“What are you doing here?” Dean asked. It was barely eight on a Saturday morning.
“I want to race,” she said. “I’m dying to try.”
“Megan, I can’t let you run, you’re not on the team.”
“It’s okay; I’ve been doing the practices,” she said. “Aileen has been telling me them. I do them the day after you give them. But I didn’t run yesterday because I wanted to be fresh today. And Aileen’s mom made us pasta last night so I’m all carbo-loaded.”
“Does your mother know you’re here?”
Megan shook her head. “I stayed overnight at Aileen’s.”
“I have to call her.” Dean picked up his office phone. Outside, in the parking lot, the bus was waiting for him. Today’s meet was a big invitational in Langford, a large school in the next county over.
“Please don’t,” Megan said. “She’s going to say no. But it’s not fair for her to decide.”
“She’s your mother; it doesn’t matter what’s fair.”
“I just think if Aunt Nic was alive, Mom wouldn’t be like this. It’s not your fault you can’t convince her.”
It startled him to hear his niece invoke the alternative world where Nic was alive, a world he thought only he inhabited. He looked into Megan’s blue eyes, and it hit him that she looked like Nicole, she had the same intensity of expression. He had wanted, so many times, to see this kind of ambition in his wife’s eyes, this desire to compete, to be a part of the world. He couldn’t say no to it. Joelle would have to understand.
THE GIRLS RECEIVED Megan easily — so easily that Dean wondered if they’d known about her secret training all along. They had good energy on the starting line. Dean warned them not to sprint too much at the beginning, to remember their pacing workouts. He told them that if they started to feel nervous to remember that this race was practice for the largest races, later on. In truth, the Langford Invitational was one of the biggest races of the year, with runners of a caliber they would not encounter in many other meets, including States.
The gun went off with a cloud of smoke, and Bryan, who was standing next to Dean, clapped his hands and yelled “GO EAGLES!” at the top of his lungs. Robbie was waiting at the finish with Philips. Dean looked for his runners, but it was too difficult with blue being one of the most popular school colors. The gold-and-white uniforms of the Middletown runners stood out, and Dean remembered that Adrienne Fellows would be in this race. He wondered how she would do with some real competition.
The course began in an open field and then looped around eight serene tennis courts, bordered by gardens and chain-link fences that managed to look majestic rather than punitive. Public schools like Langford bugged Dean, even though he’d gone to a high school that was just as nice. But he’d felt like he had to earn his place there by being a good athlete, while other kids — kids who stabled horses in his father’s barn — felt entitled to a beautiful education.
“Daddy, look, it’s Megan!” Bryan pointed toward the courts, where the perimeter trail had forced the runners into a narrow line. But there was a blue-shirted figure running outside the line of racers, like a car driving in the breakdown lane, and she was steadily passing other girls, picking them off one by one. The girl — Dean couldn’t quite believe it was Megan — was heading toward an open space near the front of the long, stretched-out pack.
“She’s going to be first!” Bryan said.
“No, Adrienne’s got the lead.” Dean looked beyond the courts to the next part of the trail, a footpath bordered by pine trees, where Adrienne’s gold-shirted figure was pulling ahead.
“Come on,” he said to Bryan. They had stopped jogging toward the mile marker to gawk at the race. “We have to get Megan’s split.”
There was a crowd of parents and coaches at the first mile marker, which was at the top of a slight hill near the high school’s gym. They began to cheer when Adrienne’s head appeared, cresting the hill. Everyone seemed to have affection for her, regardless of school affiliation. Behind Adrienne was a small pack of three runners, each from a different school. They all clocked in with sub-six miles. A good fifteen seconds passed, and then Megan appeared, her gaze on the ground a few feet ahead of her.
“Holy crap, she’s beating See-See!” Bryan said.
“She’s going out too fast,” Dean said. He hadn’t even thought to warn her about the adrenaline rush at the beginning of a race. He ran ahead to an open space just beyond the mile marker, where he could talk to her. She saw him then and gave a little smile.
“You’re looking good,” he said, calling to her as she ran toward him. “It’s okay to slow down here if you need to, okay? You need to finish strong, that’s the main thing.”
He started to run alongside her, but she was concentrating so deeply that he wasn’t even sure she’d heard a thing he’d said. “Finish strong!” he said again, before falling back. He turned and saw that See-See and Missy were coming his way. He checked his watch: 6:02. He had three runners in the top fifteen, which was as good as any of the big schools. There was no way it would last and he didn’t have the depth to back them up, scoring-wise, but it was so far beyond what he had imagined that he felt a little manic. He wanted to sprint ahead to the second mile marker to see if Megan would hold on to fifth place, but Robbie and Philips were already there. And anyway, he wasn’t in good enough shape. There was no way to do that and also make the finish line.
The mile clock hit seven minutes, and then Lori and Aileen appeared, running together, with Lori pulling ahead slightly, buoyed by the crowd’s cheering. With just a few weeks of practice, soft blond Lori had become more muscular and, it seemed to Dean, more confident.
“Good steady start!” he called to them. “Good steady start! Now it’s time to kick it into a higher gear, you’ve only got two miles left. That’s eight laps on the track. You do that every day in practice, eight laps, two miles, fifteen minutes, that’s it, fifteen minutes and it’s all over.”
“You sound like an auctioneer,” Bryan said.
“It’s called patter,” Dean said. “C’mon, let’s get to the finish line.”
“No! We have to wait for Jessica.”
Jessica passed the first mile marker at eight minutes, twenty seconds, her French braid still stiffly in place. She managed a nod when she saw Bryan, but her face was flushed with exertion, as if she’d just run a sub-six. As soon as she was out of sight, Dean ran toward the finish, which was on the track, inside the football stadium. Willowboro’s football team played Langford every year, and at night, when the white lights shone down on the stadium, with the surrounding unpopulated darkness, it seemed majestic and important, a minor city. Today, in the midday sun, the tall lights and tall silver bleachers were still impressive, but now Dean was paying attention to the red rubberized track and the long finishing chute that was lined with fluorescent pink and yellow flags. The runners would enter the track at the far end, opposite the scoreboard, and then they would run almost a full lap before they crossed the finish line. A crowd had gathered in the bleachers, and a couple of reporters and photographers were waiting near the finish.
The crowd began clapping and whistling when Adrienne entered the small stadium, her white-and-gold uniform shiny in the sun, her stride quick but not lengthening, her shoulders relaxed, her chin lifted, her body a model of efficiency and form. When she passed Dean, he was surprised by how fast she was going, how labored her breath was.
Adrienne had a clear, unshakable lead, with the next group of three runners coming into the stadium about thirty yards behind her. They had their own miniature competition for second place, each runner trying to get the inside lane, a negotiation so interesting that Dean did not notice Megan’s arrival. She had held fifth and was gaining on the minipack.