Chapter Eleven
“Good evening, and welcome to the Boston High Gym! May I see your membership card, please?”
“Yeah, sure…” I fish my membership card out of my gym bag and show it to the man at reception.
He scans it with a smile. “You’re all set, Dr. Davis! Have a pleasant workout. As a reminder, the sauna, pool, and Pilates rooms are all open until midnight. You’re welcome to make the best of them! Please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you or if you need help!”
“Thanks!” I smile back at him before making my way inside the gym.
After a shift at the hospital, my workout allows me to decompress—releasing all the tension, the stress, and the pressure that builds up throughout the day.
The gym is fairly empty this late in the evening, which is something I’m grateful for. The silence and rhythmic sounds of the machines put my mind at ease and help me relax. I take off my T-shirt and make my way over to the treadmill.
“Hello, Evan! Fancy meeting you here!”
I snap around and am very surprised by who I see. “Umm … Hi, Carol. What are you doing here? I’m sorry—I mean … I didn’t know you went to this gym.”
“Sure, I do! Well, I do now. I just joined a few days ago!”
“You just joined my gym a few days ago? What a coincidence,” I say, growing a little suspicious.
“Yes, yes! I’ve been working double shifts at Floreale since Emmy took her vacation and I thought that I should also hit the gym a little. You know, to relax more,” she explains.
Vacation?
I suddenly feel the need to defend my best friend. “Emmy didn’t take a vacation. She broke her arm and needs to rest until her bones mend. Otherwise, her arm may not heal well, and she could have issues with it forever.”
“That’s exactly what I meant! Of course, she’s not on a vacation, the poor thing! I’m so silly!” She laughs. “Although I have to say, she sure has been acting like she’s on a vacation with all the lunches and shopping she’s doing!”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you expecting Emmy to spend the next two months locked inside her apartment or something?” I reply, getting more and more peeved.
I don’t like the fact that Carol, for some reason, seems to be putting Emmy down.
I thought they were friends.
“Absolutely not! She’s a beautiful young woman who definitely needs to put herself out there more! I always tell her: Emmy, you … you are just great! That’s what I always say. And who knows, maybe she’ll also find a boyfriend while she’s at it.” Carol giggles.
I bend down to get my water bottle from my gym bag. But also, to try to signal I’d like to end this conversation. Unfazed, Carol keeps talking.
“Yeah, just a few days ago, I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw that she went wedding dress shopping with her friends. Gosh, she looked so good in that bridesmaid dress! I have no doubt that she can get any man she wants!” Carol says.
“Mhm. I saw those photos too,” I reply.
“You follow Emmy on Instagram?” Carol asks me.
“She’s my best friend—”
“Oh, come on now, Evan!” she interjects. “You follow her but you don’t follow me? What kind of nonsense is that? Let’s rectify that, shall we? Come on, follow me right now!”
“Umm … I’m kind of busy right now. I’d really like to start my workout, if you don’t mind,” I tell her, but she won’t relent.
“In a minute!” She pulls out her phone and looks at me expectantly.
After a moment of awkward silence, I feel I have no other choice but to pull mine out as well.
If I follow her, maybe she’ll leave me alone to exercise in peace.
I open my Instagram app and type in her name. It’s then that I realized Carol’s already following me.
I get the urge to ask her if that’s why she signed up for this gym—because she knows I go here. But I just want to be done with this awkward interaction and workout in peace.
Note to self: No more posting gym selfies.
“Alright, I followed you, Carol. Now I’ve gotta get to my workout. I’ve had a long day at the hospital, and I need to unwind a little. So—”
“That sounds interesting!” she interjects. “What exactly do you do there?”
“Uhh … look, it’s been a really long day and I just want to exercise. Why don’t we talk a little later, okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Absolutely! We can talk later, Evan!”
“Great, thanks so much!”
“So, how long have you been going to this gym?” she asks.
I groan and roll my eyes, before stepping on the treadmill. “Carol, how about this? Why don’t you let me exercise for half an hour, and then we can talk more, alright?”
She starts to laugh, as always, even though nothing about this conversation is funny.
“That sounds like a date!” she says before finally moving a few feet away.
“No, it doesn’t…” I mumble.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her stepping onto the treadmill next to mine. She starts to run alongside me, but I pay no attention to it.
In no time at all, Carol starts talking to me once again. “Look at that! It’s like we’re a couple running together at the park! Side by side!” She giggles.
“Or we’re just two strangers at the gym…” I mutter.
“Strangers? Come on, Evan! We’re practically best friends!”
I shoot her a dirty look and continue my workout. Even though, at this point, it doesn’t feel worth it anymore. I feel more tired than ever—I’ll never relax or decompress with Carol talking nonstop next to me. Not to mention her questions.
After a few more steps, I turn off the treadmill and grab my gym bag. Not surprisingly, Carol does the same thing.
“Uff!!! That was some workout! So, where are we going next?” she asks me as if we’ve been working out together for years.
“Home. I mean, I’m going home. To my home. Alone.”
“Ahh, you’re leaving already?” she asks.
“Carol, please don’t take this personally. I’m just very tired from the hospital…”
“Sure, sure. No problem! See you tomorrow, then?”
At first, I don’t understand what she means, but then it hits me.
Now that Carol has joined my gym, I’ll be seeing her here regularly.
My heart sinks, but I try not to let it show on my face. “Umm … I’m not sure. I have a long shift at the hospital.”
She giggles some more as I head out the door.
Finally, I’m back in my car. I put the key in the ignition and enjoy the slow and comforting purring of my Lamborghini’s engine. “Hey Siri, call Emmy.”
Calling Emmy.
“Hey! What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be at the gym at this hour? Are you alright?” she asks me, her voice soothing.
“Yes, I should be. But I was driven out of there.”
“What? What happened?” she asks, her voice now tinged with concern.
“Guess who joined my gym a few days ago?”
“Umm … Beyonce?”
I start to laugh. “Yes. Beyonce herself joined my gym and, as a result, I decided to leave early because I thought: Hey, Beyonce’s at my gym? No, thank you, I’m not interested in that!”
She chuckles at my joke and tries to guess again. “Was it … Michael Jordan?”
“The best basketball player of all time? At a local neighborhood gym in Boston? Sure, that makes sense. Goodness, you are the worst guesser ever, Dolly.” I laugh.
“Fine, fine, I give up. Just tell me what happened. Who joined your gym, and why did you have to leave?”
“Your friend Carol, that’s who!”
There is a pause at the other end of the line. “Carol? The woman I work with at the beauty shop? That Carol?”
“Yes. How many Carols do you know?”
“Never mind. Why did she join your gym? And … isn’t that kind of a weird coincidence, Evan? That out of all the gyms in Boston, she joined yours?”
“That’s what I thought too. But now … I’m pretty sure she’s been stalking me on Instagram or something. There’s no other way she could’ve known. Unless you told her?”
“Definitely not!” she replies. “So, what happened? Did you … talk to her?”
I sense some frustration in her voice, coming through the phone. “Unfortunately, it’s all she wanted to do. I honestly just wanted to work out, but she kept asking me all these questions…”
“Why didn’t you tell her to go?” Emmy asks.
“Go where? It’s a gym.”
“So, she just … stayed there and you … what? Worked out together?”
This conversation is not going the way I thought it would.
At first, when I called Emmy, I thought we might laugh about the whole situation like we always do. But, for some reason, she’s taking it far more seriously than I expected her to.
“Emmy, she got on the treadmill next to mine and started running. What was I supposed to do? Push her off?” I try to make a joke, but she’s not having it.
“You could’ve moved away. You could’ve—”
“Emmy,” I interject. “She was clearly there to see me. She was talking my ear off, and most likely would’ve followed me wherever I went. At one point, while we were working out, she literally said we looked like a couple running together in the park.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize it was entirely the wrong thing to say.
“She said … what? She thinks you’re a couple now?!”
“Emmy … no … it was a silly thing she said, and I shut it down immediately.”
There’s another pause at the other end of the line.
“Wait, why are you getting so upset over this?” I ask.
“I’m not … I’m just … okay. Look. Carol is … she’s a nice girl. But she’s not someone that I’d like to see you date,” she explains.
“Well, good. Because I don’t intend to date her. So…”
“Yeah, she’s just … not good enough for you,” Emmy says.
“Hmm … and who is good enough for me, Emmy?”
Suddenly the memory of Emmy running her fingers across my bare skin in her kitchen flood through my mind—her wiping the sauce off my chest and licking it off her fingers. Shivers run through me at the memory. I shake my head, trying to focus on the conversation as well as my driving.
“Not Carol,” Emmy answers my question … but not clearly enough for my liking.
“I see.”
“Anyway, hey, listen. I got a couple tickets to the Harry Styles concert next week. Do you want to go?” she asks me.
“Sure. I’m in! But who else is going? The girls? Clem? Clem has to be a fan of Harry Styles.” I chuckle.
“Ummm … no. Just us. The girls are … busy.” Emmy clears her throat.
“Oh, okay then. Just us. At a Harry Styles concert,” I repeat, trying to make sure I heard her correctly.
“Yeah. I mean, what’s the big deal? We’ve been to about a million concerts together since we’ve known each other.”
But never like this.
We’ve never been to a romantic concert together—one in which couples usually go. We usually go to festivals with big groups of friends or watch live music at the local coffee spots.
I don’t tell her that, however.
“Absolutely,” I reply, keeping up her game.
“Great! I’ll see you in about a week, then. Can’t wait!”
The phone call ends, leaving me alone again, with only the Boston traffic noises as my soundtrack. And I am left wondering, did Emmy just ask me out on a date? Or could it be that I’m reading too much into this?
I wish I could just ask her, but I’m afraid she’ll deny it or simply not answer. Perhaps I should just leave it alone and wait and see what happens. I just wish I had a sign or something…
“Siri, play a Harry Styles song.”
“Playing Harry Styles music off YouTube.”
“Now playing, ‘18,’ by Harry Styles and One Direction.”
I settle in, prepared to listen to the lyrics. They come blasting through the speakers as if speaking directly to me.
I’ve loved you since eighteen…
We’ve come a long way from the playground…