Part IV: Spin (Chapter 70)
Interloping
bitch goddess.
At
least that’s what I’ll think.
Sheldon
will say, “I’m going to York Barbell. How about it?”
“How
about ‘what’?”
“Want
to tag along?” A bit too sheepishly.
Of course, I won’t want to go along. What business does a fat lady have haunting fitness stores? I might as well be a penguin in the heart of Africa –
– perhaps I
could apply for a Fulbright there as well?
“I’m
going to buy a treadmill.”
A treadmill?
“Why?”
“I
want it, I need it.”
“What
about the 45 bucks we pay the gym every month?”
Sheldon
frowns. “It’s gone downhill. Half the time, I can’t find a treadmill that
works.”
A
flimsy excuse. I know that the gym keeps its equipment in top-top shape.
“I
see.”
“Also,
too, my client load has increased – things are getting nutty.”
This,
too, is a lie. Perhaps a more devious motive?
Hint,
hint?
If
I could see into the future, I’ll discover I still haven’t done much in the way
of diet and fitness.
Yeah,
I’ll spend a few months at the gym, parading my 220 pounds of lard in front of
string bean society ladies and college boys with rippling abs.
Never
mind all the other lumps like me trying to sculp sinew out of flab.
They’re invisible.
I’ll
see only the images of perfection, certain they’ll see only the pathetic fat
lady as she huffs and puffs her way to impossibility.
“You’ll
give up the gym?” I ask.
Sheldon
takes a deep breath. “Yes,” he says, exhaling as if a demon had been exorcized.
In 2001, I will discover the demon: Mona.
Buying
a treadmill:
Sheldon
breaking off forever his longstanding off-and-on affair with Mona.
“Okay,
I’ll go with you.”
In
a whirlwind of determination, we shop at about six full-line fitness places, a
surprising number considering that Pennsylvania Dutch country isn’t exactly a
hotbed of bone definition, refined abs, and washboard stomachs.
Then
we find her.
Sheldon
falls in love.
He will spend the rest of his life running, running, running.
