What was this psychosis American women had about weight? Even Lily, a supposedly enlightened feminist, fell prey to it sometimes. When she had suffered an insecure moment, when she had expressed to Charlotte the need to flatten her tummy or firm up her butt, Charlotte had always pulled her close and whispered, “Now, who wants to ride in a car that doesn’t have any upholstery?”
The women lined up in rows for their exercises. “O-kay, lay-deez,” Spandex Dominatrix chirped, like Richard Simmons with just a touch more estrogen, “we’re gonna start out with a warmup. But first, does anybody have any questions before we start burning off those calories?”
Lily felt her hand go up in the air.
“Uh-huh?” Spandex acknowledged her.
“Uh ... yeah.” Lily searched for the right words. “I was just wondering, why does this class have to be about how skinny we can get? Can’t we just exercise to improve our health and feel good instead of trying to live up to some impossible commercial ideal of beauty?”
Although Spandex was still wearing her smile, she was looking at Lily as though she had been speaking to her in Latvian. Finally, Sheila nodded toward Lily and said to the aerobics instructor, “She ain’t from around here.”
“Oh,” Spandex Dominatrix said, seeming to find Sheila’s comment a satisfactory explanation. “Okay, let’s get started then.”
The soundtrack for their stretching was, as Lily had suspected, moldy top forty. They moved from the warmup into a more strenuous step routine. Lily looked around to all the Sheilas and Tracees, who were clapping and yelling “Whoo-hoo!” and enjoying themselves enormously. Great, Lily thought ...
stepping with the Stepford Wives. She took some comfort in watching the fat woman, who at least looked appropriately miserable. It wasn’t the exercise that was exhausting Lily; it was the fact that she was supposed to be perky while she was doing it.
In the car after the ordeal was over, Sheila said, “I can’t believe what you said in class. I thought I was gonna die!”
“It’s just cause you’re a newlywed,” Sheila said. “In a few years, you’ll know how important it is to keep them pounds off ... to keep Benny Jack’s eye from wandering.”
“Well,” Lily said, feeling ridiculous even as she said it, “I like to think that Ben wants me for me, and not for my waist size.”
Sheila and Tracee burst out laughing.
“Yeah,” Tracee hooted, “you’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”
Lily entered the house to find Ben and Ken cuddling on the couch. “It’s getting late,” she barked.
“Y’all can’t be together at all hours of the night. People will talk.”
“Damn,” Ben said, “what’s wrong with you? PMS or something?”
“Ben,” Lily sighed, “how would you like it if you were forced to go out and play a game of tackle football with a bunch of straight boys who farted a lot and talked incessantly about pussy?”
“Uh ... well, it sounds like my idea of hell,” Ben said.
