Part 2 (2/2)
She considered the building's other possibilities. It was too wet for the pool deck on the eighth floor, where she sometimes took the girls to run around and blow off steam. The clubroom that overlooked the pool was only open for specific activities, but the fitness center was right across from it. She'd seen the equipment when they'd first toured the building, sworn to use it, and had never gone back.
Exercise would be positive. If she did enough of it, maybe some of those endorphins she'd read about and never actually experienced would kick in and make her feel better. She looked down. She was wearing expensive workout clothes.
Before she talked herself out of it, she gathered her keys and headed for the door. Thirty minutes. The Realtor had told them that the equipment was state of the art and extremely user-friendly. So simple, she'd claimed, that even a child could program it. She'd get on a treadmill or an elliptical machine, put it on low speed, and exercise for thirty minutes. She could do anything for thirty minutes, right?
SAMANTHA LAY IN BED LISTENING TO THE STEADY patter of rain falling on the balcony outside her bedroom. She should've been in the middle of her morning workout right now, but Michael had called thirty minutes before he was due, his voice so nasal from a cold that it took awhile to decipher who it was. Before he'd hung up, he'd made her promise that she'd do the workout on her own or at least do cardio. Instead she'd lain here for almost an hour listening to the rain and contemplating what it might feel like to do that for the rest of the morning. Maybe she'd even download a book and lie here reading it just for the pure pleasure of it.
She smiled as she imagined her mother-in-law's shock and horror at such slothful thinking. Then she pictured her husband boarding the seven a.m. flight for Los Angeles, working all day, taking clients out for dinner. Her smile dimmed. Jonathan could have easily afforded to work half as hard as he did or not at all, but he was no dilettante. Vacations were carefully planned and scheduled; even weekends or holidays at the lake house were fit in around his client's needs; a work ethic far more rea.s.suring than her father's all-consuming pa.s.sion for money and position and her brother's schemes and plans, few of which involved any actual work at all.
Her ”job” as his wife did not include lying around in bed reading regardless of the weather or the health of her personal trainer.
Dutifully rallied, she threw off the covers and put on the workout clothes she left folded on the chaise longue near her side of the bed. Then she washed her face, brushed her teeth, and pulled her hair up off her face. A quick gla.s.s of orange juice and she was on her way down to the eighth-floor fitness room, which was always empty.
She spotted the chubby red-haired woman through the plate-gla.s.s wall as she rounded the corner. Biting back a groan, Samantha entered the gla.s.sed and mirrored s.p.a.ce and moved toward the vacant elliptical machine next to the one the other woman occupied.
The big-screen TV on the wall in front of the machines wasn't on. Samantha cut her eyes to the other woman whose head was bent over the control board. Samantha couldn't tell if she was studying the digital readout or praying. Her feet were in the footpads, her legs frozen as if in midstep. Her workout clothes looked both new and expensive, but they stretched across her rear and back a little more tightly than they should. She'd seen her in the building before-the last time in the lobby with a dog and two little girls.
”Do you mind if I turn on the TV?” Samantha asked.
The woman shook her head, but she didn't look up. ”No.” Her voice caught on the word.
Samantha put on the TV and skimmed through the channels finally settling on the Today show. Telling herself she didn't know this woman and shouldn't pry, she got on the elliptical and began to answer the questions that flashed on the digital screen. She committed to forty minutes, plus the automatic five-minute cooldown. But then came the annoying weight query. Did the machine really need to know how much she weighed? Irritated she punched in her weight-or at least a close approximation. Then it asked for her age.
”Good grief!” She spent a long moment picturing the skinny little geek who'd come up with the mathematical equations that required such personal information. If she could have figured out how, she would have told the machine to go screw itself, but there didn't seem to be a place to input that.
Would it make a significant difference if she put in forty-six, which she'd only recently said good-bye to? She'd just decided that a year couldn't possibly make a significant difference in the number of calories burned, when she heard what sounded like a sob from the next machine.
Samantha got her legs moving in that odd walking/climbing motion then turned toward the red-haired woman. ”Are you all right?”
”I can't figure out how to make it start.” The woman's voice was heavy with choked-back tears.
”Are you sure you want to?” Samantha asked gently.
The woman looked up and met Samantha's eyes. Her whole face looked tight from the effort of holding in the tears that s.h.i.+mmered in her eyes. ”No. But as you can see I clearly need to.”
Samantha kept her legs moving. ”Whether you work out is definitely not my business,” Samantha said carefully. ”I mean, I'm not the Jehovah's Witness of exercise or anything. I'm not even sure I want to be here.”
”Sorry.” The woman averted her eyes. ”It's probably better if I go so that you can exercise in peace.” She aimed her gaze somewhere over Samantha's left shoulder as she spoke. ”I just thought it might make me feel better. You know, if I could dredge up a few endorphins or something.” There was another half sob. A look of horror spread over the woman's broad freckled face. ”Oh, G.o.d. I'm sorry. I can't believe I'm crying in front of someone like you.”
Samantha blinked.
”Oh, s.h.i.+t. That's not what I meant to say.”
Samantha braced, hoping the woman wasn't going to keep at it until she said whatever other insulting thing she'd actually meant. She hadn't even done five minutes yet and she didn't see how she could just leave the woman here alone when she was so upset. She'd never read of a suicide by elliptical, but that didn't mean there'd never been one.
”Don't worry about it,” she said as casually as she could, turning her gaze to the television. Pedaling, she tried to focus on the screen, but the feminine hygiene commercials were no match for the crying woman still standing immobile on the next machine.
”People like you are one of the main reasons people like me don't exercise,” the woman said.
”I beg your pardon?” Samantha said.
”Oh, G.o.d. I didn't mean to say that, either.”
Samantha had no idea how to respond so she just kept moving. She completed five minutes before she snuck another look at the woman who was focused on the control panel. Mercifully, she had stopped crying. She was short, probably no more than five-four, and looked to be somewhere in her midthirties. Her face wasn't bad. Or it wouldn't have been if she'd done something to camouflage the freckles. An eyebrow shaping and the right makeup would have been a good start. Briefly Samantha considered offering her the name of her favorite aesthetician, but it seemed clear that the last thing this woman needed today was anything that resembled criticism.
The other woman blew a heavy red curl off her damp forehead. She seemed to be sweating kind of heavily given her lack of movement.
”I'm . . .” the woman began. ”I'm really sorry.” She looked up and met Samantha's eyes. ”But the thing is. I'm not having a good day.”
No s.h.i.+t, Samantha thought.
”But I've made it this far.” The woman hesitated. ”If you could, um, just tell me how to start this thing, I'll do what I came here to do and I . . . I promise I'll leave you alone.”
”Sure.” Samantha couldn't tear her eyes from the redhead's face. Even her freckles looked sad and anxious. ”Hit 'reset' and start moving your feet.”
The woman did as she was instructed. Carefully, Samantha talked her through each step, the woman only balking when it came time to put in her weight.
”I know,” Samantha said. ”s.a.d.i.s.tic, isn't it?”
”I guess lying would defeat the whole purpose?”
Samantha nodded. ”But at least the age thing won't be a negative for you. Not all of us can say the same.”
What might have been a smile flickered over the woman's lips. ”So I gather I'm supposed to put in my real age and not how old I feel right now?”
At Samantha's nod, the redhead said, ”It's just as well. The numbers probably don't go up to a hundred anyway.”
Surprised and glad that the woman had managed to make something approximating a joke, she said, ”My name's Samantha Davis, by the way.”
The redhead began to puff from exertion. ”Brooke Mackenzie,” she said. Beads of perspiration already dotted her forehead.
”Nice to meet you.” Samantha nodded and turned her attention to the television.
They pedaled in silence for a while. Samantha kept her eyes on the television, but she couldn't quite tune out the woman beside her.
A movement through the plate-gla.s.s window caught Samantha's eye and she spotted Edward Parker in the hall. She watched him post something on the elegant notice board he'd installed outside the clubroom. He looked up, saw them, and waved.
Brooke Mackenzie gave a little moan of distress when the concierge pulled open the fitness room door, but her legs kept moving.
”Ladies.” The concierge stopped between them and flashed a smile that dimpled his right cheek. ”You both look remarkably industrious. It's nice to see the facilities in use.”
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