by Lindsey Kelk
She looked up from underneath her eyebrows, her face grim.
‘Yeah, well, I hope you have a really nice couple of days off,’ I mumbled, turning on my sensible heel and making swiftly for the lift. ‘I’ll see you Monday!’
November was always an unpredictable time in New York. When I left for work that morning, it had been a little chilly. When I stuffed an entire calzone down my neck at lunchtime, it almost felt like spring, and now, as I jogged up the steps of Union Square station, looking for Jenny, the weather was full-on arctic blasts. She’d sworn she was leaving work just before I got on the subway, but I couldn’t see her anywhere as the cold wind burned my cheeks. The red lights and turquoise green tiles of Coffee Shop were calling to me and I could already taste their guacamole. If she didn’t appear soon, I was going to be two orders deep before she even arrived.
‘Hey, Doll Face!’ Jenny swooped in on me from out of nowhere, her curls tied back in an unruly bun and uncharacteristic trainers on her feet. So it was true: put a ring on a woman’s finger and she truly gave up. ‘Check us out, totally on time.’
‘What are the odds?’ I concurred, greeting her with a kiss.
I’d decided not to tell her about the baby until I’d told Alex, and I couldn’t tell Alex until he called me. I’d already drafted seventeen emails with the good news but it just didn’t feel right; you couldn’t give someone news like this over email, at least not if you were expecting them to stick around. Besides, after Sadie’s spectacular three-thunder-stealing carats of engagement ring, I didn’t want her to feel shoved even further down the totem pole of good news. The baby would wait.
‘I’m so hungry,’ I said, setting off towards the restaurant. ‘Is it me, or does it feel like a fries for the table night?’
‘Wait, wait, wait! So, surprise.’ She jumped in front of me and threw up her trademark Jenny Lopez jazz hands. ‘Since we’re going to be eating ourselves blind at Erin’s Thanksgiving extravaganza tomorrow, I managed to get us the last two bikes at SpiritSpin.’
No. There was no way. Absolutely, one 100 per cent not possible.
I’d heard all about SpiritSpin and it just wasn’t happening. Spinning in and of itself was bad enough, but spinning by candlelight with a deafening soundtrack, surrounded by model-types in tiny Lululemon sports bras when all I wanted to do was consume my own bodyweight in mashed avocados was pure torture.
‘I haven’t got my stuff,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I can’t go.’
‘I brought you stuff from work.’ She held up a baby pink backpack, stuffed to bursting. ‘We’re working with a new athleisure brand and I’ve got it all. Tights, tank, bra, thong, socks and shoes. Everything you could need.’
Thong? Thong? No.
‘Let’s go shopping,’ I replied, going straight for the jugular. ‘I haven’t been to Sephora for ages, we should look at wedding make-up.’
‘I know you think you don’t want to go,’ she grabbed my arm and began pulling me towards 18th street, ‘but once you try it you’ll love it. It’s totally addictive.’
‘I haven’t eaten,’ I yelped, looking longingly back at Coffee Shop. ‘You can’t work out on an empty stomach.’
‘There’s a protein bar in the backpack,’ Jenny replied.
I stood fast, refusing to move.
‘A murderous builder has keys to my apartment and I have to get home to make sure he hasn’t filled my kitchen with traps inspired by the Saw movies.’
‘Is that true?’ she asked, squinting against the cold.
‘The builder part is,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t confirm or deny the rest of it.’
‘Come on, Angie baby,’ Jenny whined. ‘I need this, I just got engaged.’
‘Really?’ I muttered as I gave up and followed her across the square. ‘You’d never know.’
Technically, all the leaflets Dr Laura had given me recommended maintaining exercise during pregnancy but since I did next to nothing other than the odd yoga class and half-arsed run around Prospect Park when the weather was nice or I had new trainers I wanted to show off, throwing myself into a ridiculous pseudo-spiritual spin class at the end of a tiring day seemed beyond stupid.
‘Come on, Ange,’ Jenny whined, threading her arm through mine and pulling me close. ‘Erin cancelled on us because she has to do something with her kids, and after that shit Sadie pulled last night? I need to keep my mind occupied.’
‘Well, kids do need quite a lot of attention,’ I argued, internally wincing at how quickly I would have agreed with her a week before. ‘Don’t be too mad at Erin.’
‘I know,’ she said regretfully. ‘I just want her to be more excited about the wedding. I’ve been a bridesmaid for her three times now. Three! And she’s too busy with some recital to even look at the one bridesmaid dress.’
‘Arianna has a recital?’ I was confused. ‘She’s only four, isn’t she? How is she having a recital?’
‘So much worse than you think,’ Jenny clucked. ‘It’s TJ’s Baby Mozart class. She’s had him enrolled since he was three months old.’
Having a baby in New York was definitely not going to be the same as having a baby in England.
‘Wait, how come I haven’t seen the bridesmaids’ dresses?’ I asked. ‘Did you send them? Have I missed them?’
Jenny shook her head and pulled the zip of her hoodie up to her chin.
‘No, I wanted to whittle down the choices before they came your way,’ she said. ‘You’re terrible at making decisions, babe. Typical Libra.’
‘Spoken like a true Leo,’ I muttered, following her through the door into SpiritSpin.
‘Good evening, Spirit Seekers,’ A gorgeous, willowy woman with Beyoncé hair and a twelve-year-old boy’s body bowed as we walked inside. As she stood upright, I noticed her nametag. Serenity.
‘Are you here to join us on tonight’s journey?’
‘We are,’ Jenny said, handing over her credit card. I didn’t even like to think what she had paid for these classes, at least thirty dollars each. Sixty dollars for forty-five minutes of torture. If I wasn’t in my current condition, that was four very nice cocktails in a fancy bar. Or twelve cocktails in a not so nice one. Either would have been a better option.
I had been raised well enough to know it was rude to stare, but it was too hard not to. The reception was fairly dimly lit with the only real lighting over at the merchandise area where a group of the most perfectly formed women I’d ever laid eyes on oohed and ahhed over $100 T-shirts.
‘You’ll be following your dreams on bikes number four and number six,’ the girl behind the counter breathed. ‘They’re both in the front row so you’ll have the full benefit of Guru Brian this evening.’
Guru Brian?
‘Can I swap to one in the back?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘You have to stay on the bike you’re assigned or else it confuses the system.’
Serenity by name, not so much by nature.
‘This is just a normal spin class, isn’t it?’ I asked as Jenny clipped my reluctant feet into the pedals of my spirit cycle. ‘Just with candles and stuff?’
‘Pretty much,’ Jenny said, fiddling with her own pedals to avoid meeting my eye. ‘There’s music and they show videos on the screen behind the guru. And they kinda move the bikes around sometimes.’
‘They do what?’
I tried to pull my feet out of the pedals but I was stuck.
‘What do you mean, they move the bikes around?’ I yanked the handles backwards but nothing shifted, not even a little bit. This was not good. ‘Move them how?’
‘Babe, calm down,’ she sighed as she shook out her shoulders. ‘We’ll do maybe a ten-minute warm-up, then some sprints, and then they just tilt your bike back a little so you can work your core while we’re doing hill climbs. It’s super fun.’
Mine and Jenny’s idea of fun was sometimes really, really different.
‘Good evening, Spirit Seekers.’
The lights dimmed in
the room as Guru Brian approached the elevated bike in front of me. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. This was happening whether I liked it or not.
‘Tonight we take another step on our journey, not only to fitness and wellbeing, but to discovering who we really are,’ Brian said, fiddling with his Madonna-esque microphone as he gracefully hopped onto his bike.
I looked across at Jenny and saw she was already pedalling, her eyes closed, hands pressed together in prayer. I tried to look behind me at the rest of the rows, but turning and pedalling at the same time was beyond me; instead I concentrated on listening to Guru Brian and not falling off the bike and breaking my neck.
‘This isn’t that bad,’ I whispered, leaning forward in my saddle and concentrating on feeling good about the fact the saddle was killing my arse. If it could still cause bum-ache, my backside couldn’t be as massive as I imagined it was.
Continuing to pedal, I imagined myself on the front of one of those fitspo magazines. Maybe being pregnant would help me turn over a new leaf, maybe I’d get totally into wellness and healthy eating and start working out every day. Perhaps I’d be one of those mums who has weird abs showing on the side of their baby bumps.
And then the bass started.
Glancing at the bikes on either side of me, I saw everyone lean forward and attempted to shift my weight.
‘Oof, that is harder than it looks,’ I grunted. Without touching anything, my pedals suddenly became very, very heavy.
‘Who are you?’ Brian asked as low, spacey music began to boom out of speakers in the ceiling. ‘Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go today?’
‘Bed,’ I muttered, pressing all the buttons on my bike’s console, trying to ease some of the tension out of the pedals, but nothing seemed to work. It still felt as though I was pedalling through quicksand and my hashtag FitMama dream was over. ‘So, this is how I’m going to die.’
‘Be it, believe it,’ Brian shouted as the music got louder and faster. ‘We can be whoever we want to be if we travel together on our SpiritSprint. You can soar! Let this ride take you there!’
‘Shit!’ I shrieked as my bike began to tip backwards and the screen behind Brian became a bold blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. ‘What’s happening?’
Whether Jenny, the Guru, and the other twelve people in the class were ignoring me or too busy trying not to die on their own buckaroo bikes, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I was certain about was just how badly I wanted to get off the bike and onto the ground. The solid, non-moving ground.
‘Bike number four!’ Guru Brian yelled over the thumping dance music that was pumping so loudly out of the speakers I could feel it in my lungs. I looked up, swiping sweaty strands of hair away from my face, and realized he was shouting at me. ‘Bike number four, you’re lagging behind.’
‘I’m trying,’ I screamed as clouds of white smoke billowed in from god knows where. Within seconds, the floor had vanished and it really did look like we were riding on top of clouds. That, or I had actually died and gone to heaven, if heaven looked like a nightclub in Rotherham from 1999.
‘Pick up the pace, number four,’ Brian scolded from the front of the room as my bike tilted further back. ‘We can only realize our dreams if we all move as one. Do you want to realize your dreams?’
‘No, I want to get off!’ I wailed. ‘I don’t like it!’
‘Breathe,’ Brian instructed. I looked over at Jenny for support but not only was she pedalling happily, the bitch wasn’t even holding on to her handles. Somehow, everyone else in the room was lifting tiny hand weights above their heads and, dear god, was she smiling? ‘Breathe through the experience. There is no such thing as pain, just sensation. Feel it, accept it, move through it, and join us on the other side.’
Even though I’d only been pedalling for a couple of minutes, my legs were already burning, but I couldn’t stop them moving. I wasn’t sure if the bike was actually dragging my feet around with the pedals, or I’d genuinely just gone slightly mad.
‘I can’t do this.’ I sat up, legs still whizzing around in circles and searched for someone to help me. ‘I have to get off this thing. How do I stop it? Why won’t it stop?’
‘Angie, just relax,’ Jenny shouted. ‘Just breathe and feel the music.’
‘I can’t breathe and I feel sick!’ I was starting to panic. ‘Jenny, you’ve got to get me off this thing.’
It wasn’t a heated spin class, but as far as I was concerned I could have been in a sauna. I was hot, I was out of breath, and I was scared – but for a shocking change, I wasn’t just afraid of making a fool of myself. Was this bad for the baby? It certainly felt bad for the baby. Although I wasn’t especially looking forward to everyone else’s reaction when I threw up, which I was almost certain to do.
‘Number four, I need you to inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth,’ Brian instructed. ‘Take in the joy and let go of your fear. You’re holding yourself back.’
‘Yes, I am and you should be thankful,’ I told him, sweat dripping off me. ‘Get me off this bike now – I think I’m going to puke.’
‘You’ll regret it if you give up,’ he insisted. ‘Keep pushing yourself. You’re an eternal being, don’t let these earthly sensations prevent you from reaching your true potential.’
‘I’m not an eternal being, I’m pregnant!’ I yelled. ‘Get me off this bike!’
‘STOP THE MUSIC!’ Brian screamed in a voice so high-pitched, I assumed Alex’s ears would be ringing all the way in Thailand. The second I dropped the P-bomb, the smoke machine cut out, and by the time Brian had released my feet from the spin bike slash instrument of torture, the floor was nearly clear.
‘Don’t sit down,’ the guru ordered. ‘Walk it off.’
With a face like thunder, I collapsed at the side of my bike, lying flat on my back in a pool of sweat while various people fanned me with little white towels and held out bottles of water. When I looked up, there was only one person left on her bike.
Jenny, with her mouth hanging open.
‘Are you OK?’ Serenity from the front desk asked. ‘Do you need an ambulance?’
‘Did she sign a release?’ Brian hissed in her ear. ‘Make sure we’ve got the paperwork.’
One bike over, my best friend was gripping the handles of her bike as though she was me two minutes earlier. Weak and pale-faced, I propped myself up on my elbows. Was she shaking?
‘Jenny?’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘You’re having a baby?’ she asked in a tiny, little girl voice.
I nodded.
‘You’re genuinely pregnant?’ She bit her quivering lip. ‘Because you’ve said all kinds of shit to get out of exercise before.’
‘Genuinely pregnant,’ I replied. ‘With a baby.’
‘What else would she be pregnant with?’ Serenity whispered to Brian above me.
‘You’re having a baby!’ Jenny squealed, her entire being exploding with joy. ‘Get me off this goddamn bike, my best friend is having a baby!’
Rather than unfastening the clips on her bike, she kicked her way out of her shoes and threw herself onto the floor, covering me from head to toe with sweaty Lopez.
‘Hi, baby!’ She pressed her face against my belly, arms wrapped tightly around my waist. ‘I’m your Aunt Jenny. Your cool Aunt Jenny. You’re not even here yet and we just took our first spin class together, that’s how cool I am.’
She looked up at me with huge, happy eyes.
‘Angie, there’s a goddamn baby in you,’ she said, pointing at my stomach.
‘I know,’ I said. My face ached and I realized it was from smiling. ‘It’s mental.’
‘Excuse me, but, like, do we get a refund for this?’ one of the extremely toned women in the back of the class asked. ‘I feel like we’re not getting a full SpiritSprint experience this evening.’
Jenny gazed at me with the smile of a saint before turning to stare down the other woman.
‘
My best friend just told me she is pregnant and you will shut the fuck up!’ she yelled. The girl shrank back into the darkness of the studio as Jenny turned back to me with a sweet smile.
‘You wanna go get fries?’ she asked, picking sweaty strands of hair off my face. I nodded and allowed her to heave me up to my feet. ‘Let’s go get fries.’
With Jenny’s arm around my shoulders, I waved goodbye to Brian and Serenity and followed her through the door and back out to the real world.
Eight and a half minutes later, we were in a booth, in Coffee Shop, halfway through our first plate of chips.
‘Can you see it?’ I asked as Jenny played with the sonogram, viewing it from every angle. ‘It took me a minute, but it’s this blob in the corner.’
‘It’s like a magic-eye picture,’ she replied, squinting and holding it at arm’s length. ‘I feel like I should be looking for a sailboat.’
‘Only this is a human being that is inside me.’ I took the picture back and put it away safely in my satchel. ‘A little bit more life-changing than a sailboat.’
‘Oh honey,’ she said, risking her life by taking one chip off my plate. ‘You’ve obviously been going sailing with the wrong people.’
I pulled at the waistband of my SpiritSpin leggings. Jenny’s guess at sizing had been optimistic or these were actually a child’s medium, not an adult’s.
‘Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?’ Jenny asked.
‘Don’t know,’ I replied.
‘Have you thought about names?’
‘No.’
‘Can we call it Jenny?’
‘What if it’s a boy?
‘Jenn, double “n”.’
‘No.’
‘Do you feel pregnant?’
‘Not really?’
‘Do you have any weird cravings?’
‘Chips?’ I replied, pulling the plate closer to me. ‘An entire plate of chips I don’t have to share with anyone?’
‘Have you had morning sickness?’
‘Yes.’
I pushed the plate further away.
‘You must be so excited,’ she said, staring at my stomach. I pulled my white cloth napkin up a little bit higher. Nothing to see here. ‘Angie, you’re going to have a baby.’