Chapter 8
As we waited for first bell to start, everyone was checking their phones and making small talk. Everyone except for Tammy, of course, who was studiously speeding through the day's lesson in her book. Then she got a tap on her shoulder from a beautiful Persian girl named Azita who was the star decathlete on the track team. “Tamara, your new glasses are lit,” she said.
“Thank you, Azita,” she said. “And thank you again for helping me with my box squats.”
Then the bell rang, and class began. “So, uh, you're going by 'Tamara' now?” I asked Tammy.
“Yes,” she said. “I don't feel the diminutive form of my name to be appropriate, as I am a young woman, not a little girl. I am a strong young woman, I might add, as you are soon to see evidenced.”
The rest of the school day flew by as I thought about what kind of trick Tammy had cooked up. Soon we were walking down the steps to her basement. “Wow,”I said. “This is a nice gym.”
That was an understatement. Tammy's basement had clean white rubberized floors like a real gym, and it was loaded with equipment. It was a much better setup than I had. “Well, Kevin,” she said as she set down her backpack. “Which exercises do you choose for our competition?”
“Let's start with pullups,” I said as I approached the pullup bar.
I was pretty good at pullups so I knocked out 15 before I dropped to the floor, although the last 2 were pretty sloppy. My arms and lats were screaming as Tammy stepped under the bar. “This was a poor choice for you, Kevin,” she said as she looked at the bar that hung 4 feet above her head. “My lower body weight and and shorter arms give me a mechanical advantage over you in pullups.”
“We'll see,” I said. “Say, that bar's pretty high up there, do you need some help getting-”
Before I could finish my sentence Tammy sprang upward and wrapped her hands around the pullup bar, her body steady and straight as if she had done this a thousand times. Then to my surprise she began to knock out pullups with fluid precision, one after another, until she reached 20.
I was stunned. I had known Tammy since we were kids, and had been in gym class with her off and on the whole time. She'd never shown she slightest proclivity for athletics, and now after less than 2 weeks of weight training she was cranking out strict pullups like a machine. It didn't make sense.
Dropping to the ground, Tammy flashed a confident smile. “It appears that I have won the first round,” she said, showing no signs of exertion. “Which exercise should we do next?”
“Uh, bicep curls,” I said, choosing an exercise where guys always outperformed girls.
I quickly started loading up the barbell. 95 pounds was my max, and even if I could only get 1 rep, there was no way Tammy could move that much weight. Heck she only weighed 95 pounds—until last week, anyway. It was a struggle to get the bar up, and my form was a little shaky, but I completed the rep. “Okay Tammy, let's see you top that,” I said as I set the bar down.
“I prefer to be called Tamara, as we discussed earlier today in history class,” she said flatly as she grabbed a pair of 2.5 pound plates and slipped them onto the barbell, bringing it to 100 pounds.
I watched carefully as Tammy set her feet, squatted down and grabbed the bar. Rising to her feet, she inhaled sharply. Then, to my amazement, she began to curl the barbell upward, her form perfect as she smoothly brought it to her chest, then slowly lowered it. And then she did it again. And again. And again. By the time she stopped after 4 perfect reps, my jaw was hanging wide open.
I was stunned. I had known Tammy since we were kids, and she had arms like twigs. But now all of a sudden she was curling a 100 pound barbell for 4 reps with perfect form. It didn't make sense.
Setting the barbell easily down, Tammy smiled. “It appears that I am victorious,” she said. “I'll admit this isn't where I imagined our first kiss happening, Kevin, but nonetheless I am excited.”
I stared at Tammy in confused silence. She still looked like the same gawky girl that I had always known, but she had just done more pullups and curled more weight than most of the guys at school could manage, all without breaking a sweat. This was obviously some kind of trick, and my mind raced to think of what exactly she had done. Magnets in the floor? Some kind of harness under her clothes? It just didn't make sense. “Tammy, I don't know what you're up to,” I said, “but I'm not-”
But before I could finish, Tammy pounced, leaping onto me like a wild animal. I fell backward onto the padded floor of the basement. Our faces were inches apart, and I could see her eyes twinkling mischievously behind her glasses. “Call me Tamara,” she breathed in a low, silky voice.