11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
I ghosted Monday’s session, then Tuesday’s. After the middle of the week, I grew antsy, missing strength training and cardio. It was not like Beau owned the place. If I full-blown stopped showing up at EverGreen, I’d be doing some immature avoidance. I didn’t need to avoid Beau; I just didn’t need to flirt with or fuck him. Easy. That was practically the status quo. Me, invisible to the twenty-somethings of the world.
I returned to the gym halfway through the week, thinking my radio silence was a strong enough message. I wore my raccoon shirt and vintage neon orange Zubaz pants. The raccoon sat in a trash can, wearing a takeout box for a hat. So trash I’m someone else’s treasure scrawled at the top.
While I grooved to some No Doubt, in a traditional squat using the free weights, I felt a brush on my shoulder. I removed one ear bud. “I got about five minutes on this set.” Even I was impressed by how gym lingo tumbled out of my mouth.
“Sir?”
I took a moment to study the person poking me. Perry. Claire’s Perry. When both our marriages went up in flames and Chris and Claire rose from the ashes, Perry took it the hardest, lawyering up and fighting every little thing along the way. In comparison, I had more warning when my marriage had flatlined because, according to Perry’s version of events, he and Claire were in love until that high school reunion. Chris was some evil interloper. And honestly, it was a little hilarious hearing my saltine cracker of an ex-husband described as some other man’s antagonist.
“I wouldn’t have recognized you without the pants. I didn’t know you worked out... here. ”
“Yeah for almost a month now.” I kept the other earbud firmly in my ear, not even bothering to pause my music. New Saoirse Hooper was serious about her reps.
“Want any pointers?”
I sighed. The real answer was no. I had some pretty good personal training. On the next inhale, I was going to chuckle and say the Midwestern, “Yeah… no.” Then behind Perry, about ten feet away, I saw Beau wiping down a leg press machine. He sprayed and wiped the same spot. A trainer should tell him to relax his shoulders; that was only going to lead to upper back tension. And really, brooding and eavesdropping? Not a cute look. Okay, not that cute of a look. Our suburban enclave wasn’t that big, and if it meant I had to avoid certain locales or behave a particular way not to upset the two people who once had interest in me, I could only travel between condo, work, and the hair salon that dyes my silvery brown hair burgundy. Know what? Poor Perry. I’d play the part of a clueless woman to give him some balm for his bruised ego.
“Sure.”
He grabbed a massive set of free weights and racked them on his shoulders. His face was already turning red from apoplexy. “See how my shoulder blades are drawn together?” Sure, but maybe if he had a better personal trainer, someone would tell him he needed to size down on the weights and time his inhales and exhales based on the contracting and releasing of his muscles. I watched him squat, and he spouted something about knee alignment that I already knew.
“You gave me something to consider.” And I added one of those weird fake laughs, the ones that moms use when their kids scream Watch me! and they do something silly or unremarkable.
“Have you seen them lately?” Perry asked. By them, of course, he meant Chris and Claire.
“Yes, actually. At the farmer’s market about a week and a half ago.”
“So, you know that she’s…” He patted his dad bod belly.
I forced myself to smile wider and nodded.
“What do you think?”
I thought I was going to barf. My insecurities were laid before me in Claire’s pregnant glory. Chris never said it because he was a grown-up, but the implication was always there. He ran back to his high school sweetheart because she had a scientifically proven reproductive system. Mine was a complete failure. I was a complete failure. But I wasn’t going to unload all that on Perry. After all, I felt Chris and Claire characterized me as the one who took it well. “Good for them. I’ve been so busy, I don’t think much about them anymore. I’ve been working out, drawing more, starting to see the town at night for once.”
“I suppose you have it easy without a kid.” Perry gazed off into some unknown area. Did I mention Claire and Perry had a kid? About nine years old. And they named him after a character in a Tom Cruise movie like Jack, Maverick, or Ethan. I couldn’t remember. As I said before, Claire had a proven functioning uterus. And Perry now had a proven record of bringing up all my sore subjects in the duration of a five-minute conversation.
I checked over my shoulder. After Beau practically wiped a hole in the leg press chair, he conspicuously adjusted the pin on the weight and tested the machine with his hand. A small smile crept across his face, as if he learned that no one on planet Earth was jealous of Perry.
“How are you doing?” I asked, hoping Perry would quit prodding the wounds of my soul.
“You know. Good days. Bad days.” His posture sunk, his face falling into the most pitiful frown. He wiped sweat off his forehead.
He truly had a way of getting people to feel the pathetic part of empathetic. “Have you ever cycled here?” I asked .
He shook his head.
“There’s a cycle class tomorrow after work.” And before anyone could mistake me as a trifling little bitch, I added, “Starla teaches it.” Truth. I tracked the classes Beau taught and specifically attempted to avoid them this week. One of the other instructors, Starla, was even more Woo! and way less artful with the double entendres, but lithe and athletic Starla had something more going for her than the previous instructor. She hadn’t made out with me. “You could join me.”
“I don’t have Maverick tomorrow.” He paused to calculate. “Yeah. I could do that. See you then.” He went back to breathing terribly through leg day.
I honestly forgot which rep I was on. I was about ready to put my earbud back in.
“Who was that?” a voice behind the overhead press asked. Beau. I’d recognize the plume of hair over the top of the machine from anywhere. The world was conspiring to get me not to see the end of these reps.
“My ex-husband’s wife’s ex-husband.”
He parted one of the weight plates to view me on the other side. His gaze danced from side to side as he mouthed husband, wife, and husband again. He tipped his chin when it dawned on him the connection between Perry and me .
“So, you have a lot in common.”
On the surface, yes, but if Chris was a saltine cracker, Perry was a soggy, salt-free variety. Back when Perry and Claire were together, I was sure the flies on the walls in their home died of boredom. “Not exactly.”
“Did he offer you any good tips?”
I slammed the weight plate down. Honestly, if it pinched one of his lovely long fingers, I’d have no regrets. I swung my head around the machine to look directly at him. “Are you spying on me? I thought men your age were raised on the internet and knew to knock that Cro-Magnon shit off.”
“You were a no show,” he shout-whispered through clenched teeth.
I pointed a forceful finger in his direction. “Go find another desperately horny middle-aged woman. I’m sure if you tell her you’ll ‘light up her loins’ with a bike ride, she’ll hand over her credit card.”
“No other woman wears such ridiculous pants.”
“Oh yeah?” I pulled the saggy pants out like I was curtseying. “You like ‘em? Good luck finding a pair!” I forgot we were shout-whispering and turned the volume up to a shout-shout. “I thrifted these. As in one of a kind! Unlike your fuccboi shtick. ”
“I’m not a fuccboi.”
“Well, tell that to your haircut.” I stormed out of the place. Once I had made it halfway to my car, I realized I could stop marching in a huff. I turned the engine on and Bluetoothed my phone into my car radio. Before pulling away, I finished the song that had been grievously interrupted.
I punched the ceiling and rubbed my newly chafed knuckles. I just wanted to do my reps! As I pulled out of the parking lot, I promised myself that after tomorrow, I needed to find a new gym.