Dear Emily (15 page)

“Good for you!” Martha chortled.

“Have I embarrassed any of you?” Emily asked. “I never really had friends to share things with. Oh, I had a friend during high school, but we didn’t share intimate things. It seems like I’m a late bloomer in more ways than one. I guess I trust all of you.”

“Emily, there is nothing wrong with you. You’re being cautious. There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. You haven’t known Ben that long. Liking sex is fine, so don’t be defensive about it. When it feels right, you’ll do whatever you feel at the moment. I think you’re still a bit vulnerable. Time will take care of everything,” Lena said in her best motherly voice.

They shared confidences for a long time. It was almost dusk when they locked up, saluted the front door smartly, and left to return to the house on Sleepy Hollow Road.

The clinics didn’t take off like a rocket, even with all the publicity the local newspapers generated. The word of mouth Emily counted on didn’t happen. Five weeks into her endeavor, she started to panic when she wrote out rent checks and lease payments on the exercise equipment. In the five weeks since their grand opening, they’d netted only $965 on all eight clinics. She dipped into her nest egg with fear in her heart.

“It takes time to get a business off the ground,” Lena said at their weekly meeting over the kitchen table.

“I don’t understand. Ian opened the clinic and the next day we were swamped with patients and he wasn’t that cheap either. We’re cheap. What are we doing wrong? We have a walk-in policy and we have a membership policy. We take credit cards. Maybe we need some kind of enticement, a gimmick. Something. Instead of opening the clinics, maybe we should have gone around to big businesses and offered to open a clinic on their premises. Lunch-hour physical fitness, that kind of thing. I’m not giving up, but our money or our lack of money is going to start hurting real soon.”

“We’re saving on our water; we’re showering at the clinics and doing our laundry there too.”

“I have a cookbook with a hundred and one recipes for tuna fish,” Zoë said. “I filched it from the library. We can’t eat any cheaper or more nutritionally than we are. Is there anyplace else we can cut back?”

“Heat. We’ll turn down the thermostat when we leave in the morning. That’s going to help some. Maybe we should open later and stay open until eight in the evening. I think we should vote on that. A lot of women commute to New York and don’t get home till six or seven. If we stay open till eight, we might have a shot at them.”

“Or we look for a gimmick, like you suggested,” Lena said.

Emily, her eyes on the Polaroid of the Liberated Stud, shouted, “That’s it! Let’s use him! I paid him fifty bucks plus tip for an hour to entertain us. We have eight clinics. We can each hire him for an hour. He can get his tips from the customers. It’ll be good publicity for him and for us. What do you think?” Emily cried excitedly. “If he agrees, we’ll get that frontal shot of him flexing his muscles and have it blown up to poster size and plaster them all over the place. It might work. Let’s call him and ask him to come over.”

“Emily, that’s four hundred dollars a day. Two thousand a week. That’s an awful lot of money,” Lena said, panic in her voice.

“He’d be a fool to turn it down,” Emily said. “We’ll figure out how much we have to take in in order to pay him and tell him in the beginning he’s pretty much going to be doing it for nothing. If it takes off, he’s going to make a lot of money. I think he might see the possibilities. I’m going to call him right now. Let’s vote. Okay, the ayes have it.” Emily rummaged in the kitchen drawer for the Stud’s business card. Her eyes were wild when she dialed the number. She listened intently. She mouthed the words, He’s on a gig, but will check his messages on the hour. The girls nodded. “This is Emily Thorn. My roommates and I have a business proposition to offer you. It’s ten o’clock now. We’ll be up till midnight. Please call, or stop by on your way home. My number is 555-7026.”

After she’d hung up, Emily asked, “How’d that sound?”

“If it was me, I’d stop by,” Lena said. The others agreed.

“Gin rummy, anyone?” Nancy asked, getting the cards out of the kitchen drawer.

At ten minutes of twelve the doorbell rang. As one they scrambled to the front door.

“What’s your real name?” Emily demanded.

“Charley Wyland. What’s up, ladies?”

Emily told him. “We’re investing in you. The question is, will you lend yourself to us and invest in us? If we get off the ground, you stand to make a lot of money. What do you normally do in the way of work during the day?”

“I wash cars. I can’t do anything too physical, can’t ruin this body, you know. How long before the money starts rolling in?”

“In a way, that’s going to depend on you. We’re going to target the housewife. Each hour you’ll do a different clinic. We’re going to be staying open till eight. Will that cut into your nighttime job?”

“No, I usually don’t start till nine. I’ll give it a try. A month. If it doesn’t work out, I’m gone. I will need gas money, though, and lunch money.”

“No, no, no, you eat the lunches we prepare. We’re on a tight budget,” Zoë said.

“You ladies drive a hard bargain,” Charley said.

“Who knows? Chippendales might offer you a job when we’re done with you,” Emily quipped. “We need you to sign something that says it’s okay to make up posters. You pick the photo you want. We’ll do the rest. Can you be ready to start a week from today?”

“I’ll be ready. That one,” he said, pointing to the picture Emily and the others favored. “I like your wallpaper.” He grinned.

“We’ve had many lively discussions out here looking at those photos.” Emily laughed. “We’ll make up a schedule and I’ll give you a call.”

“See you around.”

Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do, Emily thought as she made her way upstairs. It was going to work, she could feel it in her bones, feel the success, the satisfaction. Whatever it takes.

It was two weeks before the women were satisfied with what they called the Charley Wyland blitz promotional package. They literally worked around the clock and aired the video Emily insisted Charley make on all the cable channels in the area. The newspapers carried a regular rogue’s gallery of shots showing Charley in every imaginable pose in their weekend Lifetime sections.

According to Charley, he was getting calls for gigs and was booked into the following year. It was Emily’s suggestion that he hire a group of dancers and train them to put on an all-male revue every so often. “It’ll be your own business on the side and you take a cut of the profits,” she said to encourage him.

Charley countered with, “Emily, I’m not sure you’re heading in the right direction. It all sounds great and I love the idea of performing for all your ladies, but I think you’re losing sight of what it is you’re hoping to accomplish. Your clientele is middle-aged women. I think you need older men, men like Ben who are fit and look good. I’m a fantasy and I say this with great modesty. I don’t think that’s fair. I can see the revue as a fun thing, but I think you need to rethink this strategy.”

“How old did you say you are?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You know what, Charley, I think you are absolutely right. I guess I’m so desperate to make this a success, I didn’t think it through. The others followed my lead. It’s kind of late to switch up now; all the publicity is in place.”

“I can be a Grand Opening flash and you phase in the other way a little at a time. I’d hate to see you fail, Emily. You ladies have all worked so hard. Think about it.”

“I think you’re right, Charley. I’ll call a meeting and see what the others have to say. Would you be amenable to hiring some older men and training them too? Stress physical fitness above dancing, though.”

“Well, sure. Ben probably knows a lot of guys who might be interested. Women tend to think only women teach aerobics. With serious-minded men teaching classes, the women will try harder. That’s my opinion.”

“It’s a good one, Charley. Thanks for the advice.”

“You have a lot of money tied up in this venture, don’t you?”

“My retirement money. When it’s gone, if this doesn’t work out, I’m back to waitressing. My degree can never earn me the kind of money I’ll need for my twilight years. God, that sounds terrible—twilight years. I don’t imagine you can even comprehend that.”

“Are you kidding? My dad split fifteen years ago and my mom had to take over. She works in the office of a lawn maintenance company. She works weekends cashiering at a drugstore. She put me through junior college, but we both realized that wasn’t for me. I help out; in fact, I give her most of my money. She doesn’t have any kind of pension and my dad’s insurance ran out a long time ago. If you ever get this off the ground, maybe you can hire her and put her in your fund. You did say this was about women helping women, right?”

“Yes, that’s what it’s all about. I’ll do my best, Charley. Are you nervous?”

“Nah. Well, maybe a little bit. If this works out, I want to get into bodybuilding. That’s
my
dream. My mom can take over the training class if we get this off the ground.”

“We’ll help in any way we can,” Emily said. “That’s a promise, Charley. And…Charley, I want to ask you something, and after you answer me, I want you to forget I asked. Agreed?” Charley nodded. “Am I, in your opinion, exploiting women? I’m sure with all the publicity you’ve gotten in the past few weeks you’ve heard a lot of…you know. I don’t want to do anything that will degrade you or the ladies who come to the clinics to work out.”

“I asked my mom that same question and she said no. The way I see it is you’re trying to get a business off the ground. Your goals are what’s important. I entertain. You’re hiring me to give your ladies incentives to be the best they can be. Look, Emily,” Charley said, placing his hands on her shoulders, “you do whatever you have to do to get this business off and running. If for some reason it doesn’t work out, and I don’t think that’s going to happen, but if it does, you’ll know you gave it your all. Keep your goals in mind and do whatever you gotta do.”

“That’s pretty much how I look at it, but I am so worried I won’t be able to pull this off. On paper it looks good. In theory it looks even better. The reality is what I fear.”

“Hey, Emily, you know what they say about fear. There’s nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

“I seem to recall hearing that once or twice in my lifetime,” Emily said wryly.

“Third time’s the charm.” Charley laughed. “Chin up, Emily.”

The Emily’s Fitness Centers’ second grand opening happened precisely at noon the following day. Women attired in business suits and high heels and carrying briefcases stood next to mothers with tots in strollers who mingled with students from the local college. Charley arrived in his yellow satin cape with matching Speedo suit. Emily didn’t know what to expect, catcalls maybe, shrill whistles, but it didn’t happen as the women lined up for the aerobics class while others took to the machines. Mentally she tried to calculate the money the hour was going to bring in as she settled herself behind the desk, registration cards in front of her.

Emily listened in awe as Charley gave a brief speech about nutrition, caring for one’s body, self-satisfaction, and the rewards that would follow if all of the above were adhered to. Then he turned on his tape deck and proceeded with the first of his two thirty-minute aerobics classes. This time Emily did hear little sighs of pleasure from the women on the machines.

When the hour was over, the women again stood in line to sign up and pay for their membership. There were so many queries Emily found herself hard-pressed to answer them all. The main question seemed to concern the aerobics class. “Three times a week is what we’re scheduled for at the moment. We’re working on the schedules. The clinics are interchangeable. If you can’t make it at this location, you can go to one of the others. The aerobic fees are separate, but they do entitle you to use the machines for thirty minutes after the class.”

No one complained. Everyone left with tired smiles. One and all were invited back for a free orientation class at closing, which was scheduled for eight-thirty. Emily stressed the word
free.

One by one the women straggled back to the house on Sleepy Hollow Road. Emily was the last to arrive at ten-thirty. Zoë poured hot chocolate for Emily and offered her a sugar cookie, which she devoured greedily. She immediately lit a cigarette. “I didn’t smoke today. I didn’t have time. I can hardly believe it,” Emily said wearily. She tossed her cash bag on the table. “Someone else has to count it, I’m whipped.”

“Let’s do it in the morning,” Lena said, gathering up the bags to put in the freezer; their in-house safe. She whirled around to set the security alarm.

“Turn it off, we have to go home,” Rose said. The others waited for Helen to speak, and when she didn’t, Emily burst out laughing.

“You did it, you broke that cord. How’d it go?”

Helen smiled. “I was so busy trying to explain how the digital gadgets work on the machines I didn’t have time to worry. I didn’t even call Rose until seven o’clock. I did everything myself. For the first time in my life.”

“Rose?”

“It worked the same way for me,” she said shyly.

“That’s more important than anything else we did today,” Emily said. The others agreed.

“You guys go ahead and talk. I’m going back to the apartment and soak in a hot bath. You coming, Rose?” Helen asked.

“No, I’m going to have another cup of hot chocolate. I’ll be quiet when I open the door.”

“Okay,” Helen said cheerfully.

“I’m going to bed too. Listen, let’s meet here in the kitchen and talk in the morning. Charley and I had a talk early today. We’ve got some kinks to work out and one of my machines isn’t working properly. Whose towels am I doing tomorrow?”

“Mine,” Lena said. “They’re in my car. I’ll load them in yours in the morning and pick up your clean ones. Next week I do the laundry, right?”

“Yes. See you in the morning.”

In her room, Emily stripped down and fell into bed. She was almost asleep when she remembered she had to call Ben Jackson. He wasn’t home so she left a groggy-sounding message asking him to stop by the clinic around noon. She was about to drift off when it occurred to her that it was after eleven. Where was Ben at this hour? Not that it was any of her business. Or was it?