Rubout (30 page)

The others nodded happily. They were eager to be rid of me, too. Vonnie the Steel Magnolia preened, anxious to assume her accustomed role as the most decorative woman in the room. Even Georgia secretly agreed that I was a pain in the ass and better off out of the committee. But she didn’t say anything. The room erupted into an animated discussion of who should be chosen to replace me. I used the time to slip out the door and find my miserable excuse for a car. Georgia followed me, running across acres of flowered carpet until she finally caught up with me on the parking lot. I hadn’t gone anywhere yet because I couldn’t find my car. I was still standing there, in aisle T, trying to remember where I parked the File Cabinet. How could anything that big be so anonymous? Maybe I could put a flower on the antenna to help locate it. Somehow I couldn’t picture a perky fake flower on the gray File Cabinet. I wondered how duct tape would look on the antenna.

“There you are,” I heard Georgia yell. “What in the hell did you think you’re doing?” She scolded me like a mother whose toddler had wandered off in the mall. Her small blond person seemed overwhelmed by her heavy gray suit. She should have looked ridiculous. But she didn’t. Georgia looked formidable.
She folded her arms and stared at me. “Well.” she said. “I’m waiting.”

“There was no point in hanging around watching Charlie gloat.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Charlie was as close to eating crow as I’ve ever seen him. But you didn’t even stay to enjoy it.”

“I’m sorry, Georgia,” I said, and I meant it, at least a little. “But I couldn’t stand what that idiot Jason was doing to that fine old hymn. ‘Amazing
Gazette,’
indeed.”

“Why do you care?” Georgia said. For a small person she could be surprisingly forceful. “You haven’t been in a church in years. You don’t even believe in God.”

“That’s not true.”

“Whatever,” Georgia said. “That hymn doesn’t mean a rat’s ass to you, and you know it, so don’t go all noble on me. Why did you make a scene?”

“Because it means something to other people.”

“You’re hopeless,” she said. “Now let’s get back there. With any luck the committee will have chosen your successor and I’ll have missed listening to more of their bullshit.”

“How can you stand it?” I said. I was really puzzled.

“Because it’s hot air,” she said. “Your problem is you take it seriously. It doesn’t mean anything, Francesca. I can’t make you understand that.”

“But why do it, if it doesn’t mean anything?” I said to her gray wool-covered back. She was already walking toward the building.

“Because my fuckin’ building is going condo,” she
said, nearly hitting me in the face with the door. When we got to the conference room, she went in first and left me to face the committee on my own. It was a lot harder going back into the room than slipping out of it. I could feel the committee’s dislike and see their distaste as I stood at the door of the conference room. The publisher looked at me like I was a hair in his mashed potatoes. I tried a smile. Everyone looked at the publisher to see how he liked it. Not very well. He didn’t smile back. He looked like one of those animatronics figures you see at Disneyland: lifelike, but not really alive.

Voyage Captain Jason let me know I’d sunk myself for good. “Francesca, your hostility is in danger of shipwrecking our Voyage of Discovery,” he said. “We must have a calm and peaceful journey. I am sorry to say that you are a disruptive influence. You are a talented individual, but I believe you will be happier if you set your own course and sail alone, without us.” In other words, I was not a team player, the most damning insult in any corporation.

“In your absence we have chosen a compatible crew member, thanks to Charlie. He has suggested Wendy, the Family editor, and the committee has wholeheartedly approved his choice. Wendy will join us for the duration of the voyage, starting with our next meeting.”

Wendy the Whiner? This was getting better and better. If she was on the Voyage Committee, she wouldn’t be bothering the Family section staff. But this was no time to let my glee show. Instead, I nodded slowly, as if I’d just had my rank stripped off my uniform. I was afraid to say anything, in case Charlie
figured out how happy I was to be out of this boondoggle. I heard Voyage Captain Jason say something about “a more appropriate choice.” It sounded like my court-martial was almost over. I couldn’t wait to escape this room and get back to writing. I needed a column and I needed some lunch. I could get both at Uncle Bob’s. Grease, here I come. I could see a plate with my name on it. I could see a column with my name on it, too. I knew I’d have something if I went to Uncle Bob’s—probably an extra five pounds of fat. But it was going to be a nice day after all. Later that afternoon, I’d take tea with Queen Elizabeth Vander Venter at her Ladue mansion. After that, I’d call Mayhew, because I was too chicken to face him in person, and tell him everything I’d been able to pump out of Elizabeth. I’d also tell him about the destruction of Ralph, because I was sure that was done by a Vander Venter, too. Then I’d casually mention that I was back with Lyle, and could we just be friends, huh, and forget we’d ever seen each other in our underwear? I mean, it wasn’t that big a deal. I’d seen smaller swim suits. Not on me, maybe, but they existed.

Charlie must have sensed my delight. He put an end to my plans for a pleasant day. “Oh, Francesca,” he said. “Since you’re free right now, and I know you’re always looking for a column, I want you to cover a noontime GEEP class at Chesterfield Mall.”

“GEEP?” I must have looked puzzled.

“Geriatric Excellence Exercise Program. This one meets at Chesterfield Mall. All those sweet old people in their sweat suits. I know exactly what you’d want to do with a story like that,” the little twerp said, and
gave his most insincere smile. Of course he knew what I’d want to do with a story like that—and where I’d like to shove it. This was more than just a dull assignment. It was an insult. It was the kind of fluff piece usually given to a junior reporter and buried in the Metro section.

“But . . .” I said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Charlie said. “You don’t have time, anyway. The GEEP class starts in”—he glanced at his watch—“twenty minutes. You can get to Chesterfield in time if you leave now.”

So I left. All the way there, I devised curses for Charlie. I wished that all his hair would fall out and the only places it would grow were his ears. I tried to imagine Charlie totally bald. I wondered if his head came to a point, or was it round like a bowling ball? When he got angry, the bare patch on his head glowed red. If he was completely bald, his head would look like the bulb on a thermometer. This image cheered me up so much I was smiling by the time I got to Chesterfield Mall.

The GEEP program was in a storefront on the lower level. It was a white rectangle of a room with hardwood floors and three walls of mirrors. A white door opened into a back area that must contain dressing rooms, because the exercisers were coming out now. One was a cute, cuddly, elderly woman with a figure like a melting ice cream cone. Her baby-pink sweat suit matched her round pink cheeks. She looked like the ideal grandma. The woman following her did not. She had made titanic efforts to look younger, which somehow made her look older than Grandma. Her hair was dyed black
and sprayed so stiff it would stay in place in a tornado. Several face-lifts had pulled her skin so tight I bet she had to bikini wax her lip. Her makeup was artfully applied, right down to the false eyelashes. Her nails were bright red—the same color as her red leotard and tights with flame designs on the legs and hips. Thirty years ago, this woman must have had a hot body. Now, as Gypsy Rose Lee used to say, she still had everything, it was just a little lower.

Another woman followed her out of the dressing-room door. This one looked like a stick figure: stick arms, spindly legs, and springy steel-colored curls. She was talking to a tall, stately woman who was a symphony in gray: dark-gray exercise togs, lighter gray tights and straight silver-gray hair. Ms. Silver made gray hair seem like something you wanted to achieve. After her came a couple of gnarled old guys with baggy exercise shorts and hairy legs. Behind them was the class teacher. She was a permanently perky blonde in her mid-twenties named Janni. I introduced myself to Janni, while other elderly exercisers streamed out. “Oh, you must join our class!” Janni said, jumping up and down with enthusiasm.

“Er, sorry, I didn’t bring any exercise clothes,” I said. I wasn’t sorry at all.

“That’s all right,” the instructor said. “You look about my size. You can wear an extra pair of my shorts and a T-shirt. Working out with us will give you a real appreciation for what we do. Don’t you agree, class?”

“Yes! Yes!” said the class. I was being smothered with senior vim and vigor. Oh, heck, I might as well try it. How tough could it be? The youngest person in
the class was sixty-five years old. Janni found me some navy shorts and a white GEEP T-shirt. By the time Td changed and come back out, the class of about fifteen people had arranged itself in three long rows. Black exercise mats, like giant mousepads, stood in front of each person. Lined up on the mats were hand weights and stretchy rubber exercise tubes and long rubber-coated exercise bars. Someone had set up a place for me. I was grateful to see it was in the back row of the class. Janni put some bouncy music on the boombox and started her patter over the music:

“Okay, now, class, let’s start with our warm-up. Reach straight up. Up, up, up, put those arms in the sky, but don’t raise your shoulders, keep those shoulders down and bend your knees for support.” I looked around the class. These directions seemed to make sense to them. They were smiling and stretching their arms. By the time I figured out what everyone was doing, Janni was on to the next exercise.

“We’re going to march to warm up our legs! March, march, march!” she said. “March left, left, left!” The class began taking giant steps to the left, except for me. I went right and ran into Ms. Silver. She smiled and shrugged, letting me know it didn’t matter.

“Now, right, right, right!” Janni said. I went left and ran into Ms. Silver again. She still smiled. I tried to smile back, but I was breathing like I’d just run the four-minute mile. Only fifty-five more minutes to go, and we weren’t even through the warm-up exercises. This was going to be the most humiliating hour of my life. By now, I realized I was a dyslexic exerciser.
When the class went left, I went right. When they were up, I was down.

Janni had the class pick up their weights. She was yelling “Biceps, triceps, biceps, triceps,” like it was some weird mantra. Ms. Silver was swinging her five-pound weights like a couple of Q-Tips, while I struggled to lift a pair of three-pounders. Even more embarrassing, the plump, pink-suited grandma was hefting two three-pound weights in each hand. The woman in the flaming suit had ten-pounders and hadn’t even broken a sweat. She hadn’t even broken a fingernail. The woman was a Fitness Fashion Plate. I’d seen younger versions of her at the kind of gyms where people like to show off their bodies. It looked like the FFP could be any age, from eighteen to eighty. A true Fitness Fashion Plate works out in full makeup, including false eyelashes, and she always wears the latest gym togs. She never has a hair out of place. Of course, it was pretty heavily shellacked.

While I struggled to keep up with the seniors, I sneaked a peak at the two men. They turned out to be Gaper Twins. They were sweating—but not from the exercise. Every time Janni said “Move those glutes” and showed us her bouncing bottom, the Gaper Twins’ eyes bulged. Ditto her demonstration of this command: “Lie on your back, bend your knees, and lift those hips—Up! Down! Up!” They nearly hyperventilated when she said, “Push those chests out. Push!”

When the Gaper Twins weren’t watching Janni, they were studying the rest of us with awed delight. But we couldn’t get mad at the Gaper Twins. They never said anything sexist, or even stared at the
women too long. The Twins looked like teenage boys who accidentally walked into the cheerleaders’ dressing room. They couldn’t believe their luck and they hoped no one noticed them. This was probably the one time when exercise was bad for the heart.

My elegant Ms. Silver belonged to a different category of exerciser. She was a Sweater. She grunted. She groaned. She flogged herself during a workout until she was sweating like she’d been stoking steel-mill furnaces. Sweaters wear gray gym clothes, to show off their sweat to the best advantage. Naturally, they always wear sweat bands.

At first, the whole class seemed to be working equally hard. Then I noticed some people didn’t complete the exercise sets. They started out vigorously, but then these Slackers would quietly lie down on the job. The Stick Woman was the worst offender. She would do three pushups and spend seven resting on the floor. She lifted the body bar over her head four times, then rested it for six counts. She was an expert at not drawing attention to herself, so she was rarely reprimanded by Janni the instructor. The Stick Woman would fit in well at the
Gazette.
I bet she could sleep in front of the computer with her eyes open, so she looked awake.

I tried to be a Slacker during the stomach crunches, but Janni caught me. “Now, Francesca, no lying down on the job. Only six more crunches, I promise. You can do it. You’re so much younger than our other exercisers.” The whole class turned around and smiled. They were clearly enjoying watching me sweat.

Finally, the hands of the clock neared 1:00
P.M.
“Now, bend over so your ribs are on your thighs,” said Janni. The exercisers folded themselves neatly in half, with their rear ends in the air. I tried to do that, but I seemed to be lacking a couple of hinges. Then everyone but me gracefully straightened up. This class was not just strong, they were limber, too. “Now stretch toward the sky,” said Janni, and they did. At precisely one o’clock, Janni said, “Good job, everybody.” She applauded them, then the class applauded themselves.

I was impressed. My South Side grandparents would never have gone to an exercise class. I thought of Grandma as frail and old, but she could shove a mahogany dining table across a room to wax the floor. But I still clung to my stereotypes about older people. I would have a good column after all, which would certainly upset Charlie. By the time I interviewed Janni and some of the GEEP exercisers and checked my answering machine for messages, I barely had time to make it to tea with Queen Elizabeth. Now, after an hour of being shamed by senior fitness buffs, I was looking forward to an afternoon with an old woman who didn’t lift anything heavier than a teacup.