Page 6 of The Change
“Yeah.” She hadn’t planned to say any more, but it all came out at once. “I was meditating, and it felt like I generated a ball of fire in my hands. I swear to God, Art, I could literally feel it.”
“Hmmm,” Art mumbled sleepily. “That’s great, honey. But can I be honest with you?”
“Sure,” she said warily.
“That’s the dumbest superpower I’ve ever heard of.”
Jo couldn’t stop laughing while he kissed her, and she didn’t stop until his pants were off and he was inside her. That was one thing about their relationship that kept getting better.
For years, the only gym in Mattauk had been a meat market for the recently divorced and soon to be single, where the women wore thousand-dollar outfits and meticulous contouring while middle-aged men pumped and preened for the mirrors. Jo had driven to a dingy old gym in a neighboring town to avoid the scene. Dressed in ten-dollar Old Navy sweatpants and an army surplus tank top,she would climb on a bike and ride until the rage burned off. There was nothing pretty about it. Back then, she was still managing a hotel in Manhattan. On top of her long hours, she spent an hour at the gym every day after work. Art bitched and moaned a few times until she explained that her workouts had probably saved his life. The more time she spent at the gym, the less likely he was to end up buried in the backyard he never bothered to mow.
As the months passed, Jo began to spot more of her neighbors at the run-down gym. Every one of them was a woman her age. Their choice of equipment varied. Some stuck to the treadmill; others showed an unsettling devotion to a particular elliptical. While they worked out, Jo watched their lips form silent curses and their fists punch the air. She saw them walk in wearing prim professional attire and later head for the showers with crimson faces and hair plastered to the sides of their heads. And Jo realized her fellow women had all driven miles out of their way for the same reason she had. They were blowing off steam before they exploded.
Jo saw an opportunity, and for the first time in her life, she leaped on it before anyone else could snatch it away.
She called her gym Furious Fitness. It took up two stories of an old five-and-dime on Mattauk’s main street and accepted only women as members. Jo hired the two hottest male trainers from the meat market gym to offer private sessions, but her other employees were all female. Even though Art wasn’t allowed in the building during business hours, he had been supportive of the enterprise from the very beginning. She waited until the gym was a success to confess that she’d liquidated her 401(k). Fortunately, it didn’t take long to get the business up and running. Jo knew how to give her clients exactly what they were after—and it wasn’t exercise. Almost all of them wanted things to punch, pound, and kick. Even in the dead of winter, her air-conditioning bill was often higher thanthe rent. The energy released in that one little building could have powered most of Mattauk—or, as Jo sometimes fantasized, burned the whole fucking town down.
Jo was at the front desk when the latest newcomer walked in. She could spot the newbies a mile away. They were almost always in their mid- to late forties, and they all arrived looking lost. No wonder, Jo thought. For decades, they’d been dutifully following the map the world laid out for them. School led to work. Dating led to marriage and then to motherhood. But now those milestones were behind them, and they’d entered uncharted territory. Somewhere in the distance lay the final destination, but that was decades away, and a featureless wasteland seemed to stretch in between. These women, who’d done everything that had ever been asked of them, now felt forsaken. Just when they were reaching the height of their powers, they felt like life had led them astray.
The newcomer approached the counter, where Jo was helping another client. She was wholesome-looking and pretty, with shoulder-length black curls and a large, lovely butt. She wore leggings and a silky pink shirt that would never survive in the wash.
“I’ll be with you in just a minute,” Jo told her, assuming the woman was there for a membership. She usually took newbies under her wing for their first visit. “Have a look around if you like. If I take too long, just go ahead and hop on a machine and knock yourself out.”
“Okay.” The woman smiled shyly, revealing a sweet set of dimples just before she backed away.
Jo kept watch out of the corner of her eye as the woman made her way around the ground floor. She saw her pause at the base of the stairs, glance anxiously toward the second floor, and thenretreat to a treadmill near the entrance. She climbed on and stood with a finger hovering a few inches from the screen.
“Just start walking and the machine will guide you through setup,” Jo called out.
Thank you, the woman mouthed gratefully, as though she’d been spared from great embarrassment. Jo watched until she was walking at a steady clip, then turned her attention back to her other client. By the time she made it over to the newbie, the woman was walking with a limp.
“What happened?” Jo reached over to the control panel and brought the treadmill to a halt. “Did you get hurt? Can I help?”
“Oh no, it’s nothing.” The woman smiled through her agony. “Just a cramp in my calf. Not much you can do.”
Jo knew who she was dealing with. The sweet-tempered stoic was a common type. They’d pass out from pain before they dared complain. “Mind if I try?” Jo asked. “I’ve been told I have magic hands.”
The woman stared at Jo with such intensity that Jo wondered if she was attempting to read her mind. “Okay,” she finally said, and sat down at the end of the machine.
Jo gripped the woman’s calf between her hands and let her palms grow hot.
The woman’s eyes widened. “You weren’t joking. How do you do that?”
Jo winked at her. “I channel my hot flashes. Dunno about you, but when I get one, I swear I could poach an egg in my fist.”
The woman laughed. “I was spared the hot flashes. I got the weight gain instead. Believe it or not, I used to be an itty-bitty thing.”
“Didn’t we all,” Jo said. “Don’t know about you, but I like taking up more space. I’m Jo Levison, by the way.”
“Nessa James,” the woman replied, grimacing as Jo honed in on the source of her pain.
“You get cramps like this often, Nessa?”
“I’ve never worked out before,” Nessa confessed.
Jo never laughed at anything her clients told her. She knew that for many of them, Furious Fitness was one of the few places where they were always taken seriously. “Well, that explains it. Why’d you decide to start today?”
“I didn’t. I mean, not really. I get these impulses sometimes, and today I ended up here.” Nessa threw up her hands as if to suggest she was quirky, not crazy. “I’m glad I did, though. Last time I saw the doctor, he told me I needed to get more exercise because he said I’m—” She cleared her throat to make room for the word that came next. “Overweight.”
