Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju (Romantic Comedy) by Bethany Bloom

which perfectly pushed up her arches and made her feel powerful
and bouncy.
    The minivan smelled moist, like soggy French fries. A wave
of nausea flared through her. This always happened when she got up too early.
She could sometimes stomach coffee, but no food for awhile.  She rolled down
her window. This was going to be brutal. But Leopold probably wouldn’t even do
anything today. Just weigh her. Maybe figure out a plan for her.
    At the health club, the parking lot was empty but for two
cars, a Toyota pickup and some itsy sports car she should probably know the
name of but didn’t. Which belonged to Slicky and which to Leopold? She
practiced saying his name. “Lee-AH-pawlt. Lee-AH-pawlt.” The lights blinked on,
just inside the club, all at once, like a new shimmering world had come to life
and was beckoning her forward.  
    She charged through the revolving door and put a hand on her
stomach. These early mornings were going to take some getting used to. Behind
the reception desk, Slicky raised his to-go cup toward her. Starbucks. What she
wouldn’t do for just a sip of that. And where was there a Starbucks open this
early? She smiled at him and approached, remembering Fiona’s words. Here, she
didn’t have to be Shy Charlotte. She didn’t have to be so nervous all the time.
She was halfway across the lobby when Slicky pointed a finger at the opposite
wall.
    She turned and there he was. Lee-AH-pawlt. Leaning against
the wall, in an indigo track suit, three silver stripes down either side. His
skin was white as chalk, his bald head shiny in the overhead fluorescents. His
chin was lifted just enough that he appeared to be looking straight down his
nose at her.
    Charlotte had never felt so intimidated by such an unappealing
man. She applied her best self-assured and fearless face, but one look from
Leopold told her that he could see right through her. She even got the sense he
could tell what her naked body looked like under all these clothes.  
    They met eyes—his were heavy lidded and the skin around them
dark—and he flicked them down toward his watch as he grimaced. She was a full
five minutes early. She knew she was. What was he trying to do here?
    Leopold jerked his head to the side, motioning her toward
him. Charlotte glanced back at Slicky, who was now absorbed in a frenzied series
of tasks: tapping buttons on his computer, straightening items on his desk, not
meeting her eyes.
    Leopold squeezed two fingers together and used them to point
to the locker room. Then he held those two fingers in the air. “Two minutes.
Our session starts. Right here.”
    She was already dressed, so she used the time to stash her
gym tote in a locker, and then she messed with her ponytail and tightened the
laces of her sneakers until two minutes had fully passed. No sense spending any
more time with this guy than she had to. People like him made her trip all over
herself, and the more she tried not to, the more it just worked out that way.
    When she emerged, finally, Leopold turned and led her up a chrome
flight of stairs to the running track that circled the ceiling.  Just inside
the center of the track was a carpeted area with free weights, kettle bells,
and a digital scale. He flitted his two fingers at the scale and she stepped on.
He grunted and scribbled a note. Then he pushed a set of weights toward her.
“Do like me,” he said as he began to lift.
    Ordinarily she liked the quiet, but today she found it
unnerving. “Do we do this all in silence?” she asked. Her voice tittered nervously,
the way she knew it would.
    “If I have something to say, I will say it. Exercise and
building strength is as much a mental exercise as it as a physical one. Pay
attention to your form. Do not distract yourself with words.”
    And so she did her best to concentrate. First, he would bark
the name of an exercise and then she would perform it along with him. The
weights felt light at first but, after a series of reps, she found she