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

“Ben Matthews?” Hallie asked.  Her eyebrows shot up into her red curls.  “Are you and Ben—”

“No!  No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head hard.  “He’s my employer.  And maybe a friend.”  Yes, definitely a friend.  Only someone who actually liked me as a person would have touched that floor mat after Caitlyn had made her deposit on it.  “That’s all, though.  We’re very clear with each other,” I assured them.  “We’ve talked about relationships.”

If possible, Hallie’s eyebrows went up further, and now Gunnar had joined us and was listening avidly.  “You and Ben Matthews talked about being in a relationship?” he asked.

“No!” I protested again.  “We talked about how neither of us ever wanted one.  Like on Friday night, he told me again that he’ll never get re-married.  He doesn’t even want a girlfriend.”

“You’re spending nights with him?” Gunnar asked.

“Are you talking to him about being his girlfriend?” Hallie put in.

“You want to get married?” Marley scoffed.

I just held up my hands.  “No.  No to all of those questions.  Ben Matthews is a friend, and that’s all.  I wouldn’t get involved with my boss again—I mean, ever.”  I swallowed.  “That would be a mistake to mix up our relationship.”

Hallie’s eyes narrowed and she looked at Marley.  “You said he’s single, right?” she asked her daughter.

“He is!” I answered heatedly.  “But even if I was at all interested, which I’m definitely, totally not, I couldn’t because of the Woods—”  I looked at Hallie.  Oops.

“What about the Woodsmen?” she demanded, her hands on her hips.

I was late in leaving the bookstore for my mom’s house.  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were trying out as a cheerleader!” my best friend had said at least a hundred times.  “You were doing this for hours each week and I didn’t even know!”  She had also said that she and Gunnar were going to help me from now on, and that included him practically carrying me to my car so I could stay off my ankle.  Hallie was happy that I had started a new project that I enjoyed, confused that I hadn’t told her about it, worried that I would be disappointed if it didn’t work out for me, and slightly annoyed that I was taking time away from re-starting my real estate career by doing this instead.

Mostly, she hugged me and nodded when I told her how much it meant to me.  “I need this, Hal,” I explained.  “I want to be good at something.”

“You’re good at so many things!” she tried to tell me, and passed me a lot of tissues.

I parked far down the street from my mom’s house to try to minimize the discussion of the car, and it took me even longer to walk there on my leg which wasn’t quite where it should have been, despite the fact that I’d spent practically the whole day before just lying on my couch.  Of course, I did crunches and a floor workout, but other than that, I was totally on the couch.

My brother Anthony was in the driveway carrying a box, and there were several already piled next to his beautiful, shining car.  “Hi,” I called as I came slowly toward him, carefully stepping so as not to limp at all.  “What are you doing?”

His wife answered me.  “Mom wanted help cleaning out the attic.  There’s a lot of old junk up there.  It would have been nice if we’d had some help,” she mentioned pointedly.

An orange sleeve straggled out of the box as Anthony tossed it onto the concrete and I bent down to look more closely.  “Is this a Woodsmen shirt?  Anthony, is this Dad’s stuff?”

“It’s useless detritus,” he informed me.  “We’re growth hacking here, Gaby.”

“You could try that too,” Kristi advised, and maybe I would have if I knew what it meant.

“You’re not throwing it away, though, are you?” I asked, but they both stared at me until my brother finally shook his head, pretty sadly.

“Gaby, useless reminders of the past are just a disconnect from the cadences of the future.  Mom is upleveling,” he said.

“They’re not useless!”  I wrenched open the top of another box.  “This is his high school yearbook!  And his shaving kit!  And—”

“Detritus,” Anthony said.  He said more about vortexes, accountability, and empowerment.  But I was busy going through the box, and after a while, I interrupted him angrily.

“These are Dad’s personal belongings and you have no right to toss it around like garbage!” I exclaimed, standing and swaying a little because I was balancing on one foot.

He blinked, surprised enough that he forgot to use his lingo.  “Mom said to,” he answered.

“Well, I’m taking it,” I informed him, and I picked up the box and did.  It took me forever to carry it to my car and walk back and forth with the rest of the stuff, so long that dinner was actually over by the time I came inside the house.  That was ok with me because I got to avoid the long gossip session relating everything my mom had learned in her “book club” and all the latest from the yoga studio.  I also escaped questions about my intake of fats, calories, carbs, and sugars, and my current weight.  Kristi spent the rest of the night going on and on about how wonderful her guru was and I played with my nephew on the sun porch.  It was cold out there, but her voice hardly carried to our ears when I shut the doors.

It took me forever again to get the boxes into my condo when I got home that night, going up and down the steps and trying not to put a lot of weight on my leg.  Despite being so careful, and despite the herbal medicines I’d filled my stomach with for the rest of the weekend, my ankle was still stiff, swollen, and bruised when I went to the Woodsmen dance studio on Monday morning.  I was