The next morning, at exactly four-thirty, SBB slammed her Prada pocket watch against the wall.
“Don’t these things have snooze buttons?” she moaned in the darkness, her voice muffled by her pillow.
In the other twin bed across the room, I was just awake enough to be grateful that SBB also wanted to snooze a little longer. We were crashing at the giant sandstone party house Patch had rented right on Bondi Beach. But since he and Agnes were on their way back from a two-day reef dive, so far all we’d seen of them was the key left under the mat, complete with full instructions about how to use everything from the toilet to the light switches (classic Agnes), and the half-eaten pizza in the fridge with all the pepperonis picked off (classic Patch).
“Oh, the guilt,” SBB murmured sleepily. “Please don’t tell JR how much you’re letting me slack off.”
“You know,” I said, my eyes still closed, “I’m actually looking out for you. Everyone knows if you don’t get eight hours of sleep, you might as well kiss your workout goals good-bye.”
“Ooh,” she whispered, catching herself halfway through a ladylike snore. “You’re so rational when you’re sleepy.”
The next thing I knew, Patch was standing over my bed, shaking my foot to wake me up. “G’day, jet-setter.” He grinned. “Welcome to the land down unda. We’ve got a breakfast bonfire going on the beach. You guys gonna sleep all day or what?”
I looked at the clock. It was almost eleven o’clock. SBB was going to kill me!
“Bring in the rabid lions,” SBB called out in her sleep, clearly dreaming about her Gladiatrix role.
“SBB,” I said tentatively, climbing out of bed, “I have some bad news.”
She blinked her eyes open. “There are rabid tigers, too?”
“Uh, I don’t know about that, but we slept a little later than we meant to. It’s—”
“Over!” she wailed after she grabbed her broken pocket watch from the floor. “It’s all over. I can’t afford a wasted day! I’ll never get the part now!”
“What’s she talking about?” Agnes asked, popping her head in the door. She looked much tanner than she had last week in the city, but she seemed just as full of nervous energy as she had prevacation. Right now, she was literally twiddling her thumbs.
“SBB’s training for a part and we overslept,” I explained. “It’s no big deal—we’ll just find a way to amp up the workout.”
Agnes raised her eyes at Patch. “Why don’t you introduce them to your meathead friend out there?” She turned to SBB. “There’s nothing Tommy loves more than talking about his fulfilling life of weightlifting.”
“No. No. Absolutely not,” SBB said, hopping out of bed to pace the room in her pajamas. As she ran toward the bathroom to brush her teeth, she called, “There’s no time for socializing. I need to pump some serious iron.”
“Did someone say ‘pump some serious iron’?” a voice called from the hallway.
Then I heard the skidding sound of SBB in socks, sliding straight into the wall.
“I guess she met Tommy.” Patch laughed, tugging my ponytail and leading me into the living room.
Sitting on the couch overlooking the pristine beach was the most muscular beach bum I had ever seen in my life. Tommy was flipping through a glossy magazine called Mate’s Best Weights and slurping up a smoothie approximately the size of Noodles.
“If you’re looking for workout advice,” Patch said, pointing at his friend, “you’ve come to the right place.”
SBB didn’t waste any time. She crouched in front of Tommy on the couch and assumed a pose of such reverence, it reminded me of how Feb interacted with the guru.
“Teach me,” she said to the mass of muscle.
Ten minutes later, we were dressed and sitting in front of the bonfire on the beach. “Okay, the first thing you do,” Tommy said, “is start with a good Aussie brekkie. Some people like eggs. I never say no to a burger with the lot.”
Our eyes grew wide as we watched Tommy flip a huge burger from the grill onto his plate. He loaded up his bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, pineapple(!), beets(!), a healthy squirt of mayonnaise, and hot sauce. Then, instead of taking a bite, he threw me for another loop by handing the plate over to SBB. “Now don’t be shy if you want seconds,” he said. “Flan, you want the lot too?”
As we munched on our Aussie-size breakfast burgers, which were actually shockingly delicious—the pineapple added just the right zing—SBB described in meticulous detail her training program to Tommy, and I flipped through Mate’s Best Weights, dog-earing pages that I thought could offer SBB useful tips.
If you asked me a week ago which profession I’d be least likely to have, personal trainer might have sprung to mind. But working out in the fresh air on this silky, sandy beach, with the crystal water crashing right before our eyes—well, it didn’t really seem like work at all. It was especially fun to feel like we had a whole team collaborating together. Agnes ran back and forth from the kitchen to the beach to make sure we were staying hydrated with her awesome lemon basil iced tea. Even Patch went down to the surf shop to bring back a few surfboards so we could use them as aerobic steps for beachside training.
Watching SBB and me do a set of crunches on the beach, he yawned, cracked open a soda, and said, “At this rate, you two are going to be the buffest chicks at the party tomorrow night.”
“What party tomorrow night?” I asked, instantly giving up on the twenty-seven sit-ups I had left.
“Didn’t I tell you we’re throwing a barbecue—?”
“An haute barbecue,” Agnes corrected.
“Whatever.” Patch rolled his eyes. “Since you’re only in town for a few days, Agnes and I wanted to throw you a party. To show you how it’s done down under. A bunch of our friends will be there, so it’s sure to get pretty wild.”
I glanced at SBB. “Do you think we can take the night off training tomorrow to hit this party?”
She sighed and chewed on her lip. “Only if we really crack the workout whip during the day! And no sleeping in until eleven! And don’t we have twenty-seven more sit-ups to do? Who’s the drill sergeant here and who’s the slacker? Huh?”
“Okay, okay,” I said, lying back down in the sit-up position. “Twenty-seven, twenty-six!” I called out.
We pushed ourselves until late in the afternoon, staying super busy and super focused on Operation Beef It Up. In fact, the sun was starting to dip down toward the horizon when I realized: I hadn’t thought of Alex all day. I’d been so busy—leading SBB though set after set of squats, calling her out when she didn’t touch her nose to the sand during push ups, and making her jump rope for a minute every time she complained.
When I finally did think of Alex, it was because I stopped focusing on the starlet at hand to look out at an unusually large pelican fishing for its dinner. I knew Alex thought that pelicans were really underappreciated birds, especially the ones along the East River, so the sight of one just sent me on a spiral of negative thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” SBB asked, panting after a hundred-meter sprint. “Did you pull a muscle watching me work my butt off?”
“No,” I said, looking down at my feet. “I just started thinking about Alex.”
“But I thought you said yesterday—oh, Flan,” she said, taking in my expression and hugging me. “I’ve been so selfish. Me and my superficial fitness goals. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said quickly. “At this point, that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. I want what I said yesterday to be true. And your superficial fitness goals have been the best thing so far in terms of keeping my mind off him.”
“Because Bianca—”
“I don’t need Bianca,” I insisted, mentally crossing my fingers that this was true. “I need—”
Just then, my phone started to ring. It was the ring-tone for ‘unknown number,’ and SBB grabbed it off the beach towel. “I think it’s an Aussie number,” she said.
It didn’t occur to me that the only Aussie with my number was Three-Date Dave until I’d already picked up.
“So I’m feeling a lot of pressure to plan really something special for our fourth date,” he said with his adorable accent. Even over the phone, I could hear the smile in his voice. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Oh—my brother’s throwing a party,” I said, feeling a little let down that my time in Oz was already so booked.
“Hmm,” Dave said. “Well there goes all my hard work planning. I’ve an idea. What if you bailed on the party so I could take you night scuba diving? Parties come and go, right?”
I hesitated. Dave was being pretty forward, and I still didn’t know him that well. Even though scuba diving sounded awesome, I really did want to go to this party.
“Well, it’s kind of in my honor, so I need to at least make a cameo,” I said, then I felt SBB’s smack on my arm. “Ow … I mean … you should come to the party. It’s going to be a barbecue—”
“Haute barbecue!” Agnes yelled from the porch to correct me.
“Er, haute barbecue,” I corrected myself. “It’s no scuba diving, but if my brother’s track record says anything, it’ll still be a blast.”
“If you’re there,” Dave said, “I’m there. See you tomorrow night.’
When I hung up the phone, I could feel a grin spreading across my face.
“Well?” SBB demanded.
I turned to my gladiatrix friend and shrugged. “Looks like Three-Date Dave is on his way to lucky number four.”