Challenging Steps [FICTION]

As always, our company gears up for better health in the new year. Since we just switched our company wide health insurance provider, we don’t know what to expect. The first workday of the new year starts with a series of presentations. Luckily, I scored a spot in the first presentation, so I don’t have to wait to find out what their plan to shape us up entails.

A bubbly blond greets the room of sour faces with more enthusiasm that fate has allotted me for a month. “I am Kristall, your new health representative for Generic Health Insurance. This year, we want to get everyone moving and enjoying life. The healthier you are, the happier you are. I know you can’t wait to return to work, so I will explain our first opportunity for healthy fun and then you can ask questions.”

She picks up a box full of smaller boxes and holds it out to us. “These are fitness trackers. Don’t get too excited. We could only afford the basic model. You can monitor your steps, distance, and heart rate, and sync it to your phone or computer to store the information, but no bells and whistles. Before you ask, you get to choose from navy, green, silver, and black. We chose the most professional and gender neutral options.”

She pauses to stare down the office fashionista who looks like she wants to lodge a complaint. Kristall discourages her by continuing enthusiastically to explain the rules.

“You can opt out of wearing the tracker. You can also decide not to connect to the company’s online exercise group to compare steps with your peers. If you do, however, you will miss the chance to win a week long cruise to the Bahamas. The person who takes the most steps in the first week of the program wins that prize. And before you ask, you will have to use vacation days, but the trip will be paid for and you will get a two thousand dollar stipend toward expenses.”

My mouth drops open. I have never been so excited to walk everywhere I go. Kristall sends a couple of interns up the rows with boxes of trackers and folders filled with information about the contest and some paperwork. She gives us a brief pep talk that definitely includes the phrase “New year; new you,” but I tune her out as I peruse the documents before me.

As she gives us the opportunity to ask questions, I completed filling out the waivers and releases. I glance up to catch her reaction to the questions, since all of them were covered in her spiel. She seems as uninterested in answering as I am in rehearing it, but keeps that warm smile plastered on her face. I turn my attention to my new, navy blue wrist decoration and gateway to finally going on a cruise to the Bahamas

~~ 

Jenny, my work wife, finds me after her session. I grin when she crosses her arm over her heart to show me her navy tracker.

“Great minds.” She returns my grin. “What do you think about the bribe to use these things?”

“I’m wearing one, aren’t I?”

“Let the best woman win then?” She extends her hand.

“Of course.” I take her hand and shake it firmly.

~~

I decide to take an extra long stroll around the neighborhood after work that first day. When I finally sit down to sync up my tracker and see how I did, I have gained over 15,000 steps and claimed the lead. Right behind me on the leader board, Jenny has accumulated a little under 15,000 steps. 

~~

The next morning, I give my car the day off and walk to work. Surprised by my own pace, I arrive twenty minutes early. I accomplish more before my coworkers straggled in than I normally do in the morning. Then I reward myself with a stroll around the office. By the end of the day, I still have the most steps but Jenny and Harvey from accounts payable stay close on my heels.

~~

The next few days pass about the same. On Friday, the competition heats up or at least I feel threatened in my position at the top. As I take my circuitous route to the most distant bathroom, I slip on a puddle of water in a lesser used stairwell and fall down the stairs, just enough to twist my ankle. I use the railing to keep from tumbling further as I hobble to the nearest landing.

After dealing with the need to pee and thanking whatever good luck kept me from bursting my bladder when I fell, I limp to the elevator and head down to my boss’s office. He intercepts my shuffle halfway to his door.

“Polly, what happened to you?”

After I explain he whistles. “We need to get that cleaned up before anyone else gets hurt.” He offers me his arm and helps me the rest of the way to his office. “Did you hear about Harvey from accounting?”

“No,” I feel suspicion begin to creep into my mind.

“Someone left a paper delivery outside his office door this morning. You know how excited he gets for lunch. He went flying over the boxes and broke his ankle.”

I look down at my own swelling ankle.

“Let me look at it. I learned a few things from the company softball team.”

As he examines my ankle, I pull out my phone and open the fitness app. With Harvey and I scoring injuries today, Jenny’s name now resides at the top of the leader board. The other participants will need to do nothing but walk or run all weekend to overtake her.

If I grit my teeth and resume my pace, I just might tie her before the competition’s finale Monday afternoon. I look up expectantly as my boss places my foot back on the floor.

“I will approve the time off for you to visit the doctor, but I think he will tell you this is just a strain.” He reaches into a drawer of his desk and pulls out a plastic package.

I squeak as he slams it on his desk. He grins and hands it to me. I squeal as I touch its icy surface.

“Just put this on your ankle and prop it up while I finish up a few things. I can give you a ride to the hospital if you want.”

“Only if they can make me well enough to walk immediately,” I grumbled

“Seriously, you shouldn’t walk on that. You might even need to carpool to work for a while.”

I sigh in resignation. “I guess I won’t get to go the Bahamas after all.”

“Yeah. These accidents are inconvenient with the contest going on.” He strokes his beard as he settles into his chair and began typing.

~~

I limp into day seven with renewed resolve. Even though every step sends excruciating pain coursing from my ankle to my leg all the way up to my hip, I resolve to be happy for my friend. After all, if I can’t get some rest and relaxation in the Bahamas, at least she can.

As one of the top ten finishers, I receive an email invite to the presentation assembly for the contest. As I take mincing steps into the conference room, my boss waves at me. I wave back, confused to see him there as he hadn’t signed up for the contest. Harvey limps in behind me with a crutch under each arm and a pastry dangling from his mouth. I hold the door open for him. He nods his thanks and settles into the nearest chair. I take the next one over and lower myself gently into it.

Finally, the top ten arrive with Jenny straggling in late. She smiles and waves at me before taking the chair closest to Kristall who hops up and turns on the pep and charm for us.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we had a wonderful showing for the first five days of our contest. Then some of you stopped trying all. At least that is what I believed…” She glances at my boss. “Then I found out that two of our top contenders had accidents on Friday. Hearing that, Generic Health Insurance debated what to do. We decided to look at the stats for the days leading up to Friday and see who averaged more steps for those days.”

I glance at Jenny whose face transforms from proudly beaming to worried as Kristall talks. She looks up, observes me watching, and lowers her eyes to stare at her clasped hands.

Kristall continues. “So according to those stats, the winner is Ms. Polly Crump.”

I gasp. Harvey reaches over to pat my hand. Jenny sneers at her hands.

Kristall looks to my boss who nods in my direction, and she  bounces over to me with a thick envelope. “Good job, Polly. Don’t worry, you have two years to use this prize package, so let your ankle heal up and then you can enjoy every moment on the ocean.”

When the excitement finally winds down, Kristall presents all of the participants with a basket of fresh fruit and vegetable before bidding us all good-bye. Most people grab their consolation prizes and rush out the door, presumably anxious to go home and figure out what to do with their healthy winnings. Harvey and I wait until everyone else maneuvers around us, so we won’t hold up the mad dash.

I wait for Jenny to speak as we remain alone in the conference room with our boss. I assume she wants to congratulate me personally even though the look on her face seems more annoyed than happy for me. As she steps toward me, my boss matches step with her.

“Well, congrats, Polly. You would have won if it weren’t for your ankle.” She mumbles as she reaches me.

“Which is what you were counting on,” my boss adds softly.

Jenny and I both look up at him in surprise. Harvey is fighting with the door, so he doesn’t notice the turn of our conversation. As the door clicks closed behind Harvey, my boss stepped in front of it, blocking Jenny from following.

“What are you talking about?” She defiantly crosses her arms.

“You are in charge of paper deliveries and they have never arrived outside of Accounts Payable in the decade you have worked here. It struck me as odd that they did just in time to knock one of the top three walkers out of the competition. Honestly, I would have continued to believe that if the top walker hadn’t slipped on water in a barely used stairwell. As her best friend, you knew about her proclivity for using that stairwell, didn’t you?”

As realization dawns, my jaw dropped open and I clutch my envelope tightly as I fight back tears and look down at my still slightly swollen ankle. “Jenny…” The accusation dies on my lips as she began to weep with me.

~~Getting those steps is hard, especially when you are tracking them with your phone and forget to carry it with you or just don’t have a pocket to slip it into. My fitness tracker conked out on me almost exactly on the day that its warranty ran out, so my life is less of a video game for a while. Then I got a new tracker and between family and weather, I haven’t been getting a high score on my wrist arcade right now either.~~