“After That, Baby …”

Abstract

Three months and twelve days after the baby, I finally took his advice. I was going to join a workout class. I’d always been short and relatively average as far as weight goes, but he insisted. I thought the pregnancy weight suited me just fine, but it was for my own wellbeing, of course. And he was the father of my baby—why shouldn’t I trust him? Anyway, I signed up for a workout class with one of those exciting names. Move!! met at a roller skating rink downtown four days a week for a half-hour. Each class cost me seven dollars, which was a bit much, but I figured if I skipped lunch a couple days a week I could afford it. Two birds with one stone, you know. But no one told me I’d have to wait around for 45 minutes in the stuffy, dim room to save a spot each time—the class was in that high of a demand. The skating rink was a wide, short building that looked like a warehouse from the outside. It sat in the shadow of the Interstate overpass, its small gravel parking lot bumpy with potholes. A wide glass front door opened up onto the skating rink’s lobby, which was carpeted in deep purple carpet printed with slivers of fluorescent ribbon in oranges and yellows and greens—the kind that lights up in black light. Booths and benches dotted the room, and the smell e