Page 24 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
I turn back to Ian. “Is everyone always so supportive? Folks were cheering and giving high fives as we passed one another during the runs.” I figured that Saturday’s enthusiasm had been a critical mass thing. I hadn’t expected it in today’s much smaller group.
Ian nods. “There’s something to be said about shared suffering. It creates a bond.”
“A trauma bond,” says Babs.
“I’ll take box jumps over battlefields, I guess,” I say.
“You say that now, but wait until you eat shit on one of these things.” Ian taps the lacrosse ball against the side of the box he’s on. “Everyone here has dinged their shin on a jump at some time or another. Fuckingkills,” he says, then cocks his head, as if considering. “But also makes you feel alive?”
“Cheating death will do that,” Babs mutters.
“What has you here so late anyway?” Ian asks, leaning on his side on the box, closer to the older woman. “I don’t usually see you during daylight hours, other than Saturdays.”
“I volunteered to come later on the chance I’d get to gab with the new girl,” she says, smiling at me. “I’m supposed to report back to the five a.m. crew.”
I laugh, surprised to be a novelty. “Was that a warning, or should I be flattered?”
Babs shrugs, her skin making a sticky, sweaty sound with the movement. “Eh. Our lives are a little slow.”
Ian bounces the lacrosse ball. “And all of you gossip like old hens.”
“Hardly,”she counters. “The gym is a constant source of intrigue.”
“It isn’t,” Ian tells me, and levers himself up in a smooth movement. He hands me the ball. “You’re going to need this.” He nods to my pink-loving new pal.“Barbara.”
“Coach,”she says in parting, and Ian strides off.
I eye the ball he handed me. “I’m going to need this?”
“You’ll use it as we stretch. Find a sore muscle in your back or shoulder, then lie with the ball on that point. Hurts so good,” she says.
I’m not so sure, but I’m willing to go with it.
“Interesting that he handed that off to you,” she muses. “There’s not always enough to go around. That he didn’t give one to me, his respected elder…” Babs gives the ball a meaningful look. “I call thatintrigue.”
My shift begins after I shower. I tidy the locker rooms. I clean all the windows in the facility. I use the stick vacuum to get into every neglected nook and cranny of the place, unearthing balls ofdust that could’ve eaten the ones the guys eradicated yesterday. I do laundry. The clothing and towels among the lost and found items are no longer stiff.
I rearrange the dumbbells to correspond with the number of pounds written on the storage racks, and am intercepted by Grant, who takes advantage of my proximity to the weights to show me how to use them. Rows and curls I knew about, but I’m introduced to tricep kickbacks, which are hateful, and am humbled by how hard a time I have with snatches, which he and Diego made look so effortless in the yard yesterday.
But by three, I’ve cleaned to my satisfaction, the guys are off to classes or, in Alistair’s case, a photo shoot, Ian is coaching, and I have nothing to do. The free time looms; I can practically hear my maladies closing in.
Ian stands in an open bay door, cheering on a group of runners in the two thirty class coming back in from a four hundred. As the last member staggers past the threshold, Ian comes over. The fleeting look of yearning he sends his abandoned Rice Krispies Treat does not escape my notice. Mostly because I made a point of moving it to my good side so that any such look would not escape my notice. “You’ve been keeping busy,” he says.
“I have been. I don’t have a lot to do while the classes are going on,” I say with a glance at the group currently enduring Kelly. “And I’ve taken care of everything in my job description.”
“You’re quick. If you have other work to do?” He shrugs. “Or just enjoy the downtime.”
I grimace. “I don’t do downtime. And I’d work, but I’m waiting to hear back from a district about supporting materials for myOf Mice and Menunit.”
Ian cocks his head in a motion so like his brother, it makes me smile. “Whatdoyou do?”
“That is a conversation or another day. Rightnow…” I straighten and strum my nails over the legal pad I found while organizing the office supply drawer. “I’ve made a list!”
“A list?” Ian’s attention has shifted, keeping an eye on the progress of his class. I nod anyway.
My need to be useful borders on pathological. I have to be engaged in an activity that contributes to something. Cleaning is a solid outlet, but, as proven by the guys yesterday, anyone—provided they have the proper motivation and clearly established standards—can do that. And with the humbling experience with Kelly still fresh and Alistair’s insistence that my snatches are, in his words, “slow as shit,” I needed to assert my competence.
“Little things I noticed around the gym.” I read aloud from the pad. “Places for touch-up paint, and there’s a spot in the flooring that’s sticking up a bit,” I say, and peer over the edge of the legal pad to spot the circle of chalk I drew around the area as a warning to members. “A hamper or something to replace the cardboard box you’re using for lost-and-found stuff. A bold, new vision for the pro shop.” I’m excited about that; I can already feel the future orderliness radiating from the space.
