. . . . . . .
The sparkly sign in front of Natalie’s Gym was the first thing to make Nik smile in days.
She never should have gone out with Carlos in the first place. After everything with Fisher, she should have kept her distance from Carlos and all other men for at least several months, if not years. And now she’d spent the last three days inside her apartment with too many pints of ice cream, trying and failing to concentrate on her work instead of how much she missed Carlos.
She was even doing that thing where she caught herself checking her phone every time it buzzed, hoping it was him. She hated doing that thing. She’d always felt scornful toward the kind of woman who would do that thing. Why was she such a bitch? Now she felt sympathy for those women and even shittier about herself right now.
And the buzz from her phone was never him. She hadn’t heard a single thing from Carlos since he’d slammed that door on Sunday morning.
Enough wallowing. She’d finally pinned Natalie down for an interview time for her story about the gym, thank goodness. She was looking forward to talking to Natalie, if only to get her mind off of herself for once this week.
She still felt lucky that Natalie had even agreed to the interview. Between her hesitation when Nik had brought it up and her slow response to Nik’s emails about scheduling a time, it was clear that she was reluctant about this story for some reason.
She walked into the gym and knocked on Natalie’s open door.
“Hi!” Natalie said. “Come on in.” She was smiling, but Nik could see her hands trembling. She couldn’t tell if it was because Natalie was just nervous about being interviewed in general—lots of people were like that—or if there was something specific that she was anxious about. Either way, Nik knew she had to have a gentle approach in this interview.
“Hi!” Nik echoed her. “Does this time still work?”
Natalie nodded and waved her inside.
“Yes, sure, of course. Close the door so we can talk. I told Jamila I’ll be busy for the next hour and to only interrupt if it’s an emergency.”
“Great.” Nik sat down, took out her phone and recorder, and flicked them both to record. She always had a duplicate now, just in case. “Before we start, I want to make sure that it’s okay that I record our conversation so that I can make sure to be accurate when I write about this.”
Natalie glanced down at the recording devices and swallowed hard.
“Sure, yes, of course.”
Nik took her notebook out of her bag but didn’t open it yet.
“You know, Natalie,” she said, “you don’t know me that well. So it makes sense that you wouldn’t really trust me yet.” Natalie tried to cut in, but she kept talking. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt my feelings that you don’t trust me. A lot of people have reasons not to trust writers or strangers or anyone at all. I can tell that you’re nervous about this interview. Lots of people don’t like being interviewed—it’s normal to be anxious. But please know I’m not trying to trick you or do some gotcha piece about your gym or anything like that. I’m not that kind of person, and I’m not that kind of writer.”
Natalie looked straight at Nik the whole time she was talking. When she stopped, Natalie slowly lowered her hands onto the table.
“I know,” she said. “I mean, I knew all of that, about you. Mostly because of Dana, but it still helps to have you say it.”
“Good.” Nik smiled back at her. “Speaking of Dana, if there’s anything you say to me today that you want to be off the record, please know that I wouldn’t tell her about it.”
Natalie’s smile was faint, but it was there.
“Thank you for saying that.”
Nik opened her notebook to her list of questions.
“Why don’t we get started? I stumbled upon your gym kind of accidentally—I was searching for a self-defense class to take with my girlfriends, and your Punch Like a Girl series happened to start just a few days later, so I booked it on an impulse. I’d never even heard of your gym before, but it already has a very loyal clientele. Where did you get the idea to start this gym? How long have you been around?”
Natalie’s smile was stronger now.
“Just over a year. I know it’s pretty young for a gym, but I feel like I managed to tap into a need that was out there—a place for women of all kinds to feel supported and comfortable within their own skin, but more than just that, a place that could make all of us feel stronger, both inside and outside, and allow us to face our fears. A lot of people are afraid of the gym, and I hate that. I wanted this to be a place that people would look forward to going to, where people could be excited about working out and exercising, without the fear and shame and ridicule.”
She’d gotten more animated and comfortable as she talked, and Nik hoped she stayed like that.
“Well, at least from my point of view, as someone who has always hated gyms, you’ve succeeded,” Nik said. “Why don’t we back up a little—how long had you wanted to open a gym? Have you worked at gyms in the past?”
“Oh God, I feel like I’ve spent my life in gyms,” Natalie said. “I was a cheerleader in college, which meant I worked out a ton.”
Nik laughed.
“Of course you were a cheerleader in college. I should have known.” She paused. “That’s a compliment of your teaching style, by the way. I’ve never had someone cheer me on so well for anything.”
Natalie’s cheeks got bright red, but she looked pleased. She was more relaxed now. Maybe it had been just nerves about being interviewed.
“That’s so good to hear. Thank you. And then I graduated from college during a time when it was impossible to find a job. I was a math major.” Nik managed to keep her face from looking surprised, but barely. And then she wanted to smack herself. Why was she still underestimating this woman, just because of what she looked like? “And I was looking for jobs in business or consulting or even teaching, and there was nothing. So to pay my rent, I got a job working at the front desk of the gym near me. After a while, I got curious about what the personal trainers did, so I started asking one of them a bunch of questions about her job: how she got it, what the certification was like, all that stuff. And eventually, I took the plunge.”
As Natalie told her all about her personal training certification she seemed to be getting more relaxed.
“I was one of the top trainers by the time I left. My parents kept asking me if I was going to get a different job, go corporate, maybe go to business school. But I really loved my job. And I was good at it.”
Nik nodded.
“I bet you were. I’ve had trainers before, and none of them were even half as good as one of your classes.” It helped to flatter sources during interviews, but this had the benefit of being true. “Why did you leave the gym?”
Natalie turned to her glass of green juice again, but not before Nik saw that her eyes had filled with tears.
“I got married. One of my clients.” She shrugged. She still looked down at her juice. “Such a cliché, I know.”
Nik shrugged along with her.
“Clichés wouldn’t be clichés if they didn’t happen all the time.” Of course the whole problem was the husband. “So . . . why did you leave the gym after getting married? Did you decide to go to grad school after all?”
She shook her head. She still had tears in her eyes, but she was looking straight ahead now.
“No. My husband didn’t think it was appropriate for me to keep working as a trainer after we were married. He said there would be too much touching other people; he knew I was bi, and he said he didn’t have a problem with it, but it meant that working with women was a problem for him, too. So I quit.” Nik raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask a question. Natalie answered it anyway. “I know what you’re going to say. Before I met him, I would have said the same thing. I didn’t . . . by the time we were married, he’d convinced me of a lot of things. He said my job now was to take care of our house and him and that he’d take care of supporting me. I thought that was so sweet.”
Sweet was one word for that.
“When did you stop thinking it was sweet?” she asked.
Natalie put her hand over her eyes for a second. She put it down and sat up straighter.
“I’m sorry. I don’t usually talk about this.”
Nik reached across the table and touched her hand.
“No need to apologize. You’re doing great, so great.”
Natalie smiled faintly.
“You sound like me when you say that.”
Nik squeezed her hand, then let go.
“What can I say? I learned from the best.”
Natalie’s smile got a little bigger and then faded.
“What did you ask? When did I stop thinking it was sweet? It took a while.” She shook her head. “That’s not true. I don’t think I ever thought it was sweet. But somehow I’d stopped trusting myself and my feelings.”
Nik let out a deep breath. That sounded all too familiar.
“When I told him I missed the gym, he yelled at me for being ungrateful, and I thought he was right. But I really hated not having my own money. We had a joint bank account, and whenever I bought anything, he asked me a million questions about it, so eventually I just stopped buying things other than groceries. Sometimes I would get cash back and hide the cash.”
Natalie picked up a piece of paper from her desk, crumpled it into a ball, and straightened it out.
“But I thought all of that was normal and showed how much he loved me. There are all of those commercials and things in women’s magazines about hiding things you buy from your husband. They always make it seem like a thing all women do, that it’s a joke we’re all in together. So I didn’t think having to sneak around to buy new sports bras was a big deal.”
She sighed and took a deep breath. Nik thought about all of the articles and ads she’d seen that had made that exact joke. Good God, sometimes it felt like all of society was complicit in trying to make life harder for women.
“Even when he made it harder and harder for me to see my friends, I thought it was normal. People didn’t see their friends that much after they got married, right? He said people who loved each other shouldn’t have anything to hide from each other, so he should be able to read all of my emails and texts. So I stopped texting my friends very much. I didn’t really see them much, either. Sometimes I would sneak out and get coffee with my best friend, Kiki. But I just thought he was acting like that because he loved me so much.”
How could anyone ever trust someone again after someone they loved had made them feel so isolated and doubt their own instincts?
She certainly never had. Well, she’d started to trust Carlos, but that had been a mistake.
“I’ve had a lot of therapy since that time, and now I know there is such a thing as ‘emotional abuse.’ But I’d never heard that term then. So when my friends and family told me there was something wrong, it would just make me frustrated and mad at them. He never hit me; everything was fine! How could they think I was one of those poor, beaten-down, abused women? That wasn’t me. Didn’t they know me?”
Tears poured down Natalie’s face.
Nik pulled a packet of tissues out of her bag—she always came prepared with them for interviews, just in case—and handed a stack to Natalie. Natalie took a deep breath and started again.
“I wasn’t abused. It was just that my husband loved me more than anyone had ever loved me, and he wanted all of me. And if he got mad at me sometimes because he wanted fish for dinner and I’d made chicken, or if I went to the wrong gas station to fill up gas for his car, or when I miscarried but didn’t lose the pregnancy weight right away, it was only because he wanted me to be perfect. He wanted me to be the best I could be; that was all.”
Now Nik wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or if she wanted to take her new punching skills on the road and knock this man into oblivion. Maybe both.
“How did you realize what was going on? How did you decide to get out?”
Natalie looked down at her desk for a long moment.
“I wish I could say it was one thing, but it wasn’t. The first time I remember consciously thinking ‘This is not the life I want’ was when I went running one day soon after he’d told me to lose weight after the miscarriage. All I wanted was to stay home under the covers, but I knew he would know if I didn’t exercise—we both had those fitness bracelet things, and he could see my activity all day. It made me feel like I was constantly being spied on.” She looked down at her bare wrist. “I guess I was. So I went running because I had to, and I hated every second. I hadn’t talked to my family or any of my friends in months, so I didn’t know where to turn.”
Nik hated Natalie’s husband, all men, and all of society for making Natalie feel like a relationship like the one she’d been in was normal.
“About a month after the miscarriage, I went to my doctor. The whole point of the visit was to see when I could start trying to get pregnant again. But when I was sitting there waiting for her, I realized that the idea of getting pregnant and having his baby and that baby tying me to him and that life forever made me feel panicky. I got up and left, and I told him the doctor said we shouldn’t try for a few more months. A few days later, I logged in to an old email account that I’d had from before I got married, one that he didn’t know I had. And that day I emailed Kiki and my mom. I didn’t say anything, really, just hi, and asked how they were doing, stuff like that. They both responded right away, and I started emailing them more and more. And one day, I went for a run with Kiki. I didn’t quite tell her everything, but I told her a lot.”
God bless Kiki. She had to remember to give Courtney and Dana extra-big hugs the next time she saw them.
“How did you get out?”
Natalie pulled another tissue out of the packet.
“After weeks of emails, Mom ended one of hers with something like ‘What do you think about coming home to visit? I have to drive down that way for work next week, and I can pick you up?’ I said yes right away, and I told her that I’d meet her at Kiki’s office. I spent the next six days terrified he’d see that email somehow or suspect something, but he didn’t. That morning, I left my phone at home under the couch cushions and I took a taxi to Kiki’s office. I took that fucking fitness bracelet off in the taxi and left it deep in the back seat, and I’ve never worn one since. When I got there and saw Kiki and my mom, that’s when I really broke down for the first time.”
Nik wished Kiki and Natalie’s mom were there so she could hug them, too.
Natalie opened a drawer and pulled out two bottles of water.
“Want one? I’m thirsty after all of this crying.” Nik took one and took a long sip. After that story, she would have even taken green juice.
“I guess that got kind of far away from why I started this gym. Except that I can’t really tell one part of it without telling the whole of it. I lived with my parents for a while afterward—working at a local gym, getting more comfortable with myself, and going to lots of therapy. I let all of the money from my divorce settlement sit in the bank. Luckily for me, my mom is a lawyer and called in a favor with one of her divorce lawyer friends who took my case.”
Nik smiled.
“Good job, Mom. Okay, let’s go back to my initial question: where did you get the idea to start this gym?”
Natalie grinned at her.
“One day, I had an appointment with a client, and she came in spitting mad. She’d been on the treadmill before meeting me, and the guy next to her started lecturing her about her form. She was a marathon runner, mind you. And I thought of how great it could be if we had a gym for women of all shapes and sizes, where we could learn about our bodies and how strong we are without having to be on display to men while we did it. A place for all women: black and white; gay and straight; Latina and Asian; cis and trans; athletes and couch potatoes; and everything in between. And then I thought about the money I had in the bank. And after about a year of research and planning, Natalie’s Gym was born.”
This story was going to be so good. Her editor at O magazine was going to love it.
“What about the boxing classes? Did you teach those before? Did you always know you wanted them when you decided to start the gym?”
Natalie nodded.
“I never taught them before coming here, but I took them at a few different gyms after the breakup and really loved them. They were one of the first things I knew I wanted at this place.”
“What was your goal in teaching these classes? Why were they important to you?”
Natalie made a fist, flexed her hand, and made a fist again.
“Women who know how to fight hold themselves differently. I’ve seen that in the women who’ve taught me, in the women who’ve taken my classes, and especially in myself. You walk into any situation with an attitude that you’ve got this, you can defend yourself, you are strong. My marriage sapped me of a lot of my strength, and what made it worse were the constant messages I got from society that women are weak, women should be afraid, women should settle for whatever they can get. And I want the women who walk into this gym to know that women have power and agency and deserve great things in life.”
“Amen,” Nik said.
Natalie high-fived her.
“And it starts so young!” she said. “I really want to do a program for teenage girls. They need more things to counteract the messages that they get that there’s something wrong with being a girl, that they should hide the things about themselves that make them unique and fun and strong.” She grinned. “That’s why I called the class ‘Punch Like a Girl’—there’s this constant message that to do anything like a girl is weak. I wanted to turn that on its head.”
Carlos’s teen clinic would probably be really into the idea of partnering with Natalie’s Gym on a program like that, especially after things he’d told her about some of his patients and the abuse that they’d suffered.
She tried to shake off thoughts of him, but it was impossible. She had to ask Natalie the question she’d been wondering the entire time they’d been talking.
“This is a personal question, and I understand if you don’t want to answer, especially since Dana is my friend. But how did you learn to trust people again after what happened to you?”
Natalie shook her head slowly.
“It was really hard. I beat myself up for a while after my marriage ended. I blamed myself for trusting my ex, for letting him control me, for giving in to everything. I didn’t trust my own judgment for a long time. The whole time I was researching the idea for this gym, I kept second-guessing myself, thinking it was a terrible idea. But I was right; I did have a good idea, and even just doing all of that research was me learning to trust myself. Once I learned to trust myself, my instincts, and my emotions, trusting other people was a lot easier.”
Nik drove home a few hours later, after lots of time hanging around the gym, and even taking one of those cycling classes that she always mocked Dana for loving. She couldn’t stop thinking about everything that Natalie had said, but especially that last part. Did she trust herself? With her work, definitely. With anything else? She had no idea.