Would that even work?
I bet Tom knows. And judging from the way my sister was looking at him right then, she may know too. Ohhh, lucky Claire!
With this new information, I risked one last greedy look at Tom and promised it would be my last. He was clearly my sister’s turf, and I was not the kind of girl to go violating her trust or stepping on her toes. Like Tom would ever be interested in someone like me over Claire.
Still, something kept my eyes lingering on the chiseled jaw line, the high cheekbones, and the jet black hair. I felt like I’d seen Tom somewhere before, but the memory was too distant for me to grasp. If my suppositions about him and Claire were true, then maybe I’d bumped into him at a party with her somewhere. You’d think I would have instant recall for a guy like Tom if I’d met him in public before, wouldn’t you? But for some reason, I just couldn’t make the connection.
While my sister and her hot trainer talked—or rather, flirted—with each other, I spotted the three of us reflected in a mirror across the room. Really, beyond any sisterly loyalty I might have felt, the view of us standing together was enough to confirm that I was not the one who would be getting anywhere past the gym with this trainer. Claire and Tom leaned in toward one another as they spoke, each one shapely and toned in all the right ways. Off to the side, there was lonely me—the slow member of the herd, left behind to find food and shelter on her own. Or maybe get picked off by a predator. All alone and vulnerable. Possibly limping.
Claire has always been the kind of big sister who casts a big shadow. I guess maybe that’s why I’ve been eating my feelings for all these years. Such a huge shadow meant that I had to grow even bigger, just to be seen around it. I have a bad habit of taking metaphors too literally, even on a subconscious level from time to time.
Anyway, Claire is always neat, orderly, and totally put-together. She has a great job as a graphic designer for this upstart marketing company. She basically helped the owner build it up from the ground and earned her way up to Vice President in less than ten years. Claire has a show-stopping resume, a killer head of luscious hair, and a dynamite pair of long legs. Honestly, her legs would make a giraffe jealous. She was a cheerleader in high school, an honor-roll student, and one of the best soloist sopranos in the choir. I couldn’t even get in to the choir.
Still, I was much happier to have a job on the high school newspaper, where I wrote an anonymous column about bullying in the school for two years. Beyond that, I just kept my head down and tried not to get shoved into any lockers. Where Claire Smith stood out and got noticed, her little sister was working on being invisible, as much as one girl can be.
Years later, standing in a gym next to the two fittest people I’d ever seen, I was still trying to blend with the crowd, just in a whole different way. Why was I trying to lose this weight again? Was it really because I wanted to get healthy? Because I wanted to get noticed and stand out from the crowd for the right reasons? Or because being overweight was now the thing that was drawing the attention to me and I was still desperate to blend right in?
It was a good thing I decided against that Master’s in Psychology my mom wanted me to get.
“So, Jen, it’s nice to meet you,” Tom said suddenly, seizing my hand and shaking it. “Or do you prefer Jennifer?”
I gazed into his eyes, fighting the urge to bat my eyelashes and considered his question. Hell, he could call me Fat Chick and I would be okay with it, as long as he said it in that smooth, velvety voice of his.
“Jen’s fine.” I managed to squeak out the words, and Claire nudged me in the ribs.
Tom, who seemed oblivious to my blatant lust, just smiled. He probably gets that all the time from his clients anyway. “Let’s get you ladies worked out.”
Within an hour, I had changed my mind about this gym, this trainer, and my horrible sister, whose bad ideas just kept getting worse and worse. Seriously, how guilty would she feel when I dropped dead from Tom’s impossible workout routines? Huh?
“I am going to freaking kill you, Claire.” I said the words slowly, painfully, around my gasping breaths. I was not allowed to take a break to smack her, so I had to keep lifting the stupid medicine ball over my head and then down again into a squat while I cursed out my evil sister. “Why? Why am I here?”
“Shh!” Claire shook her head at me, timing her squats with mine. It was hard not to notice how much less she was sweating, how much easier this seemed to be for her. How much easier everything we’d done that day, from the two-mile treadmill run to the 50 push-ups, had been for her. “Do. Your. Squats.”
Tom leaned in toward me, his face practically touching mine, and yelled. “There’s no time for chit-chat in my gym!”
Since we’d begun working out together—or rather, since he’d started screaming in my face while I worked out—Tom looked gradually less appealing to me. I noticed a vein that popped out of his forehead when he got angry. Very distracting. And also, he spit on me a little whenever he screamed. Also unattractive.
Claire could keep him.
“Ten more, ladies! Move, move!” Tom paced back and forth in front of us, counting us down from ten, spitting to emphasize all the hard consonants. I sort of wanted to throw my medicine ball at his back, just to see if I could knock him over. Probably not. The man is a pure wall of muscle.
Reaching the end of the set, I dropped the medicine ball onto the mat, enjoying the satisfying thud it made against the vinyl padding. That would have left a nice welt on my trainer. Maybe next time. Tom handed us each a towel and our water bottles, let us take a few moments to recover, and then sent us down to the mats for our cool down stretches. I faced my sister as we stretched out our legs, scowling at her the whole time. It was her fault that my body hurt in places I couldn’t discuss in public, that my legs felt like jelly, that I was hungry enough to eat an entire live animal. Possibly Tom himself if you left me in here long enough.
After we were finally finished with the ritualistic torture, Tom switched back to his old self almost instantly. No more scary Drill Sergeant Tom, just regular old Friendly Tom. Claire didn’t seem to be even the tiniest bit fazed by this weird on/off thing he had going. Having never spent much time with a personal trainer before that day, I had to assume it was just a regular thing that happened in gyms. What happened in the gym, stayed there? Just like Vegas. That made sense to me.
Hmmm… gym culture. Maybe that should have been my sociologically topic.
I left the would-be love birds to spend some time flirting together, mostly so I could find a nice, comfy chair and sit down. My body ached from my pinky toenail all the way up to my hair follicles. I unwound my hair elastic and shook my sweaty, sticky mane loose, combing my fingers through the tangles. I didn’t know my hair could feel pain, but apparently it needed to stretch out and cool down just as much as my calf muscles.
“Hey there.”
I straightened up instantly, strands of sweaty hair hanging over my face like I was some sort of swamp creature. There was a male figure standing in front of me, one that could have easily been Tom, given his shape and size. As I brushed the hair from my face, I got a better look at him and his stunning smile. He was tall and muscular, which seemed to be the norm inside the Workout World, but he had kind eyes and the sort of grin you might keep running on a treadmill to reach. He must have been another trainer, given his apparel and the overall condition of his amazingly toned body. I had to wonder if these guys were all part-time Chippendales by night, and if so, where I could see them perform. Of course, I’d bring Claire along with me. What else are sisters for?
“Nice job today,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m Noah, one of the other trainers. I saw you working with Tom over there.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty tough,” I shrugged it off, because I am just that cool. “Decent workout though.”
That statement was only true if almost dying three times counted as decent inside the gym. I wouldn’t know, because I’d never been inside of a gym
before. Still, Noah smiled knowingly and nodded his approval. Look how quickly I adapted to that tricky gym culture, huh? That must’ve been my impending sociology degree hard at work.
“I haven’t seen you here before, uh…”
“Jen,” I said, straightening my posture. I split my hair into a part and smoothed it down along both sides of my face. If he hadn’t noticed the hearing aids yet, I wasn’t about to let him now. “Don’t tell anyone, but today was my first workout in… I don’t know how long.”
“You make it sound like you’re stepping into a confessional or something,” he laughed lightly. “In which case, I don’t think I’m allowed to tell anyone, am I?”
“Guess not.” I smiled back at him; I couldn’t help myself, he was just so smiley.
“Well, Jen, I hope I get to see you around here again sometime soon.” He adjusted the duffle bag on his shoulder and tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’m usually here Tuesday through Friday afternoons if you want to sign up for a session with me one of these days.”
“Thanks,” I had to force myself not to giggle. Had he just invited me to sweat in his general vicinity? That had never happened to me before. “I’ll keep you… uh, that in mind.”
Noah winked one of his dreamy eyes at me and I tried not to visibly swoon. Winking isn’t something that happened to me very often either, so I found myself staring after him for a full five minutes, long after he’d exited the door, climbed into his Jeep, and pulled away.
“You okay?” I heard Claire say from somewhere nearby. Blinking, I came to and looked up at her. “Welcome back to earth. What the heck was that?”
I rubbed my eyes and stood up. “I have absolutely no idea.”
****
Back at my apartment, it took her less than an hour to destroy my entire kitchen. In what seemed like seconds, Claire had fired up the crock pot with something healthy in it to eat for dinner in six hours. The next thing I knew, she was raiding my cabinets…again. How rude. I quickly evacuated the kitchen, choosing to hide behind my laptop screen until the dust settled. It was a full ten minutes before I heard another word from her, but the rustling and general clatter arising from my kitchen made me nervous.
Then, suddenly, it was all over. “Okay, you can come in now!”
Fearing the worst, I peered around the doorway into my little galley kitchen. I did not want to go in there. Claire knew where I kept the sharp objects. Although I didn’t see any sharp objects from where I was standing, I preferred to err on the side of caution. I could see, however, that Claire had emptied the contents of my cabinets directly onto the countertops. There were three piles, neatly stacked, of all my canned goods, assorted non-perishables, and secret stash of junk food.
How did she find the good stuff? Especially after I’d re-hidden it in even better spots this time.
“So, here’s the deal,” she said, hands on her hips. She tossed her hair once before she continued, pointing to each pile in turn. “I’ve divided all your food into three categories. From now on, we will refer to these as Green Light, Yellow Light, and Red Light foods.”
I crossed my arms and narrowed my gaze. The pile with all my secret food had just been dubbed “Red Light,” which was either code for “not allowed” or “only acceptable in a special, brothel-heavy part of town.” Neither option boded well for me.
Claire continued, unperturbed. “I want you to start concentrating on eating mostly Green Light foods, like the whole grain stuff and the canned veggies. We’ll need to get more fresh produce to load up your fridge, but at least the canned stuff is a starting point.” She studied the piles for a moment, before turning back to me. “So the Yellow Light foods are ones that you can have once in a while and the Red Light foods you should, obviously, avoid.”
I stared at the Red Light pile, which included my hidden Oreo package and a bag of emergency Lays potato chips, before glowering at my very mean, very bossy sister. I knew she was trying to help me, but come on. I was a grad student. Junk food was a prerequisite. And those poor Gummy Bears would never understand why I couldn’t eat them.
“I thought you wanted to get healthy, Jen.” Her words were spoken calmly, not as a question but not with any significant force either. “I’m just trying to help you.”
I studied my sister for a moment, from her gorgeous healthy hair to her perky bosom and down to her smooth, toned legs. If anyone knew what she was talking about in the fit and healthy department, it was Claire. I grew up with her, so I knew her good looks and a toned, fit physique hadn’t just come naturally to her. She’d put in a tremendous amount of work to look this good and it was paying off. I guess I should’ve been paying more attention during my formative years. It might’ve saved me some grief. Looking at her that day, preaching to me about vegetables from my tiny kitchen, I could see how badly she wanted me to be healthy and finally happy with myself. Claire knew as well as I did that my cheesecake habit wasn’t making me healthy or happy, and that a good change of pace might do more than just help me drop down to a new jeans size.
The one summer during my life when I actually did stick to a diet plan and lose weight, I felt good about myself. It had less to do with the actual pounds lost, or the smaller waistline, and much more to do with being disciplined. Something about sticking to a plan, doing something worthwhile just for myself, and no one else… it struck a chord with me. I had more confidence, I had more patience, and I just had more. Of everything. Then, to top it all off, when I looked in the mirror, I liked what I saw.
Something upset my apple cart way back then, and I’d never been able to climb back onboard. I think I got lost striving for other things—grades, friends, higher paychecks, and other such nonsense. But there was Claire—sweet, helpful Claire—willing to get me back on track and hold my hand as long as necessary. To kick my butt in the gym and slap the fork out of my hand if need be. I would be a fool to let any more time go by without listening to what she had to say.
“Hold on a second,” I said, raising one finger. She raised an eyebrow, but let me dash back to my desk. I grabbed my iPad, returned to the kitchen, and dropped into one of the chairs. Finger at the ready, eager for some healthy eating tips, I nodded for her to continue.
Claire gasped, and then met my gaze with a smile. “I can’t believe this is happening right now. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I sighed. It was one of those “now or never” moments, and I wasn’t a fan of never.
CHAPTER FIVE
Claire was too smart for me. She took all of my Red Light foods to an unknown dumpster between her apartment and mine. I watched her tote my secret feel-good snacks out in a trash bag and had to force myself to stay still. It was just food. It had no power over me. None at all.
Besides, I told myself after she had finally left, there were plenty of other ways to occupy my mind that weren’t related to food. Eating out of loneliness or boredom hadn’t gotten me anything but a bigger waistline and a lot less self-esteem. Instead, I decided to change into some sweats and try one of those fitness programs On Demand.
One hour-long Billy Blanks, Jr. dance-a-thon later, I was both starving and exhausted. I hadn’t eaten a bite of that weird health gumbo my sister made me. Taking a whiff of it, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Choking down a few bites, I realized the best way to keep my hands busy was to keep up with Olivia’s exciting social life online. It was, by far, more entertaining than my own.
Alternating between the two profiles, the difference in activity was staggering and a little bit depressing. My place in the social pecking order was becoming quite clear, thanks to this little experiment. I spent some time scanning the new friend requests Olivia had received. My “hot” photo was working wonders to broaden her appeal, garnering an impressive 50 or so requests in little more than a day. Eager to focus on the research aspect and stop feeling sorry for myself, I got out my notebook and started writing. Lost in thought and furious note-taking, I almost missed the blinking message noti
fication on my computer’s task bar.
Ooh! A message!
As I clicked it open, my entire body went cold. It was Sean. The Sean. I had to close my eyes a moment, take a few deep breaths to keep from passing out, before I could look at my computer screen again. Yes, it was him all right, twelve years later and looking as amazing as he ever had.
Sean O’Dwyer—a man with a name as Irish as mine was boring—had sent me a message. Well, he’d sent Olivia a message. I clicked on his picture, pulling up the photo of a normal-looking man who seemed out of place amidst all the model-like shots of my other virtual friends. Sean O’Dwyer is a nice-looking young guy, around my age, and in much better shape than me.
But I wasn’t going to think about that just then, because it depressed me.
I examined Sean’s photo, a picture of him with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, standing on a beach somewhere. He looked muscular, but not overly so, and had a carefree posture and light smile on his face. Sunglasses and a backwards hat, paired with a navy blue t-shirt and a pair of board shorts, made him look like he was some sort of beach bum or surfer. Don’t those people get eaten by sharks?
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