“Welcome to SoarBarre, Janey, CJ. And Ivy, my name is Kimberly now. Remember? I came into my wholeness last Tuesday and rediscovered my full name. We talked about this.” Kimberly, formerly Kim, seemed to distrust the words as they came out of her mouth. She spoke tentatively, like a middle school teacher confronting a class of juvenile delinquents for the first time. Kimberly was one of those customers who worked behind the front desk to earn free classes. It was a brilliant scheme that could only work in the fitness world, where almost everyone except for the instructors, from the women who cleaned the bathrooms to the receptionist, provided free labor.
Ivy rolled her eyes and tried to stifle her irritation. Kim was also one of the front-row bitches, the women who clambered to sit directly in front of Ivy and delighted in her vitriol and insults. This was a person who needed much more than a name change to be happy with herself. “Yeah. Sure. Kimberly.” She led the two women down a dark hallway toward the locker rooms. “I came into my wholeness today because I didn’t have anything better to fucking do after my husband left me for my manny,” she muttered under her breath. Kim’s husband had indeed left her for their children’s male caretaker last month, and since then Kim had been working double shifts and taking four SoarBarre classes a day.
Ivy caught herself and yelled over her shoulder. “You do you, Kimberly! You’re a warrior queen! You’re a fucking redwood.” Ivy saw Janey and CJ exchange a horrified look.
“What do these classes cost?” Janey asked the two of them.
“Fifty-five dollars for a one-off spin class, a little less with a membership or the SweatGood pass,” CJ answered in her know-it-all voice. “There’s a sliding scale for the barre classes that starts around thirty-five dollars. There are also the new hybrid classes that are part spin, part barre, part ballet, and part kickboxing. Those are fifty dollars. But we’d be crazy to do those. The women who do those classes are out of their minds.”
As usual, the locker room was packed with impossibly fit women storing high heels in tiny lockers before donning their identical SoarBarre socks (fifteen dollars at the front desk) and strapping their feet into spin cleats that resembled tennis shoes with fangs while finishing off the last drops of a sludgy maroon liquid from oversized mason jars.
Ivy was momentarily distracted as she wondered who had dictated that everything these days had to be drunk out of a mason jar. Then she saw her cousin tentatively approach a thin glass scale in the corner of the room. Janey stepped onto the delicate-looking glass, inspected the number, recoiled in horror, and stepped off before anyone else could see. Ivy walked over to pat Janey sympathetically on the back. “So how much weight do you think you’ve gained since the last time you weighed yourself??”
“I honestly don’t know. Maybe thirty pounds? I get weighed at the doctor, but I never pay much attention. And I don’t think I’ve gone to the doctor”—Janey ticked off time on her fingers—“in about three years.”
CJ hugged her. “I’m so sorry,” she said solemnly.
“My god, CJ. It’s a double chin and a bit of a tummy, not a death sentence,” Janey said.
“I know. I know. But I’m here for you. You’re all signed up for SweatGood. I’m going to help you find the perfect organic artisanal food delivery service. I’ve tried them all. We’ve got this. The first ten will be easy. The second ten will kill you. The third ten will be the hardest thing you’ve done in your entire life.”
Ivy liked CJ. She was funny and loyal and meant well. “Are you bitches coming to class? It’s about to start and I can’t keep the fatties away from the back-row bikes I saved for you for very long.”
A plump girl in a too-tight green jumpsuit looked up at Ivy with adulation.
“Yeah. You’re fat,” Ivy said to her simply. She hated doing that, but she knew the girl would write her an amazing review later on Yelp and probably tweet how inspirational she was right after class. Why did these women want to be abused? It was so messed up.
CJ scampered behind Ivy, pulling her friend along. But Janey lingered in the doorway.
“Why the hell did you fat sluts bother to come here today?” Ivy climbed onto the pedals of her own bike, surveying the crowd with a scowl. She didn’t work out during these classes or even break a sweat. She just stood high on her pedals and screamed into her headset. The bike was essentially a stage for her daily unmannerly performance. She made a few taps on her iPhone to start playing Dr. Dre’s Chronic album. Nothing got a roomful of middle-aged white women up a hill faster than gangster rap out of Compton. “You don’t deserve to be here. If you slow down I swear I will spit in your eye. SPIT IN YOUR EYE. Do you bitches hear me? Do you hear me? Do you think you’re special?” She sucked a breath deep into her belly and thought about her mantras.
I am peacefully allowing my life to unfold.
I take the time to show others I care about them.
I am fun and energetic and people love me for it.
I like other people. I like other people. I like other people.
In front of Ivy five rows of women and the odd man huffed and puffed on spin bikes. The ones in the front were the ones with the fuck-off bodies who didn’t need to be in a spin class that cost fifty-five dollars. They took their Fabletics halter tops off about two minutes into the class to make sure everyone saw all six of their abs as they went in for Ivy’s special breed of crunches.
“It should feel like you’re being punched in the gut. Banish your belly fat. You chubby bitches need to work harder,” Ivy yelled. “Go faster. Be better. Embrace your pain.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Janey let the substantial door of SoarBarre slam behind her as she walked into the crisp January air, trudging through slush puddles and letting the salt settle in patterns on her weathered Chanel motocross boots. Her tummy rumbled. She needed an action plan and a stop at that delicious crêperie on West Twelfth.
On the way downtown she thought about what Ivy said back at her apartment. She’d gone on a total of three dates since her separation, the most recent of which was six months ago. It was an acquaintance of Steven’s from the boxing gym, a guy described by her best friend’s husband as the “Iranian George Clooney.”
“He’s a professor at NYU, literature, I think…or maybe philosophy. Owns his own place in Williamsburg, forty-two, never married, perfect for you.”
He was incredibly handsome with a strong jaw and a caveman’s brow, which worked for him, and very cerebral. They spent one cocktail talking about Hegel, the second discussing Janey’s expansion of the B brand around the world. He seemed impressed by her and she was almost ready to order a third drink and an appetizer when things took a left turn.
“Want to get some coke?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Excuse me?”
“Want to grab some cocaine?”
Janey was tired. “I think I’ll just go home,” she said and collected her jacket.