The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

I hoped not me.

Chapter 4

I followed, not too close to the hitch, out further into the country.  There weren’t even any red lights where I could try to fix my hair, so I did the best I could with a brush as I drove, and also tried to do some eyeliner and foundation repairs with wipes.  The results weren’t awesome, but without my magnifying mirrors and full makeup kit, what was I going to do?  I was a cheerleader/real estate agent, not a magician.

Woodsmen Stadium had been built on the edge of town back when the team was founded, but civilization had slowly spread around it.  I knew from my background in real estate and my studies of the team that most of the players and coaches lived pretty close by, to have an easy commute.  But not Ben Matthews, apparently.  We were driving, and driving, and driving, around curves and up and down hills, through fields and woods and hardly passing any other cars, until finally he swung into a dirt driveway, gunned the engine, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.  I bottomed out, winced, and followed him a lot more slowly.

I assessed his house just like I’d learned to when I’d worked for Sterling Standard Realty.  It was a 1960s ranch, unimproved as far as I could see, with difficult access in winter, and probably on a septic tank.  I would have guessed it needed a new roof, new pipes, new everything.  It was, in fact, “A diamond in the rough with beautiful trees and the secluded, country lifestyle you’ve always dreamed about!”  I made a face and shook my head.  I had mastered the lingo, but I had never liked stretching the truth like that when I wrote about our listings or brought clients around.  If I lived here, I would want to tear it down.  If I lived here, and had more than the thousand dollars that currently resided in my bank account, I corrected myself.

Ben was already waiting for me on the porch, so I walked through the rutted yard to meet him.  “I have a woman watching Tessa now, but it’s not working out,” he said, and opened the front door.  A loud snore echoed like a tuba in the small foyer and I glanced at him.  An angry frown settled on his face.

“Mrs. Haberman,” he called, and I followed him into an equally cramped living room.  Low ceilings, scarred wood floors, icky-beige walls, no overhead light, and a fireplace coated in a hundred years of soot.  “Working fireplace!  Neutral paint!  This house needs some updates,” I thought to myself, “but you can look forward to putting your own stamp on it!”  That was what we would have written about it at Sterling Standard Realty, but what it meant in person was that this house was a sad dump.

“Mrs. Haberman.  Mrs. Haberman,” Ben was saying loudly as he leaned over a wing chair.  A small, elderly lady was slumped over in it, snoring so noisily that the windows seemed to rattle.  “Mrs. Haberman!”

She just kept sawing logs, and he stood up.  “Let’s find Tessa,” he suggested loudly, so that I could hear him.  I followed him down a dark, narrow hallway (“cozy and snug,” we would have called it) to an equally dark bedroom.  “Tess?”

The pink comforter moved on the twin bed and a little head peeked out, making me smile.  “Hi!” I told her, and she crawled out of the covers and ran to her father.  He picked her up and she held on tightly and hid on his shoulder.  I looked around her room, which was much cheerier than the rest of the house due to her stuffed animals and toys.  That wasn’t saying a lot.

“Tessa, do you remember Gaby from the bookstore?” he prompted.  If she did, she showed no sign of it.  “I need to go tell Mrs. Haberman goodbye,” he said, and the grim look on his face signaled that he meant their parting to be permanent as of this moment, now.  He started to disengage from his daughter’s tight grip on his shirt collar and sleeve.  “You stay with Gaby and talk to her.  Use your words,” he said encouragingly, and she nodded slightly but tried to shrink into him even more.  When he finally managed to put her down, he said, “I’ll take care of the babysitter and be right back,” and I was sure that Mrs. Haberman had slept away her last afternoon in the wing chair.

Tessa got back into her bed, back under the covers, and I sat on the edge of it.  “Do you remember me at all?” I asked the small pink lump in the middle of the mattress.  “We read together.”  She didn’t use her words to answer.  I wondered if Mrs. Haberman ever woke up to talk to her as I looked around Tessa’s bedroom.  There were some posters taped to the walls and one picture on the little nightstand, of Tessa and a much-older woman with a big cactus behind them.  It couldn’t have been her mom and I wondered where her picture was.  I wondered where she was right now.  Probably she was in another state, and maybe she was worried about her daughter and who was taking care of her.

The books that they had bought at Holliday Booksellers lay next to the frame and I took one.  “Have you been reading the new stories with your dad?” I asked.  I saw her teddy bear straggling out from beneath the comforter and tugged his leg.  She whisked him under with her.  “Has that guy heard them yet?  I love Eloise,” I confided as I looked at the picture of the little girl on the page.  “How cool would it be to live in a hotel?  Room service is kind of my life goal.”  I saw movement beneath the