AROUND THE HEART IN 80 DAYS

Four

"I've got an ache in my back." Zara straightened her spine and her colleagues of course, could hear the visible crack.

"What did you sleep on, a rock?" Jacqueline frowned.

"More like at a weird angle because those little blowhorns insisted on sleeping on our bed."

Lola smiled at Zara's choice of nouns for the children, then bent to wipe off a smudge of brown from the blue PVC mat. "I keep telling Andy that we should have 'wipe feet first before use' policy on these mats. For God's sake, we just might lose the actual colours of them."

"They use, we clean. Circle of life." Jacob, from a farther end of the gym, piped in. He tore out yet another sanitary sheet from its box then carefully wiped the weights of some dumbbells.
The other two included in their little gym instructing circle sat lazily near the mechanical bikes, pleased enough that another sweaty, vigorous session had come to an end. And Zara didn't look too pleased that they weren't involved in the sanitation process.

"Earth to the Masters of the University." She snapped.

"Keep doing what you do best guys," Michael, one of them, replied. He didn't look at them however, his eyes closed and head facing the ceiling.

Knowing better than to waste her time, Zara faced the task at hand before her. Which was wiping.

Time went by, in soap and suds. And the busy silence above their heads seemed normal, but spoke differently for Jacqueline.

"Something wrong, Jack?" Lola rested her weight on the heel of her palms, clearly tired.

Jacqueline slowed the motion of her own wiping. She had no idea her downcast self was so visible. In reply, she shrugged.

"Come on..." Lola now seems overly interested, piquing the interest of Zara and the other three men as well.

Jacqueline bit back a bad word.

"Could it be... the failed payment from Saturday?" Jacob was only happy to have the opportunity to be involved in what could be the cause.

A corner of her mouth picked up.

"No way. You still haven't gotten the money?" Rob, sitting right next to Michael, sat upright.

"Something like that?"

"What, is that some sort of scam? Bake for a whole wedding and you don't get nada?"

"I blame it on the network." She fell back down on the mat with her arms splayed on both sides of her. "The bride didn't seem like someone who would scam me. It's just that, I used up most of the money in my account to pay for the major bills at home legit expecting something by now."

"She doesn't seem like someone that would scam? None of them do." Michael said, his resting position not even shifting.

"Call the police. Call my husband!" Lola suggested.

"Lo, that's your answer for everything." Jacob spoke up for all of them.

"What, you think this isn't serious?" Lola asked.

"It's not yet that serious. Calm down." Zara stood on her knees and popped her wrists on her hips. "Do you have her number, Jack?"

"Yeah. Both she and her husband's. But what good does that do? They must be on their honeymoon by now. I'm just thinking of what to do. And it's so hard to get customers."

"Because you're too preoccupied to update the social media thing?-"

"Not that, I'm so tired lately. Too tired to even bake. I've got to sleep. And Amanda is such a demon."