Worth the Weight (30 page)

He didn’t seem all that surprised to see her. Leery, watchfu
l, but not surprised. Maybe he
envisioned her throwing pop at him as well. Perhaps it was an incident that often happened to him.

They made excruciating small talk for a few minutes, Lizzie still deciding which road to take.
Finn
said he had to go back upstairs to the projection room.
She
just nodded. He reached out and squeezed her arm.

“It was good to see you, Liz. Take care of yourself,” he said. They had been near the door to go into the theater, next to the stairwell. He led her directly across
the lobby to the exit doors,
then turned back and headed up the stairs.

It was a definite dismissal and
she
put her hands out to the glass doors to leave. She paused at the door, looking out into the evening twilight. Being so far west that it should really be in the Central Time Zone, but remaining on Eastern time, the Copper Country remained light until ten or eleven o’clock in the summer. It was a kid’s paradise, playing baseball so late into the evening. The walk home wouldn’t even be really dark until she was just about
to
her house.

The cool glass on Lizzie’s hand shocked her. She took a step back, then another. Her dignity already in shreds, she decided to go for broke and wait for
Finn
to come back downstairs.

She’d definitely sleep with him. Enough of this good girl crap, he was a man and he wanted a woman. And she was going to be one for him. Would it matter just this once if she altered her life plan? Moved up the
virginity timetable a few years?

Her stomach churned with dread as she waited, then some movement coming from the doors in front of her made her lift her head. The door reflected the lobby behind her and she saw
Finn
making his way down the stairs. She stood still for a moment, trying to get her courage up,
to turn around and face him,
but she needn’t have bothered. As soon as he saw she was still there, had waited for him, he came to a quiet halt on the fourth step from the bottom. Not realizing she could see him in the reflecting window, he silently turned around and made his way back up the stairs, creeping like a thief in the night, intent on waiting until
she
left before returning downstairs.

The thoughts that ran through Lizzie’s mind right then would unwittingly affect the rest of her life. As she hustled through the doors and made her way back to her side of the bridge she could have been thinking, “What a snake! What a jerk! Who does he think he is!?” But those weren’t the thoughts that ran through her humiliated brain.

Instead, her eigh
teen-year-old, broken-hearted mind raced with, “What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? Did his other girlfriends kiss better than me?” and the piece de r
é
sistance, “Does he like someone prettier/thinner/better than me?”

The memory played like a movie in Lizzie’s mind as she s
at on the stairs in her parents’
home - the place she still thought of as
her
home - and watched
Finn
.

With the hindsight of a woman who
had
faced life’s challenges and won, she realized now how pivotal that night had been for her. She hadn’t faced it before, had never really thought about that night, about how shattered her pride had been. How disgusted with herself
she was
for even going to the
Mine Shaft
. How she’d never told anyone
about it to this day
, not even Al and Kat. She thought her problems with intimacy and trust had begun with her sexual debacle three years later, but she now knew it had been birthed that night.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her cheek against the soft robe. She allowed a tear to trickle down her cheek, making no attempt to wipe it away. That gi
rl in the theater lobby deserved
a tear or two. She hadn’t cried that night - had not cried any more over
Finn
Robbins.

She did start making frequent trips to the Dairy Queen.

A soft sigh escaped her lips but
Finn
was still oblivious to her presence behind him. She
wondered what in her mother’s curio cabinet could have him so engrossed, then gasped as she realized he was staring at the family photos of her at twice her size.

There were at least a dozen photos in front of him. One with her and Zeke when he got his wings, him looking devastatingly handsome in his Navy whites, straining to reach an arm around her girth for an embrace. One of Lizzie looking happy in a chic, designer suit, albeit seven sizes larger than the ones she wore now, in front of the office doors with the Hampton Public Relations
sign
on her first day of business. One with her parents at a Red Wings game, she in a XXXL Pete Ryan jersey.

One of her on her high school graduation looking crisp and young and full of dreams. Later that night she’d whimpered
Finn
’s name as he
’d
held her on a blanket at the beach, frightened of what her body was feeling, of emotions that seemed just out of reach.

Lizzie’s gasp was what made
Finn
finally aware of her and he turned to face her. There was a questioning look in his eyes and compassion in his voice - not pity, she would have died to hear pity - when he said, “Tell me what happened to you, Elizabeth.”

It seemed fitting that she told him of the last fifteen years at the beach. He had bared his soul to her here only a month ago, and it was here that they had shared so many heated moments years earlier.

She threw on shorts and a tee shirt,
Finn
gathered his shirt and shoes, they put the coffee he’d been making before the pictures distracted him in a thermos, grabbed two mugs and drove the short distance. It was too early for anyone to be there. They had to park on the highway and walk in because the gates to the parking area wouldn’t open for several more hours. It was a lovely, clear morning, destined to be another glorious day. The water, still and mirror-like, held Lizzie’s attention as always. Once settled on the blanket and each with a mug of coffee in their hands,
Finn
needed to only voice a soft “Liz?” to get her started.

It all spilled. Probably too quickly, it seemed hard for
Finn
to keep up. Things she’d never put into words seemed so clear to her now.

She didn’t tell him about remembering the night at the theater after their break up, she didn’t want him to know that she’d seen him, didn’t want him to know how much that had shattered her.

And she didn’t mention the failed attempts at a healthy intimate relationship. It wouldn’t do her any good for him to know that
last night was only about push
ing her sexual envelope.

But she did tell him everything else that had happened to her. She explained to him about cravings and hungers that never seemed to end. How sometimes, after leaving an office full of close co-workers and a social gathering that included dinner with friends she cared deeply about, she’d return home and feel so alone that she’d get back in her car and drive to the nearest McDonald’s. How she’d order two large pops because she didn’t want the counter person to think the large amount of food she’d ordered was going to be eaten by only one person.

She croaked out a laugh as she told him that part. “Like a kid at McDonald’s gives a shit how much I eat. Like they’re going to call the Big Mac Police on me.”
Finn
only gave her a small smile and waited for her to continue.

She put into words how exhausting being “the nice one” had always been to her. She never felt that she could hurl a bitchy comeback, or put someone in their place the way Alison could. She could never attract men with the ease that Katie did. She worked hard at being so friendly, so accessible to everyone. Having a few candy bars on the drive to work was a self-granted reward,
of sorts, for all she did. She didn’t have anyone at her condo to say, “fantastic job, Lizzie” when she got home, so she let
Poppa John
say it for her.

She told him h
ow she felt like a double agent at times, so capable and competent in her professional life, and such a total fuck-up when it came to anything else.

How humiliating even taking a shower was every day when you needed to lift up your stomach to wash under it. Mirrors and especially clothes  - something
she’d
loved all her life - and any sort of athletic activity, became things she dreaded. Her disregard for her body was like a black hole that she hadn’t seen herself falling into. When she was so deeply ensconced, she could see no way out.

She stopped talking for a while, just stared at the lake. She’d never get tired of looking at that lake.
Finn
just lay beside where she sat, waiting patiently. He probab
ly needed to get to the farm, but
made no sign of moving, showed no signal for her to hurry up and get on with it. For that she was grateful. It was painful to talk about this, but he was easing the way for her by being silent.

Her voice was lighter and her whole body seemed to ease as she told him of her turnaround.

It hadn’t been easy. The first time she had sent a plate of her beloved fettucini Alfredo away half finished because she was full - something that had never stopped her from cleaning off the plate before - she’d almost burst into tears.

The foreign object her face became when washing it and would come into contact with cheekbone instead of fleshy cheek. The Samson-esque importance she gave to her hair, not cutting it other than trimming the ends, since she’d started to lose weight. The length in some
indefinable
way proportionate to her weight loss.

She explained about journaling, how that morphed into the tablets and lists she always carried around.

“What was it that made you start to lose weight?” he asked.

She had no intention of telling him about meeting Davis. Thinking his name now, she struggled to picture him in her mind. She was surprised to find it took her several moments before she saw him, dressed in an Armani suit, dashing into a meeting. She’d started to think that maybe her epiphany moment would have come regardless of meeting Davis. She sensed she’d been at a point in her life  - a now-or-never moment - when she’d have the strength and courage to begin a new chapter in the saga of Lizzie Hampton.

“I was ready. It was as simple as that,” was all she said.

He sat up and crossed his ankles, his long legs resting alongside hers. The khakis he’d worn to the dance looked nearly white next to her legs, now deeply tan from days in the strawberry fields. A slight pink from the parade graced the surface of her knees. He placed his hand on her thigh, a gentle touch of a friend, not the sexual one of a lover. “Liz, not a thing about you is simple, it never was.”

A small smile played on her lips, s
he leaned her body into his,
then away, giving him a small sway of understanding. He laughed and mimicked her motion, leaning a little harder than she did, nearly throwing her off balance. She came back at him, putting her whole body behind it and they tumbled over,
Finn
pulling her to him as they rolled off the blanket and onto the grass, still wet with the morning’s dew.

Their smiles were wide with amusement as
Finn
rolled them back to the blanket, anchoring Lizzie beneath him. He peppered her face with wet kisses, making exaggerated smacking sounds with each one, until she was laughing the laugh he professed to love so much.

He rose up on his elbows, his face over hers. She was reminded of a similar position last night, though with fewer clothes. She traced his face with her fingers, letting them come to rest on his full bottom lip. She watched her fingers move with his mouth as he whispered, “Thank you for telling me all that, Liz. Thanks for trusting me enough to share it with me.”

The words made Lizzie reel. It
was
about trust, wasn’t it? She’d had to have a huge amount of trust in
Finn
- in anyone, really - to be able to say all the things she just did. The thought cheered her.

Just this morning she had remembered being devastated by this man, and now she was able to trust enough to lay herself bare. She felt more naked with him here
,
now
,
than she had laying with him in bed last night.

She gauged her internal barometer and felt something she was sure was…could be…may be…peace.

Finn
dropped Liz off at her parents’ house. Their embrace when
she
scooted out of the Jeep seemed different. Full of an understanding that hadn’t been there before.

He
felt honored, and j
ust a little humbled that she’
d chosen
to
tell
him
her
story
. There was an ease between them now. The pent-up anxiety about desperately wanting to be together was gone.
He
wondered if the desire would be gone as well, now that he’d finally slept with
her
. It seemed just the opposite. He wanted her again and again, now more than ever.