Chasing Hope (9 page)

Why?

After a few minutes though, a second question began to insert itself into her thoughts. One that she had never experienced before and one she didn’t want to hear now. Still, she couldn’t quite shut it out, even though she knew it couldn’t be true.

Have I turned back toward Egypt?

T
ell me again why I’m doing this?” Brandy looked down at the rectangle of paper pinned to her stomach, the number 154 in large block numerals across the middle of it.

“I told you, it will be good practice. There’s absolutely no pressure to perform today. All we need for you to do is go out there, get the feel of the distance, get the feel of running in a group of people, learn how to pace yourself in spite of what the people around you might be doing. This is the perfect venue for you right now.”

“I guess.” Brandy looked toward the banner strung across the road, declaring
Start
on one side and
Finish
on the other. A group of people were standing near it, talking and stretching. They were all older than she was, and several of the women were overweight. A couple of them were downright heavy. Unlike the fast group at school, these were people she could beat without even breaking a sweat. “Yeah, maybe this won’t be so bad.”

“At least you get a T-shirt out of it, right?” Sabrina held up the green shirt. It had the words
Shamrock Shuffle 5K
printed
across it, with a lucky clover forming the O in
Shamrock
. “Kind of a cute one, I think.”

Brandy looked at it, wondering what Janie and the rest of the crew would say if they saw her wearing it. It wouldn’t be warm and fuzzy, she knew that much. Still, Sabrina was looking at her like she expected her to say something, so she said, “Cute,” then bent over and pretended to check her laces.

“Brandy! Brandy, hi,” someone called. “I didn’t know you were going to be here. Do you want to go warm up together?”

Brandy straightened up to find Erin Methvin’s smiling face directly in front of her. “I’m so glad to see you here. Several other members of the team are here, too.” She scanned the crowd. “Emmy, Janice, and Robert for sure, and I think a few others may be coming. Have you seen anybody else?”

You’ve got to be kidding me.
“No, I haven’t seen anyone.”
Why? Why do Erin and the other kids have to be here?
Brandy turned toward Sabrina and introduced her to Erin, while silently trying to figure out an excuse to get herself out of there.

“Nice to meet you, Sabrina. Are you running today?” Erin asked.

This was going to be disastrous. Sabrina was going to tell Erin that she was Brandy’s own personal coach, and it was going to be that much more embarrassing when she lost. Why had she let Sabrina talk her into doing this? Shouldn’t she have known that something like this would happen?

“No, I’m not running, I’m just here to . . .” Sabrina cut a quick glance toward Brandy, “watch the event for a psychology paper I’m writing.”

“A psychology paper on a 5K? Really? Now, that’s a paper I could get into writing.” Erin smiled. “What’s your angle?”

“The mentality of runners, hard work, dedication, and I’m thinking of adding runner’s high.”

“Oh cool, I definitely think you should.” Erin nodded, her ponytail bouncing with the motion. “I love it when that happens.”

Runner’s high?
That was a new one, but Brandy made a mental note to find out about it later. She certainly wouldn’t make herself sound stupid by asking in front of Erin.

“Good luck with your paper. So, Brandy, shall we go warm up?”

Sabrina blinked her acknowledgment toward Brandy, then smiled at Erin. “You two have a good race, and maybe I’ll talk to you at the finish. Okay?”

“Uh, sure.” Brandy followed Erin, chancing a backward glance when she thought it was safe to do so.

Sabrina nodded once and gave her a barely noticeable thumbs-up, then turned and walked toward the starting line.

“Is this your first 5K?” Erin bent down, touching her nose to her right knee.

Brandy bent over trying to copy the move, but flexibility had never been her strength. She turned it into a right-sided toe touch and made like that’s what she’d intended to do all along. Well, she wasn’t going to let Erin get the best of her. “Nah. I’ve run lots of them. How ’bout you?”

Erin didn’t release her stretch but she did turn her head in Brandy’s direction. “Me too. Funny we’ve never bumped into each other before now.”

“I just moved to town a few months ago.”

“Oh, right. That must be it.” Erin moved her stretch to the middle, then shifted so that her nose was pressing against her left knee. “Did you set a goal time? I’m aiming for 18:40.”

“Um, uh . . .” Brandy started to tell the truth, that her goal was simply to finish somewhere in the top third, but she didn’t really care if she met that. But Erin’s declaration, her confidence, and the fact that she obviously expected Brandy to finish far behind her, grated on her. “Eighteen minutes.”

“Eighteen minutes flat?” Erin’s eyes opened wide. “My best ever was 18:45.”

Brandy shrugged. She regretted her quick answer but certainly wasn’t going to eat it now, not in front of Erin. “I’ve done it before.”

“Really? Wow, that’s amazing. Maybe if we run together it’ll make for good pacing for both of us.” There was absolutely no guile in her words. Erin was so naïve and perky, it would never enter her mind that she’d just been told a bald-faced lie. Worse than that, it was a lie that Brandy was going to have to live up to.

“Oh hi, there you are.” A group of six or seven more kids from the track team walked up. The three girls all hugged Erin, the boys exchanged high fives and fist bumps, and they all looked sort of nervously at Brandy. She did the single head nod, which none of them seemed to know what to do with, so they did what the popular kids always did. They turned away from her. They chattered amongst themselves about the race, their weekend plans, and the upcoming track meet against Franklin School.

“Runners, please approach the start.” A middle-aged man wearing a Shamrock Shuffle T-shirt over his pudgy midsection stood on a chair and spoke through a megaphone. “We’ll be starting in just a couple of minutes. The course will start here down Main Street, turn right just past the courthouse, then continue on down Breckenridge until you loop back around to Main. For you speedsters, remember the outgoing runners get the sidewalk. You’ll be on the street inside the cones. There’s plenty of people in orange vests directing traffic so I don’t foresee any problems. Do we have any questions?”

No one said anything, but the group as a whole crowded toward the start line. Brandy and Erin lined up behind a couple of men who looked to be in their early thirties, whose running shorts—even in this cold weather—revealed legs that had put in a lot of
miles running. “These guys’ll move forward quickly and then we’ll have open pavement ahead of us,” Erin said. “We can set our own pace without having to try to pass anyone in the process.” She reached up and flipped her ponytail. “All we’ve got to do is avoid being passed.”

“Not a problem.” Right.

The horn sounded and the pack took off like a herd of animals. Brandy knew about herds: the weakest, the ones who weren’t smart enough or fast enough, were the first to get eaten by the predators. She formed a mental picture of the police chasing her down the street and pushed herself to move faster. In a matter of a couple of minutes, she’d left most of the pack, including Erin and the rest of the team, somewhere behind her. That would show them a thing or two.

The course was on a slight uphill, and Brandy’s legs were beginning to burn, but she continued to imagine the pursuing cops behind her and pushed forward in spite of the pain. By the time she turned onto Breckenridge, her leg muscles were screaming. This she could have endured if she hadn’t been so surprised by what she saw at the turn. The next quarter mile was up a hill, a steep hill. How was she supposed to manage that with her legs already about to lock up?

She slowed her pace a little and tried to look around and focus on the little cafés and shops lining the road in the historic downtown neighborhood. The brick storefronts were weathered but comfy looking, with large windows filled with children’s clothes and furniture. Those little tables at the cafés looked so inviting right now.

The road grew steeper and steeper, and her pace grew slower and slower. She wanted to stop and walk so badly she almost allowed herself to cave in to it, but the knowledge that Erin was somewhere behind her kept her going. She didn’t want to look
like a complete fool. Her quad muscles felt as though they might simply lock up at any moment.
The police are chasing you—you’ve got to get away.

The thought wasn’t as helpful as it was in the real situation. Usually, this far into running, she’d left the cops so far behind there wasn’t a reason to even be jogging anymore. She was almost to the top of the hill when her legs betrayed her and simply stopped running. Before she’d made anything close to a conscious decision to do so, she was walking.

Just for a few seconds. Just until the top of the hill. She was struggling hard to pull in deep breaths, trying to make her body ready to move forward.

“Brandy, you okay?” Erin’s voice was coming up rapidly behind her.

Brandy didn’t bother to turn, she knew wouldn’t need to. Sure enough, in a matter of seconds, the swinging ponytail was right beside her. Erin slowed to Brandy’s speed but kept her feet moving in a jogging motion. “You get a leg cramp?” Her voice was full of concern.

“Uh, yeah. Leg cramp. I think I’m good now, though.” Brandy forced herself back to a jog, faking a slight limp for the first few steps. At least they were at the top of the hill now. Uphill or not, her body was still in full revolt. This was where mind over matter would come into play. This was something that Brandy excelled at, so she determined she would keep up with Erin no matter how bad it hurt.

“I’m so glad you’re able to keep going.” Erin’s voice was breathy, but not the all-out puff fest that Brandy’s was.

“Me too.” Right.

When they rounded the curve and returned to Main Street, there were still quite a few people heading in the other direction, still in the first third of the race. There was a duo of women
running together, each easily fifty pounds overweight, faces already bright red with exertion, but they still kept jogging forward at a barely moving pace. “Good job.” Erin clapped her hands, offering applause and encouragement, at which the women smiled.

The line of people coming toward them thinned down, comprised almost entirely of walkers. Several were pushing strollers or holding the hands of skipping toddlers. But then Brandy noticed a man running back this way. He looked to be about thirty, in absolutely prime condition, running at a rapid rate. Not long after him came another man, then another, all very similar in appearance and speed. “Show-offs,” Erin mumbled.

“Who are they?”

“Some of the faster runners will run the course twice.” She shook her head, then looked down at the athletic watch on her wrist. “Let’s push for the end.”

Brandy gestured forward with her left hand. “My leg is starting to cramp again. You go ahead.”

“See you at the finish.” Erin sprinted away, her ponytail swinging in time with her long strides. Brandy resisted the urge to return to a walk. She watched Erin pull away and somewhere deep inside her she vowed that she would keep pace as best she could. She kept her eyes focused on Erin, desperately wishing she hadn’t pushed so hard at the beginning, because she had nothing left to dig into now. Somehow, she gutted it out until the finish line, crossing with a time of 20:11. She managed to resist the urge to fall to the ground once she crossed the line. Instead she bent forward, gasping for air.

A hand holding a water bottle suddenly appeared in her line of vision. Brandy looked up to see Sabrina standing over her. “So much for that, huh?”

She took another deep breath, then managed to stand up straight and take a long draw of water.

“Part of today’s goals was to learn about pacing. I think that’s a lesson you learned the hard way, one you won’t soon forget.”

“You can say that again.” Brandy shook her head.

“Oh, there you are. Great job today, especially with a cramp and all.” Erin looked at Sabrina then. “She had a leg cramp in the middle of the race and had to walk it off. I think it was amazing that she came back to finish so strong.”

“Hmmph.” It was as much as Brandy could manage.

“I went over to the timekeepers table. We finished first and second in our age group. You’ve got to like that, right?” Erin bounced as she said it.

“Good for you.” Sabrina seemed sad when she looked at her. “What was your time?”

Erin bounced as she said 18:22.

“That’s a good time. Really good.”

“Thanks. It’s a personal best for me. Hopefully the coaches at Scofield U will like it, too.”

“Have they made a scholarship offer?”

Erin crossed her fingers and placed them over her heart. “I sure hope so. At first they were saying I could run for them as a walk-on, but a few months ago they started talking potential scholarship. I could really use that, you know?”

Everything about Erin was so perky, and happy, and perfect. Brandy hated her, or she wanted to, but couldn’t quite bring herself to it. “I’ve got to go. I promised my grandmother I’d be home in time to help her with some chores.” Brandy started walking toward the parking lot without ever looking back to see if Sabrina was following.

She would. First, though, she’d make some polite conversation and a plausible excuse to get out of there without seeming rude to Erin.

The pounding of footsteps coming from behind proved her point. “Leg cramp, huh?” Sabrina was smiling.

“What was I supposed to say? ‘I ran too fast because you were so excited about your stinking goal time, and it made me mad enough to mouth off?’”

“Mouth off, huh? What did you say?”

“I told her my goal time was eighteen minutes flat.”

Sabrina laughed. “I’ve got to admire your spunk.” She looked back toward the race course. “I like her. She a friend of yours?”

“Right. As if I have anything at all in common with a girl like that. She’s such a do-gooder. She was looking at the fatties still coming from the start gate on our return, clapping and saying, ‘Good job.’”

Sabrina burst out laughing. She laughed and laughed, well past the point where it made any kind of sense.