On the Road to Find Out (17 page)

 

19

I couldn't sleep that night.

When I wasn't worrying about my run with Miles, I was wondering what Jenni was doing and if she was going to call me, or thinking about what Walter-the-Man had said about being passionate. I couldn't come up with anything I cared about as much as Walter-the-Man cared about Duke basketball.

I ate breakfast early because I didn't want to get a cramp when I was running with Miles, and I took a shower and washed my hair. Yes, I washed my hair before I went for a run. I even used some mascara. For a minute I wished that Jenni was there to help me, but then I remembered I was mad at her.

I put on my running clothes and waited. I didn't know how I was going to last until noon.

Walter was sleeping and didn't want to come out of his cage. So I left him in there and played some rounds of Freerice until I kept getting
pulchritude
wrong. There's no way such a hideous word should mean “physically attractive.”

After about a hundred hours it got to be quarter to twelve. I jogged to the boulevard and could see, waiting for me at the corner, Miles and Potato.

Don't sound stupid, I told myself.

Be yourself, I self–pep talked.

And then I thought, God no! Don't be yourself. That will scare him off.

“Hey,” Miles said when he saw me. He wore short black shorts and a black shirt with a blocky picture of a guy running and the words
Pre Lives.

“Hey,” I said, and then Potato was on me. He danced on his itsy back legs and hit my knees with his front feet. His toenails were long black talons. He wagged his tail so hard his whole body vibrated. I bent down and he jumped up and planted a wet one on my nose. Today he sported a leopard-print harness.

“He likes you,” Miles said.

I sat on the sidewalk and Potato crawled into my lap. He kept putting his head against me and waiting to be petted. I cooed to him the way I do to Walter, saying things like, “You sweet little man, you munchkin poochie.”

Don't be yourself!
I remembered, too late.

I stood up and brushed the paw prints off my tights. “He's nice,” I said, trying to be cool.

“You an animal person?” Miles asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said. I realized I didn't want to tell him about Walter because of the whole kids-with-rats-are-loner-weirdos thing.

“Spud,” Miles said suddenly, “run?” Potato stood at alert, his ears pricked as high as they could go, which, like the rest of him, was not very. His tail stood straight up. “Wanna?” Miles said, and Potato wagged like a maniac.

“Wanna?” he said to me.

And we started.

 

20

At first all I could think about was how hard I was breathing. You could probably hear me two counties away.

Miles said, “Need to take it easy,” and was running—jogging—so slowly I couldn't believe it.

After a few minutes, I felt like I could go that speed all day. I relaxed. Then Miles started talking and I stopped paying attention to what was going on in my body and just listened to him.

His grandmother had forced him to watch a movie the night before. It was one of her favorites, she said, and he simply had to watch it with her. He said it exactly like this and I giggled.

“What's funny?” he asked.

“Uh, nothing. It's just kind of cute the way you said you ‘simply had to watch it with her.'”

“Huh. Guess it's just a phrase she uses a lot.”

He told me how he stayed at her house on weekend nights and they had a routine. His grandfather had died a long time ago and Harry had never remarried. She occasionally had “friends” over, but she'd lived alone for a long time. She was, he said, fun to hang out with. I thought it was sweet he liked to spend time with his grandmother. Then I realized she was no ordinary grandma.

For movie-night dinners Harry made two gigantic bowls of popcorn—one for each of them—and hot chocolate, prepared with Mexican chocolate and a splash of hazelnut liqueur. She doctored the popcorn with a combination of flaxseed oil and olive oil and sprinkled a hefty dose of brewer's yeast on it.

“Whatever flaxseed oil and brewer's yeast are, that sounds disgusting.”

“Harry claims they're the secrets to her health.”

“That, and the liqueur,” I added. He laughed.

Last night's movie was
Harold and Maude
, he said, a romance between a teenage boy and a seventy-nine-year-old woman.

“Sounds great,” I said, being sarcastic, and then worrying that he would think I was bitchy.

“It was,” Miles said. “Totally freaking awesome.”

But the more he told me about it, the more bizarre it seemed. The boy, Harold, was obsessed with death and dying. And then he met Maude, who loved life more than anyone. Maude reminded Miles of Harry.

“You should see it,” Miles said. “And the sound track is great. It's by Cat Stevens.”

My mother listened to Cat Stevens once in a while. When I was little, she used to sing “Moonshadow” to me, especially when I followed her around the house.

“Maybe I will.”

“What's your favorite movie?” he asked me.

That was easy.
“Ratatouille
.
”

“That kids' cartoon about the rat?”

I tried not to hear judgment in his voice.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hard to imagine a rat being a sympathetic character, much less a hero.”

I said nothing. I was glad I hadn't mentioned Walter to him.

We ran in silence for a while and then Miles asked, “So what do you like about it?

“Besides everything?”

“Including everything.”

“Well,” I said, and started in. “What I love most is the message: anyone can cook but only the fearless can be great. I love the idea that cooking—and cooking, of course, stands in for most things in life—is something anyone can do with enough effort. But there are those who are, well, talented in ways others aren't. Our generation has been fed this diet of ‘You are all beautiful and unique snowflakes.' I think that's hooey. Some snowflakes are better than others. But we're not supposed to say that. The idea that someone can find his or her talent—and passion—and pursue it to the nth degree is something I envy. Last night Walter-the-M—”

I stopped myself because I realized, maybe for the first time, that it was strange I called him Walter-the-Man, and if I explained that, I'd have to explain about Walter.

“—um, a family friend, was talking about how much he loves being a Duke basketball fan. I didn't get it before, how having a passion can help you to live. But that's exactly what
Ratatouille
is about. Remy is the kid who doesn't fit in because he likes something other people don't understand. Well, other rats. You know what I mean.” I was getting flustered because I knew I could sound all nerdy when I talked like this. But I couldn't stop.

“He gets an opportunity to follow his passion and it takes him places. That movie makes me think if I could only figure out what I'm interested in, I could excel at something. And I like the idea that while not everyone can become a great artist, a great artist can come from anywhere.”

Miles ran beside me and listened. I was talking fast and was already breathless from running.

But I kept going. “Plus, there are all these other things about the movie I love. I love that when he gets swept away in the water, Remy is saved by a book. The book literally is his life raft. I often think books help me to live.”

I was all excited because I was figuring out more as I was speaking. Sometimes I don't really know what I think until I talk or write about it. “Plus, I like the point the movie makes about how, in a good book, the author comes to life. You feel like he's talking to you, directly to you, answering your questions and thinking your thoughts, even though that seems nutty. Good books feel personal. Even, I guess, cookbooks. Reading is a cure for loneliness.”

“Yeah,” Miles said. “I know something about that, being an only child who lives in the sticks.”

“Plus,” I said, because I really couldn't stop now, “I love how much I learned about food and cooking. I like books and movies where I get to learn stuff in a way that feels fun. I don't like to cook or bake but I like knowing you can tell a good bread by the sound the crust makes. I like to know you have to have a ‘clean station' when you're working in the kitchen.”

We were running faster now, and I think it was because of me. I was fired up. “Plus, it's beautiful. I mean, it's a piece of art. The movie is art and the food they show in the movie is art.”

I also wanted to say that they got the rat movements exactly right. The way rats run and jump and leap. The way they stand on their back feet and are able to lean forward at an angle without falling over—it was clear to me that the animators had spent time with actual rats. But I didn't mention any of that.

While I felt ashamed about betraying Walter by thinking of him as something embarrassing, I was afraid Miles wouldn't understand.

 

21

After I finished babbling on, Miles was quiet for a while. I worried that now he would definitely think I was the freak of all freaks, but then he said he felt the same way about running—that there are so many things about it that he loves, and that in some ways, a race can be like a work of art. He quoted this guy named Steve Prefontaine—“Pre”—a track star back in the '70s who said something like, “I don't race to find out who's the fastest. I race to find out who has the most guts.”

I'd never thought of running like that, about the need to be fearless. I remembered what the winner of the Red Dress Run had said about Joan, that she didn't have the guts. I asked Miles what that was all about.

“The trials,” he said. “Thirteen years ago.”

“Was she arrested?” I couldn't imagine Joan doing anything that even stretched the law.

He made a playful jab at my shoulder. “No, dude, the Olympic trials. For the marathon. It's the race before the Olympics that determines who gets to represent the U.S.”

“A marathon before the marathon?”

“Yeah, it's held about six months before the games. First three in the race earn their Olympic berths, so you're racing for position, rather than time. That's kind of what did Joan in.”

It was like we weren't even running, just chatting like normal people. While we were running! Not having to look at him actually made it easier to talk. Potato cruised along and then he stopped short.

He'd found a tree he had to pee on.

We waited for him to put his leg back down and then started floating along again.

“Joan went into the trials with the fastest qualifying time that year. She was a lock for the team. But she didn't go for it. She played it safe and stayed with the lead pack. Barely held on for fourth place, which, in the trials, is as good—or as bad—as last. People thought she had wimped out, said she didn't have the guts to run by herself.”

“Is that what you think?”

He was quiet for a while. We listened to each other's breathing. Or more likely, he listened to me panting.

Finally he said, “Yeah, I guess. It seems like a gigantic washout. She never raced again.”

Failure seemed to be the theme of my life right now. Not something I wanted to discuss, so instead I said, “This is a long run for me.”

“You have a nice easy stride,” Miles said, looking me up and down. “And good form.”

I got all embarrassed and said, “Tell me what I'm doing wrong.”

“Nothing. Not a thing.”

“No,” I said, too loud. “Help me.”

“You don't need help. You're doing great.”

“You know there's always something that could be better. I hate not being good at things.”

“You're just beginning. You don't have to be good yet. You just have to keep at it. Build your strength, increase your endurance, and eventually get around to adding some speed.”

“Tell me something that will help.”

He sighed. “Maybe try to relax your shoulders, and don't clench your fists.”

I had rolled my fingers into a tight ball.

“Shake out your hands,” he said, and acted like he was trying to get the blood back into the tips of his digits. “When you're running, pretend you're holding two fistfuls of potato chips.”

When he said “potato,” the little guy turned around and looked at him. “Excuse me. Chips. Pretend you have chips in your hands. You don't want to crush them.”

“What else?”

“Well,” he said, drawing the word out. “Don't swing your arms past the midpoint of your body. If you think about rotating your thumbs out, that can help.”

“Okay,” I said, and thought about my imaginary potato chip–filled hands with the thumbs turned out. I might have looked like a hitchhiker with arthritis. “What else?”

“If you want to speed up, shorten your stride.”

“Take smaller steps?”

“Yep. It'll increase your turnover.”

“Okay. Good. What else?”

Miles laughed and said, “Look. Running is the most natural thing in the world. It's the act of catching yourself before you fall. If you pitch your upper body forward, your leg will shoot out. Can't help it. Sometimes you might fall. I go down all the time on the trails. But you brush yourself off and keep going. Running is just a controlled fall. Kind of like life.”

“Deep,” I said.

“I know, right?” he said.

“Seriously. Thank you,” I said.

Then he did something crazy. He put a finger against one nostril and blew a wad of snot out of his nose.

“WTF?” I said.

“Snot rocket,” he said.

That might have been more than I needed to know. I remembered seeing the book in his backpack at the race.