Chapter 1
April 10, 2019
Willa saw the cloud of red curls first. It was almost comically frizzy, like Carrot Top had gnawed on a live wire, and confusing, given that the woman was a multi-millionaire who could easily afford expensive products carefully tailored to her curl pattern. Willa had hurried into the restaurant to grab an iced coffee before her first coach-training session at the soon-to-open fitness studio across the street and spotted those curls in a booth, bobbing as the woman nibbled on an omelette.
Without a view of the woman’s torso, Willa was certain the woman — Deirdre “Dee” Bradley, founder of FitFams, one of the most exclusive and elite boutique fitness chains in the country — would have on a pale-pink crop top. It was her signature look, worn when she hawked her patented FamBands ankle and wrist weights on QVC, of course, but also in Instagram photos posted from a recent ice-climbing expedition in Kanderstag, Switzerland. During her TED Talks presentation about growing up and coming out in hardscrabble Little Falls, Minnesota, Dee had worn a black Alexander McQueen blazer, unbuttoned, showing off a rose-colored, midriff-baring top and enviable abs.
Willa had watched that Talk on her aging laptop while desperately seeking some alone time, huddled in the corner of her kids’ playroom, a Lego graveyard that had been abandoned for the brighter, more chaotic fun promised by Fortnite on the PlayStation in the basement.
She was inspired, as Dee spoke of her alcoholic mother and largely absentee father, about recovering from an Avoidant Eating Disorder by strong-arming the picky-eating compulsion into submission. Dee was brave, having recently called out a Republican wingnut’s son for trying to take a class at the Miami studio while wearing a Westboro Baptist Church T-shirt. She had created a wildly successful and award-winning nonprofit called Restaurant Run, which used an app to dispatch running enthusiasts to pick up leftover food from restaurants and jog the meals — in special, aerodynamic, insulated backpacks — to homeless people, pinpointed on a map.
Dee was a feminist, an entrepreneur, a Friend of Gwyneth.
And her arms were jacked. So, yeah.
For about 10 years Willa had cobbled together a weekly schedule of indoor cycling, strength, and stretch classes at fitness centers in the Atlanta area, pedaling madly and screaming motivational clichés through her kid’s toy megaphone when the mic inevitably stopped working. The pay was paltry, but her main roles were mom and freelance graphic designer, and her husband made a decent-enough living in fundraising for a local college. Willa was a former soccer captain at a Division-III college who was funny, young-looking, outgoing, and managed her depression by frantically working out. She craved approval and applause, and she desperately feared getting fat. So fitness coaching seemed like a good match.
Willa had never taught at any of the fancier spots in the city, places with eucalyptus-scented towels and models manning the front desk, for fear that her athletic physique would make her ineligible. She avoided rejection, ever since the owner of a tiny studio in Decatur had called to share a client’s complaint about Willa’s spin class.
“Yeah,” the guy said, audibly chewing. “So the client says you’ve gained weight.”
Willa suddenly felt unsafe in her skin.
“I’ve been trying to get pregnant,” Willa snapped. “And I just had a miscarriage. So maybe that’s it?”
“Well,” the owner said, not missing a beat, “Janice didn’t gain any weight when she got pregnant. So you just need to work a little bit harder.”
Now, here Willa was, in this restaurant, looking at the back of the head of the founder of FitFams, a company that had reached out to Willa and recruited her — recruited her! — to coach.
So Willa was fangirling, just a little, when she approached Dee’s table.
“You’re Dee, right?” Willa asked, as if there could be any doubt. “I’m Willa Marks. I start coach training today.”
Dee chewed on a piece of turkey bacon as she considered Willa, her eyes moving from shoes to mid-section. It’s like she could see through Willa’s tank top to the burgeoning yet inferior four-pack beneath. “Yeah,” she sighed. Then, flatly: “Hi.”
Willa had expected a warmer welcome from the woman who, on FitFams’ website, listed her title as “Empress of Empowerment.” Maybe a knowing squeeze of the arm? A “thank you for being part of my journey?” A “yes, I know you, I hand-picked you, I see you, you are a star?”
But Willa would soon learn Dee was not the person presented on the website, or in that TED talk, or in her social media posts, or on podcasts, or at parties. There would be a lot of harsh realizations during Willa’s time at FitFams. She would learn about what really goes on inside and behind the scenes at elite fitness studios, places with big personalities, big egos, big drama, and big problems. Places that promise to help people become their healthiest and happiest selves. Places that sometimes succeed in that endeavor, but many times crush clients and coaches instead.
Willa would also learn a lot about herself. She would learn that she was a liar.