Free A Round-Heeled Woman by Jane Juska Page B

three after that. I am wearing 501’s as I write this. The ball? Two out of three’s not bad.
    One year later, in March 1984, I weighed 122 pounds. On my fifty-first birthday a friend took pictures of me. I looked awful: no color, scrawny, caved in everywhere. So I put back some. More or less, I’ve kept the weight off, though not without the help of Diet Center, Weight Watchers, and my own fear of being fat.
    At the center of all this obsessiveness was the exercise studio. I was like Ben in
Death of a Salesman,
who boasted, “I went into the jungle and when I came out—by God—I was rich!” Me? I went into the gym and when I came out—by God—I was thin! You can never be too rich or too thin, right? Wrong. You can be either or both. But I have yet to meet a woman who thinks she’s just right. Anyway, here’s the gym:
    In the eighties high-impact aerobic exercise was all the rage, even among serious-minded students of exercise and its benefits. Coaches at the university began requiring some of their athletes to enroll in aerobics classes as a way to develop balance and coordination. Physicians and counselors of addicts recommended aerobic exercise as a substitute for addiction, as a way to get high without benefit of illegal substances. Classes were full. Newspapers carried stories of exercisers who turned violent when someone took their space on the floor.
    When I entered the studio for the very first time, at 234 pounds, dressed in the only exercise clothes that would fit— sweatpants and sweatshirt—one of the instructors barred the way to the floor. “Hi,” she said, her smile chock-full of teeth, “I’m Debi. And I’m sorry, but we’ll have to see your doctor’s written permission before you can take classes here.”
    She was little and cute, bouncy as all get-out, perky even. She was no match for my girth. I swept her aside and walked to the middle of the floor. “Start the music,” I ordered. She did.
    On my way home from the studio, I stopped at an athletic-shoe store. Inside, a young man asked me if he could help. “I want a pair of running shoes,” I said. “For whom?” he inquired. (Salespersons in Berkeley talk like that.) “For me,” I said. He looked doubtful. “How often do you plan to run?” he asked. “Every day.” The look on his face said, Humor her, she’ll be dead in a week.
    But I wasn’t. I began to run from mailbox to mailbox. In the beginning weeks, I made it to the second mailbox. Before long, I wasn’t counting mailboxes anymore, and not long after that, I began to run races. Uphill, downhill, far and near.
    I discovered my body. It stretched, it bent, it bowed, it jumped and jiggled and reached and stepped and moved—to rhythm, to the commands—“Suck it in! Breathe! Pull it in! Inhale! Exhale!” I came alive.
    One evening I found myself in the front row of the studio, only inches from the mirror that covered the entire front wall, the only place left on the crowded floor. Usually, I got to class early to claim my spot in the back row. This particular evening—I went to class after school so was sometimes late—I found myself next to a gigantic young man who could only be a linebacker. On my other side was a tall young man, well over six feet, heavily muscled, whom I had noticed before, who seemed to spend most of his day at the studio, taking two, three, and more aerobics classes. Later, I learned from one of the instructors that he had been sent by his drug counselor, that he was sweating out drugs and alcohol and using his time in a way that would keep him out of the hospital and out of jail. In between classes, outside, at the curb, he smoked furiously, one cigarette after another.
    â€œIt’s Raining Men” roared through the studio, and we began to move to its insistent beat. On my left, the man’s long blond hair