by Joey Bush
So I wanted the gym to be a haven of sorts—another reason why I was so gung-ho about re-flooring the Lotus Room, despite it perhaps not being the wisest decision, financially—a place that anyone could go and not feel intimidated by people who looked as though they’d just stepped out of the pages of some fitness magazine.
When I got there, Kelly was standing out in the parking lot, on the phone with someone else, waving her free hand around.
“I need you to get down here right now!” she was shouting. She gave me a wild-eyed look and then jerked her head in the direction of the entrance. I hurried over and went inside, but only took about two steps before my feet were soaked.
The space was big—about five thousand square feet, all on one floor, with our offices upstairs in a partitioned loft area. From the lobby, you had to take three steps down to get to the main gym area and there was so much water it had risen all the way past the steps and was now flooding the lobby. I was standing there in about two inches of tepid water.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. It was a thousand times worse than I ever would have thought it could be. It was like we were trying to fill a swimming pool.
“I just got off the phone with Tim, the guy from the water removal company,” Kelly said. “They’re coming by right now. He’s going to charge us up the fucking asshole for this I’m sure, but that’s the least of our problems right now. Seriously, Isla, what the fuck?!”
I shook my head and started to step inside but then stopped, before I got my feet wet. I let the door shut and a cool breeze blew, and I realized then that I’d run out of the house without putting a bra on. Great. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“How the fuck did this happen? How are we going to clean this up? It’s like a fucking aquarium in there!”
“I told you, I called that guy. Tim. He’s on his way over here and they’ll get right to work. That’s what he said.”
“This is not good, Kel.” I stood there, looking into the gym, the equipment half-submerged, the big exercise balls floating on the surface of the water. I squeezed my eyes shut. “This is so not what needs to be happening right now.”
“It hasn’t even rained in like weeks!” Kelly exclaimed.
“That has nothing to do with it. This wasn’t like we had some leak in the ceiling or something and the rainwater got in. Something must’ve happened with that pipe in the women’s bathroom. The one I said that we should have looked at.”
“I thought you were calling someone to come in and check it out.”
“I was going to! It was on my to-do list. Had I known it was going to be this catastrophic disaster, I definitely would’ve moved it up to the top of the list!”
“That’s just great,” Kelly said, shaking her head. “So you’re too busy doing what? Hanging out with Brian? Is that why you didn’t make the call sooner?”
I stared at her. “Are you seriously going to try to blame me for this? Brian has nothing to do with it, and besides, it’s not me who’s leaving work in the middle of the day for a booty call!”
“Right, because you’re still a fucking virgin!”
We stood there in front of our gym, shouting at each other as the sun started to rise and the sky began to lighten.
I took a deep breath. “I think we both just need to calm down,” I said. “I’m not trying to start a fight with you and I’m not trying to point fingers.”
Kelly looked like she was about to continue the fight, but then she too took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I’m not trying to lash out at you. I just can’t believe this is happening.” Two big trucks turned into the parking lot, the logo Kelbourne Industries, LLC emblazoned on the side in bold sans serif.
“Here they are,” Kelly said, visibly relieved. “They’re here, Isla, and they’re going to take care of this. It’s going to be all right.”
We both put on brave faces as we went to meet Tim, who was in his mid-forties with tan, weathered skin, like he was someone who spent a lot of time outside without wearing sunblock.
We introduced ourselves, and as I shook his hand, I saw his eyes glance quickly down at my chest, and then away again. Oh yeah, that whole no-bra situation. It was still on the cooler side and my nipples were little points pressing against the thin cotton of the t-shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest and let Kelly do most of the talking.
“Well, we’ve definitely seen worse than this,” Tim said. “Based on what you told me, it does sound like a block in the drainage system and that causes a backup and the pipes burst. We won’t know for sure until we can get in there and really take a look around, but that’s my estimate. But don’t you girls worry; we’ll get this taken care of for you.”
I stood there watching as the other guys he was with started unloading equipment. Kelly was giving Tim our insurance information. A car drove by, then another, and I could see the drivers craning their necks, trying to figure out what had happened.
There was no point in hanging around while they worked, so I told Kelly I was leaving and got in my car and drove a few miles to Starbucks, where I got a latte and sat at a table, trying not to feel numb. I didn’t even give a shit anymore that I wasn’t wearing a bra. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there, staring off into space, when someone stepped in my line of vision.
“Isla,” the woman said. I looked up from my latte. It was Clara, one of the original Form Fitting members. She was in her mid-forties, a realtor, and had joined the gym because she was adamant she wasn’t going to lose her looks just because she was “over the hill.”
“I just drove by the gym! I saw the trucks out there. What happened?”
“There was a flood. A major one.”
“Oh, my. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” She nodded to the empty chair across from me. “Do you mind if I sit for a minute?”
“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.” I tried to sound chipper, but it was hard. I forced a smile. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, but never mind about me. What happened?”
“Something about a blockage in the drainage system, and the pipes getting backed up. So yeah, the whole place is under like half a foot of water.”
Clara winced. “I’m so sorry. But . . . in light of what I told Kelly the other day, maybe it’s a good thing.”
“What?” I said. “Did you just say that this was maybe a good thing? Because I can assure you, it’s not. And I have no idea what you’re talking about, this thing that you told Kelly.”
Clara looked at me, wide-eyed. “So she didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Fitness Universe just bought the old Wegman’s building. They’re going to be opening up a new location within the year. I probably worded that wrong, saying maybe it was a good thing, but, like I told Kelly, this might be better than dying a slow death once Fitness Universe opens up. It’s harsh, I know, but that’s the unfortunate reality of business.”
My stomach twisted. Yes, maybe these days some people were more into shopping local and not supporting the big guys, but I knew there was no way in hell our little gym could compete with some place like Fitness Universe. We wouldn’t lose all of our members, but we’d lose enough that it we’d just barely be scraping by.
“You know this for sure?”
Clara nodded. “I would never sign up for a membership there, you know,” she said. “It’s a franchise. I hate franchises.”
“They probably have a pretty good membership deal.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Maybe not for you, but it will be for some people.” I put my head in my hands. “I really can’t believe all this is happening. Am I going to wake up any moment now and discover that I’m back in bed? That none of this is actually happening?”
Clara put her hand on mine and gave me a little pat. “You know, I just started reading this new book. It’s sort of in the self-help realm—well, I like to think of it more as personal development. It’s called The Sil
ver Lining. A little hokey, I know, but it’s really great so far. And it’s not really saying anything new, that I haven’t heard before, but it’s saying it in a different way. I know that probably doesn’t make sense. But maybe you should get yourself a copy. As I’m sure you can tell from the title, the premise is that there is always a silver lining.”
“Is there though?” I asked, lifting my head from my hands. I could feel an anger starting to stir in me, anger mixed with frustration, mixed with complete helplessness at my current situation—not a good combination. “Is that what you’d tell a rape victim? Look for the silver lining?”
“No, of course not. But this is quite a different scenario than a rape.”
“I’m well aware of that, but you telling me to look for the silver lining when everything has gotten so completely messed up is bullshit!”
Clara looked shocked, her mouth hanging open, her right hand slowly going to her chest as though she were about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. And yes, people were looking, but you know what? I didn’t care. They could watch me yell at Clara—who was really just trying to make feel better—they could pretend they weren’t looking at my chest and the very obvious fact I’d forgotten to put a bra on, and they could wonder whether or not I’d done it on purpose, I didn’t care. I stood up, left my latte there, and walked out.
5.
Levi
Ah, now, this was the good life.
Devon’s set at Creamfields was completely off the hook. I popped a Lush before I went in (VIP entrance, no waiting in line, thank you very much) and felt the effects of it come on in about fifteen minutes. It was a nice, gradual effect, so subtle that at first you didn’t even realize it. A few minutes could have gone by, maybe half an hour, and then you’d realize, all of a sudden, how fucking fabulous you felt and how fucking wonderful everyone was. I mean, you’d really feel some authentic bona fide gratitude and love for your fellow human.
You could tell the people who were on the pressed pills, the less pure shit; they were the ones with their eyes rolling back in their heads, their skin clammy, jaws grinding away. Don’t feel too bad for them; they might’ve looked like shit but they were having the time of their lives. The thing about Lush was it was such a clean, pure high, with none of the teeth grinding, none of the eye jitters or sweatiness. You looked totally straight—inside though, you’d feel better than you ever could have imagined.
I took a break from dancing, had some water, and decided to call Dad. That’s how good Lush was—it truly had me believing the best thing I could do right now was call my father and try to share some of this most excellent vibe I was feeling. The phone rang, this beautiful melodic chime, over and over, until his voicemail picked up.
“If you care to leave a message, I will return your call at my earliest convenience.” With Dad, who knew when that would be, but I started to talk after the beep, not caring if he actually called me back, only that he heard what I had to say.
“Hello, Dad,” I said. “It’s your son, Levi. Your only son. I know that fact has probably bothered you over the years, since I haven’t really turned out to be the son you wanted, and for that, I am truly sorry. I really am. That certainly wasn’t my intention, you know. It’s not something I’m doing on purpose. I wish that we could be more aligned, you know. That what I wanted happened to be what you wanted, or vice versa. That would make things a whole lot easier, you know? Anyway, that wasn’t the point of this call. I just want you to know that despite everything, I love you. Despite the fact I know you think I’m failing at life, and despite the fact that you basically disowned me, I still love you and I’m not saying this because I’m afraid you’re going to cut me off. You can actually go ahead and do that, if you want, I don’t mind, I’ll be okay. I don’t want you to be doing anything you don’t want to. I know you think I don’t put enough effort into anything, but I’ve got a few things that I do, Dad, and maybe someday we could talk about it, if you want. But that’s up to you. I’ll talk to you later, okay? I’m having a lovely evening, and I hope that you’re doing the same.”
I hung up and slipped the phone back into my pocket, feeling a warm, buzzing happiness spread over my whole body. I bounded back down to the main dance floor, where the floor shook from the reverberations of the bass and the crowd of people moved together like we were one entity.
6.
Isla
It took Tim and his crew a day and a half to get the gym cleaned out. “Well, the good news is that we’ve got all the water out,” Tim said. “And now you need to begin the drying out process. The sooner you start that the better, otherwise you run the risk of mold. Mold growth can start in as little as forty-eight hours, so you’ll want to get fans on, keep the windows open, run the AC if you can. Because once the mold starts . . .” He let his voice trail off, shaking his head.
“Okay, I can do all that,” I said. “What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is if you have a plywood subfloor, it’s going to be really difficult to dry things out, and you’re all but guaranteed to have some sort of mold issue. And quite possibly structural damage.”
I let out a breath. “Okay.” The news wasn’t totally encouraging, but I began to feel a faint glimmer of hope that maybe this was going to end up being okay. “That doesn’t sound great, but it also doesn’t sound like the worst news. It’s not like this was a total loss.”
“It’s hard to say at this point. I can have one of my restoration guys give you an estimate for any work, but . . . that brings me to the other bad news. I just got a message from my administrative assistant and she said that your insurance company has denied the claim.”
“That can’t be,” I said.
Tim shrugged. “I’m sorry, but they’re not going to pay.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “We have property insurance. That’s what we got insurance for in the first place, right? To help us in case something like this happened. There must be some mistake.”
Tim gave me a look that suggested he felt quite bad for me indeed. “You may have a limited policy, which doesn’t always cover water damage. We recently dealt with another company—a doggie daycare, of all places—that had a limited plan that didn’t include water damage, which is about as foolish as you could get, if you ask me.”
“But I know we wouldn’t have not gotten it!”
“It might’ve been an oversight. I don’t know. But either way, your insurance company is not going to pay us.”
I closed my eyes, a throbbing headache beginning to swirl at the base of my skull. “Okay,” I said. “Well, you’ll have to wait a minute because the checkbook is upstairs. One of the areas that was probably unaffected, but—”
“It’s okay,” Tim said. “We’ll bill you. Right now I’d just be focused on the place dried out the best you can. And if you decide you want to talk to the restoration guy, just let me know and I can arrange it.”
“Sure,” I said, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and frustrated, and also bad that he was being so nice about the whole thing.
After Tim left, I called our insurance company, only to find out that he was indeed right: we had a commercial property policy that didn’t include water damage. I called Kelly next, and got her voicemail, so I left her a message delivering the good news.
The upstairs offices were basically fine, which hardly even mattered because all that was up there was a desk, a few filing cabinets, a couch, and an old iMac computer. We kept client forms in the filing cabinets, as well as the financial stuff that Kelly handled. I went over and sat down at the desk. I turned the computer on and logged onto our bank’s website. I already knew that there probably wasn’t going to be enough in the account to cover paying Tim and whatever it might cost for the restoration specialist, though maybe we wouldn’t end up needing him. At this point, I was still hopeful all that needed to happen now was the place to dry out, maybe some of the equipment to be serviced or replaced, and then we’d be good to go.
The bank website finished loading, and there on the landing page was the last hyperlinked last four digits of our account and the balance. There was less than five hundred dollars in the account.
I clicked on the link to get to the itemized list, which would show all the deposits and withdrawals. I scrolled through, trying to make sense of everything.
Kelly and I both drew a salary from this account, and used the rest to pay the mortgage, utilities, advertising, equipment costs, and employee salaries. That was all there, as expected. But there were also half a dozen or so withdrawals, for large sums of cash, in varying amounts. And this was just for this month! Eight hundred dollars, twenty-six hundred dollars, five thousand dollars! My jaw dropped.
I rarely used the business debit card. In fact, I didn’t even carry it on me. Kelly was the only other one who had a card, so, unless someone had stolen it from her, these were all charges she was responsible for. I printed out the statement and stuffed it into my purse. Then I left and got in my car and drove over to Kelly’s. “We need to talk,” I said.