She positioned herself with the hand weights and started to do the back lifts like the gym instructor had told her. She pulled on the weights and repeated 15-20 times. She did front side and back for several minutes and put the weights down and glancing around to see if anyone was watching. Lifting her arms up, she giggled the arm flab in front of the full length mirror. “Actually,” she thought to herself, “it wasn’t looking so bad,” It did look like that ugly upper arm flab was receding. She thought about lipo-suction. “Nah,” she thought, “If I am going to spend $4,500, I’ll spend it on my face.”
She saw the guy coming her way, who at age 55, dressed like he was a 30 year-old mountain hiker. He was always trying to get her attention. “I might be interested,” she thought to herself, “if he wouldn’t spend so much time looking at himself in the mirror.” True to form, the guy came over to pick up some of the heavier weights. Stopping in front of a floor length mirror, he adjusted his baseball cap to a jaunty level above his eyes, and gave his cotton neckerchief a little yank. Is that a sporting look, thought Connie, or to hide the wrinkles? She moved away, no point in letting him think she was looking at him. She was looking at him, she reminded herself, but she wasn’t looking at him.
She moved over to the exercycles and got on one. There was a housewife type next to her who gave her a cheery hello! She seems to be having a great time! Connie thought grudgingly as she pulled out her book to read. She checked the clock, should make this twenty minutes for the correct amount of cardio and all that baloney. She adjusted the dial down to the lowest point and started cycling. Exercise could be a pain.
Later on in the locker, she was amazed as always, at the number of women who sported what one of her friends called ‘the apron.’ The apron was belly fat so large it stuck out. Eventually, it sagged down in a large fold over the bottom of the abdomen, sometime hanging as low as the pubic area. Connie always tried to not stare at women with this. “I am sure they feel just as bad about it,” she thought to herself. “Wow!” as one woman walked by. “Plastic surgery? Something, yikes!”
Connie was contentious about the gym, but certainly did not feel like she was compulsive about it. She was fairly sure one of her ‘gym-mates’ was there every day and possibly twice a day. “Too much!” she thought as she saw the women yet again, “nobody needs that much exercise. Jeese!”
Back at home that evening; she had to get on her online dating site. “I do not have to check my mail, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t…”
‘Looking for Love’, she read, ‘Really Nice Guy.’ “Hum, nice picture,” she told Bubbles the cat who seemed only mildly interested. She read on, “widowed, two boys….they are my life….and my dogs, good doggies…” Connie jerked at this one but continued to read paragraph after paragraph about their lives. He seemed like a good father at least; the paragraph went on and she then came to “but I might get violent if I found you watching a chick flick…” What! She read it again and then once again to be sure if she read it right. Was he trying to be funny? “God, no wonder his wife died!” Connie told an uninterested Bubbles who was licking his fur. She decided to give ‘Looking’ a pass and did send a message to Kiwi from Australia; too young of course, but cute on that bicycle.
Connie had to stop all this frivolity to get ready for bed; tomorrow was definitely another day and this was finals week and she needed her energy.
Mr. James was waiting in line for the bus as usual and she moved behind him and attempted to pull out her book to start reading quickly. No luck, he had to talk to her. Mr. James was an employee at her school who had started there about six months before. He immediately fastened on to her and kept giving her invitations to lunch, dinner, coffee, hiking, etc, etc, etc. Connie countered with being busy, having no business cards, forgetting her phone number, not calling him, having a friend call him after he just insisted on going with her hiking group. Connie had told her friend Lilly “If this guy is not married, my name is Mickey Mouse! And, he won’t back off.”
Today the subject was movies and they managed to squeeze out 5-10 minutes of conversation on the latest movies before the bus mercifully showed up and she could get on. She dashed to a seat next to a girl student quickly before he could figure out where she was and sat down. “Boy, do I need to shake this guy,” Connie mused to herself, shaking her head.
Connie got through the day of sweaty, semi-hysterical students with their final exams, and fortunately, almost to her surprise, most of the students did really well. “Guess that open-book idea worked,” she told Bob her co-worker.
“Ah, you’re going too easy on them,” was his response.
“Maybe so, “she told him. “But, it is either that or a bunch of them flunk the test and then I am called on the carpet to explain why students ‘can’t’ pass the class.” Bob shrugged his shoulders with a ‘what-do-you-do’ kind of attitude.
Connie told him about the ‘chick-flick’ guy. Bob laughed “Oh no, caught red-handed watching Sleepless in Seattle the second time and it is my favorite movie!” They both laughed.
Back home that evening, Connie decided to skip the gym, she was too tired. She told Bubbles she wasn’t going and Bubbles blinked at her in a kind of blank fashion. “I know, I know,” she said. “First it’s one day, then the next, and the next, and the next.” Bubbles lost interest at this point and started to lick his fur. “Yeah, yeah,” she said to him.
Back on-line, “Hello, how are you?” came the polite question. Rudolf was 45 years old, blue eyes, 6’ tall and educated. He was here in this country to do some engineering work. He wanted to know if she would like to send him an email. “Hum,” Connie though, “so polite.” She scanned his profile. “Married” was blank. That didn’t look so good. She did send him an email “Nice to meet you Rudolf, you look very interesting, Are you married?”
The answer came the next day and Rudolf indicated that he was ‘separated.’ Experience told Connie that could mean a really lot of things. She began fantasizing about why he was separated. His wife has had an affair with a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend, she drinks too much, she takes pills, she works too much, she won’t work at all, she sits on the sofa all day, she goes to the gym all day long. Between these fantasies they were emailing each other back and forth and finally decided to meet.
Rudolf lived in the Big City which was two hours away by train. She was ok with that; allowed her to collect herself before meeting him. Connie had to grind over and over again about going back to Dr. Lee to have Botox on her forehead. $400 she groaned to herself. Jesus that is a lot of money!
But, she had to admit, every time she went past a mirror, especially in bright light, the deep furrows between her eyes were doing nothing for her looks. She finally decided to bite the bullet and go in and do it. Two hours later and lighter in the pocketbook, she emerged with only a little ice pack on her forehead.
“You’re an artist Dr. Lee,” she told him. She wasn’t kidding. He had just gone after her face hammer and thongs with two laser guns for heavy sun spots and done a beautiful job. The spots above her mouth were fading away nicely.
Dr. Lee looked very pleased with himself. “He should,” she thought, “making that kind of money. “
Connie got her hair colored and bought a new pair of wooly stockings to go with her latest English dress that was very ‘trendy.’ The dress covered the remaining stomach and butt bulges without clinging. The hairdresser curled her hair with the curling iron, something she could never do herself, and she brushed it out the next day and was ready to get on the train.
By the time she got there and got checked in; she was starting to feel tired. Connie decided to lie down a little before she got dressed and met her date. No point in looking droopy. After 45 minutes she got up; reapplied her makeup careful to hide the bruises from the Botox, brushed and sprayed her hair. The dress was on, the stockings up; the shoes matched everything and the jewelry too. She was ready to go.
She met Rudolf by the subway and her first impression was that he was shorter than she thought he would be. “He has got to be the shortest 6’ man I have met in awhile.” Regardless, they were soon chatting together like old buddies.
Continued Part III
webby1dotnet 