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up in the porcelain tiled bathroom, Belinda started to mentally run a new checklist.  Every moment of the past few months had been devoted to planning her move to Monaco.  Now she was here, really here, and she was determined not to rest on the laurels that had gotten her this far.  It would be so easy to be complacent and spend weeks lounging around this mansion, being chauffeured everywhere, having her meals prepared by a professional kitchen staff she was certain Crystal had at her disposal.  But Belinda had already led a life of complacency, and she would not repeat that mistake.
    “Belinda!  It’s past two!  Lunch is getting cold!” Crystal called up to her from the garden.
    Belinda walked to the terrace and hollered, “Sorry, I just woke up from a nap!  I’ll be down in a minute!”
    *****
    Just as she had suspected, a uniformed maid and butler were serving an elegant lunch of roasted meats, round cut potatoes, and vegetables in a heavy butter sauce.  A bottle of red wine sat uncorked on the patio table, and a freshly baked angel food cake awaited as dessert.
    “I sure hope this is the heaviest meal of the day.  Because if it isn’t , I’m going to gain ten pounds my first week here!” Belinda exclaimed.
    “Oh, it’s definitely the heaviest.  Dinner can be as light as a poached egg for the main course and yogurt for dessert.  It’s the European way,” Crystal informed her lightly, as the middle aged maid heaped the fattening food onto Belinda’s plate.
    “Thank---uh, merci beaucoup ,” Belinda faltered.  It was going to take some getting used to speaking another language all the time.
    “ Je vous en prie , Madame ,” the maid replied softly.
    “She said ‘you ’re welcome,’” Crystal translated.
    “I know!  My French isn’t that bad.  I’ve been listening to language immersion CD’s for the past three months,” Belinda said proudly.  Every day she had spent at least two hours listening to and repeating basic French phrases.  Afterwards, she had spent another hour reviewing her dusty high school French textbooks and brushing up on grammar.
    She watched uneasily as Jean-Jacques fed a plump grape to his wife before giving her a kiss.  Belinda looked away, staring at the rows of rhododendron plants that led to a cobblestone pathway.  Already, she was feeling like the third wheel.  She knew she could not stay in her sister’s house for long.  Inwardly, she made a drastic decision: she would move out within one week’s time.  Hell, even one week at a relative’s house could be too much.  Belinda was determined not to outstay her welcome, even if it meant living in an apartment as dingy as the one she had left behind in Boston.
     
    *****
    One week later, Belinda sat in the garden of her sister’s mansion blowing out 39 candles on a birthday cake.  She puffed repeatedly, virtually coughing up a lung in an attempt to extinguish the more than three dozen candles.  How the hell had Crystal managed to put all these candles on the cake---and why had she?  Plastering a false smile on her face, Belinda huffed a mighty breath and finally blew out the last of the candles.  The effort left her winded and mildly choking.
    “Yay!  Bon anniversaire , Belinda!  And the maid didn’t bake the cake. I did!  Just for you!” Crystal said in her signature gleeful way.
    Belinda thought how, in small doses, Crystal was a pleasant sugar rush.  But in large doses, like the ones Belinda had been getting lately, she was intravenous corn syrup.
    “Thank you.  You guys didn’t have to do all this for me,” Belinda said, more than a little embarrassed.
    Jean-Jacques sliced up the cake, giving Belinda an enormous piece with a candy rose on top of a mountain of marshmallow fluff.  As a baker, Belinda knew this was a poor quality cake, and she was surprised that Crystal hadn’t managed to create something a little more appetizing.  Perhaps Crystal had forgotten it was her birthday until