Cheat Days Ch. 06

I tried not to make it noticeable but I stole a few glances at her. Like I had thought when we first met, she was in great shape. Today she was dressed in tight exercise shorts and a similar top, so it showed off her lean body. She was more spritely than Eve in build, like a bird compared to a jungle cat. However, she was physically fit for all her delicacy, like the way a ballerina is also an elite athlete. Her long, dark hair was tied up in a braid but was still enviably beautiful. Her coffee and cream skin gave her a natural colour even nicer than the best tan. I would never be that pretty. I sighed.

"Something wrong?" she asked from beside me.

I blushed. I hadn't realized that I'd made an actual noise in my ponderings.

"Um, no, just getting tired. I think I'll call it a day."

***

I came out of the shower in a towel, my hair still a little damp. I clung the towel a little tighter to me when I saw Katherine going into an adjacent stall. I felt like a fat housewife, nervous to be exposed, and while she was dressed similarly (in only a towel) she made it look like she was strolling in a sundress. She made eye contact with me and smiled before going through the door and closing it.

She had to have poise and elegance on top of beauty? I sighed. On some level I kind of hated her. I had hoped the universe would dole out some kind of karma, making her pay for all her bullying in high school. However it seemed that Katherine had grown into a mature lady. At the very least I could try to be grateful that she wasn't still a total bitch.

I got dressed in my shorts and t-shirt and then used my blow dryer on my hair. While it was short I had styled it so the front was a longer than the sides and parted, and that needed a bit of volume so it didn't look like some emo drapery on my face. Katherine came around the corner to use one of the other mirrors, blow drying her long hair while still wearing just a towel.

She half-waved at me, since the dryers made it too noisy to talk. I half-heartedly waved back and tried to finish my hair a fast as possible. Her towel moved as she did her hair, giving glimpses of her limber legs and sometimes peeks at her midsection. Once I think I caught sight of her pelvic region, though it was too quick for me to make anything else.

I blushed to myself for even looking and got my stuff to go.

***

The rest of the week was almost agony in the mornings. I tried to go at different times, a half hour earlier, a half hour later, but inevitably Katherine would show up at the gym and whatever I was doing she would join me on whatever was adjacent, whether a nearby weight set or treadmill or stationary bike. She made polite chit-chat, and I'm sure she just wanted to be around someone she knew, but it got so annoying. Thankfully my change in schedule meant that we didn't shower at the same times, and I always made excuses to leave ahead of her if it seemed like it was even possible we'd bump into each other there.

I sighed with relief Friday afternoon, because it meant that it wouldn't happen again. Monday Eve would be back with me and I would have her as a buffer between me and my former bully. I just had to survive the luncheon Saturday, and there would be plenty of women from the neighbourhood to keep me from getting singled out.

On Saturday I wore a nice pink summer dress and made sure my hair and makeup were as perfect as I could get them, just so I wouldn't look like a total slob, and then I met Dana before heading over to Katherine's place. There was no way I was going to even go to the door alone. Katherine answered in a lovely outfit; she was wearing a white tube top and a snug skirt to match, but they were cut and made so elegantly it seemed like formal wear rather than smutty. Against her smooth darker skin it looked amazing. Despite trying my best I still felt like a duckling invited to the swan's house.

The women from the neighbourhood all talked about the area and their husbands' jobs, and their own if they worked. Things were going fine as we ate lovely little appetizers and sipped wine, until Michelle from down the street ruined it for me.

"Mallory, don't your kids start school in September? The local school is just wonderful, Katherine, they just built it."

Katherine raised an eyebrow and looked at me, and then back to Michelle, listening to her about the teachers and the new playground. I felt a chill. The glance had said Katherine had caught my name, and it had struck her funny. Did she realize we'd met before? I sure hoped not.

During the actual lunch I pretended to get a text and told the ladies I had to go rescue my twins, as if they were harassing their dad while I was away. I made my exit and went home. I sighed, got changed into shorts and a tanktop, and lay on my bed. My husband had taken the boys out for the day, so I just wanted to wallow in my misery.

I had hated high school. Katherine and her clique had been so mean it made every day at school an ordeal. I had learned to be mild and unassuming just to attract as little of their attention as possible. It had taken years to outgrow that, and Eve's attentions all summer had gone a long way to making me feel better. Now I was miserable again. I really wanted Eve to come back so I could focus on her instead.

About an hour later the doorbell rang. I got up and went downstairs. I opened it to discover Katherine standing on my porch.

"Hi, what's up?"

Katherine smirked. "Are you the Mallory who graduated from Central in 1999?"

Oh shit.