Out of Breath

by Blair Richmond

“There is much you cannot see.”

  “Why don’t you ever show me?”

  “Maybe one day, when you show me your life,” he says, “I will reciprocate.”

  “May I cut in?”

  We stop, and I turn to see Alex. He is dressed in a green-colored bodysuit with long pieces of bark glued to it, from head to toe.

  “No, you may not.” Roman glares at Alex, his expression completely changed.

  “Roman,” I say, worried. “I don’t mind.”

  “He wasn’t invited.”

  “What’s the big deal?” I ask. “The whole town is here. Just let him stay.”

  “Yes, Roman, let me stay. I made a costume and everything.” Alex is clearly enjoying this little game.

  “Alex, what exactly is your costume?” I ask.

  “I’m a tree-hugger,” he says. “I thought Roman would appreciate it.”

  “A tree-hugger? Or a sapsucker?” Roman says.

  “You really know how to hurt a guy, Roman. How about you taking two steps back so I can dance with Kat?”

  “How about I throw you out on your…bark.”

  “I’m not sure you could. Doesn’t that cape get in the way?”

  Roman nudges me aside, and he and Alex stare each other down, nose to nose. Typical idiotic men. I’ve seen this happen in bars from Texas to Oregon, and it’s never any different.

  “Come on, guys.” I push myself back between them. But I’m so short, even in these heels, that they keep staring at each other over my head.

  “Roman, Alex, seriously. Don’t start anything. It’s such a nice party.” Neither of them moves, and I’m not sure what else to do. “Okay, how about this. Roman, let me have one dance with Alex. And then Alex will leave—right, Alex? What do you say? A win-win, right?”

  Roman stares at me, as if I’ve just announced Alex and I are getting married. “A win-win?” he asks. “Hardly.” Then he turns his back on me and walks away.

  What have I done? Have I just picked Alex over Roman? I was only trying to make peace. Now I’m wondering why I did come to Alex’s defense, even if it was meant to be a compromise. He’s an uninvited guest; he has no business here. And he did rather rudely cut into our dance.

  But the fact is, I didn’t really mind.

  I think I am drawn to Alex the same way I’m drawn to Roman, for different reasons. Roman is exciting and romantic, but as much as I like being with him, something about it feels dangerous. Alex is sweet and a good friend, but as much as I think he’s not the one I want to be with, something about him makes me feel safe.

  Why can’t these two men be one, and save me all this trouble?

  “Prima donna,” Alex says, watching Roman disappear into the crowd. “Actors just can’t stand to be upstaged.”

  “You could have waited until the song was over.”

  “I could’ve. But I’m tired of waiting for you.”

  Then I get that little flutter, the same one I felt just before Roman kissed me the other night. Alex’s eyes have turned serious, and despite his ridiculous outfit, he manages to look remarkably handsome, long and lean as a tree. When he takes my hand, much the way Roman did, and we begin to dance, he moves as gracefully as the wind.

  “That’s quite a costume,” I say as we move across the dance floor. I’m definitely not the best dancer out here, but I feel as though I’m getting the hang of it.

  “I figure if everyone’s going to call me a tree-hugger, I might as well embrace it.”

  “Why did Roman call you a sapsucker?”

  “That?” Alex looks uncomfortable. “Oh, it’s nothing. Hey, you’re still a vegan, right?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “I figured Roman would be trying to convert you.”

  “He is. How did you know?”

  “He does it to everyone. Don’t let him.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m actually thinking I might get him to try being vegan. I think I might be able to convert him to our side.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “Why not? Everyone is capable of change.”

  “Roman—” Alex stops, as if he doesn’t know how to finish. “Let’s just say he doesn’t like vegans.”

  “That’s a little extreme. I mean, I’m a vegan and he likes me, right?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “Well,” he says, “I used to be like Roman. I used to think I was born to live a certain way, that my life, such as it was, depended on the death of others. I accepted this life as fact, but I was miserable. The guilt, I can’t even describe it.”

  “I know what you mean. That’s why I don’t eat animals, either.”

  He gives me a sad look. “So I changed. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. And now I threaten him. The idea of me threatens him. The idea of me creating others like me really threatens him. If every one of them becomes one of us, we would be the last generation. Granted, a long-lasting generation. But the last. Finality doesn’t sit well with Roman.”

  “You lost me, Alex. Are you still talking about food here?”

  He shakes his head rapidly, as if to clear his thoughts. “I’m just rambling,” he says. “The point is, he doesn’t have any respect for me, for my way of life. Or yours. And you have to be careful.”

  “If this is about the vampire thing—”

  “Just promise me you won’t change for him,” Alex says.

  “Of course I won’t.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Okay, okay, I promise.”

  I see relief wash over his face, and I’m not sure why this is so important. But his features without all that worry make him look different—and it’s only now that I realize his usual look is one of stress. I’d never noticed it before.

  “Everything okay, Alex?”

  “Sure,” he says, and gives me a twirl on the dance floor as if to prove it. “It’s just been a crazy time lately, that’s all.”

  “A terrible time,” I agree. I look up at him. I like his face this way, relaxed, happier. “Hey, when are we going to start training for Cloudline?”

  “Anytime you want.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “You’re on,” he says, then twirls me again.

  Sixteen

  Runners often say you need to put enough miles in the bank before you’re ready for a race. Each training run is like a small deposit, one that doesn’t just build up interest (endurance) over time but builds up confidence, too. And running, I think, is ultimately about confidence. If you believe you can finish the race, you’re already halfway to finishing.

  So I’ve been doing my best lately to put miles in the bank. And Alex has been helping me.

  Since Halloween, we’ve been running every day. Alex doesn’t take me up to the Lost Mine Trail. Instead we take a trail that leads up toward Mount Lithia, a trail that begins peacefully, meandering through Manzanita Park, then takes a sharp turn up the side of a hill, going steeply upward as it cuts back and forth, until you find yourself high above Lithia and wishing someone would pick you up off the mountain and carry you home.

  But this hill is just a speed bump compared to Mount Lithia. The first time Alex took me up this hill, I was thrilled just to reach the top. Then he said, Now the climbing begins.

  From the top of that hill, he took me onto a narrower trail, less traveled and more heavily covered by trees. And steep. Never-endingly steep. Every time we rounded a curve, I felt every joint in my body wishing for level ground.

  Alex is a fast runner, and he tested me throughout. More than a few times I felt the urge to say, Hold up or Slow down, but I did not—partly because it took too much effort, because I was too winded to say much of anything. I let Alex determine when we stopped and turned back toward Lithia. And each day, he pushed us a bit further.

  Miles in the bank.

  This morning, I hear a low sound as I get out of bed. It actually takes me a second to realize it’s me, that
I’m inadvertently groaning as I try to heave my sore body out of bed.

  I’m getting used to the pain, the sore legs, and I actually welcome it. It’s not an awful pain, like from an injury; it’s a dull pain that comes from my muscles being tested. From my body rising to the challenge. The weaker I feel after a demanding run, the stronger I feel the next day, and the faster I run the next time out. The pain is not unlike the dull pain over losing Stacey, and it helps remind me that the pain will pass, that I’ll grow stronger and feel better eventually.

  I’m still sitting on the edge of the bed when I hear a knock at the door. My heart quickens—could it be Roman? I get up, before I have a chance to think about how frumpy I look, and open the door.

  It’s David.

  “Would you mind opening the store this morning?” he asks.

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I’m not feeling well,” he says, and he doesn’t look well either. I’m not sure whether he’s really ill, or just sick in the heart, but either way it feels the same.

  “I’ll stay all day,” I assure him. “Do you need anything?”

  He shakes his head. I’ll have to try to remember to bring food home tonight. He probably wouldn’t eat much at all if I didn’t remind him to.

  I take a quick shower and grab a banana on my way out the door. It’s not much, and I know I’ll be hungry later, but maybe Alex will bring me some lunch. He stopped by with lunch from the co-op last week, and the other night he took me out to a vegetarian restaurant in the main square, where we ate portabella mushroom sandwiches with spiced curly fries. It felt far more comfortable to be in a diner-style restaurant rather than a candlelit one. And I could wear the running clothes I’d worn to work. Everything feels so natural with Alex. What I like the best is that I don’t have to fill the empty moments between sentences. We can sit quietly, and I don’t feel anxious the way I do with Roman, wondering what he’s thinking. It’s what I like about Lithia, too. It’s a place surrounded by nature, by silence, and people don’t try to fill the silence the way they do in other cities.

  Yet this is something I like about Roman, too. Well, that and his movie-star looks. He doesn’t fill the air with empty words either. But his silence is of a different sort—it comes from someplace darker and lonelier and unexplored. I’ve been hoping I could be the one to explore it, to help open him up. That maybe he could help me, too. Our connection is so strong.

  Or, it was.

  I haven’t seen Roman all week. Not since his Halloween party. I’ve been tempted to call him, but I don’t know his number, or if he even has one. I’ve never seen him on a cell phone. Maybe it’s part of his whole quiet thing, not being accessible.

  I’ve considered waiting outside the theater some evening to catch him coming to work, or even later, to catch him going home. But most evenings find me heading up into the hills with Alex, so I haven’t had the chance. Maybe Roman knows this. Maybe he doesn’t want me to catch up with him at all.

  And then I tell myself that though he was angry that night, he doesn’t need to hold a grudge. If there is anything between us, it should be stronger than one little dance with Alex. I try to be patient, telling myself that he knows where I live, where I work. He’ll find me when he wants to.

  But he hasn’t. Not yet. And I wish he would.

  Because the more time I spend with Alex, the more I enjoy it. The more I feel Roman slipping away.

  ~

  There are two challenges to managing the store all by yourself: bathroom breaks and food. Fortunately, David lets me help myself to the energy bars we sell, as long as I keep track of what I eat. I’ve had three LUNA bars today so far. Not exactly the same as lunch, but they’re supposed to be quite nutritious.

  Getting in a bathroom break has proven more challenging. Every time I head toward the back, I hear the phone, or the doorbell, or both.

  Finally I just have to ignore it all and take care of business. And, sure enough, from the little bathroom I can hear someone calling, “Hello! Anyone here?”

  I race back out front to encounter a tall woman in bright-red racing tights and wraparound reflective glasses. She’s holding a half-full water bottle and looking impatient, as if she’s been waiting forever.

  “Sorry,” I say. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m in a hurry,” she says, then walks over to the shoe wall and grabs a pair of Adidas. “Get me a pair of these in size nine.”

  I jog back into our storage room for her shoes, a little afraid of her. People this grumpy are a rarity in Lithia, especially now, here in the store, with Stacey being gone. It’s been the opposite lately, with people coming in saying, I hate to trouble you, but I need some shoes…

  And, wouldn’t you know it, we don’t have her size. I look everywhere, but there’s nothing in a size nine.

  I return to the front, where she’s standing there literally tapping her foot. I resist the urge to tell her we’d probably have something for her if her feet weren’t oversized. Instead, I apologize and offer to look for another shoe in a size nine.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I like the Brooks a lot,” I say, then hold up a foot. “I love this pair.”

  She looks down at my shoe with distaste. I realize that the shoes have gotten pretty grungy, and I put my foot back on the ground.

  “How many miles you run a week?” she asks.

  “I’m up to about twenty,” I say, rounding down a little.

  “When you’re up to forty a week, we’ll talk,” she says. “I’ve always worn Adidas. That’s what I need.”

  She returns to the wall to scan the other shoes perched there.

  “Are you training for Cloudline?” I ask, trying to make conversation.

  “Yep,” she says, dismissively, as if it’s such a dumb question she can hardly be bothered to answer it.

  “I take it you’ve run it before?”

  She turns to me. “I’ve won it before. Three times.”

  “Oh.” As she stares me down, I feel my competitive juices boiling. I feel the way Alex and Roman must’ve felt that night at the Halloween party. Like I want to challenge her to something. Not a fight. A one-on-one race, out on the street. Anywhere. Any length.

  “I’m registered for Cloudline, too,” I say.

  She looks at me as if I don’t stand a chance at completing the race. “It’s not easy,” she says. “Your first time?”

  “For this one, yes.”

  “Well, good luck to you,” she says, turning back to the wall. “I don’t see what I need here.”

  “I can order them for you,” I say, hurrying to the counter for a pad and pen. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Erica,” she says, “but that won’t be necessary.”

  “Do you live in Lithia?”

  “I live in California,” she says, with a slight lift of her nose. “I’m here to train.”

  “Well, it’ll probably only take about a we—”

  “Never mind,” she says. “I’ll just order online.” She snatches her water bottle from the seat she’s put it on and heads for the door.

  I follow her to the door and watch her walk away. Now it makes sense; she’s from out of town, and she doesn’t know what happened to Stacey. It makes me feel a little better, knowing that Lithia is still the friendly place I thought it was.

  But somehow, the encounter has made me feel a little less friendly myself. Not that competition is a bad thing—it can be a good, healthy thing. But all I can think of is beating Erica in this race. And not just edging past her at the finish line. I want to smoke her, as Stacey would have said. And I think that if Stacey were here, she would want me to.

  Seventeen

  Someone is following me.

  I am a mile into the Lost Mine Trail, and I keep hearing the crunch and shuffle of feet behind me. Yet every time I look, I see nothing. My mind must be playing tricks on me. This paranoia—it all started yesterday.

  Yesterday, while I
was out running an errand for David, I had that same weird feeling—that unmistakable sense that someone is watching you. So I crossed the street. And when I noticed someone else cross the street, about fifty yards back, I stopped to look at a window display, and this person stopped, too. When I turned to look at him, he entered a store, as if that’s where he’d been headed all along. But I knew better.

  Someone is following me.

  I never got a very close look—but I could see that he’s older, in his late thirties, and balding. He was wearing khakis and a button-down shirt.

  After picking up what David needed, I stopped by the co-op to get our lunch. I felt as though I was still being followed, though each time I turned I couldn’t see anyone. Either this guy got better at hiding, or he’d given up. Or maybe he had never been following me at all.

  I found Alex in the cereal aisle. “Do you see anyone watching me?” I asked. “Look around and tell me what you see. But don’t make it obvious that you’re looking.”

  Alex looked around, unfortunately being very obvious about it. “We’re the only ones in this aisle, Kat.”

  “Okay, then follow me.” I described the man to him and led him to the produce section near the front of the store. I pretended I was looking at oranges as Alex scanned the customers.

  “I don’t see him,” he said. “And besides, I recognize almost everyone in here. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” I look around, too, but he’s right—that man is nowhere to be seen. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “You sure?” He looked concerned. “Do you want me to walk you back to the store?”

  “No, I’ll be fine. So, are we hitting the trail this evening?”

  “I can’t,” Alex said. “I’ve got inventory tonight. Love the overtime, but it’s going to be a late night.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  “Sure.” He studied my face, as if he was reading my mind. “You’re not thinking of running by yourself tonight?”

  “Of course. I’ve got to keep getting the miles in.”

  “Why don’t you just take the night off?”

  “It’ll just be a short run,” I said.

  “Well, stay off the Lost Mine Trail.”