takes thirty minutes, but we’ll cut it short since we’re both on the mend.”
April jumped onto a piece of equipment as an energetic voice called from a CD overhead, “Change stations now.” Gretchen peered out the window and caught Nina’s eye. She sent a telepathic message to let Nina know that she’d be back in twenty minutes and hoped Nina’s invisible antenna was operating at peak performance.
A circle of women on various machines and platforms moved in unison, performing simple stretching exercises. Gretchen joined in next to April and spotted Bonnie Albright and Rita Phyller at the opposite end of the circuit. She waved. They waved back.
Jogging in place on a platform, Gretchen said, “Is this the local hangout for the doll club members? I see Bonnie and Rita.”
“It is,” April said, rowing away on a machine, her elbows flapping like chicken wings. “Usually we have more than this. Where’s Nina?”
“She didn’t want to leave the dogs alone in the car. It’s too hot without the air-conditioning running.”
With each “Change stations now,” April and Gretchen rotated on the equipment circling the room. Gretchen had to skip at least half of the machines because of her broken wrist. She jogged in place instead.
“Did you hear from your mother yet?” Bonnie shouted over the beat of disco music.
Gretchen shook her head, noting the glances exchanged between the two doll collectors on the other side of the room. She wondered what they said when she wasn’t present, and whether they thought her mother had killed Martha. It made for good gossip regardless of the final outcome, and Bonnie could squeeze juicy tidbits out of a barrel cactus.
“Now move away from your station and find your heart rate.” Every woman in the room raised her hand to the side of her neck as the prerecorded instructor called off the count.
Gretchen heard April breathing in sharp, jagged gasps. The front of April’s shirt was soaked as though she had taken a dip in a swimming pool with all her clothes on. As a few women cleared the workout stations around April and Gretchen, Bonnie and Rita skipped ahead and joined them.
After one time around the circuit, April sat down on a chair by the door. “I need a breather. Ten minutes is about all I have in me all at one time,” she said thickly. “You go on around again. I’ll catch up.”
“I’m going over to South Phoenix to look at a Barbie,” Rita said. “It’s a Ponytail with a black-and-white-striped swimsuit, and in its original box. I looked at it yesterday and can’t decide if I should buy it.”
“What’s holding you back?” Bonnie said.
“The price,” Rita said. “They want twelve hundred dollars, and I really can’t afford it.”
“That’s a lot of dough,” April called out from the chair.
“That’s why I’m looking at it again,” Rita said, bending over and touching her toes. “I’m hoping they’ll come way down on the price.”
“I haven’t been able to touch my toes since high school,” April observed wistfully.
“Keep losing weight the way you have,” Gretchen said encouragingly, treading steadily on a machine labeled the stepper, “and you’ll be touching your toes in no time.”
“Change stations now.”
Everyone rotated.
“When I went to look at the Barbie yesterday,” Rita said to Bonnie, “I saw you going into the Rescue Mission. Are you volunteering there?”
Bonnie looked startled. “You must be mistaken,” she said. “I wasn’t anywhere near the Rescue Mission.”
“That’s funny. I was certain it was you.”
“No,” Bonnie said, shaking her red shellacked flip. “It wasn’t me.”
Gretchen studied Bonnie. Flaming red hair and makeup painted on in exaggerated colors. It would be hard to mistake someone else for her.
“Anyway, what else is new?” April rejoined the group with renewed vigor and put everything she had into the shoulder press machine.
Gretchen, dancing on a platform, couldn’t believe how easily the conversation turned in the right direction. Without missing a beat, she asked, “Anyone planning any trips?”
Death.
Caroline had felt its presence ever since that horrible moment when the doctor spoke the chilling words: “Breast cancer.” The disease she had feared the most had invaded without a warning battle cry, its army of killer cells waging a war for supremacy within her chest.
She had felt death accompanying her through the ensuing surgery and the inescapable chemotherapy treatments. Death continued to whisper an incessant promise of eventual victory, and she had been on a quest ever since to find meaning in her life.
The answer to her existence continued to elude her in the same way that