The Marriage Intervention

by Hilary Dartt

  When he left, Josie said, “Why don’t you come home?”

  Paul smiled. It wasn’t a condescending smile like she expected. Rather, it was a kind, apologetic smile that broke her heart one single beat at a time.

  “Josie,” he said. “It hasn’t even been three full days since I moved out. I really think we need a bit of time away from each other. Time to think, time to breathe. You know?”

  Josie knew, all right.

  “I get it. I understand,” she said. “I just don’t like it.”

  Paul sighed. The waiter brought their pizza.

  “I’m sorry,” Paul said, separating a slice off the pie for each of them, the cheese stretching from the tray to each plate. “I don’t like either, but I think it’ll do us some good. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’m just afraid you won’t want to come back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  She wasn’t going to go. If Josie had been smarter, one step ahead of the game, she would have ignored Summer’s text on Tuesday afternoon, pretended she never got it. But lately it seemed like life was always one step ahead of her, dancing to a slightly faster song than she was.

  And so, she responded to Summer’s Your personal training appointment is at 5 p.m. Call me after with something stupid like What? Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  If she had been smarter, she would have gotten caught up in something at work, like grading papers or erasing that day’s lesson on bees and honey off the whiteboard. Or scraping gum off the bottoms of her students’ desks with the edge of a ruler.

  But out of some need to please Summer and Delaney, especially after seeing the closed-off look on Summer’s face the past few times they’d been together, she put on some of the new leggings she hadn’t ripped and a matching tank top and went to the gym. On time.

  She could just cancel after this initial appointment. Blame it on the trainer.

  The girl at the front desk didn’t look exactly like a gym rat. She looked almost manly with her short, gel-spiked hair and her broad shoulders. Big muscles, though, accentuated by a tight light blue t-shirt tucked into a pair of shiny black gym shorts.

  Not the look I’d go for, but whatever.

  Josie felt only slightly intimidated, less than she would if the receptionist had been a skinny tan girl in a leather catsuit.

  “You must be Josie,” she said when the embarrassingly loud electronic doorbell signaled Josie’s entrance. “I’m Ronnie. I’m going to get you started. Your personal trainer’s—uh, running a little late. New guy.”

  Oh, great. She was getting the new guy. Just what she needed.

  Ronnie laughed then, a “heh, heh, heh” sound Josie always associated with video game designers in a dark room. “And then have the giant dragon come out from behind that building and attack the protagonist. Heh heh heh,” or, “Ooh, what if we fill that river with invisible boiling lava that burns the guy’s feet, only he can’t actually SEE it? Heh heh heh.”

  “First we’re going to do a body fat analysis,” Ronnie said. She chuckled when Josie grimaced.

  “Don’t worry,” Ronnie said. “It’s painless. I promise. It’s just to give you a baseline, a starting point. So you can see your improvement.”

  Josie snorted.

  Ronnie laughed again. “We’re going to get along just fine. When I first started coming to the gym two years ago, I had an attitude similar to yours. I was definitely put off by the body fat analysis.” She shook her head as she remembered it. “I snorted exactly like you just did. But I’ve seen myself make big strides, and it feels really good. Let’s go.”

  Josie followed Ronnie to a little room just off the weights area. Fortunately, it had a door, which gave Josie privacy as Ronnie used a caliper to measure the fat on her stomach, her triceps and her thighs.

  “You’re right at thirty-one percent,” Ronnie said. “Just a little bit above normal for your age range. Not bad.”

  She gave Josie’s upper arm a friendly pat, then checked her watch.

  “Okay, we still have a few more minutes. Let’s hop on the treadmill and get a baseline for your fitness level.”

  Josie groaned.

  “I’ll go easy on you,” Ronnie said.

  She took Josie’s heart rate before she got on and set the treadmill at four miles per hour just like the sales-teenager had done at the shoe store. Josie’s mind wandered to her personal trainer. It was obviously a guy, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The gym’s personal trainers ran the gamut from young and muscly to old and sprightly. Did “new guy” mean fresh out of college? That would be embarrassing. She stepped onto the treadmill, Ronnie pressed the Start button, and Josie began to jog.

  No uneven sidewalk here.

  Why did they put mirrors right in front of the treadmills? She hated that she could see her face, her bouncing curves, and her swinging ponytail with every step she took.

  Think about something else.

  An old man personal trainer would be okay, she thought. A fatherly or grandfatherly type. She could handle that. Her heart rate sped up, but she didn’t feel too bad. Yet. Ronnie increased the speed to five miles per hour.

  “Just a few more minutes,” she said loudly. “Then we’ll take your heart rate again.”

  Josie nodded, and wondered if Ronnie could tell with all the bouncing. “Okay,” she huffed out, just to be sure.

  Ronnie had noticed her bad attitude, and no doubt that would be a turn-off to her new personal trainer. She had to get that under control.

  I don’t know why I care. This isn’t going to last.

  But again, a vision of Summer’s face, pale and sad, flashed into her mind, and she decided she’d go through with this personal training crap even if she didn’t do the stupid chocolate and wine race or the even stupider Marriage Intervention. For Summer. It was only eight weeks. Just then she saw a reflection in the mirror. Someone walking across the back of the room behind her.

  Scott Smith.

  It couldn’t be Scott. This had happened to her for years. In the movie theater, she’d see a tall, thin man walking up the stairs to find a seat. At the park, she’d see a dark-haired man throwing a frisbee to a buddy across the lawn. At the grocery store, she’d see a pair of Converse in produce. She’d think, “Scott,” and then feel a quick hit of disappointment when she realized it wasn’t him. Swiftly followed by equal parts embarrassment and self-hatred when she realized how stupid it was that she saw his ghost everywhere. Ronnie pushed the Stop button, and Josie slowed to a walk and then stepped down. This was mortifying. After only a few minutes of light jogging, Josie was completely out of breath. She was panting like a dog on a hot summer day.

  “Heart rate,” Ronnie said. Josie lifted her wrist and Ronnie held it between a thumb and two fingers, looking at her watch the whole time.

  Josie was so focused on what Ronnie was doing that she hadn’t even noticed someone walk up behind her.

  Ronnie turned around, squinted at his name tag and turned back to Josie.

  “Ah, here he is now. The man of the hour. The new guy. Heh, heh, heh.”

  Ronnie turned back to Josie, oblivious to the horrified look on Josie’s face.

  “Josie, this is your new personal trainer. Scott, meet Josie. Josie, meet Scott.”

  ***

  “So … you guys know each other, then?” Ronnie looked perplexed.

  Josie and Scott nodded. “Work together,” Josie said, at the same time as Scott said, “We used to date.”

  Silence descended like a heavy fog. Ronnie handed Scott her clipboard and she and her sculpted calf muscles ducked out, probably in search of clear skies.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Josie said to Scott, at the same time as he said, “Pretty cool that you’re my first client, right?”

  They answered at the same time: “I’m working here,” Scott said, and Josie said, “Um, no, actually. Not very cool at all.”

  Scott laughed, an awkward, horsey laugh Josie h
ad never heard before. Josie kicked at something invisible on the floor.

  “I thought you were moving,” Josie said.

  “I was. I mean, I am. Eventually. But I put it on hold. I wanted to do something carefree for a while.”

  Josie just shook her head. “I didn’t even know you were getting certified.”

  “You don’t know everything about me, Josie,” Scott said.

  Her mind flashed to the image of Scott and Blair in his office. She didn’t answer. Scott’s bright blue workout shorts and black workout top were obviously brand new, exactly like her own outfit. She could tell he’d selected them carefully with the goal of looking athletic. It was too much to take in.

  “I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t have you as a personal trainer. This stupid working out stuff is hard enough as it is.”

  Scott nodded as if he knew just what she was thinking.

  “The sexual tension is pretty strong, isn’t it?” he said.

  When she only stared at him, he barked out a loud laugh. “Kidding, Josie. Kidding. I mean, I’ve always been attracted to you—you know that—but I’m sure we can keep this strictly professional. Hands above the desk.”

  Josie left Scott standing next to the treadmill, the clipboard dangling stupidly from his hand.

  ***

  Ronnie looked up from some paperwork that had her deep in thought. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “No, actually,” Josie said. “I need a different trainer.”

  “Why? What’s wrong? Did the new guy do something?”

  Josie didn’t want to work out with Scott, but she didn’t want to ruin his new career, either.

  “No, not at all,” she said. “It’s just that I’d prefer a female trainer. In fact, I believe I checked that box on my intake forms.”

  She couldn’t be sure, since Summer and Delaney had filled out the forms. But she figured Ronnie didn’t know and even if she did, she wouldn’t call her on it.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Let me check the schedule and see when our next available appointment is.”

  Josie wondered if Scott was still standing by the treadmills. She hoped she hadn’t hurt his feelings. She hated herself for hoping that. Ronnie tapped a finger on the desk next to the computer mouse.

  “Actually, it looks like our next available appointment with a female trainer is four weeks out. Do you want to wait that long?”

  Josie grimaced.

  “I know,” Ronnie said. “We’ve been really busy. That’s why we hired another personal trainer. Um, Scott.”

  Josie nodded. Summer and Delaney would absolutely not be satisfied with Josie waiting four weeks to begin working out. That would give her only a few weeks to prepare for the stupid race. Even if she didn’t plan on actually running it, Summer and Delaney thought she did, and she’d make sure they thought so until the day before it actually happened.

  Could she train with Scott? She would see him eight times. Eight hours of her entire life.

  In addition to seeing him at work every single day.

  Couldn’t she handle that?

  The romantic part of her said that she absolutely could not.

  The practical part argued that of course she could. She had quashed her feelings for him and the two of them could easily engage in this simple working relationship.

  “Josie?” Ronnie said.

  “Sorry!” Josie said. “No. I don’t want to wait four weeks. I can work with Scott. It’s fine.”

  When Ronnie nodded, Josie quickly added, “It’s not ideal. But it’s fine.”

  ***

  Scott was standing next to the treadmill in the exact same spot where Josie left him. He smiled when she approached him, and the way he looked so unsure of himself brought on a pang of some unidentifiable emotion.

  “Well, I guess it’s you and me for today,” she said to him.

  His smile became more confident, and he nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

  “What are your fitness goals?” Scott asked.

  He looked so earnest and so out of his element that Josie laughed. “Summer and Delaney have signed me up for a race in about two months. It’s about six miles. So I need to be able to run, or, jog, or limp, six miles or so.”

  Scott nodded.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said as he wrote some notes on her chart.

  “I know,” he said without looking up. “You’re as surprised as I am, but I just couldn’t leave Juniper again.”

  “What about your career?” Josie asked.

  Scott shrugged. “It’s still there,” he said. “And I can come back to it. But for now, I want to be right here, doing this.”

  Once Scott finished quizzing her on her fitness aspirations, he showed Josie how to use the weight machines, and he had her run on the treadmill again. Although she experienced inevitable feelings of intimacy when he leaned over to adjust the weight on a machine or touch the muscles she was supposed to be working, she thought she did a pretty decent job of pretending he was just a personal trainer and the history between them wasn’t suffocating her.

  “Why personal training?” she asked as she did bicep curls, even though she already knew the answer.

  “Remember how we used to always say we should work out? Get in shape?”

  Josie nodded. She remembered. Together, they had been dreamers. Not doers. They talked about a lot of things they should do, but they never actually did them.

  “I should drink less,” she said on more than one occasion, while emptying yet another vodka bottle into a glass of cranberry juice. Or Scott would say, “I know you said you should cut back on sugar,” while handing her a carton of ice cream he picked up at the grocery store. Extreme Moose Tracks.

  In that sense, Josie was the worst version of herself when they were together. But she was also the least self-critical.

  “I was the best version of myself when I was with you,” Scott said.

  Josie had just completed a set of hamstring curls and wondered if Scott was checking out her ass. She disentangled herself from the machine and stood up to face him.

  He went on, “You always encouraged me to do what I really love.”

  “Did I?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s one of the things I miss about you,” he said.

  He talked about missing her so casually. Like he was talking about what he had for breakfast or what color socks he was wearing.

  Did Paul miss her? What was he doing at this very moment, while she stood across from her ex-boyfriend, wearing leggings that made her ass look incredible?

  “Don’t talk about missing me,” Josie said.

  Scott nodded. “Okay.”

  They spent the rest of her session in near-silence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “So, how was your first training session?” Summer asked as she walked up to their table at Rowdy’s. Josie noticed she didn’t breeze up, radiant, like she usually did, but again, made the conscious decision not to ask about it.

  Instead, she said, “Wait. Before I tell you, I want serious props for being the first one here, again.”

  Summer laughed. “Okay. Props, my sister. I can tell you’re making an effort to be on time.”

  She popped a green olive into her mouth. “So?” she said.

  “How’d you know I went?” Josie said.

  College kids streamed into Rowdy’s, thirsty soldiers on the march at the beginning of their three-day weekend. The bar always felt festive on Thursdays, so much so that Josie often showed up at school on Fridays feeling a bit cheated, like it should be the weekend already.

  “First of all,” Summer said, “I knew you’d go out of guilt, after I texted to remind you. Second of all, I called Ronnie to make sure you showed up. I was fully prepared to come find you and drag your stubborn ass over there, myself, if I had to.”

  Josie nodded. “It was fine,” she said.

  Summer waited for a beat, and when Josie didn’t e
laborate she said, “And?”

  “Well, I did some running and lifted some weights. You know. So, you know Ronnie?”

  Summer nodded. “Don’t you remember? She was my lab partner in college biology. We dissected a fetal pig together. Some bonds just can’t be broken.”

  Delaney rushed in then, wearing surgical scrubs. Josie was so distracted by the ensemble that she forgot to finish the conversation about Summer knowing Ronnie. Later she would wonder why no alarm bells went off when Summer had said, so casually, like it was no biggie, “Some bonds just can’t be broken.” She would tell herself she was distracted by Delaney’s choice of Happy Hour outfit. She would kick herself for being so clothing-conscious.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said. “I’m not myself today. I almost forgot about Happy Hour. Can you believe it? We’ve been doing this for what, like thirteen years, and I almost forgot!”

  She laughed. Summer spoke the very thought Josie was thinking: “You sound a bit insane, Dee. Is everything all right?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. Of course.”

  “Why are you wearing those … things?” Josie asked. “I mean, I love the dog and bone print, it really brings out your eyes. But what the hell?”

  Delaney rolled her eyes. “Can I have one of those?” she said to Summer, pointing at the dish of olives that sat next to Summer’s water glass.

  Summer shrugged and nodded. “Sure.”

  Delaney’s eyes rolled back as she chewed. “This is so good,” she said, drawing out the word “so.” “I can’t believe I’ve never shared these with you before.”

  In that moment, everything dropped away: the chatter of the college kids who were swigging beers and munching on chips and salsa, the giggles of the girls next to them, who kept waving at a group of guys sitting the corner, and the sound of the blaring TVs, which were showing a few different basketball games. One of them cut to a puppy food commercial and Josie thought again about getting a puppy.

  Josie and Summer looked at each other. Summer grabbed Delaney’s hand.