Janey didn’t know what to do when someone bowed to her. Bowing back felt strange, so she opted for a too-wide smile, an overly ambitious nod, and a thumbs-up. When Sara finished greeting everyone, the music stopped on cue, and the fans began to whir from above, blowing Sara’s hair angelically around her face as she walked to the center of the room.
“I love each and every one of you girls so much for coming down here. You have inspired me. Moved me. Blessed me. Like you I still struggle, and this week we will sweat in the struggle together,” Sara announced in her high-pitched girly voice with its odd accent. “This morning during my meditation I couldn’t get certain thoughts out of my head. I wrote them down so that I could share them with you. When things like this come to me, I know it’s the universe asking me to share its wisdom with you. Here is what came to me: I know we are often comparing ourselves to other women who may be younger or more fit than we are. The problem is that every year as we get older we have a larger group to compare ourselves to. Stop comparing. Acknowledge other people’s greatness and you will be more powerful and centered. Others will notice and embrace your confidence. There’s nothing sexier than someone who is content with herself and trying every single day to be better and improve on her own terms.”
Wait a second. Wasn’t that exactly what Sara had said the first time Janey came to The Workout? The other women were regulars. They must have heard it before. But no one seemed taken aback. They smiled and clapped. Cosima swiped a tear from her cheek.
Sara paused and raised her hands and her eyes skyward. “This is…THE WORKOUT!”
Local men, each more handsome and wearing less clothing than the next, filed in with trays of the signature Workout tea.
How did they get it here? Janey wondered. Each of the women gratefully took her cup and sipped while Sara repeated a series of mantras in Sanskrit.
The next three hours were a blur of wind sprints, squat thrusts, Zumba, something called conscious dance, and ten straight minutes of jumping jacks followed by another ten of jumping rope.
It all ended with a five-minute handstand.
“An inversion is the best way to see your world differently,” Sara said. “Sometimes when I’m having one of those awful work dinners and I can’t stand talking to another person I go in the bathroom and do a handstand for five minutes and I immediately feel better. Of course I wash my hands before I go back out.”
Carol walked out of the studio at the mention of standing on anything other than her feet. They would never see her again. Janey later learned she’d booked herself a room at the Ritz.
Janey, who hadn’t done a handstand since fourth-grade gym class, dragged her mat over to the wall for balance, cautiously kicking one leg into the air and then the other.
By the time it was all over, Janey’s entire body ached and she was starving. The promise of food was all that motivated her to drag her weary legs back to the lavish open-air dining room. A small terra-cotta pot in the shape of a bull sat at each place setting next to a beautifully woven lace napkin. Janey’s tummy rumbled, and she realized she could smell herself. She was a sweaty, nasty, hungry mess.
Sara floated into the dining room like a fairy, wearing a fresh pastel grey unitard. “Let us give grace to the earth and the sun and the sea and all of the sources of nourishment we’re receiving today. We’re so grateful.”
The group chanted after her: “We’re so grateful.”
Janey was just grateful for whatever kind of lovely stew the local chefs had cooked up and put in this little pot.
“Bon appétit!” Sara said, making no move to sit and eat herself, pacing instead, like a hungry tiger in a cage. Janey realized she’d never seen Sara put anything other than tea into her mouth.
Janey carefully removed the top of the pot, checking first to make sure it wasn’t too hot.
No. It couldn’t be.
Fuuuuu-uuuuu-uuck!
It was clay.
Janey made eye contact with Stella across the table and mouthed, “No way,” exaggerating the consonants.
Stella gave a slight shrug, looking over her shoulder to see if Sara was watching. She was in an animated conversation with one of the waiters. Stella slowly pushed her chair back from the table and beckoned Janey to follow her. No one paid them any mind. The other women were clearly so hungry they could think of little else except shoveling clay into their mouths.
Down a short, dark hallway they left the opulence of the rest of the property and found themselves in the sterile and dilapidated staff quarters. The paint on the walls curled off in plate-sized patches, and water stains formed dark shadows on the ceiling. Once in the kitchen, Stella spoke rapid-fire French to one of the cooks. He looked at Janey with a kind smile and opened the oven to reveal a batch of freshly baked rolls.
Janey drooled from the smell of the fresh bread and didn’t care when the roll burned her tongue. It was the sweetest thing that had ever touched her lips, a piece of pure heaven.
“I’m sorry,” Stella said. “I promise I wasn’t lying when I bragged about the fresh fruits and veggies and organic yummies. Sara is different this time around. And the women are different. They’re demanding extreme results. They don’t want food here. All of these women could be potential investors in Sara’s new gym project, and she’s just eager to give them whatever they want.”
Janey grabbed a second roll. She’d swallowed the first whole.
“Does Sara smoke?”
“I doubt it. Why?”
“I saw her smoking a cigarette and hanging out the window last night.” Janey felt like a tattletale but she was too curious not to ask. “She was so mad. Yelling into her phone. Something about not being able to get the tea across the border.”
“Oh yeah. There was some problem. I didn’t really understand it, but apparently she needed to buy something local and she was worried it wasn’t the same as what she could get in the States, some kind of vitamins maybe for the tea or the smoothies.”
Janey grabbed another warm roll and broke it in half, offering one piece to Stella, who crinkled her nose.
“Gluten makes me a bad person. Hey, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?? It’s all optional, you know. Go have a lie in a hammock and stare at the sea. I can even have the guys back here cook you some real food and bring it to you in your room so no one has to know.”
“You think it’s okay?”
“It’s more than okay. I’ll tell the others you had sunstroke or something and need a lie down. Don’t worry about it. This is your retreat. Take care of yourself.”
· · ·
Janey spent a glorious afternoon and evening all by herself, walking the deserted beach. She dove into the waves and let herself float for what felt like an hour, her muscles loosening in the salty water. And as Stella had promised, a delicious dinner of baked red snapper in coconut sauce with sides of roasted broccoli, kale, and cauliflower arrived on a tray in her room, while the other women dined on more clay. She’d finished reading one of the novels she brought with her and stayed up fairly late, but Suzy still hadn’t come back to the yurt by the time she fell asleep.