Page 107 of Bewitch

She doesn’t really move any.

“Lower,” I say. “Try to tap my hand.”

“Okay…”

I hold my hand to just below where she would need to go for parallel.

“Where the hell is your hand?” she mutters. “On the floor?”

I chuckle. “Go ahead and try.”

She drops down faster than I thought she could, and she touches my hand.

“Go up,” I tell her.

She tries and stumbles back and then just kinda stand, not really in form.

“You have to try to move slowly and in control,” I say.

“It’s not easy,” she mumbles. “What in the world? I’m not even using weights!”

“Don’t worry about weights. They’ll come later. For now, just get used to squatting.”

She listens well enough, and we move onto lunges of all kinds—regular, side, and curtsey. I have to admit that the curtsey is one of my favorite moves now.

“Now what?” she asks. “Are we done?”

“No, no nearly. We need to work on your calves.”

“My calves?”

“I’m sure those are strong,” I tell her. “Do you wear a lot of heels?”

“Not really,” she says. “I’m dating a guy who is two inches shorter than I am, and it makes him self-conscious.”

“Before him?”

“I wore them all the time.”

I make a face. He should not be projecting his insecurity onto her, but we aren’t friends, and I’m not going to judge.

“Here.” I grab a fifteen-pound weight and show her the move, making sure to pause at the height of the move, going up onto my toes. “Slow and control. Pause at the top.”

She goes to start, but I shake my head.

“You can use weight for this.”

She nods and grabs a five.

“Want to see who can do more reps?” I ask. “Be sure to count. You have to do the same number of reps on the other leg.”

“No way.”

“But you have five pounds compared to my fifteen.”

“Oh, all right.”

We go for it. I can out-rep her, but she does really well, and she doesn’t speed up at the end, which makes me even happier.

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