Page 46 of Beach Bodies

As I pass through the hotel lobby, a pile of magazines on a low table catches my eye. On top is a copy ofFit Life, with a muscled couple on the front in wedding garb holding up cake topper figurines that look like mini Hulks.Dax & Deirdre: Our Body-Building Wedding!

Are you serious?

I pick it up. Start to leaf through. OK, Daniel Black. Prove to me that you actually work for these people. There’s an article titled ‘Smoothie Your Way to Waistline Goals!’ by Natalie Yoon. ‘Cold Weather Running Tips: Burn It Up All Winter Long!’ by Peter Torsney. ‘Ten Remedies for Joint Pain’, ‘Your Best (Gluten-Free) Life’…

And there it is. I almost don’t believe it; I’d convinced myself he wouldn’t be in here, but his name is plain as day under his article, entitled ‘Has Body Positivity Gone Too Far?’

I start reading.We’ve all heard that big is beautiful. I’m here to tell you today: it’s not. When did our culture become so dishonest? We’ve become brainwashed with body positivity messaging, and the world needs to wake up and smell the roses: it’s killing us. One pound at a time.

It’s like I’m frozen in place. I read to the end.

Motherfucker.

No. He can’t have written this. Not the man I met lastweek who was so charming by the coffee, so sweet when I trauma-dumped at the Mambotel. Not the man whose bed I leapt into just yesterday.

Could they have made him write it?

But even as I try to find an excuse, I remember Daniel’s words.I promised myself I’d never compromise again.It sounded so lofty when he said it to me… and all that stuff about his responsibility to humankind or whatever… Is this judgemental piece-of-shit article his way of fulfilling his duty towards truth?

I rummage through the stack on the table and pull the previous month’s issue. I rifle through the pages, scanning for his name. Oh, no. This one’s worse. ‘Sex with Big Girls: The Honest Take’.

I don’t want to read it. But more than that, I don’t want Daniel to have written it.

I’m told that gentlemen don’t kiss and tell… then again, I’ve never thought of myself as a gentleman. I’m a journalist, and I’m here to tell you the unvarnished truth.

I can barely stomach what I read next. It’s crass. Misogynistic. Pure poison. Everything I hate most about the world we live in.

This isn’t a guy who’s removed his rose-coloured glasses. This is a guy who’s picked up the fun-house glasses from the pits of hell and is looking at the whole world through them while shouting loudly about what he sees. And getting paid for it, to boot.

You want a toxic target to fill in that final slot?a voice in my head says.You’ve got one.

Shit fuck, fuck, fuck shit.

I storm out of the lobby, throwing the magazine into the nearest trash bin where it belongs.

I may have to kill Daniel Black.

Chapter Sixteen

I’m seething during my entire shift at the beach as the sun shines and the salty waves roll, and the guests lounge and swim and gossip. I seethe through lunch as I load up a plate at the salad bar and wolf it down to lessen my chance of running into Daniel before I have a plan. And then I keep on seething during my afternoon shift at the lap pool.

It’s exhausting to seethe for so long. Then again, this isn’t something I can just bounce back from.

That gut instinct I have about people? It’s usually right. But this time, somehow, it was one thousand per cent wrong. As I sit in the high white lifeguard’s chair with the pool laid out beneath me, so organized with its neat, bobbing lane-dividers, I snap my elastic against my wrist once, twice, thrice.

‘Don’t you people clean this pool?’ comes a voice to my lower left, startling me out of my reverie. Craig Lancaster, holding a dripping wet leaf between his fingers, his face twisted with disgust, water streaming down his lean body.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Lancaster,’ I say, automatically slipping intomy best customer service voice. ‘We do clean the pools, but sometimes—’

‘Whatever. Don’t want to hear it.’ He flicks the leaf away and stomps off, but I still hear him mutter, ‘Thirty fucking thousand dollars and I’m swimming in filth.’

Anger bunches in my throat.You’re the filth, you toxic asshole, I want to scream, and you know what, maybe I just will—

No.I force my hands to release their sudden death grip on the chair’s arms.

What’s happening to me this year? My emotions have been stronger. Less predictable. And now I’m having unpremeditated sex with men who write articles like the diatribe I just read inFit Life?What the fucking hell, Lily?

I watch a slim woman cut through the water with a perfect breaststroke, her feet whipping together and propelling her body in a beautiful glide. When she turns in the pool, I recognize her– Skylar’s mom. My eyes quickly find her daughter, reading a graphic novel on a lounge chair, pale legs extended and a bucket hat drawn deep over her eyes. Focused– like I need to be.

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