by Pace, Pepper
Dani beamed and gave her a side-look as if she had something up her sleeves.
Hayden narrowed her eyes. “I mean it Dani. I’m not meeting that guy until I’m ready.”
“No, that’s fine! I’m just happy we’re going to hang out this weekend.”
~***~
By the time Hayden made it to Fox Vinyl, the fatigue of a long, difficult week finally hit her. She tried to suppress her yawns but her day began at 5:00 A.M. every single weekday and didn’t end until 11:00 P.M. The only thing that got her going each morning was the fact that her daily workout gave her energy and woke her better than a strong cup of coffee. However, that energy was long gone by now.
When she arrived in the evenings everyone else on her team would already be present – not counting breaks to the canteen – since they worked a full shift to her part-time hours. The first thing she did as she headed to her desk tonight was to check the board for the number of sales. Brian and Marcus each had two, Abdullah had four, and there was one each for her and Pam. Only two for Brian? He usually led the team in sales.
She looked over at his desk and saw that it was empty. It appeared that he hadn’t been in all day. Well she hoped that he took the weekend to get some rest and to get over his illness. The last thing she needed was to catch someone’s germs and to end up sick and flat on her back.
Hayden sat down and got her materials together and then she looked over at Abdullah. He was scanning the phonebook, his finger scrolling down the page and his mouth moving as he read to himself. The way I treat people who I seek and expect nothing from is the same way I treat those I hope to gain and learn from…
Taking a deep breath, she stood and trudged across the aisle to his desk. He looked at her without changing his posture.
“Abdullah, I just wanted to apologize again about yesterday. And I hope that…” what do I hope? I didn’t want to be friends and I am not about to lie about it. “…we can put that behind us.”
The ensuing silence dragged on. Okay… When he didn’t move she made to turn, but then, he nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry as well. I should not have yelled at you. I had no right.”
She was surprised by his apology, but she simply nodded and then returned to her seat with a smile. That had felt good. Pam returned to her desk a few minutes later from her smoke break in the canteen. Hayden couldn’t force herself to speak to that one and decided that the next best thing was to just disregard her.
A little later, Marcus, or Mr. Doo Wop, asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee after he walked past and saw her mouth wide open in a deep yawn. With embarrassment, she explained that she no longer drank coffee. Equally important was that she wouldn’t dare eat or drink anything that had come from that dirty canteen, but she kept that little tidbit to herself.
“You let me know if you need something to perk you up,” he whispered before walking back to his desk.
Hayden froze. Did he just offer her drugs… or something sexual? Ugh… he was her daddy’s age! Double ugh, as if she would take unknown drugs from some stranger! She tried to wipe the yuck-look from her face as she returned to her work feeling slightly traumatized.
Four hours moved by quickly and by the end of the evening she had another sale. Woot! Woot! She wasted no time leaving work. Then after her shower, she fell into bed naked, and was deeply asleep right on top of her neatly made bed.
~***~
For once in a very long time, Hayden found clothes’ shopping was actually enjoyable. When she picked out slacks to try on, she found that they were way too big and she had to send Dani running around the store for smaller and then even smaller sizes. Then when she stepped out of the dressing room wearing pants that actually hugged her legs and butt and, they looked so good that she was in awe.
She had wanted simple blouses, but Dani convinced her to find pretty shirts that accentuated a waistline that she hadn’t had in ages. Now she could see that Dani was right. The prettier blouses, the better fitting clothes… made her feel pretty.
“I told you!” Dani was standing beside her as she looked in the large mirror that stood at the entrance of the dressing room. Hayden looked at the reflection of her and her best friend standing side-by-side.
She was smaller than Dani, but… Hayden allowed her eyes to move to Dani’s face and then to her own. Wide brown eyes stared back at her from a golden brown face that could no longer be called round. Neat twirls from her teeny weeny afro haloed her head. She didn’t have a pig face at all…
Her eyes scanned her entire form. No, she wasn’t thin, but she was far from being the fat girl that she had been in her mind’s eye. So why was it that when she took off her clothes, she still saw nothing but rolls of ugly fat?
Hayden did a slight turn and checked out her side view. Wow, was that her butt? When had it lifted like that, when it had always been wide and flat before?
Dani was smiling at her in the mirror. “See? You look good.”
Hayden blushed and looked away and then she headed back to the dressing room to change, but while she did she had a smile on her face. She glanced down at her body in just panties and a bra. Yeah, that extra roll on each side of her body was gone now… she was down to just one. There was still work to be done, but she really had made great strides.
~Chapter 6~
THE LOSS OF PROGRESS = A FRESH START
Hayden spent the weekend sorting through her old clothes and she actually got rid of any sizes that were now too big for her. She would never allow herself to get that big again, and if she did, then she would just have to bear the consequences of having to buy an entirely new wardrobe. Two garbage bags of clothes went into her trunk to be donated to the nearby Good Will.
On Sunday, she and Todd began their first day of marathon training. He had sent her a text instructing her to meet him at the entrance of Sharon Woods Park. She arrived timely at 9:00 A.M. and parked her car next to Todd’s truck.
He got out of his truck and was about to greet her when he took a double take. She was wearing shorts. Shorts! She had on a t-shirt that hugged her body instead of her normally oversized ones that fell over her butt. Her new $60 sneakers donned her feet.
“Hi Hayden. So… you’re looking good.” He was wearing a cheesy grin. “You finally figured it out.”
She rolled her eye. “Thank you.” She tried not to blush and wondered if people would think that they were a couple…
Sharon Woods had a great jogging trail that Todd liked. Hayden had been to the park many times, but had never ventured onto the trail. It wove through the forest on dirt paths across a wooden bridge and alongside a rocky creek. She had no idea that there was so much beauty in this park. Todd didn’t make her run or jog but he did insist that she maintain a fast walk. Other joggers passed them, and she saw people who were there just to walk and enjoy the scenery or to toss rocks into the creek.
“This place is so beautiful. I can’t believe I’ve never been to this part of the park before.”
“Kia and I brought the boys here yesterday.” He pointed ahead to a signpost that described the dinosaurs that had roamed the area. “Kevin, who is ten, did a hurdle over that post.”
“Are you serious? That thing’s over four feet high.”
“I think he’s going to be a runner.” Todd smiled. “He wants to do the Zombie run with me.”
“Then you should bring him along to train with us,” she offered. School was out and she liked the stories that he told about Kia and the boys. His wife seemed really down to earth and the boys obviously loved Todd just like he loved them.
He squinted at her. “You sure you wouldn’t mind? You do pay me to focus my training on you.”
“Well, I’m hoping that he’ll run slower than me.”
Todd chuckled. “So, I’ll do this; when we’re out of the gym there is no charge for the training.”
“But-”
“Since I have to train too, and if Kevin is coming along, then we should just consider
it a training partnership.”
“Hell yeah! You got a deal!” A dollar saved, was a dollar earned!
When they finally returned to their cars, Hayden was tired. If she was this tired from just an hour of fast walking, how was she going to handle an hour of running? Todd stated that he would see her at the gym Tuesday and instructed her to begin walking the treadmill again.
“I want your pace as fast as we were walking today, okay?”
“Got it.”
“No running yet. I’m going to start you on intervals of thirty-seconds. Walk for three minutes and then fast run for thirty seconds.” She nodded, hoping that she wouldn’t look totally stupid when she fell off the treadmill, which was sure to happen. YouTube, here I come…
Yet by Monday, Hayden felt in high spirits. She was actually looking forward to her second job as she began looking at her sales as a test of her abilities and not just getting to the money. Marcus winked at her as she took her seat and Hayden gave him a quick wave and then averted her eyes in case he tried to flirt or offer her drugs again.
Brian had returned, but he didn’t look much better. He wore a somber expression and seemed distracted. He didn’t even stare today. However, he did say hello when he passed her desk on the way to the canteen for his break. He even congratulated her on her new sales.
Mr. Fox came out of his office to tell her how well she was performing and Pam nearly broke her neck to agree that she was doing extremely well—somehow syphoning the credit onto herself.
“I had some very good help,” Hayden responded simply.
“Well, you keep it up. Next week we’re going to have a monthly bonus. It’s a thousand dollars. Top seller wins.”
Now that was some good motivation. Not that she thought she could outsell all of the experienced Telemarketers, but it would be nice to outsell some of them.
Mr. Fox headed back to his office and looked at Brian’s desk. “Where is he?” his voice was suddenly very nasty.
Hayden looked at him in surprise and Pam quickly answered. “He’s taking a smoke.”
Mr. Fox grunted in displeasure and then returned to his office.
Brian was only gone ten minutes and when he returned Pam spoke to him in her fake saccharin voice. “Brine, he was looking for you.”
Hayden noticed the look that crossed his face. Was Brian afraid of Mr. Fox? He nodded and then quickly returned to work.
At the end of the evening, Hayden was happy to see that she had twice as many sales as Pam—who seemed to take it as a personal attack every time Hayden got up to write her initials on the board. One sale a day might not get Hayden a thousand bucks, but in a four-hour shift, it wasn’t too shabby. At the end of the shift, she didn’t immediately dart out the door like she normally did either.
She made sure that her order forms were correct for the printers because she had seen how Pam spent so much time talking to customers about mistakes on the layout. As she was heading out the door, she heard a loud noise from Mr. Fox’s office; as if someone had thrown or slammed something, and then his muffled voice cursing up a blue streak. At first she thought that he might have fallen until she understood that his words were directed at someone.
She could only make out a few of them but she clearly heard the repeated use of the word fuck as in, “fuck-up,” “where the fuck,” and “who the fuck.”
Marcus was walking out the door whistling and doing a pimp walk. He didn’t even seem to notice or care that Mr. Fox was going off on someone. She lagged behind until the office door swung open and Brian came walking out. Mr. Fox was still yelling at him.
“You don’t have that many more chances here! Do you hear me?”
Brian looked over his shoulder back into the office. “I was sick!”
“Well that’s your fault, not mine!”
Brian walked away, his face an angry mask. Hayden hurried out the door. Damn, she was never going to call in sick…
~***~
On Tuesday, Hayden had interval training with Todd at the gym. While she did not fall off the treadmill, she did beg him with her eyes to allow her to stop before her lungs flew out of her mouth. However, he had no mercy. He kept his hand on the speed button moving it up when it was time for her to sprint and then back to a medium walk for the next three minutes. He made her keep doing those intervals for an entire half an hour!
At the end, she didn’t speak; she just stumbled to the lockers where she puked up her morning oatmeal into the toilet. When she walked back into the main area of the gym, Todd was waiting for her with bottled water. She never bought the bottled water when there was a water faucet that she could use for free, but she took the peace offering while he watched her meekly.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I got sick, but yeah, I’m okay.”
“It’s your breathing; you’re going to have to learn to regulate it. You have to find your second wind.”
She huffed. “It didn’t seem like it wanted to be found.” She knew what he was talking about. When she rode the bike, there was a point at about fifteen minutes in when she thought that she would keel over and die, but if she pushed on it would suddenly get easier and her legs would begin pedaling madly until she hit the wall and found her third wind.
Later, as Hayden’s day moved on, it seemed to go from bad to worse. She was late getting to work because she made the mistake of going through the drive through at McDonald’s for more oatmeal. Unfortunately, the line was slow and long. She ended up being ten minutes late to work and by the time she had a chance to eat; the oatmeal was a cold, hard lump that she dumped into her trashcan.
Then by the time lunch came, she was starving but had packed only a chef salad, not even half a sandwich or a fruit cup to go along with it. She was staring into her empty bowl wishing for seconds when Dani invited her to the Jazz Festival. The Jazz Festival was a big deal in her city.
The top R&B singers and groups were sure to appear. Then of course, there would be the old-time groups that never went out of style like Frankie Beverly and Maze and Patti Labelle. It was something that she and MyKell had attended every summer.
Hayden’s life had been running smoothly not counting the week directly following her breakup with MyKell when she’d had her meltdown. Beyond that, she had coped with the end of a six-year relationship with as much detachment as she could muster. Yet every bit of ground that she had gained in the last two months was thrown out the window at the mention of the Jazz Festival. The realization that she would never go to the Jazz Festival with MyKell again first stunned, and then hurt her so deeply that it was like being bowled over.
MyKell would go to the Jazz Festival with someone else… It was over. He wasn’t coming back. He was no longer a part of her life.
Hayden could have clutched her chest as the pain of it sank in for her. The sudden grief brought swift stinging tears to her eyes and she could no longer speak. All she could do was look away and shake her head, praying that the tears filling her eyes didn’t fall.
Dani gasped. “Oh Hayden, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I just want you to have fun. You’re so much better off without that asshole! Don’t you know how much he used you for your kindness? So he moved on to some other woman that he can use up. Good riddance!”
Oh my God… Hayden didn’t want to have this conversation. Not when the tears were welling up in her eyes and they were sitting in the break room with their co-workers. However, Hayden had lost the ability to use her voice and didn’t know how to tell her friend to stop. Just stop…
“Look, Hayden, if you change your mind just let me know, okay?” Dani touched her hand and Hayden just nodded her head. Dani quickly changed the subject and Hayden was grateful that a moment later her tears receded.
After their lunch break, Hayden went back to her desk, too afraid that if she stopped at the restroom the tears would return. She stared at her computer screen hands slack in her lap. There is no joy in my life. This is all…
~***~
Hayden had stopped at McDonald’s again on her way to Fox Vinyl. She ordered a large chocolate shake, a double quarter pounder with cheese and a super sized order of fries with two apple pies. Her stomach ached terribly by the time that she entered the building.
Not because she had eaten all of that fast food, but because she had thrown it out the window and now her stomach felt like an empty cavern. She never packed an evening meal because she wouldn’t have time to spare reheating a packed meal for dinner when she had one hour from the end of one job and the beginning of the next. So there was no way that she could survive on sandwiches and salads all week long for each of her three meals. Dinner was the time that she splurged on carryout; either a roast chicken dinner from Boston Market, or Italian Wedding Soup from the deli, and if she was lucky, the roast turkey special from The Cracker Barrel.
She’d blown that though…
Hayden walked into the little canteen for the first time since being an employee of Fox Vinyl, her stomach making sounds that unnerved her. It was worse than she had imagined. No surprise that the ashtrays and trashcans were overflowing but the floor was sticky. She didn’t have to open the microwave to see that it was totally filthy… she could smell it! It smelled like… Abdullah.
The tables appeared to have been cleaned with a dirty sponge. She couldn’t even smell the Pine Sol that she had used on all of the surfaces when she was the cleaning lady. Did the new person even use disinfectant?
Hayden couldn’t hide the grimace on her face as she headed for the vending machines. She carefully studied the contents but there was absolutely nothing even remotely healthy inside of any of them. She finally settled on two cartons of orange juice. She would have gone for a carton of skim milk but couldn’t see the expiration date and something told her that she really shouldn’t trust the milk in the vending machine.
She was about to leave when she saw Brian waving at her from a table where he sat alone smoking a cigarette. She waved back and he gestured for her to come over. Well, why not? She never took breaks and everyone else got up at least once an hour. Mr. Fox didn’t seem to have a policy concerning breaks—evidenced by the amount that Pam took.