The Cinderella Pact

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Brian frowns doubtfully. “Surely you ladies don’t need to lose a hundred pounds.”

  Right then, I wish I could wrap him up and take him home. I bet he’s a Princeton student, too. Smart and adorable.

  “I don’t know much about diet, but I do know a ton about exercise,” he says. “And you need to ramp up the program pretty progressively. Walking around the block won’t do much good for long.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” I say. “Ramping up.”

  “No. Really. Sounds worse than it is. In fact, I put my sister on a program at the gym and she lost so much, she was buying a smaller size every other week. She says I should make an infomercial or something.”

  “You should!” I exclaim, having no idea what he’s talking about.

  “I’ll tell you what.” He wipes the last of the champagne. “I’ll let you in on my secret, and if it works for you, then—booyah—I’m going cable.”

  And before we can say booyah back, Brian outlines his infomercial-worthy regimen on a paper napkin, which I carefully tuck in my purse as though it were the map to the most valuable treasure ever hidden.

  Nancy, however, declares that she’d prefer to go with a personal trainer. That’s what you can buy with all the money she has, a personal trainer.

  But, like the Beatles trilled, can’t buy her love.

  Chapter Nine

  Exercise. That’s what I’ve been missing. This is the genuine ticket for weight loss, ask anyone.

  How many stories have I heard about people who just start, for example, jogging and before they know it they’re in marathons and have stopped menstruating, they’ve lost so much fat. And if you ask them what diet they were on they say with surprise, “I ate just like I always did and the weight came off.”

  It’s true!

  Of course, if you’re overweight like I am, you’re caught in a kind of Catch-22 where you need to lose weight first before you feel comfortable going to a gym but you can’t really lose the weight unless you’re working out five days a week. And then there’s that fear of being among the gym rats who look at you askance, as if you’re a pretender to the throne of being fit and you have no right to be on the machines.

  Well, I will simply have to put all that neurotic worrying behind me and take the plunge. As I drive in my Dodge Shadow rental car to the Princeton Gym and Racquet Center, I envision myself months from now in tight black yoga pants and a sports bra, my abs tanned and flat. And people will say, “Do you know she used to be extremely overweight?” To which the reaction will be, “No! She’s got such a great body now.”

  Maybe the gym will pin up before and after photos. Or put me in one of their newspaper ads.

  AS SEEN ON BRIAN THE HUNK WAITER’S INFOMERCIAL: NOLA DEVLIN!

  I’ll be like an in-house Princeton Gym and Racquet Club celebrity.

  Armed with Brian’s Fast Fitness Plan, as I suggested he call it, I boldly walk into Princeton Gym and Racquet Club, humming an old Helen Reddy song. Years from now I will be able to recall this as a moment that changed my life, much like when I read the back page of Who Moved My Fat? I will think of myself as walking in plump and walking out thin. Just like on that Lifetime movie.

  Actually, I have had a membership to the Princeton Gym and Racquet Center for three years. It comes with my job at Sass! which pays for half of the membership, just like Sass! will pay for me to go to Weight Watchers or, if I were a smoker, SmokeEnders.

  The logic here is that attending these organizations will reduce health insurance rates. Though, to be honest, it’s so Big Brother that most smokers in our office refuse to go. Once you declare you’re a smoker, forget it. Your insurance rates are doomed forever.

  At the gym, I drink in the invigorating smells of chlorine and sweat as I swipe my card and head for the locker room.

  “Excuse me,” says a gum-chewing girl at the front desk. “It didn’t go through. Try again.”

  No problem. I rub my card and give it another go.

  “Still nothing.” She looks me up and down. “When was the last time you were here?”

  “Ohhh.” I study the ceiling, trying to pinpoint a date that sounds as if I’ve been temporarily detained, not permanently slacking off. “I think a few, uh, weeks ago.”

  I give her my name which she types into the computer. “Try January.”

  “That long?” I feign shock. “Can’t be.”

  “January second. Just like everyone else in town. OK. I’ll have to reset your card.”

  I hand her my card guiltily.

  “Do you need a locker key or anything?”

  “Absolutely not!” I declare. “I rent a locker.”

  “Uh-huh.” She hands me back the card. “I hope you still remember your combination.”

  Of course I do. It’s 36-16-6. Verrry easy.

  I take my reset card and towel down to the women’s locker room and brace myself. It’s not as though I’m a prude as much as it is that I’m . . . modest. I have never been the type to prance about in the buff slapping on lotion and yapping about some movie I’ve seen. Then again, I might be the type if I had a body that didn’t jiggle and fold in odd places.

  The locker room is filled with steam and lots of naked women slapping on lotion as I’d feared. I carefully leave my shoes by the door in ultimate gym etiquette and make my way to the rear by the sauna where I see my locker #38 and my trusty combination lock. Excellent.

  Except 36-16-6 doesn’t work. Neither does 16-6-36 or any combination thereafter.

  “We were wondering who had that locker,” says a woman wrapping a white towel around her chest. “I’ve been going here for years, and I’ve never seen anyone use it.”

  “IS SOMEONE USING NUMBER THIRTY-EIGHT?” screeches her friend, pulling on a pair of jeans.

  “Yeah. Her.”

  “DOES SHE KNOW WHAT THAT SMELL WAS?”

  Smell? My locker smelled? How mortifying is that?

  “Bet you forgot,” observes the toweled woman who shows no signs of leaving until the locker is opened. “I’ll call Tricia at the front desk.”

  Twenty minutes, one Tricia, and one sawed-off combination lock later and I am in a pair of wrinkled black sweats and a loose white T-shirt and running shoes, which happen to reek of moldy sponges and an odor that reminds me of Super 8 Motel shower curtains.

  That’s OK, I assure myself, I’m in a gym. You’re supposed to stink in a gym. I pull out Brian’s Fast Fitness Plan and try to concentrate on what I’m here for. Losing weight. Feeling fit. Living longer.

  Brian’s plan is quite simple, though it involves a lot of running around and perfect timing, two qualities I’m not famous for. The idea is to mix an aerobic workout with an anaerobic workout so that your body is fooled into burning more fat than it normally would.

  Fooling the body. I like that.

  The first thing I must do is a ten-minute workout on an aerobic machine like a treadmill or elliptical trainer. Then I must immediately run to the weight room (Nautilus, Brian informs me, is for wimps and old ladies) and lift barbells for five minutes. Then it’s back to the treadmill for another ten, over to the weight room for dead lifts, back to the elliptical trainer, and finally, push-ups.

  I feel firmer already.

  The elliptical trainer is fun, almost like a video game with digital pictures of courses and statistics. I plug in my weight, which I lie and say is 150 since the guy next to me is looking over my shoulder. Course? I choose Random since Weight Loss would give me away.

  And I’m off. This is very easy. Not even hard on the knees because the foot pads are actually lifting my feet! I smile at the man next to me who is wiping sweat off his brow and wincing. He must really be out of shape if he’s having such a hard time on a machine that does all the work for you.

  Beep! A light is blinking indicating we are going up to a harder level. See what I mean about it being like a video game? Fun, fun, fun. Well, this is slightly harder. Then again, as Brian said, they wouldn’t
call it a “workout” if it didn’t involve “work.” I would say hello to Tricia passing by except, oddly, I’m out of breath.

  Beeeep! Uh-oh. Now what are we doing? PREPARE FOR REVERSE, the screen says.

  Reverse?

  Shit.

  REVERSE! It’s screaming at me. REVERSE!

  I can’t REVERSE! I’ll fall off, I think, as I start running backward, my calves sending out messages to the brain to cease and desist with this nonsense right now. Where did I get the big idea, running backward? That’s not how the human body is designed. If we were meant to run backward, we’d have toes on our heels.

  And then it’s over. My ten minutes are up.

  I leap off, wipe down the machine, and dash to the weight room, which is populated by big, unappealing men with blue pads around their middles, grunting at their reflections. The smell here is even worse than in locker #38.

  One guy in a Rider University T-shirt rolls an eyeball toward me and cocks his chin to his steroid-addicted friend. They are sending a signal loud and clear that women like me are not allowed. This is testosterone country.

  We’ll just see about that.

  Summoning all my esteem, I confidently walk over to the barbells, settling on a ten-pounder since the threes and fives seem so puny. I need to establish a reputation, like prisoners do on their first night behind bars.

  With expert skill I pick up a barbell in each hand, raise my arms, then lower them, careful to concentrate on my breathing. I may be big, but I am strong. Even the steroid junkies are checking me out with admiration as I go for—yes—a second rep.

  “You gonna be done with those soon?” Rider appears in my mirror and points to the barbells.

  “I’ve got three more sets,” I say, though I can’t remember how many lifts are in a set.

  “OK. I’ll wait.” He sits himself down on a bench, folds his arms, and waits. I’d like to point out that there are plenty of other ten-pound barbells there, but I can’t speak. In fact, I am having trouble controlling my bladder.

  “That’s two,” he counts helpfully. “You got thirteen more to go.”

  “No,” I correct, my face turning red as I lift again. “I’m doing three.”

  “Three sets. There should be fifteen reps in each set.”

  Cripes. Who is this guy? Len Barkowski, my high school gym teacher?

  “Getting tired?” he taunts. “Are your muscles burning?”

  “No. They’re fine. It’s just that I’m on a program. I have to be back to the machines.” I drop both weights, narrowly missing my pinky toes. “Now.”

  “Yeah,” he says, smiling knowingly. “I thought so.”

  Fuming, I run back to the machines and hop on a treadmill, setting everything for ten minutes at level 18, the highest. How dare he intimidate me out of the weight room? Am I going to stand for that? Heck no. I pay dues here. I have just as much a right to lift weights there as he does.

  I’m so mad, I don’t even notice that I am running up hill and that my heart is racing. When my ten minutes are up, I hop off and make a beeline straight to where the big boys are.

  “Look who’s back,” Rider says.

  I smile, feeling curiously lightheaded, and choose my weapon. A long bar lying on a mat. That should be easy enough.

  Sauntering over, I dip my hands in chalk, rubbing my palms as Rider and company look on. “Dead lifts,” I say. “Twenty-five.”

  Rider smirks. “I’ll bet ten bucks you can’t do ten.”

  “You’re on.”

  “As is?”

  I eye the plain, rather light-looking bar, which couldn’t weigh more than a curtain rod. “As is.”

  “Shit,” says his buddy. “She can’t do that.”

  “Then she’s out ten bucks.”

  I walk over, stretch, bend, grasp the bar firmly, and lift.

  For some reason it doesn’t move. Is it tied down? I check the ends. No. They seem to be free. Rider is shaking his head. “She can’t even do one.”

  Locking my knees, setting my jaw, I try again. This time I have more success as I slowly lift the bar, the muscles in the part of my arm that prevent me from ever wearing a strapless dress fraying as I do so.

  “That’s one,” counts Rider. “Nine more to go.”

  Carefully I lower the bar, the thought of raising it again, not to mention nine more times, making me vaguely ill.

  My arms cry out again as I go for two. A small crowd has gathered behind me. I grit my teeth and do it again.

  “Three,” Rider says.

  I can’t. I cannot do it for ten. I had no idea this thing was so heavy.

  “Just keep your legs straight, Nola. Bend from the hips.”

  Nola? Someone said my name. I check the mirror and see that in the middle of the crowd is the heart-stopping reflection of a tall surfer type in a ripped gray T-shirt and unbelievably sexy shorts. Chip.

  “That’s it,” he says. “You can do it.”

  This is both good and bad. On the one hand he’s cheering on my dead lifts. On the other hand . . . my fat ass is sticking out like a full moon over the Chesapeake. Please, I pray, please may I not be wearing my pink underwear. (Really, I should toss it all.) Then a crisis thought—Do I have plumber’s crack?

  “Whatsa matter? Give up?” taunts Rider.

  OK, this is it. Are you gonna wimp, or are you gonna fight?

  Number four is the hardest yet. I realize that pausing between lifts is a mistake. Maybe I can get away with not dropping the bar to the floor.

  I try this strategy when I go from five to six, but Rider catches me. “Nuh-uh. You got to completely drop the bar, not just lower it. Those are the rules.”

  “How many does she have to do?” I hear Chip ask.

  “Four more,” someone says.

  “Four. That’s easy. You can do it, Nola.” Chip moves next to me, so close I can hear him whisper. “Bend slightly at the knees. They’ll never see.”

  I take his advice and am surprised. No wonder they tell you not to bend at the knees when doing dead lifts. It’s much easier.

  “Eight!” everyone shouts.

  “Two more, Nola. Two more.” Chip pumps his fists.

  Honestly, I wish he’d go away so I could give up. I’d much rather humiliate myself among strangers.

  I lick salty sweat off my lips and will what’s left of my arms to function.

  “Nine!”

  “This is it!” Chip is shouting. “You’re going to do it. Use your thighs.”

  I am. I am going to do it. One more. Just one more. I squeeze my eyes shut. The bar wavers from side to side. Chip steadies one end and I do it.

  “Yeah!”

  I drop the bar with a clank and slowly straighten my aching back. Through blurry vision I see that the small crowd has broken into applause.

  “No fair. She cheated. You helped her,” Rider claims.

  “Be a man,” Chip says, “and pay her the ten bucks.”

  “Keep it,” I say, as black dots dance before my eyes.

  “No way. You earned it.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Chip is going in and out of focus. My sweatpants, I remember, stink. Stink famously. “I have to, I have to go.”

  “Wait.” He follows me out the door as I stagger through the machine room to the exit. “That was awesome. I can’t believe you took him on like that.”

  “Uh-huh.” I am in no shape for conversation. I need to lie down and rest, preferably on a hospital bed with IV fluids.

  He stops me at the women’s room. “You know, I’d really like to see you again. Can I call you?”

  Whatever, I think, unable to grasp how amazing this is that a cute guy, albeit a computer geek, like Chip is writing down my number. I mumble it off and then spin into the locker room, where I head for the sauna and promptly collapse.

  Chapter Ten

  My apartment is a total find.

  The walls are painted a very faint peach with white trim and the floors are dark m
aple throughout. There are two bedrooms; one living room with, yes, a wood-burning fireplace and a pair of built-in bookshelves; a formal dining room separated from a small kitchen by a white Georgian post; and a bathroom with marble floors and a window, which is where Otis reigns, meowing warnings to oblivious male passersby below.

  I would never have been able to afford the $2,000-a-month rent if it hadn’t been for Belinda’s extra income. Belinda made the one bright spot in my life possible. And for that I am indebted to her.

  Otis scrambles off the windowsill to meet me as I enter carrying two bags of groceries, so sore that I can barely climb the stairs. He’s a slick gray cat. Untrustworthy and possibly criminally insane. I’m not sure of this, as I don’t know many kitty psychologists who would be willing to be alone with him in a room to perform a diagnosis.

  What I do know is that in three instances he has leaped from the slate windowsill of the bathroom onto men wearing white T-shirts below. It’s the puma in him. Or the psychopath. Either way, his claws must be deadly, judging from the howls of his victims.

  I open a can of 9Lives and dump it into a dish as he wraps himself around my legs. Fat woman in her thirties with a cat in a pastel apartment. Could I be any more of a stereotype?

  Ouch. My arms. My arms.

  I shower off the gym sweat, the warm water doing wonders for my aching body, smear Bengay everywhere, and change into fresh gray sweats. Then I put water on to boil for whole-wheat spaghetti and give myself five minutes to empty my cupboard of all unhealthy food.

  This is Brian the hunk waiter’s idea, one he will highlight in the infomercial. While he’s not a big advocate of diets, he said he helped his sister by eliminating all junk food from her pantry. I think I can do that—though I’m not sure about returning to the gym to face Rider. I figure I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

  After four minutes I have filled several brown-paper grocery bags with: half a bag of Chips Ahoy! cookies; a jar of peanut butter; half a jar of Nutella; three half-full, somewhat stale bags of Nacho Cheese Doritos; three Snickers bars; movie butter microwave popcorn; a box of good old-fashioned, high-fat granola; and a six-pack of Hires root beer.