by Clare Kauter
“What’s this I hear about you quitting your job last week?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “It’s great news! There’s a heap of other weird rumours going around about you as well. I want to know everything!”
I took a deep breath and told her, right from the bit where I quit my job up until when McKenzie started my car. That was when she interrupted.
“You are kidding!” she squealed. “Oh, my god! How did he look? He isn’t the murderer is he? Is he? What was he wearing? What happened? Did you talk for very long? Oh wow. Oh wow!”
“Jo!” I said. “Keep your voice down! What if Os hears you? He probably thinks you’re over this whole thing.” Like that was ever going to happen.
“Oh, he’s not here at the moment. Anyway, keep going with your story.”
When I finally finished, there were a few seconds of stunned silence before she spoke. “So… You quit your job at a grocery store, and then the next day got a job at an international security agency, which means you now have to start a fitness plan, where you – you – have to work out with a personal trainer? And when you quit your job, your boss’s wife divorced him because of you. You then went to apologise to her, and instead of being angry with you, she thanked you, so you asked her to come and live with you. How am I going so far?”
“You’re pretty right.”
“Then, while you were driving back to pick her up after clearing it with your parents – cough you need a life cough – your car broke down in the middle of the road and the world’s sexiest guy had to start it for you.” Debateable. Like, James was up there, but Adam Baxter was definitely a contender. I didn’t want to tell her that, though. If she started stalking Adam it could only end badly. I didn’t think he’d be as easy-going about it as James. “Then you made a bet with him that you could find his uncle’s murderer – because even though you don’t like James you think he’s innocent – and you could end up going halves with your ex-boss’s ex-wife in 20 grand and a mansion. Still getting it right?”
“Yep.”
“Right. So then you went to James McKenzie’s uncle’s funeral, ran into a guy from work who’s investigating the same thing as you, lied to the cops, and found out that Joe Winton is helping dig James out of trouble. You then went to the wake, saw James drunk, liked him more, and got a bowl of punch tipped over you by his house-keeper-slash-your-ex-boss’s-sister who hates you. The guy from work saved you, and you took him home for dinner. Is he hot?”
“Yeah.”
“So he isn’t your type.”
“Ha ha.”
“So I’ve got it right for the moment?”
“More or less.”
“Right. Then today you found out that the guy you pulled the geriatric insults on is your new boss, or at least one of them, and you aren’t totally friendly towards each other, although, for once, you’re not in the wrong.”
“Thank you.” That’s what best friends are for, right? Backhanded compliments?
“And this afternoon you sat in a bar with an old dude and told him you were from a country called Euthanasia and then James came in to make a business deal with him and the old dude tried to poison him. Then you got rescued by the hot guy from work, and he drove you and James home, you talked through the case, and then they ripped you off about your boyfriends.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“So now if James turns out to be guilty, you don’t get anything out of the bet.”
“Pretty much.”
“Good thing he’s not guilty.”
“Yeah.”
“Also who the hell forgets to put water in when they cook pasta?”
Chapter Ten
I woke up screaming. There was a siren blaring somewhere very close to me. In all the excitement, I somehow slipped out of bed and hit the ground. By the time I stood up, I’d finally realised what was going on. It wasn’t a siren at all – it was my alarm clock screeching at me to get up. It was 5:30 a.m. and I was due for my two hours of torture.
I’d packed my bag last night, as I knew I wouldn’t be capable at this time of morning. I tugged my tracksuit on and laced up my shoes, making a half-arsed attempt to brush my hair, before giving up and forcing it back into a ponytail. What the hell, I thought. It’s too dark for anyone to see it anyway.
I grabbed my bag, headed down to the kitchen and screamed for the second time that morning at the sight of someone sitting at the table.
“Honey, when your hair looks like that, I should be the one screaming.”
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
Tim looked ready for exercise. He had the right clothes, the right body and the right attitude. I, on the other hand, was not ready, and I doubted I would ever be.
“Through the door.” Right. “Ready?”
I groaned inwardly. “Let’s get this over with,” I said.
We began to jog as soon as we got to the pavement. I made it easily to the end of the block. Well, I say “easily”. That might be an exaggeration. By the end of the second block I was puffing pretty heavily. At the end of the third block I collapsed against a fence. My lungs were on fire and it felt like I was having an asthma attack – which, considering I don’t have asthma, is really quite worrying. I sat down on the ground.
Tim groaned. “C’mon, honey. We have to make before seven or else you spend the next hour doing drills on the treadmill.”
“I can’t do this. I quit. Go. Leave me. This is too hard.”
He scowled and made a noise of disgust. “That is so pathetic. I thought you had more drive than that. I’ve never had to pick up anyone that hasn’t made it in an hour. Even that last bitch of a secretary didn’t complain about it. You’re such a hypochondriac.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m not a hypochondriac.” OK, so I was complaining, but I wasn’t pretending things were worse than they were. I really couldn’t run any further.
“Then get your fat ass off the ground and keep jogging!”
I scowled at him again. “You’re a real prick of a personal trainer.”
“You’re not even puffing! How can you say it’s too hard when you’re not even having trouble breathing?”
“I am having trouble breathing, you bastard!”
“Well if you put all the energy you’re using arguing with me into running, we might actually make it.”
I started to jog, mumbling things under my breath. After another block, mumbling as well as running became too hard so I just thought nasty things and hoped that Tim could read my mind.
I started to think about that conversation we’d just had. He said I had a fat arse. Did I? Well, it always had seemed a bit big. Maybe I did need more exercise. And I had become a bit chubby around the middle of late. Maybe he was right and I did need to get my ‘fat ass’ moving. I kept thinking these things and then realized I was starting to sound like my friends, so I stopped thinking about my weight. Kind of.
By now we were about a kilometre away from my parents’ house and I thought I was going to collapse.
“I need a break,” I wheezed. “Please. Pretty please with sugar on top. I can’t keep going. I’m not cut out for this. I’ve never been good at exercise. Ask anyone who knows me what I hate and you know what they’ll say? I hate exercise.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not – you need it.” What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Did he mean I was fat and needed to burn off weight by running? Did he mean I needed exercise so I could let off my extra energy (read: aggression) like my PE teachers in high school used to tell me? Or did he just mean I had to be fit to work at Baxter & Co.?
Spurred on by the mental image of my jiggly bum (that sounded like a Pokémon), I started running again.
By the time we’d made it two Ks, my vision was blurred (even with glasses on), my face was on fire, I was struggling to breathe, I was soaked in sweat and I felt like throwing up. I looked at Tim. He looked just like he had in the kitchen.
“Pl
ease can I walk for a while? Please? Please?” I don’t beg often, so this goes to show just how bad it was.
He thought for a second, both of us still jogging.
“We’ll slow down to a walk for the next 20 metres.”
“Please, at least a hundred.”
“Fifty. Starting… now.”
I swear it was the shortest 50 metres in history. When we got to three kilometres, we started to do intervals of walking and running, and then for the last kilometre I jogged the slowest jog ever executed.
Eventually we rounded a corner and the office was in sight. Tim took me up a flight of stairs to the door of the three-storey building next to Baxter & Co. He swiped his card and we went inside.
“Wow,” I said. (Actually, I may have just thought it, because I was puffing pretty hard and it made talking quite difficult.)
The gym was BIG. There looked to be about 50 treadmills and the same number of exercise bikes, as well as about a thousand other machines I’d never seen, much less used, before in my life. There were mini-trampolines with other gymnastics equipment set up in one section. There was a section devoted to weight lifting. There were boxing rings and punching bags. There were people coaching and training. People sweating, jogging, cycling, punching, kicking and swearing everywhere.
If there is a Hell, this is what it looks like.
“Did we make it in time?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“No. It’s 7:01.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Yep. It’s 6:52,” he said, gesturing towards the clock on the wall. “Now for the speed tour. This is the main section of the gym. Over there behind that screen is the cafeteria. Straight ahead are the toilets and showers. Over there is the staircase to the offices next door.”
“No elevator?”
“Honey, if people can’t handle stairs what the hell would they be doing here? Downstairs is the swimming pool. You’ll probably have to go in there at some point. Upstairs are the security offices.”
Tim turned to a counter at our left. “Charlie Davies,” he told her. The lady behind the desk was short, about the same shape as a beach ball, and probably somewhere in her late fifties. Her hair was dyed red (not orange, like, crimson red) and cut short, spiked up with gel. She handed Tim a clipboard and said good luck to me. “Wouldn’t catch me exercising.”
No shit.
“What’s that?” I asked Tim, gesturing towards the clipboard.
“Progress report,” he answered. “I have to write down when we get here, what we do, your weaknesses and strengths, how long you take to do things, whether you get the hang of things quickly, how enthusiastic you are, what you already know, whether you injure yourself – all that bullshit.”
“Fun.”
“You bet. Come on, we might be able to sneak in to the early-morning yoga session to give you a little break before self defence.”
He led me off to a room on the right. When we entered, people were starting to lay their mats on the ground. Apparently the teacher hadn’t arrived yet. Tim took a mat off a shelf near the door and handed it to me.
“Make sure you sit somewhere I can see you properly.”
I laid the mat down right next to him. “How’s this?”
“Maybe we should move away from the door,” he suggested. I ended up on the right hand side of the room in the second row back. I had my shoes off, just like everyone else in the room except Tim. He was standing near the back wall, ready to take notes of how I was doing. That was when the teacher walked in.
“I’m sorry I’m late. Well done on getting ready without me. Half an hour is barely enough time for a yoga class as it is. OK, let’s start with Savasana. Lay down on your back. Relax. Palms facing up.” She continued to give us instructions on how to lie down.
I knew the teacher. She was Maria Dennis, friend and colleague of Julie McKenzie, James’s older sister. Together Julie and Maria ran well-being classes, and ever since they started they have been trying to rope me in to going. They say they’ll do it for free, but the prospect of attending one just scares me. I think they want to help me with my ‘difficult past’ and ‘anger-management issues’, but since the idea of it stresses me out so much, it’s probably better that I stay away.
We stayed lying down for about two minutes before moving onto other poses. I was struggling a bit, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I think it was a beginner’s class. There were a lot of big guys around me trying to do the poses and not having a lot of luck. They aren’t the kind of guys you expect to see in a yoga class.
“This pose is wonderful for trimming the backside,” we were told by Maria. “And it’s also great for flattening the stomach.”
I memorized that pose.
We got to a particularly hard position and Maria came around the class to check we were all doing it right. When she got to me, she was amazed. Not by my ability, unfortunately. More by my presence.
“Charlie! How are you? I didn’t expect to see you here! So, you work here now? Are you doing yoga out of your own free will or has somebody forced you into it?”
“Forced,” I answered. “And this doesn’t mean that I am coming to one of your well-being classes. This is purely for work, and I don’t plan to do any more than I have to.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I’m still telling Julie you were here. You’re good at this and I think you could really use it. It’s a great relaxation tool.”
Sure, I was feeling SO RELAXED about being in a gym.
We wrapped it up at 7:15. Tim and I lingered after everyone else had gone. I walked over to him. “Good job, honey,” he said. “Time to move on to resistance training. Get back on your mat. We’ll stay in here for this first part. I have to see you do push-ups, sit-ups, handstands, star-jumps, lunges, blah, blah, blah. It’s less embarrassing if you do it in here and not in front of everyone.” He shut the door and the test began. It took about half an hour. “OK,” he said when we finished. “Now we know what aspects of fitness we have to work on.”
“Everything?” I guessed.
“No. You did pretty good star jumps.”
We emerged from the room and he took me to the muscle-building section of the gym. I went through a few more tests.
“Good news,” he told me when I finished. “You’re stronger than you look.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I can’t even do a push-up.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re still stronger than you look.”
“Funny.”
We spent the next 15 minutes going through a sort of circuit thing with 3kg weights, and by the end of it my arms had seized up. When we finished it was 7:30 – time to move on to self-defence.
“Do you know anything about self-defence?” Tim questioned me as we walked over towards the boxing rings and gym mats.
“I can throw a punch, but I’ve never had lessons. I’ve been in a few fights, but they were mainly with guys who wouldn’t swing back, so I know more about attacking than defending.”
Tim smiled. “I’m assuming James was one of those guys?” James was most of those guys, to be honest.
We reached the mats. “OK,” Tim began. “The first rule of self-defence is that flight is better than fight. So today we are going to start out working on ways to get away if someone attacks you.”
Half an hour later, I had successfully learnt how to run away. “We made good progress today,” Tim told me as he wrote down what we’d done on the file thingy on the clipboard. “What will happen is you’ll work on a lot of different aspects of self-defence with your trainers and then eventually you’ll get put in a fight situation with them. That’s for two reasons: one, so you learn to react in a fight and two, so they can figure out your weaknesses and fix them up. OK, done,” he said as he finished writing. “Let’s go get breakfast.”
As we wandered up to the screened-off area on the left, I took a good look around. There were a lot of men here, and a few women. They were the weirdest assortment of peop
le I’d ever seen. There had to be people from every country in the world here, and there were a few who looked like they came from an entirely different planet. There were men built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others who were so short and skinny I reckoned they’d probably weigh about half as much as I did (and no, I’m not going to tell you how much that is). The women were fewer, but were equally as varied in appearance.
I could smell sweat, I could see people sweating, I could almost taste sweat in the air. There was music coming through speakers, as well as people speaking in every different accent known to man. This was a weird bunch of people.
In the cafeteria, there was a huge plasma-screen TV on one wall and a long glass servery against another. A lot of people, maybe 50, were sitting at the tables eating breakfast (or maybe lunch or dinner, depending on what shifts they were working). Tim led me over to the servery, where a thin, dark-skinned girl with long black hair (tied back in a pony-tail) was standing, manning the till.
I started examining the food inside the glass cases. Every item had a label telling what it was. In the hot display case there were muffins taking up the top shelf – oat bran, fruity, cornmeal, savoury and gluten free – and the bottom shelf held buckwheat pancakes and sliced rye bread. The next case along (to the right) was a Bain-Marie with trays full of lightly grilled mushrooms, scrambled tofu, porridge, miso soup, and mixed vegetables.
I continued down the line to the next case. It was refrigerated, and contained fresh fruit of every type, sprouts, Bircher muesli and trays with various packaged-up no-fat/sugar-free/salt-reduced spreads and sauces, probably for the rye-bread and pancakes I’d seen before, plus a tray of coconut yoghurt. On the counter there were menus for fresh juices, protein shakes, health supplements, exotic healthy teas and smoothies.
I had never seen so much health in one place.
“What would you like, babe?” asked the lady behind the counter.
“Um,” I responded. “Uh – can I have some coconut yoghurt and mixed fruit? And a, uh, Green Monster smoothie?” Mmmm, greeeeeeens. Shudder.