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The next day, Yasmine shook me awake. “Get up, manita,” she said. “We’re going to the gym.”
I squinted at her through one eye. “What time is it?”
“Four a.m.”
I put my pillow over my head and groaned. Yasmine took my pillow and let it flop to the floor. “Come on, vaga, let’s get a move on. This is actually the best time to work out. Not many people go at this time.”
“Do you wonder why?”
“Not at all. I don’t even care that they don’t. More space for me—you feel me?”
I threw my arms over my eyes. “No, I do not feel you. How could you do this to me?”
“Quit being so dramatic, manita, and earn that gorgeous body you have!”
I peeked from underneath my arms. “You think I have a gorgeous body?”
“Yes, and it can only get better from here. Párate de ahi.” She gestured for me to get up.
I sighed and lowered my arms. “Fine,” I muttered. “But only because you gave me compliments.”
When we arrived at the gym, I looked around. Much like Yasmine predicted, there were only a handful of people in the facility. Most of the people worked there.
What surprised me the most, though, was the look of the gym-goers that were there. One man’s arms shook as he lifted the dumbbells above his head. The extra skin around his triceps, hanging from age and trial, shook in celebration as its owner gripped the dumbbells above his head. Another woman, whose glasses kept sliding down her hooked nose, grunted with the effort of thrusting her hips through her deadlift. Though liver spots dotted her arms, the cords in them stood out just as much.
Still another woman bent as if sitting in a chair, the barbell resting neatly on the shelf of her shoulders. She bit her bottom lip as slowly, slowly, she stood back up.
Not one of the gym-goers was a day under sixty-five.
“I call it the early bird special.” Yasmine looked around, a small smile playing on her face. “At almost any gym I visit, the elders are here early in the morning, working hard. They were some of my best, most dedicated clients.” She patted my shoulder and headed toward the bikes. “Consider it your daily dose of inspiration.”
That day, our workout made the last one seem downright laughable. Before, I had a break between sets; now, Yasmine packed other exercises in.
“Alternating sets,” she said as I grunted my way through my squats. “You’re still giving specific muscles some time to rest but working out other muscles in the meantime. Helps move your workout along.”
“Or gets me closer to death,” I muttered.
“That’s another thirty seconds of planks, manita,” she said cheerfully. She bared her teeth in a humorless grin. “You know the deal. Complaints will only get you more workout. Degrading comments about your body or comments in a defeatist tone will get you thirty seconds of planks, one minute for longer complaints.” She smirked. “By the end of this month, you’re gonna have a very strong core.”
By the end of our workout, I was laying on the floor in a pond of my own sweat. Yasmine threw a towel in my direction.
“That’s enough for today. It’s about”—she checked her watch—“Five-thirty a.m. Time for breakfast. Then, the band has to rehearse for a bit before we set up for the gig.” She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “And you’ll clear out the gym if we stay here much longer, anyway. Let’s get you to a shower, apurate.”
Once we got back to the bus, I made the mistake of lifting my arm and smelling my own armpit. I made a beeline toward the shower, not stopping to say hello to the band or Andrew.
As I showered in the tiniest bus shower stall known to man, a small sigh of happiness passed through my body. The soap bubbles slid down my arms at a luxuriously slow pace, reflecting the full rainbow on their surface. The steam from the water rose to the top of the tiny bus shower, bumping its head on the ceiling and spreading its fingers across. The sounds outside of the bathroom, much like the colors within, came into sharp focus, setting my body alight with the cacophony of life.
As I was stepping out, I must have been lost in my thoughts. There’s no other way that when Andrew stepped around the corner, I almost jumped out of my towel.
“Have a nice shower?”
With a scowl, I readjusted my towel. “You’re such an asshat.” My hand clutched it tighter. “What do you want?”
“I already told you what I want,” he said. I waited, hoping that he’d shrivel from the heat of my glare. I had the sudden urge to cover myself more but tamped it down. He can’t see anything, and even if he could, he wouldn’t want to.
“What do you really want?” I pressed.
“Well, I figured that the band will be practicing for the next few hours. Why don’t we go on an adventure?”
