by Abby Sher
booty camp 101
There was a pocket of time in my life when the Eagle Brook Mall represented freedom and hope. Zoe and I had to be eleven before we were allowed to roam there unchaperoned, and even then, it was just for two hours while one of our moms hid on another floor trying on sunglasses or eating salads by the indoor waterfall. The mall was obscenely big and constantly being expanded. Zoe and I used to save up all our allowance to go there and get cotton candy–flavored lip gloss, beaded headbands, bedazzled mirrors, and invisible-ink pens. I even lost a tooth at the Popcorn Hut and Zoe got her period for the first time at the movie theater in the basement.
I knew some people from our high school still came here a lot. There were rumors that Brendan Montague was caught sniffing glue in the parking lot elevator and Nikki DeFelice had gotten felt up in the photo booth. But the last time I’d come here was at least three years ago. Stepping into the mall this afternoon was a little like falling into a vat of scented candle wax. There were a lot of nail salons promising cuticle renewal. Also, a kids’ designer clothing boutique and a lingerie shop called Adult Secrets. The top two floors were now the recently opened gym/spa/way of life called Primally Fit. This was where Zoe and I had agreed to meet before our sleepover.
Once through the revolving doors, I was greeted by a seven-foot-tall pillar of muscle whose name tag read KARLA.
“Welcome to Primally Fit! Do you want to take control of your body and your life because if you do there’s a new member special going on for two more weeks it’s so awesome I swear it changed my life and I mean that!”
Karla had no time for punctuation or inflection. She didn’t even wait for me to answer her before accosting the next person through the revolving door behind me. Lucky for me, there were five more Amazonian specimens behind the front desk waiting to pounce. I heard about how Primally Fit was founded by a destitute diabetic who started with sugarless gum and jumping jacks and now lived in Bel Air and managed fifteen franchises worldwide. Also how Primally Fit instructors were each groomed and indoctrinated by other certified Primally Fit instructors. And I was told again about that special for new members, which was going on for two more weeks and would totally change my life.
“Sorry, I’m here to meet a friend. She’s in a class called Boot Camp?”
“Boot Camp?” one of the women said.
“Boot Camp…” Another got busy looking it up on a computer.
“Do you mean Bernardo’s Total Body and Booty Camp?” chimed in Karla.
Everyone behind the desk started wiggling their hips and cheering. “Booty camp! Booty camp! Booty booty booty camp!”
“I think that class already started.”
“Yeah, didn’t it start like a half hour ago?”
“He will not let people come in late.”
“I’m not actually taking the class,” I started to explain. Then I realized the women were talking to one another, not to me. So I murmured, “Thanks,” and started wandering toward the other end of the room.
Or I thought it was the other end of the room. In fact, it took me almost fifteen minutes to locate Zoe in this aerobics metropolis—the gym was so sprawling that I wandered through a day-care corner, a juice bar, a salon, and a small gift shop before locating the Booty Camp Training Center.
“Really?!” a man I had to assume was Bernardo screamed into his headset. “That’s all you can give me? I do not believe you, ladies. This is not okay!” There were only a half dozen women still upright in the Booty Camp 101 class—including Alli and Zoe, of course. The rest of the group was bent over, tucking heads between knees or chugging water.
“You want that perfect booty, don’t you?” Bernardo taunted. “How bad you want it? How bad? So bad it’s good, right? So good it’s baaaaad. Am I right?” Turning up the incessant techno beats. “Who’s gonna be my booty queen, huh?” He caught me staring and gave me a smarmy wink. Then whipped his head back to face the class and bellowed, “Twenty burpees, on my count. Go!” He catapulted himself back onto the little stage at the front of the studio and started squatting and thrusting and push-upping with groans. Nobody could keep up with him now. I felt dizzy just watching.
“I swear just five minutes left,” Zoe gasped at me, her eyes still focused only on Bernardo. I was seriously tempted to go hide in the pit of brightly colored plastic balls and suck my thumb with all the toddlers who’d been abandoned for a good sweat. Even with their wailing, it seemed much more soothing than listening to Bernardo berate these exhausted women. As the music got more and more frenetic, so did the class. Ab-crunching and mountain-climbing so ferociously, it sounded like a roomful of feral squirrels fighting. Bernardo stepped over their bodies slowly, snarling as he looked at himself in the wall of mirrors.
“C’mon! You want results? You want to see change in this world? Stop wasting my time and show me your—”
I had never been so grateful for the sound of an egg timer going off.
“And tiiiiiiiime,” Bernardo announced. There were a few weak hoots and some pitiful applause from the sidelines. Whoever was left on the floor collapsed gratefully onto a gym mat. Bernardo was miraculously transformed into a gentleman, smiling delicately.
“Nice work today, everyone. Really impressive,” he said, striding around the room like a peacock—reaching out an arm here and there to help people up. When he lifted up Alli, they came nose to nose.
“Really nice,” he said into her sweaty hair. She was still breathing too quickly to make real words, but when he offered to buy everyone a watermelon-flaxseed shot at the juice bar, she nodded vigorously and tripped after him. Zoe grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the gaggle of spent women.
“Ridonkulous, right?” she said. I could see her pulse throbbing in her neck. “You have to try it one day though. C’mon! Let me give you a tour of this place.”
She showed me around the gym as if it were her second home, pointing out the different trainers and state-of-the-art elliptical machines that could simulate unpaved roads and overgrown marsh. I had no idea how that could be desirable, but Zoe said it was what all the professional marathoners used. There were classes in Zumba, kickboxing, Zumba-boxing, and archery. Also, three racquetball courts, a steam room, a sauna, and a sideways shower that Zoe called “orgasmic.”
“Kinda nuts, but kinda cool, right?” Zoe asked.
“Sure,” I answered, following her back out into another nautilus machine torture chamber. This place gave me the heebies. No matter what they painted on these walls, everything in the entire gym felt overexposed and frantic. There were so many sinewy bodies sauntering by. So many hungry eyes and sunken cheeks. Tracking each other’s form. Stepping on scales. Huffing and puffing, practically in unison.
Alli waved us over to the juice bar to officially meet Bernardo. She slammed me into her in a forceful, smelly embrace.
“So glad you could make it,” she rasped at me. “Did Zoe tell you about Bernardo coming here from Portugal on a dancing scholarship and working with Beyoncé?”
I nodded even though Alli’s gaze was fixed on Bernardo the whole time. And possibly shooting eye lasers at the clutch of ladies still surrounding him.
“What? You do not introduce me?” Bernardo said, pulling on Zoe’s ponytail so sharply that her neck jerked backward. “Let me guess—this is your twin sister?” He and Alli both laughed at how preposterous that sounded.
“This is Hannah, my best friend in the whole world,” Zoe said. She tucked a clump of hair behind my ear and rested her head on my shoulder. “She really is the best. And the sweetest. And the realest and kindest. Hannah banana, I don’t deserve you.”
Bernardo nodded in agreement as we just stood there, being ogled. “This is very lovely,” he told us. “Yes, you know. The women. They are who make us. Am I right?”
Yes!
Woo-hoo!
Oh Bernardo!
The flushed female chorus around him cheered like he’d just validated or maybe invented our gender. Bernardo
was pleased.
“Hannaba Nana,” he told me. “Please come for a free trial class anytime. I can get you passes to the sauna too.”
“Bernardo!” Alli said, swatting at his hairy forearm. As if talking to me about this promotion made him a naughty boy. “It’s a far infrared sauna,” she explained to me, still catching her breath.
“Wow,” I said. Because somewhere, somehow, someone must’ve been impressed by that detail. I also didn’t want to invite any explanations about why I should be amazed. Bernardo gave me another penetrating look and then Zoe told her mom that we would be sauna-ing and showering if anyone needed us.
I didn’t last very long in the acclaimed far infrared sauna. Probably too far or infrared for my composition. Plus, the whole time we were in there, I couldn’t see past my fingertips and I felt like I was breathing in pine-scented car exhaust.
“Sorry. A little. Too. Dry,” I panted.
“No prob. Meet you by the lockers. Don’t forget to try the sideways shower!” Zoe said as I hurled myself out of the hot box.
My left armpit and hip were thoroughly pleased by the sideways shower. The rest of me was just confused. It took me twice as long to rinse myself off and I was pretty sure my left eardrum was power washed by the time I escaped. Still, I got dressed, swished some complimentary mouthwash, and studied a large bulletin board with colorful flyers boasting courses like Self-Acceptance and Teeth Whitening, Know Your Boundaries, and my favorite: Who Are You if Not You?
“Didn’t you love it?” Zoe gushed as she emerged from a cloud of eucalyptus. Then she squinted a little. “Ooh, is that what you’re wearing?”
“That was the plan,” I answered. I had decided on my favorite batik pants with elephants marching on them and my Unicorns Fart Rainbows T-shirt. Which to me equaled fancy.
“Awesome,” Zoe said quickly. She pulled her towel around her even tighter. “You know, this is why I love you so much, Hank. Because you don’t give a shit or get all hung up on what’s cool. You’re so awesome. And so much wiser and smarter and realer than anyone else I know. I just wish I had a smidge of your balls.”
I felt her words slap the wet tiles but didn’t know how to react.
“Balls,” I repeated out of habit.
Zoe smiled, trying to remember what the rule about balls was. “Jinx!” she squeaked.
“No, just balls,” I told her.
“I say ‘balls’?”
“You said it, then I say it.”
“Then I say it again?”
“Never mind,” I told her.
“No, I want to get it right. Please?” Zoe whined.
“Just—balls.”
“Okay, balls,” she repeated. I gave her the thumbs-up, primarily so we could move on.
“Did you see the ridonkulous number of hair products by the sink? You have to try some,” she urged.
I knew she was genuinely excited by cosmetics, but I also sensed that she was trying to get me out of the locker room while she undressed.
If I was brave, I would have stayed planted there so Zoe would have been forced to show me her body again—this time the full thing. So she couldn’t hide anymore, and I couldn’t hide anymore, and the truth could set us free.
But instead I wandered over to the bank of sinks and squirted about eight different gels and foams into my hand. I smeared so many different textures into my hair, it looked like shellac. Then I tried rinsing it out in one of the sinks and flipping it upside down to embrace its chaotic waves.
“Where’d you get those curls?” asked an older woman behind me. Before I could answer, she told me wistfully, “I used to have curls like that.” She was combing back her short salt-and-pepper tufts and she had a white towel fastened around her ribs. Her dark breasts were bare, dangling like heavy brown coins. Daring me to gape.
“You can have them,” I suggested sheepishly. I hated my hair, but I felt like she’d lost her curls to some cruel robber or disease.
“Bless your heart,” the woman said with a quiet chuckle. Then her voice dropped an octave as she noticed Zoe come in. “Oh dear,” the woman muttered, shaking her head and sucking her lips into a tight line.
I wasn’t sure exactly what the woman was reacting to, but Zoe was definitely a sight. She was in the polka-dotted shorts with black tights underneath; a sheer pink tank top over a black bra underneath, and black lace-up boots with hot-pink laces. There were patches of glittery body gel on her cheeks and shoulders and she wore neon-pink lipstick. Basically, she looked like a misguided meteor. Plunking down a bag filled with shimmery eyeshadows, she said, “Still have to do the rest of the face. I’m not a natural beauty like you.”
I just glared at her because there was no way anyone would ever honestly call me a natural beauty, and I didn’t know whether it was the lights in there or the eucalyptus stimulation, but even Zoe’s face looked watery and frail. Her arms hung out of her top like limp toothpicks. And was that foundation smoothed onto the “cat scratches” on her biceps?
Zoe fished through her eyeliners and pulled over a stool so she’d be tall enough to work on me. “I’m gonna give us both purple whiskers and a pink nose. Is that okay?”
I just shrugged. Because I still hadn’t found a way to say no.
“What are you doing, honey?” the bare-chested woman asked.
“Oh. It’s for a silly video we’re making,” Zoe told her. “We’re supposed to be cats.”
“No,” the woman said, shuffling closer. She scanned Zoe’s body in the mirror. Her face working its way into a steady, grim stare. “What are you doing?”
“What? Who, me?” Zoe replied.
“Yes. You.” She caught Zoe’s eyes in the mirror and wouldn’t let go. “What are you doing to your poor body?”
Zoe’s smile started drooping, and I could see her nostrils quivering.
“You come in here how many times now?” the woman continued. “All jumpy and bouncy and running from your own shadow. You’re wearing yourself ragged.”
“I like to … exercise,” Zoe told her in a quivery voice.
“I know you do,” the woman shot back. Then she softened her voice a bit and tried again. “I know you do. But you can’t keep going like this. You know that? You need to put some fuel in your body.”
Zoe nodded her head at the woman and said, “Thank you. I’ll do that.” All the while rolling her eyes for me.
The woman caught her mid–eye roll and clucked her tongue.
“You can mock me, young lady. But it’s true.”
“No, I wasn’t mocking,” Zoe insisted.
“You need a hot meal. You need to stop this nonsense.”
“Okay, I will.” Zoe sounded like she was pleading for the woman to stop now.
But the woman wasn’t done. “Because this is not pretty,” she told Zoe. Then, in case I hadn’t paid attention yet, she turned around and said it to my face. “This is not pretty at all.”
“We’re going to eat something right after this,” I told her. I just wanted her to stop glaring at us.
“A really big meal,” Zoe chimed in merrily. She stepped in front of the mirror and started painting my face. So I couldn’t see the woman’s reaction.
I could only hear her heave a sigh and walk away.
Hey, Hank! I know you like math.
So I wrote you a word problem:
The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders says that at least 30 million people in America have anorexia nervosa, bulimia, or other fun eating disorders.
According to the American Journal of Public Health, about 1 in 4 adolescents participate in nonsuicidal self-injury.
If 30 million anorexic people (cuz we don’t take up that much room) are traveling south on a train going 85 miles per hour, and 1/3 as many are cutting themselves while traveling north at 73 miles per hour, when will they collide, how many will have suicidal ideation, and will anyone actually care?
CHAPTER 13
this much
/> “Please, everyone, won’t you give Zoe your attention?” yelped James Hartwick III.
If life was hard for pitiful ol’ me, it must have been triply hard for James. He and his twin sister, Amelia, were British transplants, and their parents were both brilliant anthropologists who were constantly flying overseas to give lectures or offer the newest data to the United Nations. James was in a lot of my classes and was constantly staying after the bell to check in with our teachers and make sure he was living up to his potential. James took himself and his potential a little too seriously. At seventeen, he already looked a little stooped over from the weight of it all. He wore thick bifocals and wrung his hands a lot too.
Amelia, on the other hand, lived life on her tiptoes. Bouncing through the halls at school and always finding a reason to shriek gleefully. Zoe told me that Amelia could run a six-minute mile if she wanted, but she was usually too busy gossiping at practice or planning her next party. If her parents were going to stick them in this huge echoey house and have a nanny feed them soup when they had colds, then Amelia was determined to get what she was due as a teenager. And that meant, when her parents were away, she invited everyone she knew and strung up Christmas lights in zigzags around the basement. She also told Zoe that she was determined to lose her virginity in her parents’ bed, which made me shudder.
Despite Amelia’s best intentions though, the Hartwick parties usually stayed pretty tame. Just a mess of horny careless teenagers trying to get drunk. James greeted everyone at the door, nodding in his bashful way. He always looked shocked when people remembered his name. There was a pool table, a wraparound leather couch where people made out or played video games or both, and a pinball machine that got jammed or tilted. I could never find a place to sit or stand, so I was part of the wandering crew. Awkwardly moving from corner to corner, complaining about how lame our lives were and how our lives got lamer every year and it was all the fault of our lame parents who had punished us with their genes of lame-itude.
