tires were in shreds when she returned and the paint job keyed? She could cope.
But before Marsh could do a thing, Sylvia entered the room, followed by Bay. “Look what I found,” she said. “Bay called me on my cell to see if it was all right if Adam spent the night.
Isn’t that sweet? He knew I’d be driving home, and I’d probably be tired tonight, so he checked first to be sure. Of course I said yes. So here they are. I picked them up myself.”
As if for emphasis, Adam appeared, carrying a backpack.
Sylvia was chalking up points. She might be tired, but she was going to prove she was too good a mother not to let Bay have a friend over. In fact, she had even gotten the boys herself. What a gal. Of course now Marsh couldn’t leave with Tracy, not with Sylvia in charge. Not with two boys to be responsible for. Not with her lack of parenting skills.
Sylvia’s gaze flicked over Tracy. “Nice to see you again,” she said. “It’s been a while. Would you like to stay for supper? The boys and I are going to make spaghetti.”
Earthworms with arsenic sauce. Tracy knew better. “I was just leaving.” She smiled at Bay and Adam; then the smile, which had been perfunctory, broadened. “Hey, guys, something tells me it’s video game night. Guitar Hero?”
Bay’s eyes flicked to his mother for permission. What could Sylvia say but yes? She gave a short nod.
Tracy laughed affectionately. “I bet you’ll be up half the night. You might need another friend or two to share the fun.”
“Jeremy,” Adam said, poking Bay in the side. “And Frankie. I bet they could come, too.”
“I’m on my way,” Tracy said. “I’ll just let myself out. Marsh? Sylvia?” She smiled her brightest smile. “Have an awesome evening.”
She hedged one quick glance at Marsh. His expression was veiled. She wondered if he was imagining the night to come or wishing his family hadn’t come “home” when they did. After all, for a moment there, he’d almost had the best of all possible worlds. Tracy on his couch, Sylvia in his guest room.
She closed the front door quietly and saw that Sylvia had nearly penned in her car, but Tracy hadn’t been raised in L.A. for nothing. She backed out without scratching the paint. She couldn’t say the same about her heart. But she was fast getting used to that.
chapter twenty-four
Tracy liked the Naughty Nibblers. Today she was cheering on her comrades while simultaneously trying to invent an emergency that would keep her from stepping on the scale. Kitty had scheduled the weigh-ins for Mondays, right before lunch. Last week Tracy had dropped a pound, which was not, in the scheme of things, anything to crow about.
She knew why she hadn’t lost more. After struggling with calories the entire week, she had left the encounter with Marsh and Sylvia and taken a detour straight past the drive-through window at The Captain’s Catch for their ultimate deep-fried seafood basket, which contained a sampling of every creature to be found in the gulf—and some from the swamp, as well.
She had eaten every single bite.
Okay, so last week hadn’t been stellar, but she’d only had that one—albeit gargantuan—lapse. This week she had lapsed consistently. Never with quite the same flair, but she wasn’t sure long runs on the beach at dawn were going to make up for slices of Wanda’s raspberry cream pie, or Janya’s eggplant, with its thick buttery tomato sauce and homemade chapatis to sop up every drop.
“Lillian, you’ve lost four pounds altogether. Congratulations.” Kitty’s green eyes were shining. Nothing made Kitty as happy as somebody else losing weight.
Everybody clapped, and Lillian, a blond woman in her late sixties who needed to lose about twenty-five more, beamed.
Sid had lost five altogether. Like Lillian, Bart had lost four. Betty had only lost three. Yolanda, in her forties and formerly a heavy smoker, had lost only two, because she was also trying to cut down on cigarettes.
“Okay, Tracy,” Kitty said, with a huge smile.
Tracy didn’t like that smile, and right now she didn’t like Kitty. Was the woman a sadist? Didn’t she know how humiliating this was? Then she remembered that Losing to Win had been Gladys’s idea, spurred on by Henrietta. Tracy was never going to forgive any of them—or Mr. Moustache, either, who had gotten her into this fix because of a stupid bird.
“It’s been a tough week,” she prefaced.
“The hardest time to lose weight,” Kitty