Chapter 114

“Change happens very slow and very sudden.”
—Dorothy Bryant, The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You

15 AUGUST 2020

It seemed so incredibly normal to just go out on a date last night with Rachel and Livy. Desi’s dad picked her up right after school to head back to Kentucky for the fair. I don’t know if she’ll make any of the rest of them except when we all go down for Labor Day weekend. That’s when the show closes. Something just seems wrong about being in school for three and a half weeks before Labor Day. The old man in me says it’s good for kids to be in school longer. They aren’t needed on the farm these days, so keep them out of trouble. The teen in me whines that it’s summer.

So, Rachel and Livy and I went to the school mixer and dance. This is how crazy this schedule is. Usually, the first dance of the school year is after the first football game, a week before school starts. This year, school starts so early the first football game isn’t until next week. Well, we did have fun. Sophie brought Beca and Brittany to the dance before going to Nanette’s with Donna. When we went home after the dance, we took Beca and Brittany to Nanette’s and kissed them tenderly before they went inside. I wonder if Nanette plays around with Britt now that she’s sixteen. Hmm.

The three of us, Livy, Rachel, and I, went to Livy’s house and spent the night. She has the biggest bed. The downside is her bedroom is in the same hall as her parents, brother, and sister, so we had to be quieter than if we’d gone to Rachel’s. But crawling into bed with those two girls is worth any amount of hardship. I love them so much it comes out my eyes.

We have to get up now so Livy and I can get to the track. The team’s first meet is at The Plex today. I just need to kiss them one more time first.

Classes, sensibly, hadn’t started at Purdue yet. So, campus was pretty clear for our cross country race. For the most part, the course is paved except the trail that runs down by the river. We start at The Plex and cross the river to run through campus then along the river to the next bridge and back across. Most of the route is tree-lined and we’d be running at nine and nine-thirty, so it wouldn’t be too hot.

We were on the buses at seven-thirty and at The Plex twenty-five minutes later. The days of riding a bus with Livy draped over me were long gone. Now there was a girls’ bus and a boys’ bus. We got together for instructions with the coaching staff. Jock split us into groups. The girls got instruction from their coach regarding lanes and the start. Unbelievable that there were over thirty girls on our team heading out for this run. I wondered how Livy would fare with the crowd. My attention was called to Jock when he handed me my number.

“All right, listen up, you idiots. We get six lanes—the odd numbered ones. That means nine and ten to a lane. Lanes one, three, five, and nine will be led by Rick, Don, Joe, and Bill. Line up here so we get organized. Lane seven will be Benny the Bunny.” We all laughed. Benny was a hot miler but he couldn’t hold his speed through a whole 5k. He was our rabbit and would set the pace for our front runners off the line. “Lane eleven—way out there on the edge—Jacob leads. He’ll be running just like he does in workouts at six minutes a mile. I want five guys who can run six-minute miles lined up behind him and matching stride for stride. He’ll bring you in ahead of most of the pack. If you’ve got kick left, bring it in the last quarter mile. Don’t start accelerating too soon or you’ll die before the bridge. Everybody got it?”

“Are we running five or ten?” One of the guys lined up behind me asked.

“This first race of the season is strictly 5k and that’s why all fifty-seven of you are running it. Next week in Huntington, we’ll break into five, ten, and JV five, as well as girls’ varsity and JV. This week, get out there and run with the pack.”

At nine o’clock, the girls’ race took off and we cheered our girls on. The boys had to sort themselves out in lanes before the girls started crossing the finish line but we all sent up a cheer when we saw Livy’s blonde ponytail bopping down the chute in first place. I was sure she’d run close to the eighteen minutes we’d been practicing at. We didn’t have time to stop and celebrate as the starter called our attention. At nine-thirty, we took off. I could see the sense in Jock’s strategy. Benny’s pace pulled the strongest runners out of the pack and got them clear. Nearly a hundred other runners started to stretch out behind them. My watch ticked the pace for me and I settled in, working mostly on keeping out of traffic jams. By the time we’d circled campus and hit the river trail, I could see the elite runners a quarter mile or more ahead. Runners who had tried to keep their pace but didn’t have the endurance were slowing enough that my little group of six passed them as we steadily ate up the ground.

We crossed the bridge back toward The Plex and I was surprised to see Bill, one of our elite runners, flagging as we passed him. I wondered if he was sick. I glanced at my watch for distance and saw we had a thousand meters to go.

“This is it, guys!” I yelled. “If you’ve got a kick, do it now. I’ll see you at the finish line.”

I picked up my pace, certain that I could complete this in under eighteen. One of the guys who had been running step-for-step with me poured on the speed and entered the chute a dozen steps ahead of me. I was happy to see, though, that all the rest of my pack made it ahead of any trailing competitors.

Rick placed first with a time of 15:42. The guy was going to be a serious contender in the state this, his senior, year. He was the only runner under sixteen minutes. Our teammates Joe and Don placed third and fourth. There were three more Snider runners and then Tom, the runner who passed me in the last thousand, and then me and the other five in our pack. I’d come it at 17:56, a personal best, and good enough for fifth place on my team and nine points. We won the meet 25-30. The girls won as well and we were all pretty happy with our first outing.

We hadn’t settled where to study on Saturday afternoons. My place and Beca’s place were both kind of cramped to get everyone in. Livy could have hosted everyone in her family room, but Saturday afternoon was college football time as far as her brother and dad were concerned. First Notre Dame, then Purdue, then IU and finally, anyone else in the Big 10 except Ohio State. Don’t ask.

We could have met in Rachel’s bedroom but even as cozy as we liked to get, having more than three in her room got crowded fast. Desi’s parents would still be out of town for four more weekends and preferred we not use their house. And Desi was working weekends with them in Kentucky. That left us with Brittany’s house Saturday afternoon. The only thing it lacked was privacy with her mother, father, two sisters and grandmother constantly coming through.

“You know, I don’t mind if you all come over to my house to study on Saturday,” Nanette said. “Just because I’m not in school doesn’t mean I don’t want to hang out.”

“Nan, we just didn’t want to make assumptions about your home when this is such a high school kind of thing,” I said. “You know I love to come over to your place.”

“It’s another of those activities that people in a relationship do that isn’t sex,” Nan said. She raised an eyebrow meaningfully at Sophie. “I think Sophie and I are going to play Scrabble while you all study this afternoon. Are you in, Donna?” I’d been delighted when Donna showed up at Brittany’s this afternoon.

“My life is far more in sync with our younger pod members,” Donna said. “I have papers to read and classes to prepare. Even with only three days of classes this past week, it seems I’m already behind.”

“I never understood how you got through all our literary journals in the weekend,” I said. “I can see why Mrs. Chambers doesn’t require us to keep a literary journal.”

“But... ?” Donna probed.

“We keep one anyway,” Brittany chimed in. This year, all four juniors had managed the same English Lit class. Desi and I also had Chemistry together but that was all the class overlap I had with my girlfriends.

“She’s a lot different in Expository Writing. I didn’t realize I’d have the same teacher for both classes. It seems like everything for English Lit has to be done outside of class so we can discuss the literature during class. In Expository Writing, we have to do the reading outside class but all the essays have to be done during class. I really feel the pressure to write cleanly and concisely during our timed exercises,” I said.

We talked some more about our classes. Donna was teaching freshman and sophomore honors classes at Huntington, like she had at Mad Anthony, but this time she was also in charge of the department. Huntington was a slightly smaller school than Mad Anthony, but there were still a lot of teachers in the English Department.

“Are you headed back to New York soon, Sophie?” Beca asked. She set her books aside and perched on the dancer’s lap. Sophie hugged her and petted her.