My brain does a lightning-quick series of pole vaults to make sense of the guy who has just burst into the gym and pulled a gun from the pocket of his jacket. I never realized until this moment that your brain draws on the sum total of your life experience to process whatever is happening at the moment. And when it clicks through its files in fast forward and finds nothing to serve as a reference point, it goes loopy on you.
That’s what is happening to me now. When the robber says, “Get your hands up,” I ludicrously associate him with the aerobics instructor who was leading a class just an hour earlier. “Get your hands up!” she perkily instructed, and the hands obediently flew into the air, like mine are doing now.
But this guy isn’t an aerobics instructor, and god knows he isn’t perky.
I open my mouth, but the question that forms in my head—What do you want?—doesn’t make it to my lips. That’s another thing I’m learning about unprecedented situations: the different parts of your body all start rocking an every-man-for-himself kind of beat, as if my brain is telling my mouth, “To hell with teamwork, buddy, you’re on your own.”
I need to pull myself together, so I very sternly inform my various body parts: This guy means business. Shape up! And no, the gym-related pun isn’t lost on me.
I know this all sounds like a lengthy process, but these thoughts are sprinting at warp speed through my mind, each fleeting notion imprinting itself on my brain with high-definition clarity. I’m taking it all in: A medium-height guy with a wiry frame. Clear-blue, bloodshot eyes with a tiny V-shaped scar digging into his right eyebrow. Faded jeans slipping down his skinny hips. Dirty and tattered white sneakers. Jittery hands training a gun on me. A gun. Oh my god!
“What do you want?” I finally utter in barely a whisper.
Okay, I can talk. Good to know.
“Money,” he hisses.
“Money?” I clarify, and I know that sounds crazy, but I’m really confused, because, seriously, who robs a gym? And it’s still light outside, for chrissake!
“Your money! Gimme your money!”
I shake my head frantically. “My money?”
He briefly considers my question, then nods. “Yeah. Your money, too. Then open the register.”
Oh, great. I actually suggested that he take my wallet.
I nod toward my feet, every muscle in my body shaking. “My purse is on the floor,” I say, my voice trembling.
He jerks the gun closer to my face, still clutching it with both of his small, pale hands. “Push it out where I can see it!”
I dig my fingers into my palms, then nudge the purse into the thief’s line of vision with my sneaker-clad foot.
“Keep one hand in the air and hand it to me with the other one.” He’s getting antsier, glancing outside and shaking the gun.
With my right arm aloft, I squat and reach for my purse, cursing myself again for planting this seed. My heart is beating so hard that I’m amazed my fuchsia-colored Regal Gym: Fit for a King! T-shirt isn’t pulsating.
“Just the strap!” the robber snaps. “Don’t touch nothin’ but the strap! You try anything, I’ll kill you. I swear to god, I’ll blow your head off.”
I finger my purse strap gingerly and rise slowly with it.
It’s as I’m rising that I see Ethan. He’s creeping behind the robber, his eyes locking with mine. The robber, still focused on me, is oblivious. I’m almost ridiculously relieved to see Ethan . . .
. . . until I remember that he’s why I’m in this clusterfuck in the first place.
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