Chapter 28
Dee took a sip of her JCB No. 69 Rosé Burgundy, an organic and biodynamic wine recently recommended by Chrissy Teigen, and bobbed her knee impatiently under the table of SOUP, the hot new restaurant on the Upper East Side that was known for mixing expensive broths with abalone, scallops, Wagyu beef, white truffles, foie gras, Chinese black mushrooms, and the like, all table-side.
While she waited, Dee scrolled her phone for calorie counts and discovered that the abalone, a marine snail, has 89 calories and five assholes. Five. The same number of assholes who would be joining her for dinner tonight.
And the five assholes were late.
This was Dee’s monthly meeting with New York City’s five other powerhouse women from the fitness industry. Billed as an opportunity to network and lift each other up, these get-togethers were, for Dee, more like re-con missions. They were a way for her to find out what was going on at other swank studios, to learn from their mistakes, and capitalize on missed opportunities. They always met at a new restaurant, even though none of them ever ate much.
The first to arrive was Bridget Babcock of Cycle City, who two years before had been promoted from SVP to CEO when an intrepid reporter at Buzzfeed unearthed racist tweets posted in 2010 by her predecessor, a 52-year-old white man with a plastic surgery addiction and a predilection for 16-year-old girls. Bridget was all sinew and bone — you probably could have weaponized her collarbones — and was always freezing, which is why she was wearing a Burberry poncho with her Balmain jeans and boots despite the warm April temperatures outside.
She was a year younger than Dee but acted superior, always reminding Dee of her humble beginnings as a coach at Cycle City.
“I am so, so sorry I’m late,” Bridget said, breezing in and giving Dee a kiss on the cheek, then unloading three large shopping bags next to her chair. She didn’t offer an explanation, instead snapping for the server and ordering a glass of white burgundy.
Dee swirled her own wine. “No worries,” she said. “Still waiting on the others.”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “Ugh. So disrespectful. Am I right?”
Dee smiled sweetly and mentally calculated how long she’d have to sit at this table.
It wasn’t that Dee hated these women, or hated women in general. She just kept her circle of real friends very, very small. There was Tara, her training lead, and there was Shelly, the CFO. She’d first met them when she got a scholarship in junior high to attend Model UN in Minneapolis, representing Angola and proposing an alliance of 17 minor opposition parties to advocate for free and fair elections. Tara was there as Eritrea, with a proposal for greater freedom of the press, and Shelly was the representative from Somalia, pushing for the UN to assist in the prosecution of warlords.
Bunking with these strangers in a small room at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Minnetonka provided Dee the opportunity to reinvent herself as someone who didn’t need a spot in her closet where she could hide when she heard her stepfather come home. Here, she wasn’t Pippi Longstocking or Little Orphan Annie; she was, as Tara said, a mix of Emma Stone, Isla Fisher, and Jessica Chastain. “You’re so lucky you’re so thin and tall,” Shelly had said, seemingly unaware — or perhaps admiring — of Dee’s soft-foods-only diet. “You must be so popular at your school.”
“I’m not,” Dee admitted during one of their 18-minute bus rides from the hotel to the University of Minnesota for Model UN activities. But they wouldn’t have it. They seemed to see Dee’s potential. They wanted, needed her to take the spotlight and lead them. So she tried on the alpha-female role. And she discovered she liked it — the control, the power — a lot.
Afterward they kept in touch via email only. Dee didn’t have her own phone, and besides, writing allowed for an intimacy that surely would have felt awkward if voiced out loud. She told them things she’d never told anyone before, and would never tell again. About her mother’s watery eyes, about her stepfather’s sweaty hands, about the dog cage.
When Dee was starting FitFams, they were her first hires, even though they had never worked in the industry. She trusted them entirely, and that was enough.
People like Bridget Babcock were not to be trusted. Neither were the four other dinner guests, who arrived in quick succession:
Angelica Waterloo, white, 35, claimed to have started the animal-print legging craze and whose eponymous chain of dance-fitness studios was recently sued by a coach who — after presenting an X-ray of a stress fracture in her ankle — said she was told to keep coaching or never come back. The coach taught four more classes before developing avascular necrosis, or the death of bone tissue. The case settled out of court for what Dee had heard was somewhere in the high six figures.
Caroline Smitts, white, 30, who oddly spoke with a French accent even though she was from Florida. Her Ballet Body By Caroline studios were among the most exclusive and expensive in town, attracting models in preparation for the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, as well as the Real Housewives of New York — and the real housewives of New York — who believed any real muscle definition was masculine. “Long and lean, long and lean,” Caroline would sing to her leotard-clad students as they strained to point their toes. She’d been called out for making what appeared to be pro-anorexia posts on Tumblr but didn’t apologize, instead turning it into an opportunity to create a catchphrase for the business: “It’s OK to be fragile.”
Lana Scold, white, 37, founder of No TKO Boxing, which had a real ring in the middle of its flagship studio, as well as several anterooms where clients could take her trademarked NTKO-Kickbox, NTKO-Muy Thai, and NTKO-Judo classes. Celebrities loved it because it felt like a real boxing gym if a real boxing gym was pristinely clean and had La Prairie beauty products in the bathroom. Lana was known for wearing her hair in “boxer braids,” even after learning that the cornrow style was seen as cultural appropriation.
Madison Tyler, white, 39, a former National Guard soldier from Connecticut who attempted to complete Army Special Forces Training but washed out because she ate the wrong berries and got riotously ill during the procurement portion of her Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. She took what she did learn — along with the money she inherited from a wealthy, reclusive aunt — and created TACTICAL, a company that ran military-style bootcamps all over the country.
“Alright,” Madison said, tapping a fork against her glass of cabernet. “Tonight’s topic: Unions.”
The women groaned.
“Oui, I’ve heard whispers about that sort of thing,” Caroline said in her inexplicable accent.
“It actually hurts my feelings, if I’m being honest,” Bridget whined. “I mean, I give those people so much. And now they want more?”
“Exactly,” said Lana, signaling the server for a refill. “People would kill for these coaching jobs. My coaches even get big discounts on classes.”
“Same here,” Dee said. “I just don’t get it. So they’ll unionize and negotiate for higher pay. But we can’t pass that increase in costs to the customer. So we’ll end up having to cut coaches. They’ll basically be shooting themselves in the foot.”
“Too bad we can’t outsource labor,” Madison laughed.
“So what do we do?” Bridget asked, scanning the menu, knowing full well she would just order a small bowl of bone broth.
“I’m looking into hiring a … comment dit-on? … consultant who can help quiet things down,” Caroline said. “I’m happy to share the name with you.”
The other five women nodded.
“A toast,” Dee said, raising her glass. “To us. To our success. To health. To life.”
“L’chaim!” Lana laughed.
“Oh, Hebrew is just so cute,” Bridget said, wrinkling her nose. “L’chaim!”