On Sturdy Legs

Regarding Routine

The next morning I had no qualms about actually getting up at my usual time. After our little conflict in the park, Molly had avoided speaking to me and when she did, only used terribly formal statements. I later heard her on the phone with one of her friends talking about the importance of standing one's ground with teenagers. On one accidental trip into Molly and Tom's bedroom--because Tarq followed the rat/cat into it and I had to lure him out for dinner--I noticed her selection of literature was very limited to romance novels and parenting books. I couldn't help but wonder if those books were always part of her library or new as a response to my existence.

Izzy proved to be a deeper sleeper than I had suspected, so I didn't have to be so quiet as I got dressed in the dark. As fun as it would have been to further piss off Molly, it wasn't terribly wise; I put on a pair of black athletic shorts that were neither too long nor too short, a pair of socks that were higher than my usual but matched the horizontal rainbow stripes on my sports bra so perfectly that I couldn't resist, and a tank that was the same cut as my one the day before except this one was for the All State track team--more specifically my event so there was a bright purple and very serious sketch of a reindeer across the grey fabric with the caption Dasher in fantastic font and what the shirt was actually for on the back. I always tried to wear my running shoes around the house on the off chance that things heated up between Molly and I so I would be able to leave quickly under the guise of taking Tarq for a walk. That was a much more likely possibility than before, so I laced on my tennis shoes extra tight in the way that was oddly comforting and headed downstairs.

Since Tom had been kind enough to give me the run down of the kitchen rules, I felt much more comfortable in digging around for a pan, the carton of eggs, cheese, milk, and a spatula that I would need in addition to the butter and spinach that was already left out. As I was cutting up the spinach leaves to be smaller while waiting for the egg to cook through more, Tom made his presence known by landing hard at the landing of the stairs and bounced rather jolly into the room.

"What are you making?" He asked, looking over my shoulder in the comfortable sort of way that Molly didn't dare to.

"Omelette," I answered as I used my knife to slide heaps of spinach onto my egg and sprinkled a layer of cheese over the top. "Want me to make you one?" I offered.

"Can you do the thing where you make it like a crepe?" He asked.

"Yes," I assured him, "I can."

When I was done with my own omelette, I fried up one for him with cheese and pepperoni and rolled up the egg more than I did my own. I took up the plates with one in each hand, waiter style, and presented Tom's in the same such way. While I had been making his omelette, he had been brewing up a pot of coffee and had two mugs sitting out with the sugar dish and carton of milk in between up. I started to fix my coffee first without saying anything, neither did Tom. In the way that his wife didn't, he understood the concept of agreeable silence. This continued as we ate.

Tom was wearing a similar outfit to that if the day before; this one screamed 'work out!' even louder.

"More fitness club?" I asked with a nod to his shirt.

"Nope," he replied, "today is the gym," there was a slight pause, "actually, I got a group membership. I was wondering if you want to come?"

"Really?" My face formed into something of a smile. "Yes, I would love to come!" That may have come out a bit loud; I wasn't about to apologize for being happy. The burn of my muscles, the sheen of sweat, everything about it I missed. I missed the feeling of power that a work out gave me.

"We can leave the dishes for Molly," Tom decided and I trusted him on that since he was married to her and would probably know how not to piss her off.