Sweat was in Hanna’s eyes, her arms and legs burned, and she’d just seen an upsetting newscast on TV that mentioned Ian Thomas was proclaiming his innocence from behind bars. But she couldn’t stop exercising now. There was no way she would remain a size six. She wouldn’t let a salesgirl snicker at her ever again.
Her phone buzzed and she reached for it eagerly, checking once more to see if Lucas had called, texted, posted on Facebook, anything, but it was just Aria, asking to borrow Hanna’s notes from English.
Hanna’s chest felt tight. It made her feel unbelievably lame, but she missed Lucas—and it didn’t seem like he missed her at all. She threw her phone back into the little plastic cup on the machine intended for water bottles, and cranked up the resistance another few levels. It didn’t matter. She’d lose ten pounds, look fabulous again, and withhold all affection when Lucas returned.
Then again, she thought, what if Lucas didn’t even care about her when he got home? What if he’d decided to ditch her for Princess Puke-a-tan?
“You’re really going for it, huh?”
Hanna jumped, looked down, and saw a buff guy in a tight Body Tonic T-shirt, long mesh shorts, and gray New Balance sneakers standing next to her machine. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, close-cropped dark hair, and gorgeous golden skin, and his muscles bulged without looking too bodybuilderish. Hanna recognized him instantly—when she and Mona used to come to Body Tonic together, they’d nicknamed him Apollo, for obvious reasons. He prowled around the exercise room, grinning at girls, occasionally lifting a weight or doing a stomach crunch, and training all of the super-rich Main Line female clientele. But the clincher was when they’d caught him sitting in his car in the parking lot, rocking out to “Stairway to Heaven,” pretending the steering wheel was a drum kit. Apollo was a reformed dork, just like Hanna and Mona were.
Hanna glanced behind her to see if Apollo was speaking to someone else, but she was the only person on this row of elliptical trainers. “Uh, pardon?” she asked, trying to sound breezy. She wished she’d brought a hand towel to mop off her face.
Apollo grinned and gestured to the LCD readout on Hanna’s machine. “You’ve been working out for eighty minutes. That’s intense.”
“Oh.” Hanna kept pedaling. “I’m trying to get back into shape. I’ve been to a few too many holiday parties.” She laughed self-consciously, then cursed herself for drawing attention to her Christmas-cookie bubble butt.
“The holidays can be tough.” Apollo leaned on the machine next to hers. “I’m leading a fitness retreat that starts today designed specifically to get people through the holidays. It focuses on exercise, nutrition, and mental wellness.”
“Sounds awesome,” Hanna said. Kirsten Cullen, a girl she knew at Rosewood Day, had gone on a fitness retreat in St. Barts the summer between ninth and tenth grades and had returned twelve pounds lighter and with the most flawless skin ever. “A retreat to where?”
“Oh, to nowhere.” Apollo shot her a sheepish smile. “We hold it here at the gym. But you’ll feel transported—and amazing by the time it’s done. Would you be interested in signing up?”
Hanna gazed at her sweaty reflection in the mirror in front of her. “I don’t know.” She wasn’t really into group classes.
Apollo gave her a dazzling smile. “Are you sure? I think you’d find it really, really amazing. It’s Hanna, right?”
Hanna’s jaw dropped. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve seen you here before.” This time when he smiled, he revealed two adorable dimples. “I’d love to have you in the class.”
Her insides tingled. Was he flirting with her? For a split second, she couldn’t wait to hop off the machine, call Mona, and tell her that Apollo from Body Tonic was practically begging her to be part of his fitness retreat—until she remembered, yet again. Every time she realized Mona had been A, and that she was dead now, it felt like someone had chucked a medicine ball at her chest.
“The pounds will melt off you,” Apollo promised. “You’ll be in the most amazing shape of your life. Please say you’ll do it.”
Since he put it that way, how could she say no? His sparkling blue eyes didn’t hurt, either. “Okay, you’ve twisted my arm,” she said, pausing the machine. “Count me in.”
“Awesome.” Apollo grinned again. Just being next to him made her tingle all over. And he had noticed her. He knew her name. All thoughts of Lucas and Puke-a-tan Brooke flew out of her head. If Lucas could flirt, then so could she.
“My name’s Vince,” he added. “The class starts at five today, and we’ll be meeting morning and night through the end of the year. I’m so thrilled you’re going to do this, Hanna.”
“I’m thrilled, too,” Hanna answered, looking deeply into Apollo’s—Vince’s—eyes. And she absolutely, positively meant it.
Chapter 6
The Biggest Losers
That day after school, Hanna sat on the steps outside Body Tonic and cradled her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear. “Sorry, Dad. I swore I told you that I had plans tonight.”
“But you’re going to miss Santa’s Village at Longwood Gardens.” Mr. Marin sounded very disappointed. “It’s going to be a blast.”
Hanna resisted the urge to gag. In seventh grade, she, Ali, and the other girls had gone to Longwood Gardens, which was essentially just that—a big, boring garden. It was hot, crowded, and downright miserable inside, so they’d spent most of the time hanging out in the parking lot, gossiping about which boy at Rosewood Day they most wanted to kiss and which celebrities they’d invite to their fantasy birthday parties.
“I’m really sorry,” Hanna repeated. “But I made these plans before I knew about your Twelve Days of Christmas thing.”
Mr. Marin sighed. “This isn’t because you’re uncomfortable with Isabel and Kate, is it? Kate says she wants to get to know you, but you keep yourself at a distance. She also mentioned you ditched out on going to the mall with her the day we moved in.”
Hanna opened her mouth, then shut it again. Kate had some nerve. “This has nothing to do with them,” she lied.
When she hung up, she rested the phone in her lap, wishing it would ring once more and she’d hear Lucas’s voice on the other end. But it stayed silent. She stared at the cars swishing back and forth on the remote country road. Snow was falling lightly, making the pavement sparkle. Hanna heard a shuffling noise to the left and sat up straighter. It sounded like someone was lurking behind the corner.
Hanna shrugged it off—no one was stalking her anymore—and jumped to her feet. She headed inside the gym, an excited flurry in her stomach. She might have been resistant to the group fitness idea at first, but now she was pumped. Everyone would probably be pretty, young Main Line girls—maybe she’d even make a new friend or two. And Vince had said that the class incorporated fitness, nutrition, and well-being; perhaps that meant regular massages at the end of each session, by Vince, of course. On a strictly professional basis, so Lucas wouldn’t get too jealous.
A printed sign that said HOLIDAY FITNESS RETREAT was pasted on the door of one of the regular exercise rooms. Hanna had expected that the class would be in a secret Body Tonic space—something for VIPs only—but whatever. She took a deep breath and pushed through the door, a huge smile on her face, half-expecting all the beautiful participants to spin around and welcome her with open arms, sort of like a group therapy session except way more glamorous.
But the lights, which were very bright, almost fluorescent, revealed an entirely different scene. Ten people sat on the floor with various mats, balls, bands, balancing apparati, and yoga blocks in front of them. All of them did indeed turn and stare at her, but they didn’t spread out their arms to welcome her in a group hug. Not that she wanted to touch them. They were as far from glamorous fitness junkies as possible.
There was a woman with a triple chin. A man whose gut plunged over his waistband. Frumpy suburban mothers. Dumpy suburban dads. The kind of teenage girls who joined drama club or band or spent their lunch periods in the art room, not giving a shit about how their bodies looked. One girl had the biggest boobs she had ever seen. She was Hanna’s age and sexily padded, with big hips and a large butt, like a fifties pinup girl. She had a punkish style—tall, lustrous black hair, copious eyeliner on her almond-shaped eyes, lots of red lipstick on her baby-doll lips, and a tattoo shaped like a swirly dagger on her shoulder. Normally Hanna wasn’t into the look, but it kind of worked on her. Not that she would admit it out loud.
A glam fitness retreat this wasn’t. It was more like a low-rent version of The Biggest Loser. Hanna hadn’t seen a single one of them on the floor of Body Tonic, ever—it was like the gym had hidden these people away so as not to scare off the regulars. And every last person was wearing an oversized red T-shirt that said GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR! in big white letters on the front and HOLIDAY FITNESS BOOT CAMP! on the back.
“Hanna!” Vince appeared from behind a set of stereo equipment in the corner and grinned at her broadly. He was also wearing a red GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR! shirt—albeit a much tighter one. “Glad you could make it! Here, take a T-shirt!”
He tossed one to her, but Hanna didn’t make any effort to catch it, letting it bounce off her chest and drop limply to the floor. Behind her, she heard a thin, high-pitched giggle and froze. A figure slipped around the corner, her long blond hair streaming. Had someone seen her? Would someone think she was part of . . . this?
“Let’s start by introducing ourselves and saying why we’re here,” Vince began. He pointed to the pinup girl.
She jiggled her boobs at him and purred, “I’m Dinah Morrissey. I don’t care about losing weight, but I do want to make a commitment to get healthier.” She batted her lashes at Vince, who smiled broadly back at her.
“Nice to meet you, Dinah. Hanna, how about you go next?” Vince asked.
Hanna’s mouth was sealed shut. She looked again at the lumpy misfits on the floor, let out a small squeaking noise, and spun around. She ran as fast as she could toward the main gym, back to where everyone was pretty and slender and normal.
“Hanna,” Vince called out as she wound around the weight machines and treadmills. He cut her off in the hallway between the yoga studio and the macrobiotic snack bar. “What’s the matter?”
Hanna shrugged awkwardly, noticing that Vince had followed after her with the red GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR! T-shirt that Hanna had rejected. “I don’t think that class is for me.”
“The retreat? Why?”
Was he high? First of all, it was a boot camp, not a fitness retreat. Second, how could Vince think Hanna belonged in a class like that? Had he noticed her on the elliptical today and pegged her as someone out of shape, someone ordinary? Someone who salesgirls snickered at, fathers rejected, and best friends despised?
