I’m right. Though it’s seven a.m. on the dot by the gym clock and 7:02 by my own watch, which has been set according to the world clock, she’s still on the Lifecycle, pedaling like she isn’t cooling down anytime soon. Thus far, I have chosen to be the bigger person. First, I do some passive-aggressive calf stretching within her peripheral vision. When she still grips those handlebars like she’ll never relinquish them, I stand closer beside her, doing shoulder circles while burning holes into the side of her face with my eyes. When still she proves impervious, I ahem.
She turns to look at me and it is terrifying, this moment when I am forced to take in the whole of her cardiovascular effort from up close. The sweat rivulets dribbling down the hollows of her haphazardly made-up face. Those blotches of coral blush she burns into each cheek. On her pursed mouth, a slash of lipstick the color of blanched tangerines. The way she looks at me, eyes wide and full of a cardio-induced fury, makes me feel the pouchiness of my lower abdomen, the cumbersome fact of my thigh flesh sticking together, the batwings that Harold told me would take time, to be patient (he once had a client on whom they just suddenly disappeared one day like magic, he says). She’s taking it all in, my whole fat-to-muscle ratio, and I know it’s making me less credible in her eyes, which say she has named me. Probably something like Inconsistent Gym User. Or Fat Ass.
“Are you on here next?” she asks me. As if she didn’t already know that in her soy milk–fed soul.
“Yes,” I say, like it’s news to both of us. Unfortunate news that I’m sorry to be the bearer of. Like it’s going to rain frogs today, I’m afraid. Storm them. So sorry.
She looks from me to the clock and shakes her head like we are both her enemy. Like the clock and I are in cahoots. According to Ruth, she’s written notes to management about that clock on the Comment Sheet, complaining that it is three minutes fast.
Seeing that time is against her, she returns her gaze to the swimming pool, where the Aquafit women are bobbing up and down in unison to the sound of “Kokomo,” their fleshy bodies making the green water waggle. Though her nod, barely perceptible, tells me she has registered this terrible knowledge about her time being up, she doesn’t get off. In fact, for a few minutes, she actually grips the handlebars tighter and pedals faster, forcing me to contemplate her long, fibrous mass of back and recall how many minutes she’s stolen from me over the past two years. They add up. Like anything else. Those sticks of Trident I don’t chew. Those tamari toasted almonds and crystalized ginger hunks I try not to steal from the Bulk Barn. That handful of microwaved Orville I do my best to refuse from my father on a Friday night during a Fawlty Towers marathon, a regular occurrence now that I have moved back east. I draw in breath to ahem once more but she beats me to it, getting off the machine in a sudden huff. Tugs hard on the paper towel dispenser. Sprays the machine with disinfectant. Wipes it down improperly. Then storms off toward the stretching mats to begin her long and complex toning routine. Making me feel, you know, like I’m the small, petty one.
By the time she gets off the Lifecycle and I get on, I’ve only got twenty-four minutes left, by the gym clock, before the anorexic flight attendant shows up with her sinew and her Spanish fashion magazines and begins anxiously shifting her birdlike weight from right to left behind me. I do my best to make these minutes count but it isn’t easy. I can’t help but feel like this time slot, so hard-won, isn’t making much of a dent. Harold says I ought to Trust the Process, Love the Journey. He’s here at Malibu now, standing over one of his oldest clients, Margo, whose body, as long as I have known her, has resembled a potato perched on two toothpicks. He’s got Margo balanced on a BOSU ball and, though she’s teetering violently, he’s encouraging her to do one-legged squats. Margo’s a fighter, though. She’s flailing, chin up. I catch Harold’s eye in the mirror and he mouths, Monday, at me over Margo’s shaking limbs. Then he punches the air a little and winks.