My latest novel, Illusions, is on a blog tour with Celebrate Lit Publicity this week. As you know, the story was inspired by my daughter, Nikki. What you may not know is that Nikki also played a key role in my short story, Tread Lightly, which was published last month in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter is the best medicine. Nikki showed up Thursday night for a surprise visit, so I’m stepping away from my computer for a few days to spend some precious time with her. In celebration of her visit, I am posting Tread Lightly in this week’s blog post. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed living it.
Tread Lightly
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” My fifteen-year-old daughter couldn’t miss the doubt in my tone. Nikki thought exercise was on par with slow death by torture. My weekday trips to the gym were always a lone experience. Aside from my job as a middle school teacher, I taught the 5:00 AM aerobics’ class at the gym and no one wanted to join me on those early mornings. But this was mid-morning on a Saturday. Still, given her disgust with anything that might cause her to sweat…
“Yeah. I haven’t spent much time with you, lately.” She shrugged into her sweatshirt, snatched up a water bottle and looked at me expectantly.
“Okay, let’s go then.” Doubtful or not, I was grateful my teenage daughter still wanted to hang out with me. I assumed once she hit high school, I would no longer be considered cool. I suddenly had visions of Nikki becoming my new workout partner. We’d become mother/daughter gym rats and build a whole new relationship based on our mutual love of exercise.
The ten-minute drive to the gym went without incident, while Nikki chatted about a school assignment and her classes. As we entered the two-story structure, I noticed it was fairly crowded, as expected. Universal machines, racquetball courts, aerobics’ rooms and the administrative office were on the first floor.
“I’m going to head upstairs to the treadmills. What’d you want to do?”
“Treadmill, just like you.” She headed for the stairs, and I followed.
The treadmills were lined up around the perimeter of the loft-like second story, overlooking the first floor. Behind the treadmills, weight machines, dumbbells and weight benches were set up in front of the mirrored wall—congested, mostly with men. I always found it a little intimidating to lift weights in that atmosphere, which is why I preferred the treadmill on busy Saturday mornings. As long as the men were behind me, I could ignore them.
We found two treadmills, side by side. I placed my water bottle in the holder, hung a face towel over the hand rail and took off my sweatshirt. Nikki’s water bottle was too large to fit into the holder, so she set it on the floor and climbed onto her treadmill, confusion knitting her brow.
Stepping over to her, I gave a quick rundown of the controls. “You might want to clip the safety key to your shirt,” I instructed her.
“Why?”
“It’ll stop the treadmill if you fall.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”
I knew from experience it was useless to argue with her. And really, I’d never actually seen anyone fall off the treadmill before, so I figured she had a point. I eyed her sweatpants. “Do you have shorts under those?”
“Nuh, uh.” She fiddled with the controls.
“You’re going to get pretty warm,” I warned her as I climbed onto my own machine.
“I’ll be fine. How fast do you go?” She watched me set up my workout.
“Just start slow, kiddo. You’re not used to working out.” Not only that, but she wasn’t the most graceful girl. Even though she was slender, she tended to walk with a heavy step, so running would only be that much harder on her body.
Nikki was never overly competitive, so it surprised me to realize she was trying to mirror my workout. When I increased my speed, she increased hers. Sweat began to pop up on her forehead and upper lip, and her cheeks were turning a bright shade of red. Then I noticed her eyeing the water bottle she’d set on the floor.
“Don’t do it,” I warned.
She looked at me. “What?” she managed to huff out.
“Don’t reach for that bottle while you’re moving. If you need a drink, stop the treadmill first.”
With an eye roll and head shake, she ignored the water bottle and continued at a fast pace.
I increased my speed to a running gait and focused on measured breaths. In through my nose…one, two, three; out through my mouth…one, two, three. Then I heard a loud thwump followed by a rhythmic thump, thump, thump… It took a moment for me to realize the noise wasn’t coming from behind me, but beside me.
Looking over at my daughter, I was struck by the bizarre sight of her running on her knees. Thump, thump, thump… She had one hand clutching the hand rail for dear life and the other holding the water bottle. Panic filled her eyes as she looked at me while desperately attempting to keep the pace on her knees. If she let go of the handrail, she’d take quite a tumble.
I jumped off my own machine and rushed to hit the pause button on her’s. The treadmill slowed and Nikki’s knee-run slowed with it, until it finally stopped. I helped her stand as she hugged the water bottle to her chest.
“Are you okay?” I took her free hand and looked down to inspect her knees.
“I’m fine,” she said with a grimace, her face beet red, probably a combination of exertion and embarrassment.
A grin split my face and laughter bubbled up from my chest. I tried to stop it, but couldn’t. It gained momentum and the harder I tried to contain it, the worse it got.
“Seriously?” Nikki said, her own lips twitching.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “But if you could’ve seen yourself running on your knees…” After a few moments, I was finally able to control myself.
“That was quite a move,” said a male voice from behind us.
We both turned to look at the young body builder sitting on the weight bench behind us.
“What’d you call it?” he asked with a good-natured grin.
Nikki had a pained expression on her face as she ignored the question. “Can we go home now?”
That was the last time Nikki ever joined me at the gym. My dreams of having her as my lifetime workout buddy dwindled in one moment of mishap. Her exercising days were over.
Comments 3
Poor Nikki, she is more like her Aunt Barbie in the exercise department. I have learned to go slow or face the consequences. People ask me why I don’t run when I am always tripping on things seen and unseen. I joined a yoga class just before everything closed down. I was able to attend 2 classes. The first just about did me in. The second, the teacher obviously slowed things down a bit. About a week ago, my son in Colorado called and offered to be my accountability partner. I do a beginner yoga class on You Tube that he and his wife have been using. I am getting better, just a little slower than some.
I enjoyed this but just read and also enjoyed illusions–I will write and post a review soon. I realize the book is fictionalized and hope her recovery has been total and that all is well.
Author
Thank you, Delores. Nikki is doing very well. She will always have some memory issues, but after a lot of hard work, she graduated college and plans to start on her master’s in the fall. She’s quite an inspiration, and not just for novels!