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

She balled up a shirt and threw it at the wall.  “I need help picking something.  Nothing looks right.  Nothing!  I have all these clothes now and still everything looks bad.”

She and Gunnar did enjoy shopping together, and he had a good eye.  “What’s wrong with this?” I asked, retrieving the top she’d just discarded.  “Great color on you, and I love the neckline.”  I tossed it back her way.

She yanked off her orange Woodsmen sweatshirt, pulled on the shirt I’d suggested, and held out her arms to show me the result. “Really?  You don’t think it’s boring?”

“Boring?  No.  Wear it with these jeans,” I suggested, and handed her the ones I knew were her favorites from where they were wadded on the floor.  “And the heart earrings you got for Christmas from Hallie.  Um, are you dressing up because the football players are coming over?”

“What?”  She stared at me.  “Why would I care about a bunch of old guys?  No, I’m…I’m going out for pizza with Cavin,” she said in a rush.  “It’s not a big deal.  Don’t make it a big deal!”  Marley clapped her hand over her eyes.  “Fu…fudge, I can tell by the way you’re grinning that you’re going to make it a big deal.”

“Marley!”  I hugged her, let go, then hugged her again.  “Your first date!”

“Shh!  It’s not a date.  Don’t call it a date,” she warned me.  “We’re just two people who may like each other, going to have dinner together.”

“In other words, a date,” I said, smiling hugely, and after a minute, she smiled back.

“Gunnar’s driving us before he lights up the grill.  Cavin will probably run away in fear when he sees how big my foster dad is,” she said.

“Gunnar’s sweet.  If you like this guy, he will, too.”  And if this Cavin ever treated her badly, Hallie would be the one to hunt him down and kill him.  Gunnar, with his upper body strength, would come in handy to carry the body, though.  “Tell me the whole story of how this happened!”

She did as she finished getting dressed, about how they’d gotten to be friends and spoken more beyond when she’d asked for a pen, how he was so cool, and how maybe he thought she was cool, too.  She turned to me, her face anxious in a way I had never seen it before.  “Do I look ok?”

“I think you look beautiful.  I always think it.”

She turned and stared at herself in the mirror, and I hated, absolutely hated, the insecurity I saw in her.

“Marley, do you wear your normal clothes to school?  And forget to brush your hair, and sometimes your teeth?”  I had noticed when I’d stayed over that these basic chores sometimes took a backseat in her life.

“Yeah, I wear my normal stuff.  And all the brushing takes too long,” she said.

I shook my head.  There was no way to justify that lack of grooming and hygiene.  “Well, he was interested enough to want to go have pizza with you when you didn’t care about how you looked, wasn’t he?  That’s all I’m saying.  You should stop staring in the mirror and worrying about it.  But please, do go ahead and brush your teeth.  Always.”

I could tell that she was considering giving me the finger after my last remark, but she gave me a hug instead.  “Are you staying for dinner here?” she asked.

I didn’t know if I could.  “I’m not supposed to fraternize with the players,” I said.

Marley looked blank.  “Fraternize?  Like guys having crazy parties in college?”

“That’s a fraternity.  I mean that Woodsmen cheerleaders aren’t supposed to hang out with the guys on the team.”  I remembered Lyle the security guard saying it on our tour of the stadium on the first day of auditions: “Never.  Ever.”  “They don’t want us to have any kind of relationship, not even to hang out at your house.”

She glanced out of her bedroom window.  “If you’re going to leave and miss a really good dinner, you better do it now.  They’re already showing up.”  She looked at her phone.  “Fuck!  I’m going to be late!”

“Language!  Have a great time!” I called after her as she raced off.  I went to her window to see the driveway below.  I watched Marley burst from the house, tugging her huge foster dad behind her.  Gunnar slowed briefly to say hello to several players pulling in.  I saw Davis Blake strapping a baby carrier to his chest and his wife carefully place a blue wrapped bundle inside it.  Kenny Uchida and his girlfriend and their three daughters piled out of a huge car, and César Hidalgo arrived solo with his daughter, too.

This dinner was families, not fraternizing, which was a word that I had always associated with men in old-time airline pilot uniforms who smoked while being entertained by blonde strippers.  So not the case tonight!  We were just going to eat some steak together and all clothes would stay on!  Well, they would eat the meat, and I would watch and sniff appreciatively.  Also, if I ran out now, I’d have to explain to Hallie why I suddenly needed to leave.

No, I could stay.  I would keep out of the way of any pictures that might be posted and it would be fine, I told myself.  I felt anxious about this decision, but also a little rebellious.  They couldn’t stop me from having a night out.  I needed some fun.  I wanted it!  I looked around the bedroom like Rylah or Coach Sam might have been there to hear that thought.

A truck pulled into the driveway below and my heart stuttered a little at the sight of it.  I hadn’t realized that Gunnar would invite Woodsmen staff, too, but he was a friendly guy, generous with his hospitality.  Of course he would remember the new coach who didn’t know many people yet and would want to be more familiar with the guys on the team.

Ben and