Clad in a sweat suit, tennis shoes, and matching wrist and ankle weights, Edith swung her arms like pistons and plowed ahead, her legs pumping to the rhythm of a rhyme she’d invented: One, two, three, four! You can do a little more!Five, six, seven, eight! Come on, girl, and lose this weight! Twenty paces behind, Winslow followed, his bald head gleaming with sweat despite the chilly temperature. “Hold up, Edith.” Puffing, he bent to tie his shoelace. Not willing to stop moving, Edith doubled back to walk in a circle around him. She was two days into the eighteen-hundred-calorie-a-day-diet-and-exercise plan, and she hadn’t lost a pound. Or a half a pound. Or an inch. Which convinced her that if she could maintain her pace, surely tomorrow she’d wake up and find that the fat globules on her hips had decided to melt away in the night. Winslow straightened and shot her a grin. “Okay. Lead on, woman!” Edith took off, quickening her pace, but she hadn’t gone twenty steps when she spied a rock.
