Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! by Robin Jones Gunn Read Free Book Online Page B

about our outlandish resolutions that we always listed but never kept, Amy only smiled. I knew she had smashed her glass ceiling on losing weight. The slow and easy approach allowed her the freedom to fully enjoy “a taste” of every Christmas goodie that came her way; yet she kept her metabolism working at an elevated level.
    By Valentine’s Day Amy and I were busy pulling together our travel plans. We had our airline tickets, hotel reservations, new wheelie suitcases, and more tour books on Paris than either of us had been able to read in our free time.
    I was teaching third grade that year, which is why Amyand I had set our travel dates to coincide with spring break. The substitute teacher I requested was a friend of mine. Even though I was only scheduled to miss a few days of class after we returned from Paris, I knew that if I was too tired to go back to work, I could leave the class in her capable hands for a full week after the trip.
    Whenever we mentioned where we were going in April, people would invariably get this faraway look in their eyes and say, “Ah, springtime in Paris!” When we asked, almost all of them said they had never been to Paris, but if they were ever to go, they wanted to go in the spring.
    Amy’s anticipation for our pending adventure grew, but her biggest dilemma was shopping. She didn’t want to buy new travel clothes until she lost those final few elusive pounds. The problem was she was running out of time to go shopping. I called her a week and a half before our departure date, and we made plans to shop on Saturday.
    “The problem is I’m between sizes.” Amy stepped out of a dressing room with two pairs of jeans in her hands. “I don’t know if I should buy the ones that are a little too tight when I sit down or the ones that are a little too loose. I’m afraid that if I buy the loose jeans, I’ll fill up the extra space with croissants.”
    “Buy both pairs,” I suggested. “Wear the loose ones on the plane and other times when we’re sitting all day. Then wear the tight ones when we’re walking around becausethey won’t feel tight, and they’ll make you feel good about all the weight you’ve lost.”
    “You’re a genius,” Amy said, as we made our way to the cash register.
    On the way home she asked if Joel was having any hesitancy about our trip.
    “No. All along he’s said that he hopes we have a good time. He did make one request that I haven’t followed through on. He said we should buy travel insurance.”
    “Not a bad idea,” Amy said. “I can work on that this week.”
    I forgot all about the insurance until the day we left for Paris. Mark drove Amy and me to the airport long before the break of day. As he loaded my wheeled suitcase into the back of their SUV, I noticed two other suitcases already in the open space.
    “Are you going with us?” I teased Mark.
    He nodded toward Amy, who was looking half apologetic in the front seat. “Those are both mine.”
    As I tumbled into the car, Amy explained how Mark had run out the night before and bought her another suitcase. “I was driving him crazy with my packing and unpacking. It’s torture to be between sizes. Life was so much easier when everything in my closet was the same size. It was your suggestion that finally solved the problem.”
    “My suggestion?”
    “With the jeans. You told me to buy both pairs, and I did. It suddenly made sense last night to pack two of everything. Now I won’t get all the way over there and be bummed out because I can’t manage to fit in the smaller clothes after a day of pastry tasting.”
    I had been to Europe before. Amy hadn’t. She had only been on a few short plane trips, including the one their family took to Orlando when the kids were little. Amy was used to having Mark around to haul her luggage. I was nervous about how she was going to manage two suitcases as we moved through the airport and down cobblestone streets.
    I blurted out, “You can only wear