On Sturdy Legs

Upon an Understanding

Elle and Lily would be going to their mom's house for Saturday and the rest of the week, so I had some time off. I was up as early as usual and dressed for a workout. Because I didn't know if Tom was going to the gym or running with his fitness group, I wanted to be ready to leave if it was, in fact, a gym day. I was eating an omelette I had made when Tarq and I got company; however, it wasn't Tom who came down for his own breakfast. It was Molly.

She was dressed in what I guess would be considered workout clothes; this consisted of a pair of fitted sweatpants that flared out at the leg with the annoyingly bright colored waistband like the leggings that Allison liked to wear. With that was a cotton T-shirt that was an equally annoying shade and a short sleeved sweater wrap that I associated more with dancers than people like her.

"Ari," she exclaimed a little surprised. "You're up early."

We hadn't spoke since the argument last night and she was at least trying to tread carefully. I couldn't help but imagine what Allison would do; we only ever got in one or two fights like the kind Molly and I were getting into daily, for us those had involved sitting at the dinner table and taking turns getting our points across before we were finally able to compromise. I had a feeling that no such tactic would work with Molly. I decided to be content in following her lead and pretending that everything was fine and dandy. I also decided not to inform her how early it really wasn't.

"Yeah, I know Tom sometimes goes to the gym so I was going to tag along if he was going to go this morning."

"Oh," Molly clearly didn't really know about this arrangement but did her best to appear pleasant anyway. "Well, Tom was going to sleep in today since he was feeling a bit sore from yesterday, but I have a yoga class at the gym that I was going to go to. Would you like to come?"

I never really did much yoga. Both my all state teams and the school teams had the occasional yoga day because it would help us run better. I had also gone with Allison a few times before deciding that I did not bend that way. Tom and I bonded over our mutual love of working out, maybe Molly and I could bond over yoga. With that as a prospect, I was very much willing to try.

"Sure," I answered. "I haven't really done much yoga before."

"Jenny can teach you," Molly insisted. I couldn't quite read what she thought about this; her eyes scanned my athletic shorts and T-shirt that I was planning to strip off if I did end up at the gym. "Would you like to slip into something else maybe?" The words 'more modest' were left out of that. I still knew what she was saying all the same.

"I can move great in this," I countered with a dare in my voice, one that Molly did not rise to and instead let me follow her to the car. She saw the BMW and made a clear decision not to say anything as she backed out into the street.

This yoga class was exactly as I had expected. It was made up of mostly moms in tracksuits and the same kind of outfit that Molly had on. There were a few daughters, many around my age, but it was a mutual decision among all of us age was the only thing we had in common and it was not nearly enough of a reason to become friends. Molly had two yoga mats in her truck; I guessed one was for Izzy when she cared to get up early enough. I was able to borrow it and set up next to Molly for lack of a better place.

This Jenny arrived with way too much energy and immediately had us all begin in the child's pose. From there, we went into the rag doll pose; both of which were easy for me since running was all hamstrings and quads which I had stretched very much. The butterfly stretch was harder because there had never been any point for me to stretch the inside of my thigh. I never had a reason to; you don't use that to run.

"Feel the stretch and breathe in.... and out!" Apparently one of the requirements to be a yoga instructor was to have an incredibly obnoxious voice. In that way, Jenny was very well qualified.