Part 3 (1/2)

Sarah laughed. ”I do! I can't stand them. They cry and whine and p.o.o.p their pants. My body is going to get so big, and it will take twice as long at my age to get it back to where it was. Trust me, this was not planned. I've been training for the Ironman for the past six months!”

”Is Aldo excited?” Alexis asked slowly. She was so surprised, her voice was almost a whisper. In the years she'd been working out with Sarah, this was something she'd never considered. That she would be left high and dry by her trainer, whom she paid exorbitant amounts of money to, money she barely had.

Sarah turned to her, taking one of her hands in her own, which surprised Alexis yet again. Neither woman was very touchy-feely. ”He is so f.u.c.king thrilled it's not even funny.” Her face broke out into a smile. She had dimples on both cheeks. ”He keeps running around the apartment shouting that he can't believe he knocked me up at forty. You know Latin men. So proud of their d.i.c.ks.”

Alexis swallowed. ”Well, if you're happy, then I'm happy for you, Sarah.” She mustered up a small smile. ”Congratulations!”

”Thank you, Alexis. And don't worry. I'm not going to work out alongside you as much, but we can continue our appointments. I'll be more like a traditional trainer; a coach. I'm only three months along, and I plan on working up until I deliver, you know me.”

”Yeah, you're tough,” Alexis told her lightly, but inside she felt utter panic. Her life was going to change. Sarah was her mentor-she didn't want to work out with anyone else. She wasn't a particularly social person, and couldn't see meeting with another trainer, male or female. Oh, why did people have to grow up and get married and have f.u.c.king babies? All this did was ruin things. Babies were financial burdens, they caused friction between husband and wife, and they were bottomless money pits.

Alexis thrived on routine. From the time her alarm sounded while the sky was still dark to when she closed her laptop at five o'clock in the evening, every day was exactly the same. That's how she liked it. She was disciplined and a hard worker. She had no patience for anyone who didn't have the same values. How could Sarah, who had worked so hard for so many years to build her business, gathering a clientele and reputation as a kick-a.s.s trainer, give it all up for a baby? How could someone so much like herself be looking at Alexis now with starry eyes, a red flush of excitement across her cheeks? How could she have gotten herself pregnant? Surely by forty a woman had control over her reproduction! A baby would ruin everything.

After their two-hour workout ended, Alexis again congratulated Sarah, and confirmed their Wednesday appointment.

”I have a doctor's appointment that morning, but I could do ten?” Sarah asked casually.

Alexis's hand flew to her cheek. She felt like the sailor Billy had smacked. She'd seen Sarah three times a week for three years straight, always Monday, Wednesday, Friday, always at five-thirty in the morning. Neither woman had missed a day, and now this thing, this parasite, was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her entire world. Once, Alexis had all four wisdom teeth pulled on a Tuesday afternoon, and was working out the following morning, high as a kite on Percocet.

Seeing her client clearly distressed, Sarah quickly said, ”You can write the blog later in the day, right?”

”No, not really,” Alexis said. She stopped pedaling. ”I write from nine to three every day, Monday through Friday. It's not as easy for me to change my schedule as you might think.” Just thinking about Skinny Chick made her want to rush home to see what the reaction in the blogosphere was to her wedding-day post. If only her readers knew how far away from getting a ring on her finger (or wanting one) Alexis was. It amused her-who was she to dole out wedding advice?

Sarah sighed. ”Well, I guess I could change my appointment to another day, but this doctor is really famous and hard to get a time slot with...”

”Great!” Alexis said brightly. ”So I'll see you Wednesday as usual.”

She ignored the widening of Sarah's eyes and walked to the locker room. Alexis knew she was being awful but was unable to stop herself. This happened all the time, the overwhelming need to get what she wanted, the thrill of prevailing, and then the crash-and-burn feeling of recognizing there was a reason she had only one friend in the whole world, no boyfriend, no family she was close to: she was unbearable.

And yet, that line that most people wouldn't cross, Alexis always did. She'd played softball in high school, a fact that amused Billy. (He'd once tried on her old uniform, prancing around their apartment. It had fit him better than it had her.) She'd been skilled as pitcher, one of the best in her town, and her mojo was f.u.c.king with the head of each batter. Alexis got a reputation for changing up her speed more times than any other pitcher in the league. She enjoyed watching her opponents squirm. She loved winning. That feeling never dissipated.

She knew Sarah was loyal to her and the closest thing to a female friend she had, and yet ... she still wanted her to provide the same service, which was to be her trainer three times a week, at the scheduled time. Why should her routine have to get screwed up just because Sarah couldn't remember to take her birth control pill?

As she flung her workout bra and shorts on the organic bamboo bench beside the shower and stepped under the water, she suddenly heard loud, heaving noises and looked around for their source, only to realize they were coming from her, that she, Alexis Allbright, was crying, for f.u.c.k's sake. Because her personal trainer was pregnant. She laughed as she lathered her hair with the Aveda shampoo provided by the gym. She scrubbed so hard her scalp would be bright red the next day. How ridiculous! This was a happy time for Sarah, she'd been her loyal trainer for years, never canceled a single appointment, had kept Alexis in fabulous shape ... but Alexis knew that if Sarah was trying to change her regular appointment today, it wouldn't be the last time. For the next six months things would change a lot, and Alexis didn't like change. She was successful exactly because of her strict adherence to her schedule.

Her readers logged on to Skinny Chick as soon as they got into work, and she didn't get up to three million clicks a day without being uber-disciplined. She stood under the scalding water until her shoulders were fire-engine red, turned off the faucet, and dried off.

On her way to the exit, she saw a bright yellow laminated sign perched on the front check-in desk. She walked over to have a closer look. ”Looking good, baby, looking good,” Carlos called out to her.

”Thanks, Carlos!” She picked up the poster. ”What's this event?”

”Oh, that's actually going to be pretty dope. Sarah and I are both going. A chef, Noah Cohen, is going to give a simple, healthy cooking lesson. He worked at a few New York establishments, n.o.bu, Gramercy Tavern. In his bio it says he's from Colorado and makes a mean chili.”

Alexis fingered the poster, looking at the photo of Noah. He was tall, with coffee-colored skin, and the picture highlighted his soft bed of dark brown curls with sunny blond tips. His sleeves were rolled up and thick, sculpted muscle peeked through, a vein bulging in his arm like the David statue. His eyes were his best feature, a brown like melting chocolate, and mischievous, like he would be the first guy at a party to do a keg stand. His ears stuck out slightly from the sides of his head and this tiny imperfection made him seem even more personable. He had a shadow of a beard across his square chin and mouth, a hint of goatee. He had a dimple in his right cheek. He reminded Alexis of the skater guys from high school who would annoy her by performing noisy, messy tricks outside the window while she was studying in the library.

Alexis found herself hoping his blond highlights were natural, as she didn't find men who dyed their hair very masculine, and then wondered why she cared what this particular man did with his hair. In the picture, he was wearing a traditional white chef's attire, open at the throat and showing a gold Jewish star peeking through. He had large hands and a huge grin that stretched across his whole face, like Mick Jagger's. She wondered how he could be both black and Jewish (he must be, with the last name Cohen?), then remembered Sammy Davis, Jr., was black. And Jewish. And why on earth was she standing here trying to figure out this man's heritage when she had a column to write?

Carlos took the flyer out of Alexis's hands slowly. ”Ha! You've got the hots for him already! This guy is a lady-killer. Like, thirty women have already signed up for this cla.s.s. It's the most we've ever gotten for one of our special cooking series. I think he looks like one of those Calvin Klein models that have that billboard on Ca.n.a.l, you know, the ones in their underpants that everyone gets all worked up about?”

She rolled her eyes. ”I do not have the hots for him, I don't even know him,” Alexis said, putting on her coat. ”If he has good ideas about nutrition I could use him on the blog, that's all.” Really! Carlos was so immature sometimes.

”Sure, sure. Well, it will be good to see you there,” Carlos said. ”It's next month, so you might want to sign up now because there's only two spots left.”

”No problem. I'll just pay now,” Alexis said. ”How much is it?”

”Fifty bucks,” Carlos said.

Alexis swallowed. She only had a hundred dollars left in her bank account. She was due checks from advertisers on Skinny Chick, but so far they were behind on payment. Since the recession, checks were arriving in the mail slower and slower. She made a note on her iPhone to call around to her various advertisers when she got home, and signed up for the course. Since it was related to her blog, she could probably write it off come tax season.

”Can you take a check?” she asked Carlos, who was greeting people as they hustled in, carrying gym bags and flas.h.i.+ng IDs at him.

”For you, doll? Anything.”

Alexis reached into her Chanel bag she had on loan for five more days from the Web site Beg, Borrow, Steal. She carefully wrote out the check, dating it for a week from now, when she'd hopefully have more dough, hoping Carlos wouldn't notice. He didn't.

”See you in cla.s.s,” he sang after her, as she pushed through the revolving front door of the gym.

”Namaste,” she called back jokingly, her head spinning with Sarah's news and the fact that she'd just signed up for her first cooking cla.s.s ever, and one she really couldn't afford. But really, all she could think about was Noah's deep, warm brown eyes. She suddenly had to meet him. She was filled with excitement about a total stranger. What did that say about her?

The day was definitely not going as scheduled.

Fat and Fabulous.

PEDICURE BEFORE FOOD.

Okay, so I know my job is to talk about food, and how important it is to eat it. And believe me, I eat frickin' plenty. But if someone threatened me with an imminent Indian burn on my arm unless I chose between pedicures and food, I'd starve. May we discuss? Oh, how do I describe the warm flow of love that moves up from my toes to my heart while my feet are being scrubbed, washed, lavished with lotion, and pampered? We all like to pretend to be queen for a day (at least I do) and sitting there on that pedicure chair, well, one might just mistake me for royalty atop my golden plastic throne.

For those thirty minutes of heaven, it doesn't matter that I wear a size sixteen. Sure, I'm in public, but it's a different kind of public in the nail salon. It's all women, and believe me, no one is looking at how wide my a.s.s is or how big my b.o.o.bs are (and you all know from reading this column that they're gigantic!) when there's free issues of Us Weekly to pore over and important decisions to make such as how hot one likes their water temperature or choosing between Bikini Strap pink or Meet Me at Sunset red. I pick crazy colors: purples, hot pinks, blues, and greens. Because when you're fat with a capital F you stand out anyway, so who cares if you have wild toes?

I used to not like myself very much, and you all have heard about my struggles with depression. For so long in my teens and early twenties I denied myself the pleasures of getting a pedi because I thought, Shoshana, you are so fat you don't deserve this. That's for other girls, skinnier girls. Well, today I'm taking a stand. Or a seat, if you will. What you weigh does not determine your quality of life. If you want to have happy feet, you get happy feet!

This theory works for bigger pleasures as well. Can't fit into Theory jeans? So what? You still can take that vacation, drink that fine wine, buy that second home. Hedonism rules! So what if you're Fat? It's the good F-word. Say it loud and say it proud. Now close that laptop and go out there and get a pedicure!

XO,.

Shosh.

Shoshana's alarm clock went off early Thursday afternoon. In response, she chucked a pink ballet flat at it that had mysteriously ended up on the pillow next to her head. One of a set she'd bought just last week at Target, it was part of her attempt to look more grown-up, because she had to meet with advertisers in the city later in the week, and because of her look, which she liked to describe as ”Stevie Nicks meets a fairy in the woods.” The shoe bounced off the alarm, hitting the b.u.t.ton for the radio, and the sounds of Adele came streaming out.

”I love you, Adele, but shut up!” Shoshana yelled. ”It's the break of dawn!”

”It's noon,” Andrea said, laughter in her voice, as she came into Shoshana's room and plunked her pet.i.te body down on the bed. ”You are so not a morning person, Shosh; it's hilarious.”

”In another part of the world it's much earlier,” Shoshana moaned.

”I brought you a cup of coffee,” Andrea said. The mug read DON'T ANNOY THE WRITER. SHE MAY PUT YOU IN A BOOK AND KILL YOU. It was a present from Shoshana's father, who had salvaged it at a yard sale. (Her parents were suckers for a good yard sale. They'd been tickled with delight when they learned such an event held in Hoboken was called a ”gate sale,” given the lack of yards in the city.) ”Okay, now I'm suspicious,” Shoshana said. She sat up in bed and took a sip. She licked her lips. ”Suspicious, but now in ecstasy.”

”Can't I just be a good friend and bring you a cup of joe to be nice?” Andrea asked, fluttering her eyelashes.