The gym was a high-ceilinged room with white walls. Light came in from enormous windows along the side where a row of strange-looking machines sat. Jolene was wearing yellow tights and gym shoes. The morning was warm, and Beth had worn her white shorts in the taxi. At the far end of the exercise room a doleful-looking young man in gray trunks lay on his back on a bench, pushing up weights and groaning. Otherwise they were alone.
They started with a pair of stationary bicycles. Jolene set the drag on Beth’s at ten, and sixty for her own. By the time they had pedaled ten minutes Beth was covered with sweat and her calves were aching.
“It gets worse,” Jolene said.
Beth gritted her teeth and kept pedaling.
She could not get the rhythm right on the hip-and-back machine, and her ass slid on the imitation-leather bench she had to lie on while she pushed the weights down with her legs. Jolene had set it for forty pounds, but even that seemed too much. Then there was the machine where she raised the weights with her ankles, making the tendons in her upper legs stand out and hurt. After that she had to sit upright in what reminded her of an electric chair and pull in weights with her elbows. “Firm up your pectorals,” Jolene said.
“I thought that was a kind of fish,” Beth said.
Jolene laughed. “Trust me, honey. This is what you need.”
Beth did them all—furious and terribly out of breath. It made her fury worse to see that Jolene used far heavier weights than she did. But then, Jolene’s figure was perfect.
The shower afterward was exquisite. There were strong water jets, and Beth sprayed herself hard, getting the sweat off. She soaped herself thoroughly and watched the foam swirl on the white tiles at her feet as she rinsed it off with a stinging hot spray.
The woman at the cafeteria was handing Beth a plate with salisbury steak on it when Jolene pushed her tray up next to Beth’s. “None of that,” Jolene said. She took the plate and handed it back. “No gravy,” she said, “and no potatoes.”
“I’m not overweight,” Beth said. “It won’t hurt me to eat potatoes.
Jolene said nothing. When they pushed their trays past the Jell-O and Bavarian cream pie, Jolene shook her head. “You ate chocolate mousse last night,” Beth said.
“Last night was special,” Jolene said. “This is today.”
They had lunch at eleven-thirty because Jolene had a twelve o’clock class. When Beth asked her what it was, Jolene said, “Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century.”
“Is that part of Phys. Ed.?” Beth asked.
“I didn’t tell all of it yesterday. I’m getting an M.S. in political science.” Beth stared at her. “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” Jolene said.
When Beth got up the next morning, her back and calves were sore, and she decided not to go to the gym. But when she opened the refrigerator to find something for breakfast, she saw stacks of TV dinners and suddenly thought of the way Mrs. Wheatley’s pale legs had looked when she rolled down her stockings. She shook her head in revulsion and started prying the boxes loose. The thought of frozen fried chicken and roast beef and turkey made her ill; she dumped them all in a plastic shopping bag. When she opened the cabinet to look over the canned foods, there were three bottles of Almadén Mountain Rhine sitting in front of the cans. She hesitated and closed the door. She would think about that later. She had toast and black coffee for breakfast. On her way to the gym, she dropped the sack of frozen dinners into the garbage.
At lunch Jolene told her about a bulletin board in the Student Union that listed students who would do unskilled work at two dollars an hour. Jolene walked her over on the way to class, and Beth took down two numbers. By three o’clock that afternoon she had a Business Administration major beating the carpets in the backyard and an Art History major scrubbing the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets; Beth did not supervise them; she spent the time working out variations on the Nimzo-Indian Defense.
By the next Monday, she was using all seven of the Nautilus machines and doing sit-ups afterward. On Wednesday, Jolene added ten pounds to each of them for her and had her hold a five-pound weight on her chest when she did the sit-ups. The week after that, they started playing handball. Beth was awkward at it and got out of breath quickly. Jolene beat her badly. Beth kept at it doggedly, panting and sweating and sometimes bruising the palm of her hand on the little black ball. It took her ten days and a few lucky bounces before she won her first game.
“I knew you’d start winning soon enough,” Jolene said. They stood in the center of the court, sweating.
“I hate losing,” Beth said.
That day there was a letter waiting for her from something called Christian Crusade. The stationery had about twenty names down the side, under an embossed cross. The letter read:
Dear Miss Harmon:
As we have been unable to reach you by telephone we are writing to determine your interest in the support of Christian Crusade in your forthcoming competition in the U.S.S.R.
Christian Crusade is a non-profit organization dedicated to the opening of Closed Doors to the Message of Christ. We have found your career as a Trainee of a Christian Institution, the Methuen Home, noteworthy. We would like to help in your forthcoming struggle since we share your Christian ideals and aspirations. If you are interested in our support, please contact us at our offices in Houston.
She almost threw the letter away until she remembered Benny’s saying that he had been given money for his Russian trip by a church group. She had Benny’s phone number on a folded piece of paper in her chess clock box; she got it out and dialed. Benny answered after the third ring.
“Hi,” she said. “It’s Beth.”
Benny was a bit cool, but when she told him about the letter, he said at once, “Take it. They’re loaded.”
“Would they pay for my ticket to Russia?”
“More than that. If you ask them, they’ll send me over with you. Separate rooms, considering their views.”
“Why would they pay so much money?”
“They want us to beat the Communists for Jesus. They’re the ones who paid part of my way two years ago.” He paused. “Are you coming back to New York?” His voice was carefully neutral.
“I need to stay in Kentucky a while longer. I’m working out in a gym, and I’ve entered a tournament in California.”
“Sure,” Benny said. “It sounds all right to me.”
She wrote Christian Crusade that afternoon to say that she was very much interested in their offer and would like to take Benjamin Watts with her as a second. She used the pale-blue stationery, crossing out “Mrs. Allston Wheatley” at the top and writing in “Elizabeth Harmon.” When she walked to the corner to mail the letter, she decided to go on downtown and buy new sheets and pillowcases for the bed and a new tablecloth for the kitchen.
The winter light in San Francisco was remarkable; she had never seen anything quite like it before. It gave the buildings a preternatural clarity of line, and when she climbed to the top of Telegraph Hill and looked back, she caught her breath at the sharp focus of the houses and hotels that lined the long steep street and below them the perfect blue of the bay. There was a flower stand at the corner, and she bought a bunch of marigolds. Looking back at the bay, she saw a young couple a block away climbing toward her. They were clearly out of breath and stopped to rest. Beth realized with surprise that the climb had been easy for her. She decided to take long walks during her week there. Maybe she could find a gym somewhere.