Chapter 159

“Some people have lives; some people have music.”
—John Green and David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

27 AUGUST 2021

What a crazy week already. It’s hard to keep up with things. I started late on Monday which didn’t help. But I really needed to take my time with Livy before Nanette took her to the airport. I barely got to school in time for orchestra. That meant I missed senior English, among other classes. Ms. Pixler, who I kind of like, scowled at me when she handed my opening essay back Tuesday morning and told me revisions had to be in by Thursday and if I’d been in class the previous day, I’d have known that.

I didn’t get a chance to review her comments in class but I glanced over it at lunch. WTF? There was more red ink on my paper than black ink.

I thought her comments were mostly petty and a lot of them were judgment calls. Then she had the gall to write a paragraph on the back that she was offended by my blatantly anti-American stance on the National Service and if I continued to write in this vein, I would find myself without an audience and writing letters on the walls of my prison cell.

Well, as Asimov said, “I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims.” Fuck that.

“Did you guys get your summer essay marked up as badly as I did?” I asked Desi, Beca, and Britt at lunch. “It will take me an hour just to read her notes. It’s only five paragraphs, for God’s sake.”

“Ooh. She must really like you,” Beca said. “The only comment on mine was ‘Nice job.’”

“I got a paragraph on the back about how I should better incorporate my Hispanic heritage in my writing and not try to sound so mainstream,” Brittany said. “I have half a notion to tell her I’m Arab. It was kind of racist.”

“Mine had a bunch of grammar corrections and a note that said the paper was supposed to be based on an ‘actual’ accomplishment or event and not on my fantasy life,” Desi said. “I might hate this class.”

“What prompt did you respond to?” Beca asked me.

“Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea,” I said. “You can imagine what I chose. I just talked about how disruptive National Service had become to families and relationships.”

“In five paragraphs? She probably thought it was incomplete,” Desi said.

“Yeah. I think I’ll keep hammering on it in other essays this term. You know? I’ll just write as if she was my biggest fan and agreed with every word I wrote.”

I handed my revised essay in on Thursday. I took to heart everything she marked as grammatical or construction issues and corrected them. As to the content, I read every sentence in which I’d expressed displeasure with the service and strengthened it, making it more declarative. We’ll see what she thinks of that.

The whole crew came out to watch me run Saturday morning. The meet was the Huntington Invitational and seventeen schools were represented. I always loved this course because they did such a good job of laying it out and maintaining it. It had interesting terrain, a couple of hills, and was a dirt path all the way. No tarmac or concrete on this trail. The footing was good. Added to that, Huntington College had done some expansion to the course and now what used to be their five-mile course was a full 10k. It was a good day to run.

With the number of schools competing, each team was limited to seven runners per event. The top five on each team would score points. Only two schools didn’t produce a full team for all the races. Cross country had really become popular since Indiana had required at least one term of gym or athletic competition each year. In general, it was a cheap sport and didn’t interfere with classes.

Our best men’s and women’s 5k runners from last year had graduated. I wasn’t sure if we’d stack up in the top five in competition this year. There were five races. JV and varsity for both men and women, but no freshman competition, and varsity 10k. I noted there were half a dozen women competing in the 10k from different schools. We had one on our team but she wasn’t in the starting seven for this race.

I talked strategy with my team and got Cory Miser to agree to set the pace for the team. Jock fully believed the six-minute pace with a last kilometer kick would ensure the maximum number of places. We talked, though, and he agreed I could go out at a faster pace if I felt strong. I was feeling good and set my watch at 5:45. If I had any kick for the last kilometer, I believed I could break 35:00 for the 10k.

It was nice to have my pod mates all standing together cheering for me and throwing kisses—even Donna. I guess she figured there was safety in numbers and with eight women acting like race groupies, she was safe. I started my pace watch and was on it within a dozen strides after the starting gun. I wasn’t first hitting the trail, but the bulk of the 115 runners were still trying to get past the start line when I was on the trail. I’m usually really conscious of my teammates and try to encourage them to stick with me, but I knew none of them could maintain a 5:45 pace for more than a couple of miles so everyone who was ahead or near me was a competitor from another school.

My pace, and that of about a dozen other runners, would probably have put me in a scoring position at the end of 5k. Barely. But I was feeling strong and had only three runners ahead of me and one I could feel pacing me step-for-step behind. I decided to see if they could stand up to a little more pressure. I tapped on my watch and upped the pace to 5:40.

It doesn’t sound like much, but a five-second per mile increase in pace puts you twelve feet ahead of a runner that’s five seconds slower at the end of a mile. I started pulling up on the runners ahead of me a little at a time. One of them was having trouble maintaining his pace and the dang runner behind me was still step-for-step when we passed him at 7k. We were closing on the two leaders and I was wondering if it would come down to that last kilometer kick.

And, in fact, four of us entered the last kilometer almost stride for stride. This was it. I wasn’t sure how much I had left in my legs. My lungs were fine—I’d been training at ten to thirteen miles and this was only six-point-two. The guy who had led the whole race tried to kick with me but didn’t have it in him. The one following me slipped past him as well.

“Not gonna let you get away,” I heard her puff as we entered the bubble and put on our final sprint. Her! The runner who had been pacing me the entire race was a girl! I gave it everything I had as we entered the chute. I stumbled to a walk and she stumbled into me, grabbing my shirt to keep from falling. I turned to help support her.

“You ... are ... awesome!” I panted out. “What a great race!”

“My coach said you’d win and I needed to be on you the entire race.” I looked at her jersey and realized she was from Huntington North.

“Who’s your coach?” I asked, looking around. I saw him just as she answered.

“Glenn Patterson. When the team expanded this year, he took over the 10k team,” she said. We were handed our place cards and proudly held them up. Our times were only a second apart at 35:20 and 35:21. One step difference.

“Mr. Patterson,” I said as he came up to congratulate his runner. Jock was a step behind him and the rest of our team was still entering the chute. “You have a great runner here.”

“She’d be state champion if there was a separate girls’ division in the 10k,” Patterson said. “As it is, she’s going to show a lot of men they aren’t all they think they are.”

“She pushed me to my best today,” I said.

“Congratulations to both of you,” Jock said. “That’s the way races are supposed to look when top competitors duke it out. Congratulations to you, Glenn. I was surprised you were coaching cross country instead of soccer.”

“Both,” Patterson said. “We’re understaffed. Fortunately, I can split my focus between the 10k team and the soccer team.”

“I’m Jacob Hopkins,” I said, holding a hand out to the girl. She finally took her hand off my shoulder to shake.

“Lacie McPartland,” she said. “Are you going to run at Penn next weekend?”

“Oh. Um ... no. I’m running the half marathon at Noblesville on Monday so I won’t run the Saturday 10k.”

“Too bad. I wanted to beat you!”

“I’m sure you’ll have other opportunities,” I laughed.

“Jacob! Who’s our new girlfriend?” Beca squealed as she hugged my sweaty body and turned to Lacie. I couldn’t answer because Desi had me in a liplock. Jock cleared his throat.

“Hugs only,” he said. “No PDAs at an event.” I’m sure he noticed that Donna held back a little while the rest of my girlfriends all got hugged and introduced to Lacie.

“We love fast girls,” Nanette said. Lacie blushed.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too. I miss you so much. I want to come home.”

“Just two more weeks, love. Two weeks and you’ll be back in my arms.” I know I sounded lovesick. I was. Rachel was a million miles away. Or in New York. Same thing. She’d spoken to everyone in the pod on speaker phone and then asked me to go to a private space for the two of us. The pod has always been accommodating to our special relationship and this Sunday night was no exception.