Read Online Through Thick and Thin by Alison Pace - Free Book Online

in The Zone.” She came to this decision after the Mexican Holiday Salad from the “Gourmet Cooking in the Zone” section that she had so painstakingly prepared on the first day had turned out not to be such a holiday, in fact not very festive at all. This happens, she’s realizing; things turn out quite differently from how you’d assumed they’d be.
    “Da Da!” Ivy says, no longer crying, quite recovered now and also looking very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. A move back in the direction of the crib sets off instant distress, so instead of taking the scenario any further, Stephanie asks, rhetorically, “Do you want to try coming downstairs for a while, and you can have dinner with Mommy?” and thinks as she does that there can’t be any reason why a person can’t mash up grapes.
    As they head down the stairs, Ivy’s entire being, all the energy around her, brightens as she says, “Da Da,” again. Stephanie doesn’t say, Yes, Da Da, nor does she say, Ma Ma, as she has on recent occasions taken to saying. She doesn’t say anything. She wonders, as Ivy repeats “Da Da Da Da Da” again, right as they walk by the door to his workroom, if Aubrey can hear her. She imagines he can, and then she has to remind herself that she had already decided that she wasn’t going to cry.
    Balancing Ivy on her hip, she reaches into the refrigerator and takes out her six-ounce piece of salmon, her tomato, and leaves Aubrey’s in there. She steamed the green beans earlier, so those just need to be reheated in the microwave. She wonders if it will mess up the ratios if she simply eats all the green beans, hers and Aubrey’s, and just saves the spinach. But when is she saving it for? And for whom? For Popeye, perhaps? And if so, she wonders, when will he be here?
    She checks something in her new book, Zone Perfect Meals in Minutes , fastens Ivy into her high chair, and puts her salmon and tomato under the broiler. She focuses in on the cover of the cookbook, and thinks of how much Meredith loves to cook, always has. No matter how much cooking went on in their childhood, no matter how much Mom loved to be in the kitchen, always cooking, Stephanie never really took to it. She reads the smaller print caption on the spine of the book: 150 Fast & Simple Healthy Recipes! The exclamation point is not actually on the book, she has added it herself. She’s always thought it to be of the utmost importance to embark on things, no matter how hard they might be, with a good and positive attitude. And what better way to exemplify a good, positive attitude than with an exclamation point, really? But even with the exclamation point, she thinks also that maybe the Zone Delivery, the service Caryn used, might be a better idea than she had initially deemed it to be. Surely, having all these Zone Perfect (or Zone Friendly or whatever it is they are) meals arrive in coolers and microwave containers each morning would be so much easier. But the Zone Delivery, something about it, it makes her feel a little bit like a failure.
    She’s home all the time (and all the time in this case is not merely a figure of speech). She should have no problem at all making dinner, even if dinner, now that she is endeavoring to be in the Zone, involves a bit more calculation, is a bit more of a scientific dance than it used to be. It’s not as if in addition to Ivy she has a full-time, incredibly demanding job. People like that could have the Zone Delivery without feeling like a failure; people like the investment banker character in that terrifying book, I Don’t Know How She Does It , the one that is so beloved by the New Mommy Group, even though as far as Stephanie can tell, no one in the New Mommy Group seems to be dashing off to an investment bank, or to any other job for that matter. Stephanie does not know what the New Mommies are thinking of when they hold the book up and exclaim, “This is so me!” When Stephanie thinks of the book, she thinks that the