Chapter 9
“GOOD MORNING,” SAYS IAN, as the guys and I stroll into the gym a little before eight on Monday. He peers at the plate I carry. “What’s all this?”
“Ellie made us treats while we cleaned,” Diego tells him.
Yesterday had been busy. Heather and Mark went home once the wrestling match wrapped up, and after the guys had sufficiently de-mudded themselves, we gathered for a chat about expectations for the coming months.
They were open to my plan to elevate the household’s baseline for cleanliness, with the understanding that they’d be responsible for upkeep.
I got a breakdown of their coaching schedules, Grant’s and Diego’s summer classes, and Alistair’s upcoming modeling gigs, and assigned nights for cooking lessons and meal prep, as well as days for laundry and grocery shopping. We’ll tackle finances next week.
Then, the cleaning began. Any enthusiasm they may have had was smothered by mountains of dirty clothes and the realization that all the grout in the shower is supposed to be white, not, as Diego had thought, an orange that faded up to white.
Grant got Windex in his eye. Something hard struck Alistair in the face while scrubbing the toilet of his and Grant’s bathroom, and he refused to continue without protective eyewear. I had only one recourse: bribery.
In my classroom management course, I’d been dismayed to learn that there was a possibility that my students wouldn’t see the intrinsic value in, say, discussing the ubiquity of human cruelty in A Separate Peace.
In such situations, my cohorts and I were advised to provide external motivators to keep students productive and engaged.
Rice Krispies Treats were my go-to, and based on everything I’d learned about them in the previous day-plus, I figured that these three would also be receptive to edible incentives.
In a moment nothing short of serendipitous, my search of the kitchen provided all three necessary ingredients, though the marshmallow portion came in the form of stale Peeps—remnants of discounted pre-assembled Easter baskets Grant purchased last month.
Morale was restored. Alistair found goggles and tackled the bathroom, scrubbing and sanitizing so thoroughly, I had to ask him to crack a window to release the bleach fumes.
The living room, if the hand-me-down recliner and lawn chairs let it be called that, was tidied and mopped, and every inch of baseboard in the four-bed, three-bath bungalow was wiped clean.
I multitasked, cleaning the stalactites from the microwave and wiping down cabinet fronts and work surfaces while devoting one burner to continuously melting Peeps. The guys refueled so often that I ended up wrapping individual squares just to slow them down.
“I don’t know that distributing sugar bombs at a gym is good practice, but we do have plenty.
” I hand a blue-tinted square to Ian. He thanks me, and I am gratified as he immediately unwraps the treat and takes a bite.
He lets out a groan of pleasure, and the gratification turns to something warmer and more southerly on my person.
“Jesus,” he says around a second mouthful. “Why is this so good?”
“I brown the butter,” I say.
“Whatever that means. Wow. I haven’t had a homemade Rice Krispies Treat since…”
“Mom, probably,” offers Grant.
Ian’s chewing slows, then stops.
Grant had said the same thing yesterday, but it had been mentioned offhand, like it was something their mom had made for them when they were kids and simply didn’t do for them as adults. But as I watch, a shadow crosses Ian’s expression. There’s more to it than that.
He swallows, then rewraps the square, leaving it on the desk, and nods to the computer. “We can start with a breakdown of the desk stuff and then do a tour.”
My eyes flick to the treat he’s—abandoned? rejected? put aside to be savored later, perhaps while recalling the precious moments he spent worshipping my décolletage—and I move to join him on the opposite side of the desk. “Sure.”
The system Firehouse uses for checking in members is similar to what I used for attendance the year I taught, so most of the time at the computer is devoted to Ian creating a new admin login for me while I mentally inventory a host of Friday night memories evoked by his proximity. There had been cinnamon.
It takes only a few minutes to go over the specific responsibilities of the front desk position: minor cleaning, laundering the towels on hand for wiping up sweat and disinfecting equipment, stocking the little shop of Firehouse Fitness–branded gear, and familiarizing myself with the list of members who most often run afoul of the “no dogs on the gym floor” policy.
I also get a tour of the locker rooms, which are utilitarian but clean, and the storage area, home to the cleaning supplies and the gym’s washer and dryer, and I spy a peek of a stairwell behind a door.
“That leads to my apartment,” Ian explains.
“Ah! Friday night’s insurmountable ascent.”
“I swear to God, I’m not back to one hundred percent yet,” he grumbles, and steers us back down the hallway to the gym floor, where members have started to gather near a large flatscreen monitor and a whiteboard. “Never again.”
Ian raises a hand in greeting to a member and asks me, “What’s your experience with cross-training?”
“Is that what you do here?”
“What we do here? Yes. So, I’m assuming zero experience?” At my nod, he asks, “How about Olympic lifting?”
“I don’t even know what that is.” I offer it up like a boast.
“Have you done weight training of any kind?”
I shake my head. “I swam growing up, rec leagues and then in high school, but none of the teams I was on ever had us lifting. I’ve used free weights in workout classes, but I wouldn’t know what to do on my own.”
“You probably put on muscle pretty easily.”
“How can you tell?”
Ian’s smile is wry. “The musculature of your back.”
“What do you—never mind,” I say, recalling the open-back styling of Friday’s dress, the side zip of which remained imprinted on my skin as late as yesterday afternoon.
Ian’s smile lingers, and I wonder if he’s dwelling on the memory or trying to jog his further. Or if he’d even want to. He’d been happy enough to see me Saturday, but that could have been out of concern for my survival, given the condition I’d been in when he’d seen me last.
“You’re a compact lady version of me,” he continues, and I file that away to obsess over later. “With the right approach, you’d be a beast in no time.”
“I don’t know that beastly is what I’m going for, but I’d like to see what I can do.”
“Now’s your chance. If you’d like to start your shift with the WOD, I can check in the stragglers.” He points to the members by the whiteboard. “The eight thirty class starts in five.”
“WOD?”
“Workout of the day. Today’s will be a good first one for you. It doesn’t include any advanced movements, and we’ll go over modifications, anyway.”
“The WOD it is,” I say, and Ian accompanies me over. The screen displays the same attendance software as the front desk but is set up to show little photos beside the names of the class’s participants. The workout itself is written out on the whiteboard. It looks… unpleasant.
I’m frowning at the prospect of five four-hundred-meter runs when movement in the periphery of my bad side has me turning.
It’s the woman with the pink lipstick from Saturday; Babs, according to the name accompanying her picture.
She smiles, her lips as brilliant a shade today as they were this weekend and in her photo.
There’s pink woven into her hair, too, breaking up the gray bob. Babs is a signature color gal.
“Hi, there!” she says. “Ellie, right? How are things going with the boys?”
“I’ve already resorted to bribery, but my feet are no longer sticking to the bathroom floor, so we’re making progress!”
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, hands going to her hips. “Those boys are such sweethearts,” she says. “But I do worry about them sometimes. All four of them.”
“Four?” I ask, and she winces, pressing in her lips, as though she’s said too much.
“We include Ian with them,” she admits, casting a furtive glance toward the gym owner, who chats with another member a few yards away.
“Though, I would hope that his bathroom floors aren’t sticky.
There’s a touch of the same…” She frowns, shifting side to side as if to jostle loose the right descriptor. “Immaturity about him.”
“Oh?” It seems Babs is a gossip. Outstanding.
She waggles her finely etched brows. “What did you think of the room for rent sign? Wasn’t that snazzy?”
I laugh. “I take it you were responsible?” I ask, needlessly. If Grant is the embodiment of the body spray that hinted at what lay within the house, then Babs is glitter and hot pink in human form.
“They didn’t tell you? It’s my rental property.
One of them, anyway. I’m your landlady,” she says, loftily.
“The amount of money Ian’s flushed away by not insisting those boys find a fourth for that house is criminal.
I’ve been getting on him for months, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it!
I put up that sign last weekend.” She huffs a long-suffering sigh, then grins.
“Was it the glitter? Did the sparkle reel you in?”
“It was certainly a factor,” I say, bursting with curiosity. “So, Ian’s been covering the rent on that room since he moved out?”
Diego jogs up then, clapping his hands for everyone’s attention as he welcomes us to class, and Babs and I are prevented from further discussion.
She winks. “You get settled in. Then we’ll talk.”
“I hate Kelly,” I say from where I lay sprawled on the floor.
As Diego explained, today’s workout, Kelly, is one of many benchmarks revisited throughout the year. Athletes keep track of their performance on each and try to improve their respective scores. Kelly, the hateful bitch, is done for time.