Chapter 33
“Yeah, you really shouldn’t vaccinate your kids. There’s all kinds of toxic ingredients in there, like formaldehyde, aluminum, Wite-Out, and rotten eggs.”
Willa was folding towels in the FitFams studio and trying very hard not to bash her own head against the reception desk as the client prattled on about how skin-cupping and underwater, transcendental meditation were the best prophylactics against polio and diphtheria.
“Oh, really?” Willa said, attempting to sound convincingly fascinated by every word the client was saying. “That’s super-interesting. Where did you read about that?”
“Reddit,” the client said, pulling her high-waisted leggings a little higher and inspecting her butt in the mirror.
Willa had always been a good listener, adept at getting babysitters to tell her about their first boyfriends, their first cigarettes, their first sexual experiences (“It was in the back of a pickup truck, of all places. Wait, why am I telling this to a little kid?” Chrissy had said, then shrugged and continued with her story.). Her sleep-away camp counselor, Ginny, had confided about being called a slut after letting a boy touch her boobs in junior high. “You’re just so … mature,” Ginny had said to the third-grader, who smiled and then skipped away, leading Ginny to audibly reconsider the assessment.
Willa knew how important it was to connect with clients on a personal level. In most cases, that connection was sincere. She did care about Brittney’s boyfriend’s bad behavior. She did care that Madison felt insecure because her hair color hadn’t turned out the way she’d wanted it to. She did care that Karen felt intimidated by the skinnier girls in the studio, and needed a little extra kindness during class. She did care that Elliott lost his job and felt unmoored.
She did not care about Tasha’s glowing reviews of Donald Trump. She did not care to listen to Carolina’s constant complaints about the fit of her FitFams shoes. She did not care to see photos of Jill’s spoiled, ugly cat. And she definitely did not care to buy any of the flat-tummy tea that Vivian was so eager to sell.
But Willa had to pretend to care about all of it.
Blessedly, just as the client started talking about leeching hard metals from your hands with the power of thought and a spoon, other clients started to file in, giving Willa an excuse to turn her attentions to them and to Jen, who was coaching the next class and up for an evaluation.
Willa set herself up on a stool in the corner, just as Dee and Tara had done, and opened the coach-evaluation template on her laptop. It was thorough, to say the least, with rankings of one to 10 and a long-answer section for everything from appearance to attitude, brand faithfulness, intensity, timing, music, vibe (?), and vocal quality.
As Jen began her pre-class tasks, she shot a wink at Willa. Willa smiled, then momentarily wondered whether maybe she’d gotten a little too close to her coaches and might not be able to evaluate them objectively.
Once the class started, though, Willa found it remarkably easy to assess Jen’s areas of strength, weakness, and error with the tick of a box, a dash of praise, and a few sentences of constructive criticism. She felt kind of proud of herself for how well she was completing this task.
The class wrapped up, and Willa watched as Jen guided the last of the clients out the door. Then the two of them took seats on the reception bench.
“How’d I do, boss?” Jen said, winking again.
It was becoming almost unsettling.
Willa smiled. “You did great. Just need to go over the evaluation with you. We’re going to talk about the things I liked and the things I think we need to change.”
“Cool, cool,” Jen said, scrolling through something on her phone.
“It really shouldn’t take long,” Willa said, almost apologetically.
Jen looked up. “Oh! Sorry. I just had to respond to a text about going for a drink tonight. You wanna come? It’s me and Jamie. Ashley is doing something with her man.”
Willa felt a strange pull in two directions — friend and boss.
“Oh, thanks, no, I can’t tonight,” Willa said. “Got kid stuff to do. I won’t keep you. Let’s just get this done and then you can head out.”
Jen put her phone down and folded her slim hands in her lap. Her fingernails were a perfect shade of café au lait.
“All yours, boss,” Jen smiled.
Willa walked Jen through the evaluation, pointing out the good (great playlist, excellent words of motivation and support, perfect number of shoulder touches) and the not so good (some clients seemed unchallenged and needed more intensity, you forgot to say the name of the client on machine #6, your cues for the left oblique were off-script and confusing).
As the words came out of Willa’s mouth, Jen’s face went from placid to almost stormy.
“I said the name of the client on #6. It’s Clarissa,” Jen said, folding her arms over her chest.
Willa looked at her notes again. No, Jen did not say Clarissa’s name. Or did she? Willa felt red rising in her cheeks. “Oh, OK, I … I thought I didn’t hear that, but I must be wrong.”
Jen looked at Willa expectantly.
“I’ll change that on the evaluation,” Willa said. “There. All fixed.”
“Great,” Jen said, clearly not satisfied.
“This is a really good review, Jen,” Willa said, unhappy with how pleading her voice sounded. “Corporate’s going to be very happy.”
“Uh huh,” Jen said, clearly skeptical. “OK. Are we done?”
They weren’t, but Willa was so rattled by her … friend’s? … shift in demeanor, she just wanted it all to be over.
“Oh, sure, yes, no problem,” Willa said, as Jen stood and grabbed her bag. “I’ll e-mail it to you so you have a copy.”
“Great,” Jen said. “Alright. See you next time.”
And she was out the door.
Willa sat on the bench for a long few minutes, trying to sort through what had just happened. She was just doing her job, right? She had been supportive, constructive, hadn’t she? Or was she not delicate enough? Were her comments too harsh? Didn’t Jen realize that nobody was going to get a perfect evaluation? That would be a red flag to Dee; she was the only one who was perfect at FitFams.
Willa put the laptop down next to her and her hands on her knees, then stared at the floor between her feet. Was she maybe not cut out for this Studio Manager thing?
Then the door opened, and Jamie walked in. She was next on the coaching schedule but thankfully not yet up for an evaluation.
“Hey,” Willa said softly.
“Hey,” Jamie said. “I hear Jen’s evaluation was kind of rough.”
Damn, word travels fast.
“It really wasn’t,” Willa protested. “I don’t know why she saw it that way. I’m really happy with her work.”
Jamie shrugged, and got set up for class. The next set of clients started filtering in.
A 30-year-old woman named Darcy, dressed in an impractical, one-shoulder bra top and matching bike shorts, plopped down next to Willa on the reception bench.
“Oh. My. God.” she said. “You will not believe what happened when I went in for Botox yesterday.”
Here we go, thought Willa, and she pasted on a smile.