by T Gephart
“And you haven’t set me up on date with him? Why? I did meet him briefly at the wedding, but I don’t know much about him.” I wasn’t surprised Sydney hadn’t sized him up on our wedding night. She had been kept occupied by her many tasks as our events coordinator.
“Christian is really reserved. It’s not like he advertises he’s Alex Stone’s brother, he prefers to stay out of the limelight. He is a complete sweetheart though.” There really wasn’t anything bad I could say about Christian. He, like his big brother, was an amazing man. While Christian was well aware of his brother’s lifestyle, he preferred to keep a low profile. He’d been burned in the past by overzealous Power Station fans. Random people would angle for his friendship just so that they could get closer to Alex.
“Well if we survive whatever fate that befalls us tonight, I want a set up,” she bargained, reminding me that we still had to face the abyss of the unknown this evening.
“Let’s get through tonight and take it from there, shall we?” I laughed, unwilling to guarantee Christian’s compliance.
“Fine, spoil sport,” Sydney returned to her desk, poking her tongue out at me on the way.
I tried to focus my attention back to the work at hand, but my mind continued to wander. I had no idea what was in store for me tonight. I didn’t know if it would help me or if it would send me running hysterically in the opposite direction. One thing was sure; I was done being on this manic carousel of emotion. I needed to once and for all move on. I no longer wanted to be a victim. If I had any hope of being a decent wife and someday a mother, then I was going to have to be decent Lexi first. And if Manny Ortiz could help me achieve that, then I was willing to give it a try.
Chapter 15
And one for the Corps
IF YOU take three spirited, independent and opinionated women and put them together things are bound to be interesting, but when you throw those same women into an Escalade and drive them to a nondescript location in Queens, the best you can hope for is to make it out with some semblance of sanity.
It was with a massive sigh of relief that DarNell announced “Ladies, we’re here.”
The car came to a stop in front of an unremarkable black warehouse in an industrial estate somewhere in Queens. It was nestled in-between an auto mechanic and a UPS depot. It looked completely nondescript and had no identifying numbers or signs. In fact, there was nothing distinguishable about the place at all. It was the kind of place you could expect to see on a nightly news bulletin accompanied by the broadcast headline ‘Dismembered bodies found in derelict warehouse. Suspect still at large’.
“Thanks D-Man. You wanna do a quick sweep of the locale? I can back you up if you like. I have a can of mace and zero hesitation.” Taylah offered as DarNell walked around and opened our door.
“You have mace?” I asked, wondering what else she had tucked away in her gym bag.
Taylah and I stepped out onto the footpath. “Lex, you’re Australian so I’ll forgive your ignorance, but honey we’re in Queens. This is where Martin Scorsese was born. Have you seen the man’s films?”
“Taylah, I think it might be wise if you hand the mace over to me. I’m sure Mr. Scorsese is not in town.” D held out his hand, waiting for the offending object.
“I’ve got a nail file and the bugger is sharp. Could easily take someone’s eye out,” Sydney volunteered as she leapt out of the car to join us.
“Ladies, please. Leave all weapons and anything else that could potentially be a weapon in the car.” DarNell rubbed his hand across his forehead in frustration.
“Sorry D.” I knew the three of us were working his last nerve.
D shook his head as he pressed the remote for the central locking and walked us to the front of the warehouse. A lone flickering streetlight added to eeriness of the surroundings. Yep, this was definitely horror movie material. Maybe the can of mace and a sharp object wasn’t such a bad idea.
“This place gives me the creeps. Is there a door bell?” Sydney asked as we approached what I could only assume was the front entrance.
“That’s a negative.” Taylah confirmed as she inspected the door. “Either they have a huge issue with Jehovah’s Witness’ in this part of town or unexpected guests are not welcomed.”
“Both of you need to chill, we’re fine.” I rapped my knuckles against the black metal door. D stood tightly at my side and while he may have instructed us to leave our weapons in the car, I had no doubt his .45 was securely holstered under his arm.
The door slowly swung open without making a sound, the bright interior lighting flooded the entranceway, momentarily blinding us.
“You Lexi Stone?” A tall, tanned, athletic man stepped out of the blazing light tunnel that was the doorway.
“Yes, I’m Lexi Stone.” I offered him my hand, thinking it was the only greeting that seemed remotely appropriate.
He didn’t take my hand, instead looked at Taylah and Sydney before nodding to DarNell. “Is this your six?”
I looked over at D, confuse. “Sorry? I thought we agreed to be here at nine? Were we supposed to meet at six?”
“Your six, your back-up.” He clarified impatiently.
“She’s my point.” D responded in an obvious understanding of what the tall, athletic stranger was asking.
“Good, step inside then.” He moved to the side and allowed us to enter the light-flooded doorway.
“We are so going to die,” whispered Taylah as she shuffled in step beside me.
“Shhh.” The last thing we needed was for the walking, talking action hero to overhear us.
We were led through a short passageway, the space then opened to a cavernous expanse. The interior was so much large than it had looked on the outside. Three separate levels were fully lit and fitted out with various apparatus and gym equipment. Judging from the size of this guy, he believed in quality assuring the product he was peddling, ’cause he was stacked.
“Leave your shit in the locker room. Meet in the main gym in five.” He pointed to a door I assumed to be the aforementioned locker rooms and strode off to the main part of the gym where a few people had already assembled.
“Ladies, I trust you can store your items and not get into trouble?” D looked pointedly at Taylah as he held the door open for us.
“We’ll be fine D, we’ll meet you over in the gym.” I was sure we would be relatively safe within the confines of the locker room, even with Taylah.
He grunted, possibly unconvinced as he moved in the direction of the crowd.
We quickly threw our belongings into lockers, though I was fairly convinced the last thing we would be at risk of in a place like this would be theft. Without speaking—it was no mean feat stunning the three of us into silence—we walked out to where everyone else had assembled. DarNell took a seat on one of the wooden benches that lined the wall. He rested his curled-up fists on his knees, as his eyes kept moving, keeping watch.
The area where we were gathered—which I assumed was the main gym—had a large concrete floor that had been covered in thick matting. There were about twenty of us altogether, men and women of a varying degree of ages and backgrounds. There seemed to be no common denominator, no thread that explained why we were all gathered together in workout wear in a converted warehouse in Queens. Instinctively we shuffled into two roughly formed lines. Taylah, Sydney and I wisely chose to join the back group of misfits.
The man who had greeted us—if you could call that a greeting—was about six foot five with tanned skin and was probably around fifty years old, though he had a body that would put most twenty-year-olds to shame. In fact the only reason I would have guessed he was on the other half of a century was from the deep set lines that weathered his face and the closely cropped greyed hair that covered his head. He was dressed in well-worn camouflage pants and a tight black t-shirt.
“Ladies, Gentlemen. I am Gunnery Sergeant Manny Ortiz, but you will address me as Gunny or Sir.” He commenced walking the length of the first line. “I was in
the US Marine Corps for twenty-five years and I have seen things that a man has no business seeing. I am proud to have served, and I will give my last dying breath for my country and the corps.”
No one dared to say a word he walked around and surveyed the recruits in front of him.
“This is not a fat camp nor is this fitness régime, and if you are here to lose weight or get fit, I suggest you move your lycra-covered ass out of my warehouse.” He turned and moved to the back line where he recommenced his pacing. “Go find some kickboxing studio in the city where you can stare at yourself in the mirror and pretend like you actually like the taste of wheatgrass. This is place is not for you. That is not to say that you will not lose weight or get fit here, ‘cause you will, but more importantly what you will gain is inner strength and a mental fortitude that will sustain you under even the toughest conditions.”
He marched back to the front of the group where he clasped his hands behind his back.
“I will not tolerate insubordination and anyone who decides that this is not for them can grab their shit and walk out the door. Do not apologize or make excuses ‘cause I don’t want to hear them,” he warned. I think it would be a fair assumption that once you walked out the door you would not be welcomed back. This didn’t seem like your typical drop in/drop out kind of gym.
“Now, why don’t we start with a few laps around the gym and follow it up with some calisthenics so we can all get to know each other a little bit better.”
The group stood silent, unsure whether this was a rhetorical question or whether we had a choice.
“That means now,” he bellowed as he pointed the perimeter of the gym.
The group set off, jogging around the inner edge of warehouse walls. Taylah and Sydney ran beside me.
“I can’t believe we have to run!” Taylah complained. “You think the least he could have done was offer us a fruit smoothie. That would have been a better way to get to know us.”
“I did tell you this was some kind of boot camp Tay,” I huffed as we rounded the first corner. “I don’t think fruit smoothies are in this guy’s repertoire.”
“If he expects us crawl through mud he can sod off.” Sydney panted beside me. “I haven’t run in ages, I’m already getting a stich.”
“Just keep going and run it out.” I encouraged Syd as we entered our second lap of the gym. We had started running as a tightly formed pack, but the more distance we covered, the more the group separated into clusters of runners huffing and puffing their way through at their own pace.
“One more lap,” Gunny Ortiz announced as we circled past him.
“I’m going to pass out,” Sydney groaned clutching her side.
“It’s not far now, we’re almost done.” I sprinted as we rounded the final bend. I was starting to get the feeling that finishing the run was not going to earn us a break. I didn’t have the heart to tell the girls that though, sometimes ignorance is bliss, at least in the short term.
“OK.” Gunny boomed as jogged back to where we’d first assembled. “Sit ups. Everyone drop and give me twenty-five!”
Predictable. While this may not be a fat camp, I was sure that after a few weeks of this my arse would definitely be smaller. I sunk to my knees before rolling over onto my back.
“Fuck.” Taylah shivered as she joined Sydney and me on the floor.
“Count them out,” Gunny insisted as he clapped his hands loudly. “One.”
There were random groans from the group as we counted each sit-up out loud. My abs tightened with each contraction. It felt good, the physical exercise made me feel vibrant.
“Twenty-five,” Gunny announced as we completed our last one, our bodies collapsing heavily onto the mat.
“Don’t get comfortable. The Corps hasn’t gotten its twenty-five yet!” I do believe I saw a ghost of a smile cross the Gunny’s lips. He was trying to psyche us out.
More groaning, more clapping, more shouting and twenty-five more—for the motherfucking Corps—sit-ups later, and I still didn’t know how this constituted getting to know each other.
The end of the sit-ups did not mean the end of the torture. Oh hell no. It was quickly followed up with squats, lunges, crunches, calf-rises and pull-ups, executed on a large metal bar that just happened to be bolted to the back wall—not so coincidentally I guessed—Each group of exercises was performed in two sets, one for us and one for the Corps. I was really beginning to hate the Corps, just quietly. I wasn’t sure why I had to give them anything when they had never done shit for me.
“OK,” shouted Manny. I figured he couldn’t hear me call him by his first name in my own head so in mental rebellion I refused to call him ‘sir’.
“Back into formation.” I breathed a sigh of relief thinking he was probably going to tell us that was a wrap, see-you-again-next-week, hit the showers or something similar.
We shuffled back into our original lines, each one of us panting in various levels of exertion. The weariness was evident in the posture of those who surrounded me.
“Let’s do it all again.” Manny smiled. The sadistic, crazy, son of a bitch smiled.
“Is he fucking with us? Someone needs to tell this guy he’s on Long Island and not Parris Island,” Taylah groaned under her breath. She was right; this guy was on a power trip. Despite being exhausted, her astute observation of being on the wrong ‘island’ was funny, and I had to bite my lip to stifle my laugh, I was, regrettably unable to suppress my smile.
“You got something to say?” Gunny shouted as he glared at both Taylah and I. His heavy boots stomped as he came to stand directly in front of us.
“Ummm, no.” Taylah mumbled wisely, choosing not to repeat what she had said.
“No, what?” Gunny boomed, his face inches away from Taylah’s.
“No sir?” Taylah winced, hoping that it would be enough to appease Gunnery Sergeant Ortiz so that he moved out of her personal space.
“And you?” He directed his tirade at me. Yeah, I could already see how this was probably not going to work out for me. I really couldn’t see how an angry man shouting at me, challenging me to work out was going to improve my mental fortitude. Surely, I could just get a personal trainer and bypass all the ‘one more for the Corps’ bullshit.
Unfortunately my response to this angry man who was clearly trying to intimidate me was to smile. It was probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done because the minute my lips curled I saw the veins in Gunny’s rather ample neck start to bulge.
“Something funny? I don’t know why you are smiling, you ain’t on T.V sweetheart,” he spat out angrily, inches away from face. I saw a theme here. Gunny Ortiz had no respect for boundaries and loved to invade people’s personal space.
“I’m not afraid of you.” I said defiantly. I would not to allow this man to make me feel inferior. I was paying someone to yell at me like I’d joined the army. I held no secret ambition to be GI fucking Jane and I sure as hell wasn’t scared of this arsehole that got his rocks off by yelling angrily at strangers.
“Of course you ain’t. Why should you be? You’re too busy being afraid of yourself to give a flying shit about me. Just like everyone else in this room. Now listen up, this is for the cheap seats. I don’t care how much money you have, what your last name is or who you’re fucking. What I care about is what you give me, what you are made of and what you have in here,” he rammed his two fingers and poked himself hard in the chest.
“’Cause if you got that, if you got what it takes in here, ain’t nothing anyone can do to hurt you anymore.”
I was done. On top of being yelled at, now the angry ex-marine was trying to peddle his mind-over-matter bullshit. Nothing can hurt you ever again if you just believe. Like anyone would choose to feel this way. I was offended. This arsehole that didn’t know me was calling me afraid, insinuating I was weak. He could take his ‘call me sir’ and blow it out his arse. What the fuck was Chris thinking? I didn’t need this.
I took a deep
breath and broke formation. I stepped out from my position in the line and proceeded to walk my not-so-afraid-lycra-covered-arse back to the door that I’d come in from. I was going home.
“Stone. Get back here,” he yelled, his voice reverberated around the room.
“Fuck you,” I shouted back as I sprinted in the direction of the locker room. My plan was to retrieve my belongings and get the hell out of there.
“STONE.” Gunny Ortiz grabbed my shoulder and yanked me backward, sending my body slamming down hard on the matted floor.
DarNell jerked up out of the seat he had been occupying from the sidelines. His face twitched as he watched, seconds away from intervening. Taylah and Sydney stood motionless in their roughly formed line, either shocked I had the audacity to say something—though it was me we were talking about and I had an issue with keeping my mouth shut—or relieved that they weren’t the target for Gunny Ortiz’s ire.
I stayed where I landed, on my back with my chest heaving up and down as I struggled to suck in each breath. Gunny knelt down beside me, his eyes scrutinizing me closely. I was prepared for his big booming voice, for him to yell and tell me I had been weak to give up, but he didn’t. Instead his voice softened and I saw in his eyes a kindness that I was positive had not been there before.
“It’s time to stop running Stone. Because no matter how far away you get, you can never run away from yourself.”
He looked up from his crouched position looming above my body and addressed the group as a whole.
“What sets you apart from everyone else is your ability to dig deep when you’ve got nothing left. When you are broken, lost, exhausted. When you want to pack it all in and call it a day. That’s when you will find your strength. Find out who you are and what you are made of. And I guarantee you that when your body gives up and you are lying in a heap, your fucking heart will carry you the rest of the way.”
I felt my eyes well with hot tears, but the last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of this man or cry in front of a bunch of strangers. He was right. The angry, ex-marine with the bulging neck veins and an aversion to smiling was fucking right.