Odds and ends not in my book, Part 6

Life's Small Triumphs

When I was in my early 30s, I had just joined a new gym. I didn't know anyone there, so when a girl who took the same classes I did started chatting me up, I was responsive.

I don't wish to use her name, as it has an unusual spelling, so I'll just call her S. She was in her mid-20s, married (unhappily, but hubby was very wealthy), and her insecurity made my own crappy self-esteem look like the benchmark of confidence. In 20/20 hindsight, it never was much of a friendship, being so one-sided. She did most of the talking, I did most of the listening. But at that time, I was lonely, and it felt good to be needed. Plus, we did have some fun. We went out to dinner frequently, and it was fun taking the aerobics classes together. We both liked one instructor named Jim -- actually, I had a ferocious crush on him, and I confided in S about that.

Of course, as most of my crushes were back then, it was unrequited. Jim would flirt with me in class, but he flirted with all the women. In fact, there was an inner circle of girls I used to call the "Jim groupies" -- his pets, the ones he hung out with, bantered with in class the most. I always wanted to be in this circle, but as was my M.O., I was on the outer fringes, looking in.

Long story somewhat shortened, SF got into this inner circle. She hired Jim as her personal trainer and she got close with the other groupies. And I guess she didn't need her sounding board anymore. It was subtle at first, but it became more and more obvious -- she turned into a Mean Girl. She'd ignore me in class and in the locker room, and when she did talk to me, she'd make little digs, especially about Jim. How wonderful it was training with him. What a great guy he was. How funny. And oh, I hadn't lived until I had one of his neck massages. (Of course, I hadn't.)

I really didn't understand why she was doing this, and it hurt. But there wasn't much I could do about it, so I carried on, going to classes and watching her and her fellow Jim groupies carry on. Christ. I thought I'd seen the last of this kind of thing in grammar school.

One day in class, we were doing cool-down stretches and Jim was blathering on and on about some flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Then he asked, "Has anyone in here NOT tried Ben & Jerry's?" I raised my hand, and he flipped. "Erica! You're kidding! No way! Oh, you've GOT to try Ben & Jerry's. How could you not have ever had Ben & Jerry's?"

Simple. I had an eating disorder. Ice cream was a binge food for me -- I couldn't stop at one scoop. I'd eat the whole pint. Or the quart, as the case may be. And B & J's was just too damned caloric. At least if I ate a pint or more of fat-free frozen yogurt, it wouldn't go right to my ass. But I wasn't about to tell him any of that. So I just shrugged.

After class, I went into the workout area to stretch a bit more. A few feet away, Jim and S started her training session, and I could hear her giggling and nattering at him. I looked away, but I could still see them from the corner of my eye. I saw her glance in my direction, then whisper something to Jim. He looked over at me and grinned. Oh, hell, I thought. What was this about?

Jim then sauntered over to me, squatted down and smiled into my face. "Hey, Erica," he purred. "If I came over to your apartment and got naked, then would you eat Ben & Jerry's?"

I looked over and saw S smirking. That bitch. She'd told him. He knew I had a stupid adolescent crush on him, and now they were trying to embarrass me.

It would have been typical for me at that point to blush furiously, duck my head and stammer out some lame reply, then go home, kick myself 500 times and think of the perfect thing to say after the fact. However, life decided to bestow one of its Golden Moments on me. I looked Jim right in the eye and purred back, "Honey, if you came to my apartment and got naked, I'd eat gravel."

I'm not sure why I chose gravel, but it worked. It sounded funny without being gross. Jim's eyes widened, and then he gave me a genuine smile before he backed off. S was speechless. That wasn't the reaction she'd expected, clearly.

After that, she left me alone. Eventually, she stopped coming to the gym, and I never saw her again.

What made me think of her, after over 20 years? I recently saw her name and her photo in the newspaper... in an article about mothers with autistic children.

I never pictured S being a mother, let alone one of a child with special needs. This is the same woman who once told me that she couldn't clean her own house because it would ruin her manicure.

Life certainly takes some strange turns, doesn't it.

Speaking of my book, I recently received a tweet that read, in part: "50 pages into your book & I've cried 3 times. You're an amazing woman." Thank you, dear. That made me cry.

Have a great weekend, y'all.