Wednesday March 13, 2011
Aphrodite & Apollo- Parking Lot
Indianapolis, Indiana
2:40 PM Local Time
“I tried to tell you.”
Wendy Briese looked away from the nearly unrecognizable facade of her old gym, towards her manager’s voice. Pollaski had just pulled into the parking lot minutes ago,and now sat in his car with the window down, looking up at the building as well.
Wendy glanced back at the gym, sighing deeply. “When?” she asked, trying to keep the weary disappointment out of her voice.
“First of the year,” Pollaski replied. “Old Bob just didn’t have the heart for it anymore, I guess. Last I heard, he’s living it up on South Padre Island. Eternal spring break, or some shit like that. I figured you knew.”
There was no accusatory tone in Pollaski’s voice, but nonetheless, Wendy felt a pang of shame. She SHOULD have known, and she didn’t know how she could have gone over three months without checking in. She did spend hours upon hours here back when she was an active competitor, after all. How could she have been so negligent?
Heck, for all she knew, maybe her disappearance had been the reason Bob closed up shop.
Before the rational aspect could argue with that incredibly self-centered sentiment, she was distracted by the sound of the car door slamming. Pollaski was on his feet, stretching idly as he looked back up at the Health Club. He looked over at Wendy, shrugging. “Well, shall we?”
“Shall we what?”
“Go inside,” Pollaski replied. “Near as I can tell, you need a new place to train at, and this is still the closest place. So let’s see what they have to offer.”
Wendy glanced back up at the sign, once again reading the words.
APHRODITE & APOLLO: A HEALTH CLUB FOR BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
“Somehow, I have a feeling they’re not going to have a ring in there,” Wendy replied skeptically.
“Probably not,” Pollaski agreed. “But, and I’ll check my sources again, with Speed City gone, the nearest place with a ring to train in is way the frick out in Anderson. So unless you want to drive an hour each way every day to train...”
Wendy’s head snapped back at her manager, alarmed. No ring?! At all?! How on earth was she...
But Pollaski could already sense what was coming, and waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll call Crossroads Wrestling, and get them to lend us their ring,” he said, referring to a local regional company. “The owner owes me, and I know for a fact he’s a fan of yours.”
Wendy bit her upper lip, thinking. It wasn’t an ideal situation, especially compared to what she had been used to before her injury. But the situation had changed, and she was now facing the very real possibility that her workouts and her in-ring training would have to be in separate facilities. Either that, or add two hours of commute time...
Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to see what all her options were.
“Alright,” she said, sighing. “Let’s check out this ‘club for beautiful people’.
From the moment the two entered the doors, Wendy was stunned. Speed City wasn’t exactly primitive, but it certainly went for a more spartan appearance- a wide open area with cardio equipment lining the walls, with speed bags and heavy bags and a sparring mat in the center, with a ring dominating the entire setup. Aphrodite & Apollo was much more brightly lit, with partitions separating various groups of equipment, and mirrors covering nearly every surface they could. Even the front desk had changed, going from a simple wooden table with a sign in sheet, to a massive lit up glass cabinet stocked with health bars, protein drinks, and various other odds and ends.
How did they manage to renovate this and reopen, all in less than three months?
“Is that Lynn St. Carmichael from WISH?” Pollaski whispered, and Wendy looked up. Twenty feet away, speedwalking on a treadmill, was the blonde Channel 8 Weathergirl, wearing a sports bra and shorts so tight Wendy wondered how various parts of her were even getting bloodflow. The woman didn’t even notice the newcomers, as she was watching television on a crystal clear high definition television. Wendy realized each machine had its own television. Speed City had only one- an 27 inch box so old it had wooden cabinet paneling that was exclusively used for boxers or wrestlers to review match tapes.
Wendy swallowed hard, her mind racing. She had come through the doors, expecting to dislike- no- despise the place. But everything was just so new, and shiny, and state of the art and...
Beautiful.
She could sense Pollaski was looking at her, expectantly. She swallowed hard.
“I suppose taking a tour wouldn’t hurt,” she finally managed to say.
Pollaski snorted, and Wendy cringed inside. She hated it when she was that transparent... which seemed to pretty much be all the time.
“Sir! SIR!” came a female voice from across the way, and Wendy looked up to see another woman, this one barely in her twenties and brunette, but no less attractive than the weather girl still on the treadmill, came briskly walking towards them. “You can’t be in here, sir!”
Pollaski blinked, taken aback for once in his life. Wendy, despite her startled disbelief of the woman’s treatment of a prospective customer, smiled as friendly as she could muster.
“Oh, he’s with me. I’ve come to see about membership in this gym.”
The brunette looked her over, then glanced at Pollaski, cringing slightly, then looking back at Wendy. “Well, that may be ma’am, but he’s still going to have to leave. While you might be Aphrodite & Apollo material, HE definitely is NOT.”
Neither Wendy nor her manager said anything, simply staring at the brunette with their mouths open. The young woman continued on, undeterred. “You see ma’am, when people come to A&A, they expect the best, and we believe they deserve the best. And part of that means that our customers not have to be forced to look at... the more homely members of our society. When you come to Aphrodite & Apollo you see what you are- gorgeous brilliance.”
“So the people who are out of shape... the one’s who need to be working out the MOST.. aren’t allowed in a HEALTH CLUB? How does that make sense?” Pollaski scoffed.
The woman looked at Pollaski, cringing as if she couldn’t even stand the sight of him. “I’m sure there’s a 24/7 Fitness SOMEWHERE around here you could go to.” She said smugly.
“Yeah, you know what? Fuck this place,” Pollaski said, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Wendy, I’m sure we can find a better-”
“Hang on, Pollaski,” Wendy snapped, feeling the heat coming to her face. She turned back to her brunette. “What you have just said to my mana- my FRIEND here is completely unwarranted, unkind, and uncalled for, I would like to speak to your manager, please.”
The Brunette simply rolled her eyes. “I’m just doing what my manager told me to do, MA’AM. She replied, her worlds dripping with acidic sarcasm. “She doesn’t want THOSE kinds of people in here distracting people who are here to simply work out and enjoy beauty.”
“Then perhaps she and I need to have a little talk about the importance of things other than aesthetics,” Wendy replied hotly. “Such as maybe treating other people with respect!”
The Brunette sighed, looking up at the ceiling as if Wendy had just said the dumbest thing ever. “Okay, if you REALLY want to talk to her, I’ll go get her,” she said, acting as if Wendy had completely ruined her day with the request.
“Please do.” Wendy said, her smile very strained as the woman slowly sauntered away. It wasn’t often she gave someone this much of a piece of her mind, but if anyone deserved it, it was whatever callous woman set up a health club, and only let people in whom she deemed beautiful enough!
“Well, I’m gonna go wait outside,” Pollaski said, grinning at her. “Give them hell, Wendy.”
“Oh, you bet I will,” the redhead said through clenched teeth.
=================
Wednesday March 13, 2013
The Nest- Kitchen
Indianapolis, Indiana
4:16 PM Local Time
“I’m such a sucker!”
The words were muffled, considering that Wendy’s head was cradled in her arms, resting on the kitchen table. Wendy had felt more miserable plenty of times in her thirty-one year old life, but she couldn’t recall any of them that came through self-inflicted means.
At least not at the moment.
Her husband sat across from her, still in his coveralls from a day at the garage. He casually was browsing through a brochure, looking fairly unimpressed. “Supreme Platinum Executive Recurring Membership,” he read, shaking his head. “$900 a month for a health club.”
“I know, its ridiculous,” Wendy said, looking up from her arms. “It’s expensive, and ostentatious, and they’re not even that friendly.”
“Yeah, didn’t they throw your manager out for not being good looking enough?”
“Yeah, they did-”
“And you still signed up to give them over ten thousand dollars a year.”
Wendy nodded.
“Would this be why Pollaski is protesting on our driveway right now?”
Wendy’s head fell back onto the table with a soft thud. “Yes, Terrence. This is why Pollaski is picketing our driveway right now.” She paused, sighing. “I was going to complain about the way they treated him, but then one thing kind of led to another, and the next thing I knew, I’m scoring ninety four percent on some beauty recognition program and signing a contract,” she finished miserably.
“They were dangling the S.P.E.R.M. right out there, and you swallowed it.” Terrence commented, holding up the brochure again. Wendy looked up, disgust slowly turning into horror as she read the membership plan’s name again, and then her head went right back into the table. Terrence chuckled, and shook his head as he looked back down at the brochure. “It must have been a HELL of a sales pitch.”
“You should see the place, Terry,” Wendy said, looking back up. “Each individual workout station is climate controlled. They have individual steam rooms and exfoliating showers, and... my god, the equipment! They have Star-Trac treadmills! And Tour De France simulation exercise bikes! And...”
“How good’s the ring?”
Wendy paused in her excited rambling to stare guiltily at Terrence. “They, uh... don’t have a ring. Or sparring mats, or punching bags even. Muffy says they’re undignified.”
“Muffy.” Terrence blinked, nonplussed.
“She’s the owner,” Wendy replied, waving away Terrence’s stunned look. “And besides, this will just be for cardio conditioning. Pollaski says that he can get me usage of Crossroad’s ring for the sparring work.”
“Was that before or after you stabbed him in the back over a climate controlled exercise bike that can simulate the Tour De France?” Terrence asked.
“Before,” Wendy confessed.
“So just to let me sum it all up, you just bought a nine hundred dollar a month gym membership from a woman named Muffy that doesn’t even cover half of your training regime and completely pissed your manager and friend off.” Terrence said.
Wendy nodded grimly, and flashed a weak smile that was dripping with guilt. “Pretty stupid, I know.”
“Not one of your finer moments,” Terrence agreed. “So now what?”
“Well, I’m locked into A&A for six months,” the redhead said with a sigh, “so I might as well go. It’s the closest place to us anyways, and if Pollaski can get me enough ring time with Crossroads, I should be okay. But I guess the first thing to do is to get my manager to stop protesting outside my house,” she finished, standing up.
“Want me to get the garden hose?” Terrence asked, standing up as well.
“Terry, it’s fifty degrees out,” Wendy said as she began walking towards the front door.
“Yeah, so that’ll get him back to his nice, warm, dry apartment pretty damn quick.”
“I’m just going to talk to him,” Wendy said, rolling her eyes. She reached for the door, and swung it open... and froze.
Her daughter had joined the protest.
In fact, it seemed like half the neighborhood kids were outside her yard, carrying signs that said “UNFAIR” and “BACKSTABBER” as they marched back and forth. Around them, on the ground, lay a bunch of candy bar wrappers, no doubt the bribery Pollaski had used to get the kids to join the demonstration. Of all the children, though, only Theresa seemed to be approaching her task with any form or enthusiasm, yelling out something about embarrasing daughters during school.
Wendy sighed, rolling her eyes and calling out. “Theresa, please come inside, okay?”
In response, her daughter spun around, raising her fist in the air and screaming. “THE REVOLUTION WILL OUTLIVE ANY TYRANNY!” Her proclomation was rewarded with cheers.
Wendy’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t very often that Theresa flat out defied her, and she was certainly old enough to know that it wasn’t going to end well at all for her if she did. She opened her mouth, ready to give a much more stern order to get in the house, when she heard her husband turning around behind her.
“That’s it, I’m getting the hose,” he muttered, marching towards the side of the house.
Wendy froze, torn in between putting an end to this nonsense, or simply stopping it from getting any worse. With a sigh of resignation, she spun around, and ran after her husband.
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, TERRENCE, NO!”
No comments:
Post a Comment