Work It Out

This light-hearted short story by Stefania Hartley is set on the Italian island of Sicily.

She was having salad.

Fearful of saying the wrong thing, Tanino ate in silence, all the time feeling Melina’s eyes on his plate and hearing the salad leaves crunching between her teeth.

Eventually, he couldn’t take it any longer.

“This plate is too much for me,” he lied. “Would you like some?” Her face lit up. “It would be a shame to throw it in the bin,” she said, sweeping the contents of Tanino’s plate on to hers and tucking in.

By five o’clock Tanino was ravenous, so he sneaked down to the café, bought an arancina rice ball and strolled to the park to eat it in peace.

****

When Tanino opened the door to his flat that evening, no smell of cooking filled his nostrils.

He braced himself for the worst.

Two plates of salad sat mockingly on the table. The leaves didn’t even have the sheen of an oily dressing.

A sweeping glance round the kitchen confirmed that the two salads were not a side dish. There wasn’t even bread to go with them.

Tanino groaned.

“Melina, we can’t have just salad for supper.”

“The health experts say that people should eat light at suppertime,” she replied loftily.

Tanino knew this had nothing to do with health experts and everything to do with his comment about the skirt.

Melina must have decided that, if she kept him on the same diet, she would find it easier to stick to it.

“The best way to lose weight is exercise. Starving is not the way to go.”

“Nobody is starving,” she retorted. “Look how much salad there is!”

All the same, she got up and pulled a tin of tuna out of the cupboard.

****

The tuna wasn’t enough. At midnight, Tanino was awake with a grumbling stomach.

When Melina was asleep, he slipped out of bed, padded to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

To his disappointment, all he found was lettuce and raw broccoli.

He opened the freezer. Alas, the tub of ice-cream had gone.

In its place were frozen mountains of peas, broad beans and vegetable soup.

If he used the microwave, or rummaged for a pot and used the hob, he would wake Melina.

So he pulled out a packet of peas and popped them into his mouth one by one.

Tanino’s comment had inspired Melina – she was going to join a gym!

****

As she lay awake in bed with an empty tummy, Melina pondered Tanino’s words: “The best way to lose weight is exercise.”

She was still awake when Tanino shuffled out of bed and plodded to the kitchen. Poor Tanino, he was hungry, too!

The next morning, as soon as Tanino had left the house, Melina found a tracksuit and put it on.

The way the elasticated trousers bulged over her tummy confirmed her resolve to visit the gym.

Exceptionally, she left before finishing the domestic chores.

Her first stop was the shoe shop, where she asked for a pair of trainers.

“What do you need them for?” the assistant asked. “Losing weight.”

The girl looked confused. “Aerobics? Zumba?” “Whatever you suggest.” The girl returned with three pairs of trainers. Her choice was black, grey or

candyfloss pink.

“I’ll take the pink ones,” Melina said, reaching for the box.

The entrance to the gym was a long corridor sloping down to the basement of a block of flats.

Pictures of muscly men and women eyed Melina from the walls and she felt uneasy.

“How can I help?” the receptionist asked.

“My friends told me that you do ladies’ classes.”

“We do,” the girl replied. “We have a few places left on the Thursday class.”

“But I need it today!” Melina exclaimed.

“I’m sorry, but there are no classes today. You need an assessment first, too.” “What for?”

“Our instructor, Giulia, needs to know where you want to be, then work out a personalised fitness plan.

“Here she is! Giulia, we have a new client for you.”

A woman with glossy hair pulled into a tight ponytail sauntered towards them.

“This lady is keen to start as soon as possible,” the receptionist told her.

“Great,” Giulia replied. “Follow me.”

They entered a room packed full of machines.

Rolling carpets groaned and squeaked under the feet of people who ran like hamsters on their wheels.

Complicated systems of pulleys, chains and counterweights were operated by men glistening with sweat.

When the metal weights reached the bottom, they clanged like shackles and chains, startling Melina.

Giulia tapped away on a tablet, asking Melina her details and her goals. Then she led her to a room with scales, callipers and tape measures.

Having been weighed and measured, Melina was led into a room clad in mirrors.

She discovered that pink dumbbells were not as light and fluffy as they looked, and that she owned muscles that she didn’t know how to operate.

Movements that she didn’t realise the human body could do magically came to her, which she found exhilarating.

Until Giulia led her to a room full of elastic bands and rubber balls. There the real work started.

****

Tanino had taken precautions against a zero-calories lunch. He had filled his tummy with fried calzone at the café earlier.

“I’m home!” he declared, stepping through the door. No reply.

He peered into the kitchen. Nothing was bubbling on the hobs, there was no salad on the table and no trace of Melina.

He already deeply regretted his comment about the skirt! How much longer must he be punished?

Then a groan came from the sitting-room.

He found Melina sprawled on the sofa with her eyes closed.

“What happened?” Tanino exclaimed.

Melina opened one eye and closed it again.

“I can’t move. I can’t bend my legs. And my feet are killing me.”

A pair of pink trainers lay on the floor as if they had been hastily pulled off.

Only then did Tanino notice that Melina was wearing a tracksuit.

“What have you been up to?”

“I’ve joined the gym.” So she hadn’t had an accident!

“You must have been able to bend your legs to walk home,” he observed.

Melina darted him a sideways glance before closing her eyes again.

“They seized after I got home.”

“You should go to bed.” “There’s no way I can get up. I might have to sleep right here tonight.”

Tanino worried about his lunch. He’d learned to cook once, when Melina had pretended to be sick, but he was out of practice.

“Also,” Melina continued, “there’s laundry in the washing machine and I didn’t get a chance to sweep the floor before I went out. Or tidy the bedroom.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it.

But what about lunch?”

She rolled a hand dramatically in the air, without opening her eyes.

“Food is the last thing on my mind.”

Food was never the last thing on Tanino’s mind.

“OK. I’ll get some pizza from the baker’s. Would you like anything?”

“No, thanks.” She sighed and crossed her arms on her chest.

He had told her to exercise more. It was entirely his fault that she was in that state now.

He left the flat feeling very guilty, so when he got to the baker’s, instead of pizza, he bought a small bread bun of the kind he didn’t like.

****

“Melina, are you all right? We missed you in church tonight,” Anna said on the telephone.

Melina was supposed to help with the flower arrangements.

“I’m sorry. I went to the gym this morning and now I’m like a block of wood. Like Pinocchio before Geppetto gave him hinges.”

“Whatever gave you the idea of going to the gym?” Anna was incredulous.

“Tanino made a comment about my skirt being tight.”

“Oh, I hate it when men do that! How dare they tell us how we should look?”

“As we’re stuck with each other for better and worse, maybe it’s kind to make things a little easier, more comfortable.

“Or they might look for comfort elsewhere.”

“Not at seventy-three!” “Charlie Chaplin was seventy-three when he fathered his last child.”

Silence fell. Anna’s husband was seventy-two.

“Where is this gym?” Anna asked timidly.

****

The next day, Melina went to the gym with Anna. It was Thursday so the ladies’ class was on.

There was music and, even if she didn’t always manage to follow the steps, Melina had a blast.

When she got home, Tanino was waiting expectantly for her.

“How was your gym?”

For a moment, Melina wondered whether to tell Tanino the truth, but she hadn’t quite forgiven him for the skirt comment. “Blood, sweat and tears.” Tanino’s face crumpled. “Oh, Melina, I can’t bear to see you suffer!

“I should have never made that silly comment! You are perfect!

“Please, come back to me, my darling!”

“Well, if you insist,” she replied coyly.

He steered her to the kitchen, where the table was laid with every bounty from the bakery, café and greengrocer’s.

Melina felt her heart warm like the hot custard

Tanino already deeply regretted his comment about the skirt

inside a cornetto croissant.

“Isn’t it a little too much for two people?”

“Eat what you like and leave the rest. Eat to your heart’s content.” Tanino squeezed her.

The doorbell rang and they jumped. It was Rosanna, their daughter.

“I have a job interview tomorrow and I wondered if Mum has finished the hem on my skirt.”

“What skirt?” Tanino asked.

“The skirt I gave her a while ago to sew the hem with her machine.”

Melina slapped her forehead.

“I had forgotten! I found the skirt in my cupboard and, not giving it another thought, wore it!”

Melina and Tanino looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“What’s this?” Rosanna asked, confused.

When they finished laughing, they told her all that had happened and invited her to lunch, as there was plenty for three.

The End.