Читать книгу Treading Lightly - Elise Lanier - Страница 13

How were people supposed to see that? It was hard enough to hear the damn thing, but to see it, you had to crane your neck at an absurd angle. That’s not mentioning the fact that there were two different channels competing for your attention on each side. A talk show on one, and the morning news on the other.

She could’ve possibly watched one, but couldn’t decide if she should wring her neck to the right and give her full attention and allegiance to the news, or contort her neck to the left to catch the casual, witty repartee of the talk show. Either way, she’d end up deformed for the rest of the day—if not longer—with a stiff neck. Plus, both shows were at equal sound levels, thereby drowning each other out, making either one impossible to hear easily. So instead, she looked straight ahead while miserably listening to the man beside her gasp, huff and grunt.

She wasn’t used to all the added stimuli. It was hard enough for her to do this without having any other action going on around her, taking her attention from the task at hand. Breathing and walking was a complicated enough combination for her to handle. Add the two blaring, competing television sets hovering to her upper right and left sides, the mind-numbing Muzak being piped over the loudspeakers placed strategically around the large room, assorted nubile and robust young forms running around half-naked, and the huffing, panting man beside her who could not be ignored no matter how much she’d tried, and she was on system overload.

Any minute now she was going to blow. Or trip. Both were possible; neither favorable.

She looked over at the man, hoping and praying he wouldn’t keel over based on the sounds he was making. Besides having a man die on the treadmill next to her, the fuss and upheaval that would ensue would be quite annoying. Plus, on top of all this noise, the loud, blaring ambulance siren sure to follow Mr. Locomotion’s collapse would definitely put her over the edge.

She looked at him again, cyclically thinking that his utterances were horrendous and wondering how he could go out in public and make such guttural, almost animalistic sounds. They were disgusting! By animalistic, she was thinking swine, possibly boar. The snorting, gasping, huffing and panting were quite annoying and disturbing.

She was obviously oblivious to her own auditory articulations.

“You okay?” the man asked.

She looked around to see whom he was talking to. Considering no one else was at the bay of treadmills, she assumed he was talking to her. Me? He’s asking if I’m okay? He’s the one who sounds like an angry bull making an obscene phone call. “I’m fine, thanks,” she said haughtily, not wanting to add yet another action—talking—to the breathing and walking she was already juggling.

“You seem angry,” he said succinctly, between gasps.

She knew she walked like a horse, but angry? Why would he think that? And so what if she was? It wasn’t any of his business. And who the hell was he to intrude on her almost spiritual level of clarity and concentration by drawing attention to her clomplike walking style? What did he expect her to do? Tiptoe? Sashay? Undulate provocatively? Do a frigging cat-walk?

He was the one making strange noises she found totally repellent while he was sweating like the fat, bearded lady at the circus, but you didn’t see her telling him about it or drawing his attention to it, did you? No! That’s because she wasn’t like that. She reserved sharing her real thoughts with the people who knew her best. Like her beloved son, or her abhorrent ex-husband, or even her pain-in-the-butt mother. Not some strange, panting man she’d never seen before.

“I’m fine. Thanks,” she said pointedly, hoping to end this exchange. There, conversation closed.

More breathing, more huffing. “You don’t seem fine.”

Who did he think he was? Her mother? Her keeper? Her shrink? Okay, she’d been patient with the man long enough, but now he was starting to tick her off. She waited until her own breath was strong enough to talk before making her response. “Well, I am,” she procalimed, knowing full well she was not fine, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to share it with him—a complete stranger.

But then she heard the words Martin had spit at her during their phone conversation last night. Well, conversation was a pleasant word for what it really was. It was more like a screaming match, but that was neither here nor there. “You have serious trust issues, Janine. I don’t know how I can help you with that. Lord knows I couldn’t help you while we were married, but maybe now that we’re divorced I can prove it to you through actions that people—mankind—can be trusted and believed in. I do think you believe and trust me, but you won’t admit it! In what situations will you trust me with our son? Who knows, Janine. But he is my son too. And I deserve the right to do with him what I’d like to do. Your attempt to stop us from being together is wrong, and will only turn your son away from you. You’ve got problems, Janine. What do I feel is the best way for me to help you? Hell, I don’t know, I’m no expert. But what else can Craig do except eventually walk away from you? Over time, you’ll see that I’m telling you the truth.”

They weren’t the last words of the screaming match, but they certainly led up to them.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Martin? I know you like to think of yourself as the male version of Mother Teresa. But you know what, bud? You’re just a passive-aggressive bastard who uses this new age mumbo jumbo to try to sound as if he’s got things under control. But let’s not forget, little man, I’ve lived with you and know you’re just a sniveling little wuss who wishes he were otherwise! You are not taking my son river rafting, and it is because I don’t trust you to care for him properly. So go have your midlife crisis without involving Craig. And for the record, I’m not stopping you from seeing him. Go right ahead, see him till your eyes bug out, but you are not, Martin, NOT taking him rafting.”

She was reliving the conversation as the man beside her kept making his disgusting sounds. In a way, Martin was right. She did have trust issues. So what? She felt she’d always had them. But to her, it was understandable. Look at her parents, her life, her past. She lived with her past. Always. Maybe it was baggage, but as far as she knew, everyone had their share of baggage. If you were human, and you had lived a few years, you had baggage.

She looked at the panting man beside her. He probably had baggage, too. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, his face was red with exertion, and there were lines of agony on his face. He smiled at her. Or grimaced. She couldn’t tell which, but she thought he might have meant it to be a smile.

She only had the gym pass for a week, while her treadmill was being repaired, and once the damned machine was fixed, she’d be back home in her safe environment where no one could reach her or hurt her. Listen to me! I do have trust issues. Oh hell.

She looked at the man again and saw that he looked harmless. At least he looked harmless to her now. The poor guy was so exhausted he couldn’t swat a flea at this moment. So what could it hurt? He was a complete stranger. Why not tell him? In a week’s time, she’d never see him again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hoping he’d realize she was apologizing for her rudeness but was a bit breathless at the moment, so she needed to keep things pretty concise. She took a deep inhalation to compensate for the breath she’d used to apologize.

Normally, at home, she’d be in her panties and sports bra, watching her taped programs of Family Feud. It was much harder doing this while fully dressed with no distraction of Richard Karn and the two five-person families from around the country saying completely stupid things. At home, she didn’t have to have a conversation, she just had to occasionally shout at the contestants when she felt like it. Like the other day, she was yelling “No cheese!” repeatedly before muttering to herself that the contestant was a moron. The question had been, “Why wouldn’t a mouse want to live in your house?”

Who the hell, in their right mind, answers “Because it’s a brick house and there are no holes to get in.” What was that lady implying? A wooden house has holes in it for mice to get in? Where was the logic? Janine could possibly understand “I own a cat,” or something else that made some sense as to why a mouse wouldn’t want to live in your house, but “It’s a brick house and there are no holes to get in?” What the hell kind of stupid answer was that? Did the woman live with the three little pigs?

Or how about the guy on the show a few days ago, whose question was “Why would an airplane not take off on time?” She screamed, “the weather, the weather, THE WEATHER” to him. But did he listen? No. He said, “Because it was delayed.” That wasn’t an answer. It was the question! Repeated! She’d been totally disgusted, concluding that that’s the problem with the world today…nobody listens.

She looked over to the sweating, panting man and wondered if he really cared to hear what she had to say, or if he was like everyone else in this world today and didn’t listen. He was still looking at her and was still smiling. Or grimacing. She still couldn’t tell which.

Oh well, what the hell. It wasn’t like she could hear the TV or anything, and she had to do her walking, even if it was in public, or Harvey would call Martin or her mother. Plus, she had to pass the time somehow. “I’ve had a bad couple of weeks,” she blurted out.

At first she didn’t know if he had heard her, because he didn’t answer, but when she stole a sideways glance at him, he smile-grimaced again.

“What happened?” he said between huffs. Apparently he too had trouble breathing while doing this torturous contraption. The only difference was that he was running while she was walking.

Looking at him, measuring whether she should she tell him or not, she let the question war within her head for a while. Should she tell him? Shouldn’t she? On the one hand, why should she? On the other hand, she’d only be there one week, tops, so what difference did it make? Once her treadmill was fixed, she’d be back home again. Alone. At least that’s what Ben Franklin had promised. She’d thought a week to fix the thing seemed an exorbitantly long amount of time, but he’d said something about getting a special part, which might take a while, so what could she do? That’s when she’d called the manager at the closest gym and arranged to do her walking there for a week.

The manger had tried to sell her a full membership, but when she remained adamant that she only wanted to use the treadmill, and that was all she wanted to do at the gym, he gave her a quote for a price that she felt was reasonable, and asked him to put it in writing, saying she’d be there early the next morning to sign it and pay him in advance for the week’s treadmill use.

The manager had laughed when she arrived that morning. “I thought you said you’d be in here early,” he’d said with a teasing gleam in his eye. He was a young man, built like a brick house (no mice getting in there!) with arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.

“This is early!” she’d said as she yawned for emphasis.

“We’re open at four in the morning for the early birds,” he’d said before laughing at her horrified expression. “But this is a better time. It’s much less crowded now. Most people are off to work by now, so it’ll be easier for you to get a treadmill.”

He was right. It was easy. Besides Grunting Red-faced Man, she was the only one interested in the treadmills.

“So, what’s happened these last two weeks,” the heaving, crimson-cheeked man puffed out, drawing her attention back to the present.

She looked at him again, noting his flaccid cheeks bouncing with each step, his thinning wet hair plastered against his scalp, and the sweat pouring from him like Niagara Falls. Oh, what the hell! What could it hurt? “My son’s getting attitude,” she blurted then inhaled. “My agent is ignoring me—” another breath “—my treadmill broke—” another gasp “—I’ve got osteoporosis—” a gulp “my stalker may be back,” another wheeze for breath, “—the IRS thinks I’m cheating them—” some panting “—my mother thinks I’m raising my son wrong—” a small hiss of air “—oh yeah, and I have a bastard of an ex-husband who is trying to make my life a living hell.”

“Wow,” he said, slowing his machine to a walk. “I’d call that a bad couple of weeks! Want to talk about it?” His breath was becoming lass ragged now that he was walking instead of running.

“No. That’s okay.” She breathed. She was still hoofing it at an alarming pace (for her). That was quite typical of her. No warm-up, no cooldown, just jump right in at the maximum speed until she got it done and hit her goal, then stop. It was the way she had done everything her whole life.

She’d like to say that she admired people who warmed up and cooled down as he was doing, but honestly? She didn’t have the time for that. For her, life had always been “get in, do it as fast as you can, and get out.” It’s how she shopped, worked, played, ate and even now, as she’d recently discovered, exercised.

Martin used to say, “There are shades of gray, Janine. Everything’s not always black or white,” but she seemed to see everything as one way or the other. Good or bad. Love it or hate it. Take it or leave it. Black or white. On or off. She’d never been wishy-washy about anything. Anything.

She looked up at the TVs and winced. Talking, walking and breathing were causing enough problems for her; trying to ignore all that noise, when she was used to only one form of stimulation at a time, was really grating on her nerves.

“You want them off?” he said, following her gaze, his breathing now regular since he was cooling down.

“You can do that?”

“What?”

“Shut them off?” she said with amazement.

“Well, sure,” he said with a hearty chuckle.

His deep chuckle unnerved and annoyed her. She hadn’t noticed the deep timbre of his voice before, which might have been because he was gasping, snorting, panting and making other disgusting noises, but now that she’d noticed it, she wasn’t too pleased. She was more comfortable with him when he was offensive and disgusting.

And also, who had died and left him boss of the gym televisions? And more irritatingly, why, in God’s name, hadn’t he offered sooner?

He picked up a remote, turned his back to her—a nice back with broad shoulders, she noted for the first time—pointed the remote at the left-hand set and pressed. With a blip of static, it shut off. Ah.

And now there was one. He turned to her and held out the remote.

It must be some kind of gym etiquette thing. The person on the side of the television got to decide what to watch or when to turn it off.

“The power button’s on the top right,” he offered while still holding the little device out to her. “The channel buttons are on the lower right. And the volume controls are on the lower left,” he said, without looking at the remote control. He’d obviously used it before.

Truthfully she would have grabbed the thing and shut it off in an instant, but at the moment—as with all the moments when she was aboard a treadmill—she was hanging on for dear life and couldn’t let go of one hand without spinning out of control like a demented top gone berserk before falling off the damn machine.

Think of rowing a boat with only one arm. You would just spin in a circle. Except on a treadmill, you would spin for a millisecond before you got thrown like a rodeo rider off a bronco. Don’t ask how she knew this. She just did. She still had the black-and-blue marks to prove it. Although they were a purplish-yellow by now. So she shook her head. “No. You do the honors.” Unquestionably in system overload, she choked on her last breath. “Please.”