Plus, it paid the bills, and that was always important.
As the other class members filed out, I glanced around at the gym. It was one of those swanky boutique fitness places. Way,wayoutside my price range. I was here as Lesley’s guest. She had the highest-ranking membership you could buy, and it allowed her a bring-a-friend pass once per day. Even now that my family was better off than a few years ago, there was no way I could afford a membership here. It was part of why I worked so hard and kept my nose to the grindstone.
Money made the whole world go around, and if I didn’t have any, why shouldn’t the world keep spinning around without me? I loved Lesley, but she didn’t realize the level of privilege her deeper pockets afforded her.
Changing the subject, I said, “It’s the yoga, that’s all. I hate it, and it puts me in a bad mood.”
“You’d like it if you practiced it more,” Lesley said. “Why don’t you join? Knowing you, you’d be twice as good as me in a few months.”
“I could never afford this place.” I wasn’t ashamed of my financial situation, but I also didn’t talk about it much, either. I glanced around the place. “This isn’t really my vibe, anyway.”
Lesley sighed and shook her head as we walked out of the studio portion of the fitness center. “Your vibe is that nasty hole-in-the-wall gym you like? The martial arts place? Ugh.”
“Hey.” I swatted her with my yoga mat. “It’s not nasty. It has character.”
“I don’t think I’d call 1970s wood paneling and the pervasive scent of male armpitscharacter.”
“Whatever,” I said, waving her off. “It’s gritty and earthy like it’s been lived in, you know? This place—present company excluded, of course—looks more like it caters to snobs. Prissy chicks who want to film their workouts for social media clout rather than actually getting stronger and fitter.”
“You just hate rich people,” Lesley said. “I can see it in your eyes whenever we pass someone in a fur coat or a guy pulls up in a Porsche or something.”
The words irked me, but I didn’t argue. It would be too hard to explain. It wasn’t hatred, exactly. Bitterness perhaps. My family and I had struggled and scraped by for so long that when I saw people cruising around with millions of dollars, it made it a bit hard not to look at them a certain way. Part of why I liked Lesley was that she’d worked her ass off for everything she had, even though she’d been born to a fairly wealthy family.
I needed to get over that, seeing as I would be joining that elite level if things between me and my boyfriend Rick moved further along.
As though plucking the thought from my head, Lesley nudged me with her bag. “Why don’t you ask Rick to get you a membership here? We could come together, and then he would reap the benefits of your newfoundflexibility.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
She was right about that. Rick probably would pay for it. As a boyfriend, Rick was almost too generous with his gifts. Every day, I turned around, and it seemed he’d bought me something new or offered another expensive dinner. My family was poor, but I didn’t want handouts. I’d subtly tried to get him to see that, but so far it hadn’t worked. Regardless, I was too self-sufficient to ever ask him to buy something as silly as a gym membership for me. I wasn’t some gold digger.
“I’m plenty flexible,” I said with a laugh. “No need for him to shill out money for yoga.”
“What good is a rich boyfriend if you aren’t going to make the most of it?” Lesley said. “I’m not saying you need to be a gold digger, but let the guy do stuff for you. It could make your life a lot easier, and you’ll get a little taste of what life might be if that dummy ever proposes.”
I frowned and stopped at the giant self-serve water cooler next to the cycling studio. A dozen bottles of different froufrou waters. Alkalized, glacier water, caffeinated water, hemp-infused water, and a handful of others. I chose a plain bottle of everyday normal water. I wasn’t thirsty, but I wanted to get Lesley’s thoughts off Rick. I hated thinking of him in terms of his wealth. He was a person, not a wallet—even if he did try to open that damn wallet all the time. The way he flaunted money was one reason my mom didn’t care for him.
I always made a conscious effortnotto ask for a thing from him, going so far as to split the cost of our dates for the first few weeks we were dating. Mom had been through too much shit with men for me to fully rely on one, even a guy as great as Rick.When it came to guys, a solid steel wall had been erected in my mind after years of disappointment with other men.
The biggest hurdle was still to come. Even after all these months of dating, I hadn’t met Rick’s parents yet. Still strange, given the fact that he’d met my mom and brother not long after we’d started seeing each other. He talked about his parents like they were perfect, and they had this weird sway over his life. I could see it in his eyes when he spoke about them. From what Rick had told me a couple of days before, a meetup would be happeningverysoon.
Finally. After such a long buildup, the prospect made me so nervous that I wanted to vomit. His father and mother were from a much more exclusive world, and I was pretty sure that they had never pictured their darling son settling down with someone like me. Most of my worry stemmed from how they’d react to their million-dollar baby boy ending up with a lowly newspaper reporter.
Lesley took her sweet time choosing which type of water she wanted, finally settling on a bottle of Perrier sparkling mineral water. Pretentious, yes, but a little less so than some of the other options.
The woman manning the front desk waved to us as we strolled by. “Thanks for coming to Sweat It Out. Stay sweaty.”
“Stay sweaty?” I muttered under my breath. “Are they freaking serious?”
“They make them say that catchphrase.” Lesley shrugged as the door closed behind us. “I admit, it is a little goofy.”
The early evening air was cool on my hot skin, kissing the sweat that had soaked my hair as we walked toward the parking garage. It was one of the few times I enjoyed the cool weather in Toronto. Something about leaving a gym—even one as snooty as this one—and feeling that cool breeze was refreshing. It made all the hard work worth it.
I wouldn’t admit it to Lesley, but the yoga class hadn’t been all bad. I still preferred jiu-jitsu, boxing, and some nice rusty weights, but I wouldn’t mind if she invited me back sometime.
“Do you wanna go get dinner somewhere?” Lesley asked as we walked up the stairs to the second level of the parking garage. “Sushi? Or that new Indian-Mexican fusion place?”
“I’m not really in the mood for a butter chicken burrito, honestly,” I said. “Sushi sounds good, though.”
Lesley pulled her key fob from her purse and pressed the unlock button. Her sleek black Mercedes chirped and flashed its lights, illuminating the dark garage. My little Fiat sat two spots over. The juxtaposition of the two cars wasn’t lost on me—another visual representation of the different levels my friend and I were on.
