AllFreeNovel
Share Us
five
Acold front had moved in overnight, the kind that made the sheets hard to touch in any spot. Constance had been lying in one place all night, curled in a ball like a cat. Fezzi was curved around the arch of her back, a welcome weight and warmth. She petted his head and glanced at the half-empty bottle of wine on the floor by the bed. She didn’t particularly like wine, but had wanted to dull her senses last night after Sunny called to tell her the runt had died. Constance had no idea why that made her feel empty inside—like a complete failure. They’d known the pup wasn’t going to make it. But even a year after Daddy’s death, Constance didn’t handle bad news well. Especially not that kind.
Just don’t get up today.If she didn’t get out of bed, nothing bad could happen.
But Fezzi had other ideas. He stretched, made a satisfied yawning sound, then plopped down on the floor, his nails tapping over the hardwood as he headed for the door.
Constance slid from the sheets, the warmth leaving her so fast she shivered. She tripped over her running sneakers, which had been in the same place on her floor since her birthday. Sunny had bought them for her, a not-so-subtle hint that it was time Constance start to regain her old self.
“What the hell.” Like a snake you give a wide berth, the new shoes were on her radar. Constance had put them there the day they were unwrapped, to motivate her when she got out of bed. Instead of motivating her, she walked around them. Not once had she forgotten they were there and tripped over them.
Until today.
A chill ran through her body. Today, Sunny would say, would be a good day to dare dump trucks. That was the analogy she used for being at rock bottom and not giving a flying leap. Just step out in the middle of the street and dare the dump trucks to hit you. Which was easy for Sunny to say. With Mom’s bright yellow hair, big blue eyes, sweet smile and secret fear of the dark, Sunny thought she could get through life by exposing a little leg and sweet-talking her way out of whatever trouble her impulsive personality got her into.
And that’s the way it usually worked.
Constance hugged her arms around herself and pulled open the blinds. It might be cold, but it was bright and sunny as summer. Across the street, the Old Commonwealth Disposal truck went in reverse,beep beep beep, as it sidled up to her neighbor’s house. Constance watched the men collect the trash and move off down the road.
From downstairs, Fezzi whined to get outside.
Like a tide, life was moving her, even if all she wanted to do was float.
After she let Fezzi into the backyard, she caught sight of her reflection in the sliding glass doors. One hand ran over her middle and the other down her thigh. Only then did Constance realize she’d been avoiding mirrors for a long time. She looked like a pudgy version of Daddy, before he got sick and frail, with the same red hair, pale skin, tiny nose.
“Well,” Constance murmured as she watched Fezzi run around the yard, collecting sticks and putting them in a pile. He’d done that ever since Daddy died and he no longer needed to fetch the old man’s socks. “Maybe spin class wouldn’t be so bad.”
What was it Sunny had said, about when and where she taught?Evenings at the shopping center and mornings at Spin City.
Great. Morning at the shopping center, it was.
Constance stood outside the gym and watched through the glass walls. Spin class had just ended, and the women were now falling off their bikes in pools of sweat. Most of them were adorable soccer moms who spun their hearts out to the house music booming out the doorway.
They chatted while they stripped their seats of the gel covers they’d brought with them. The seriously hard-core even had special shoes, with some kind of clips on the bottom. Were those cleats? Constance stifled a giggle—cleats on shoes that would never touch grass! She couldn’t wait to tease Sunny about that:Hey, baby sister. Do you wear cleats to ride a bike that goes nowhere?
The ladies’ towels were even more adorable than their owners, brightly colored and slung over their shoulders after they mopped away the happy shine from their foreheads. As they came out, they said things to each other like, “Ooh, girlfriend, that was serious!” and “My butt’s gonna be sore tomorrow!”
“I feel soooooo tired,” one lady said, rubbing her flat stomach. “That workout actually had me breathing heavy! I should not have had that bacon for breakfast!”
Constance closed her eyes and let her head sink to the glass. As the giggles and chatter moved away, Constance felt a wave of nausea roll through her. She needed to eat. She pushed off the building and headed toward a bakery that was three doors down in the strip mall. A man got there first and held the door. Constance went to go inside, enticed by the buttery aroma of warm eggs, sugar and flour, but paused.
The building across the street had caught her eye. Large and ugly, it used to be a tire factory, Constance was pretty sure. Now it read Semper Fit. She’d probably passed it a million times. She’d never been inside but she’d seen people going in and out with gym bags, or jogging around the perimeter, puffing in the cold, sloshing in the rain. It was supposed to be the kind of gym that attracted the types who liked to jump out of airplanes.
“Miss?”
Constance blinked at the man who held the door. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
Chicken.Sunny’s taunt ran through her head. As if on autopilot, Constance crossed the road. Something deep inside her pushed forward, making her feet go, one in front of the other, until she was right at the entrance.
The gym’s bay doors were wide open, despite the chill. Inside, a large group of people stood in a circle, near metal rigging, which had bars and rings and racks. Constance stepped in and stood in the back, unnoticed.
She’d never seen a gym like this. Racks of barbells and stacks of weights lined the north wall, along with a shelf of kettlebells, dumbbells and mats. Boxes were stacked in the corner, a dozen or more deep. Ropes hung from the ceiling, but were secured behind the rig, out of the way of the large, open work space. A huge tire was tucked in the corner.A tire? What the hell would they do with a tire?Rap music played softly from the speakers.
A muscular woman stood at the head of the circle, speaking to the group as she gestured toward a large whiteboard. She had her hair in a ponytail and her eyebrows looked recently plucked and shaped. Nothing else fancy about her, though—no makeup or jewelry, just one small hoop earring at the top curve of her ear.
Even from a distance, Constance could read the bold, black writing on the board.
1 Rope Climb.
