The Latterson List

Chapter Seven - The Shower

There are very few people in the world that are able to make an upturned nose look attractive, and ladies and gentlemen I am proud to say that I know one of those rare beings.

Jonathan Alexander Bishop-Eloire, or 'Bish', was my personal trainer.

Personal trainer. Gross, I know.

Throughout childhood, I'd always managed to maintain a relatively lithe frame, regardless of what I'd eaten. Six pizzas, four packets of crisps, ten chocolate bars, a packet of popcorn and a whole chicken? No problem. Didn't even touch me.

Until I hit fourteen and I found cheese.

Oh, and did I find it. It swiftly became my opinion that you could have cheese with everything. On crackers? Of course. With pasta? Obviously. On a curry? Why not! Just picking an apple out of the fruit bowl? Grab a wedge of cheese too!

Needless to say, it didn't take long for me to lose my 'lithe' form and develop a little bit of a belly. I didn't let it bother me when I suddenly couldn't fit into my favourite pair of chinos. I wasn't half arsed when that red shirt was a bit tight. And so what that I couldn't wear skinny jeans anymore because they always looked like leggings.

But the thing that got me...

The one thing that drove to getting help from Bish...

The one final straw that broke the fatty's back...

...was when my bellybutton went from an inny to and outty.

Oh, how I'd been forced to reckon with my own existence. My belly had literally popped. I refused to eat anything and demanded my mother only feed me things that had less calories than water.

But the fasting only lasted all of an hour because there was some really nice Port Salut in the fridge.

Eventually, I had made a phone call to the gym.

"Keep going, Pauline! You're lifting like a girl!" Bish bellowed at me as I pushed another weight above my head.

"What...about my lack...of strength...specifically makes me...a girl?" I breathed, straining under the weight.

"Shut up, you big girl, and lift!"

I went to retort again (because we're not about that in the Social Justice Gym) but the effort required to speak would have been too much for my body's processing power, and I'd have collapsed into a pool of meringue under these weights.

The Monteland Gym was attached to our school, so also looked like a converted chapel. A few lifting machines, treadmills and punch bags lined the ground floor, and several rowing machines and other miscellaneous torture devices could be found upstairs. A further, balconied level that overlooked the floor below was an empty space used by a few of the instructors to teach classes like yoga, Pilates, and other methods of becoming painfully flexible.

The Zumba classes were my favourite. The instructor was the most enthusiastic person I had ever heard. She could make cleaning socks sound fun. Her lessons sometimes coincided with my personal training session, and more often than not she was responsible for my motivation instead of Bish. But I'd never tell him that.

"Come on, Paula! One more!" Bish clapped his hands on his knees aggressively as he bent down to yell at my face.

I threw the weight up into the air for the final time, gasping in relief when Bish grabbed the weight from me and helped me guide it back to its rack just behind my head.

"You did well, today," Bish clapped me on the shoulder. I nearly buckled under his weight.

"Thanks," I panted.