Exercising a Woman’s Right to Bond
It is a story as old as maybe 1983: female bonding at the health club. As Tim Leary might say, work out, work on, work in.
“Guess who called me last night?” Bree Wellington puffed out as she and her friend Mai Blender rounded the 20th lap on the jogging tier. Each lap was an eighth of a mile. The longer they ran, the more deeply they delved into their psyches and the less capable they became of computing the mileage.
“Was it Dan Quayle?” Mai asked. “Connie Chung? Wolfgang Puck?” Mai’s overuse of acerbic wit and ascorbic acid had caused many people to sour on her long ago. But Bree stood by her. Besides, Bree was too busy to make new friends.
“Nope. None of the above. It was our old inamorata, Neil Blender,” Bree said, breathing a little heavier now as Mai picked up the pace.
“Ah, Neil. Always an ex, never a bride,” Mai panted. “Except, of course, for poor moi , the only woman dumb enough to marry a womanizer like Neil.”
The man in front of them in the “Women’s Mountain Bike 100-Miler” T-shirt turned around and gave them a vaguely hurt look.
Mai slowed down and said to Bree, “Check out the buns on the guy in front of us.”
“Mai, how many miles is that?”
“How many times does eight go into 33?”
Bree tried several times and finally said, “Let’s do our thighs.”
They walked over to the machines. “Name your poison,” said Mai. “Outer or inner?”
Bree took inner, and they continued their conversation while conducting a modern ballet--Bree bringing her legs together against 60 pounds of resistance while Mai pushes her thighs out against 40 pounds of pressure. “A pound of penance for every pint of Praline Almond Fudge,” she liked to say.
“So what did he want,” Mai asked on the intake.
“Oh, just to chat, I suspect.”
“Come on, Bree. I was married to the jerk for five years. You dated him for two. Neil Blender has more agendas than Jesse Jackson.”
“What could he want?” asked Bree. “I mean, he knows I’m happily married. Have a young child. . . .”
“He wants to start up again. What does Neil ever want?”
“Well, I think he called to tell me about his new pilot,” Bree said, slapping her legs together a bit too quickly for full isometric benefit. “He said the network is going to pick up the series for next season. It’s called ‘Girls’ Night Out.’ It’s about these three well-adjusted business and family men who happen to be cross-dressers. Once a week, they put on their wigs and outfits and go out together. Each week the show will feature a celebrity cross-dresser. . . . “
“Oh, God, I’ve had enough,” said Mai, letting the thigh resister pads fly. “Ready for the sauna?”
In the sauna, a woman of about 70 was stretched out on the bench in a state that appeared to be bliss but might have been death. Bree gave Mai a “Should we do anything?” look, and Mai just shrugged her shoulders.
“Are you telling me Neil conducted an entire phone call without coming on to you?” said Mai, treating the immobile woman as if she were part of the woodwork.
“You didn’t bring a loofah by any chance?” Bree asked.
“No, but if you tell me what Neil really said, I’ll let you use my protein-enriched anti-aging collagen formula.”
“Mai, I’m telling you he just asked about my family. He asked how Dirk’s business was going. He asked how Rachel likes Kinderkollege. He wanted to know how much we paid for our house in Quail Glen. And then he went on and on about how excited he was that his series was going to get made.”
“And you’re telling me he said nothing,” Mai muttered, watching a stream of sweat eddying down her chest, “nothing even vaguely sexual?”
“Nothing really that I was aware of,” said Bree, “unless you mean the operation.”
“Operation?” Mai said, bursting the bead of sweat that had stopped mid-sternum.
“Yeah,” Bree sighed, rubbing a washcloth across her forehead. “He said he was getting a vasectomy tomorrow.”
“Ah-ha,” said the 70-year-old woman, sitting bolt upright. “I’ve heard that line before.”