Page 1 of Let’s Make a Scene

Chapter 1 CYNTHIE

I am 90 percent certain that my personal trainer is trying to kill me, but if she’s truly homicidal she’ll have to get in line: the list of people who want me dead is currently pretty long.

“Stop crying like a little baby and give me five more!” Petra yells.

“I’m not crying,” I pant, clinging to what little dignity I have left as I crawl across my exercise mat. “I am sweating. I think my eyeballs are sweating. Is that even possible?” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Physiologically speaking, I mean.”

“I am not here for a science lesson about your sweaty body!” Petra snaps out. “I am here to make you strong! Right now you are not strong, you are weak and limp! Like a worm! Or the leaf of lettuce!”

Every sentence out of Petra’s mouth is punctuated so emphatically with an exclamation point that I can almost see them floating through the air toward me, though that could be the delirium brought on by how exhausted I am.

Standing over me in her hot-pink Lycra workout gear, she looks and sounds like the meanest cheerleader in the world. Petra is small and blond, with a bouncing ponytail and perfect white teeth: a tiny Serbian prom queen with the dark, shriveled heart of Wednesday Addams. I love her. At least, I do when she’s not actively trying to destroy me.

Over the speakers, Mary Poppins sings peppily about spoonfuls of sugar. Petra’s obsessive love for Julie Andrews is extremely intense, and today it was her turn to choose the music. While I would not previously have considered Julie’s oeuvre to be the obvious soundtrack to a workout, I have to admit she does have some bangers.

I attempt to curl my body into another of the impossible crunches Petra wants. “It hurts,” I whimper.

“Life is pain, princess.” Petra is unmoved.

“Hey,” I say, like a hostage trying to forge a human connection with their captor, “I love that film.”

She frowns. “What film?”

“ ‘Life is pain, princess,’ ” I repeat. “Isn’t that a quote from The Princess Bride?”

“Oh.” Petra tilts her head to the side and nods. “Yes, I have seen that film. I like best the giant rat.”

Of course the woman is on the side of the rodents of unusual size.

“I suppose you were team Darth Vader, too,” I grumble, falling back against the floor, my jelly-like limbs splayed around me, refusing to move any further.

“His cape is excellent,” she says with approval, before nudging at my leg with her foot. “Now we will do the light weights.”

I groan, which only makes her smile widen—like a shark showing off all its teeth.

“We do the jabs and the uppercuts and you pretend you are punching that man in the face.”

I don’t need to ask her which man she means.

“Okay,” I agree, letting her drag me to my feet.

Once I’m standing with the weights in my hands, I mirror her stance and start moving my arms, putting some snap into the jab-cross movements.

“You can do better than this!” Petra is fired up, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “You hit him in the face! You hit him in the mouth! Go for the groin! You break that asshole’s nose!”

“Yeah,” I pant, arms flailing everywhere as “The Lonely Goatherd” blasts out at top volume. “Fuck him.”

“That’s right.” She nods. “Louder!”

“FUCK HIM!” I yell, twisting my fists, imagining the punches landing on Shawn Hardy’s stupid, handsome face.

Petra cheers and lets loose a string of Serbian profanities.

“What does that mean?” I ask when I come to rest with my hands on my hips, sucking in deep gulps of air.

Petra considers this for a moment. “It is like… I hope the thunder from the sky fucks you until you are dead.”

I blink.