After the class finished, Maz opened the storage boxes for the mats and gloves, and directed everyone to drop them in. The cute guy was hanging around. Smiling in his direction, Maz collected the last set of gloves and dragged the box back to the corner.
‘Can I help you with that?’ he asked, rushing over to take the other side.
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ She smiled again. ‘I do it every day.’
‘I was wondering if you’d like to meet for a drink one night?’ He spoke with the confidence of someone who was rarely turned down. ‘In the city. Maybe at one of those cool bars in Barangaroo?’
Up close, Maz realised he was older than she’d first thought. Mid-thirties maybe.
‘Oh wow, that’s really nice of you to ask,’ Maz cooed. ‘But I have a boyfriend.’
Sometimes she loved the attention, sometimes she didn’t. Male punters thought they could chat up any instructor, that it was Maz’s duty to be polite to them, date them, admire their bodies. The boyfriend tactic seemed to shut them up, as if the only reason Maz wouldn’t want them was because she had a better option. At the moment, though, she was happily single. Oakley, her ‘friend with benefits’—that sounded so much better than ‘fuck buddy’, which was what her sister liked to say—was now working as a trainer in a resort in Thailand. When Maz had commented on his awesome Insta photos, Oakley suggested she should come over. It was a stunning place to live, he’d told her, but the pay was pretty low—he was selling bodybuilding supplements to get some extra cash.
‘That’s a shame.’ The man chuckled. ‘For me, obviously, not for your boyfriend. The name’s Colin, by the way. I’m already looking forward to my next class with you.’
Colin’s eyes lingered on her breasts. Maz arched her back and pushed them out further. You can gawp all you like, mate, but you’re not touching these. Em-Jay reckoned it was the best way to treat the punters who focused on her tits.
By the time Maz got home, Mum had already started dinner. A box of chicken Kiev from the supermarket freezer: battered chicken, dripping with preservatives and some kind of processed butter. Dad was mashing potato, adding more butter. Maz could see two empty bowls in the lounge room, the remnants of their barbecue chips and salty nuts. If she looked in the recycling bin, she knew there’d be three empty VB cans.
Flipping hell, Dad just needed to stop eating and drinking like this and the kilos would drop off. He was only forty-seven, but he had arthritis in both knees and his hip. Half the time, he was limping. Maz kept telling him: ‘A kilo off the body is equal to four kilos of pressure off the knee.’ She’d offered Dad and Mum a discounted membership at the gym but they’d said, ‘It’s not our kind of place.’
After what had happened last year, Maz figured they might be right. When the overweight guy on the rowing machine had collapsed, Maz assumed he was just taking a break, exhausted from a hard workout. Then one of the punters had called out, ‘I think he’s unconscious.’
Ten o’clock at night, Maz was on the late shift. Nico and the senior instructors had gone home. She’d trained in CPR but never actually had to perform it. The two other men in the weights room had panicked.
‘Hurry up and do something,’ they’d shouted at her.
He was slumped awkwardly over the rowing machine—it took all three of them to drag him clear. Maz sent one guy to get the defibrillator while the other called an ambulance. She was trying to check the man’s breathing and his pulse but it was hard to find the carotid artery in his thick neck. What if she was feeling in the wrong spot? What if she started CPR when his heart was still beating?
Once Maz had turned on the AED—the automated external defibrillator—she calmed down a little as the recorded voice issued instructions. But the man’s shirt was too tight and they couldn’t inch it up above his chest. Someone had to find scissors but the office door was locked. Maz didn’t have time to get the key. She ended up biting the material with her teeth, her face pressed against the man’s sweaty groin, until she managed to make a tear. Hands shaking, she stuck the pads on his skin and delivered the shocks. Then she started compressions.
After two minutes, the machine requested another shock.
Maz stared at the man’s puffy red face, the wet hair flat against his head. Somehow, she knew he wasn’t going to survive.
Before the workout, he’d said, ‘It’s my wife’s birthday tomorrow so I’m getting my exercise in tonight.’
He’d only joined the gym a week earlier; Maz had shown him how to use the machines. He’d talked about getting into shape now that he was forty, wanting to play soccer with his twin boys.
By the time the ambulance arrived, Maz’s shoulders were sore from doing CPR. The adrenaline had kept her going but when the paramedics took over, she crumpled backwards against the rowing machine.
‘Please save him,’ she’d whispered.
They tried. They all tried.
His name was Joseph.
Two weeks later, the wife came in to thank Maz for her efforts. Four weeks later, Nico had a letter from a solicitor stating the gym had provided an inappropriate program for Joseph’s weight and fitness level. The letter asked why ‘inexperienced’ Maz had been the only instructor on that night; whether she’d learnt first aid; and if she’d done training on an AED.
Joseph’s family wanted to sue.
Nico protected Maz from the worst of it. The legal back and forth stretched on for ages but, eight months later, Nico said it’d finally been sorted. He didn’t tell her how.
Every day at work, Maz glanced at the rowing machine and wondered if she’d acted quickly enough. Wondered what else she could’ve done to save Joseph’s life.
And every time she studied her father, with the same body type as the dead man, she worried for his health.
She’d done research on turmeric and curcumin for Dad’s arthritis; bought a cookbook for improving joint health; prepared nutritional dinners; coaxed him into some simple exercises. Dad had grunted through one set and refused to do any more. Before Christmas, the GP told him that he had to lose twenty kilos—and the doctor was being polite. Really, Dad needed to lose more to get to a normal BMI.
At the shampoo factory where Dad worked, the ladies baked cakes and slices for morning tea every day—it had turned into a competition. At home, Mum liked to make dessert. Everyone in their extended family thought that food meant love. No: it meant clogged arteries, sore joints and feeling exhausted all the time. By getting into the gym as teenagers, Maz and her sister had managed to see the light.
Just last week, when Maz had been looking for a pen in the kitchen drawer, she’d found Mum’s terrible cholesterol test. Some of her friends complained about their parents but Maz knew she was lucky: Rick and Wendy were the very best parents a girl could have. Maz wanted them to be around for a long time yet.
Maz put the cutlery and water jug on the table for dinner. At least they were drinking more water.
‘Love, can you get the carrots out of the microwave?’ Mum said.
Over-cooked carrots. Not much nutrition there. Maz found some broccoli in the bottom of the fridge and zapped it. She added the vegetables to each plate as Mum served up the chicken Kiev. Dad took his to the table, along with another can of VB.