LITMIR.BIZ

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M.J. suggested a quick jog before supper, I didn’t even grace her with an answer. By silent assent Cat and Margaret took one room and M.J. and I took the adjoining one. I headed straight for the shower and only then did I fall apart. There was no real reason to cry. Tears never solved anything. How many times had my mother pointed that out in that brusque manner she always used with her supposed-to-be-perfect children? But as I undressed in the unblinking fluorescent glare and the unforgivingly mirrored confines of the bathroom, I couldn’t help it. No amount of dieting and exercise would ever erase the soft folds of my belly or the dimpled excess of my thighs. Arms, chin, jowls. I was fat. And even if I did lose all the weight I wanted, what would be left but saggy skin and shrinking breasts? Just gorgeous.

      No wonder Jack found me so boring. No wonder my daughters didn’t look up to me as a role model. In the hot, enveloping steam of the pounding shower I cried and raged at the unfairness of it all. No wonder I felt so miserable all the time. I was miserable. A miserable, boring excuse of a woman.

      I was in the shower so long that M.J. showered in Cat and Margaret’s room. I don’t know what kind of lecture Cat and M.J. had given Margaret, but by the time I was out, with my stupid short hair dry and spiky and sticking out like a teenager’s, they were all dressed and ready to go.

      We piled into the car, heading for a Tex-Mex place the desk clerk had recommended, only the car wouldn’t start.

      “Come on, baby,” M.J. crooned as she retried the ignition. “Come on, you can do it.” But the motor only sputtered and coughed in a vain effort to turn over and catch.

      When M.J. finally gave up, Margaret started to laugh. “Serves you right. Now you’re stranded in nowhere New Mexico where they’ve probably never seen a Jag before, let alone tried to fix one.”

      Thank goodness she was wrong. We ate at a diner across the street from the motel and discovered there was a mechanic who specialized in imported cars. As it turned out, nowhere New Mexico was a fairly with-it town. Though no Taos, it boasted a thriving artists’ and retirees’ community. The retirees all drove American with “These Colors Never Run” bumper stickers. The artists drove imports and I even saw three of those electric-gas hybrids.

      First thing in the morning, a Eugene’s Imports tow truck came for the car. Over breakfast we discussed our options for the day. “Of course we’ll exercise,” M.J. told me. “Even though we missed out yesterday, you did very well with your caloric intake.”

      I nodded as I ate my bowl of fruit with fat-free yogurt.

      Cat stirred some sweetener—the pink stuff—into her second cup of coffee. “Sorry, M.J. Y’all can exercise, but I think I’ll check out the shops, maybe even buy a piece of outsider art. Who knows. I could discover the next great artist to sell to my clients, the ones with too much money and too little taste.”

      “You ought to be nicer about your clients,” M.J. said. “If they had great taste they wouldn’t need to hire you.”

      Cat shrugged and glanced at Margaret. “So. What are you going to do between now and the time the Greyhound leaves?”

      My stomach clenched. She’d already checked the bus schedule?

      Margaret yawned. “I don’t know. I saw a sign for an Internet Café last night. I might head over there. Check my e-mail. See if I still have a job.” She shot me a contemptuous look.

      “She hates me,” I muttered to M.J. an hour later as the two of us stretched and warmed up for our jog. “Worse, she’s going back to that creep.”

      “What can you do, besides cutting off the money?”

      I shook my head. “Maybe her sisters can talk some sense into her.”

      “But not Jack?”

      “Oh, no.” I stretched my fingers toward the floor. “He’d have a fit.”

      “Did you just touch your toes?”

      I straightened and looked at M.J. “Did I?” I stared down my front. Breasts, belly and toes. I could see my toes without throwing my neck out of whack. Once more I bent down and sure enough, the tips of my fingernails flicked the tips of my Reebok trainers. I would have been ecstatic if I wasn’t so worried about my Magpie.

      We jogged the length of the town, past a small brick school, an impressive town hall with a clock in the pediment and a combination firehouse, health clinic and sheriff’s office. It reminded me of the town in Back to the Future.

      On the opposite side of a town square framed by gnarled cedar trees and underplanted with an impressive xeriscape garden, a row of wood-framed shops formed the downtown. We saw Cat inside a quaint art gallery haggling with a leather-faced woman and a man with a gray ponytail.

      At least my face wasn’t all leathery, I told myself, and I wasn’t old enough to be an old hippie. But I was forty-eight and soon I’d be fifty. My kids didn’t need me anymore, and neither did my husband.

      “Look,” M.J. said. She was barely perspiring. “There’s that Internet café. Why don’t we go in and say hi to Margaret? Better yet,” she amended, “You go. I’m going to do another fast mile back to the hotel. See you there.”

      A good-looking cowboy type came out of the café as she trotted off. He was so intent on watching her that he nearly collided with me. I could just see the headlines: Rotund, Red-faced Woman Skewered on a Rodeo Buckle. But he dodged me, then gallantly held the café door open. I had no choice but to enter.

      Inside it was cool. An iced coffee seemed like a good idea, but I hadn’t brought any money with me. So I scanned the high-tech decor and spotted Margaret at a back table, hunched over a glowing computer screen. I put on a determined smile. “Hi, sweetie.”

      She glanced up, then back to the screen. “Hi.”

      Okay. I cleared my throat. “Do you think you could treat me to something cool to drink? I forgot my wallet.”

      She squinted at the screen, then briefly at me. “Sure.” With one foot she nudged her purse toward me while keeping her focus on the screen. “When you get back I have something to show you.”

      I had visions of some diatribe e-mail from her employer, or perhaps the section of the Arizona legal code pertaining to kidnappings. What she showed me when I sat down beside her, however, was a Web site for my high school class reunion. “This is it, right?” she asked.

      “Yes. Wow.” After a page about the reunion particulars all the seniors’ photos were displayed.

      “There’s you,” Margaret said. “Look at that hair.”

      “And every bit of it natural. Well, maybe a little lemon juice to brighten it a bit,” I conceded.

      “You were a real hottie, Mom. Look, there’s a picture of the cheerleaders. You didn’t tell me you were captain of the squad.”

      “I was, wasn’t I?” Captain of the cheerleaders. Homecoming queen. Most likely to succeed. Anything less would have disappointed my mother.

      “So where’s this Eddie guy you dated?”

      “Look in the Ds,” I said, then took a nervous sip of my iced coffee. She scrolled slowly down a page. “There.”

      “Edward Joseph Dusson,” she said.

      Eddie.

      His hair was thick and long over his eyebrows. Twice the vice-principal had sent him home for a haircut. He had sideburns, a piercing gaze and a serious look on his face.

      “He looks kind of geeky,” Margaret said. “How’d he get to go out with the head cheerleader?”

      “He was no geek,” I said. “Quite the opposite. He had a motorcycle.”

      “Ooh, Mom.” She grinned. “What, you were the good girl dating the bad boy?”

      “Something like that.”

      “So

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