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“Here, have some water.” Courtney shoved a sports bottle into her stomach and loosened the slack of the rope, letting it hit the cushy gym mat below them.
“Thanks.” Gia took the bottle and bent at the waist, hands finding thighs in a soft surrender. Focus wasn’t her friend that day.
“Here, let’s sit for a minute.”
More orders.
“What’s going on?” Courtney sat on a bench near the women’s locker room and crossed her legs over each other. She was part human and part pretzel, clearly.
“Oh, nothing. I’m not sleeping well. I switched from nights to the day shift last week—my sleep’s messed up.” And, her apartment was empty and quiet, unless you count hearing the neighbor peeing through the walls every few hours. Oh, and she missed Roxi. Minor annoyance is all.
“That’s great news! It’s better for your circadian rhythm to sleep at night. It’ll happen, it just takes time. I remember when Caleb was little, he had colic, and I was up all night with him. I wasn’t myself for a long time, but once I started getting sleep again, life got a lot better. So, listen, I want you to look at your diet—” Courtney launched into a lecture about macros and grams of protein per pound of body weight. “I’d like you to shift your muscle ratio a little over the next few months. This isn’t a hurry, but a bit more protein will help, and watch the alcohol intake—pure sugar when it’s metabolized. And it’s not my business, but if you smoke pot, it’s best to stop. Makes you groggy and hungry. Both bad for climbing efficiency. We don’t want extra fat stored. Your weight is good, but you could use a bit more muscle in your traps and quads.”
“Oh, I don’t—” Gia tried to interject, but it was pointless.
“Okay, why don’t you head out early today and get some rest?” Courtney smiled a bright white, clueless smile. She’d told someone in recovery to stop drinking. And someone who had to go to work next to rest. The irony.
“Alright, thanks.” Gia wasn’t the average climbing gym rat. She’d never thought about grams of protein in food—she ate when she was hungry. Cheetos or cheese didn’t matter—food was food. It wasn’t her poison. She could list the alcohol by volume of an array of beers from highest to lowest, the proof of all types of hard liquor, and which cigarettes came with the best head high for the lowest cost. How much protein was in a turkey sandwich? Who knew? Who cared?
“See you for practice tomorrow night. And Gia?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not sure what’s really going on, but I’m here if you want to talk about it. Coach/client privilege. Promise.” Courtney drew her hands together in a prayer position and bent slightly before power walking toward her office.
???
The mailbox was stuffed: utility bill, water bill, coupon book flyer, an offer to sell her house (didn’t they understand which addresses were apartments?), and several newsprint ad circulars. It also had a card with a return address in Colorado Springs. Gia tossed the stack of junk on the kitchen counter, poured a glass of water, and ripped open the card’s envelope. Who did she know in Colorado Springs? Boulder, yes. She’d lived there for six months and had met a few people along the way—but none of them knew how to find her. Nor would they need to. She was a blip—a rounding error in that year’s census.
The card had a sunflower watercolor on the front and said, “Keep on the sunny side.” The inside held familiar handwriting; a scrawl of large, curly cursive mixed with print. It could only belong to one person.
Dear Gia,
This is my new address, amore—go ahead and update your records. I met a man in Colorado on the internet and he asked me to move in. So far, so good. He’s real nice and treats me like a lady. He’s not bad in the looks department, either. Though winter is coming, and I don’t like snow. Don’t know how the new Honda will do—keep your fingers crossed for me.
Your nonna used to send me $2 bills for good luck. Here’s one I used during my shifts at the mini mart. Nonna was right. It always brought me good luck when it was in my till—no robberies in all my time—and I hope it’ll bring you good luck too.
Stay good. You make me proud.
Mamma
She said so little, and yet, so much. Gianna fessed to having a job. Gia didn’t understand the connection of the $2 bill to the till, but then again, when did her mom make sense? At least she finally knew where in the world Gianna was. She shoved the bill in the junk drawer and headed to shower before work.
Warm water rained down on her back, and Gia let it heat her from the outside in. Though Roxi’d left days before, the shower still smelled of raspberries, and her mind wandered. Climbing was supposed to be a getaway—an escape from all the hard things in life and into a flow. She hadn’t found the zone that day. Hadn’t cared if she hit the holds or slipped. She heard Courtney lecture her about her diet and workouts, but as the water baptized her into a fresh day, Gia didn’t care about her mother’s antics or her protein ratios, or whether the market needed a toilet paper order. Her brain flashed a slideshow of the week before: drag King show, drive to L.A., beach.
The slide show was frames of a friendship growing deeper. Two people getting to know each other beyond physical attraction and—she thought—finding they liked what they learned. In an instant, the movie ended and Gia came back to reality. She lived alone and needed to make some friends besides her elderly neighbor and her cat. Loneliness wasn’t good for her outlook, or her ability to stay the course. The want of a connection with another human, the jokes over dinner and arguing over control of the remote were comforting. It would be a good excuse to have a nip—just a little sip to ease the pain.
Instead, she toweled off, flexed her muscles in the pink pig mirror, and put on work clothes. Her assistant stock manager outfit involved the same khaki pants as before, but included a button-up shirt and a feminine necktie. How she hated the tie. But she liked the job, so she accepted the tie. Wasn’t acceptance the name of the game? Accept the cravings. Accept the loneliness. Accept the world telling her how and who to be. Well, maybe not that last one. Gia was on a mission to be her own person, one day at a time.
Bridge over Troubled Water
The Palm Springs library was quiet in the evenings, a fact Gia learned by visiting every weeknight except Tuesdays for three weeks straight. She sat in the stacks, cross-legged on brightly colored low pile carpet, reading from diet and nutrition books, weightlifting manuals, and occasionally, a pop culture magazine. Those magazines were packed with images of rail-thin women with big smiles and bigger boobs, and she wondered—why was that appealing? She’d always preferred women with a little meat on their bones and natural features. Fake was boring.
She’d been counseled to eat a plant-based diet and eat one gram of protein per pound of body weight and eat like the Paleolithic people and eat no carbs. She’d read about high-rep, low resistance training and low-rep, high resistance training. She’d been told to fast for 16-hours a day to kick into fat burning mode and to eat every three hours to keep her metabolism up.
It was so much easier when she didn’t care. The conflicting information was maddening. Didn’t we know by now how to add a little muscle and lose a little fat? The whole proposition seemed more complicated than it was worth, but she kept going back, thirsty for knowledge to make the right decision about how to eat and train. Eager to please her new coach by doing what she said. In the meantime, she’d cut out most sugar—something all the books seemed to agree upon—and had traded cereal for protein shakes at breakfast. The market had put some protein powder on deep clearance, and she’d pounced. It tasted like wet dirt, but it promised to heal muscles faster and make her skin glow. So, she choked down a double-chocolate mocha green goddess shake every morning and tried not to burp it up all afternoon.
“Excuse me,” a thirty-something whispered as he slid in front of her, focused on the bodybuilding section.
