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

nowhere, because as Addison had announced, “She didn’t suck as bad as some people here.”  Then she’d given me a look, and I knew whom she meant as the sucky person.  I’d just smiled at her and then cried after practice, sitting in the brown and green car.

Now, I made myself get out of it and walk up to the entrance in the strip mall for “Tumblin’ Tots!”  They were the only place in town that was affordable (because they didn’t have a real gym, just an oversized spot between a used furniture place and a laundromat) and they’d also had space in their intermediate class.  And they didn’t mind mixing in an adult with the children as long as the color of my money was right.  So here I was, as much as I didn’t want to be.

“Gaby!” the little girls cried, and ran to hug me when I walked in.  Their average age was nine and their average height was about a foot shorter than mine.  I had to stand at the back so I didn’t block anyone’s view.

That didn’t matter, I reminded myself again, and it didn’t matter that I wasn’t even the best tumblin’ tot in the intermediate class because the nine-year-olds were clearly better than I was.  Just this week, Coach Sam had nodded and smiled after one of my round-offs, and Rylah had even said, “Better.  But remember the Alamo!” which I took as a compliment/warning to keep up the hard work.  Those were the things that were important, I thought, as I was outclassed again in handsprings by a pretzel-y eight-year-old whose head didn’t reach my sternum.

At the end of the tumblin’ today, I was tired—I’d also had a dance class that morning, and a late night manning the phone the night before, and now I was going over to get Tessa because Ben had to work this Saturday.  The girls hugged me goodbye and ran out to the moms waiting in their cars.  At least parents weren’t allowed to watch inside the studio and I could pretend to myself that they thought I was a quasi-instructor when I went to the parking lot.  I walked quickly to my car, the one I hadn’t gotten fixed yet.

“Gaby?”

Oh, no.  I closed my eyes briefly then put on a smile as I turned to greet my sister-in-law.  “Hi, Kristi.”

“I just saw you come out of Tumblin’ Tots!  Are you teaching there or something?”  She puckered up her forehead like she was confused.  “Your mother and Anthony think that you’re trying to rekindle a career, not just filling your time at minimum wage job.  They’ll be so sorry to hear you’ve made another choice like this.”  Her own eyes sparkled in happiness.

“You don’t have to tell them that you saw me here,” I started to say, but of course, she would, and I thought of how I could explain my presence.  “I’m not actually a teach…”  I didn’t finish the thought.  It was better to let her think that I was a Tumblin’ Tots! instructor, even if it was a lie, rather than trying to explain that I was taking a children’s class and working on my one-handed cartwheels.

“Well, do what you have to do,” I concluded, knowing that Kristi would spill this information just because she disliked me so much.  When she and Anthony had first met in their junior year of college and he had brought her home, I had been so excited.  I’d thought that I would be getting a sister and that we’d be super-good friends.  But Kristi seemed to have hated me almost on sight, and nothing I’d ever done since had made any dent in that.

She was working on suppressing a smile as she readjusted the strap of her yoga mat on her shoulder.  “You know, Gaby, my guru says that to reach samadhi—meaning, enlightenment,” she explained, “you have to first scrape the bottom of your life.  Maybe that’s you.”  Kristi nodded, lips twitching.  “You’re a part-time teacher of kids picking their noses at Tumblin’ Tots!  It sure looks like the bottom to me.”

“Do you do your yoga class around here now?” I asked, feeling desperate.  Was I going to run into her every single time I left the tumblin’ class?

“No, I don’t practice in this mall,” she corrected.  “I’m on an important errand for my guru but I always carry my mat so I can be ready to refine my poses.”  She turned slightly so I wouldn’t see her left hand, but by bending around her I did manage spot the large bag from the take-out place on the other side of the laundromat.  Tumblin’ Tots! sometimes smelled like their delicious chicken wings.  The important errand for the guru was covered in Buffalo sauce!

I grinned and Kristi bristled.  “Gaby, grow up!” she told me, and stormed off to her brand-new SUV.  I watched as she squealed the tires out of the parking lot, trying not to be jealous of that gorgeous car.  As my mom liked to repeat, Anthony worked hard for their money, and more power to them if they could buy something so nice.  Then I went to my brother’s other car, and reminded myself to be grateful that I had it.

“Gaby!”  A little body pelted out of the day care and into mine, and I got another hug.  This one, I’d been looking forward to all day.

“Hi, kitty cat!” I told Tessa.  “How’d it go this morning?”

She shrugged and clung to me more tightly.  Not so good, I didn’t think.  It had been hard on her to go in for extra time this Saturday rather than spending the whole weekend with her dad, who had some kind of meeting that he couldn’t miss about signing a backup QB.  I looked over at her day care teacher who waved her hand back and forth, a “so-so” gesture.  Tessa and I had been working for the past few weeks on how to play with other kids, how to