I made sympathetic noises and dropped down onto the mat to start my own stretches, and we were still chatting away about nothing much as we started our workout together. I noticed Mike glancing over to us, a benevolent smile on his battered ex-boxer’s face.
It was he who, a few months back, after he’d given me what passed for a formal induction into the gym – where everything was, how everything worked, how to secure the weights on the bars, that sort of thing (the more advanced stuff, he said, he’d show me as I went along) – had said, ‘In the meantime, if you need a workout buddy, chat to Dani.’
In those first few weeks, at times when Mike wasn’t around, Dani had shown me some of the ropes – literally, because it turned out I was going to have to learn how to skip for the first time since I was about seven. She’d been friendly and patient but also kind of remote. We’d chatted a bit while we worked out together; I told her I was a cook, working freelance for a catering company and manning a food cart with my short-lived then-boyfriend, Sean, at weekends, but that I dreamed of having a kitchen of my own one day, maybe in a pub, a place I could make my own. She told me she was a receptionist at a nearby dental surgery, and when I asked if she enjoyed it, she shrugged and said it paid the rent. Then she’d flashed a brief, dazzling smile and said, ‘Plus I get my teeth whitened for nothing. Good for business, right?’
When Sean and I split up, I’d told Dani and she’d said she was single too, and weren’t blokes more hassle than they were worth. When I started working at the Ginger Cat, she’d congratulated me and told me I’d be brilliant, and she must drop in for a pint sometime, although she never had. When she moved into a new flat, she’d shown me pictures and asked for my advice on paint colours, and we’d started following each other on Instagram.
So, for a while, we were kind-of friends.
Then, one day a few weeks back, things had changed. That day’s workout had been particularly brutal, and although Dani had raced through it way faster and more easily than me, by the end we were both flat out on our backs on the mat, just as knackered as each other, gasping for breath and soaked in our own sweat like we were being marinated for a cannibal barbecue. I glanced over to her, ready for our usual high-five, but she didn’t stick her hand out.
She pressed both palms over her face, and I realised she was crying.
‘Hey.’ I sat up, reaching over to touch her shoulder. ‘What’s up?’
She tried unsuccessfully to laugh. ‘Don’t tell Mike. He’ll think the workout was too hard for me.’
‘And it so wasn’t – you totally smashed it. But there’s something the matter, isn’t there?’
She shook her head, her hands still covering her face. I could see her shoulders shaking with sobs. I jumped up, my legs somehow finding strength I wouldn’t have believed they had, and grabbed a wad of paper towel from the enormous roll mounted on the wall.
‘Do you want to talk?’ I asked, squatting down next to her.
‘No. Yes. But it’s just a stupid thing.’
‘It’s not, if it makes you feel like this. You can tell me, if you like.’
She peeled herself up off the floor and leaned her face forward between her long, slender thighs.
‘It’s my birthday,’ she said, her voice muffled by the curtain of her hair.
‘Oh no! Why didn’t you say? Happy birthday! Are you doing anything nice?’
‘Not really. Might go out with some mates. But that’s not the point.’
She lifted her head. For the first time ever, I saw her make-up smudged, her nose and eyes red.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘My mum didn’t ring me. Not a card, not anything. I should be used to it by now, we’re not close, but it still hurts so much.’
And she made a strange keening sound, and I hugged her, not caring that we were both drenched in sweat and totally minging.
‘She never wanted me to move to London,’ Dani explained between sobs. ‘She wanted me to stay in Liverpool and marry the boy I’d been seeing since high school, because he was so nice and suitable and about to qualify as a dentist. But I couldn’t do it. I just thought about my life being the same for ever and ever and I wasn’t in love with him any more, so I ended it and came to London. And it’s like she’s never forgiven me. I can’t even go home for Christmas and stuff because there’s always rows, so I make up excuses about having to work, and I just feel so alone.’
I’d listened, passed her tissues and waited for her to finish crying. I didn’t tell her then, because I didn’t want to make it all about me, but I totally got what she was saying. I sometimes felt like I’d missed out on the window of opportunity when everyone else had seemed to build up a close network of people they could hang out with, go on holiday with, make memories with. All documented with accompanying Instagram stories and hashtags.
The next day, I turned up at the gym with a cake I’d baked, Mike and all the regulars sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, a group of us went out for a few beers, and that had been that. Dani and I were mates. And still, months later, I caught Mike looking at us with a slightly smug expression on his face, and I knew it wasn’t just because he saw us challenging each other, motivating each other, but because he knew he’d been instrumental in giving us what we’d both been missing: a friend.
‘Shall we do chin-ups next?’ Dani asked now. Chin-ups were her favourites, and watching her pull herself up on the bar again and again, her strong arms straining until she got her whole head over it, was total life goals.
‘Sure. I’m just going to get some water.’
I crossed the gym towards the water cooler, glancing around me. It was quiet, as was usual for the middle of the afternoon – there were only a couple of hench guys doing bench presses by the weights racks, a woman chatting to Mike by the doorway and a guy finishing off a run on the treadmill.
The machine slowed as I watched, and he stepped off, towelling his face. He was tall and lanky, and something about his easy grace reminded me of Joe. I waited for the familiar twist of pain, but it didn’t come – I could just discreetly and appreciatively check out this sweaty but handsome stranger, who was also approaching the water cooler, his aluminium drinks bottle swinging from one hand.
We reached it at the same time.
‘After you,’ he said.
‘No, it’s fine – no rush. You go first. You look like you need it.’
He wiped his face again, making his damp hair stand on end, and grinned ruefully. ‘That obvious, is it?’
I smiled back. ‘Yeah, it kind of is.’
‘Well, I’d better go ahead then, before I collapse from dehydration.’
‘We wouldn’t want that to happen.’
He leaned over and pressed the tap, and I enjoyed the view of his broad shoulders under his wet Lycra vest. We’d only exchanged a few words, but there’d been something in the way he’d looked at me that was – maybe? – flirtatious. But what did I know? I hadn’t flirted with anyone since forever. My memories of flirting were dim, ephemeral things, lost in the mists of time.
He turned back to me and smiled again, showing straight white teeth Dani’s boss would have been proud of – or possibly not, if they were like that naturally rather than representing her next Caribbean holiday.