chapter 18

Ashleigh was bound and determined to find out what was up with Andrew Greenfield. While she was busy scouting out new locations for Pat & Chuck's, Andrew had become a regular customer and had gotten awfully friendly with her mom. If that wasn't enough, Andrew seemed to have come under the spell of her mother and had gotten fat, something Ashleigh knew Andrew was loathe to do.

Ashleigh had tried to pry some information out of her mother but Pat had been very cryptic when the subject of Andrew Greenfield was raised. Ashleigh totally trusted her mom so she knew that she wasn't fooling around with Andrew. And besides, Andrew had never shown much interest in dating fat women, at least that was what she remembered of Andrew's dating habits from the time they worked together.

So Ashleigh decided to face Andrew directly and ask him what was up. She waddled her way over to Andrew's table, indicated to her ever-present mother that it would be better if she leave, and somehow wedged her rotund belly into Andrew's booth.

She asked him directly, "Andrew what's going on with you? You've gained at least eighty pounds, you hang out here virtually every day, you're eating as if food had been declared illegal, and you spend a whole lot of time talking with my mother. What's up?"

Andrew had been holding a rather large secret in for many years. With the help of Pat he had finally felt comfortable enough to let his secret out. He had NEVER wanted to the slim, trim guy he had been for most of his life. He was a chubby little boy and was happy to just eat and sit in his room watching TV and playing computer games. But his mother was one of those fitness fanatics who weren't satisfied making their own lives miserable in the pursuit of some kind of physical perfection, they felt they had to change the world and Andrew's mom's first reclamation project was her son. She put him on a strict diet, enrolled him in a rigorous exercise program and slimmed him down and toned him up. But all that time all Andrew wanted to do was eat and spend time in front of his computer.

Andrew thought he was doomed to live a life that really wasn't his, that he felt he had to conform to a lifestyle that fitted his mother much better than it fitted him. He didn't have the psychic energy to resist her demands that the be slim, trim and toned. That is until he met Pat.

Pat was, by and large, a live and let live woman. Even when her daughter Ashleigh seemed to have rejected her parents' more "relaxed" lifestyle, she didn't say a word, hoping that over time Ashleigh would come around, which she DID! So Pat wasn't about to intervene in Andrew's life, she just made herself available, being a willing and interested listener to Andrew's observations about his life and how much of a phony he felt he was. Slowly, over time, Pat asked Andrew the key question. "What do you REALLY want?" And that's when the whole sad story came out.

And so when Ashleigh confronted him he let his whole story out. You see, perhaps Andrew's biggest secret was that he had a crush on Ashleigh. Ashleigh, of course, did believe a word of it. They had worked for the same company for five years and Andrew had never even said so much a BOO to her. "That's right", Andrew said. "But that was when you were a skinny, uptight, control freak. I wasn't interested in THAT Ashleigh at all. But when I came recruit you to come back to the firm and had seen how much you had changed, well I couldn't help myself. I always admired your personality, your intelligence, your sense of humor. I kept saying to myself, if only she could look more like her mother. Well now you do, in fact, I think you have surpassed your mother. The reason I kept coming back here was to get a glimpse of you and to talk to you mother to see how I could get your attention."!

At first Ashleigh was stunned. And then she was flattered. What woman wouldn't want to be the sincere object of attention of a really wonderful guy. It was then that Ashleigh told Andrew in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to start seeing her, he'd have to ask her directly. Which, fortunately, he did.

And here is where the story ends. Andrew and Ashleigh dated for a year. Andrew gained another hundred pounds and Ashleigh gained a modest twenty-five. So that on their wedding day, Andrew was ALMOST as big as his bountiful, blushing bride!