by Hazel Kelly
“It’s really good to see you, anyway,” he said, his jaw hardening for a moment as he looked me up and down. “Surprisingly good.”
An inappropriate burst of warmth billowed up through my center.
It felt as delicious as it felt undeserved, but I clung to it all the same, allowing myself to believe for just a moment that the frog I’d kissed all those years ago might have actually returned a prince.
T H R E E
- Alex -
I couldn’t believe it.
Of all the gym joints in the country, she was working in mine. Looking like that. Fuck me.
I lifted my gaze back to her face and realized her cheeks had gone a shade of red that suggested I might’ve made her uncomfortable. But I couldn’t apologize for anything I’d said. She was stunning. And I was happy to see her. Strangely so.
Seeing her had put me instantly at ease. As if our souls were vibrating at the same frequency or something. I couldn’t explain it. All I knew was that I was curious to learn more about her, so curious I’d nearly forgotten what I was actually there to do.
“It’s good to see you, too,” she said, walking backwards towards the front desk. “Though I’m surprised you remember me.”
“Remember you?” I said, recalling the summers we spent actively avoiding the other campers together. “How could I forget? The time we spent together was so—”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Memorable.” What was wrong with me? Why was I rambling like an idiot?
She squinted at me like I was full of shit and went to help a customer at the register, nodding her head as if to invite me along.
The thin woman was freshly showered, but her eyes had a sunken quality that made it look like sleep hadn’t been coming easy.
“What can I do for you, Ania?” Gemma asked, leaning her elbows on the tall counter between them.
“My payment is due today,” the woman whispered, eyeing me suspiciously.
Gemma glanced over her shoulder at me before turning back to face her. “Go on,” she said quietly. “It’s okay.”
“I’m a little short,” Ania said, sliding a mess of crumpled dollars across the counter. “But it’s more than last month.”
Gemma closed her hands over the clump and started smoothing the bills into a stack. “This is great, Ania. Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The woman’s face lifted with gratitude, and she excused herself with a nod. Before she was even out the double doors, Gemma was pulling her purse out from under the counter and adding money to the crumpled stack.
“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” I asked.
I watched her tap away on the computer and put the money in the register. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you paying her membership fee?”
“Of course not,” she said, obviously lying. “And even if I were, it’s none of your business.”
“Isn’t it, though?” I asked, shifting my weight.
“Let’s talk and walk,” she said, pointing down the wide hall towards the main equipment area.
“Well?” I asked, falling in step beside her.
“I make an exception for her, okay? It’s a personal choice, and I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell Mary.”
As much as Mary looked like she desperately needed anything to chew on, I wasn’t about to betray Gemma’s trust. But I couldn’t let the transgression slide either. After all, if my employees were making a habit of covering the member’s fees, it was no wonder business was less than booming. “Can I ask why you make an exception for her?”
She sighed and stopped walking outside the aerobics studio. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Do you really have to ask me that?”
“This gym is all she has, okay? Her boyfriend beats the shit out of her when she’s home, so she spends as much time here and at work as she can.”
My jaw hardened.
“And I’m not about to sentence her to more time with him just because she’s shy a few bucks here and there. I’m happy to pay it for the peace of mind I get from knowing she has a safe place to go.”
“I understand.”
“I hope you don’t,” she said, taking off again, “But I appreciate your discretion.”
“What do you mean you hope I don’t?” I asked, hurrying after her.
She moved to the side of the hall as the tall ceiling of the two-story gym opened up. It was a familiar scene, one I’d designed myself where the equipment was on the ground floor and there was an open running track overhead. “I mean I hope you don’t know what it’s like to be a battered woman.”
“Right.”
“So this is the main gym.” Her eyes scanned the floor. “Is the layout the same in Oak Brook?”
“For the most part.”
“There are stairs in this corner and that far one to get upstairs,” she said, waving her hands around. “The basketball courts are that way, and the pool is beyond the locker rooms, which—”
“Wait—do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Know what that’s like?” I asked. “To be in a relationship like that?”
She averted her gaze.
I lowered my voice and reached for her shoulder. “Gemma.”
She shrugged my hand off before I even touched her.
“Sorry.” By the time I pulled my hand back, my anger had turned to heartburn.
“It’s fine,” she said, waving my hand away. “I’m fine.”
“What happened?” I asked, horrified by the way the air had shifted around us. “Did somebody hurt you?”
“Mostly just my feelings.”
“Mostly?”
She ran a hand over her head. “Do you mind if we continue the tour?”
Yeah, I fucking mind, I thought, desperate to know what the hell caused that far off look in her eyes. “Sure.”
Her shoulders relaxed with her breath. “Great.”
I did my best to respect her wishes after that, pretending all the while that operating, cleaning, and managing a gym weren’t things I could do in my sleep. “Do you like working here?” I asked when the tour ended in the small staff kitchen.
“I love it.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Of course. Exercise changed my body—and my life—for the better.”
I leaned against the counter.
“Not that I have to tell you that,” she said, her eyes tracing my arms. “You of all people know what a porker I used to be.”
“What? You weren’t a porker. That’s awful.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s not like it’s a secret.”
“Gemma.”
“Don’t,” she said, raising a palm. “I know what I was, and I know what I am.”
“Which is what?”
“Healthier,” she said. “Better.”
Hotter, I thought, keeping my mouth shut.
“The point is, I enjoy being part of something that can be so transformative and positive for people.”
“I get it.”
“Really?” she asked. “Don’t tell me all those spoonfuls of peanut butter caught up with you?”
“No. Unfortunately, they weren’t enough.”
She pulled two mugs down from one of the cabinets and filled the kettle.
“Things only changed for me when I started lifting weights.”
“Is that how you got so—?”
“So what?”
“Big,” she said, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “Ripped.”
“I don’t know if I’m ripped,” I lied, ashamed of how much I wanted her to notice. “But lifting gave me a lot of confidence when I needed it most.”
“High school?”
I nodded. “When you’re the last kid picked for every team the first fifteen years of your life, something’s gotta give, you know?”
“Well, good for you,” she said, sliding a jar of instant coff
ee across the counter. “Whatever you’re doing is working.”
“That’s nice of you to say,” I said. “Even if you didn’t recognize me as a result.”
“I did!” she said, her sky-blue eyes popping open. “It just took me a second to—”
“Oh please. You had no idea who I was.”
“I would’ve figured it out,” she said, the kettle steaming behind her. “Besides, can you blame me? Last time we hung out I was twice your size and now—”
I looked down at her, unable to hide my amusement.
“It’s the reverse.”
“I’m the same person, though.”
She scoffed. “No one’s ever the same person.”
“You are.”
“No I’m not.”
“If you say so,” I said, though I couldn’t help but compare the compassion she showed Ania to the kindness she’d shown me all those years ago, back before I learned how to stand up for myself.
“Coffee?” she asked.
I glanced at the clock. “Please.”
“Let me guess. Black?”
“Please.” I watched her stir a mound of instant granules into each mug.
“So where did you disappear to?” she asked, carrying our drinks to the cheap table a few feet away.
“What do you mean?” I pulled a chair out and sat down beside her, noticing that she still had that little sailboat birthmark below her left ear.
“How come you never came back to camp?”
F O U R
- Gemma -
Alex’s broad shoulders dwarfed his chair as he leaned back. “I got a job that summer,” he said. “To help out my mom.”
I forced a smile. “That was good of you.”
“It had nothing to do with you.”
I dropped my eyes to my steaming mug and slid it towards me. “I never thought it did,” I lied, thinking of the nights I spent staring at the underside of the bunk above me, replaying our kiss from the previous summer in my mind and wondering if I’d scared him off.
Looking back, I knew it was silly to think he’d stopped coming to camp because of a stupid kiss. It only lasted a few seconds. And overall it was kind of fumbly and awkward. Not that I understood that then.
Besides, the kiss itself wasn’t why it meant so much to me. It was the fact that for one second, I didn’t feel fat and ugly and invisible. For one second, I felt light and attractive and seen.
Did he know what that meant to me back then? How many character-building days I got through because of the kindness he showed me when I was at my most insecure?
“Did you miss me?” he asked.
I flicked my eyes up at him and felt my stomach flip at his focused attention. “Of course,” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible so he wouldn’t detect how needy and nostalgic I was for that feeling. “Eating peanut butter out of a jar alone isn’t nearly as socially acceptable as using the buddy system.”
He smiled, and my insides turned to mush.
I straightened up in my seat and hoped my cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt.
“Is that why you stopped?”
“Stopped what?” I asked, noticing the absence of a wedding ring on his hand.
“Eating peanut butter out of the jar? No offense, but you don’t look like you do that much anymore.”
His awareness of my body made me squirm. Anyone’s did. Especially now that I’d lost so much weight. Before that, people’s eyes could only find the sack of armor I wore around me. The weight used to make me feel safe, protected. And no matter how strong I felt now, the fact that I was a womanly shape provoked a whole new kind of vulnerability, one I was still learning to navigate
“I didn’t say that to be rude,” he said. “I’m just interested in health and fitness.”
“I know.” Compliments may have been a mystery to me, but rudeness I was well able to spot. “And to answer your question, no. I kept eating peanut butter out of the jar without you. I only stopped last year when my ex kindly pointed out that my dimpled thighs looked exactly like sacks of crunchy peanut butter.”
The color drained from his face.
“Not a nice guy in the end.”
“Jesus, Gemma. I didn’t know—”
I waved his concern away. “It’s fine.” If he thought that was bad, he’d probably faint at some of the names my ex called me. Tubs. Lardass. Tiny. Crisco Kid. The Cookie Monster.
“What an asshole.”
“Wish I’d figured that out as fast as you did.” I drained the rest of my coffee and reached for his mug.
“I got it,” he said, taking them to the sink.
I turned in my chair and watched the muscles in his back shift as he washed the mugs. “What did you end up doing for work?” I asked, desperate to change the subject. “That summer?”
“I got a job as a janitor in a local gym.”
“And you cleaned the weights until you could lift them?”
“Very funny,” he said, glancing over his shoulder before turning off the faucet. “But you’re not far off.”
“There’s a dishtowel on the inside of the cupboard.”
He looked around, his wet hands raised in the air.
I made a beeline for the cabinet beneath the sink, reaching awkwardly past his hips to free the dishtowel from where it was hanging so near his crotch it triggered a hot flash between my legs. When I held the towel up, he wrapped his hands around it, inadvertently trapping my hand in his.
I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the sparks flying inside me in response to his shrouded touch, but my breath caught in my throat when I saw how he was looking at me.
“Thanks,” he said, his deep voice making me forget myself.
“I’m going to need that back,” I said, my soft voice shaky as I nodded towards my hand.
He loosened his grip to let me go.
“There you are,” Mary said as she appeared in the doorway.
I turned towards her as Alex reached for one of the mugs and set it on the drying rack.
“Where the heck have you been?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to speak, but it turned out to be a hypothetical question.
“There’s a pileup at the front desk over some water aerobics harassment issue, and I can’t. I just can’t. You know I leave early on Mondays.”
Is that a Monday thing now? I wanted to ask. I thought it was an every fucking day thing. “I’ll be right there.”
“Ten minutes ago would be better,” she said, disappearing down the hall.
I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath.
“Does she always snap at you like that?” Alex asked, shifting his weight.
“Scary Mary snaps at everyone like that.”
“Scary Mary?”
I shrugged. “Hungry Mary would be more accurate, but it’s less catchy.” I ran a hand over my head. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Isn’t she the manager? Shouldn’t she deal with something as serious as harassment?”
“You’d think,” I said. “But if she took her hanger out on the members instead of the staff, there would be none of the former.”
Alex followed me out of the break room and down the hall.
“Can I be candid with you?” I asked quietly, seeking verbal confirmation that the inexplicable trust I had in him wasn’t totally unjustified.
“Of course.”
“Between you and me, she’s pretty checked out of this place.”
“How do you mean?” he asked, offering a smile to some middle-aged women by the watercooler that triggered a cascade of giggles and whispers.
“I mean you can’t make someone care, you know?”
“Isn’t that what paychecks are for? To make people care about their jobs?”
“That’s a depressing thought,” I said, speeding up when the young women at the front desk came into view. “Can you see if Mary’s office is unlocked? I want this discussion to take place behind closed doors.”
�
�Sure thing,” Alex said, calling to me when he’d confirmed there was a private place to bring the angry members.
I invited the two girls to join me in the back to discuss their issue, which seemed to be a certain dirty old man whose presence had taken the fun out of their water aerobics class. “Would you excuse us?” I asked Alex after he assumed a standing position by the office door.
“Wouldn’t it be good for me to see how you handle this?” he asked.
“It would be good if you could cover for me at the front desk,” I said, pushing him out the door. “Greet the visitors. Remind people that we’re closed for maintenance next Saturday night. Pick up any towels you see lying around.” I closed the door in his surprised face.
“Okay, girls. What exactly happened?” I ignored Mary’s standing desk and pulled up a chair.
The shorter one nodded to her tall friend, whose wet hair had soaked the shoulders of her shirt. “Some guy showed up unexpectedly today—”
“I know the feeling.”
They cocked their dripping heads.
“Never mind,” I said, leaning forward and doing my best to focus on them. “Please continue.”
But something told me it wouldn’t be the last slip of unprofessionalism Alex’s presence provoked in me.
Not if the infatuated butterflies in my stomach had anything to say about it.
F I V E
- Alex -
“Why are you calling me?” I hissed into my phone.
“I wanted to see how your first day is going,” Jimmy said.
“Fine.”
“So no one recognizes you, and you haven’t blown your cover?”
“Sort of.” I ducked behind a row of lockers.
“What does that mean?”
“One person recognized me,” I said, “but not as the you-know-what.”
“I’m not following.”
“And I’m not having this conversation now.”
He groaned.
“I’ll explain later.”
“Please at least tell me it was that dime we saw in the parking lot this morning ’cause I think I recognized her from a dream myself.”