Praise for The Whitney Chronicles

“Whitney Blake…becomes not just a fictional character, but a ‘girlfriend’—so much so that readers might have to remember they can’t meet her for a cup of coffee.”

—Christian Retailing

“Baer has created fascinating characters with real-life problems and triumphs that show readers the details of living out faith daily.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“With sixty-five books to her credit, Baer knows how to spin a good tale…. The results are genuinely enjoyable.”

—Publishers Weekly

“When Whitney Blake grabbed a Snickers bar, I knew she was my kind of girl. In The Whitney Chronicles, Judy Baer nailed the chick-lit voice and created a delightful, quirky cast of characters. She’s now on my very short list of great chick-lit writers.”

—Colleen Coble, bestselling author of the Rock Harbor mystery series

“The Whitney Chronicles is chick-lit fun for the Christian set—and anyone else looking for a breezy, heartfelt read!”

—Kristin Billerbeck, bestselling author of What a Girl Wants

The Whitney Chronicles
Judy Baer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Adrienne

(who gives invaluable feedback—thanks, honey!)

and Aaron—all my love

So be very careful how you live. Do not live like those who are not wise. Live wisely. I mean that you should use every chance you have for doing good, because these are evil times. So do not be foolish with your lives, but learn what the Lord wants you to do.

—Ephesians 5:15–17

CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

OCTOBER

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

NOVEMBER

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

DECEMBER

CHAPTER 11

JANUARY

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

FEBRUARY

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

MARCH

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

APRIL

CHAPTER 18

MAY

CHAPTER 19

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

SEPTEMBER

CHAPTER 1

September 14

spin•ster: 1. A woman who spins. Alfred the Great in his will, called the female part of his family the spindle side. In Saxon times, it was believed that a woman wasn’t ready to marry until she’d spun her own table, bed and body linens. Any maiden or any unmarried woman was considered a spinner, or spinster. 2. An unmarried woman; an old maid.

My name is Whitney Blake and not only is today my birthday, but it’s also the day I outgrew my fat pants. My friend Kim Easton told me the most depressing day of her life was the day she realized she’d outgrown her maternity clothes and she wasn’t even pregnant. I feel her pain.

Kim told me—and she had it from a good source, Oprah, maybe—that keeping a journal is an important part of knowing oneself. She says it will be especially good for me because, at thirty, I’m unmarried and currently stuck somewhere between death and puberty. It is also proof that I’m actually learning and maturing over the course of my life. I’m starting my journal today because I need proof that by this time next year I’ll have learned or accomplished something. My goal is not to be a useless leech on the crust of the earth.

Turning the big three-oh was more of a shock than I’d expected. Last year I was in total denial about the inevitability of this birthday. I didn’t reach a single goal I’d set for myself. “Lose ten pounds” turned into “lose fifteen.” “Exercise daily” became “exercise monthly.” And “meet a nice Christian man” should have been “meet a breathing one.”

Kim gave me this journal as a birthday gift. She had the words The Whitney Chronicles printed in gold on the cover. She hopes that will intimidate me into using it.

Well, here goes.

Goals for my thirtieth year:

Today: Begin a journal in which I will give a daily account of my life and how I am improving mentally, spiritually and physically and progressing toward my year-end goals. (That’s pompous-sounding… Oh, well.)

This week: Give check to children’s ministry so as not to be tempted to spend it like I did last month. (Note—give double this month.) Wax my legs. Bleach my teeth. Floss daily. Return black blouse (unneeded, as I already have three). Put myself on a budget. Follow it for a change. Be the perfect employee no matter what my boss, Harry, throws at me. Continue practice of adding words to my vocabulary, e.g., “spinster.”

My mother is sure that if I don’t get in gear soon, I’m in dire jeopardy of becoming one. Although I’m not worried about spending the rest of my life making tablecloths and bedding, I don’t want to end up alone in a high-rise condominium brushing a crotchety Pekinese and wondering if, when my Prince Charming does come, I’ll be able to find my bifocals and upper plate.

This month: Lose six…no, four…no, two…no, four…okay, five pounds sensibly. Then, in three months, I can wear all the clothes in my closet again. Exercise. Do not let my mother drive me crazy (a particularly difficult project). Get organized. Start by cleaning closets. Quit falling for every organizing gadget on the market. No more hanging shoe racks, drawer dividers or file cabinets. And, under no circumstances, another set of plastic drawers on wheels. Have friends over for dinner. Read my Bible more. Pray more, obsess less.

This year: Lose fifteen pounds, make a career step (preferably upward). Learn how to change a tire. Find a new hairstyle. Quit thinking of self as chubby. Become less of a couch potato and more of a social butterfly. Give up being an introvert. Become a raging extrovert. Meet and date a nice Christian man….

Clarification! Meet but do not date a nice Christian man—I do not need a man to make my life complete or to feel whole. Besides, Kim says diffidence is the best way to catch a guy anyway.

And, like my monthly goal, ditto on Bible reading and prayer.

This decade: See above, plus get married, have a baby and/or become a marketing consultant genius and get rich and famous. (If so, I can always marry after.) It might be fun to be a philanthropist instead of a parent for a few years. Besides, I am in no rush to meet a man (note yearly goals).

I weighed myself this morning and couldn’t believe what I saw—even when I stood on the scale with my palms on the bathroom counter. Unless I learn to levitate, it is very clear that I have to go on a diet. I’ve heard the body clings harder to excess weight the older one gets. I just didn’t think it would cling so hard so fast….

Anyway, I was already late for work by the time I discovered the waist-expansion issue (my euphemism for disgusting fat). Although being marketing coordinator at Innova Computer Solutions—ICS—allows me to dress casually, I doubt belly bloat oozing out of my zipper is allowed.

Rather than search my closet for a larger pair of pants (impossible anyway, because I refuse to buy a pair), I hooked the waistband together by looping a ponytail holder through the buttonhole and stretching it over the button (a trick I learned from Kim in the early days of her pregnancy). With a long shirt, tails out, and a jacket, I hoped no one would notice the bulge. I did, however, suddenly begin to wonder about the quality of the rubber used in hair bands. A few deep knee bends loosened the fabric, which had obviously shrunk in the wash, and I was on my way. I spent most of the day treading the fine line between mandatory shallow breathing and hyperventilation.

If only solving problems at work (work—is there a way to indicate a shudder on paper?) were so easy!

My boss, Harry Harrison, went mental on us today. He discovered an upcoming trade show at which it was imperative that Innova be represented with a booth and marketing people. Unfortunately the show is next week, and I usually need a lead time of two months to prepare. Harry didn’t seem to care that he was the one who forgot to inform the marketing department of this vital trade show. Harry is a computer genius, but not the most organized man in the world. Frustrated, too, probably. I’d hate to be a balding man named Harry Harrison. But I digress….

The good news at work today was that I calculated that banging one’s head against a wall uses at least 125 calories an hour. That meant I earned 500 extra calories for my birthday dinner.

In spite of my newfound caloric knowledge, I had to go to my parents’ house for dinner. Mother’s pork chops and onion gravy should be applied directly to my thighs, because that where they’ll end up anyway. The mashed potatoes with a life raft of butter floating in the center settled directly on the flubber keeping my pants open. (I’m going to write a thank-you note to the rubber-band manufacturer tomorrow.) And the minimal calories in the “I-realize-angel-food-cake-isn’t-your-favorite-but-I-know-you-are-dieting” birthday cake balanced the mounds of whipping cream covering it.

Mother, at a hundred and one pounds and a metabolism that won’t quit, has never gotten the hang of dieting. A cruel trick of nature if ever there was one. No matter how thin I am, at five-eight, with broad shoulders, a potentially slim waist and size nine shoes, I’m always referred to in the family as “the big one.” It’s a wonder I’m as sane as I am.

I knew it was going to be a bad evening when Mom opened the door with her shirttails tied in a knot over her belly button and a tiny battery-operated fan in her hand. It wouldn’t be so traumatic if menopause had crept up on her slowly, so Dad and I could grow accustomed to it over time. Instead, it was like a door flying open and quickly slamming shut—one moment she was on one side of the door and the next she was on the other. If she’d had a choice, she would have picked the prize behind any other door. She has a good attitude toward this new phase of her life, however. She says the hair on her legs grows much more slowly now, and she doesn’t have to shave so often.

“Come in, darling,” she said, scraping damp hair away from her forehead. “Daddy is in the kitchen opening the windows. How can you stand to have those heavy clothes on in this weather?” She reached for my lightweight sweater, but I crossed my arms and hung on. The air conditioner was running full blast.

“Hi, Pumpkin.” Daddy crossed the room to give me a hug. No matter how old I get, I’ll always be his little girl.

“How are you?”

“Getting along, despite the fact my back has started going out more than I do.”

“Quit with the old-age jokes, Frank. You’re in the prime of life!” Mom gave him a glare that should have melted steel.

Daddy winked at me and headed for the table. He was, as he always said, “being a duck.” That’s how he and Mom had managed to be married all these years and still be happy. When I was growing up, every time my feelings were hurt, he’d tell me, “Be a duck, Whitney, let it roll off you like water rolls off a duck’s back. Ducks have oil in their top feathers that keeps their under-feathers dry. You need to grow a few oily feathers. Don’t let mean words or insensitive comments make you uncomfortable. Let them roll right off.”

If I ever marry, I think that’s one piece of advice that will come in very handy.

“Tell me, Whitney, have you heard from that nice young man from church?” Mother asked as she held an ice cube to her temple and stirred the gravy. It had a quarter-inch of shimmering grease on top.

That “nice young man” is forty-five if he’s a day and very adept at evading eligible single women and their matchmaking mothers. If the church had a football team, he would be their halfback.

I performed my own punt, pass and kick maneuvers. “Cake looks great, Mom. So, Dad, how about those Vikings?”

My mother has a knack for entertaining. She once took a class on twenty ways to fold a napkin, and we’ve never had a flat napkin since. Tonight they were shaped into little hats with “Happy Birthday” stickers all over them. She’d made a centerpiece of chopsticks, ribbons and cutouts from egg cartons that looked amazingly like a bouquet of balloons. She uses her “good” china for every meal. My “good” china consisted of a collection of Rainbow Bright glasses and the wicker holders for paper plates.

We sat down at the table and began the same conversation we’ve had every year since I quit having little friends over to play on my birthday. It involves Mother recounting the entire day of my birth, from the saga of when her water broke, through the race to the hospital during which Dad’s car ran out of gas, right into the delivery room. These stories give me far more details than I ever wanted to know. I am deliriously grateful that Dad did not have the presence of mind to bring a video camera into the delivery room.

Then, as is their custom, they wandered into their own childhoods and reminisced about wax lips, Black Jack gum, drive-in movies and sodas that came in glass bottles. Sooner or later they would remember whose birthday it was and start regaling me with stories of my own life—usually the ones I’ve tried for years to forget. Like the time I wet my pants in Sunday school and tried to sneak the damply incriminating evidence home wrapped in a picture I’d colored of David and Goliath. Or the time I “borrowed” a trinket from the drugstore without paying for it and Mom made me take it back and apologize. And the Sunday school Christmas program when, in a fit of shyness, I tried to hide and got my head stuck between the spindles on the altar railing, bottom out toward the congregation. My only consolation is that I had ruffles on my panties.

My presents—always an exercise in surprise—were quite nice this year. I got a savings bond from Grandma (who hasn’t really accepted that I’m no longer in grade school), a new outfit from Mom and the traditional money folded in a card identical to the one I get every year. Mom purchased the box of cards several years ago when the local band was trying to earn enough money to go to Epcot Center. She says the cards are too ugly to give to anyone except family. No exercise equipment this year (apparently she’d found the Thighmaster I’d received for my twenty-eighth birthday unused in my garage). And thankfully there were no books by Martha Stewart on how to plan a wedding or notes indicating Mom would be willing to pay for a preliminary visit to a dating service and their introductory offer promising five dates or my money back.

I escaped with my birthday gifts in tow and more advice about how to meet a “nice single Christian man.” In my life experience—at least lately, “nice single Christian man” is an oxymoron. I don’t want to be cynical, but things are beginning to look bleak. Maybe God doesn’t have someone ready for me yet. Or perhaps I’m not ready for him. Even though I trust things will turn out right, Mother feels that I’m duty-bound to do my part in the search.

Unfortunately, she’s willing to help me. Tonight’s Bible verse:

The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.

—1 Samuel 16:7

And Samuel should know, being a prophet who wanted to keep his heart pure before God. God loves me for what’s inside me. I must organize my thoughts as well as my life, set my priorities and always put Him first. If our thoughts and intentions were as visible to others as our designer jeans, what would people see in me?

Must add kindly thoughts and good deeds to my goals ASAP.

September 15

blame•storm•ing: My officemates sitting in the coffee room discussing what’s going on in the office and whose fault it is.

Day two of diet. Felt as though small animals were clawing at my insides. Two slices of dry toast and an apple helped somewhat. Must make a note to myself never to drink coffee on an empty stomach again. Good thing I had Bible study after work. It’s something to look forward to while Harry has a nervous breakdown. The trouble is, he’s a carrier, the Typhoid Mary of insanity. When he’s cracking, it spreads through the office like wildfire.

The office manager, Betty Nobel, has worked at Innova since its inception seven years ago. She’s practically attached to Harry at the hip, and whatever he feels, she feels. That must be like riding a broken roller coaster in the carnival fun house in the dark after eating junk food all day. Wretched.

The amazing part is that she’s often more unreasonable than Harry. Betty’s the one who came up with the latest guidelines for employee absences. As far as Kim and I can figure out, we’re not allowed to go to any family member’s funeral except our own, and that, of course, with several weeks’ notice so Betty and Harry can hire a replacement and we can train them ourselves. My assistant, Bryan Kellund, once brought in an emergency-room bill to prove he’d really been ill. Betty didn’t buy that either. She said if he’d gotten as far as the hospital, the office was only a couple more blocks away, and if he’d really cared about his work…

Just thinking about office politics made me want to eat my lunch early—a nice tuna salad with low-fat mayo on endive and bibb lettuce. Also some insignificant hard candies and a few M&M’s I discovered under the tissue box in my top drawer. Must work on problematic issue of depending on food to comfort me—tomorrow.

Fortunately my friend and co-worker in marketing is always calm. When things get hairy (because of Harry?), Kim does the deep-breathing technique she learned in Lamaze class before she delivered her baby last year. We’re usually hyperventilating by the time Harry’s crisis is over.

Example: I turned in the cost estimates for new marketing materials that Harry had asked to see. I was hoping to have it ready for our next show, which would be in Lost Wages…er, Las Vegas. It even surprised me a little. I’d expected double the estimate on our old booth, but apparently paper, cardboard and pressed-wood prices are volatile, and it was nearly triple the original bid. When Harry came to me with that irate grizzly-bear expression on his face, cracking his (hairy!) knuckles, I knew I had a problem. Actually, knuckle cracking is just that—a bubble of gas bursting. And Harry was a whole bunch of gas about to blow up. Nasty.

I managed to circumvent the problem for the moment, but I was about to explode by the time he returned to his own office. Fortunately, I discovered the rest of my M&M’s—a two-pound bag, wedged at the back of my office drawer. Devouring it took the edge off my nerves.

Bryan has the best crisis-management solution. He simply leaves for the rest room at the first sign of trouble and doesn’t return until it’s over. He either has great hearing or an amazing sixth sense. I’ve also speculated about the seemingly minimal capacity of his bladder. Bryan is allergic to conflict and can smell it coming a mile away. I’m convinced he knows how to dematerialize and turn up again in the spot farthest from the action. He even has an ethereal look about him with his mushroom-colored hair, pale, pasty complexion and enormous gray eyes that never look straight at me.

Mitzi, who has no known use at all in the office as far as Kim and I can figure out, delights in conflict. It stirs up her juices. It also gives her something to do—rile Harry so he’ll explode. Usually when Mitzi opens her mouth, it’s to change feet. Mitzi came to work at Innova to see how the “other half” lives. Her husband is a very wealthy podiatrist. She says he owes it all to strapless high heels. I think flat, sensible Birkenstocks make him a little nervous. Mitzi could stay home and count her glass slippers, but no, she comes in every day—sometimes early—just to torment us.

One of her most evil schemes involves chocolate. Mitzi is the only woman I’ve ever met who doesn’t like chocolate. Therefore, she brings chocolate delicacies to the office at least three times a week just to see Kim and me salivate. Kim’s still trying to get rid of baby weight. I’m trying to prevent having someone ask me when my baby is due.

Today it was éclairs with frosting a half-inch thick. Be still, my heart.

Kim’s one-year-old, Wesley, got a new tooth today, a molar. You’d have thought he’d erupted an oil well in his mouth, the way she carried on. Other than her blow-by-blow reporting of Wesley’s every grin, burp and bowel movement, Kim is a great friend—the best, actually. We have the same rather skewed sense of humor and similar goals—getting a raise, for one. She doesn’t need a husband because she already has one—and a nice Christian one at that. Kurt is an over-the-road semitruck driver/late-in-life student who wants to be either an accountant or a pastor, no matter what it takes. Those two professions don’t seem to have much in common, but I know for sure he’d be a very trustworthy accountant. Right now, between classes and over-the-roaders, he’s fully occupied.

Kim’s also a Christian. That makes all the difference.

Mitzi was lying in wait for me as I left the office. She always does that on Tuesdays, when she knows I leave promptly at five. Otherwise she’s gone so fast that her desk chair is still spinning when we hear the door slam.

“There are sooo many éclairs left that you’ll have to take them home.” She waved the open box holding five fat beauties, chocolate frosting glistening. Like she’d ever offer me anything useful, like help around the office. Oh, no, Mitzi was only generous when it served her depraved purposes, one of which is to make me weigh more than she does.

“Thanks a lot, but I’m on a diet.”

“No wonder there were so many left today. Then take them for your neighbors. You do have neighbors, don’t you?” She smiled sweetly.

“Thankfully, yes. They did not all move away when they discovered I was living nearby.” Sarcasm is wasted on Mitzi, but it made me feel better. What on earth goes through that perfectly groomed brunette head of hers?

“Well, I’m sure they’ll love these.” Somehow she managed to transport the box into my hands, pick up her purse and escape before I could argue. At least I’d have goodies to share at Bible study.

As so often happens on the freeway, the drive to the church brought up the subject of Christian ethics. I’m a Christian. What does that mean in my everyday life? If I believe it, I have to live it. Every choice I make, every word I speak, needs to be done through that filter of faith. So here’s my question. What is it with rude drivers?

As I left the parking lot, a woman shot up behind me and stuck the nose of her SUV into my back bumper. Even though the street was practically empty, she followed me as closely as she could without driving into my trunk.

I’m a fanatic about being polite in traffic. It seems to me that’s where most people lose track of walking the Christian walk—or, in this case, driving the Christian drive. I’m no saint, but I usually don’t expose my sinful nature when I’m driving two tons of rolling metal.

Anyway, this woman (definitely not a “lady”) honked at me when I didn’t turn fast enough for her. She had her nose in the air as she sailed around me without even a wave. I had several uncharitable thoughts but guiltily dropped back as if I’d been the one speeding and followed her to…the church parking lot.

Now, what I want to know is this—if you profess to be a Christian, if you want to let God’s light shine through you—where do you get off being rude behind the wheel? Isn’t part of the Christian life about behaving as Christ would behave? Would He have run the light, tailgated until the person ahead of Him was a wreck, honked His horn and broken the speed limit—all to get to Bible study on time?

I don’t think so.

I’m going to buy a bumper sticker I saw last week for my rear bumper: Are You Following Jesus This Closely?

That’s one thing I’ve learned since I found God and He found me. It’s easy to talk Christianity, but not so easy to walk it. Fortunately, I lost track of Ms. Speedy in the church. By the time Bible study was over, I even felt like praying for her. (“Oh, Lord, keep that nutcase off the streets….” Just kidding!!!)

Ironically, I know lots of people who will spend hours at the gym so they can live longer—and then drive thirty miles an hour over the speed limit to make up for all the time they wasted doing it.

Thoughtlessly, I ate one of the éclairs to soothe my nerves.

I had four calls on my answering machine when I got home. Three from my mother—“Whitney, you forgot the dishrags I knitted for you out of scrap yarn.” (Now how did that happen?) “Whitney, do you want me to invite that nice young man from church and his mother over for dinner?” (As if she could even catch him!) And, “Whitney, I don’t know where my mind is these days. I’m so forgetful. Did I tell you that you forgot your dishrags at my house?”

Menopause can be brutal. I know now why women over fifty shouldn’t have babies. They’d lay them down and forget where they put them.

The fourth call was from Eric Van Horne. He’s a very special man in my life. We’ve been friends for years, and I don’t know if a more good-natured man exists. We dated for a while, and I really thought Eric might be the one for me. He’s brilliant, but impulsive and completely undependable. I spent many nights wondering if he had actually asked me out and, if so, where was he? I knew from the outset that no matter whom Eric dated, she’d have to agree to take second place to his love for airplanes. News of an air show in a neighboring state would drive everything else from his mind. He’d jump into his car, sniff the air and head in the direction of jet fuel. And on Monday he’d remember we’d had plans for the weekend.

Ardor fades quickly after sitting by the phone for a few weeks waiting for a call. Actually, we came to the decision together that until either I learned to love madcap spontaneity or he learned to be dependable and predictable, we’d just be friends. So far we’ve managed to navigate the bumpy waters of remaining friends and seeing each other socially.

“Hi, Whit! Sorry I didn’t call sooner. Wanted to tell you about the great air show I attended. You should see my photos!”

“I don’t know if I can stand being dumped for a crop duster again, Eric.”

“What a kidder you are, Whit. I took a picture of a woman and the plane she uses for acrobatics. She reminded me of you.”

“At least you thought of me.” I can’t be too hard on him. Eric is darling, but has what Kim calls “zero mac.” He enjoys life too much to be cool and is way too exuberant to be macho.

Actually, that may be his best quality.

The Bible verse that comes to mind when I think of Eric is Proverbs 18:24: “Some friends may ruin you. But a real friend will be more loyal than a brother.”

Mitzi may be in the first category. Kim and Eric are in the second. While Mitzi spends the day making snide remarks about my age (as if she’ll ever see thirty-five again!), Eric called a second time to apologize for standing me up. He says he just “lost track of time.”

Somehow, I believe him. I’ve known from the start that Eric has the attention span of a flea, a heart of gold and a bloodhound’s nose for airplanes, and I wasn’t going to change him no matter what I did. I’ve never gone into a relationship with that rehab-attitude. I take a guy for what he is, not for what I think he could become.

Eric is actually a much better friend than he is a date. A girl could get old waiting around for a guy like him.

I was too exhausted to cook supper, so I just heated a family-size ready-made lasagna in the oven. It was so big, I figured it would last me for days. Tasty, too. Then I started thinking about work. Ate a little more lasagna. As I put away the pan, I realized I’d eaten quite a little more. Now there’s just one measly portion left for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow! I’ll restart my diet, seriously this time. I’ll count calories. To make sure I didn’t forget, I dug out my old calorie counter from previous diets.

I can’t believe a measly portion of lasagna has 230 calories. That would mean the rest of my frozen dinner would have…1840 calories! Feeling a little sick, but driven to find out exactly what kind of havoc I’d wreaked, I did today’s math.

Breakfast: | two slices dry toast—140 calories 1 apple—81 calories
Lunch: | tuna salad with low-fat mayo on bibb and endive lettuce—150 calories 6 hard candies—125 calories 1 ounce M&M’s—140 calories
Snack: | other 31 ounces of M&M’s—4,340 calories
Accident: | 1 éclair—500 calories
Dinner: | 7 portions of an 8-portion heat-and-serve lasagna—1840 calories
Snack: | Tums—0 calories (medicinal, don’t count)

Seven thousand three hundred and sixteen calories?

I have to stay calm. Running screaming into the street would not help. I ran by it again…. I’m on a 1200-calorie-a-day diet; 7316 divided by 1200 equals…six days. That means I can’t eat again until September 21!

Stay calm. Start over. Tomorrow will be a clean slate. I’ll utilize all I’ve learned so that I don’t make those mistakes again. Can rubber bands stretch enough to compensate for today?

My prayers for tonight: For a successful trip to Las Vegas, for my boss and officemates (as undeserving as they may be—just kidding!), Mom’s hot flashes, Dad’s sanity, Eric’s memory and my life as a thirty-something. Where do You want me in this new decade of my life, Lord? And gratitude—for all of the above and for Your Son, Who loved me more than I can ever imagine.

Humbly,

Whitney

CHAPTER 2

God wants everyone to eat and drink and be Happy in His work. These are gifts from God.

—Ecclesiastes 3:13

September 20

I’m getting the hang of this journal thing. It’s like telling a close personal friend about my day. I haven’t made much progress in the self-improvement area other than managing to get the zipper closed on my fat pants.

I returned the black blouse. Since I’d put the blouse on my credit card, I didn’t really feel I’d spent any money—or gained any when I returned it. So, being financially even, I went shopping, bought shoes and, naturally, charged them. There is something to be said for the tactile quality of cash. It is definitely much harder to pry out of my hand than plastic.

My feet are pretty much the only things on my body that don’t change size. Of course, my mother did tell me if I didn’t wear shoes, my arches would fall and I’d be flat-footed for the rest of my life. She also taught me that if I didn’t quit crossing my eyes, they would freeze that way, and if I drank coffee, it would stunt my growth. It’s a wonder I’m alive today considering all the risks I took.

September 21

Dad has begun hiding out to get away from Mother and her wildly fluctuating body temperature. He offered to come over and fix my plumbing (which isn’t broken), build me a piece of furniture (something he’s never done before in his life) and repaint my ceilings. He is one desperate man, so I invited him over for a visit. I thought I might cheer him up.

“Have you got something for me to do?” were his first words. “Please?”

“What’s Mother up to today?”

“Cleaning closets. She rented a Dumpster and is emptying everything we own into it. I expect to go home to an empty house.”

“Don’t worry. There’s probably a lot of junk you needed to get rid of by now.”

Dad scowled at me. “It’s only ‘junk’ until you throw it away. Have you noticed that as soon as the garbagemen leave the neighborhood, we have to replace everything we never thought we’d use again? Your mother is going to send me into bankruptcy!”

“It can’t be that bad. What harm can she do? Try to be more open-minded about this phase of her life,” I encouraged.

“‘Open-minded?’ Whitney, if I’m any more open-minded where your mother is concerned, my brains will fall out!”

I have the greatest father in the world. He’s odd, unique and one of a kind, but he’s also tenderhearted and very patient where his “little girl” and his wife are concerned. Mom is wonderful, but she can be opinionated, single-minded, stubborn and, these days, totally off-the-wall. If their strengths and weaknesses were blended together, they’d make one amazing parent—and one delightfully wacky one. They met as teenagers and it was love at first sight—on my dad’s part. Mom had taken longer to come around. Tiny, extroverted and beautiful, she’d had men circling her like planes over Dallas, and it had taken her a while to fit Dad onto her radar screen. Dad said she was the most popular girl on campus. Another thing I can’t relate with Mom about….

“Coffee, Dad?”

“Are you kidding? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon! Do you want me to be up all night? Do you know what caffeine does to me? Combine that with your mother jumping up to turn on the air conditioner and me having to go to the bathroom….” He shook his head so dismally, my heart nearly broke.

“It’s not that bad, Dad. She’ll get over this, things will be better soon. Don’t think of your glass as half empty. Think of it as half full.”

He gave me a wry grin. “Yeah, and before long I’ll have my teeth floating in it.”

September 22

I thought Harry (and, by association, Betty) would become hysterical when Kim and I outlined the plans for getting a late booth into the technology show in Las Vegas. The ideas were feasible, even downright brilliant…but also expensive. Unfortunately, Harry’s hobby is pinching pennies until they scream. I had to pay full price for airline tickets, and coach was booked, which meant an upgrade to first class. There was only one room left in the conference hotel, and that was a suite. Add to that the cost of the booth, getting signage and entertaining a client list (who, being called at the last moment, would need to be treated with extra—read expensive—care) and Harry might as well have invested in a small gold mine. But you can’t pull something together in a week for the cost of something planned months in advance. Unfortunately we who already knew this had to suffer right along in Harry’s learning curve.

The good news is that his tantrum was short-circuited by an incredibly handsome new client arriving at the office between “Do you know how much this is going to cost” and—my favorite—“Next time plan ahead for these unplanned surprises.”

Handsome Client had a great smile, dark brown hair and eyes so green they remind me of the Emerald Isle. (The one I’ve seen in travel magazines. I want to see it in person soon—add that to Yearly Goals.) And he was six feet tall, athletically slim and wore the best suit I’ve seen outside of GQ. I found myself wondering if he was nice, Christian and single. Mother would have been so proud.

Harry called me into his office to introduce me to Matthew Lambert, CEO of a small but successful firm that roasts peanuts, pecans and the like. Lambert also makes nut butters, glazed and candied nuts and a dozen other calorie-laden items.

Matthew Lambert must have noticed me licking my lips in response to his job description, because he commented on my apparent enthusiasm for the project. Actually, all I’d had for lunch was a pathetic pile of tuna and three slices of melba toast.

Lambert is building a completely automated and computerized plant and wants Harry to design some specialized software. Apparently he wants a computer that can roast peanuts. If technology can provide a way to burn CDs, it seems like roasting a peanut should be a snap.

Harry always calls me in for the preliminaries. This is usually best for all concerned, as I have some social graces. I take over while Harry disappears with his stable of computer geeks to work his software magic. He has a deft hand on a mouse and the ability to memorize all of the numbers in a phone book. I, on the other hand, have a personality.

While I was dreaming up a way to ask Mr. Lambert if he wanted to discuss his new alliance with Innova over coffee, his cell phone rang and he was summoned away. It’s my mother’s fault. She filled my head with all that talk about “nice young men.” (I did glance at his ring finger first, though. It was bare. Promising…)

It wasn’t until I got back to my desk that the cell phone thing began to annoy me. How do people justify thinking they’re so important that they have to be accessible to everyone, everywhere at all times? Humans are so vain. Men in gyms run on treadmills and talk into their cells. I’ve heard women in toilet stalls making luncheon dates and others in dressing rooms at the mall counseling their friends on the latest jerk they dated. Just last week I pulled up at a stoplight beside a guy on a Harley. He was talking on a cell phone and there was a bumper sticker on his bike that said, Thugs Are People Too. Go figure.

September 22, later

Eric has been calling. This boy/girl stuff can ruin a great friendship. Still, if he asks me, I wouldn’t mind going out for an evening. It’s been months since I’ve seen a movie that wasn’t on television.

Just the thought of an evening out inspired a rush of adrenaline through my system. Having recently traded my exercise bike (obscenely expensive clothes rack with wheels) for a bookcase, a yoga mat and a lava lamp, I decided to wax my legs.

Three minutes into the project I remembered why I hate waxing my legs.

Rather than scald off my skin by overheating the wax in the microwave, I heated it on the stove. I forgot about it for just a moment when I spied some leftover potato chips (very rare at my house). Not wanting to waste food (starving children in Beverly Hills and all that), I stuffed them into my mouth before I remembered my goal to lose fifteen pounds. Occasionally I worry about my memory. Some days the only thing I seem able to retain is water.

I tried spitting the chips out into the sink, but accidentally spluttered them into the hot wax instead.

Deciding that the potato chips wouldn’t hurt either the wax or my legs, I carried the pan to the bathroom. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I began frosting my hairy legs with chip-speckled yellow wax. The wax went from being too hot to too cold in a nanosecond. I didn’t dare toddle back into the kitchen to return it to the stove as I was afraid the wax would harden on my legs and become a permanent part of my flesh.

I edged my fingernails under the globby sheet of goo and pulled upward. A rush of tears filled my eyes as hairless pink skin shined up at me. If someone told me I had to do this, I’d call it abuse. As it is, I inflict it on myself and call it grooming.

Since my legs were sticking together anyway and I couldn’t walk, I decided to call my mother.

“Whitney! How are you? Isn’t this weather something?”

“It’s been raining, Mom.”

“But warm rain. I’ve been wearing shorts all day.” I didn’t tell her that I expect she’ll have them on in January, too.

When I broke the news to her that I’m going to Las Vegas for a trade show, she was not happy.

“Sin City? How can your employer send a young girl like you there?”

“I’m thirty, Mom. And I’ve always traveled with my job.”

“It’s a den of iniquity, darling. Tell him you can’t go.”

Kim, on the other hand, was in love with the idea. “Bring me something, will you?”

“I promised Mother I wouldn’t leave the hotel for purposes of a touristy nature,” I reminded her.

“Something from the hotel, then. With rhinestones.”

So much for the good influence of friends.

September 23

I’ve been inundated with plans for the trade show. Whitney’s my name, Creativity’s my game. At least that’s what Harry thinks. Only Bryan knows that today, between brilliant zaps of originality and ingenuity, I figured out which was the longest word I could type with my left hand—stewardesses (a travel-related exercise accomplished while being left on hold by a travel agent who went shopping and had a facelift before getting back to me). And—this one is big—when you rearrange the words slot machines, you can make the words cash lost in ’em.

Of course, after foisting the Las Vegas trade-show problem on to me, Harry promptly forgot about it and began trolling for bigger fish. In this case it was someone from whom he’d already had a nibble but wanted to land completely, Matthew Lambert, the nut-roasting magnate I’d fondly begun referring to as Mr. Peanut.

As I walked toward Harry’s office this morning, Bryan—wearing that panicked look he so often does—raised his eyebrows and pointed frantically toward Harry’s door. Figuring my assistant was trying to indicate that Harry was out of sorts, I strode in expecting to see a man who hadn’t yet had his sixth cup of coffee today. What I did see nearly knocked me flat.

Harry had gotten himself a permanent. Though not yet bald, his hair is thinning except for the thick assortment of hairs that halo his head in the traditional style of medieval monks.

I took a deep breath and attempted to quash the image of an unevenly growing Chia Pet on Harry’s head. No wonder Bryan had looked as though he was about to faint. He’d probably been under his desk laughing himself silly.

“Are you busy tomorrow evening, Whitney?” Harry leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his neck and fingered the tight curls at his collar.

A working dinner? With Harry? Harry never paid for anything he didn’t have to, and he was married, so this wasn’t a social dinner. Had his permanent given him so much aplomb that he was asking me out on a frivolous whim or were the newly tight curls on his head squeezing his brain? My relief was actually physical when he added, “I’m having dinner with Matt Lambert, and I’d like you to come along. What do you say?”

I was so happy I didn’t have to dine alone with Harry and be forced to admire his Chia Pet scalp that I agreed immediately. That Matthew Lambert would be there didn’t hurt either.

It wasn’t until I was back at my desk that I realized that I was not in any way prepared to go anywhere or do anything with a hunky, single man. I’m a woman who—as recently as six days ago—was holding her clothing together with rubber bands. I had nothing to wear. Visions of pilled and holey sweatpants, stained T-shirts, too-tight jeans and my work clothing—mostly interchangeable black and beige separates and low-heeled pumps—danced in my head. I usually go into a shopping frenzy the week before a big date. It was clearly apparent that I hadn’t had a frenzy—or a date—for quite some time.

It wasn’t until noon that I could discuss the emergency with Kim.

“Don’t you have a ‘fat dress’?” she asked. “I always keep one of those empire-waist corduroy or cotton things on hand for a crisis.”

“Then I might as well pitch a pup tent in the middle of the restaurant and stick my head through the top to eat. I want to look good for this….”

Kim, the least vain person on the planet, puzzled that one over. “Your mom has been on your case again, hasn’t she? All that stuff about meeting a man?”

“She’s worried about me,” I admitted weakly.

“And she has her own subscription to Bride’s magazine just for the fun of it. Get real, Whitney, she’s a wedding planner waiting to happen.”

“I know, I know, but I still want to look nice tomorrow night.”

“‘Nice?’ You’re already gorgeous! Sometimes I wonder if you ever look in a mirror. That dark hair of yours, those eyes, and no matter how many times you say you’re ‘fat’ you know there are women who would give a front tooth for your curves!”

A front tooth? Scary thought. But that’s part of why I cherish Kim. She actually believes I’m beautiful and isn’t afraid to say it. Bless her heart.

“I know, I know, but I still need to look stunning tomorrow night.”

“Then how about that wonderful black jumpsuit we bought last time you were pre-diet?”

I love Kim’s tactfulness. I grabbed her cheeks between my palms and gave them a squeeze. “You are brilliant. Problem solved.”

She nodded benignly. “Now that we’ve settled that, let’s discuss Harry’s hair.”

I couldn’t help it. I had to go shopping anyway.

When I don’t really have anything to shop for, my default is always shoes. The good news is that there are finally cute shoes that are actually comfortable. The bad news is that nothing looks all that cute on my size nine feet. Granted, they match my five-eight height, and I’m nicely proportioned. I think of myself as the new-and-improved, more-for-your-money package.

I found a great pair of black shoes with strappy backs. These are not to be confused with my black shoes with the little bow, my black shoes with the flat heels, my black patent leathers, my black sandals, flip-flops or slippers or my several pairs of black pumps and my black running shoes. These were different—not different enough, however, that anyone but me would notice. And, of course, they were still black.

After a rip-roaring internal debate, I decided to buy a purse instead. No danger of falling into the I-think-I’ll-buy-it-in-black trap there. Purses have personality these days—flashy colors, weird shapes, sequins and rhinestone thingamabobs dangling off them. My question is, who buys these things? Seems to me a precious little bag that’s shaped like a parakeet, decorated in yellow and green sequins and holds a tissue and a tube of lipstick is doomed to extinction.

Uh-oh. Were those my mother’s thoughts coming out of my mind?

I settled on a slightly larger bag shaped and decorated like a seashell because it would also hold my keys and a credit card and had pretty turquoise sequins. Who buys these things? Me, apparently.

Eric called tonight. He’s so charmingly disorganized that I’ve gotta love him. Today he spent two hours looking for his dry cleaning. Not in the house, mind you, but in his car. He’d dropped off his clothes on the way to an appointment, and when he returned to pick them up, he realized he couldn’t remember exactly which cleaner he’d used. Unfortunately, he’d done a few dozen other errands in the same trip and had a ten-mile radius within which his clothing could be waiting. While he was out scouting for his Laurens and his Hilfigers, he managed to hit an estate sale and a going-out-of-business blowout. It cost him a hundred and seventy-five dollars in unnecessary purchases to find his clothing.

“It’s okay, though,” he justified cheerfully. “I was really hoping to find an Andirondack chair and an Arts and Crafts floor lamp someday. I just ran across them sooner than I expected.” Unfortunately, while we were on the phone, his dog, Otto, managed to chew through the cord on the floor lamp and one leg of the chair.

It’s Eric’s own fault, really. He loves that dog so much that he’s afraid to hurt his feelings by scolding him. I’m not sure Otto has feelings. Bulldogs rarely appear to be in touch with their emotions. Still, Eric is crazy about him, and there is something rather sweet about an airplane buff and his dog Otto-Pilot.

I couldn’t get Eric and Otto-Pilot out of my mind while I was doing my Bible readings tonight, so I looked up Job 12:7-9. “But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?” I have a real passion for His creatures. After all, if God set aside two full days of creation—the fifth to create fish and birds and the sixth to fashion animals (including the man and woman kind)—then why don’t we realize how important they must be to Him—and therefore, to us?

Ironic, isn’t it, that of all the creatures on the face of the earth, only humans don’t seem to realize who and what they are. Animals behave like animals, plants like plants and fish like fish. Only we try to behave as if we’re God.

I like it that Eric cares so much for that dog even if Otto does digest furniture the way other dogs do kibble. Tomorrow night, I’ll have to remember to ask Mr. Peanut if he’s fond of animals.

September 24

I think I’m in love! Or, at least, I have a serious case of “like.”

Matthew Lambert is one handsome, charming man. When he looked at me with those Irish eyes tonight, I turned into a human puddle—and, unfortunately had to spend the rest of the night mopping up. Okay, so I’d already reached my objective of meeting a really nice man. My other goal was not to get into any foolish entanglements in the dating scene. Unfortunately the edges of my determination are crumbling already. Why did I set a stupid goal like that anyway?

I knew I was in trouble when I saw him coming across the restaurant in a stunning black suit and pristine white shirt that had been laundered and starched within an inch of its life. His tie was so red and professional-looking, it hurt my eyes to stare at it. If my mother had been there, she would have labeled him “the one” for me without hearing a word out of his mouth. She’d always dreamed I’d marry a doctor, so she’d have someone in the family with whom to discuss her various and ever-changing “symptoms,” but a peanut salesman who looked like this would run a close second.

“So good to see you again, Ms. Blake.”

For a moment I didn’t respond. I’d forgotten my name and didn’t realize he was talking to me. Then he did this corny thing and picked up my hand and kissed it. That was when I forgot my entire family history and where I’d parked my car. Until that moment, I’d always thought giddy was an unlikely word since I hadn’t had a giddy moment in my life. Now I know the definition and it’s a doozy. Matthew Lambert oozed charm like a broken toothpaste tube might ooze… Well, wow, am I bad at metaphors or what? Fortunately, Harry arrived, and from then on it was all business.

We spent the evening talking about the nut-roasting software. Harry did his usual computer-babble, and I efficiently and succinctly translated it into understandable English. (And Mom thought I needed to take Spanish to become fluent in a foreign language!) We make a pretty good team, Harry and I, even though all night I couldn’t make eye contact with him because I kept having the urge to water the top of his head to make it grow.

There was an awkward moment when our meals were served. I used to hate it when my parents bowed their heads to pray in restaurants. I wanted to look like everyone else chowing directly into my meal. It takes some maturity to realize that there’s no way this food would be on our plates without God’s help. Frankly, what others think of me is no longer my concern. Only God’s opinion counts.

Harry is not a Christian. I pray for him and am optimistic that he is a work-in-progress along with some of my other co-workers. At work, I try to witness by my actions. Matthew 5:15 is my verse there. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Christians should always be the brightest bulbs. Harry often calls whoever isn’t agreeing with him the “dimmest bulb in the pack.” Someday I pray he’ll see the real Light.

What I’m really trying to say is that Harry has learned to tolerate my praying and not look so embarrassed when I do it. To me, that’s progress. Matt, however, gave no indication what he felt about my attitude of gratitude. That’s the trouble with people who have impeccable manners—they never let you see them sweat.

Matt and I really connected. He laughed at my jokes and I at his. He winked at me in that conspiratorial way men have with the women they love. Or maybe he had a tic in his eye. How do I know? I’m only describing my fantasy here, not his. There were no unwelcome advances, (if I don’t count that hand-kissing thing, which was not at all unwelcome) no stupid pick-up lines, no improprieties, only flawless manners and irresistible charm.

When I think of the stupid pick-up lines I’ve experienced with other men, including, “Excuse me, may I look at the tag on your dress? I’m sure it says ‘Made in Heaven,’ just like you,” there was no way the evening could have been a failure. In fact, the night would have been absolutely perfect if I hadn’t had to use the ladies’ room.

After eating, I got up to walk a bit, as my jumpsuit had somehow shrunk while hanging in my closet—probably due to the excessive humidity caused by recent rain showers. Anyway, I needed to jiggle the food beyond my waistband, so I excused myself and went for a stroll.

If my mother’s famous teaching—“Always use the bathroom when you have the opportunity. You never know when you’ll find another”—weren’t indelibly engraved in my head, I wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.

Still, I learned something, albeit the hard way. Never, ever wear a jumpsuit anywhere that you might have to use a rest room. One, you must practically undress to use the facilities. Two (here’s where I goofed), you must keep the top half of the suit out of the toilet while you’re using it. Actually, only one arm of my suit fell into the water, and that was after I flushed, so it could have been worse—but not much.

I spent five minutes squirming back into the soggy thing and another fifteen with my arm under the hand dryer. I had no idea how slow those things are—no wonder you always come out of the rest room hoping no one notices that you’re drying your hands on your clothes.

Anyway, the ridiculousness of the whole situation got the best of me, and I did what I often do under stress. I giggled. And guffawed. And hee-hawed and ho-hoed until my stomach hurt. Every time some innocent lady walked through the bathroom door, it got funnier and funnier until tears were streaming down my face. At one point, there were four of us in there holding our sides and gasping for air. Pretty soon they were telling me all their bathroom stories, too—like getting the hems of their skirts caught in their waistbands, walking through the restaurant and wondering why everyone was staring or dragging a long piece of toilet paper through the room on the heels of their shoes. I made some new friends, but it was the weirdest bonding experience I’ve ever had.

As I was coming out of the ladies’ room with bits of the toilet paper that I’d used to soak up water still sticking to my suit (thousands of polyesters died for this outfit), Harry and Matt were loudly asking a waitress to go in after me.

“…she’s been gone a long time….”

“…maybe she isn’t feeling well….”

“…you could ask her if she needs help….”

It was not my best moment. I’ve always dreamed of being a damsel in distress saved by a knight in shining armor. Being rescued by a human Chia Pet and a man I had now upgraded to Mr. Cashew because I’d wasted a half hour fishing my clothing out of a toilet was just not the same. I am also positive that this is not what Jesus meant by “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” This wasn’t humbling. It was humiliating—never mind that in a few years it will be a great story to tell my friends.

For the rest of the evening Harry kept looking at me with beetled brows, as if he expected me to do something ridiculous at any moment. Matt, however, acted as though he knew lots of women who spent time washing clothes in the toilet. Still, at the end of the evening I was thankful to escape, and relieved that Matt didn’t offer to drive me home.

September 25

Harry and I couldn’t meet each other’s eyes today. I was unable to look at his head and he couldn’t meet my eyes after the rest-room fiasco. About four o’clock he sauntered past my desk and told me I could “wrap it up” for the day.

I asked him twice if he’d meant what he’d said. He never encourages anyone to leave early. Sometimes I feel like the Bob Cratchitt of the software world.

“Sure. You’re going to Las Vegas soon, aren’t you? Isn’t there something you need to pick up?”

“I could use a few new binders and highlighters,” I stammered.

“There you are. See you tomorrow.” Then he paused and turned back as if there was something he’d forgotten to mention. I waited for the other shoe to drop.

“By the way, Matt Lambert told me last night that he’d be attending the Las Vegas trade show as a customer.” Harry scowled. “I hope he doesn’t have any ideas of shopping around and replacing us.” He stared at me. “But you’ll be there to make sure that doesn’t happen, right?”

My heart sank into my gut. Was there no justice? Why, after publicly humiliating myself in front of this man, do I ever have to see him again? If Harry thinks I’d be good at preventing Lambert from jumping ship to another company, he wasn’t looking very closely last night when Matt gawked at my wet, paper-encrusted arm.

I couldn’t go to the bathroom without a disaster. Who knew what might happen when I was sent to Las Vegas, of all places, to save a corporate account?

“Harry, I can’t—”

But he would have none of it. “You’d better leave now and get those binders.”

Mitzi did not like my leaving before she did. She gave me a scorching glare as I headed for the door. Sailing in late and dashing out early are traditionally her domain, and she was sorely miffed. I smiled widely at her as I left. Kim gave me a thumbs-up as I passed.

I had my paycheck in my pocket and an extra hour in my life. What else was there to do but shop? Unfortunately my sensible gene kicked in before I got to Ann Taylor, so I went to a department store to look for much-needed, long-overdue bedding. I inherited my sheets from my mother, and they’re paper-thin in the sunlight. Last night, after tossing and turning over the jumpsuit debacle, I put my toe between the threads and ripped the sheet in half trying to untangle myself. That, combined with a “Got To See It To Believe It” white sale, seemed like a sign. I didn’t count, however, on the determination and stamina of women in need of cheap sheets.

They were standing in front of the shelves like gate-keepers, determined not to let anyone past until they had found the perfect white sheet with a faint ribbon of blue running through it. I bent down to pull an interesting-looking bed-in-a-bag ensemble from the bottom shelf and nearly got my fingers crushed.

I’d been too optimistic about this run-in, grab-some-sheets and run-out thing. After twenty-five minutes I’d determined there were no sheets that fit my bed. The bottoms were all fitted kings except for a huge stack of twins. The flat sheets were all regulars but for two queens, one in some orange and yellow design and one in dirt blue and tonsil pink that could have scared the paint off walls. I backed out of my spot disconsolately, and a woman with a designer handbag leaped into my place with the grace of a jaguar. Amazing.

I drove home vowing to sleep on the mattress pad until that ripped, too, after which I would order something off the Internet.

I complained to my mother about my shopping misadventure but, as usual, she couldn’t relate. She doesn’t buy sheets—she sends Dad out for them. Mother’s version of shopping is sailing into what I call the itty-bitty section of the store. She picks out what she wants, slides it over her head to try it on, takes a twirl and pulls out her credit card. She’s done shopping and in a coffee shop waiting before I find any two matching pieces in my size, the most popular and picked-over in America—which shall remain unmentioned.

September 27

dep•ri•va•tion: Deficiency, lack, scarcity, withdrawal, need, hardship, distress.

“I thought you were doing something about those snug pants,” Mother said with her usual lack of diplomacy when I arrived at their door today.

“I am. Sort of.”

“Are you still sneaking around in rubber bands, Whitney?”

“Maybe I’ll join a class, something that meets every week and gives me encouragement.”

“There’s one at church,” Mom offered. “I’ll go with you if you don’t want to go alone the first night.”

My diversion hadn’t worked. “Mother, you’d be run out of the room. No woman on a diet wants so see an entire human being who’s the size of someone’s thigh.”

She sighed. “All right then, go alone. Here, let me read you the information.” She picked up the bulletin, which she’d no doubt kept handy just for this purpose. “‘Join us as we gather to support one another in our weight-loss goals, experience fun, fellowship and new recipes. For more information, call—’”

“What’s the name of this group?” I interrupted.

“It doesn’t say. Maybe they don’t have a name. If you went, you could suggest something.”

Mother thinks that I should be able to take over any meeting by receiving all the information I need about the entire group by osmosis as I wander through the room on my initial visit. She also believes the well of my creativity is artesian. Strangely enough, however, a name did pop into my mind. Ecclesiastical Eaters Anonymous Training. EEAT. If that wasn’t the name of this group, it should be. At least that way, when I told someone I was going to EEAT, they’d think I was going out for dinner.

“By the way, Whitney,” my mother continued, “your father came home from church council last night with some very exciting news. We’re hiring a new youth pastor.”

“What’s wrong with the other one? Did he outgrow his youth?”

“Don’t be flippant, dear. He’s staying. Our youth program is expanding so quickly that the council decided we needed a second pastor.”

“Super. That’s very exciting.” I’d chaperoned more than a few sleepovers at the church myself. It’s good news that interest is on the rise.

“But that isn’t all.”

The hairs on the back of my neck began to tingle. Mom had switched tones. She was no longer talking church business.

“He’s single.”

“Motherrrrrr!”

“And quite nice-looking. I think you’d make a lovely couple.”

“Have you discussed this with him yet? Or is the call committee using me as bait?”

“I’m serious, Whitney. This could be your big break.”

“Mom, you sound like this man is a job opportunity! Is he taking résumés?”

“Just consider it, dear. You are thirty, you know.”

“All too well, Mom. All too well.”

September 29

I’m already feeling guilty. EEAT met and I didn’t go. (No matter what the name of the group, it will always be EEAT to me.) Kim talked me out of it. “Are you kidding? Start a diet when you’re leaving for Las Vegas—buffet capital of the world?”

“Maybe it would keep me from falling on my face in a chocolate display and eating my way out,” I suggested timidly.

“Nonsense. Start trying to lose weight when you get back. I tried to diet on a cruise once, and my sister found me at the midnight buffet, clinging to a loaf of bread shaped like a swan and whimpering, ‘Give me butter and jelly.’”

Smiling, I succumbed to the wisdom of her experience. Still, I will be aware of what I eat at every moment. To do that, I’m leaving my rubber bands at home. There will be no way out.

September 30

Church was great today. I felt so energized and lifted by the music. The typos in the bulletin didn’t hurt, either.

There was an announcement about the upcoming Spiritual and Physical Health and Wellness Seminar.

Don’t let stress kill—let the church help.

You will hear a top-notch presenter and heave a delicious lunch.

The sermon, however, seemed written for me alone. It was based on the parable of the sower. The parables have always fascinated me. They are so childishly simple and yet so profound that once you understand them, they can rock your world. The sun that melts ice hardens clay. The parables are like that—they have different effects on people, depending on where their hearts are.

I’m blessed that my parents raised me off the path where the seed couldn’t root and grow. Nor was I grown in shallow soil that couldn’t support my faith. My family and my church offered me rich, dark earth in which to send the roots of my faith downward and grow a system that is firm and healthy. But there’s always the danger of weeds springing up to choke out healthy plants and make them die.

It’s so easy to be distracted by life—work, money, greed, busyness—that I’m in danger of forgetting that what I have is to be used for God’s causes, not my own. I imagine myself pulling up weeds in my life one by one—the weed of laziness, which prods me to sleep in on Sundays, the weed of ungratefulness, which reminds me of what I don’t have rather than what I do, the weed of jealousy, which makes me miserable and cranky—and the weed of greed. That one makes me put my energy into earning money to buy things I don’t need to get results I don’t want.

Put weeding my heart on my goal list—to be done often and with thoroughness.

As we were singing our closing hymn today, it occurred to me that Christians are economical with the truth when they sing. As I sat in the pew paging through the hymnal, I began to read the words of the hymns. I mean, to really read them….

“Where He leads me I will follow…” Sometimes He leads us through deep water and we resist—big-time.

“I lay my sins on Jesus…” But we keep picking them up again.

Or “I surrender all….” All? That’s a pretty inclusive word. From now on, I’m going to sing those words and mean it.

OCTOBER

CHAPTER 3

October 3

I’ve never decided which I like less, packing or flying. I’m green with envy over those sleek, designer-clad, Vogue-toting businesswomen, who, after dropping off their Hermès luggage at the counter, walk nonchalantly to the gate, onto the plane and into the first-class section without ruffling a hair. I bring every possibility with me. The weather may be bad and I may not fit into the wardrobe I’d planned. Then again, the clothes may fit after all and maybe I’ll have time to exercise/run/shop/lie by the pool. My logic is that I’ll make my decisions once I get to my destination. And, because I want to be comfortable on the trip, I chug into the airport in tennis shoes, linen drawstring pants and an unstructured jacket, dragging the largest suitcase made, its little wheels splaying outward from the weight inside. I also have a large shoulder bag filled with all the reading and work I plan to get done while I’m gone.

Since I’ll be in a new environment, I assume that I’ll be able to do heroic things, so I bring everything from magazines dated six months prior, to recipes I want to recopy on cute cards and put into a matching book. That’s particularly interesting, because I rarely cook. There are also the sixteen letters I need to write, those three books that are almost due at the library and the cuticle emollient I’m planning to wear to bed every night until my hangnail is history. And my purse—with PalmPilot, cell phone, gum, breath mints, emery board, lipstick, package of powdered diet shake, apple… It isn’t pretty. And that’s not even considering the condition of my linen suit by the time I arrive at my destination looking like an unmade bed.

And I’m even worse at flying—at least, I used to be. Every noise was a wheel falling off. Every takeoff or landing was a walk to the gas chamber. If flying is so safe, I wondered, why do we have to come and go from a terminal?

It wasn’t until I could visualize God in control of my life wherever I am, on the ground or in the air, but always cupped in the palm of His hand, that I conquered my fear. If He can keep the sun and the moon up in the heavens, then He can handle a little old airplane.

I trundled through to first class, and as I searched for my seat got a major surprise.

“Whit! Hey, Whitney!” It was Eric. The lady behind me bowled into me with her carry-on, and I stumbled into Eric’s otherwise empty row.

“What are you doing here?” I greeted him. Dressed in tailored trousers and a polo shirt, Eric looked downright handsome. Immediately realizing I may have sounded less than gracious, I amended, “I mean, hi.”

“Hi, yourself. Dad called yesterday,” Eric explained. “He bought me a ticket to fly to Las Vegas to meet him for an air show. It’s only vintage planes and will be so cool. They’re having 1941 deHavilland Tiger Moths—both the Canadian and Australian models, a 1946 Piper J-3 and a Piper ’37 J-2. Piper discontinued that model in 1937.” A light dawned in his hazel eyes. “And you’re going to a trade show.” His expression brightened. “I can get you a ticket to the air show if you have time. You’d love it.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got to work. By the time I get done manning the Innova booth and contacting clients, I’ll be a zombie.” My hip bumped against my carry-on. “And I brought work from home.”

“Dinner then?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Then I eyed him suspiciously. “You will remember that you asked me, right?”

“Aw, Whitney, are you ever going to let me live that down? So I’ve been late a few times….”

“Three months late?”

“I meant to call. You know that. I was helping a buddy restore a plane. The money was good, and I just got so engrossed….”

As always, my heart softened. No doubt Eric slept on a cot at night to be near the plane and ate every meal out of a take-out carton and was completely true-blue. I knew he wasn’t seeing anyone else. He just wasn’t seeing me, either. If anything with wings passed by, he was off trailing that.

“Okay, I forgive you. We’ll have dinner. But no mushy stuff. I want you as a friend. You’re far too unreliable for anything else.”

He seemed delighted by the idea. “Friends?”

“Friends.” I glanced around the almost-full plane. “I’d better go find my place.”

“What’s your seat number?”

“Row twenty, seat B.”

“Welcome. I’m seat A.” He patted the chair beside him, and I dropped into it gratefully. Then he turned and looked me straight in the eye. “And, someday, maybe, if things work out, could we renegotiate that friend thing?”

My stomach did a little flip-flop. I knew what he was asking and it scared me. Why, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because I knew how easy it would be to love Eric. He saw the deer-in-headlights look in my eyes and drew back.

“Never mind. Just friends.”

I couldn’t say for sure, but I’m ninety percent positive he added under his breath, “For now.”

As we walked out of the Las Vegas terminal, waves of heat shimmered up from the concrete. I felt as if I’d stepped into a life-size toaster oven. The linen I didn’t think could wilt any further did, like a lettuce leaf in boiling water. My shoulder-length hair is thick and heavy. (Mom calls it my “crowning glory.”) Unfortunately I didn’t put it up for the trip, and as soon as I hit the heat, it clung to my neck and forehead, making me look as though someone had dumped a glass of water on my head. I was not in great shape to see Eric’s father, who was there to pick him up.

Mr. Van Horne is the polar opposite of his son. Eric is casual, wears his light brown hair just a tad longer than normal, so he always looks like he has bed-head, shops only at the GAP and believes God would have done us all a favor if we were simply born wearing tennis shoes. His dad wore black trousers, a white shirt and a camel-colored jacket that oozed expensive. His hair was styled, his shoes polished to a high gloss and I’m almost positive his nails had been professionally manicured. Eric and his father did, however, share the same boyish charm.

Unfortunately, they didn’t share the same taste in automobiles. Eric drives a ten-year-old Jeep with cargo room for an entire apartment. His dad drives a brand-new BMW meant to hold nothing more than a briefcase and golf clubs.

How humiliating. My luggage appeared larger than the car by which it was piled. But never underestimate a man. Thanks to good breeding, excellent manners and a lot of grunting, groaning and pushing, they got it inside the car and were still smiling.

“Here you are.” Mr. Van Horne pulled around the spouting volcano to drop me off at the front door of my hotel.

“I’ll call you and we’ll set a time for dinner.” Eric patted the piece of paper in his pocket containing my phone number.

Then they left me to the perils of Sin City. How dangerous could it be, surrounded as I was with what looked like the entire population of the Midwest? Grandpas, grandmas, mothers pushing strollers and fathers carrying toddlers swarmed around me like locusts as I made my way to the reception desk. I tried to count how many fanny packs I saw and finally decided it would be easier to count the people who didn’t have them on.

I tipped the bellhop double for hauling my weighty bags to my room, a cavernous arena with a great tub and blackout curtains. With room service, I wouldn’t have to leave for a month—if the trade show weren’t such an interruption, of course. I flung myself onto the bed to make sure the mattress was up to my standards and debated the question of showering and changing before or after I checked on how the booth setup was progressing. Occasionally the people I hire to help me with logistics don’t show up on time and I’m stuck doing it alone. Not showering and changing clothes first was, of course, the totally wrong decision.

I put the final touches on the trade-show booth—the laptop that would give my PowerPoint presentation, a bouquet of flowers just for color and a dish of imported chocolates in case some of the participants needed an extra incentive to hang around my booth. If I’d been thinking about my diet, I would have given away toothbrushes.

Hot, I’d mopped my forehead on my arm—makeup and all—tied my hair back with a piece of string I’d found in one of the shipping boxes and removed my shoes when Matt Lambert found me.

“So you are here! Harry told me you would be.”

I spilled a bottle of water on my lap and tried to dissolve into the floor, but unlike the Wicked Witch of the West, I discovered liquid did nothing for me. “Oh, hi, Matt. What a surprise to see you!” I’ll bet he was surprised to see me, too, especially looking like something drooping off the end of a fishing line.

But he never flinched. What a great guy. What élan, what sophistication, what finesse, what…was he blind?

He must have selective vision, because he asked me out for dinner. Since the show was only open for a couple hours that evening and the big event really started the next day, I jumped at the chance. If I could pull myself together and show him that I didn’t always look like a bag lady, I could trade in my rumpled image for something more…dare I say it?…glamorous.

“It’s three in the afternoon. I have to be here from seven to nine, but I’m free after that.”

“I’ll be here at nine. I know just the place we can eat. There’s a little French hideaway within walking distance.” He gave me a look that was half James Bond and half Indiana Jones and that made my fingertips tingle…then he was gone. Okay, so maybe my imagination was on overdrive and my hand had fallen asleep, but what’s the fun in that?

The hotel spa was full, so I settled for a shower, an hour ironing the crumpled clothes in my suitcase and a bag of pretzels from the hotel minifridge for which I would pay a minifortune when my bill arrived.

The first time Kim stayed at a hotel that provided stocked refrigerators, she assumed everything was free and decided to eat it all. She’s almost got the loan paid off on the hotel bill.

My hair still wrapped in a towel, I sat down to leave messages for clients with whom I needed to touch base. I’d just hung up from the last call when my phone rang. It was the salon. A masseuse had had a cancellation. If I still wanted to have a massage, she could bring a table to me. The luxury was irresistible. My mouth said “yes, yes” as my checkbook screamed “no, no.” As usual with me, the mouth won.

A tiny woman arrived toting a portable massage table and a gym bag full of towels, oils and a tiny CD player. Practically before I could say “Come in,” she had everything set up and music playing. Discreetly she turned her back as I slid under the sheets and lay back with a deep sigh.

“Do you like a light massage or deep?”

I gave her the once-over. She was smaller than my mother and looked less robust. “Deep,” I said, wanting my money’s worth.

And, oh boy, did I get it. Looks are deceiving. I was a loaf of bread being kneaded, a meat loaf being pounded into shape, a potato being squeezed through a ricer. While my masseuse had looked a little like David with his unobtrusive slingshot when she’d walked into the room, she massaged like Goliath.

When she left me lying on the table while she went into the bathroom to wash her hands, I took my thumb and index finger and pried open one eye. My muscles refused to go back to work. Eventually I slithered to a chair and sprawled there until the masseuse returned.

“Feeling better?” she asked. “Be sure to drink lots of water tonight.”

I nodded and handed her a check with a large tip, my “mad” money for the rest of the month. But I rationalized that I’d be too limp to go shopping for a couple weeks anyway.

The show was typical of such events, with somber businessmen and computer geeks roaming the aisles. As closing time neared, I saw Matt strolling down the aisle toward me. I recalled the old commercials where a man and a woman run toward each other across a vast field in slow motion, arms out, faces blissful, eyes locked in a gaze of love. But Matt wasn’t running in slow motion or in a field or looking blissful. He did, however, have me in an eye-lock that made my heart pound. The man was gorgeous.

“You look lovely,” he complimented me.

Anything was an improvement over this afternoon.

“I hope you like French food,” he said as we entered a darkened cavern lit with flickering candles. I nodded, but he probably couldn’t see me in the shadows. He led me, stumbling, to our table. I’ve never been good about entering a movie theater after the feature’s begun, and this was no different. Blind as a bat was not how I’d wanted to start the evening.

My eyes finally grew accustomed to the dimness, and I began to appreciate the opulence of my surroundings. Even more, I prized the play of light and dark on Matt’s features that made him appear craggy, manly and very French. I pinched my thigh as my hand rested on my lap. Was this for real, or had the masseuse sent too much blood to my brain?

Matt and the waiter had a spirited conversation in French. I knew he was ordering our meal, because I heard the only two French words I know—escargots and pâté. Snails and liver, the two things I was most terrified of as a child. When he took my hand, however, and looked into my eyes, I decided that eating bottom feeders and giblets was a small price to pay to spend an evening with this man.

I was pretty pulled together for the encounter, if I do say so myself. My hair went the direction I’d aimed it, my dress still fit after dinner and even though I hadn’t anticipated a show of affection, I didn’t burst out laughing when he kissed me. It was just a gentle peck on my forehead, but I hadn’t expected it (fantasized, maybe—expected it, no). If I didn’t get a single client nibble this trip, it still would be a roaring success.

Clients. Falling under Matt’s influence almost made me forget why I was here. I retrieved voice messages and wrote notes to every potential or current client in the hotel to confirm our appointments, took a steamy bath that used up all the bath bubbles in my little complementary basket and oiled my cuticles.

Lord, thank You for safe travel, my job, my family and my friends. I pray for our country’s leaders and for those people I read about in the headlines of the newspaper. Sometimes the haunted eyes of those hurting people stay with me for days. I may be flippant at times, but I know for sure that believing in You is a life-and-death issue. I ask that You touch the heart of every unbeliever so that they may know You as I do.

And, although it seems a pretty shallow request compared to the last, I pray for wisdom. I’m thirty years old and falling under my mother’s questionable influence. She wants me happy but she also wants me married. Is there a fabulous, Christian man out there for me, Lord? And when You send him, will You put a big label on him, please, so I don’t miss him?

With thankfulness that I have You to talk to,

Whitney

October 7

Today was a blur. I had breakfast, morning coffee, late-morning coffee, lunch, early afternoon coffee and late-afternoon coffee with clients while intermittently checking on the booth. The rest of the time I spent in the bathroom relieving myself of all that coffee. I drummed up enough business, however, to keep Harry happy into the next century. I feel a bonus coming on.

I found time to buy souvenirs for everyone, including the most spangled, outrageous T-shirt I could find—studded with rhinestones and in electric blue. Kim will love it, especially since I got a baby-size one for Wesley in the same color. I looked for a long time before I found something for Mom and Dad and finally settled on matching T-shirts that said His and Hers. Each has an arrow pointing across the shirt, supposedly to the person standing alongside you. It will give them something to do, trying to figure out if they have their arrows pointed in the right direction. I didn’t recall until later that there have been a number of recent examples of Dad’s trying not to claim Mom at all. Hopefully she’ll start leaving that little battery-operated fan at home when they wear the shirts.

Unfortunately, the evening did not go as smoothly as the rest of the day. I’d forgotten how territorial men could be, mostly because it never happens to me—until Eric and Matt faced off in the lobby outside the show.

While waiting for Eric near the exit, I was surprised to see Matt also approaching.

“Whitney, I know this is spur of the moment, but I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner at Spago? Sorry I didn’t ask you sooner, but my schedule…” Matt held his hands out helplessly. “I’m sure it’s been equally busy for you today.”

“Hiya, Whit. Ready for dinner?” Eric gave Matt the once-over, and his eyes narrowed.

“Eric, I’d like you to meet Matthew Lambert. Matt, this is Eric….”

I explained as best I could that Eric and I had made plans on the plane. Matt said, “I understand. It was nice to meet you, Eric,” and if he’d just stopped there, we’d have been okay. Unfortunately he added, “At least we had last night together” in a breathy voice that made Eric’s eyebrows go straight up into the thatch of sandy-brown hair tumbling over his forehead.

I didn’t know Eric had a jealous bone in his body. Apparently he has quite a few, and Matt managed to bruise them all. For the rest of the night, he studied me like a bug under a microscope, as if amazed that I had enough pheromones to attract anyone but him.

There were a dozen roses in my room when I returned and a note from Matt saying “Sorry we couldn’t talk business tonight—catch you later.” Later, room service arrived with a large pepperoni pizza. “From somebody named Eric,” the waiter said. “He told me he wanted you to have this in the morning because he knows cold pizza is your favorite breakfast.”

How could I ever choose between two men who know me as well as that?

October 9

Not one moment to myself today. My bladder is feeling flabby from being stretched to the max. Had most of a pot of coffee for breakfast and didn’t get to the ladies’ room until noon. Oh, the pain.

I leave the hotel tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. No time to see either Matt or Eric again. It’s probably for the best. I can’t face either one quite yet, since I have no idea what’s going on in their minds—or in my own.

October 10

Up at 3:30 a.m., in the air at seven, into the office by eleven, manic by lunchtime. No one could accuse me of not jumping right into an office frame-of-mind upon my return.

Mitzi gave me a dirty look as I entered, as if I’d been on vacation instead of working 24/7. Betty peered at me through those half-glasses middle-aged people who insist they don’t really need glasses use and told me in an accusing tone that I’d let mail stack up on my desk. And the cruelest cut of all, Bryan, sadist that he is, produced a large, heavy bond envelope addressed to me in calligraphy scrolls and embellished with a wax seal and one of those “Love” stamps that sell by the millions around Valentine’s Day and during the bridal season.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Bryan,” I ordered, immediately out-of-sorts, “or I’m going to ask you to be my escort to this wedding. Then you’ll be the one having to dance with Whitney dressed as a human omelette in egg-yolk yellow satin and dyable shoes straight from the Marquis de Sade collection.”

Fear flickered on his face and he tried to retrieve the wedding invitation, but it was too late. He’d already made my shortlist of potential escorts.

Why couldn’t my friend Leah Carlson, who’d worked with the rest of us in this office until she’d earned parole, have had her bridesmaids wear something black and slinky? Wasn’t that the fashion now? Of course, Leah had an insecure streak, and in order to make sure that, as the bride, she was not outshone by anyone else, she’d made sure the rest of us looked utterly ridiculous, with puffy sleeves and large straw hats laden with silk flowers, ribbons and probably a resident parakeet. The only thing that cheered me about this designer fiasco was that Kim was also in the wedding, and she insisted that she looked even worse in yellow than I did. Misery does love company. So do women who are forced to look like chubs of butter rolling down an aisle.

“Need to get out for lunch?” Kim smiled knowingly at the invitation in my hand and tipped her head toward the door. “I’ll buy.”

“One lettuce leaf, one stalk of celery, one cherry tomato and water with a slice of lemon so thin as to be transparent, please.”

“I thought you were going to cut back. Doesn’t a cherry tomato have a calorie or two? Have you considered what it will do to your thighs?”

“Har, har, so not funny.” We went into the little luncheonette two doors down from our office building and I ordered “the usual” without opening my menu. Sad, isn’t it, when every waitress on every shift knows my “usual.” Of course, it’s not that hard to remember a house salad and a slice of dry toast.

“Other than the dress, are you excited about the wedding?” Kim, ever the optimist, assumed such a thing was possible.

“My mother has offered to make me a queen-size quilt of all the bridesmaids’ dresses I’ve ever worn. I’m sad to say she already has enough fabric to do the quilt and shams. This wedding will provide enough ugly fabric for the bed skirt.”

Kim leaned down to sip her Coke from the straw and looked up at me through her long, dark eyelashes. “This is not totally about the dress, you know.”

“I do know. It’s those torture implements they call shoes. They’ll dye them yellow, I’ll wear them until my eyes water and my feet blister and turn color. Then I’ll kick them off, destroy my nylons and have my toe broken by Leah’s four-hundred-pound uncle at the reception. And she wants us to put our hair up. Kim, I’ll look like Marie Antoinette!”

“It really bugs you that she’s getting married and you haven’t got a glimmer, doesn’t it?”

I hate it when she does that. Am I that transparent?

“I didn’t think so, but between this wedding and my mother’s fixation on marrying me off, I guess I’m a little sensitive right now.” The waitress came by with my house salad with a side of dry toast. “It’s crazy, too, because I’ve had more male attention in the past week than in the past four months.”

Kim listened with rapt attention as I told her my Eric/Matthew experiences in Las Vegas.

“What do you make of it?” she probed.

“Absolutely nothing. I can’t figure out what’s going on.”

“Because one man likes you, you’ve become more interesting to all the others—at least until you commit to one and take yourself out of the market.”

I really do believe that someday God will send a man into my life. I just hope that when he arrives, I won’t be too old to recognize him.

October 15

Mitzi must go. Away. Far, far away. Soon.

Annoying, maddening, irritating, infuriating, exasperating, trying, aggravating, frustrating, irksome, grating, galling, vexing. It’s so hard to decide which word describes her best. She is the burr under the saddle of my life, the twist in my undies, the mosquito trapped in my bedroom that won’t let me sleep.

She’s always most exasperating the week she receives her women’s-magazine subscriptions. That’s when she brushes up on what’s new, cool and trendy in the world and distills it into a Cliff’s Notes kind of report meant to either a) shame us into getting with the program or b) just shame us. She’s a pop-psychology junkie and living breathing proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. She has very little knowledge, all of it dangerous.

This morning she greeted me with the words, “You can’t have it all, you know.”

“I don’t want it all. I just want my coffee, black.”

“You know what I mean. You’ll have to give up something in life in order to devote time and energy to what is most important to you. Obviously you’ve given up meaningful, loving relationships with the opposite sex and the chance at a family in order to stay at this midlevel schlepping job.”

Now try that one on before you’ve had coffee!

“You’ve said ‘yes’ to being a lonely, pathetic single woman with a job that cannot fulfill you completely and ‘no’ to having the love of a man and the joy of children in your life.”

Really? I had no idea. I thought it was “yes” to earning a living and “no” to jumping into bad relationships just so I could have a man on my arm.

“Which magazines came yesterday, Mitzi? Depression Digest? Deadbook? Failures Illustrated and Family Triangle?”

“Don’t mock me, Whitney. You could learn a great deal from keeping up on the latest trends and polls. Why, do you even know that carbohydrates are out again?” She gave me the once-over. “Obviously not.”

“What’s this leading up to, Mitzi? You’ve got something on your mind.” I could see Bryan making his way to the rest room and Betty Nobel sitting a little straighter, her nose twitching with interest.

Mitzi pushed a photocopied page from a magazine across the desk toward me. The headline blared at me like a demented trumpet: Are You Doomed To Be A Spinster? Under it was a quiz, dolled up in graphics of cartwheeling brides and one forlorn damsel sitting on an upturned briefcase. That, no doubt, was me.

“Thanks, Mitzi, but no thanks. I’m not even sure why you’re more upset about my being single than I am.”

She shook her head at me as if to say, “Poor, deluded darling,” and pushed on the quiz until I picked it up.

Mission accomplished, Mitzi turned back to her computer and brought up the diet program on the Web into which she fed her list of foods consumed yesterday. With a few clicks, she had the calorie count, fat grams, fiber content and a tally of which vitamins and minerals she was low on that day. Come to think of it, I can’t really remember the last time I’ve seen Mitzi do anything that resembled work. But apparently she types a million words a minute, because Harry keeps her around.

I stuffed the quiz in my pocket, poured myself a cup of coffee, watered my plants, checked my e-mail and then went to knock on the men’s bathroom door. Bryan must have fallen asleep in there, or he would have heard that Mitzi and I had avoided a confrontation. I was right. When he stumbled out, there was a flat pink spot on his cheek where he’d laid his head against the side of the stall. I gave him a list of things I needed done and turned my attention to touching base with potential customers I’d collected at the trade show.

For a long time, I ignored the hole being burned in my pocket before I furtively took out the ridiculous survey on single women. By spreading it out on my desk with a half-dozen other magazine articles on Innova software, it seemed to blend right in. One by one, I read the questions:

WILL YOU MARRY OR ARE YOU SINGLE FOR LIFE?

Which is more important to you?

 an IRA

 PMS

 MSG

(Depends on whether I’m in a Chinese restaurant or not.)

What is your most important undergarment?

 A push-up bra

 A body shaper

 Full cut panties large enough to cover those supreme pizzas you eat alone on weekends

(No contest there.)

What is your favorite store?

 Victoria’s Secret

 Ann Taylor

 GAP

 Banana Republic

 Relax the Back

 The Hemorrhoid Shop

(I have to choose just one when all six are so appealing?)

What is your favorite dog?

 A neurotic dog that weighs less than five pounds, wears bows in its fur, eats only off your plate and can pierce eardrums with its bark

 A black Lab, the son of the son of the son of your beloved childhood pet

 A glistening Doberman that salivates at the sight of cats, rabbits and short men

(Hmmmm…)

What is your favorite food?

 Yogurt pops

 Sugar-free breath mints

 Endive

 A favorite? How can anyone pick just one?

(What, no éclairs?)

What is your favorite novel?

 The latest Chick Lit on the racks

 Teach Yourself Pilates

 The History of Elizabeth I: Look Ma, No Man!

(I see they forgot “How to Cook Nutritiously for One.”)

What is your favorite flower?

 Roses—by the dozen

 Bird-of-Paradise

 Violets—in those cute little plastic-lined baskets like Grandma used to have

(Violets. Definitely violets. Ha!)

What do you think about cats?

 Sneaky snakes with feet and fur

 Actually tiny women in little fur coats

 You simply can’t have too many

(I like the little-women theory. It explains a lot.)

What’s your most useful kitchen tip?

 Too many ice cubes make a smoothie watery

 Don’t use regular dish soap in lieu of dishwasher detergent

 Alphabetizing spices makes cooking so much more pleasant

(I’ve experienced the first two. Hope never to know the truth about the third.)

What is your attitude toward computers?

 How did my parents and grandparents live without them?

 I buy everything from groceries to clothing online

 Highly overrated

(Finally, a question I could answer with complete honesty! I love my computer.)

What is your favorite pastime?

 Spending a day at the beach

 Cooking gourmet meals

 Shopping

 Reviewing those articles I cut out of magazines and put into plastic sleeves for future reference

(Definitely not tanning. I’m a fake-bake girl myself.)

What do you consider your personal fashion statement?

 Black. I only wear black

 Those catchy little designer purses that cost an arm and a leg but are definitely worth it

 I’m still using my 1999 fashion statement. The clothing hasn’t worn out yet.

I threw the paper down on my desk and snarled. So what if I haven’t had a new wardrobe for a while? I love the clothes I bought in ’99. What’s so bad about that? Still, for some reason the dumb thing was a little unsettling.

CHAPTER 4

October 16

“Whitney, Whit!” Kim’s voice was low and urgent. She looked into my office with eyes the size of saucers. “Can we have lunch?”

“Of course. Don’t we always?” Her color resembled the ream of copy paper on my desk—whiter than white. “What’s wrong?”

She glanced around before answering. “We’ll talk then.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Someplace private. Emilio’s, maybe. Or the steak house across the street.”

I knew immediately that something was seriously wrong. Kim never spends big money on lunch. She prefers to buy toys and clothing for Wesley with her disposable income. To suggest the dark, private booths of Emilio’s or the steak house, which has a very small lunch crowd and a very hefty price list, told me that whatever it was Kim had to say, it needed to be said in private.

We waited until one o’clock when the lunch crowd was ebbing. There were plenty of booths and Kim requested the most secluded. Initially, she’d babbled nonstop about Wesley’s latest venture. Not only has he discovered he’s a boy but he’s taken to checking every so often to make sure that his status hadn’t changed. It’s becoming embarrassing to Kim and Kurt. I told her it was only a phase, but thought to myself that there was no way I’d want to take that child out in public until he discovered something else to play with—like Tonka trucks or Matchbox cars.

She was decidedly not herself. When she talked, her voice bordered on the hysterical. Then she lapsed into deep dense silences that nothing I said would penetrate. I was beginning to feel a bit panicked myself by the time we’d ordered and we were alone in our little corner of Emilio’s.

“Okay, what’s up?”

“Something happened this morning.”

“You and Kurt?” I prepared myself to be shocked. Kim rarely complains about her husband other than that perhaps he’s too laid-back. To think of them fighting blew my mind. Kurt is as faithful to Kim as the day is long, so it couldn’t be lipstick on his collar. He’s also very meticulous, so I doubted she’d discovered that the trash hadn’t been taken out on collection day.

“No, he’d already gone to work when I found it.”

“Found what?”

“A lump in my breast.” Her voice was a strangled whisper.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Perhaps that was fortunate, as anything I might have said would have sounded trite or placating. A cold sweat washed over me and I stammered, “A doctor…have you…”

“I’m getting a mammogram after work. They squeezed me in.”

Squeezed. My irrepressible and unruly sense of humor jumped in the driver’s seat of my brain. How appropriate to be squeezed in for that particular test. Shock and denial do strange things to one’s mind.

“I’ll see the doctor in the morning. Someone Kurt knew years ago.”

“That’s quick,” I managed to say, searching for words that would comfort Kim even though I knew there were none. She’d have to see this through and take it one day at a time.

“He said he didn’t want me to have to wait and worry over the results.”

“I didn’t know doctors worked like that anymore.”

“He’s special. Kurt knew him in high school and says he’s always been thoughtful and caring. Besides, he said it would save me a lot of stress if everything is fine, and if it isn’t—” I saw her choke back her panic “—then we should be getting into action anyway.”

Kim looked at me bravely, and then, in slow motion, I saw the bravery dissolve into something more elemental. “Oh, Whitney, what about Wesley? He’s just a baby. I want to see him grow up.”

“Wait a minute. You’ve gone from finding a lump in your breast to making Wesley grow up without a mother, and completely leaped over the fact that it might be nothing or, if it is something, that it can be treated. Wouldn’t it be better not to assume the worst?”

She scrubbed at her eyes and took a breath. At that moment the waiter appeared with our sandwiches…er…sandwich. The plan was for me to eat half the sandwich. Kim was to have the other half and the fries. Being a stress eater, I had five fries in my mouth before I remembered the arrangement.

“You’re right, of course.” She dumped ketchup on a plate between us. “You keep me sane. That’s why you have to go with me for my appointment and my mammogram.”

Huh?

“I’ve already told Betty that I’d be gone and that it was important for you to be with me. My appointment is at ten. We’ll be back at work by noon.”

“We will?”

“Betty wanted to know what it was about, but I told her that I wasn’t free to discuss it yet. Paranoid as she is, I think she believes we’re going on some sort of covert mission for Harry. I don’t want to go into it until I know something. I’m hoping tomorrow to tell her I had a false alarm.”

“What about Kurt? Don’t you want him to go with you?”

“He has class—a big test that he can’t miss. Besides, the nurse had to help him twice in my room during labor. By the time Wesley was actually born, Kurt was sitting in a chair breathing into a paper bag. Having him with me wouldn’t be much of a comfort.”

A comfort. “Kim, we’ve got to pray.”

“I haven’t stopped since I found this thing. I was in the shower. I usually do my exam on the first of the month, but somehow it just slipped by me this time….”

I’d never seen her so upset. Kim is often my strength, the one who reminds me that everything works out, that no matter how bleak things might look, God is still in control. Now it’s my turn.

I took her hands in mine and felt her fingers trembling. We prayed silently, knowing God could hear us no matter what the volume.

As we escaped the dark walls of the restaurant, it was as though I’d stepped into an alternate universe. Granted, it had been dim inside Emilio’s, but it wasn’t the light that made me blink, it was the color. Everything seemed so much brighter than when we’d gone inside. A glossy golden retriever wearing a vivid blue collar and leash walked by carrying a bright red ball in his teeth. His master, a college-age man, did a little shuffling dance step to the music on his headphones. I could hear snippets of music as he passed. The sky was cerulean blue and a woman in a lime-green jacket and a black skirt almost bumped into me in the crosswalk. What was going on?

Then it hit me. Leaving Emilio’s had been like walking out of a womb and into a reality I was suddenly seeing through new eyes. I had been rudely reminded of the fragility and unpredictability of life. No matter how much planning for and dreaming about the future we did—Wesley’s high-school graduation, the size eight jeans hanging in my closet, the end of Mother’s menopause—all we had was now, and we were fools not to enjoy every moment of it: the colors, the sounds, the people.

The afternoon went slowly. I kept glancing at Kim, who had her gaze determinedly fixed on the papers on her desk. But, eventually, time has to pass. I didn’t have to look up from my desk to know when it was five o’clock. I felt the whoosh of moving air as Mitzi moved by me on her way to the door. Whoever says humans can’t travel at the speed of light has not worked with Mitzi. (It isn’t that she works fast, it’s just that she leaves fast.)

Now, I’m not all that crazy about mammograms myself, but I recently had a baseline done. My dad’s sister had breast cancer years ago and my doctor recommended it. My mother didn’t help a bit. She likened the test to lying on a cold concrete garage floor and having someone drive over the targeted area with the wheel of an automobile. My attitude was not good going in, but as it turned out, everything went fine.

To my dismay, Kim didn’t want me to leave her side. I knew she was going to be fine as soon as I saw the hot-water bottle warming the X-ray equipment. These people knew what they were doing. Fortunately, the nurse shooed me back into the hall before the actual procedure.

As I paced back and forth in front of the door, an incredibly good-looking blond man in a dark suit, crisp white shirt and, incongruously, a Popeye and Olive Oyl cartoon tie, walked up to me.

“Is something wrong? Can I help you?” He looked so genuinely concerned that I actually felt tears scratching at the backs of my eyes, the tears I’d wanted to cry for Kim and didn’t dare.

“No. My friend is having a mammogram and we’re both a little nervous, that’s all.”

“I see.” And I believe he actually did. “If either of you needs anything, just say so.”

Frantically, I searched my mind for something, anything, I needed. Of course I came up blank.

“I hope your friend’s test turns out well.” His eyes were a kind of inky yet brilliant blue, like a brand-new crayon fresh from a box of sixty-four—indigo, I think. When he smiled, gentle, pleasant lines radiated from the corners. The term “golden boy” must have been coined for this guy. But before I could think of something intelligent to say, he tipped his head and turned away.

I wondered if he was an administrator at the clinic—he was definitely a great asset to public relations. But what did I know? Most everything I know about health I’ve learned from my mother, the medical encyclopedia of misinformation.

The door opened and Kim appeared next to me. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself. How was it?”

“Fine. Easy. It would have been a breeze if I could quit conjuring up worst-case scenarios.” She sighed. “I asked the technician how things looked, and she said the doctor would tell me. I wouldn’t have asked her if I wanted to wait for that. Don’t tell me she hasn’t looked at enough of those things to see what’s going on in there.”

“Think of it this way,” I soothed her, “by noon tomorrow, you will have seen the doctor and this will be over.”

“I hope so,” Kim said gloomily. It was weird, but I felt chilled all the way to my bones as she spoke, as if she knew something I didn’t.

Feeling troubled, I decided to stop at my parents’ house. My dad is always able to calm me down when I’m upset. It’s his quiet, self-effacing way, the mild-mannered exterior of a man with so much wisdom and love for me that I choke up just thinking about it.

Dad was in the yard. He’d paused with his hands resting on the top of his rake to look out at the flower garden. When he saw me drive up, his face broke into a grin. I felt better immediately.

“Hi, Daddy, how’s it going?”

For once he didn’t just say, “Fine.”

“I had to get outside for a bit. It’s a little—” he paused for just the right word “—‘twitchy’ in there.”

“That’s a new one.”

“Your mother never ceases to amaze.”

“What’s she up to now?”

“Oh, she’s looking for the money I gave her to buy herself some new clothes.”

“What do you mean, ‘looking for’?”

“She put it someplace ‘safe,’ somewhere no robber would think to look.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Apparently no one would think to look in her hiding place—including her. So far she’s been through all the drawers, three closets and half the kitchen with no luck. If she doesn’t locate it by bedtime, I may have to sleep at your house. She’s not going to stop until she finds it.”

“What if it’s lost forever?”

I’m almost positive he shuddered.

“Tough week?” I asked with all the sympathy I could muster, which was plenty. “Has Mom been moody?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Snappish?”

“Like a turtle.”

“Unfocused?”

“Have you been eavesdropping on us, Whitney?”

“No, but I do read women’s magazines. There isn’t one in existence that isn’t discussing the topic. You know how it was for Grandma when she was in what she euphemistically called ‘The Change.’” There had been apocryphal stories about that time whispered around the family for years.

I rubbed his shoulders and was surprised at how small he felt. When I was a little girl, he was a giant…and now he’s just a man.

Dad and I were walking arm in arm toward the house when Mother burst through the front door waving a wet Baggie full of money.

“I found it! Oh, Frank, aren’t you glad?” She was panting a little, and her hair looked as if it had been electrified, but it occurred to me how attractive my mom is. If she hadn’t been my mother, I would have marveled at how young she looks. As it is, I take her for granted much too often.

“Why is it in a Baggie? And why is it wet?”

“You know I wanted to put it where no one would think to look for it. It was a stroke of genius, really. I bagged it up and put it inside the toilet tank. It’s been there all along. All I have to do is dry it out a little, and I can go shopping….”

“You put it in the toilet?” my dad said.

“Not the bowl, Frank, the tank. No one would think to look there!”

“Including you, Mom.”

“I’m good, aren’t I?”

We followed Mom to the house and watched her dry her money with a hair dryer. As we talked, I told them my news. They were very upset about Kim as well, but Mom tried to accentuate the positive.

“This is a disease that can be caught in time now,” she assured me. “Why, there must be a dozen or more women at church who have had breast cancer and are doing marvelously today.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make it less scary. And, of course, Kim thinks of Wesley.”

“I’ll notify our prayer chains at church and bring it up at Bible study,” Mom promised. “The couples’ group is meeting at the Bakersfields’ tonight.”

Dad perked up. “Really? Isn’t she the one who makes peach pie?”

“Yes, dear, and she said she was having a light supper beforehand, so don’t start snacking now.”

Dad’s face relaxed considerably. I wasn’t sure if his improved mood was the result of Mom’s finding the money or the thought of pie on the horizon, but I was happy for him either way.

October 17

Kim’s clinic isn’t far from the office. It sits near a man-made pond, and the lawns are manicured to perfection. I’ve heard a great plastic surgeon has offices here. She won’t admit it, but I think Mitzi has already started getting things lifted and tucked. I know for sure that Betty has. No one’s eyebrows should ride that high on a person’s forehead. If she were bald, she could just let them grow and comb them backward for hair. And Betty has this continually surprised look that makes her look like a wide-eyed kid at the circus.

I was so busy looking at the artwork on the walls (original, I think) and the cherry-wood furnishings that looked a thousand percent better than anything in my living room, that it took me a moment to realize Kim’s name had been called. She took my sleeve in her hand and tugged frantically.

“Kim, I can’t go in with you!”

“I’m not going if you don’t,” she said, and she meant it. “Listen, Whitney, I can’t do this alone.”

“Kurt should be with you.”

“If this is serious, he’ll get plenty of chances.”

If the tables were turned, I’d want someone there with me. Someone other than my mother, I think. Unless I could get her to quit reading medical books. If a side effect of a medication is shortness of breath or growing hair on one’s chest, Mom’s sure she has it. She pores over health magazines and reads medical thrillers voraciously. Being healthy as the proverbial horse, I’ve been such a disappointment to her—not an appendix scar or a root canal or even a mild case of acid reflux.

And she’s nothing compared to my grandmother, who grieved for months when Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey went off the air. (Never saw ’em, never had to—anyone over fifty can give you the lowdown, especially in my family.) She ultimately came out of her depression long enough to find other medical shows on TV—now we all know enough never to call her during E.R.

“Okay,” I said. “Although I don’t know that I’ll be much help.”

“Just your being with me is all the help I need,” Kim assured me. “That and prayer.”

“I can handle that.”

The doctor’s office was as warm and inviting as the waiting room. Dr. Chase Andrews, Internal Medicine, said the sign on the door. Inside, there were huge banks of cherry-wood cabinets to hide those unsightly files and models of human organs that came apart like puzzle pieces for demonstration purposes. There were no body charts on the walls delineating the veins, arteries, bones and muscles either. Nice as this place was, I decided Kim’s doctor probably used a PowerPoint presentation on a big-screen TV if a patient needed to be educated. And there was classical music coming from hidden speakers. How much did this guy charge, anyway? Kim said he was the best. Maybe he was giving her a deal, having been a friend of Kurt’s and all.

Kim perched on the edge of her seat, lifted her heels and began that annoying little bounce that nervous people often do. I walked behind her to massage the knots from her shoulders. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. “Everything will be all right” was not necessarily true and we both knew it.

Kim and I have a deal—no prevarication. We trust each other for complete honesty, the truth and nothing but the truth. What a liberating concept that is! I know there’s at least one person on the planet who will tell me if I have a streak of bed-head running down the back of my scalp or bad breath. After all, how can you fix things you don’t know about?

The door whispered open so quietly that I didn’t realize at first that the doctor had entered the room. It wasn’t until I saw him from the corner of my eye that I knew we were no longer alone.

Dr. Andrews stretched out his hand to Kim. “Hello, Mrs. Easton, I’m Chase Andrews. I’m glad we finally get to meet. Your husband is a great guy.”

“He says the same about you,” Kim ventured, her shoulders relaxing.

When he turned to me, I felt my legs turn into Gummi Bears. It was the dazzling man from the hall yesterday. This was Kim’s doctor? I felt immediately better. Just looking at him could probably cure a dozen diseases. His sandy hair was shot with gold, and as I looked down at the floor to break his mesmerizing gaze, I noticed that in his finely crafted leather slip-ons, he wore Mickey Mouse socks.

The doctor moved to a cabinet to the left of his desk and opened a set of double doors that revealed a backlit display. From the top of his desk, he took an envelope containing Kim’s films and clamped them to the screen. Not her most attractive angle, I thought wildly. I was losing my mind. Maybe I’d feel better without it.

“This is your right breast and this is your left,” Dr. Dreamboat said. “As you notice, there is a considerable difference in the tissue between the two. If you’ll look right here…” He used his pen as a pointer and circled a spot on the X ray that looked alarmingly out of place. Before he said another word, I knew Kim was in trouble. Dr. Andrews’s words jumbled together as I focused my full attention on the spot to which he was pointing.

“…rather large…doesn’t appear to be a cyst…biopsy will tell us for sure…think it should be done right away…tomorrow…any questions?”

Questions? All I had was questions! I looked at Kim. She had a stunned look on her face and was curling her shoulders forward into a fetal position.

Dr. Andrews moved around the burnished cherry desk and angled one hip against it until he was half sitting, half standing in front of her. His posture was relaxed and somehow comforting. He gave off waves of “I am competent. I’ll help you. You’re safe with me.”

I wondered how he did it. He must have learned it somewhere other than medical school, because if it could be taught, it would be a required class. The muscles in my own shoulders relaxed when I saw Kim shift in her chair.

“Do you think it’s…?”

“It could be,” he answered, without her having to say the word, “but it looks well contained, which is a good sign.” He looked at Kim with so much compassion and understanding that I felt tears forming in my own eyes.

“Maybe we should wait and see….” Kim grasped at straws.

“We could,” he agreed pleasantly, “but the reality is, it’s here. Why not take care of it? Get on with whatever we need to do and be done with it. You have a life to live—why waste time worrying about something we can do something about right now?”

I saw Kim lift her chin and square her shoulders.

You have a life to live…. She did. She knew it, I knew it and the doctor knew it. This was a hurdle she had to move past, but Dr. Andrews was the man to help her.

I looked at him and knew immediately that he’d chosen his words with intention. He was confident that he could do what needed to be done. His competence and assurance enveloped both of us and radiated optimism and peace right into our cells.

While he and Kim were going over the details of the next step, I called Betty and told her that I’d be late and Kim wouldn’t be coming in today. Then I called Kurt and left a message suggesting he meet us.

It was after two o’clock by the time I got back to the office, and it was like walking into a tree full of vultures, hunched with anticipation, sharp eyes scanning my face for clues, hungry for every detail. Mitzi, of course, was the most vulture-like of the batch. Bryan hung back to see if whatever I had to say would be of interest to him or if he’d have to disappear into the men’s room until it blew over.

Betty jumped to her feet when I walked in, but I held up a hand. “I’ll be back in a minute, I have to see Harry.”

He was, as usual, riveted to his computer screen. There were pencils behind both ears and one even stuck into his Chia Pet “do.” He’d rolled up his sleeves, loosened his tie and filled the candy dish by his mouse with Hot Tamales. That meant Harry was doing some serious work—he never ate Hot Tamales unless the project was really important. There were usually jelly beans in the dish, unless he’d had an easy day and had dug into his enormous stash of dried-up Peeps left over from Easter. I can’t explain why he loved those sugary, pastel-colored marshmallow chicks, but he did. He sent me out to gather up all I could find right after the holiday and made them last most of a year. I guess that was how we’d come up with the terminology for the tranquil days when Harry was out of the office—that was “a Peep kind of day.”

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