CHAPTER TWENTY-1
"Come on, ladies! You can do it! What's more important than a great ass?"
Diana felt like a big, fat blueberry in her navy terrycloth jogging suit. And this fitness instructor had to be the most annoying woman she had ever seen. Well, besides her mother, of course, who sported overly shiny, black spandex shorts and a leopard-print leotard, and had just shot the most exaggerated look of enthusiasm Diana's way, as if to convey the message—through this sweaty mist of heart palpitations and anorexics killing themselves to burn fat they couldn't spare—that she savored the dual benefit of mother-daughter bonding through vigorous aerobic exercise. Please. Diana knew her mother well enough to know that more than half of her bliss was born out of the satisfaction of being right—about Diana's weight, that is, and the necessity of bringing it down. It was a You-finally-listened-to-your-mother-and-realized-you-were-a-fat-ass-and-now-you're-doing-something-about-it kind of satisfaction, a gloating satisfaction that was, of course, rooted in the strict belief that Diana couldn't possibly arrive at positive decisions on her own, but rather that her life was all about resisting, and ultimately recognizing and rejoicing in, her mother's profound wisdom. But the fact was that Diana had made this choice on her own. Her failed barroom seduction plan, rather than depressing her, had been the exact motivation she'd needed to get off her ass and make things happen. She wasn't going to sit around and wait for those extra pounds to drop off by only watching her diet. She was going to fight them off, even if it meant sweating every step of the way. She wasn't going to sit around waiting for the rest of her life to fall into place before finding a better job either. That, too, was being taken care of. After only two days of searching the Help Wanted's, she'd already arranged to interview for an assistant counselor position at Happy Start Nursery Camp.
Diana loved children and always had. Not that she wanted any of her own yet. But she loved the idea of taking care of other people's. She couldn't believe she hadn't considered a career in child care sooner. If she played her cards right, Happy Start would provide her with more than just seasonal work since the ad said to inquire about September job openings at the school. Her interview was set for Thursday, so if things went well, she could be facing Mr. "Yeah, Thanks" on Saturday as a whole new woman—one with a new job and three workouts under her belt, which should naturally need to be tightened a notch or two. Of course, she could thank her mother for workout number three, for when Diana had asked to join in her aerobic efforts, Mrs. Christopher had decided to increase her own two-day-a-week schedule and had eagerly signed them both up for the Friday class. Diana knew she'd done it to accelerate her daughter's transition into the thin offspring she'd been waiting for so many years to be proud of, but the motivation for her mother's zeal didn't matter—as long as Diana got thinner faster.
"Ladies, we've got a newcomer in our midst!" The instructor, who affectionately referred to herself as "Kel," as if the "ly" part were a burden too formal and stuffy to bestow upon her students, who should always just think of her as "one of the girls," was beaming at Diana from across the room. Please no, please no, please no, Diana silently begged. "Say hello to Diana, everybody!" Oh God, don't. Don't.
"HI DIANA!" Fuck. The room echoed with the sound of her name. Could this get any more horrifying?
"Diana is Patty Christopher's daughter!" Apparently so.
The resounding chorus of ooh's and ah's that followed sounded so rehearsed that Diana wondered if her mother had paid for it with her enrollment fee. No random aerobics class acquaintances could be this excited to meet her daughter. These women had to be actors.
"Stick with us, Diana," Kel said as she panted through her squat thrusts, "and we'll have you looking as good as your mother in no time!"
Never before had anyone desired the power of telekinesis as badly as Diana did at this very moment. She glared intently at Kel, resenting her for this ridiculous, pseudo-sexual humping exercise she was making them do, and hoping that by some miracle, her stare would be able to knock this malnourished blonde on steroids flat on her gluteally superior ass. She hated Kel. She hated people who introduced themselves with the nicknames they wanted others to call them by, people who forced a faux camaraderie with everyone they met in order to make others feel like their equals—as if the common folk would otherwise quake with intimidation, not knowing that such high and mighty figures were actually regular people just like them. Talk about flattering yourself! And speaking of flattering, was it supposed to be a compliment when someone told a thirty-two-year-old woman that with enough huffing, puffing and pain, she might look as good as her fifty-four-year-old mother one day? The fact that Mrs. Christopher had the body of a twenty-five-year-old, and that Diana would kiss the ground to look even half as good, didn't change the fact that a class full of 120-pounders would now be keeping an eye on Patty's plump daughter and charting her progress.
"All right, ladies! Time for your favorite part of the routine—abs!"
Diana watched her mother drop eagerly to the floor, and wondered how it was that these women seemed more excited about toning their already flat tummies than Diana had been about starting a whole new life.