He Loves Lucy Page 5

  He owed Murray Goldstein. Five years ago, the old guy put few thousand in small bills in an envelope, and put the envelope into the hands of the district court judge presiding over Stephan’s divorce case. In Murray Goldstein’s world, that meant he owned Stephan. Always would.

  “That girl’s got to stay fat!” Murray yelled into the phone.

  Stephan winced, trying to remain in control of the situation. “That’s been my plan all along.”

  “Your plan? What plan? You couldn’t plan your way out of a toilet stall!”

  Stephan didn’t appreciate that comment. It was a good plan, one that could work if Lucy failed to lose the weight.

  “She’s never going to do it, Murray. Get real-how many people do you know who actually lose a hundred pounds?”

  The earpiece remained blissfully silent.

  “I’m setting her up; don’t you get it? I’ve wanted to fire her for months. She’s another Sarah-a woman too aggressive for her own good.” That part was true. Lately Lucy was prancing around the halls of Sherrod amp; Thorns like her name was engraved on the stationery.

  “In fact,” he continued. “I’ve been trying to get rid of her lard ass since Sarah died, but she threatened to sue me for discrimination against fatties!” That part was a lie, but it sounded good.

  “No shit?”

  Stephan smiled, admiring the ease with which he could think on his feet. No wonder all of Miami respected him for his creative genius.

  “Absolutely, Murray. I can accomplish two things at once-get a bad hire out of my hair and pay you back for your magnanimous generosity during my time of trial. No pun intended.” Stephan laughed at his little joke.

  “But if she stays a blimp, won’t that make you look bad?”

  “It’ll make Lucy look bad. Then I’ll fire her. And it’ll make Goldstein’s look good because the Palm Club couldn’t follow through on its claim.”

  “That’s it? That’s your whole plan?”

  “Isn’t it fabulous?” Stephan crossed his fingers, hoping to God this would keep the old crook off his back.

  After a moment of quiet, Murray said, “That plan is so fucking stupid it just might work. But Lucy Cunningham has got to stay fat.”

  “Blimp City all the way,” Stephan replied.

  It was only five thirty in the evening, but Theo had been going nonstop since 4:00 a.m., and it felt like he was right back in the middle of his general surgery rotation in med school-headache, muscle fatigue, overwhelmed brain, and heavy eyelids. He took another swig of coffee and propped his feet up on his back porch railing, checking his watch. Buddy would be home from track practice in a half hour, leaving him just enough time to finish one last question on the histology practice exam.

  But his vision started to dull and his shoulders cramped and he couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy.

  She was doing great; that wasn’t the problem. They’d had another weigh-in that morning on WakeUp Miami and she’d lost six pounds and a few more inches. It was her smiling that bothered him. Her big, gray, sweet doe eyes. He wondered if Ramona had been wise to warn him that Lucy would make too much of the trainer-client intimacy. The truth was, he didn’t want to worry about Lucy’s heart except in the context of her cardiovascular well-being.

  Theo stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders, glad for the feel of late-afternoon winter sun on his face. With a deep breath he returned his focus to the practice question, pondering the cartilage matrix found in the cells of connective tissue.

  That’s what it was about-connection. He really liked Lucy Cunningham, and he wanted to enjoy this year without worrying she’d get too connected to him. All he wanted was to help her, get his money, and get on with his life. Was there anything wrong with that?

  Theo tossed the practice test to the outdoor table and wandered into the yard. The grass felt crisp and cool between his bare toes. There was something else about Lucy that bothered him lately-something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. And it was driving him crazy.

  He stopped, staring down at his mother’s prized rhododendrons. They needed some serious attention. Theo raised his gaze and looked around him. He blinked. It seemed everything here needed attention-the grass, the fence, the exterior stucco of the house his parents had left him three years ago.

  Theo rubbed his chin with his hand, then raked his fingers through his hair. He began to pace the yard, realizing that the grass, the fence, and the house were the least of his worries.

  His first priority was and would always be his little brother, who needed a hell of a lot more than just attention. He needed love and guidance and reassurance and security. Then there were Theo’s jobs-the full-time one, the part-time one at the nightclub, and the coaching one. And his aunt and uncle. And somewhere in there were his dreams. His dreams deserved his attention, too.

  He thought about Lucy Cunningham’s painfully cute smile, the little frown of concentration she got when he introduced something new to her workout, and suddenly wished he could just get in his car and drive away. He collapsed in the grass instead, laughing, then stretched out on his back and stared at the clouds. He liked Lucy Cunningham. He wanted her to be happy. So that’s what it was!

  Theo laughed some more, seeing with clarity that he’d put Lucy on that long list of things he couldn’t afford to screw up!

  Theo heard the gate latch click and looked up to see Buddy standing over him, peering down through his thick glasses. “Chinese again tonight?”

  Theo found enough energy to nod.

  Buddy offered his hand and helped pull Theo to his feet. They walked together toward the house. “Is the pretty fat girl from TV wearing you out already?”

  Theo threw an arm over Buddy’s shoulder and laughed. The tests might show his sixteen-year-old brother had the mental acuity of a third grader, but he sure didn’t miss much.

  Office of Doris Lehman, MSW, PhD “I must tell you, the change in you is already quite apparent. How does it feel?”

  Lucy stroked her upper arms and ran her hands down the tops of her thighs. “Bizarre. For a long time I felt like a head walking around in the world, numb from the jaw down, not exactly sure how I moved from point A to point B. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Well, I feel my legs now. Sometimes I look down at myself on the elliptical trainer and I go, Check it out! Those are my legs! Same with my arms and my back and shoulders-it’s like I’m waking up from a long sleep.”

  Doris jotted that down. “And how does that feel emotionally?”

  “I alternate between euphoria and panic.”

  “I see.”

  “Panic when people talk about my body like I’m deaf. Euphoria when I see that my clothes hang on me, even after I had them taken in twice.”

  “And how are things with Theo?”

  Lucy scrunched up her mouth and looked over at the kimono-clad nymphs for courage.

  “Fine. Good. Excellent.”

  “Have you…?”

  “No, I haven’t told him I have a crush on him. It’s too embarrassing. What if I accidentally blurt out the Lorna Doone fantasy? How could I ever rebound from that?”

  Doris blinked.

  “You know, it doesn’t even have to be Lorna Doones. It can be Oreos or Malomars for all I care, and they aren’t even my favorites. The important part is he’s naked and some type of cookie is involved.”

  Doris blinked again.

  “I’m just pulling your leg, Dr. Lehman.” Lucy gave her an exaggerated grin. “I sometimes worry that my issues aren’t fancy enough for you, you know? I come in here week after week, just a Pittsburgh girl who took off her clothes in front of the wrong man ten years ago,

  56 Susan Donovan wiped out a college football dynasty, and enticed a 60 Minutes camera crew to camp out on her parents’ lawn. I worry that I bore you.“

  Doris smiled politely. “What I wouldn’t give for all my patients to be so boring.”

  Chapter 4

  M
arch

  “Go away. Leave me alone. You make me mad.”

  Theo sat down on the edge of the bed, his coffee balanced in one hand while the other stroked his brother’s wispy blond hair. “You gotta get up, Buddy. I need to take you to Aunt Viv’s so she can drive you to school later.”

  “Go away.” Buddy grabbed the edge of the comforter and yanked it up over his head, hitting Theo’s arm, spilling his coffee, and sending Norton the devil cat leaping for safety. Theo checked his watch. This was insanity. Trying to get Buddy out of the house by 4:15 every weekday was getting harder as time went on, not easier.

  Not for the first time, Theo wondered if a hundred grand was worth this hassle.

  “We gotta rock-‘n’-roll, Buddy. I have a client waiting for me.”

  From under the comforter came a muffled, “Another girl who loves you?”

  “Get up, Buddy.”

  “Do you still miss Jenna? I do. Why did she stop liking you? Because you’re not a doctor anymore?”

  Theo was quite used to Buddy’s filterless questions but was still half-asleep and more vulnerable than he would have been at a later hour. He took a sip of coffee, gulping down the sadness that could still pierce him when he thought of Jenna. “Yeah, I still miss her sometimes. Now get up.”

  “Buzz off.”

  “I don’t appreciate your attitude.”

  “Go away.”

  Theo checked his watch. He was growing desperate. “Look, Brian. If I get back in med school I’ll really need your cooperation, so let’s practice now. I have to meet my client. Get up.”

  “The funny fat lady from TV?”

  “Yeah. Her. Now get up.”

  “No!”

  “We can have cheesesteaks for supper.”

  “I’m up.” And with that, Buddy burst forth from under his covers and nearly knocked Theo to the floor as he made his way across the bedroom, fully dressed, all the way down to his Reeboks.

  Theo shook his head and laughed. He’d been got again, by a teenager alleged to have an IQ half his own.

  He used the corner of the comforter to mop coffee off his work shorts, taking a moment to look around Buddy’s room, listening to the usual morning humming coming from the bathroom down the hall.

  The bedroom looked like your average teenager’s room. Computer on the desk. An MP3 player and headphones tossed casually on the floor by the dresser.

  Clothes spilling out of the hamper. Sports posters all over the wall-with Lance Armstrong, Marian Jones, and Michael Phelps predominating.

  But the trophy and medal collection surrounding Theo wasn’t average at all. Pinned to a strip of cork-board encircling the room were hundreds of ribbons and medals. Dozens of trophies sat on a low shelf above the desk, engraved with the name “Brian Redmond.” Though Theo couldn’t read the small print on each from where he sat, he knew well enough what they were for. In swimming, the hundred-meter butterfly and the hundred-meter freestyle. In track, the long jump, hundred-and-ten-meter hurdles, high jump, marathon, half marathon, and pentathlon.

  They were from school meets, local and state competitions, invitationals, and last year’s international games. They reflected eight years of athletic achievement by a boy who surprised his parents by arriving sixteen years after Theo, with Down syndrome.

  Theo’s eyes traveled to the neat little cross-stitch slogan that hung on the wall over Buddy’s bed, matted under glass and nicely framed. Their mother gave it to Buddy a few months before she died. It was the Special Olympics athlete’s oath, in a graceful cursive script:

  Let me win.

  But if I cannot win,

  Letme be brave in the attempt.

  Theo knew those words by heart. And he knew they applied to him and the rest of the world as much as they did to Buddy and his fellow Special Olympians.

  A horrible noise jarred Theo from his quiet thoughts.

  “I like the way you moo-oove!”

  As usual, Buddy’s singing was very loud, very off-key, and had no identifiable time signature. And like he did nearly every morning, Buddy sang while brushing his teeth and flossing.

  “I like the way-ay…”

  Theo slipped into the bathroom doorway to watch Buddy groove his way through his oral hygiene. “Anything cool going on at school today?”

  “Never is.” Buddy spit and rinsed. “So probably not today, either.”

  “Track after school?”

  “Yep.”

  “Got your gear packed?”

  “Yeah.”

  Theo watched Buddy swivel his hips in front of the bathroom mirror, and couldn’t help but smile at how happy he seemed. After the accident three years ago, Buddy had simply shut down. He stopped competing. He wouldn’t hang out with friends. He became so angry at the world and so lost that it broke Theo’s heart.

  He did everything he could to make it easier for Buddy. Theo dropped out of med school halfway through his M-3 year, right in the middle of a general surgery rotation, which didn’t go over well with the attending physician, not to mention Jenna. Then Theo moved back home to Miami Springs and took over his dad’s coaching post with the Special Olympics of Miami-Dade.

  Theo had no choice. His aunt and uncle were too old to keep up with Buddy, and Theo couldn’t pull him out of his school and away from his friends and definitely couldn’t move him out of the house. Buddy didn’t do well with even the smallest changes in his routine, like grape instead of the usual strawberry jam on his peanut butter sandwich. Moving would have killed him.

  Looking at him now, combing his hair and humming, Theo was proud that Buddy was doing so well. Theo was proud that with Aunt Viv and Uncle Martin’s help he’d managed to keep his brother’s world intact for these last three years.

  Even at the cost of Theo’s own.

  “I have to work the door at Flawless Friday and Saturday nights, so you’ll be staying with Aunt Viv and Uncle Martin. But we can train Saturday afternoon.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Get your backpack and let’s roll, stud.”

  Buddy laughed, and Theo enjoyed watching him tilt his head back and squint his already-squinty eyes behind his thick glasses, smiling so big that his gums showed all along the ridges of his small top teeth.

  When Buddy stopped laughing, he playfully shook his finger at Theo. “You’re the stud in this house,” he said, strolling into the hallway and toward the foyer.

  “Nope.” Theo grabbed his car keys off the hall table and opened the door for his brother. “You’re the only stud around here, dude, and we both know it.”

  “How much have you lost now, Lucy?”

  Veronica hadn’t asked that question in about six days, which might have been a record for Lucy’s assistant. “Not sure. The month’s not over yet.”

  Maria Banderas munched on her taco salad and waved her fork around. “I don’t know how you do it! I’d be weighing myself every ten minutes if I were losing weight as fast as you are. You’re a better person than I am!”

  Lucy gave Maria a polite smile. “If you were losing weight this fast they’d have you in the ICU, hooked up to an IV. Everything’s relative.”

  “It’s good to see you’re eating actual food.”

  Veronica made that preposterous comment just as Lucy popped a cherry tomato into her mouth. She chewed desperately so she could respond. “Of course I’m eating food! What else would I be eating?”

  Her assistant looked sheepish. “Well, Stephan said you had to be cheating to be doing so well-like a liquid fast or vitamin shots or something.”

  Lucy shook her head in disgust. “At least if he’s paying attention to my weight that means he’s paying attention to one detail of one account, which is a miracle.”

  “No kidding.” Maria’s eyes got wide. “Thank God you’re still here, because we’d be dead in the water if we counted on Stephan. It’s like he’s sleepwalking! Remember the asphalt company proposal I asked him to approve last week? He hasn’t even picked it up.�
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  Lucy frowned. “That’s a potential big-money account. I’ll talk to him.”

  “You might want to talk to him about the phone bill while you’re at it,” Veronica said. “He didn’t pay it last month-flipped out that it was too expensive and we could get a better deal and told me to do the research.”

  Lucy put her fork down and stared at Veronica.

  “So I gave him a couple options, right? But he still hasn’t decided and he won’t pay the overdue bill and we just got a cutoff notice. How’s an advertising company supposed to do business without phones?”

  Lucy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and repeated the words to herself: Eight more months.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Cunningham.”

  Theo greeted her at the Palm Club door as usual, but he wasn’t wearing his standard Happy Trainer face. His lips were pursed tight. His marine blue eyes were stern and had none of the unnatural sparkle she’d grown accustomed to. And Lucy knew it was her fault.

  “I’m really sorry, Theo. I left you a voice mail to apologize yesterday. I thought I hit the snooze but somehow fell back asleep.”

  “Don’t do it again.”

  “OK. OK. I’m sorry.”

  Theo punched in a fifteen-minute warm-up on the recumbent cycle and extended his hand for her to have a seat. He started scribbling on his clipboard.

  “I hate getting out of bed at four in the morning as much as much as you do, Lucy, if not more.”

  “I understand. But for the record, I hate it a lot.” She started pedaling.

  “You’re the one who picked this ridiculous time.”

  “It’s the only time I had. I have to be at work at eight!”

  “Where’s your food journal?”

  “In my bag.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  Lucy watched in horror as Theo tossed aside her new zebra-striped panties. In the last couple weeks, her underwear had begun to fall around her knees, so in a moment of recklessness in the Filene’s lingerie department, she’d decided to oomph up the style while she bought three sizes down.