Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells (11 page)

“Er, let me get that for you,” Andrew said, coming round her and bending down. He was wearing a white doctor’s coat and, on his head, an old-fashioned reflector.

Startled out of her paralysis, Grace said, “No, no, I’ll get it,” and bent down quickly. She got her hand on the panties just as
Andrew did, their fingers meeting on the satin. Their eyes met, and Andrew’s face turned scarlet.

“Er, yes, okay,” he murmured.

She felt the desperation of the misunderstood and wanted to correct the impression she must have just given him, but what to say?

“Grace,” Sophia broke in.

Grace felt a spurt of gratitude.
Thank God, Sophia will save me from myself
. “Yes?”

“There’s a smear of brown at the back of your T-shirt. You’ve also left a brown stain on my sofa. Why, pray?”

Grace gasped and slapped her hand to her back, finding the squashed cookies. She twisted her face in miserable apology as she turned to Sophia. “It’s cookies. The chocolate must have soaked through when I sat down. I’m so sorry; I’ll scrub it off the sofa.”

“But why on earth do you have cookies tucked into your shirt?” Andrew asked in bewilderment.

Sophia raised her own brow in question.

“I, uh—wanted my hands free?”

“Grace,” Andrew said, stiff and professionally concerned. “I think you and I should have a private word.”

“What? Why?”

He didn’t answer, though, so she followed him out into the foyer with the dragging feet of a child knowing she was in trouble, but not knowing exactly how bad it was going to be. She tried to postpone his words by asking, “Where did you find that thing you’re wearing on your head? A prop shop?”

Flustered out of his clinical seriousness, Andrew put his hand to the reflector, his face showing his surprise to discover it there. “Sophia bought it. From eBay, I think.”

“Do you actually use it?”

“No.”

“So it’s just to humor her, like the costumes she makes the rest of her staff wear. You don’t feel silly in it?”

He cleared his throat, his lips tightening again. “I do. A little. If you must know.”

“Then why do you wear it?”

He rubbed his hand over his face. “Because it’s easier than
not
wearing it.”

“Ah.” The reflector looked silly, undignified. A man who had gone through medical school and a residency should have the strength to say no to a patient who wanted him to dress up as a caricature of his own profession.

Maybe Sophia made Declan wear a green visor and ink guards on his wrists when he talked money with her, too. Or maybe coattails, cane, and a top hat like the millionaire in Monopoly. And a bushy white mustache. Grace giggled, on the edge of hysteria.

Andrew evidently took her giggle personally, and grew stern again. “Grace, I want you to be honest with me.”

Trepidation smothered her smile. She nodded, wary, and tried not to let the hysterical giggles escape.

“How long have you been a food hoarder?”

She gaped at him. “A what?”

“Food. Hoarder.”

“I’m not!”

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her round, then tugged up her shirt. The cookies fell out onto the marble floor with a
splat, splat
.

“I just didn’t want Sophia to see them!” Grace said.

“Why not?”

Grace snorted. “Why do you think? She—” Grace suddenly stopped, her tongue tripping over the knowledge that she could not say
one word
about the bet between her and Sophia, and
Sophia’s efforts to transform her into a bombshell. She couldn’t say that she knew gorging on cookies didn’t fit Sophia’s ideas of how a bombshell behaved.

“You’re hiding food,” Andrew said.

Grace chafed under the accusation, but she couldn’t exactly deny it, what with the evidence lying on the floor. “Just cookies.” She pursed her lips. “And maybe a Snickers bar now and then.”

“You’re a binge eater, aren’t you? You have the puffy, bloated look of someone who has a carbohydrate addiction.”

Deeply affronted, Grace drew herself up. “I beg your pardon!”

“You’re damaging your metabolism, and I hate to think of what your liver must look like.”

“What’s wrong with my liver?!”

“It’s probably fatty. You’re on the road to becoming a diabetic.”

“It was a couple of freakin’ cookies!”

“The simple carbohydrates, the sugar, the binge eating—you’re killing yourself.”

“I don’t have an eating disorder!”

He looked at her with deep medical compassion. “Look at the evidence and face the truth, Grace. Accepting that you have an addiction is the first step to healing it.”

His misguided compassion was too much, on top of everything else. Devastated, she cried out, “So what if I do?” and burst into tears.

“Good, Grace! Acceptance is
good
!”

“Screw you,” she wailed, and ran up the stairs to the safety of her room.

CHAPTER

8

Research Notes

June 18

Author in deep mental funk. Is liver fatty? Is love of a good cookie a sign of carb addiction? But what then of equal, if not greater, love of bacon? Bacon ≠ carb
.

June 19

Author admits to self that real cause of funk is sense of being hopelessly unattractive to males. Dr. Andrew thinks she’s bloated, and obviously finds Author physically unappealing. Declan finds Author both physically and psychologically unappealing. Not that his opinion matters, the scum-sucking son of a carp . . .

Bombshell lessons obviously a waste of time. Author either incapable of learning, or Sophia’s premise of being able to teach sex appeal is erroneous
.

June 20

Sophia’s frustration with Author’s lack of progress and “poor attitude” is expressing itself in a surprising decline in personal tidiness. Lock of hair escaped control of clip, and food stain was noted on blouse. More alarming, S. only shrugged when food stain pointed out
.

Sophia has declared Author’s core beliefs about sexiness of self to be inadequate to the job of creating external sex appeal, and beyond remediation. (“Beyond God and the devil,” exact words.)

Lessons aborted midday
.

Scotch decanter is empty
.

June 21

S. has formulated a new plan for education of Author. Author must now “fake it till she makes it”; i.e., mimic the sexy until she truly becomes sexy. Focus of training will now be on external appearance, with Author’s interior self left to languish
.

Sophia contends that once Author looks sexy on the outside and experiences success re: capturing the attention of men, Author will gain confidence and become sexy on the inside. This is directly opposed to S.’s initial thesis of the inner woman determining the outer woman
.

Author is pleased to note that this is in keeping with Author’s original beliefs re: pursuit of beauty leading to an empty soul
.

(Ha!)

June 23

Author being put on strict weight-loss diet
.

Author would like a glass of Scotch
.

June 24

Author has suffered the mental and physical horrors of a bikini wax. Great holy monkey balls, the pain
.

June 26

Sophia’s external sex appeal lesson focusing on posture and gait:

Heeled shoes must be worn at all times, up to and even including the sexual act. Author suspects that resultant painful foot deformities may partially explain S.’s foul temper. (Author freshly mourning theft of orthopedic sandals.)

In order to create the desired hip sway while walking, feet must be placed directly in front of each other as if walking on a balance beam. S. has installed such a beam on the floor of her exercise room for the purpose of training Author, which has proven an ineffective teaching method when coupled with five-inch platform heels. Author’s ankles strained, toes blistered, arches aching
.

S. has compared Author’s gait to that of Bigfoot, with hunched shoulders and head jutting forward as if chewing berries off a bush. S. employs her cane to whack Author in appropriate body locations to improve gait: head up, shoulders back, hips forward
.

Author is exhibiting signs of Pavlovian fear response to presence of cane, including tic under one eye
.

June 28

Author’s mental health status is showing signs of decline, including obsessive thoughts of violence toward Sophia and contemplation of theft of Valium from S.’s medicine cabinet to medicate self. Both are early indications that the pursuit of sex appeal leads to mental illness and drug addiction in women
.

CHAPTER

9

“C
ome on! Faster! Faster! Faster! Hup, hup, hup!”

Grace gulped in air, her thigh muscles burning, her lungs raw, the blood pounding in her head.
I’m going to have a stroke, oh God, I’m going to die right here on these freakin’ stairs
. Below her the waves of the Pacific washed against the shore of the cove, their rushing sound lost in the louder rushing of her breath. The wooden staircase bolted to the cliff face had become her personal torture rack as she climbed it for the third time.

“You’re almost here! Hup, hup, hup!”