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Thiswas how she was going to die. Which, given her current situation, might be a welcome respite.
Sarah’s lungs hurt as she gasped for air the next morning, following far behind Lia down Main Street in what the other woman had called a “leisurely” jogging pace. The last time Sarah had jogged was…so long ago, it had been blocked from memory.
Lia stopped in front of Delicious Delicacies and waved at her to hurry up.
Sarah resisted the urge to offer her own less friendly hand gesture as she came up next to her. Lia’s surprise arrival would have been annoying at any time, but last night’s timing wasn’t ideal. After the call with her boss, Sarah hadn’t exactly been in a great mood to catch up and start planning the reunion with her former high school frenemy. She’d had the proposal to submit to Gail and in truth, she hadn’t really thought she’d have to help Lia plan the event. Just offer the venue. But apparently, the other woman was expecting her to be involved.
Sarah placed her hands on her knees and bent at the waist, wincing at the pain radiating through her rib cage.
“I take it you’re not a jogger?” Lia said, not even the slightest bit out of breath.
“I prefer…being able to…breathe,” Sarah said. Her legs were jelly and her mouth was a desert. She needed water. Lots of water.
Lia’s fake look of concern only irritated her more. “You really shouldn’t neglect your health, Sarah. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
“We’re…the same age,” she said through clenched teeth.
“My FitTrack scale would have a hard time knowing it,” she said, opening the bakery door and heading inside.
This time, Sarah didn’t resist the hand gesture as Lia allowed the door to swing back toward her.
“Oh my God, it smells like heaven in here.”
From the kitchen, the sound of a tray being dropped revealed Jessica had heard the familiar soprano voice. A second later, her friend pushed through the swinging door of the kitchen, nearly colliding with a panting Sarah.
“Water. Lots of water,” Sarah said, reaching into the fridge for a bottle and twisting off the plastic cap.
“Why are you sweating?” Jessica asked, removing her cat-patterned oven mitts.
Sarah held up a finger as she guzzled half the bottle. “Lia thought it would be fun to jog here,” she said through clenched teeth as they headed into the front of the bakery. After pulling an all-nighter on the SmartTech proposal, Lia banging on her bedroom door at eight a.m. to rise and shine only two hours after Sarah had crawled into bed had been met with many protests. Only Lia’s persistence that they needed to secure the event’s desserts ASAP and the promise of baked goods had finally gotten Sarah out of bed.
“All four miles?” Jessica looked as though the idea was ridiculous as well, and it justified Sarah’s own lack of motivation to exercise.
“I usually start my day with five,” Lia said, hurrying forward to hug Jessica. “So great to see you.”
Over Lia’s shoulder, Sarah’s wide eyes silently pleaded with Jessica to take over occupying the woman. Since the night before, she’d been glued to Sarah’s hip. Reminiscing about the old days was a lot less fun when two people remembered those days in two completely different ways. Lia’s memory had seemed to block out the competitiveness between the two of them… Then again, being the one who won all the time might have rewired Lia’s brain to see things differently in hindsight.
“I thought the event wasn’t for another two weeks,” Jessica was saying to Lia, her eyes watering slightly as she looked to be repressing a sneeze.
Must be by the slightly too strong perfume Lia wore. Sarah had been sneezing all morning. She was tempted to put up aScent-Free Zonesign in the B&B. “She got here early…to plan. Isn’t that great?” she said, still struggling to catch her breath.
Lia glanced at her. “You look like you ran the Boston marathon—sweat is dripping down your forehead, and your legs are barely supporting your weight. This is not a good sign, Sarah.”
In contrast, Lia looked like she’d just come from the salon, her high ponytail swinging back and forth and her makeup still perfectly in place.
Lia stretched a hamstring, and it was impossible not to marvel at how tiny she was. Her thighs were the size of Sarah’s calves. Her expensive matching running outfit hugged her size zero body, as if it had been painted on. And Sarah hadn’t even realized women could have such defined abs.
“I really want everything to be perfect. The desserts will need to include some vegan and sugar-free options. Mal and I are climbing Mount Kenya in January and we’re in training.” She reached behind her to stretch one hamstring, then the other one.
Sarah was still trying to get air into her lungs.
“Wow. Mount Kenya. That’s ambitious,” Jessica said.
“No. They have a full…very detailed training schedule. Lia explained it all to me last night,” Sarah said, giving up pretenses and slumping onto a stool in front of the counter. Otherwise, she thought her legs might give out from beneath her anyway.
“Preparation and planning are the keys to success when taking on challenges,” Lia said as though repeating something she’d read on a Facebook meme. “We climbed Everest on our honeymoon.”
Didn’t most couples lounge on a beach somewhere sipping cocktails and making love in the afternoon? That was the way Sarah planned on spending hers if she ever got married. An image of Wes’s bare torso flashed in her mind, and she forced it away.
