Read Online Bigger (The Nicky Beets series) by Erin Mayes - Free Book Online

six-month-old son named Cayden, who was looked after by a
nanny, Estelle. Every now and then I spoke with Estelle, who called to explain
that Cayden had a fever or to ask if Robin thought she would be home before ten
p.m. Cayden was Robin’s only child, and she said he was the only kid she’d ever
have. He was only three months old when she had her butt enhancement done.
    We couldn’t be sure, but the butt job may have been done almost entirely
for Brad’s benefit. Robin was constantly strutting around in borderline inappropriately
tight outfits, and even I couldn’t help but stare at the two bloated boulders
on her backside. Brad noticed, too, and let his eyes linger longer than was
proper in polite company. But his acknowledgement of Robin’s existence seemed
to end there; he rarely spoke to her other than to discuss some aspect of a
case. Robin was strangely undeterred.
    “He’s golfing,” she sighed and rested her chin on her hand. “I bet he
could teach me how to swing.”
    Robin threw her head back, cackling clamorously, and then, in typical
abrupt fashion, she wheeled on her black heel and speed-walked back to her
office, where I heard her dialing Estelle on speaker-phone.
    “Sweet Jesus,” Roxanne rolled her eyes. “Let’s get some lunch. I’m
starving.”

 
    Roxanne could eat.
    That day at lunch, she ordered a hamburger and fries (no cheese –
God forbid. “Dairy makes Type-Os bloat!”), making a rare exception for the
carbohydrates in the bun and fries, and she ate almost the entire thing. Of
course, I knew she would be so full from lunch that for dinner all she was
likely to have was a rum and Diet Coke. And this would be following a
forty-five-minute workout at the gym.
    This was the main difference between me and her: I also ate a hamburger
and fries for lunch, despite the two giant, calorie-laden donuts I’d eaten
earlier, but at dinnertime, I would be noshing just as hungrily on takeout Thai
food. And I certainly had no plans to visit the gym that evening.
    We are a mismatched pair, to be sure – Roxanne’s a petite Hispanic
woman, always in heels and some variation of a black suit, her long hair
curled. She never seems to have an off day. She never looks unkempt or as
though she’s wearing something strange because the rest of her clothes were in
the wash. Those occasions were all too frequent for me, as I hated shopping for
clothes and my work wardrobe was down to just the aforementioned two pairs of
trousers and a handful of shirts and sweaters I rotated into the mix.
    Walking next to Roxanne, I often felt freakishly large, lumbering along
in my barely suitable work gear, my butt and back-fat jiggling uncontrollably.
My hair was usually frizzed and untidy, as I rarely bothered with styling it in
the mornings these days, and I was often sweating. I couldn’t seem to walk a
block without my armpits dampening.
    I knew Roxanne didn’t care how I looked and was my friend because she’d
always been my friend, since we’d roomed together in college. She’d known me at
my thinnest and watched me grow to my new sizable proportion with nary a word
of criticism. The only time she mentioned dieting or exercise was when I
complained about my weight, and then she always recommended her insane
blood-type diet or invited me to yoga or offered to give me her personal
trainer’s phone number. I always declined.
    Despite appearances, I had been on a fair number of diets in the previous
couple of years – a juice diet, the no-carb diet, the Sugar Busters! Diet,
the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet. They all worked for a couple of weeks before I
would break down and devour a pizza with Chuck. He didn’t mean to sabotage me,
but he told me that as a native Texan, he couldn’t tolerate a house filled with
only fruits and vegetables. Meat and cheese were his main staples. It felt
impossible to diet around him.
    In explaining this to Roxanne, she was sympathetic but I could tell she
didn’t relate. She