Friday, January 13th, 1984

     Every part of my body hurts.

     Last night, I donned what’s called a leotard in purple, along with blue tights and a soft blue headband. Kathryn and I went to the event room at Granny’s Bed and Breakfast along with several other women of the town. All the other ladies were squished into their leotards in many bright colors. Some of them had weights wrapped around their wrists and ankles. Most had brought towels. Kathryn insisted I bring one, though at the time I couldn’t imagine why. Kathryn and I joked about how seriously some of these women were taking this, even though I didn’t know what to expect yet. Kathryn described it as moving in rhythm to music. It honestly didn’t sound like aerobics would help me lose weight, but Kathryn was excited and I knew it made her feel good to get me out of the house.

     Ruby’s aerobics instructor outfit verses Ruby’s everyday outfit had less fur and more spandex but was otherwise the same. She stood at the head of the room and waited for everyone to settle down. When that didn’t happen, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. All the women quieted and looked ahead.

     “Thanks, guys!” Our instructor said. “I see some new faces tonight. When we really get into the workout this might seem really hard. Don’t feel bad if you can’t keep up tonight, but keep moving. It’ll get easier the more often you come to class. I’ll come around when I can to help you get the moves right, but if I haven’t come over to you and you think you’re stuck, just watch Mary Margaret!”

     Ruby pointed to the side of the room and there she was. Clad in her forest green leotard and white tights, Miss Blanchard blushed and waved to all the admiring faces.

     “Thanks, Ruby, but everyone should watch you.” Mary Margaret tried to turn the attention back to Ruby, but everyone just beamed at her, even Katherine. “I’m a student, just like the rest of us.”

     “But you’re so good. You’re better than me. You should be the teacher.” Ruby’s praise made all the women laugh. I was unable to keep my eyes from rolling up.

     Eventually the laughter calmed down and the class began. Ruby turned on some music from her cassette player. Music blared from the machine and she encouraged us to step to the music. I tried to forget about Mary Margaret and focus on the program, which became more fun. It started out with a simple step touch and then progressed into grapevines. All the women took three steps to the side and clapped then three steps to the other side and clapped. This only went on for a few minutes before the lunges began.

     “That’s not quite right.” Ruby was making her rounds as she’d promised. She didn’t seem to approve of the way I kept one foot firmly planted while I threw the other one forward and bent at the knee. “You need to go lower.” She put her hands on my hips and pushed me further down as my knee bent. I let out a very audible groan when the pain shot through my thighs. “Good!” Ruby took this as a good sign. Back home, I would have taken it as grounds for execution. “Feel the burn, Mayor! Keep doing it just like that.”

     As soon as Ruby moved on to her other students, I went back lunging in the less painful way. But then my eyes moved over to Mary Margaret. She was lunging so low she was almost doing the splits. My hatred for her grew, and I told myself I could do that, even though today my body is telling me that I clearly could not. I did as best as I could to keep up with her from that point on.

     Ruby returned to the front of the class and taught us what I can only describe as some sort of dance routine. At best, it reminded me of something local villagers would have performed for Snow, her father and I when we traveled. There were more of those grapevines, followed by kicks and arm thrusts and even jumping jacks. By this point in the class, I wasn’t the only one having a difficult time keeping up. At least two thirds of the women were sweating and staggering their way through the routine. Had this been an actual dance we had to perform for a ceremony, we would have brought shame to our village.

     After the dance routine, there was a brief pause for us to dry ourselves off and grab a drink of water. I actually thought we were done and started to grab my things and leave. Kathryn stopped me and informed me there was still floor work to do.

     Floor work is a special kind of torture. We all got down on the floor on our towels, because I certainly wouldn’t want to lie directly on that carpet.  We got onto one side, propped ourselves on an elbow and stretched out our legs. The music slowed down. Ruby had us raise our top leg, lower it and repeat that forever. Then we did it some more, only with that foot flexed. Then we did it even more, but with our knee bent. All through this, Ruby reminded us to breathe, which proved to be necessary. I think I’d forgotten about my air intake while I was willingly destroying my leg.

     We finally stopped. I thought our teacher was being merciful until she had us turn over and work out the other leg.

     Turning around forced me to watch Mary Margaret exercise. She hadn’t even broken a sweat. Her hair was perfect. She was raising and flexing as though this was the easiest thing she had ever done. I endured this mocking of my misery for as long as Ruby made me. Finally we’d reached what was ironically called the “cool down”. It involved slow stretching which made my skin burn up.

     At long last, we were done. The class actually applauded Ruby, who clapped right back at them. I couldn’t wait to leave, but Kathryn was hanging around chatting with Mary Margaret and Ruby. I clutched my sweaty towel and joined them.

     “Thank you so much for coming, Mayor!” Ruby was ever the hostess. “It’ll get easier for you the more you do it.”

     “That wasn’t so hard.” No one believed me. “It certainly wasn’t hard for you, was it, dear?”

     Mary Margaret avoided my gaze, mumbled something about school in the morning and left. Kathryn and I took that as our cue to leave also. I don’t know if I was crazy from exhaustion or angry with Miss Blanchard, but I promised Kathryn I would go to class with her on a regular basis. Today, my body doesn’t think that’s a good idea, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve faced worse things in my life, and I WILL beat Mary Margaret at aerobics!