Chapter 42
Willa pedaled faster, white knuckling the handlebars on the spin bike, her frantic ride to nowhere providing little meaningful distraction from the feelings of frustration, irritation, and confusion she’d brought home from the FitFams retreat weekend.
“Do you want to crank that resistance up to 16?” the coach screamed out.
A woman in this month’s featured outfit from Fabletics hollered, “yes!” Never mind that she’d been riding that bike like it had a basket on the front with a baguette in it.
“Alright, we’re picking up the pace!” the coach cried out as she stopped and stood up in her pedals, then surveyed the room. “Now look at Willa. Watch her form. Follow her. Nice!”
Willa quickened her cadence, feeling the other clients’ eyes on her, feeling special. Then she hit a mental speed bump. During the era that would henceforth be known as BFW (Before FitFams Weekend), she would have quietly loved being singled out. Look at me, she’d think. I’m the strongest, the fastest, the best.
But now, in the time of AFW, the words felt manipulative. The coach probably hadn’t sold the required number of unlimited memberships this month and was trying to flatter Willa all the way to a sale. In the meantime the other clients were envious of the attention, and therefore more likely to show up again to get it for themselves.
On Saturday night, after the Leadership Team left the Circle Game, Willa and the other Studio Managers were deadly quiet. They looked like Dee had gleefully run them over with her Mercedes-Benz G Class SUV.
Axel was the first to speak. “Holy shit.”
Then the questions, the anxieties, the anger, and the uncertainty bubbled up and spilled out. A few of the managers defended Dee as they shot glances to the corners of the Summit Room, looking for cameras there too.
Willa hadn’t said anything as the voices grew louder. She was looking at the big screen. Just before she’d walked out, Dee had pulled up some footage from the Atlanta studio and paused on an image of Willa. It showed her on the FitFams machine, staring into Dee’s eyes and smiling foolishly, like a NXIVM member who’d finally been given audience with cult leader Keith Raniere.
It looked as desperate and cliché as a child at curtain call, panting from the big finale, and looking out to see that her Dad had decided to show up.
Back in the spin room, the coach cued up TI’s “Bring Em Out,” and started pedaling again. Willa grumbled. The woman wasn’t keeping the 66-RPM beat and was cueing six-count jumps even though this was an eight-count song.
“You are friggin’ rockstars!” the coach yelled. A whoop came from the woman toodling on her bike like she was on holiday in Paris.
To be fair, Willa had done her fair share of bullshitting as a fitness coach, telling people they were badass when they most certainly weren’t, chirping out feel-good bromides, and repeating “no challenge, no change” to people who were clearly unwilling to do either of those things.
But Dee’s deceptions? They ran so deep. They seemed designed to lift you up and knock you down and gaslight you until you were so confused and off-kilter, you didn’t know what was happening to you or where you stood.
This was unkind from a human perspective, yes, but it also didn’t seem to make sense as a business strategy. Willa and the other Studio Managers had already drunk the vodka-spiked Kool-Aid. They loved the workout and wanted to please Dee, which meant they would follow (enough of) the rules, work hard, and pass along their passion to the clients. They’d already agreed to do all of this for pay that was entirely mediocre. Why spell it out to the Studio Managers that they were being played? What good would it do to make these acolytes and evangelists question their leader?
Willa found herself thinking about a class she took while majoring in Psychology for a few weeks during freshman year (like every other woman she knew). She’d learned about narcissistic personality disorder, a mental illness in which people lack empathy, need excessive admiration and attention, belittle others, and expect to be recognized as superior. They’re envious, arrogant, boastful, pretentious, and expect total compliance with all of their demands.
Well, that kind of lines up, Willa thought.
As she continued to pedal, she found herself digging up empathy for Dee. Something must have happened to make her this way. What was it? Everyone knew about the family drama and the eating disorder. But was there more to Dee’s story?
The studio cameras — they were a good security measure, Willa allowed. People shouldn’t be sleeping at FitFams or stealing from the company. Dee needed to protect her property and her assets.
But something about this surveillance, and the way Dee shared her findings from it, felt more intrusive. Big Sister, collecting intel.
“It’s never too early to start working on that beach body!” the spin coach yelled out.
She did not just say that.
In April.
Everyone in here — other than the slow-riding woman who now had her arms up and out like Meg Ryan in “City of Angels” before she and her bicycle got pummeled by a logging truck — is pedaling madly in place in the hopes it will help them become smaller and skinnier and hotter and worthy of love. You’re going to make them feel like it would be shameful to put on a bathing suit right now? That their bodies are too flawed to be displayed in their current form?
Willa let that righteous indignation course through her. Then she berated herself for looking around and silently pinpointing who did and did not appear to have a body ready for the beach.
“You should burn about 650 calories in this class,” the coach said. “If you don’t, then you’re not working hard enough!”
Then she put on “Sweet Home Alabama” by Uncle Kracker.
Oh, hell no.
Willa clipped out and left the studio.