were dead. In the hours between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. of the previous day, she’d violated every promise she’d made to herself and to Theo. She’d even violated the only sensible rule of dieting she’d ever run across, the sage advice of the Muppets’ Miss Piggy, who recommended never eating anything bigger than your head.

Lucy was fairly certain that if piled together, all that junk she binged on the day before would be bigger than anyone’s head. Perhaps even Theo’s.

And who cared what promise she’d made to Theo, anyway? He was out of the picture. This was all
her
problem now, and she’d just have to deal with it alone.

Lucy drove to work, and though she didn’t intend to eat for the rest of her life, food called out to her all the way to the office. Doughnuts whispered her name from their evil glass display cases. Croissants and muffins beckoned to her from bakery windows like prostitutes in the doorways of French Quarter brothels. Fast-food drive-throughs shouted obscene lies about the relief to be found in a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit-or two.

Lucy told herself she would make it through this day. She
would
get around to calling Tyson about scheduling workout sessions. She
would
stick to a sane and healthy food plan.

She would not allow Theo’s rejection to stand in the way of her dreams. She could do it without him. She’d show
him
.

Stephan traced his fingers down the ridges of Lola’s abdominals, agog at the carved perfection of the woman now stretched out on his bed. He had to admit that she wasn’t the most passionate female he’d ever been with, in fact she was rather lifeless, but, with all the lights on, it was fun in a visual kind of way.

“You’re pretty out of shape, Stephan,” Lola said.

He flinched and sucked in his gut.

“You should schedule some sessions with me out of bed,” she continued, propping herself on her side as she smiled at him. “We’ll focus on trimming body fat and adding definition. In the meantime, you should cut down on your refined carbs and try some of the protein powder I was telling you about.”

What the hell was this? He hadn’t asked her for her advice!

“I hate to say this, but the nutrition plan Theo and Lucy are using seems to work. Have you checked out their Web site? Hundreds of people are now following their program. It’s, like, amazing.”

Stephan felt his blood pressure build.

“Stephan?” Lola sat up cross-legged, and he was fascinated at how the only things that seemed to roll or crinkle on her body were three tiny creases of darkly tanned skin around her waist. No fat. Anywhere. He wondered if that might be unnatural.

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a few moments, then put a hand over his eyes. When had it gotten so complicated? All he’d wanted was to reward himself for working so hard all these years, have a little fun. So he’d been siphoning some profits to a bank in the Caymans. So what? A lot of businesspeople did it. But now he’d gone and pissed off Murray Goldstein, who was threatening to sic the feds on him.

It was all Lucy’s fault. She’d gone out there and worked her ass off-literally-and now his ass was in real danger of being sent to prison or ending up in a watery grave at the bottom of Biscayne Bay. He didn’t know which was worse.

At this point, it wasn’t even about stopping her from losing weight anymore. The damage had been done. Now Stephan just wanted to make her pay.

“Here.” Stephan hoisted himself up off the bed and leaned over toward the nightstand drawer. “I have a little something for you, Lola. Just to let you know how special you are to me.”

He watched with satisfaction as Lola opened the jewelry box and gasped at the platinum toe ring.

“It’s great!” She wasted no time placing it on the second toe of her right foot Then she hugged Stephan tight, which made him feel amorous for the third time that day, which could have very well been a record.

Lola ended the hug and spent a few moments admiring her newly festooned toe, then let her gaze return to Stephan’s. It really was a pity she didn’t have a pretty face, but he figured a man couldn’t have everything.

“You know, Stephan, Lucy hasn’t shown up at the gym for at least a couple weeks.”

Now they were getting somewhere-a little platinum apparently greased the skids. “Really now?”

“I think she and Theo had a huge fight.”

This was welcome news. “Do you think Lucy’s losing her momentum?” he asked.

“Maybe. But I know Theo, and he doesn’t like quitters. He’ll do everything he can to convince her to come back.”

“So you like the toe ring?” Stephan enjoyed watching the eager nod of her head and wondered just how much of this game Lola was cognizant of.

“I love it!”

“Why don’t you poke around a little at the gym and find out what you can about Lucy? You know, if she’s gone off her diet and has stopped exercising completely, stuff like that. Maybe we can leak it to the press-bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.”

Lola gave him a little frown. “I don’t like Lucy much, but you
really
don’t like her, do you? I mean, you act like you
hate
Lucy Cunningham.”

Stephan smiled. “Let’s just say she won’t be getting a raise this year.”

“Whatever happened to the picture?” Buddy jogged along at Theo’s side, the sweat soaking through his T-shirt.

“I sent it to myself registered mail that next morning, so it has the date on it. I’m waiting for the right time to show it to her.”

“She’s still not coming to see you at the gym?”

“No. And she won’t answer her any of her phones. She won’t return e-mails.”

“I’m sorry, Theo.” Buddy shook his head. “That was a real nice picture, too.”

Theo laughed. The picture was pretty stupid. But it was the best he could do at the time. At least it would get the point across, and he knew that someday Lucy would find the humor in it.

At least he hoped.

“Buddy, let me ask you something.”

“Sure.”

“Have you thought much about how you’ll feel if I get back into med school?”

Buddy raised the hem of his shirt and swiped at his sweaty face, not answering right away. “I’ll be OK, Theo. I’m growing up. I want you to be happy. When’s your big test?”

“Next Friday.” Theo patted his brother’s shoulder and knew they needed to wrap up their morning run. They’d gone through the Miami Springs residential neighborhood this morning instead of the track, because Lucy wasn’t joining them.

“I miss her a lot,” Buddy said.

“I miss her, too.”

“You’ve got to get her back, Theo. She’s the nicest lady who’s ever loved you.”

Buddy was right again. Lucy was the nicest lady who’d ever loved Theo. In fact, she was the most of everything of any woman Theo had ever met. And if he’d already lost her, he’d never stop kicking his own stupid ass.

“Do you worry that you don’t have time to love her? Is that what’s making you so dumb about this?”

Buddy’s question nearly knocked the wind out of him.

“Is it because of
me
, Theo? Do I take up too much of your time?”

“Oh God, Buddy. No.”

“ ‘Cause I won’t be living with you forever, you know. I want my own apartment after I graduate, and I want to get a job and maybe even get married one day. I worry that you’ll just sit around being lonely.”

Theo nudged his brother to turn left at Pinecrest so they could head back toward their place on DeLeon. “I won’t be doing much sitting around, Bud. I won’t even be doing much sleeping. Not for a lot of years.”

“Yeah, but even busy people get lonely. I worry that you’ll be sad, wishing you still had Lucy. So you’d probably better get her back now.”

Theo stopped running, and Buddy came to a halt in front of him. He looked at his amazing brother- someone who was determined to carve out a life for himself without a single guarantee of success-and wondered why he couldn’t be just as courageous.

“You look surprised that I have these plans, Theo.”

“Not surprised. Proud.”

Buddy put his hands on his hips and smiled, his eyes squinting through his thick glasses. “I think Lucy makes you even happier than Jenna. Lucy loves you back. I don’t think Jenna did.”

We Loves Lucy 233

Theo gulped the air and stared at his brother. “You’re right, Bud. You’re right about everything.”

Buddy gave Theo a friendly slap on his back, and the two jogged the few blocks back to their house in silence. As they stretched in the driveway, Norton padded across the grass to sit near them, cleaning himself. Occasionally he would glance in their direction.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m taking Norton with me when I get my own place. But you and Lucy can visit.”

Theo broke out in a huge smile. “You can count on it, Bud.”

“It’s been two hours. Give the guy a break, Lucy.”

Veronica slipped in Lucy’s office door and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her toe.

“I don’t want to see him.”

“He’s such a nice guy.”

“Is there anything else? Or was this just a ‘Theo Redmond is still in the building’ update?”

“He’s been hanging out in the lobby three days now.”

Lucy chewed on the end of her pen, hearing and feeling her stomach rumble. She’d basically been starving herself the last few days, trying to make up for overdoing it the previous week. But she felt exhausted, shaky, and about as cranky as she’d been in ten months. “What’s he doing out there?”

“Studying. He said his test is Friday. He said he took the whole week off to study.”

Lucy cringed.
And to sit around in the Sherrod amp; Thorns lobby
. She was ashamed of herself-if Theo didn’t do well it would be all her fault. If he didn’t reach his dream it would be…

His dream! Maybe he was here about the money! Maybe that’s all he wanted.

“You can send him in,” Lucy said abruptly.

Veronica let her head swivel around in surprise. “Huh?”

“Send him in. Let’s get this over with.”

Theo popped in a moment later and shut the door behind him. He sat down in one of the chairs in front of Lucy’s desk and threw a heavy-looking backpack on the other.

As he glanced around her office, Lucy realized Theo had never before been here. She wondered if he liked the pale yellow walls and the combination of primitive and modern art. Then she reminded herself she didn’t care what he liked.

He smiled at her. “How are you, Luce?”

What kind of a greeting was that? Like she could answer that question truthfully!

“Fine, thanks.”

One of Theo’s eyes squinted and his smile grew a bit crooked.

“And how are you, Theo?”

‘Tired and nervous about tomorrow. And I miss you, Cunningham.“

Why did he have to be so direct? So… Theo?

“I suppose you want to talk about the money.”

He said nothing and didn’t move, and she took that as his way of letting on that he was embarrassed about it, but that’s exactly why he was here.

“I’ve thought it over,” she went on, “and I think the equitable thing would be to have Ramona pay you for the seventy-two pounds, through last month, and then the rest should go to Tyson.”

Theo still said nothing.

“I know that’s not all the money you’d hoped to have for med school, but it’s still a lot.”