The Trainer (2 page)

“No thanks,” Chris said, “I don’t think Timothy will be able to make it.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course,” she chuckled. “he’s still away on business?” she asked,

suppressing a little giggle. God, she was such a hateful old bitch. She needled him about Tim every single time she saw him, even though she knew very well that they were broken up.

              “Listen, Mrs. Berliner, he’s not away on business,” Chris said.

             
“Oh, really?.” she said, with a mocking tone of false surprise.

             
“No. He’s gone. He’s gone forever. He’s dumped me and he’s not coming back.”

             
“Oh, how terrible.” she said.

             
“I’m sure you give a flying fuck,” Chris muttered.  She grasped both hands, covering her mouth as he stamped down the stairs without looking back.

He walked down the sidewalks of his suburb
, and it was a mile-and-a-half to the closest grocery store. It had sounded like a great idea when he left the house. He even spotted a big green macaw in the palm tree; it crowed at him and he took it as a good omen. However, his enthusiasm for the walk was quickly fizzling out in the noontide heat. Most native Costa Ricans would avoid being outside, or even standing up at this time of day, and he was feeling the punishment of the humidity, sunshine, and heat baking off the sidewalks and tarmac of the parking lots he crossed.

By the time he got into the grocery store, he was hot, drenched in sweat, and exhausted. He smelled the cool air and the fragrance of
the mountains of bananas in the produce section before him. He felt awkward to be so sweaty and red-faced in public, but he was alright as long as he could hide behind his baseball cap and sunglasses. No one would recognize him anyway, he told himself, as he surveyed the colorful variety of heads of lettuce.

The only people he really knew in Escazu, the San Jose suburb where he lived, were a handful of American friends of his ex’s
, and they were far too catty for him. For example, Justin and Alec, Tim’s two best friends, were queens of the most spiteful variety. He blamed them for fueling the fire, encouraging Tim to leave him instead of working things out. He wanted to pound them in their faces, but he took a deep breath and thought about something else.

As he trailed the cool veggie section of the store,
Chris had no idea there were that many varieties of root vegetables.  All the titles were in Spanish, too, doubly compounding his ignorance. What the hell was a
chirivía
, anyway? It looked like a white carrot. He threw some into the cart. Lettuce, the iceberg variety, was the only fresh vegetable that graced his family’s white bread table growing up, and as he rarely cooked, he generally found most of his meals frozen, fried, or fast.

Shopping was Tim’s department
, especially for what he affectionately called, “The healthy shit.” What the hell should he do with all these leafy greens? How do you cook kale? Or do you eat it raw? He thought about asking the clerk for some suggestions, but his Spanish was limited, to say the least. The thought of it made his stomach sink, but he ignored it by pulling out his mp3 player and drowning his thoughts in a Wayne Dyer motivational talk.  Tim used to call it ‘dumb shit', but to Chris, Dyer had helped him through some really difficult times before, and he hoped he’d get him through this time in his life.

Chris’s cart was strewn with random exotic vegetables he would have to Google later.  But then Chris felt a flicker of motivation. Today would be the day he started to
turn things around.

He found himself in the cartoon mascot-lined children’s sugar cereal section of the breakfast aisle. He knew he should have picked something much more healthy, but then he saw the Cocoa Puffs and figured if he was going to be eating all this healthy food, it didn’t hurt to get himself a treat as a way to reward himself, so he piled it inside
the cart.

His health-conscious efforts quickly dissolved as he walked around the grocery store.  Chris found justification after justification for grabbing whatever garbage junk food he saw that was on sale, too tantalizing, or he swore would only be for houseguests. Through this process of self-deception, he soon had a pile of cocoa krispies, frozen pizza bites, super
-sized bags of Doritos, mini Snickers bars, and Twix bars burying all the healthy food on the bottom of the cart.

He was just about to reach for a bag of Skittles when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and felt his jaw clench immediately, and his heart leapt into his throat. Anxiety, anger, lust, exasperation, and joy all coursed through him in a confusing wave of overwhelmed emotion
, all in a little less than a second.

No wonder: his ex, Tim, was standing right in front of him. It was the first time they’d seen each other in months. He was wearing a shredded, ancient tank top:  the lemon yellow one that he used to always wear on the beach so Chris could see his abs and toned biceps through the hanging armholes. He might as well go topless, Chris thought, but then there would be no tantalizing packaging over those perky nipples, refined collar bones, and broad shoulders.

Chris took a deep breath and pulled the earphones out of his ear.

“I’ve been trying to get your attention since I saw you in the produce section
. You were off in your own little world, huh?”  Tim chuckled, and Chris felt himself blushing in spite of himself. He had a way of making him feel like an ashamed little boy.

“Yeah, sorry. I was listening to...”

“I see you’re stocking up on midnight snacks,” Tim said, with a smirk and a teasing note of cattiness.

Chris felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He thought about lying and saying he was buying it for Mrs.
Berliner, but he figured, why bother? His ex knew him too well, and in fact could probably identify everything covering the vegetables as a signature indulgence of Chris’s diet. Instead of acknowledging the comment, Chris chuckled and found himself swimming once again; or rather drowning in the oceanic blue irises of his ex.

“I uh...how have you been?” Chris asked, trying to change the subject.

“Good. Real good,” his ex said. He did look good; perhaps it was just the factor of Chris’s fading memory, but Tim seemed to look sexier and more in shape every time he saw him. His hair was styled in perfect bed-headed boyishness and his blue eyes sparkled. He always looked younger than his 40 years.  A little bit of a five o’clock shadow added a roguish appeal to his cut jaw line. It sickened Chris to realize how powerless he was before Tim’s charisma, and the salt in the wound was how Tim seemed to enjoy mocking him with it. After all the loving care Chris had shown for three years, it was the ultimate fuck you.

He thought about saying something tart about the bright pink sunburn Tim had on his shoulder, or the obvious V-neck tan line on his chest, but the truth was, he didn’t have the heart for it. Even more honestly, it only increased how attractive and athletic Tim looked.

“So, what have you been up to?” Chris said instead.

“You know, work. Working out with Justin and Alec. We’re doing beach running. It’s brutal and making my calves huge
.” his ex said. Why was he bringing up Alec and Justin when he knew Chris couldn’t stand them? They both had degrees in shade-throwing with a minor in bitch studies from the University of Hate.

“Nice.  You’ll have to tell them I said hi next time you see them,” Chris said as flatly as possible, a polite grimace twisting his face into a poor imitation of a smile.  “Well, I better run, I’ve got to get back to work.”

Chris was about to turn when Tim stopped him.

“Hey, hang on,” his ex said.  “Take care of yourself, Chris. Might want to hit the gym. I can see you’ve been up to a little more eating than writing.” He effeminately poked one index finger into Chris’s belly.

Chris wanted to melt into the ground and just go away. He was embarrassed by his body more than ever, even without his ex jeering him about it in public. He’d done whatever he could to avoid Tim, and was hoping the next time he saw him he would have been when he was in better shape. No such luck.

Instead of telling him to ‘shut the fuck up’, he found himself swallowing his anger:  it was such a frustrating habit. He simply chuckled it off. At least he would try to hide how much all of this bothered him.

“Yeah, guilty as charged,” Chris said with the same forced smile.”I’ve been working a lot, though. You know how sedentary my life is when I have a lot of work.”

“Still working on the same novel, huh?” his ex asked
, stingingly.

Yes, motherfucker, as a matter of fact I am
, he wanted to say: but of course he didn’t.

“Almost done,” he said.

“I thought you were almost done six months ago,” Tim noted.

Chris just stared at him:  clearly he didn’t want to play nice.

“Well, you just don’t really know much about how writing works. Or reading,” Chris murmured passively.  “It was nice seeing you. We’ll have to get together sometime. You know, for coffee or whatever.” And with that, he started to push the cart down the aisle.

“Stay good,” his ex called from down the aisle, “And lay off the chocolate, babe.”

He could hear a soft, malicious chuckle. Chris’s blood boiled. He had never felt more furious with Tim:  no, he had never felt more furious with anybody.

His hatred was cleansing. It would give him the strength to change, and to abandon all his feelings of attachment to his ex. What a piece of shit
. Three years of love and sweet talk, and he had the sociopathic gall to bully and shame Chris about his most vulnerable soft spot. What did he have to gain? Clearly, Chris had been deluded all along. Tim was not worthy of him, and Chris was determined to do something different. Anything different. He hurled all the junk food into a random shelf in another aisle and swung up to the cashier with a cart full of weird vegetables.

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CHAPTER 3

C
hris felt like crying as soon as he came out of the grocery store. The sun beat down on his face and dogs barked. He took a deep breath. He would rise above his hurt feelings someday, but he couldn’t help but obsess about how much happier Tim seemed without him: as if everything they’d been through together and all those years of keeping it together meant nothing.

He marched up the streets under the palm trees, the humidity and heat making sweat roll down his arms. What was he thinking
, walking, and then buying so many groceries? The bags were cutting into his hands and he had to stop periodically in the shade to adjust them. He only hoped they wouldn’t snap before he got home.

Chris suddenly remembered that
he had to get the number of that personal trainer Jessica knew and then text him as soon as possible. A few weeks back, he had gone to the gym, bought a membership, and tried to exercise sporadically, but he lacked the motivation and diligence to follow through on a daily basis. Whatever it cost, it would be worth it if he could get in shape. The next time Tim saw him, he wanted to look so hot that he would be unable to feel insecure.

He wanted to make him jealous. God, how this whole situation had made him so petty
. Chris felt like he was in high school again; jilted and jealous and overwhelmed with waves of silly drama. If there was anything mature and constructive about this whole mess, he thought, at least he should get his shit together. Physically, emotionally, mentally. He’d work out every day if he had to, even if it killed him. And he would learn to like rabbit food.

He stop
ped in the shade of some mango trees and squatted down with his phone pressed to his ear. It rang and rang. Jessica finally picked up.

“
Bueno
,” she said flatly. He heard her scolding her daughter and then her voice cut out.

“Yeah,
yeah, Jessica. Can you hear? Can you hear me? You were going to send me the personal trainer’s number?” he asked.

“What?” she said.

It was useless. He could hear her cutting out, coming back in. The fact that she was still speaking Spanish made it clear that she couldn’t hear him either. However, when he reached his own neighborhood, his phone chimed. A text from Jessica? Yes. It had a phone number and then--MASON--written in all caps. Chris swiftly added the number to his contacts and punched out a message.

Hey Mason - I’m Chris, Jessica’s friend. She said you’re a personal trainer? 8045-8059.

Back in his apartment, he put all the groceries in the fridge, poured a glass of water and dropped a lime wedge into it. Thank God that, unlike some of his neighbors, he had drinkable tap water. He sat down to a cold plate of lettuce and cucumber salad (rabbit food), then got onto Wikipedia, building both his English and Spanish vocabulary for vegetable matter. How thrilling. He spent the rest of the evening revising the endless revision of his novel. For dinner, he decided to roast up some of those parsnips and squash with some oil and salt. Yes, parsnips, and he made a nice fresh salad. It felt very satisfying to have something cleansing and good, and yet the meal left him craving more. Before bed, he checked his phone for a text back from the guy. He grumbled. Nothing.