When I climbed into my own car, waiting for the window to defrost and the heat to kick in, my phone pinged. Bmoney34 liked your message. I smiled, sitting in the freezing car and thinking about some new possibilities for getting back to what I enjoyed.
7
A FEW DAYS after my initial conversation with Wes, I added the contents of my lunch to my food journal on the app.
Salad with light ranch dressing, cheese, and croutons
Cheeseburger with ketchup, mustard
Onion rings and sauce （note: no idea what it is. Probably just fat mixed with magic）
Diet Coke
“What are you doing?”
I glanced up from my phone to see RJ’s cocked eyebrow.
“It’s that app I’m reviewing,” I said, popping an onion ring into my mouth. “I signed up over the weekend, and I have to keep a log of what I eat this week.”
“I get that.” My friend took a forkful of her own salad. “But don’t you have to eat a certain way? Like, shouldn’t you be insisting that I take some of your onion rings?”
“I’m supposed to set my baseline and pay attention to what I eat now.” When I took a bite of my salad, ranch dressing dripped off my fork into a little puddle on the table. “I’m starting here,” I said, motioning to my onion rings and then to her plate. “And you’re the one who said you wanted to eat more vegetables this year.”
“Maybe I should have set a baseline first, though.” RJ stretched her long arm across the table and plucked an onion ring from my plate.
“Anyway, the whole reason I pitched the story in the first place was because of you.”
“Me? Why?” She reached for another onion ring, but I swatted her hand away.
Sometimes it was hard to reconcile the RJ I knew in college with the suit-clad, badass attorney in front of me. We and our college roommates, Kat and Del, had been inseparable and were always getting into something spontaneous. Now RJ was a lawyer, Kat was a teacher and a mom, and Del—well, it seemed he’d be in school forever, but someday he’d have letters after his name. “Remember? We tried to get your cousin to go to the gym with us for the dance class.” RJ had originally talked me into trying Zumba, but we got the rooms mixed up, and the sixty-plus dancers had welcomed us in. I watched RJ’s gears turn. “She said she was embarrassed to go to the gym, like thin people would judge her and fat people would think she didn’t like herself? It got me thinking about how I’d felt that way, too. I wondered how many other people probably do as well. Like, if you’re fat, exercise has to be this big statement instead of something you do like everyone else.”
“Well, damn. Look at you changing the world, girl.” RJ sipped her water. “I think that’s awesome, and you know what else?” She leaned in, lowering her voice, and I mirrored her body language.
“What?”
Her fingers darted between us, and she snatched another onion ring off my plate, popping it into her mouth and then holding up her hands in mock surrender. “I don’t want you to feel alone.”
“Next time, I’m calling Kat,” I said.
“Psh! Good luck. You could try Del, and he’d eat more off your plate than I would while reminding you he’s a poor graduate student. You’re stuck with me.” RJ returned to her salad. “So, you’re working with a trainer?”
“Yeah. He seems like a cool guy.”
I’d had a clear picture of the person who did that job, and it was someone between my high school gym teacher and the nurse at my doctor’s office who clucked her tongue every time I stepped on the scale. He’d been nice, though.
“To baselines, then.” RJ raised her glass of ice water.
I raised my Diet Coke. “Cheers!”
8
I SAT BACK at my desk, closing the emails from Aaron about the program they’d planned, and fiddling with a pen. I’d been reading, researching, and jotting down ideas for over an hour, and FitMi pitching in where the program needed help looked doable. I asked Pearl to set something up with Cord before clicking over to the coaching portal, scrolling through the message thread with B from the day before, and replying to a question from my other client. Cord had been right; even a week into working with clients again, I felt like I had a better hold on things. There was something else, too. The teacher, Sam, was nice enough, but I laughed when I read B’s emails. I laughed a lot.
From: Bmoney34
To: FitMiCoachWes1
Sent: February 7, 9:22 a.m.
Coach Wes,