Chapter 84
JUSTINE WOKE AT a quarter past five the next morning with a colossal hangover dominated by a meat cleaver of a headache and a mouth that tasted of Very Rare Irish Whiskey and dried Elmer’s Glue.
How in God’s name did I get …?
She remembered being in Jack’s office on an empty stomach, whiskey that tasted oh so incredibly good and made her feel even better; and then it all went whirly on her, and then dark. She reached out, felt the dogs. One of them licked her hand.
Why did I …? How did I …?
Justine flashed on Jack bringing her into the apartment in a fireman’s carry and vaguely recalled saying something about …
“Oh, God,” she groaned into her pillow. “Please don’t let that be true.”
But was it? Had she confessed to Jack something about having perfect sex with a stranger, or something like that?
“Oh, God,” she groaned again. “Why? What am I going to …?”
And then she knew. Hangover or not, world-class headache or not, she was getting up. She was going to Crossfit. She was confronting what she’d done, and what it meant, and she was doing it now, not later. This was the kind of thing the old Justine would have done without hesitation. But why did she feel like this could be worse than returning to that jail cell in Guadalajara?
Twenty minutes later, after chugging a quart of water and swallowing a banana walnut muffin, two shots of espresso, and an Aleve, she pulled up to the Crossfit box, still unable to answer that question. She absolutely did not want to go inside. She knew the workout might force her to her knees, make her retch her insides out. But in a way, that kind of suffering felt fitting, a penance for her shitty choices of late, whatever their root cause.
Justine got out of the car, feeling only slightly less queasy than she had upon waking. Her ears rang. Her eyes felt swollen. Was that possible?
She trudged into the box, glanced around, seeing most of the regulars, but no Paul. She tried to smile at the trainer, said, “Did your sister have the baby, Ronny?”
“Girl,” he said, grinning. “Elena. Six pounds eleven ounces. Thanks for taking care of the place for me, telling everyone there was no class that day.”
“Only a couple of people showed anyway,” she said.
“Yeah, Paul said you and he did a workout with a bunch of pull-ups and push-ups,” the trainer said. “Too many, he said. He strained his back.”
“Oh,” Justine said, feeling her head pounding again. “That’s too bad.”
“Ready for this?” Ronny asked.
Justine turned her head to look at the whiteboard, saw the workout of the day posted there, and shuddered at the simple name: “Fran.”
Some Crossfit workouts had been given names, women’s names because they were like hurricanes. Of all the hurricanes, nothing was worse than Fran, which involved racing the clock to complete twenty-one thrusters, a move where you had to hold a sixty-five-pound barbell at your collarbone, squat, then explode the weight up overhead. Then you had to do twenty-one pull-ups, then fifteen thrusters, then fifteen pull-ups, then nine thrusters, then nine pull-ups.
Okay, little sister, Justine thought miserably. You’re about to suffer for your sins in a big, big way.