One of the more interesting aspects
of being a sidekick to Ana is that life tends to be full of surprises. Like
that time when we were in Los Angeles for an event being conducted by her
sponsor and I returned from a quick coffee run to find two massive, shirtless, muscle-bound
specimens of humanity sitting on the sofa in the hotel room.
I have a vague memory of making a dash
for it towards the lobby, where I intended to cower behind the front desk, and
would have, had I not nearly run into Ana, who held in her hands two cans of
orange juice.
“Going somewhere?” she asked,
raising an eyebrow.
I arrested my stride inches short
of a potted plant, panted for a few seconds, and then babbled incoherently for
a while, which led her to transfer a can from her right hand to the left and
smack my arm.
“There’s two scary big guys in our
room!” I said, “I don’t know how they broke in, but we need to tell the hotel
security! And the cops! And get as far away from here as possible!”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Percy. That’s just
Peter and Bobby. They’re also fitness models. They had come to say hello and I
went to get them some O.J.”
“But…Ana…one of them has these
really dangerous-looking tattoos!”
“Yes, that’s Bobby. Sweetest guy
you’ll ever see. Now come, I’ll introduce you to them. And you can explain to
them why you ran like a scared little girl.”
I shall gloss over the
introductions and explanations that followed. Let’s just take those as a given,
and clarify that sometimes, the scary, muscular black man in your hotel room is
actually just your girlfriend’s co-worker.
A couple of hours later, I was in
the backseat of Peter’s Mazda, as we drove to the L.A. Fitness gym where the
signing and associated hullabaloo was to take place. I’d been to a couple of
such events before, and fully anticipating that I’d be sitting idle while
people formed lines to get photographed with Ana and the others, I was carrying
my well-thumbed copy of The Prince and
the Pauper.
Minutes ticked by, with little
excitement other than when someone accused Ana of not having proper form when
she did kettledrum lifts, which led to a heated exchange between them. Though
they spoke English, it might as well have been Hebrew as far as I was
concerned, so I was drifting back into the fascinating story of Edward Tudor
and Tom Canty, when I felt a tug on my shirt sleeve.
I looked up, and found myself
looking at a very pretty girl, black-haired, brown-eyed and dressed in a bright
red sponsor tank-top and black trackpants.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Yes…were you – have I seen you
before?” she asked.
“Quite unlikely,” I said. “Unless
you work on the Office of the Currency Control or something. I used to have
dealings with some people there.”
“Oh no,” she laughed, throwing her
hair back. “No, I work at a Starbucks in Chinatown.”
“Ah, then I might have seen you
there yesterday. I did drop in for a caramel latte,” I said, putting away the
book.
“I never forget a face. Especially
a handsome one,” she said.
I looked around to check who she
was addressing, but saw no one. Girl
needs to wear her glasses, I thought, getting up.
“So you’re into the fitness scene,
are you?” I asked.
“Wanting to get into it,” she
admitted. “Huge fan of Ms Sagra over there. Wanted to take a photo with her,
but the line’s just too long and I have another shift in an hour.”
She had those big, expressive eyes
that I was sure got her more in tips than most.
“Oh come on, I know her. I can
probably cut you in,” I offered.
I led her across the gym floor,
passing Peter and Bobby posing for photos with star-struck women half their
size to where Ana was flashing an unwavering smile arm-in-arm with a
long-haired person whose gender I would not commit to identifying.
“I say, Ana, can you spare a moment
for Miss….”
“Grace,” said my pretty companion.
“Grace Moonweather. I’m SO pleased to...this is like…”
“Hey, you’re cutting in!” it was
the woman who was next in line, a blonde woman in her early twenties who was
overflowing out of a blue tube top and white shorts.
“I’m sorry, I really am, but I must
be going and…”
“Won’t take a second,” I said.
“Percy, you really shouldn’t try to
cut the line,” said Ana, though she smiled pleasantly at Grace. “Very
unprofessional.”
“I’ll leave,” said Grace. “I’m
sorry to cause any…”
It was at this moment that the
woman in the tube top pushed me, hard. Never possessed of a particularly low
centre of gravity at the best of times, I toppled over and might have hurt
myself had Peter not been passing by and caught me before I hit the ground.
“What the hell do you think you’re
doing?” asked Peter.
“He’s got no business bringing in
his floozy to cut the line!” she said imperiously.
“I’m not his floozy,” said Grace,
alarmed.
“I’m his floozy,” said Ana, indignantly.
“What’s a floozy?” asked Peter.
“Some sort of derogatory term for a
woman,” I explained.
“Nonetheless, I think you should
leave, ma’m. You can’t just assault people! Bobby, get the security guys here,
would you?” Peter spoke in a calm, but firm tone.
“I am not leaving. I have questions
to ask Ms Sagra here!”
“No, really. You need to leave
before I have someone throw you out!” Peter was indignant.
“It’s all right,” Ana said, with a
light touch on Peter’s arm and a winsome smile on her face. “Tell me, Miss…?”
“Biden. Chloe Biden. Now you
listen, I want to know what are the things I should look out for if I become a
fitness model. How do I get a contract, what sort of contract should I be
looking at, can you have separate deals with the nutrition companies and the
clothing companies? Approximately how much do these pay?”
Ana looked befuddled at the
barrage, but opened her mouth, presumably to respond, when Chloe Biden, who had
seemingly only stopped to catch her breath, resumed,
“What about the gym memberships? Do
they pay for them or do you pay yourself? Give me some tips on posing. Will
breast implants be mandatory? Who pays for those? What about social media? How
important is a social media profile? Do you recommend Instagram or Snapchat?”
“Umm…”
“Well, answer why don’t you? Or do
you want to keep secrets? I hate how people are just not open and transparent.
What are you worried about? You have your small close-knit group of models and
you won’t let a new person in!”
“If you would stop talking…”
“Fine, I’ll stop. But you better
give me a straight answer.”
“Right. I will. Regarding the
contract, you should have a lawyer or accountant look at it. It doesn’t pay all
that well unless you become really famous. And you can have separate deals for
clothing and nutrition, but again that’s a legal matter. Regarding the
implants, that’s a very personal decision and whether you choose to do that or
not is up to you – did I cover everything?”
“This isn’t helping at all!”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ana said,
adjusting her cap, “But that’s the best I can answer your questions. If I knew
any more than that I would…now do you want a photo taken?”
“You’re just useless like the
others! All this I already know. I want to know how YOU got your contract and
what YOU do for apparel and nutrition and whether YOU have implants, and…”
“Listen, like I said, it’s not a
one-solution-fits-all sort of thing.”
“Bitch.” It was a muttered
expletive, but Ms Biden had clearly not reckoned on Ana’s sharp hearing (which
can, however, get rather hazy when she wants it to).
“Ok, listen, Chloe. All your
questions are pointless. Do you know why they’re pointless? Because to get a
contract as a fitness model you need to BE FIT! And you’re clearly not!”
“Excuse me,” was the response, in a
tone of exaggerated politeness.
“Look, all I’m saying,” said Ana,
raising her right hand and pointing it, palm upwards towards where Ms Biden’s
love handles spilled over the waistline of her shorts, “Is that the main
requirement to be a fitness model is to be fit. And you’re carrying at least
twenty pounds more than you need. I’m not even talking about form and toning
right now – it’s…what are you doing? Cart before horse?”
“How dare you! How dare you body
shame me?” her face was red, and getting redder.
“I am not!” protested Ana. “But
honestly, Miss, you walked in here and you want tips on fitness modelling! How
can you be a fitness model without having – look at those shoulders! Flab! Legs
– no toning! Do you exercise? Do you measure your intake of calories? I don’t
see your abs. Where are your abs? You should – you should work on those
things!”
“You nasty, supercilious,
horrendous…” Chloe was sputtering now, indignation dripping from every
adjective.
“And as for implants and all that –
yes, it helps, you work out, you lose body fat and that does not look good, but
that’s NOT the point at all. We work out because we love to, we love our
bodies, we want to be healthy and athletic and build up our stamina and take
part in sports, go hiking in the mountains, play soccer and hopefully to live a
long life. Modelling – look, it’s great, it lets someone like me do what I love
– which is about building my body for it’s own sake, not because I need to fit
a standard of beauty. But it’s the journey I love – which we all do, I like to
think – and not the expectation of someday winning a contract.”
“You’re a hypocrite!”
“No – I really – do you know most
of us have second jobs? We are lifeguards, nurses, football players…and yes,
some of us win competitions, we win Mr or Ms Olympia or an IFBB competition and
that’s great, but even then – it's validation by your peers, the achievement is
in being in the best shape you can be. The hard work – sometimes it only shows
here,” - she pointed to her abs – “and not in my Bank balance. And to us, that's what counts, not to look good for someone else or by someone else's standards.”
“You’re sexist. You’re an enemy of
your own kind. All women are beautiful! It’s sluts like you with your talk of
perfect bodies that make me sick! It’s inner beauty that counts, and your
attitude, Ms Sagra, stinks.”
Ana took a deep breath.
“I am not being sexist. YOU came
here and asked about being a fitness model. FITNESS. Of course, you’re
beautiful, if that's what you want to be! If you want to act, or sing…I don’t know, model for plus-size
clothes or something, I’m sure you can do that…but look, you need to be able to
run to win a race, and you need to be fit to even think of being – well, where
I am today.”
At this point, Chloe Biden
committed the mistake of trying to impose her point by shoving Ana.
A grave mistake, because unlike
yours truly, Ana is an exceptional athlete with biceps that, while not bulky,
are hard as iron bands, and legs that always, naturally, seem to find a
balance. Must be all the boxing she does. So where I had fallen like a ton of
bricks, Chloe’s shove only ended up leading Ana to take a back-step and, almost
like a choreographed dance, come back into position.
“Ms Biden, come on, that’s enough.
You can’t physically hurt…” began Peter, but Ana shushed him.
“Chloe, you need to work on your
body if you want to be a fitness model, it’s true. You need to pay for a gym
membership, make a diet plan and stick to it, to work your ass off, and maybe
in a year or more likely two, you’ll have a body and the strength, to push me
off my feet.
“But if you want to be a part of
this industry, you need to also fix your mind. Do you know how it is to stand
in a bikini in front of four halogen lamps while a strange man applies a fake
tan on your upper thighs? When a judge looks at you, standing alongside five
other women who are just as beautiful and toned as you are, and decides which
of you is the best? When that person is NOT you, and you’ve worked so hard, and
killed your appetite for days on end, and gone through things only YOU know
about, only to end up third-best? It’s a decision that judge, or that modelling
agent made in five seconds, though it took you five weeks to prepare, and five
months of a diet plan, and five years of never missing a day at the gym.
“A girl needs a strong mind to put
up with that, Chloe. Nerves of steel, before you think about buns of steel or
abs of steel or whatever fitness product they’re advertising now.”
“See. Now you’re just making stupid
emotional speeches…”
Ana looked at me.
“Percy, is she still talking?”
“Yes, darling, she is.”
“Can you make her stop? Because
this can’t be real.”
Grace, who had been watching the
proceedings, as bemused as the rest of us, finally spoke up, in a voice that
could not have been more soothing had it been an angel’s.
“Chloe!”
“Oh, floozy? What do YOU want?”
“Come, Chloe. Let’s have a coffee
and cinnamon roll while we discuss how horrible fitness models are.”
“What?”
“Let’s get you something to eat,
come. Get you some free snacks. Horrible people these models, aren’t they? Such
body-shaming! Horrible!”
And with much such cajoling and the
promise of free cinnamon rolls, Chloe Biden finally left the building.
I ran into Grace again, the next
day. When she got off from work, I walked her over to our hotel gym to meet
Ana, whose first question was about the fate of Chloe.
“She did rant for a while more ”
admitted Grace. “But I’m glad I got her out of there. She was being a total
nuisance. Sat her down at a Dunkin’ Donuts for a while and packed her off
home.”
“The woman is an assault charge in
the making. Any longer and I’d have knocked her out myself!” exclaimed Ana.
“So I saved you from that. What’s
my reward?” grinned Grace.
Ana laughed.
“What would you like?”
“Fitness tips and a selfie with you
and Percy would be fine,” said Grace, suddenly shy.
Ana seemed to ponder for a while.
My panic must have been manifest on my face, because she then said,
“I can do you better than that.
Come to the gym today evening and I’ll get you a really special selfie!”
Thanks, Percy. Back to smiling.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading each and every line. Ana does come out as a very sensible lady who even while dealing with bullies can keep her cool.