The Music of What Happens(68)
Jordan sits down next to me and watches. I look up and there are Betts, Zay-Rod, Pam, and Kayla, watching me. I look in Betts’s eyes. I wonder if he thinks this is hilarious and he’s gonna mock me one day, like he mocks Zay-Rod’s poetry.
But his eyes aren’t mocking. It’s more like he’s seeing me for the first time. And in that moment, it’s like I see the dude for the first time too. He’s more than the guy I trash-talk with. He’s my buddy. I think maybe I trusted Zay-Rod could be, but I wondered about Betts.
I smile at him. He smiles at me. I draw blueberries.
Max: U up
Me: Yup. My mom didn’t come home again
Max: Shit. She didn’t leave a note?
Me: Nope. it’s like three nights this week
Max: U wanna do something
Me: <smiley face> What do u have in mind
Max: Get yer mind outta the gutter <smiley face> I’ll pick u up in 5.
Me: It’s 1:06 a.m.
Max: Thank you captain obvious. Wear gym shorts
My heart flutters at the thought of a late night with Max. This summer. First time in my life I’ve been alive, really. I love it. Even with my mom’s … whatever. Even with me needing to make money to keep our house. I always thought I couldn’t do stuff. But I can.
Mom is who knows where. I’m pretty sure she’s been staying out all night, because she came home this morning at around 7:30, looking like a total mess, her hair pasted to her forehead and unwashed, her normal sweet smell replaced with a bitter funk that made me wince.
I have no fucking idea what’s up. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I’ve given up on trying.
As I step outside I have to laugh.
There’s something about the feeling of being in an outdoor sauna at midnight in late June that just takes my breath away. Like I can’t imagine how the sun can generate so much heat while it’s not even up. How my body can shiver from the shock of the temperature while just stepping out into the darkness is a mystery to me. And Max loves this shit. I will never get that.
“You ready?” he asks as I get into the passenger seat. He doesn’t have the AC going — of course he doesn’t. He’s Max.
“Ready as a person can be when he doesn’t know what he should be ready for,” I say, and he revs up the truck and pulls onto Carriage Lane and heads north. He grins.
We pull up to 24 Hour Fitness, which is literally less than a mile from where I live and in a strip mall on the way to school, yet I’ve never even seen it as it’s tucked away on the side. He puts this purple fob up against this red light and the front door automatically opens, and we are hit with cool air. Thank the Humble Baby Jesus. If it was another AC-less Max Special in here, I was going to turn on my heels and walk home.
My last workout was never. I have never really thought it would be great to have big muscles, or more like, even if I did once or twice think, What would it be like to be all pumped? my curiosity wasn’t strong enough to overrule my general disdain for lifting things for no apparent reason. That’s the thing about bodybuilding, I guess. You have to really want it.
The gym is totally empty. No workers, no exercisers. Purple walls and rugs, the antiseptic smell of cleaning product. The lights are bright for this time of night, and a Korn song I can’t stand is playing lightly on the sound system — not loud enough to be annoying but loud enough that I wish it were almost anything else.
Max heads over to this corner where there are these multicolored weights with handles on them, a bunch of big, bouncy balls, and a stainless steel apparatus with what appears to be three stations: some pulley system with weights and a steel handle, a rope hanging down from another machine, and a platform that appears to be adjustable, set high enough that I’d have to jump up to get onto it.
“We’re doing Tabatas,” he says. This means nothing to me, so I nod. He fiddles with his phone. “I have this app that helps us. My theory is jump in to the deep end before your brain tells you not to.”
“I think that’s how people drown,” I say, and he gives me a dirty look. He pulls a black mat down and puts it on the scratchy-looking purple rug, and then grabs a large black ball that looks like the basketballs that kids used to hurl at my head back in fifth grade before I figured out that I should probably come up with a nagging shoulder injury so I could skip gym class. Extra study hall every day? Thanks, fake bum shoulder! He puts the ball down and it makes a surprising thump. Then I see that it says 20 lbs on it, and my eyes go wide. He sees this and he grabs a slightly smaller one that says 15 lbs on it and puts it down next to the other one.
“Is there a one pounder, maybe?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. Instead he shows me what we’re doing.
“It’s twenty seconds on, ten seconds rest. Four different exercises. You’ll start with the throw down.” He shows me how it’s done, squatting down, picking up the twenty-pound ball, lifting it over his head, and then slamming it down onto the purple rug with a loud thump. It’s not the kind of ball that bounces. Then he squats again and does it again.
“Twenty seconds. The app counts down the last five seconds and you get a beep when you’re done. Then you come over to the rope.” He shows me the rope(s), literally. It’s a circular rope pulley, and he starts pulling down on it as fast as he can. It actually looks kind of fun. He shows me that we’ll do a forward grip and a backward grip on the rope pull, and in between, we’ll do what he calls “burpees.”