Maria pointed across the table. “That was your idea, wasn’t it, Lucy?”

Lucy still had one eye on her boss. “Yes, it was.”

“I think you hit a bull’s-eye with that,” Barry said.

Stephan stood up.

“Thanks.” She watched her boss shuffle toward the conference room door, his shoulders slumped. “I fiddled around with a few other things, including something a bit more blunt, but that’s the one I like, too.”

Maria smiled. “I’m all for blunt. What was it?”

Lucy studied Stephan’s back. “Oh, just something like, ‘Wanna bet the fat chick can do it?’”

Suddenly Stephan spun around, a glint in his eye. “My God, Lucy! You look like someone stuck a pin in you and you’ve begun to deflate!”

Veronica snapped her gum a little too loudly.

“I’d heard you’d lost a few pounds, but I hadn’t really noticed until now.”

If it weren’t for past experience, Lucy would have assumed she’d misheard Stephan. But as she was now well aware, her boss had no manners.

“Uh. That’s the whole point,” she replied.

Stephan laughed. “Well, we need to take you out to celebrate. Whad’ya say? Lunch for everyone tomorrow at Bugatti? My treat. Anything you want. They have the best pesto ravioli in town.”

And with that pronouncement, he was gone.

Lola DiPaolo looked like she was hitting the tanning bed a bit too hard these days. At this rate she’d have skin like a wrinkled paper bag in another few years, Theo decided. But then, Lola wasn’t known for her long-term approach to anything.

‘Theodore.“ She looked up from her bodybuilding magazine and smiled.

“Lola. How’s life?”

“Fun as always. How’s yours?”

“Busy.” Theo walked over to the wall of mailboxes in the staff lounge, where each trainer had a cubbyhole for mail and phone messages.

He sorted through a stack of messages and found the usual-clients who needed to reschedule, clients who wanted information on the military basic training course, clients who said they needed to stop their workouts because they were going to be out of the country or were moving.