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“He said it was my high heels. Because I had on heels it compensated for the table leg height difference and the slanted floor.”
“That—that isn’t how shoes work. Or floors or science. Did you offer him your shoes?”
“Now that would have been a sight. No, I told him that the placement of my feet or their height didn’t affect the playing surface of the game table and when he argued, I told the waitress to make my burger to-go and I paid her cash and went and sat at the bar.”
“Did he apologize?”
“No, he pouted and then called a friend and talked loudly on the phone about how messed up the foosball table was and sent him pictures of it and told the whole story with exaggerations and then announced that his date was a total bitch who didn’t understand a damn thing about foosball.”
“He’s precious. Please give me his number, I’d love to go out with him,” I deadpanned. “What a loser, and I mean that in every possible way.”
“Ryan lost me for sure. All that time wasted shaving.”
“Your spray tan is pretty fabulous. Makes me feel pasty.”
“You’re a ginger. You’re meant to be pasty. Although the fact that you have like four freckles is unfair. You have strawberry blonde hair, and it’s naturally wavy. You should have freckles and get a sunburn if you walk by a window. I don’t know if one of your ancestors made a deal with the devil for your complexion or what,” she grumbled good-naturedly.
“Rina,” I said seriously, “That’s sweet of you to act envious, but you’re gorgeous.”
“You have been through so much, girl. I wish you had as much confidence in how your body looks as you do in what it can achieve,” Rina said.
“Stop, you’re gonna make me cry,” I said, swallowing hard.
Besides being my best friend in the world, Rina was one of the few people who knew about my recovery from an eating disorder, and how learning to have a healthy relationship with my body was a longtime struggle. It was what brought me to my calling, exercise physiology. Once I understood how the biological systems worked and how beneficial moderate exercise plus yoga and meditation or mindfulness could be, there was no going back. I had to bring that understanding and comfort to others. It was still difficult sometimes for me to accept a compliment or to eat something really indulgent without having to do intentional self-talk and some calming work like I was taught in therapy.
Now, coming up on my last semester before graduating, I was beyond ready to do my capstone coursework—only two more classes! —and start my life. I knew this was where I was supposed to be and how I could help people. I was impatient to begin.
“So, do you have that boring woman again this semester?” Rina asked, changing the subject.
“I hope not. She was enough to put me to sleep. I think if you’re teaching kinesiology, you should have some energy or at least move around. She sat in a chair and showed us slide decks and gave quizzes, which the online program then graded for her. She had to be the laziest person in the exercise physiology department,” I groaned. “I only have two classes this time, so maybe I can finish up without being in a room with her again. Ugh.”
I tapped my phone and went to the university website to look up my instructors, just to make sure I wasn’t sentenced to another two hours three times a week with the most boring human imaginable.
“No, looks like I have one with Dr. Luther again, and one with Parks. I don’t know who that is, but it’s not Dr. Cure for Insomnia, so it sounds fine.”
“Good, now you can limber up and go stretch those hips before classes start. I’m serious. You need to get on an app, find someone to hook up with. You’re not a hundred years old, and from a medical standpoint I’m concerned that your virginity is going to grow back,” Rina said.
I rolled my eyes. “If there’s no one better than the guy I lost my virginity to the first time, I think I’ll just keep it. I’d love to have a boyfriend to go to the park with for picnics and just to snuggle with on the couch and—”
“You want a dog. Not a man. Men don’t do that. They leave dirty socks on the table. They lose track of where your clitoris is after the second time you sleep with them and never look for it again. They heat up smelly burritos in your microwave that make your tea taste like burrito stink when you warm it up the next morning…”
“Wow. Foosball guy really turned you off men that much?” I asked, taken aback. Rina was sarcastic and hilarious, but she wasn’t a pessimist.
“I’m okay. I just—I want to find someone, you know? And I think I’m reminding myself of all the annoying stuff about being in a relationship so I don’t feel as lonely. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does.”
We said our goodbyes and headed out.
When I got home, I made sure I had everything ready for the start of classes. I opened my laptop and double-checked the buildings, classrooms, start times to confirm them. The instructor bio on Parks was brief, business owner and philanthropist, expert in exercise physiology. There was no picture. Out of curiosity, I looked up the LinkedIn for Aaron Parks. My Wi-Fi was slow, so I read the text while the picture was loading.
Parks was thirty-six years old, founder/owner/operator of A-Plus Gym in Berkeley for the last ten years. In the final stages of negotiation to franchise the gym throughout the state of California. Committed to inclusive fitness experiences, pioneering female-only classes for survivors of abuse in not only self-defense but also yoga and meditation, employed trauma-informed physiologists in several positions and had a social worker/counselor on staff three days a week. He participated in fundraisers for domestic violence.
There were links to a lot of press coverage for the abuse survivors’ program and I was getting ready to click on an article about him providing no cost, on-site classes at a women’s shelter when the picture finally finished buffering and came up.
Holy cheese and crackers, Batman. Aaron Parks didn’t look like one of those beefed-up Thor-wannabes who was all neck and bulgy shoulders with a tiny pencil eraser head. He didn’t look like he was wearing an inflatable WWE costume, which was what most of the people I’d ever seen who were heavily into working out looked like. He didn’t fit the energy drink, high octane, giant murder-body stereotype in ads either. He didn’t look like he would rip apart monster trucks with his bare hands on the Gram for fun or bench press Toyotas to show off.
He looked like a Disney prince, but one who might lure you into the enchanted forest and do naughty things to you. He had startlingly bright blueberry-colored eyes that contrasted with his tan. His photo was a headshot in a dress shirt open at the collar. His shoulders were broad, his hair sandy blonde. He was hard-core handsome with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes like he didn’t take life seriously and was probably a lot of fun.
