The Hardest Cut, page 10
“But what about…” I trailed off and tried again. “I guess I was thinking that if you share custody, she’ll have to move between houses. Where is Tessa’s mom?” We drove for a while and I didn’t think he was going to answer me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Never mind.”
“It’s all right. Her mom isn’t around,” he said shortly, and I decided to leave it at that.
Tessa was ecstatic to have her dad pick her up from day care, but less happy that we weren’t heading home. Instead, we piled into the truck together to go to the Woodsmen team practice facility, a huge orange building pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I had hung around outside of the main gate before, to get autographs and to see the players coming and going, and it was a real thrill to drive right in as Ben waved to the guard. I waved too, just out of excitement. It even made me briefly forget that my brother’s car was a brown, crispy marshmallow now.
“Tessa, look!” I said, and pointed to the list of names painted on the wall as we walked inside. “Those are the Woodsmen players who are in the hall of fame. Look how many there are. Isn’t that amazing? I wish I’d been able to see all of them on the field.” Ben left us shortly after, prying Tessa off his leg, and she and I walked around admiring the place—well, I admired, and she walked sadly because her dad was gone.
The two of us found a quiet spot and played with a football, tossing it and kicking it. I asked her about her day and she answered with nods or headshakes. She liked the teachers at day care, but she didn’t play with anyone. She didn’t know the other kids, she indicated, and from the little information I got, I thought that she was probably on her own for most, if not all, of her time there.
When she got bored with the football and my interrogation, I found some yoga mats and we stretched together, which I really needed. She didn’t as much, since the human body at age four seemed to be made of elastic.
“Oof! This one hurts,” I complained, trying to get into a side split. Tessa giggled from where she already sat on the floor with her legs completely splayed. Slowly, I slid down to join her. “I made it! Give me five.” She did. “Hey, Tessa? You said ‘bye’ to me once, at the bookstore. Do you think you could talk to me again? Maybe?” I asked.
She considered me seriously for a moment before nodding.
“Oh, good! I’m so glad. I don’t mind when you don’t feel like using words, but sometimes I get tired of only hearing myself.”
She giggled, and I laughed, too. It felt good after being so worried about my car. I was still worried, but at least I could laugh a little again. We kept stretching, and I tickled her, and she did the same to me, which cracked both of us up. After a while, she started to yawn and get very sleepy eyes. I amused myself by braiding her hair and telling stories about the Woodsmen players whose names were painted at the entrance, and she leaned against me and relaxed.
But then my phone told me that I had a text, and when I read it, my lighter, happier feeling disappeared. “That was a message from my mom,” I announced when Tessa looked up at me. “I have to go to dinner at her house on Friday.” There was no way that I could get Anthony’s car repaired that quickly, even if I had the ready cash to do it, so it would be the time to fess up, too. It was going to be pretty bad.
“Your mommy?”
I looked up and tried not to let my face show my excitement too much. Tessa had spoken to me again! “My mom invites me and my brother over for dinner every week,” I explained. “She lives pretty close to my condo. Far from you, though.”
“My mommy is far,” she replied. I wondered where she was. “I have a grandma and a mimi,” Tessa continued, so quietly that I had to duck closer to hear her.
“Do you? I don’t have either, not anymore.”
“They’re far, too. Grandma Kathy is in Arizona and we can visit her, but I won’t see Mimi again because she’s too far.” Her little face crumpled up, like she was suddenly close to tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. She looked at me and then put my hands back on her head. “You want me to play with your hair? Ok. I’ll do a Dutch braid. I only have one extra elastic.” It looked like Ben had tried to do something with her hair that morning, but mostly it was a tangled knot. After I finished my styling work, she curled up on the mat and I lay next to her, thinking as she napped. I thought about dinner at my mom’s house, and I thought about making amends. I thought about Tessa’s mommy and where she was, far away from her little girl. How could she stand it?
“Gaby?”
I opened my eyes, confused. Ben was looking down at me, and I realized that I had fallen asleep next to Tessa on the ground.
“Ready to go?” he asked, and scooped up his daughter.
“I’m ready,” I agreed, and got up very slowly, feeling a little off-kilter. I had been having a strange, unsettling dream about Ben standing in the end zone at Woodsmen Stadium. I had been there too, wearing the official Woodsmen cheerleader uniform. I had really rocked that halter top.
But the unsettling thing was that in the dream, Ben had been kissing me. Kissing me like he meant it, and I had been holding onto him and kissing him right back. I followed slowly behind them as they walked back to his truck, and I rubbed my hip and shook the image from my mind.
Chapter 6
“Hallie, I’m so sorry.”
My friend sniffed into the phone. “That’s ok. I mean, it’s not ok, but we didn’t expect his dad to hold on for so long. It feels like maybe he’s at peace? I hope so.”
My eyes welled up in sympathy. “I’m sure of it.”
“Gunnar’s pretty much a mess,” she said of her husband, and I bet that he was. He and his dad had been really close. “We got Marley a ticket to fly here on Friday and we’ll all come home together next week.” She told me some details about the funeral and then asked if I would put her daughter on the phone.
I gave Marley privacy, but half an hour later when I was sure the call was over, I went to find her. She lay on her bed with her back to the door.
“Hi,” I said softly. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, and sat up. The marks of her tears stained her cheeks. “I talked to Gunnar. He’s so sad, even his voice sounds different.”
I nodded and my own eyes filled again. “It’s a very, very hard time for him. I’m glad you’ll be there to help soon.”
“Do you really think I’ll help?”
“I definitely think so. You and Hallie make him so happy.”
She wiped under her eyes. “Your dad died, didn’t he, when you were little? Was there anything anyone did that really helped you?”
I thought back to that time, but my memories from then seemed like a smudge of darkness—it was hard to pick out actual events. Even the funeral… “I don’t know if there was any one, particular thing. I remember being glad that my teacher at school let me leave the room to cry without having to ask and get a hallway pass. My dance instructor stopped yelling at me for a few months, which was nice. I bet a lot of people were very helpful, but I was too young to really appreciate it.”
“What did your mom do? Did she make you feel better?”
I thought about lying, but I wasn’t any good at it. I opted for a half-truth. “She was having a hard time, too. Everyone deals with things in different ways.”
“When did you feel totally good?” she asked.
“Are you wondering when Gunnar will get over it?” Marley nodded at me and I thought for a moment. I didn’t think I really ever had, myself. “It’s going to take a long time, but he’ll get less and less sad. He’ll start remembering his dad without crying every time he does. Then he’ll go through a whole day without thinking once about how much he misses him, and that will make him worry that he’s forgetting and feel guilty. He won’t forget, though. It just gets easier. I don’t know exactly how long it will take,” I cautioned, when I saw her brows furrow. “It’s different with everybody.” That was the best I could do, but it seemed to make Marley feel a little better.
Friday morning, I drove her to our small airport and got her on the plane. It was a tough goodbye for both of us, but I hugged her hard and told her that I’d see her soon. I went from there right over to practice at the stadium. It was only three days a week right now, but of course I was working on my own in every spare moment. I had signed up for a tumbling class that didn’t start until next week but I was already doing stuff online, and I’d been heading to my old high school to try stunts on the grass field instead of on the concrete pad behind the bookstore. It was much more forgiving, which was lucky, since I’d taken a few more falls.
“I think it’s another cut day!” Addison announced when I came in, and I barely managed to keep the smile on my face. She was certainly happy about it, but she hadn’t been the one back in Sam’s office on the last cut day.
“All the vets are afraid that Kennedy is getting the ax.” Addison pulled me closer and spoke in a gleeful whisper. “I guess she had emotional problems, so she ate her feelings.” She laughed. “The girl had a lot of feelings!”
I pulled away from her hand on my arm. “That’s not very nice.”
She rolled her eyes like Marley. “Gaby, as someone whose ass almost got marched out of here, I would think that you’d be pretty happy that someone else’s is on the line. There are thirteen of us trainees left, and if Kennedy goes, there would be six spots open. The odds would be better for you.”
“For all of us,” I corrected, but she was as sure as I was that she wouldn’t be getting the ax herself.
“Sure, whatever,” she answered breezily, then narrowed her eyes. “You’re Gaby Carter, right? That’s your last name?”
“Yes.” We were known around the studio mostly by nicknames and numbers and I wasn’t sure how Addison knew that. “Why?”
“I think my big sister knows you. She’s a lawyer. Ainsley Evette.”
I swallowed. “Yes, I worked with her when I was a real estate agent.”
“Right, that’s what she said. She told me that you used to work for Shephard Sterling at Sterling Standard Realty but that you—”
“Let’s go, Woodsmen Dames—I mean, ladies,” Coach Sam called from the front of the room. “Damn—I mean, darn, we have to get a new name for the squad.”
“After we determine the final roster,” Rylah reminded him, and we all took our spots on the floor. My heart was already pounding as my mind ran through possibilities of what Addison’s sister might have known about me, and what she might have mentioned about why I’d left my job at Sterling Standard Realty, working for Shephard. Did she know what I’d done? Did everyone know? Shame burned up in my face.
It was hard to focus after that but I must have done just enough, because I escaped the requests to come to Sam’s office at the end of practice. Only Parys with a Y and Tiara got called back, and I practically ran out before they could say, “Oh, we forgot! Number seventeen, Gaby, whose tumbling hasn’t improved.” At least the body makeup had stayed on my knees so they couldn’t see the bruises there.
I rushed to get ready at my condo before I picked up Tessa but there wasn’t enough time to perfect everything, so later she sat on the edge of the vanity in the very poorly-lit bathroom at her house and watched me finish my look for the evening.
“Want some?” I offered, and put a tiny dab of clear gloss on her mouth when she nodded. “Very nice. In the winter, you might need it on again so your lips don’t chap. The wind gets pretty chilly.”
Tessa watched me seriously and I started to feel a little guilty about saying she would need lip gloss and about her seeing all my prep work. I put down the powder brush and turned to her. “You know, you don’t have to wear makeup if you don’t want to,” I said seriously. “You can look however you want.” Then I swiped on more mascara. Maybe that was true for some women, but I didn’t think it applied to my own life. “I always wear a little something,” I admitted. A lot something.
“Why?” she asked me, in her quiet way.
That made me pause. “I just…I’m just used to it. It’s important for my job. And tonight, I’m going over to my mom’s house after your dad comes home, and she expects it from me.”
She picked up the fluffy brush and tickled her face with it. “Why?” she asked again.
I didn’t have a good answer for her. Because my mom always insisted that I show at my best, because makeup and hair and looks were what I was good at. I put down the mascara, frowning. “Actually, I’m done,” I decided. “Want to play school? I feel like your baby in the blue onesie didn’t really pay attention when we did the letter sounds last time.” I had read up on the skills she’d need for kindergarten, and Tess and I were all over them when we played.
“She’s a bad baby sometimes,” Tessa agreed, and we set up the class in the living room.
We were still at it when Ben got home. The moment Tessa heard his truck, her whole face lit up like the sun came out, and she raced out onto the porch. When I arrived, she was hugging him and kissing his cheek, with both of them smiling.
“Hi, Gaby.” His eyes moved from his daughter to briefly sweep over me. “You look…”
“I got dressed up because I’m going to my mom’s house for dinner with my family,” I explained. When I thought about it, Ben had never really seen me at my finest. I had been over after practices, after working out at the high school, after going on runs, after taking a nap at the Woodsmen practice facility. In other words, he had seen me at my worst, not my best. And now, maybe he would think of me differently—not just a babysitter for his daughter, or a sweaty mess. I thought he might see me as a desirable woman, and I realized that I wanted him too.
“Yeah, you look different,” Ben said. “There’s a lot of stuff on your face.”
That hadn’t been the reaction I was expecting. “Just makeup. I put on a little.” A lot.
“You don’t have to,” Tessa told him, and patted the cheek she’d been kissing. “Only if you want. It feels pretty tickly.”
“Does it, kitty cat?” he asked her. “Like this?” She squirmed and giggled as he tickled her ribs.
I watched them for a moment, smiling at how glad they were to see each other, before I remembered that I had to go. “I’ll see you guys next week,” I said, and let myself out. The door closed behind me and I looked at my—my brother’s—wrecked car. I wished it were later, darker, so the damage wouldn’t be so obvious when I first pulled into my mom’s house.
The front door opened again behind me. “Gaby, hold on,” Ben called, and I turned expectantly, waiting to hear what he wanted. Maybe it was to say that he did like the way I’d cleaned up. I found myself eager to hear it.
He jogged over to me and held out an envelope. “It’s payday.”
“Oh, right.” I shoved it into my purse. “Thank you.”
“Dinner with your family, you said? Is this going to be the first time that they’ll see what happened to the car?”
I nodded. “Dinner with everyone, my mom and my brother and his family. I can’t avoid going anymore and they’ll definitely see the damage. I’ll probably hang with my nephew as much as I can, because he’s very…forgiving.” He was only six but seemed to already grasp that no one was perfect, himself included. For example, he had a terrible time with tying his shoes and while he said it didn’t bother him, I planned for us to work on that skill tonight if he wanted to.
“It was an accident,” Ben said. “You didn’t mean to hit my truck, and you couldn’t have controlled where that woman was going to set another car on fire.”
I nodded, knowing that none of those things would really make a difference tonight. “I hope Vanessa turns herself in soon,” I mentioned. “It’s for the best that she takes some responsibility, and I can’t imagine that life on the lam from the police is very fun.” Not to mention, it was scaring me to death, imagining she was out there somewhere hiding and hating the Woodsmen dancers.
“You don’t seem convinced,” he told me. “Not that the cheerleader should give herself up, but that your family will be forgiving like your nephew.”
“Families can be tricky.” He’d said the same thing to me before. “They won’t be ok with this for a while.” If ever. “I’ve messed up a lot lately—maybe throughout my whole life, and I have a lot to make amends for.”
“Amends,” Ben repeated. “What have you been doing that’s so bad besides parking in the wrong place?”
He had no idea. What about losing my job and almost ruining a wonderful family because of my own selfish desires? I swallowed. “There’s a lot of history. My brother and I have always been in competition, except that he’s older and, well, better. Smarter, more successful, you name it. I’ve done a few things but they never seem to measure up. Do you know what I mean? Did your parents ever compare you and Kayden?”
Ben thought for a moment before he spoke. “Yes, my dad did. Kayden’s six years younger than I am, but there was always competition. Mostly it was about him doing more than what I’d done when I played football, and doing it better. He threw his first touchdown when he was eight, but I had been nine. He started on varsity in his freshman year of high school, but I didn’t until I was a sophomore. Things like that.” I nodded, understanding. “But neither of us ever did as well as we were supposed to. Not according to our dad.” He sighed. “He was a real hardass. A mean guy, really.”
I thought of my own dad and how sweet he’d been, how encouraging. He’d been my biggest fan in everything. “Gravy, you played in college and your brother went pro! That’s pretty darn good,” I told Ben vehemently, and he lost the frown.
“How did this turn into you making me feel better?” he asked me. “It was supposed to be the other way around.”
“I don’t need to feel better. I can deal with what I’m about to get,” I answered, and I also knew that I had it coming. “Anything that happens tonight—however hard Kristi laughs and when my mom gets disappointed and whatever big words Anthony uses to make me feel small, I’ll listen and say I’m sorry, because I am. And then, I’ll try to make it up to them all.” I looked at the time on my phone and smoothed my other hand over my hair, settling the strands that the wind had mussed. “I have to go, or I’ll be late, too. That wouldn’t be good! Have a great weekend. See you Monday.”
