The Journey Prize Stories 28 Read Online Free PDF Page A

new, but really she had thought Mallory might be there. At the class, a woman in her seventies told them she was there for her osteoporosis. “Turns out my bones aren’t what they used to be!” she said cheerfully and the whole group burst into laughter.

    The woman at the next locker looks over at Laura. “Good workout?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou were working hard in there.”
    It had never occurred to Laura that someone could be watching her. But, of course. What else would people do, while lying around grunting? “Thanks.”
    â€œHow long’ve you been lifting?”
    â€œNot too long. Couple months, I guess.”
    â€œYou’re pretty solid.”
    â€œI think I’m getting there.”
    Small talk is a way to keep moving. Small talk is a kind of humming. Laura never understood this before—she always wondered at the uselessness of it. For her, cocktail parties and grocery store aisle conversations were exercises in failed lip reading. Mallory had mocked this affectionately: “You just don’t understand people at all, do you?” Now she understands.
    â€œI’m George, by the way.”
    â€œGeorge?”
    â€œIt’s short for a name so horrible and ugly I refuse to inflict it on others.”
    â€œGeorgephine?”
    â€œOh my god! Nobody’s ever guessed before.” Laura laughs, zipping up her jeans.
    George’s hair is shaved close. When she bends to untie and slip off her sneakers, Laura sees that the back of her head is surprisingly flat.
Like a zombie head
, Laura thinks to herself.
    â€œI’m Mallory,” Laura says.
    George glances up. “Hi, Mallory. Long day?”
    â€œPretty average.”
    George nods at her shoes.
    â€œJust a long day at work,” Laura says. “Passport office.”
    â€œSounds exciting.”
    â€œIt is what it is.” Laura shrugs and George nods. “The work is not letting people drive you nuts.”
    â€œWell, I’m a teacher. When we aren’t on strike, we’re arguing about going on strike.
    George strips quickly. A body that has lifted weights for years. She’s probably in her mid-fifties. Something Laura’s father told her once—you can tell someone’s age by the backs of their hands.
    â€œYou’re here all the time now, eh?”
    â€œPretty much every day,” Laura says.
    George nods, drifting toward the shower, pulling on her flip-flops. “It can get pretty addictive, once you get into it. Nothing better.”
    Laura drives home, hair damp from her shower, her shoulders and arms injected with honey endorphins. The cyclistspass her, brilliant fish in a parallel stream, their safety jackets smeared across her wet windshield.
    At home, it takes an instant to reactivate her Facebook profile. The grid of friends’ faces, her truncated history. And then, there is Mallory’s face. She’s cut her hair short, scooped up around her ears and piled boyishly onto one side, and there is another woman’s face in the photo. Their eyes and cheekbones are matching and bright.
    Don’t click on her. Don’t do it. Internet law.
    What’s on your mind?
the status box asks her.
    She types in:
The person you most want to see will become the person you least want to see
.
    She presses post and logs out.

    She’s getting stronger. A hinged thing. Flesh firm around her joints, her shoulders suddenly, one day, blade-like.
    Laura has watched her body in the mirrored wall in the gym, watched her body change. Her neck plunges into her collarbone. When she turns and looks at her back in her bedroom mirror, it is a raised plateau. Her outside layer has peeled away. She remembers those anatomical models from high school biology class, human puzzles, their removable spleens.
    The men at the gym now call her
bro
. One day, a shrug-nod and then, coolly,
hey, bro
. The luck of broad shoulders. Her new bro status pleases her in