Jennie looked out on now.
“No, I’m serious,” she said eyeing Jennie, who was still laughing too hard to talk. “It’s definitely time for a divorce. I’m just going to miss the ice cream.”
Sam probably should have left out the ice cream bit. Jennie only laughed harder at that and it was clear she had more questions. Sam waited patiently while Jennie recovered.
She was used to people laughing at her, and to be truthful, with Jennie it always felt more like the old saying: Jennie was laughing with Sam, not at her. Sam could handle people laughing at her, though. Even by her friends. It happened. It didn’t bother her anymore.
“What does divorcing your gym have to do with ice cream?” Jennie finally asked, using her fingertips to sweep an errant tear from under her eye.
Samantha shrugged a shoulder and grinned, knowing her workout routine wasn’t exactly what most fitness gurus would recommend. In fact, even assigning the word “workout” to it was a bit of a stretch. Or fitness. Or routine, for that matter, since she didn’t exactly go on a regular basis.
“If I finish whatever class I signed up for, I reward myself with an ice cream cone from the place next to the gym. If I started working out at home instead of the gym, I’d have to drive to get my ice cream cone and that just changes the whole thing. It’s not as fun.”
Jennie had been trying to convince Sam to hire a personal trainer. Sam’s budget could definitely afford it, but frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to pay someone to hound her to exercise. There would be no wheedling out of it if she wasn’t in the mood, which, most of the time, she wasn’t.
“And, tell me again why you have to divorce your gym?” Jennie emphasized the divorce part of the question, as if to stress how unusual it was to talk about divorcing a fitness center. Yeah, okay, so maybe that had been the wrong choice of words.
“It’s got bad juju,” Sam explained. “It’s cursed. You can’t deny the evidence. First, someone stole my wallet in the locker room the one time I forgot to bring my lock, then I ended up with a flat tire a week later, and yesterday someone sideswiped my car in the parking lot. They don’t have cameras in the lot, so I’m screwed. I can get her repaired, but she’ll never be the same.”
Jennie nodded and sipped her drink. Everyone knew Sam’s Jaguar was her baby. She didn’t splurge on things often, but that car had been her one great splurge and she babied it. Coming out and seeing the scrapes and dents all along one side of Dahlia had made Sam want to cry. Or hit something. Or throw things. She’d actually done all of those things. And, stomped her feet.
“That is some bad juju. Maybe you could join another gym. Mine doesn’t have an ice cream shop nearby, but there’s a donut place.”
“Ooooooo. Donuts could work.” Her grin was wide, but the reason for her and Jennie’s early arrival in the office walked through the door, distracting her from thoughts of food and workouts.
Three men and one woman followed the office’s human resources director into the room.
The men looked like they belonged in a magazine or on the pages of a calendar. One of those calendars. And the woman looked to be five feet one or two inches of size-zero gorgeousness, designed to make other women feel inconsequential, at best.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me!” Samantha said, probably a little louder than she’d planned to.
She heard Jennie sputter and cough over a mouthful of latte and had to admit to a bit of chagrin when Jennie turned amused eyes on her.
“What?” Sam said defensively. “You’re telling me you expected that for our new science and technology department? We should have gotten geeks and nerds, not underwear models and a woman who could easily pose for … for … for whatever the biggest fashion magazine is,” Sam said with a glance to her own outfit.
Sam would have no fashionable clothes if it weren’t for Jennie. When Sam’s online game took off and she started earning more money than she knew what to do with, Jennie helped Sam trade in boxy business suits for cute skirts and blouses that accentuated Sam’s curves. It had taken some talking to get Sam to see that, when showcased properly, her curves were beautiful.
And now Sam had a