Page 78 of Touch of Class

“Could be arranged.” Jess shot back with a leer at her wife, then seemed to remember Izzy was there, and said, “Lessons first though. Ready to go, Kiddo?”

Izzy nodded seriously. “I’m always ready.”

Jess placed a hand atop her head and gave it a little shake. “I like that about you. Let’s head out.”

Izzy started toward the door, then turned back toward Gillian. “Will you watch for a bit?”

“Watch you fence with an Olympian? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Izzy beamed, her smile as bright and heart-kicking as her mom’s in the moment before she pulled on her helmet.

Gillian watched her go with a hint of pride and affection she couldn’t fully make sense of.

“She’s not your daughter, is she?” Lauren asked. “I’ve met both her parents, but you never know these days. A niece?”

Gillian shook her head. “Just a kid who kind of snuck into a piece of my heart lately.”

“Ah, I’ve had more than a handful of those over the years. Come with me. I’ll show you a good place to watch her.”

Lauren led her past a locker room to a second gym, smaller than the one she could see from the lobby. Lauren opened two folding chairs and placed them near a window. “Jess trains in here a lot, so the kids feel special when they get to work out in her space.”

“I can only imagine.” Gillian took a seat, and Lauren sat in the other. “You don’t have to stay with me though. I’m sure you have plenty of work to do.”

“I’ve got a group of adults in half an hour, but they need less help getting ready than the kids. Sometimes I sneak in here to watch her for a bit.”

The sentiment gave Gillian’s heart a little squeeze. “Were you two really a thing all the way back in middle school?”

“No.” Lauren laughed. “I was a senior when she was in seventh grade. Please don’t do the math on that. I didn’t have the slightest inkling of anything romantic between us, but Jess was a force even then. She blew back into my life like a tornado about five years ago and turned everything upside down.”

Gillian shifted awkwardly in the folding chair as that recount sounded a little too familiar for comfort. “You two have very different demeanors.”

Lauren snorted softly. “You don’t know the half of it. Different personalities, different goals, different outlooks on the world, though she’s helped bring me around on the last count. I like seeing the world through her optimism and belief. They say opposites attract, but for me it’s been more than that.”

“How so?” Gillian asked, a hint of breathlessness to her voice she couldn’t quite explain.

“We balance each other. We care about so many of the same things in wildly different ways. I’m able to offer her solace and stability and the steadfast faith she needs to take risks, and she …” Lauren smiled almost wistfully. “She’s made me braver, bolder, and helped me to dream bigger and more broadly than I ever would have on my own. We push each other and we hold each other.”

“That’s beautiful.”

Lauren stared at her wife warming up with Izzy and two other girls. “It hasn’t come without challenges, and maybe if we weren’t committed to the same things, if we’d focused on our differences, and believe me I tried for a while, we may’ve strangled each other by now.”

Gillian thought of the way she and Daphne sparred, the annoyance, the frustration, the arguments. “What happened instead?”

“I wish I had some profound and intellectual answer, but the fact of the matter is, I fell in love. Despite all logic and reason and my long-term plans, she bowled me over with her charm and her fortitude and her confidence and her smile and exuberance. Once I let go of how I thought things were supposed to be, I was able to see I didn’t have to wait to build something better. I was already building that something with her.”

“Seems like you’ve spent a lot of moments building something beautiful here.”

Lauren glanced around as if taking it all in, the gym, the kids, the woman at the center of it all. “We’ve absorbed each other’s strengths to make us both better than we were on our own. It hasn’t always been easy. She’s never existed in my comfort zone, but I guess that’s the point. In sports, we acknowledge the growth edge in any area is always the one at the very tip of your reach. That’s why we’re always working to expand our range of motion. Probably works the same way in life as well.”

“Boy, are you sure you need a sport psychologist? You keep talking that way, and you’ll have to get the degree yourself.”

Lauren shook her head. “Maybe later. For now, I have my hands, my head, my heart, and my plate full. But I’d love to pick the brain of an Ivy League all-American sometime, if you don’t mind.”

Gillian fished a card from her wallet and passed it over. “I promise to answer your questions if you keep answering mine.”

Lauren rose and extended her hand. “Deal.”

Gillian shook it, feeling very much like she’d agreed to something bigger than she could fully see, but, then again, maybe it was time to expand her own range of motion.