Conversation with Mara

 This is an excerpt from a work in progress.  The character, Mara, has been updated from "Mrs." in the earlier version posted last year.
  

"I've been spending a lot of time gawking at cake tasting," Juniper says.  "Do you think I’m strange?"

  Mara wrinkles her nose.  “What do you think about hummus, olives, and whole grain pita bread for lunch?

"I'm a better core instructor than a nutritionist," Juniper says.  "My mom is on a pizza diet.  She thinks it will make her skinny."

"Is she having any luck?"

Juniper shrugs.  "The slices are getting tinier."  She wishes she had her mom's confidence in trying new things, like the idea of eating delivery pizza to fix a weight problem.  This extends to her mom’s easygoing attitude towards paranormal professionals, and Juniper thinks about the psychic next to the Publix.
 
Juniper wonders what Mara or Delucca would say about what to do with the candy in her cabinets.  (Treats she doesn't remember buying). She’s figured out how to make meals where the sugary flavors enhance the food, like recipes for sweet potatoes with Snickers bars instead of marshmallows.  And she eats more dinners at her parents because her taste buds have gone into sugar shock and sometimes she's too creeped out by the unexpected treats to eat alone.  "I'm on a Domino's diet too," Juniper says.

"That's because you're a work-out instructor," Mara says.  "Fitness apps never tell me the right calorie counts, and I don't eat pizza, unless it's one of those frozen diet kinds."

Juniper nods her head.  And then she says, "my favorite cheat is flat bread with olive oil and tomatoes.  "It's a secret the stars keep, while they tell everyone else to eat meat.”  And Juniper goes into more details about the pizza diet and how it started.
 
Mara makes lunch appear in ten minutes from Juniper doesn’t know where.  Anything near the fitness club takes at least thirty.  Juniper isn’t sure why she seems interested in her.  From what Juniper overhears from a few of the older women in her class, most of their lives revolve around divorce, demented older parents, and grown-up children who to some extent suffer from a kind of dementia too.  Mara seems almost desperate for company.  And maybe why Juniper agrees, even though she prefers to eat alone.
 
"I don't approve of lurkers," Mara says.

This is odd, Juniper thinks.  I hardly know you, and you’re acting like my mother.
 
"Most people are supportive," Juniper says. "Even my therapist."  Though Patti never sanctioned stalking.