chapter 16

For most of her life, when Amanda came home from a date she was frustrated. Oh, she had a pleasant enough time she supposed. Her date would take her to the finest restaurants, order the most expensive items on the menu, and they'd share a bottle or two of some rare vintage wine. And they talked. But EVERYBODY talks on a date. Thing is, whenever she got home, Amanda felt as if she had been talked TO. The best way she could describe it was mansplaining because it always seemed as if her date was lecturing her, that her opinions either didn't count at all or didn't count as much as HIS opinions. But it wasn't that way with Mike. He actually LISTENED to what she had to say and took it all seriously. With Mike, it was as if HER opinions really mattered and who could beat that? In fact, she felt SO good after the date with Mike that she went down to her local restaurant, ordered the Lumberjack's special breakfast, and at a whole platter of something or other without even realizing she was eating anything at all.

Mike was up early that morning. He had gotten a phone call from work. Somebody had called in sick and they wondered if he could come in and substitute. And he was SO energized, so awake, alert and alive from his date with Amanda that he immediately said yes. He skipped breakfast AND lunch because he was so pumped up that he couldn't calm down enough to eat a thing. He'd been on hundreds of dates in his time with who know HOW many girls and they all seemed to blend together into one inconsequential blur. They seemed to talk AT each other and not WITH each other. But it wasn't that way with Amanda. They discussed religion, philosophy, modern culture, politics, music, even sports. Miraculously enough, Mike was even willing to forgive the fact that Amanda was a Cubs fan.

They saw each other at work and nodded at each other, never letting on that there was anything between them. But then who would believe it? The head of the cardiac research team dating a glorified busboy? Ridiculous! But the next weekend they went to a concert, had dinner TWICE and spent hour after hour just talking. Clearly there WAS something going on between them.

Now, in her previous life as DePaul's Golden Girl, whenever Amanda became infatuated with someone and thought she was "in love", she'd lose her appetite and get thinner than she had been before. But with Mike it was different. For some reason her time with Mike only whetted her appetite and she found herself eating more and more. In three months she gained nearly twenty-five pounds. Her clothes were getting tighter and tighter and she noticed her breasts were bigger and fuller than they had ever been and a series of angry red stretch marks criss-crossed her belly, making it look like a relief map of India.

This only served to pique the interest of her family. For one thing, she came around for Sunday dinner EVERY Sunday, which she hadn't done for years. And MOST Sundays she had Mike in tow. What her family noticed most, apart from the fact that Amanda was eating more than ANYONE at the dinner table, was the dreamy looks Mike and Amanda shared. Between her gigantic appetite and her love-sick stares at Michael, it didn't take long for the entire Frazek family to guess that their Amanda was in love, REAL love,not some stupid infatuation. All her mother could think about was that HER daughter was going to be the FATTEST bride in the entire history of the Frazek/Dvorak brood!