Missed Connections
“Lost Reflection” by Robin Young
It was still morning when Antonio announced that someone had pissed in a trash can again. He, Tara, and I drew our fists for a game of rock, paper, scissors and he lost in the first round, then grumbled on his way to the supply closet. This had been a regular problem since November, when new regulations took effect and prevented us from pausing tanning booth timers once they began. No one wanted to waste their precious minutes running to the bathroom.
I resumed folding the t-shirts in front of me, black with the gym’s logo in garish yellow. We were supposed to use the trainers’ clipboards to fold them into uniform rectangles but I eyeballed them instead, gently tucking the sleeves behind the torsos before folding them in half. When my uneven stacks toppled, I started over and refolded them all, in no rush to complete a task that kept me from scrubbing equipment.
By afternoon the gym was empty enough for Tara and I to take our breaks together and leave Antonio to handle the front desk alone.
“Should we check Craigslist?” I asked. Tara shrugged.
I tapped my phone’s browser, a tab already open to the local Missed Connections section, and refreshed my search for the gym’s name. No new posts. Tara quickly lost interest and scrolled on her own phone while I read the posts from previous weeks for what must’ve been the hundredth time.
Posted 12 days ago by DeerHunter13
World fitness with ponytail (Green Valley)
You were a pretty girl in black. Brown ponytail. I thought you said hi when I walked by you. I stopped, turned around and looked. I saw a gal definitely out of my league (you) and regret not taking the chance. On the off chance you see this let's get coffee and chat. I hope to see you again.
Posted 8 days ago by DeerHunter13
Girl on the treadmill (Green Valley)
You didn’t say anything today but you looked cute :)
Posted 2 days ago by DeerHunter13
World fitness monday morning (Green Valley)
You were there with a guy today (hoping your brother) and he said he liked my hat. If that’s your man he’s lucky. If you happen to read this and want to reach out please do. I know the odds are probably better for me to be struck by lightning.
The posts had been a small source of intrigue since Josh found the first two the previous week. He showed Antonio and I during a morning shift and we spent the rest of the day looking for ponytailed women and men lurking behind them. It wasn’t until we showed Tara the next day that anyone asked why Josh had been browsing Missed Connections, a question we brushed aside under the pretense that it was within his responsibilities as the manager to keep tabs on what happened at the gym. We all had the decency not to mention his potential interest in the cruising posts.
I’d been vigilant ever since, and not because the description reminded me of Alex. It did, of course, but I knew she wasn’t the subject of the posts. She’d cancelled her membership a week before she dumped me, claiming that she wanted to join a cycling studio instead. She denied after the fact that she’d done it in preparation for the breakup, but when I pushed, had to admit that it would help us “take space.”
Tara and Antonio’s interest quickly dwindled, but my resolve only continued to grow. I kept an eye out for men hovering near women on treadmills or watching them from a distance for longer than normal, though it was difficult to determine what amount of time was acceptable to begin with. Days of surveillance so far had turned up zero evidence. All I had to show for it was a gross mental catalogue of which men didn’t wipe their sweat from the benches, and which ones kicked off their shoes to squat barefoot and left toe prints I had to mop off the floor.
***
I told Antonio I needed to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy a few doors down, then went to the parking lot and dug $1.06 in change out of my car’s center console for a coffee from McDonald’s. I drank it while pacing behind the strip mall and doing mental calculations of time.
Three days had passed since I’d called Alex with a question about the utilities still in my name. I wasn’t particularly concerned about the answer and trusted her to handle the financial details of our split fairly, but it had been reasonable grounds for a phone call. She was civil and kind but managed to end the call in under five minutes, reminding me that I’d agreed to not contact her for two weeks.
That had been four days into the two weeks, and the three days elapsed since then meant we were now at the halfway point. I was proud of my resilience. I’d stopped calling in the middle of the night, stopped interrupting her sleep, and even stopped being all that irritated with her for having been asleep when I’d called those other times, hearing her wake from the kind of deep rest I hadn’t had in weeks. That I hadn’t called since was remarkable, and showed a patience I hadn't known I’d possessed.
But after two years in the apartment, it was inevitable that questions would come up as I removed myself from it. I thought of the storage unit we’d rented while moving in. With no closet space, we’d packed our out-of-season clothes into a metal cube along with her old boxing gloves and the art supplies I rarely touched. My half of the monthly payment was $15.80, though I’d paid it maybe twice. We’d rarely charged each other for amounts that small, assuming that it would all even out in the end. Now it was the end, maybe, and there remained the question of the storage unit.
If I waited four days to call, there would only be three more until the end of the two weeks. I walked back to my car and pulled the emerald notebook from my bag, flipping to a page where I’d drawn a small calendar for the month of January. The squares were mostly bare. I added a checkbox to the 12th labeled Ask about storage unit and returned to the gym with a renewed sense of purpose. I happily commiserated with Tara about the latest awful playlist prescribed by corporate and gave free samples of raspberry tanning lotion to a leathery woman who said she’d forgotten her own.
Near the end of my shift, a woman with dark curls approached the desk. I recognized her from high school. Dealt the unfortunate combination of large breasts and a last name that rhymed with whore, she’d been an easy target for the laziest variety of bullying. She looked basically the same except for a sprawling tattoo across her chest that read SEMPER FIDELIS.
“Natalie!” she said.
The decade or so that had passed since graduation had softened the details and I couldn’t remember if we’d been friendly enough to warrant the warmth in her voice.
“Angela, hi.”
I asked if she’d joined the gym.
“Not yet, but that’s the plan. You work here?”
I offered her a tour. We walked the perimeter of the space, starting down the hall with the tanning beds and locker rooms, then out onto the main floor, past the long rows of treadmills and ellipticals and stationary bikes. We circled through the stretching area, past the weight machines and dumbbells and bright yellow squat racks. I noticed a man whose side-slashed tank top broke our no visible nipples rule but decided not to say anything, as the violators of that particular rule never reacted well to even the politest reminders.
Once I’d shown her everything, I asked Angela what she thought.
“All I need is a treadmill, anyway,” she said. I handed her a stack of forms.
A few people came in while she filled them out, all swiping their keytags and phone screens under the barcode reader without glancing up. Most people under 50 walked past that way, headphones already in, either unaware of or disinterested in the presence of the employee behind the desk. Older people tended to stop and wait for someone to raise the scanner, then comment on the weather or some piece of local news. The oldest, four men who came in every weekday morning around 9, always waved good morning as they settled into the seating area by the door, where they ate the egg and cheese sandwiches they brought from next door before moving their conversation to the stationary bikes.
“Done,” Angela announced.
I tossed her papers on a stack to be added to the system later, then grabbed a freshly-folded t-shirt and punched a new keytag out of a yellow plastic sheet. She surveyed the small fridge by the desk and said it was weird that we sold soda. It was, I agreed. She bought a Diet Coke and left.
I discreetly checked my phone in the drawer under the register and wondered if Alex felt as disappointed as I did at the sight of a blank screen. Sure, she’d asked for space, but who really wants to be left alone?
***
Early the following evening, before the after-work stampede, I emptied trash cans full of used paper towels. I hauled five garbage bags to the dumpster, then told Antonio I was ready for my break. Angela, who’d been strolling on a treadmill for the last thirty minutes, walked past as I put on my jacket and asked if I was done for the day.
“No,” I said, “Just getting something to eat.”
She asked where and I named the pizza place next door. It hadn’t been an invitation but I was happy when she accepted anyway. There were still several days left until I could call Alex and my willpower was weakening. Time alone with my phone was dangerous.
We settled into a red vinyl booth. After running through lists of who we’d kept in touch with from high school, her list marginally longer than mine, she told me about her job answering phones and emailing contracts at a local construction business. She picked apart a garlic knot, her long blue acrylics getting caught on the tender inside layer. When she asked if I liked working at the gym, I shook my head and told her it was temporary, that I was applying for other things and hoping to be out soon.
“It doesn’t seem so bad,” she said. “At least you’re around people. I’m basically by myself all day.”
She had a point. I liked most of my coworkers and the members kept us from getting bored. Watching them run and jump and shove and grunt sometimes made me think about the fieldwork memoirs I’d read for an anthropology course my sophomore year of college. There was plenty to learn about human behavior in the gym, about how the rules of decency melt away with sweat. People devolved in that giant room, got territorial over benches and flexed in the mirror to admire their own bodies. It made for good people-watching, I explained, and dug my phone out of my bag.
I pulled up Missed Connections and felt a fluttering in my chest at the sight of a new post.
Posted 2 hours ago by DeerHunter13
Flirting with me (world fitness)? (Green Valley)
You looked at me and I smiled. When I walked behind you to leave it seemed like you wiped your hands on your ass on purpose so I’d check you out. It worked.
“What?” Angela finally said, as I read and re-read the two lines of text.
I explained the situation and handed my phone across the table.
“This is crazy,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “What a creep! Do you know who it is?”
“I’m working on it,” I said, grateful for some fresh enthusiasm for the cause.
“Good,” she replied. “You have to catch him before he says something. Who knows what he might do if she rejects him?”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with what her question implied, but I nodded anyway. I wasn’t about to turn down support for my investigation, and the alleged wrongdoing wasn’t the point anyway.
***
The day my notebook calendar told me I could Ask about storage unit, I worked an evening shift and kept an eye on the clock. The minutes passed slowly and I was agitated by a faint whine behind my ears, the constant whirring of treadmills that often stuck around long after I clocked out. I decided I’d call at 6:15, when Alex would probably be home from work but not yet out for any evening plans. I’d keep my tone casual, offhand, as if the storage unit had floated into my mind unprompted and I wanted to ask about it before it slipped away.
At 6:10, I snuck out the back with a bag of garbage. Adrenaline surged through my limbs, my body alert and alive in the icy air. I tapped her name on my phone. The call went to voicemail and seconds later, my phone buzzed.
Everything ok? We said two weeks.
A pang of surprise in my stomach quickly twisted into anger. I considered chucking my phone across the asphalt and instead tucked it into the pocket of my track pants in case she called back. I stormed the length of the strip mall, past the pizza shop, the grocery store, the Chinese place, the liquor distributor, the pharmacy. I stopped and stared at the dozen dumpsters in front of a small wooded area, which I assumed was left intact when the strip mall was constructed to protect the people in the houses on the other side from the sight of all this trash.
I offered no explanation to Antonio when he saw me shove through the back door, then scrubbed equipment with enough cleaning solution to make my nostrils burn until it was time to go home.
Late the next morning, my thoughts circled Alex’s message while I absently folded t-shirts. I’d barely slept, turning over the same six words in my mind until they lost their sting and I could consider them objectively. By dawn I saw them in a new light.
She hadn’t blown me off, not really. She’d asked if I was okay, she cared how I was doing. She knew how much I’d dreaded moving back in with my parents, she knew I must be struggling. And she was facing the same emptiness in her bed every night even if it didn’t prevent her from drifting off to sleep.
Most importantly, she’d written we. We said two weeks. She saw it as a mutual decision, something we’d agreed on. She’d suggested it, sure, and I’d been resistant, but I’d ultimately conceded. This we was a good sign, the sign of a shift. It wasn’t the I she’d used when she said I don’t think this is working anymore and I need to figure out why I keep getting myself into relationships like this. It wasn’t the withdrawn voice she’d used when she packed a duffel bag and left in the middle of the night.
And now the two weeks, the time we needed to reflect, was nearly over. Maybe I wouldn’t start sleeping at the apartment again right away, maybe I wouldn’t carry my still-packed boxes back just yet. But we’d find a way forward. We’d apologize, take responsibility for our faults, maybe find a couples’ therapist. It was for the best, really, that she hadn’t answered the phone the day before. The storage unit question might’ve given her the wrong idea.
Tara’s elbow in my side pulled me back to the gym. An ow was halfway out of my mouth when I turned to her, then followed her gaze to the far end of a row of treadmills. A ponytail whipped from side to side, keeping up with a woman in a black tank top. Her strides were even, rhythmic, their soft thuds barely audible over the clanking of machines. Near the water fountain a man lingered, sipping slowly as he watched her run in place.
Scrolling through the morning’s barcode scans, we found his information, then hers. Michael, 37. Samantha, 32. He took a few more sips and returned to his workout while she continued hers, undisturbed. I watched them both until Josh directed me to clean up a protein shake spill and by the time I returned to the desk, they were gone.
When Angela came in hours later, I pulled her aside and described the woman, the man, the drawn-out sips. She asked if I’d confronted him and I shook my head. I hadn’t seen him do anything wrong. He hadn’t taken photos, hadn’t bothered her. She hadn’t noticed him at all, her eyes fixed on the digital screen ticking up her mileage. What would I have said?
“It’s violating,” Angela declared.
She headed for a treadmill but returned minutes later, insistent that I do something the next time he came in. I had a responsibility to make sure women felt safe at the gym, she said. I had to let him know I’d seen him gawking at this poor woman, she continued, to tell him that I’d read his desperate posts. I prickled at the word desperate and almost asked if it made a difference that he was kind of hot but instead felt myself nodding along automatically.
***
On the final day of the two-week window, marked with exclamation points on my calendar, I noticed Michael, 37, leaning over a bench. With his left hand and knee planted, his right arm rowed slowly up and down. He gritted his teeth and glanced up at himself in the mirror every few reps, his face growing redder with every upward motion. When he disappeared into the locker room, I tried frantically to work out what to say.
I heard Angela’s words in my head: violating, desperate, creep. How would he react to being found out? Would he be embarrassed? Angry? Would he defend himself and his feelings?
He emerged flushed and damp from his shower, headphones on and eyes glued to his phone. I tried to wave him down as he walked toward the exit and when that didn’t work, I yelled hey!
My heartbeat thudded in my chest as he turned around and I felt caught, as though he’d been the one to shout. The interruption sent a flash of alarm across his face that settled into mild irritation.
“What’s up?” he asked, pulling one earbud out by the cord.
“I saw your posts,” I said.
His expression gave away nothing.
“You’re not in trouble or anything,” I continued. “I think it’s kind of sweet, actually. I know Craigslist has a weird reputation but how else were you supposed to let her know you’re interested, you know? It’s hard to know when it’s okay to go up to people in public anymore. And everyone is using apps now, which we’ve all accepted is normal, but it’s completely unromantic. It’s refreshing that you’re into one specific person and not just mindlessly swiping through photos and accepting whoever’s down to get a drink.”
It was the socially acceptable approach, that resignation to mild but mutual interest. But the more I’d thought about it, the more I saw that resignation as the real sign of desperation. It was the approach of people too cowardly to really try, people who’d ceased to believe in the magnetic pull of attraction.
“Still,” I said, my pulse racing, “She probably won’t think to check Missed Connections. Maybe you should just try saying hi?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, the truth apparent in his look of bewilderment. “Craigslist?”
I felt heat in my cheeks as the admiration I hadn’t realized I’d felt for him dissolved.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and started to explain that I’d mistaken him for someone else, but he was already heading for the door.
We were nothing alike.
I glanced at the clock and carefully knocked over a stack of t-shirts, then began to refold them with precision. Only an hour remained until I could make my phone call, and soon I’d be packing my bags.
About the author
Becca Stickler is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her zine T is for Trash was named one of NYLON Magazine's 2022 Must-Reads. Her work has appeared in Cake Zine, Peach Street Magazine, and elsewhere.
about the artist
Robin Young, based in Borrego Springs, California, works in mixed media, focusing mostly on collage and contemporary art making. Her focus on collage art using magazine clippings, masking tape, wallpaper, jewelry, feathers, foil etc. allows her to develop deep into the whimsical and intuitive. From large, life-sized pieces and 3D sculptures to small postcard-sized ones arrangements, Robin's keen eye and gripping aesthetic guide her viewers into her own semi-readymade world. Repurposing these nostalgic images for lighthearted and sometimes disquieting messages.