by Pace, Pepper
The price of the membership was on promotion and very fair, but it would still stretch her finances and didn’t even include a personal trainer, since the facility only had employees who showed the members how to work the machinery. Then the sales rep explained that many personal trainers were members who brought their clients here to workout. The man looked around while Hayden watched him discreetly, wishing that he was a personal trainer. Not that she was the least bit interested in him, but his body appeared to be as close to perfect as humanly possible.
He waved his hand to a group of body builders lifting weights in front of a huge mirror. “Todd!”
The person that turned was far from the hulking figure of the other men. Todd jogged over to them. He was a White man of average height and build. Hayden couldn’t see much of his physique as he wore workout pants and a loose fitting shirt.
“Todd, this is Hayden Michaels. She’s looking for a personal trainer.”
He shook her hand. “Hi, I’m Todd Crandle.”
“You’re a personal trainer?”
He just chuckled, not appearing offended by her apparent lack of confidence.
“Not just a personal trainer; I’m NCSF certified. I also have a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Physical Fitness. But best of all, I’m not just some muscle head that wants to turn you into a female version of himself.”
Hayden’s head tilted as she digested his words, deciding that she liked what he had to say. Then the sales rep excused himself when he saw that Hayden had warmed to the idea of Todd.
“I have to warn you though,” Todd continued. “I’m also a fulltime Firefighter and I just recently got married, so my schedule is pretty hectic. So if you’re willing to work around my craziness, then I’ll give you a break on my usual fee.”
She perked up even more at that and discovered that Todd worked a 24-hour shift at the firehouse, and then had the next 48 hours off. She was far from rich, so it helped that he would cut her a break. So Hayden agreed to his terms.
Then they decided to meet at the end of the week at the butt crack of dawn. Todd insisted that she get a physical first and though it had been years since she had seen a doctor, it was just another thing that she needed to do in order to get right with herself. After leaving the gym, Hayden checked off a mental list in her head.
She picked up a newspaper and then headed for a small café. When the waitress asked her what she wanted to order, she indicated a cup of hot tea with lemon and a grilled chicken Cesar salad. Then she searched the want ads, circling several perspective part time jobs. She needed to get her finances together, and to do that she needed another job.
~Chapter 2~
GETTING TO THE MONEY
I value my health, as I can’t truly love myself without loving and inner-adorning the shine that encapsulates the magic of my soul.
Hayden stared at the words that she had written across her calendar. Did she believe the words? No… and that was pretty pathetic.
Her doctor’s visit had not gone well—not well at all.
“Aren’t you feeling… sick?” he had asked her with squinted eyes as he scrutinized her. She just shrugged and shook her head.
“Well Miss Michaels once you begin taking this medication you will realize that you were indeed sick…” he smiled, “because you will begin to feel tons better.”
Hayden took her morning dose of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol medicine. Well… at least she now had a doctor’s note for why she had taken damn near a week off from work. See Boss Lady, I’m not just mooning away because some man dumped me. I’m really sick! Check out my A1C level. I should be freaking dead…
Hayden pulled on sweat pants. They were MyKell’s… well, they had been until he snagged them on a nail and wouldn’t wear them once they were damaged goods. She found scissors and shortened the legs so that she wouldn’t trip on them and then pulled on one of MyKell’s undershirts. It was like a dress on her. With a frown, she shook her head and then prepared her breakfast; oatmeal, sugar substitute with soymilk. It nearly turned her stomach, but apparently, it was a healthy diabetic breakfast; one that she would have to tolerate for the next year at least… 360 more days and counting.
When Hayden pulled into the gym parking lot and it was 5:29 A.M. She dashed through the doors expecting it to be completely empty except for Todd, but there were a few die-hard workout enthusiasts apparently doing what she had in mind; a workout before heading to the job.
“Good morning,” Todd greeted her sounding chipper. He was holding a cup of coffee, which she eyed wantonly, but no coffee for her. Her caffeine addiction would take at least a full week to kick.
Todd had her get on the treadmill first.
“Aren’t I supposed to stretch first, or something-?” She looked warily at the machine, images of fat women falling off them and being posted to YouTube instantly started swirling around her mind…
“Only if you want a muscle or ligament tear. Always warm up before stretching.”
Okay, that made sense. So she stepped on the treadmill and he started it at a moderate walk. She started to sweat five minutes into the walk. Ten minutes into it, her heart began thumping and she wondered what she was going to do when he made her run? He was quiet as he studied her file and then took her pulse while she struggled to maintain her balance and speed.
“Good. What did you eat this morning?”
Did he really expect her to talk when she could barely breathe? “Oatmeal,” she managed.
“Good.”
After fifteen minutes, he allowed her to stop. She wanted to drop to the floor, but waited patiently for his next instructions instead. They did some stretching which felt really good and then Todd took her through an upper body circuit. The weights were very small, not very heavy at all, and she felt that she could go much heavier. Until he took her through several repetitions and then she wanted to beg him to stop.
She didn’t stop and she didn’t complain. Todd explained each step of the way until she understood how to work through each exercise slowly so that her muscles would feel the burn. To think she had always tried to avoid the burn not realizing that muscles had to break down so that they could rebuild themselves stronger too. Maybe that was just a universal truth… The hour finally came to an end and Hayden wanted nothing more than to go home and climb into bed; but she couldn’t. She had to finally return to work.
“I want you to do this exact same thing every other day until I start you on lower body. You need to walk more to improve your cardio so take stairs when possible, okay?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
He smiled at her. “Good job. I’ll see you Sunday afternoon.”
Hayden’s plan had been to do an hour workout each morning before heading to her job in hopes that she would feel invigorated throughout the day. However, the reality is that she was far from invigorated. Her body began to ache in places where she didn’t even know she had muscles.
She entered her office building and bypassed the elevator and headed for the stairs which would take her to the fourth floor. Todd told her to do it and she said she would. Period. It took her three times as long to get to her office and she was sweating and out of breath but in some ways each aching step felt like… rebirth.
She grudgingly admitted that the pain and the ache felt kind of good; not physically but mentally. It was pain that was killing away the bad and creating something new and not pain based on what someone else had done to her. It was the pain of success…
“Oh my God, Hayden!” Dani exclaimed when Hayden came panting and limping over to her cubicle. She fell into her office chair, which squeaked loudly and she hoped it wouldn’t break on her, because if she hit the floor she wasn’t sure she would be able to get back up.
“Girl… what in the world…? Wow your hair looks good.”
Hayden blinked at her in surprise. She patted her TWA – teeny weeny afro, and then shrugged. She dug in her purse for her doctor’s note. “Dani
, be a friend and give this to Boss Lady.”
“Of course.”
She signed onto her computer. 7:59 A.M. She had made it to work on time. So this was doable. Ugh…
~***~
“Are you… okay? I’ve been worried about you. You just disappeared.” Dani spoke while they sat in the break room at lunch.
Hayden felt bad that she hadn’t done anything to alleviate Dani’s concerns. Yet, she didn’t know how to explain what she was going through either. How did she tell someone that she wasn’t completely detaching herself from anything that might cause her to feel or to want? That it was not a bad thing because if she examined her wants it would only lead to a cup of coffee with whipped cream and—stop!
She decided to keep it simple. “I wasn’t feeling so hot. So I visited my doctor and guess what? I have diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.”
“Damn, Hade…”
“I know. But I decided to get healthy. I joined a gym and I even got a personal trainer.”
“You joined a gym?” Dani’s face was full of surprise. Both women were overweight, but on Dani they called it voluptuous. Her friend was gorgeous with her thick hourglass figure, smooth mocha skin and long extensions.
Dani had actually done a lot to help Hayden realize that being overweight didn’t make you unattractive. Dani easily had fifty extra pounds on her tall frame but she also had hips that men couldn’t stop looking at and curves that looked good in her clothes. She regularly scheduled trips to the salon to keep her nails and hair perfectly done. Her makeup was always flawless and she had confidence that came with accepting all of herself. Confidence equaled beauty...
Hayden gazed at her confident, beautiful friend. She knew that she couldn’t expect a woman like Dani to understand what it was like to have so much self-loathing that making sure she didn’t fail was more important than any discomfort she was sure to experience in the course of her self-improvement during this next year. So Hayden plastered on a false smile instead. “I just need to take better care of myself,” and then Dani nodded in acceptance.
Hayden speared a lettuce leaf not minding that there was barely enough of the fat free dressing to taste. If she tasted it she might spew anyway…
“Have you heard from that man?”
Hayden shook her head slowly. “He’s coming this weekend to pick up the last of his things.”
“You should put his shit out on the curb-”
“Dani-”
“You were too nice to that loser!”
“Lets not talk about him.” She met her friend’s eyes. “That part of my life is over. It’s all about me now.”
“True. Well then let’s go out this weekend. I’ll take you out to dinner so you won’t have to be there when he’s there.”
“No, I have no intentions of being there, but I do have plenty of other things that I need to take care of. Thanks though.”
Dani looked a little disappointed but she patted her friend on the shoulder. “You know I’m here if you need me, right?”
“I know. Thanks, but I’m good.”
~***~
After work Hayden headed to a job interview where she hoped to get a job cleaning a small office complex. It would work well with her schedule in that she would be able to make her own hours. The cleaning just needed to be completed by the following morning.
She was immediately hired after the manager gave a cursory look at the area of her job application that indicated she did not have a criminal history. She was to start Monday evening, five days a week. It would give her an extra grand a month. Not much, but it would pay down her maxed out credit cards and leave her the weekend to devote to herself.
When Hayden finally stumbled into the house later that evening, she grabbed the calendar from the bedroom and placed it on the refrigerator using a magnetic clip. She read the self-affirmation again. I value my health, as I can’t truly love myself without loving and inner-adorning the shine that encapsulates the magic of my soul…
~***~
If Hayden experienced even one moment of happiness in the following week, she could not recollect it. To anyone other than to her personal trainer or Dani, she barely spoke a word. Todd increased her treadmill time to twenty minutes, which she maintained each morning even when he wasn’t there. She then went to work nearly bent in pain and at lunch ate a salad or sandwich.
After working her first job, she then drove to the office complex where she had three offices to clean. It took every bit of four hours so if she wanted to get to bed at a decent hour she had to hustle. She particularly disliked cleaning the large office on the first floor with its big plate glass window overlooking the parking lot. The people who occupied that office worked late and so it was always her last stop. On top of that, they were foul people who left a horrible mess.
Her routine included wiping out the water fountain where there was always grit in it like someone had dumped coffee grounds down the drain. She dumped the trashcans of each cubicle and filled them with new plastic liners. She dusted, vacuumed and then mopped and cleaned both sets of bathrooms. Yet what was even worse than even cleaning two filthy bathrooms was cleaning the little canteen.
Each day she would see the tables littered with used food wrappers and overflowing ashtrays. She knew why no one threw away their trash—because the cans were just small ones that were used in the cubicles and they just overflowed. Still there was no excuse for why they left the microwave in the condition that she found it in each night. It would take forever for her to scrub the burnt crud or sticky goo from the tray and walls.
The first night that she had cleaned away a month’s worth of old food; she had stepped back and looked at the sparkling clean microwave with pride. Now that she had taken the first step they would surely cover their food, wipe up their spills, and keep it clean. However, when she returned the next day, there was macaroni and cheese stuck in it and someone had microwaved something red that had splattered and dried all over the interior. Hayden closed her eyes and counted to ten.
I train myself to focus on positive thoughts so the fruits produced by my subconscious are ripe and rich instead of weeds that devour and swallow… She had to repeat that affirmation three times before she was calm enough to re-clean all that she had meticulously cleaned the night before. At first when she had scanned her computer for self-affirmations, which could be repeated during moments of weakness or self-doubt, she thought they would just be frivolous words that she wouldn’t be able to relate to. Although in truth, she really couldn’t totally relate to them, she said them anyway because she hoped that one day she would believe them.
By the time she finally dragged herself back to her home, she seldom did anything but bathe and fall into bed. It was a good trade off. Though she was tired and sore each night, she was also too busy to think about MyKell.
He had come by to pick up his things the weekend before, just as his phone message had indicated. Only she wasn’t there to witness it—when she returned home, there was simply an absence of his remaining remnants. His key lay on the dining room table and she tossed it into the garbage.
She would call a locksmith the next day and get all of the locks changed. Then Hayden had walked through her clean home taking stock and if she found something that reminded her of MyKell, she threw it in the garbage, including the workout pants and t-shirt that had once belonged to him. Instead of feeling sad or hurt, now she just felt closure.
By the end of week two, Hayden had returned to the doctor and found that she had lost nine pounds. Todd was happy about it, but she felt that it should have been more. She had worked hard and though her pants were a bit baggier, she still thought she looked like the same unkempt fat woman. She barely even looked in the mirror; she had trained herself to see only the things that she needed to in order to not walk around with lettuce stuck in her teeth or toilet paper hanging from the back of her pants.
Todd’s way of celebrating her accomplishments was to allow her to
leave the treadmill but she now had to use the recumbent bike for half an hour. Somehow she thought that by sitting it would be easier, but that was not true. The weekend was the only time that Hayden had for herself. After she gave Todd his pound of flesh on Saturday or Sunday, she took care of cleaning her home, paying bills, or visiting with Dani. Then it was time to prepare for the upcoming week; preparing her meals, getting her clothes together so that she wouldn’t have to dash around wondering what to wear when she had not a minute to spare in the morning, and not an ounce of energy left in the evening.
She had her life regulated down to the minute. It allowed her sweet emptiness, mindless activity where she had no time to think about anything beyond the task at hand. It was hard, but it was also slowly healing her.
Time might heal old wounds—but so did focusing on something more unpleasant like knotted muscles, a grumbling belly and total exhaustion. The only thing she couldn’t quite regulate was the last office that she had to clean each night. At times they worked until 10:00 P.M. and she had to sit in her car silently stewing that she wouldn’t be in bed until midnight.
It wouldn’t do her any good to clean while they were still present if they were going to refill the ashtrays that she’d just cleaned, or piss on the floor of the restroom that she’d just mopped! To say that she was annoyed by it all would be an understatement. A few times, she had even fallen asleep behind her steering wheel, which was bad. Yet worse was when her mind would begin to wander back to MyKell.
~Chapter 3~
THE BOILER ROOM
Hayden watched the lady with the 1950s’ bouffant hairstyle leave the office, using her key to lock up. Stifling a yawn, Hayden brushed past the older woman who gave her a suspicious look. Hayden used her own janitorial service issued key to unlock the just locked door, ignoring the woman who had stopped to watch her as she entered the large office.