Notes from the Dog (12 page)

“Piece of cake,” Matthew said. Another volunteer led him over to line up for the swimming. I didn’t have a chance to tell him I wasn’t so sure I had 6.2 miles in me. I wasn’t much of a bike rider and I’d never been in a race, much less a race in front of a crowd like this.

Before I could panic, another volunteer led me and my bike over to the transition area. Matthew would finish the swim and then would jog over from the beach and tag me so I could ride onto the course. When I got back to the bike racks, I’d tag Matthew so he could set off on the last part of the race.

I was starting to worry—about the heat, Johanna, Matthew finding me, following the route. Then I heard someone yell,
“Finn!”

I looked up and saw Dad holding Dylan’s leash. Karla was next to them. So was Matthew’s dad. Grandpa had Fernanda and Auntie Bean on either arm. Dylan was wearing a sandwich board, and pink ribbons had been tied to his collar. One side of his sign read:
WE LOVE YOU, FINN. WOOF.
Dad had Dylan move so that I could see the other side:
WE LOVE YOU, MATTHEW. WOOF.
I smiled and waved as my stomach settled down. They turned and made their way to the start line to root for Matthew.

I couldn’t spot Johanna in the crowd. Had she been able to make it?

Then came the air horn blast, a roar from the crowd and a distant splash as the swimmers hit the water in a wave of bodies.

Someone grabbed my hand. Johanna. Pat and Dick were standing behind her with the wheelchair, which had pink ribbons wound through the spokes of its wheels. Johanna squeezed my hand and then they slipped into the crowd.

I looked down. Johanna had handed me a note:
Don’t question the miracles; they just might stop coming
.

It felt like only seconds later when the dripping swimmers started running past me to the bikes. I jumped up and down, searching for Matthew. Then he was shaking his wet head all over me and laughing, “That was amazing.” He slapped my shoulder, making the handoff official. “Go! See you in six miles.”

I jumped on my bike and tore out of the lot. At first
everything was a blur—I just saw colors in the crowd along the street and heard one big solid cheer. The bike wobbled underneath me and my legs were like jelly. My hands were numb; my heart was thumping. How would I follow the traffic cones and make the tight turns that got us out of the downtown area and into the neighborhoods? My back wheel skidded around one turn and I almost lost my balance. The scare cleared my mind, though, and I felt a sudden rush from my head to my toes.

I started to settle down and everything became distinct. I saw smiling, laughing, screaming faces in the crowd and heard voices calling out, things like “Looking good, Number Seventy-five!” “Way to go, Lisa!” and, more times than I could count, “Thank you … thank you … thank you!”

The air, which had been sticky and thick earlier, was suddenly fresh and clean on my face. The coppery taste of fear that had been heavy on my tongue since the night before had disappeared. I didn’t even feel my legs pumping. For a few minutes, I thought the scenery was flying past me while I stayed still.

People stood in front of their houses, spraying us down with their hoses, dashing out to hand cups of water or open bottles to us as we rode by, holding up signs that read
YOU CAN DO IT
and
YOU’RE ALMOST THERE
.

Matthew had been right: this was amazing.

I felt so strong, like I could have biked forever. I started waving back at the crowd and found myself in the middle of a group of bikers all riding at the same pace. We were pedaling in unison, part of a slick, well-oiled machine.

I saw the finish line coming toward me way too soon.

I was focusing on following the guy in front of me through the last block of the race when I heard, “Finn!” Matthew was balancing on the top rail of the bike racks, yelling and waving both arms. I put some extra punch in my legs and came screaming up to him, making a horrible squealing sound with the brakes, fist-bumping him hard before he flew out of the transition area toward the running start line.

I dropped my bike and helmet and leapt over the racks so I’d get to the street in time to see Matthew rounding the corner. We flashed each other a thumbs-up. I started making my way through the crowd to the finish line and caught sight of Johanna, sitting in the shade.

I ran over, picked her up in my arms and spun her around. “Did you see me? Did you see Matthew? He looked great. I don’t even know our times. Johanna, you should have seen the people on the bike route.”

She laughed and then pointed to the finish line as the crowd surrounding us started cheering. The first three pink-bibbed survivors neared the finish line.
They slowed down, linked arms and high-kicked together past the clock, which marked them all as finishing at the same moment. Then they turned to wait for the rest of the runners in pink bibs to join them, hugging and high-fiving each other.

And then we saw Matthew, breathing hard and dripping as he gave one last kick and flew across the finish line. As soon as he spotted Johanna, he ran over and swooped her up like I had, laughing.

He put her down, then turned to me and thumped my back so hard I coughed.

“We did it!”

After we collected our medals and had about a thousand pictures taken, a big group headed back to Johanna’s house.

People ordered pizzas and Chinese food and my dad brought over zucchini bread and zucchini lasagna and zucchini meat loaf that he and Fernanda had made. Nothing else in the garden seemed to be thriving, but the zucchini patch was going crazy.

“The party,” he told me under his breath, “is the perfect opportunity to unload some of this stuff.”

The delivery guy from the liquor store showed up with a keg. We invited him to stay and soon he was helping set up the grill.

The party spilled from Johanna’s house into her yard and over to ours. The more people who were in our yard, the better it looked.

Toward evening we were sitting around, Matthew and Johanna and I, talking about the race and the huge crowds. The party had been going on for hours—no one seemed eager to leave. Folks were sitting around playing cards and board games and some were even napping. Johanna seemed to have gotten some color back in her cheeks from all the company.

“Good thing I couldn’t do the race. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a swimsuit in broad daylight in front of that many people,” Johanna said.

Matthew shot me a look and jerked his head for me to follow him. “I have an idea,” he said. He whispered to me for a few minutes and I nodded, grinning.

“Excuse me!” I jumped up on the picnic table and dinged a spoon on a glass to get everyone’s attention. “Nobody leave until we get back. We’ve got a surprise and we’ll need about an hour before we can tell you what it is.”

While I was talking, Matthew pulled my dad and Fernanda aside. Matthew and Dad were going to run to the hardware store while Fernanda drove me to Matthew’s grandmother’s house and the mall and then to meet him at the beach.

An hour later, as it was getting dark, we came back to the party and I dinged a glass with a spoon again. “We’re back. Follow us now, but no questions or you’ll ruin our surprise.”

Everyone followed Matthew onto the sidewalk,
where he whispered to Dick, who smiled and nodded and took Johanna by the arm to his car. Dylan jumped into the backseat. The rest of us kept walking behind Matthew, like a parade without floats. Finally, after we’d been walking for about ten minutes, he stopped, looked at me and nodded. I waited until Dick and Johanna got to us from where they’d parked the car. Then I cleared my throat.

“We’re coming up to Centennial Beach, and I have to ask all the cowards to leave us now.”

Matthew continued, “Because we’re about to break the law. Vandalism, I think, as well as unlawful entry, and if we’re lucky, some of you will commit public indecency.”

“What do you have planned here, boys?” Johanna looked excited.

“Skinny-dipping, now that the sun has gone down and the beach is closed. We cut the lock on the far gate so we can sneak in, and this way”—I paused—
“everyone
can be in the water because it’s not in public or in broad daylight.”

Everyone laughed and we followed Matthew down the path and around the back fence to the far gate.

He’d bought a bolt cutter at the hardware store and snipped the lock, but he’d set a new lock on the ground to replace the ruined one.

We snuck through the fence and everyone looked down the hill to the lake. I’d set up candles in glass jars
along the steps and at the water’s edge and their reflections flickered in the water. Piles of towels sat on a picnic table.

“Matthew’s grandmother doesn’t have a single canning jar left, or a single towel, and I hope she won’t be mad at us for taking them,” I said. “And the candle shop at the mall has been wiped out. But this seemed like a good cause.”

Johanna stared at the water for a long time before she turned to us. “Let’s go!”

“Nope.” Matthew and I shook our heads. He said, “Finn and I are going to stand guard here at the gate. We’ll whistle or scream or something if the cops come … give you time to get some clothes on before you’re arrested.”

We stood looking at each other, Johanna, Matthew and I, while everyone else went down to the water and dove in. Some stripped down to their birthday suits, some plunged in fully clothed.

Johanna smiled at Matthew,
just
at him, and then at me,
just
at me. Then she joined the others in the water.

We leaned against the fence and listened to them splash and laugh in the dark.

Although we were supposed to be keeping our eyes on the other side of the fence, the light from the candles flickered images at us. In the soft yellow-gray glow, we saw flashes of skin.

Grandpa and Auntie Bean shared an inner tube as they floated in the shallow end of the lake.

My dad held Fernanda’s hand while they talked, sitting in the sand by the water’s edge.

Dylan paddled over to the floating dock and someone hoisted him up. He shook the water from his coat, making everyone on the dock scream.

I didn’t look, even though I wanted to, but I saw Matthew turn his head when we heard Karla and Kari laugh as they jumped in at the deep end. He grinned when I caught his eye, and his voice cracked when he spoke. “Amazing … just … amazing.”

And before it was all over, we saw just one more thing: a man dancing with his wife at the water’s edge to music only they could hear. He put a hand where her right breast had been as he bent to kiss her.

Johanna was behind us at that moment, bundled in a huge sweatshirt. She slipped between me and Matthew, putting her arms around us and pulling us tight. “Cancer can’t ever touch that.”

It was the first time Johanna had told me something I already knew.