Jessica raised her hand. “Are you counting Fridays?”
“Fridays count,” Dean said. “From here on out, every day counts. Every day is practice. You know how many miles you can run in six weeks? Over a hundred. Easily. In fact, we’ll probably hit a hundred and fifty. And for those of you who choose to run on weekends, you’ll get up to two hundred. But mileage isn’t even what matters most. What matters most is speed. Pacing. Having a kick. I guarantee, if you have a kick in your pocket, you’re going to take down competitors. So let’s get out there and run fast.”
They looked bewildered but obediently jogged to the track, where Dean led them through an interval workout of six timed half miles with thirty-second rest periods in between. By the end of the third half mile, they began to complain.
“I can’t run fast anymore,” Aileen said. “I’m too tired.”
“Good,” Dean told her. “I need to know how fast you can run when you’re tired.”
The following afternoon they joined the boys’ team on the nearby C&O Canal, where Philips liked to bike. They ran as a big group on the flat, shaded towpath, with See-See and Aileen eventually breaking off to run with the slower boys. The miles slipped by without anyone noticing. When they arrived at the canal, the sun sparkled lazily on the Potomac, and when they ended, an hour and a half later, it was a fall evening, the sun low and golden in the sky and the air smelling faintly of campfires.
Dean was in a good mood that night, and when he picked up the phone and it was Laura’s voice on the other end, he felt even better. She said she’d been thinking about him. He said he’d been thinking of her, too. But before he could go on, she interrupted and said that she thought they should keep things professional. And then she told him that Robbie had gotten into trouble again at school. With the aid of a forged note, he had lied to his English teacher and told her that he was needed at the high school for a special choral rehearsal. And then he had walked over to the high school and hung out backstage with the woodshop kids who were helping to design the sets. When his lie was discovered (by the woodshop teacher) and he was returned to the middle school, he had been sent to Laura to confess.
“His teachers want to pull him from the play, but I’ve discouraged that course of action,” Laura said.
“Good. He’s excited about it,” Dean said, surprised to find himself defending the play.
“I’m glad you understand that.”
“He’s my son,” Dean said, testily. He was annoyed by her “professional” tone. A few nights ago they’d shared drinks, confidences, near-kisses.
In the same careful voice, she proposed a meeting, and Dean lost all patience and just said what he had to say to get through the conversation and off the phone. Laura was confusing him. His dream of her, of her turning into Nicole, of Nicole’s hands on his face, of Laura’s breath on his neck, had stayed with him.
Upstairs, he found Robbie and Bryan in Stephanie’s room, watching MTV on her little black-and-white TV, the 1970s model that had once been Dean’s. The TV downstairs was much bigger, but he could see why the boys preferred to hang out in Stephanie’s cozy room, sitting cross-legged on her double bed with its bank of pillows and, above, a moody collage of CD covers and flowers cut from seed catalogs — mostly blue and violet flowers, no pink roses for Stephanie.
“Hi, Daddy,” Bryan said. “Will you tell Robbie to put on Jeopardy!? He promised I could pick a show at seven thirty.”
“Why don’t you go downstairs and watch it,” Dean said. “I have to talk to your brother anyway.”
“Is this about today?” Robbie said. “Because I want Bry here if you’re going to yell at me.”
“Nobody’s yelling at you.”
“What did you do?” Bryan asked, his bright little face at once eager and nervous.
“Nothing. My teachers just freaked out when I went over to the high school to help out with stuff for the play.”
“That’s not the whole story,” Dean said. “Now will you please go downstairs, Bryan?”
“It is the whole story,” Robbie said. “Everyone treats me like I’m psycho.”
“Do you want to get pulled from the play?” Dean said. “Because you could just as easily come with me after school and go to cross-country practice, like Bryan does.”
“That would be so fun!” Bryan said.
“Oh my God, why are you always such a dork?” Robbie said.
Bryan frowned suddenly and tearfully, like he used to do when he was a baby, and Dean had to get him out of the room fast, taking him downstairs and setting him up in front of the TV with a bowl of pretzels. When he came back upstairs to Stephanie’s room, Robbie had turned off the TV and was lying on Stephanie’s bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“You need to be nicer to your brother,” Dean said.
“I’m sorry, but he’s, like, always around,” Robbie said. “I have no privacy. At school all the teachers spy on me.”
“You created that situation.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. I should be able to go places. I’m not some little kid.”
Dean hated that Robbie saw himself that way, as no longer childlike. He remembered feeling the same way when he was Robbie’s age, after his mother left his father. It had given him comfort to think that he was more grown-up than others, and that he was somehow well suited to the difficult circumstances he found himself in. But as an adult he saw what a delusion it was. And he thought there was something pathetic about a deluded child. Delusions were for adults to cling to; children were supposed to be innocent scientists, peeling back the layers of the world.
“Look, I know you’re responsible, but other people don’t,” Dean said. “Your teachers don’t want you having special privileges.”
“And you don’t, either.”
“Actually, I vouched for you. And so did Ms. Lanning.”
“You told them I should do the play?”
“Yes, I did. I want you to be happy, and I want you to do the things that make you happy. So don’t mess that up, all right?”
“All right.”
Dean headed back downstairs and watched the rest of Jeopardy! with Bryan, grateful for his company but also horribly lonely. He had mixed feelings about Robbie going to the high school every day for the play. On the one hand, it wasn’t that big a deal; on the other, it was further evidence that Robbie wasn’t going to grow up to be someone he could easily relate to. He’d always imagined his children would be his comfort, his companions.
It stormed that night, and the next day it rained on and off all afternoon, the beginning of bad weather. Dean drove the girls to the junior college, where there was an indoor track. Something about being indoors — the novelty, the cooped-up feeling, the sound of the rain on the skylights — helped the girls to run faster. At one point the rain was very heavy, and the muffled sound of the wind seemed to drive the girls. They had energy to burn at the end of practice and wanted to try the hurdles that were set up in the far lane. But Dean said no, they might get injured. That was when he realized he believed in them.
On Thursday, his niece showed up at practice. It was a sunny day, crisp, like the weather was trying to make up for the previous day’s tantrum. Dean stood at the gym door, waiting for the girls to arrive. He could see the football team jogging in the distance, doing their warm-up laps around the field. This weekend he was supposed to attend a Boosters’ fund-raiser at Garrett’s house. He’d asked Joelle to babysit as a way of forcing himself to go.
“Uncle Dean?”
He turned to see Megan standing tentatively near the gym bleachers, a pair of new sneakers on her feet. They were bright white with a teal swoosh and a kind of peekaboo window to showcase the air bubble within the thick soles. They looked like small appliances on her feet.