His spotter laughed. “Want another dime?”

“Yeah,” said Del. “I want to do ten reps, okay? Only help me if I’m hurting.”

The spotter added a ten-pound disc to each end of the bar. It already held a total of two hundred and seventy pounds.

Del tightened the wrist straps of his lifting gloves, flexed his fingers. But he delayed for a moment longer, saying, “You been to that Marvel’s Gym? It’s the biggest place I ever seen.”

“No.” Del’s companion also adjusted his black leather gloves. Lifting gloves stop at the first knuckle and have padded palms. Del’s spotter had forgotten to bring his, he’d explained, and had pulled a pair of regular gloves out of the lost-and-found box. Now, the spotter casually pulled down the sleeves of his sweatshirt.

“I don’t mind telling you, last year I was pretty nervous. There was guys in that middleweight division pumped up like tanks, been in training since they could walk. And their outfits! And here was me, ole country boy. But I did all right.” Del smiled proudly. “This year I’ll do better. No one from Shakespeare but me is entered this year. Marshall tried to get Lily Bard-you know her? blond? don’t talk much?-to enter in the women’s novice division, or the open, but she said she wasn’t about to spend eight months pumping up to stand in front of a bunch of people she didn’t know, all greased up like a pig. Well, that’s one point of view. I look on it as an honor to represent Shakespeare at the Marvel Gym competition. Lily’s got great chest and arm development, but she’s pretty weird.”

Del lay back on the bench and looked up at the face of his spotter, who was bent over him, gloved hands resting casually on the bar. His spotter lifted his eyebrows in query.