On the Road to Find Out

by Rachel Toor

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “So what happened yesterday?” I asked again.

  “Won a race.”

  “How long was it?”

  “A half.”

  He looked uncomfortable.

  “A half what?”

  “Half marathon.”

  “You won a half marathon yesterday?”

  He nodded and said, “Small race. None of the fast guys showed up.”

  “Um, how far is that?”

  “13.1”

  “Miles.”

  “What?”

  “No. 13.1 miles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  3

  Miles and I spent more than two hours together at the water station. It felt like fifteen minutes. Not only was it a blast to hang out with such a hot guy, it was a hoot seeing all these people, men and women, running through the woods wearing red dresses. Some had straps, some had long sleeves, some were polyester ruffled prom gowns, and some were similar to things I’d seen in my mother’s closet. Many of the men also had on red lipstick and a few wore wigs.

  According to Miles, runners would go to thrift stores looking for the “best” dress. As soon as he said that I wondered if I would see one of them wearing something that had come from my house.

  A supertall guy in a poufy low-cut gown had two giant balloons to fill out the bust. Right as he got to our table, he swung his arm to reach for a cup of water and one of his “boobs” popped.

  Miles laughed so hard there were tears in his eyes.

  Many of the women wore red dresses too, but they seemed less giddy about the whole thing. Others wore what seemed to be skirts made for running. I couldn’t wait to tell Jenni about those.

  After the fastest people passed by without stopping for a drink, the slower ones grabbed our carefully placed cups. Miles clapped and cheered and encouraged them all. Many of them, especially those at the front of the pack, knew him and barked out congratulations. One guy in a sparkly spaghetti-strap number that would have made Nina Garcia sneer stopped, guzzled four cups of water, and asked Miles a bunch of questions about the half marathon. Miles just said, “I had a good day,” and tried to shoo the guy along by saying, “It’s a race, Dean, get going.” When he ran off I could see that he had slit his dress up the sides so he could move his legs. Tim Gunn would have approved, even if Nina sneered.

  When the runners came in big groups, we had to hustle to make sure all the water cups were filled. I understood why we only poured half a cup the first time I saw a guy pick one up, pinch it, and funnel the water into his mouth. The people who didn’t pinch tended to spill a bunch down the front of their shirts, or to cough it out. The fastest runners grabbed, pinched, poured, and threw the empties on the ground. I must have looked surprised because Miles told me this was not rude; we had a big plastic garbage bag and we needed to collect the trash. “We’re here to support the runners,” he said.

  But some of them looked for the bag anyway, and most of them thanked us for being out there. I could not believe how nice they were. Miles kept up a mostly supportive commentary as they ran past:

  “Owen—how can you be so fast when you run so funny?” It was true—the guy’s legs kicked out behind him and off to the sides. The guy gave him a big smile and flipped him the bird.

  “Jonathan, way to go!”

  “Nice job, Candace—looking strong! Guess that CrossFit training is paying off!”

  “Kevin—isn’t this race too short for you? It’s only a 10K, not a hundred.”

  “David, always smooth.”

  “Ruth, you have movie-star legs!”

  After a while, things spread out and long minutes passed between people. As I watched the parade of runners, I was surprised by how many shapes and sizes they came in. I saw there is no such thing as a “runner’s body.” Some looked smooth and efficient, and others—even those who were in the front—did not seem like they should be able to move so fast.

  Miles and Joan, both skinny, compact, and typically athletic, were, I realized, kind of exceptional. Plenty of people at the race had extra pounds around their middles, or substantial boobs and womanly hips, and some of the men had big bellies and some even had what you’d have to call blubber butts. Or no butts at all.

  They also spanned the ages. The youngest was an eleven-year-old girl who ran superfast, and the oldest was, no kidding, old. I mean, great-grandfather old. But when he came through our water station he was far from last. He had on a baseball cap with a feather sticking out of it and he greeted Miles with a slap on the shoulder and a smile that made it look like there was nowhere on earth he’d rather be, and nothing he’d rather be doing. He upended a cup of water into his mouth, said, “Gotta go,” and booked down the trail.

  “That’s Bob Hayes,” Miles said, after the man had made the turn. He said it the way you might say “That’s Bill Gates” or “That’s Scarlett Johansson.” Or even, “That’s God.”

  “Eighty-six and still doing marathons.”

  I did the math in my head. “26 miles?” I’m sure Miles thought I was brilliant.

  “26.2.”

  Toward the end, small groups of mostly women jogged or walked, laughing and talking. As they came by they said things like, “What a great day for a run,” and a tall woman with long blond hair looked at me and asked, “Aren’t we fortunate to be able to be out here doing this?” She thanked me for giving up my Sunday morning to help.

  When I said to Miles that the people at the back of the pack seemed to be having more fun than the fast ones, he said, “It’s a different kind of fun. Personally, I can’t imagine doing a race and not going as hard as you can, but whatever.”

  After the last runners had come through, Joan drove up in her car and we loaded in the table and the now-full garbage bag, and she thanked us in her perky voice and drove off.

  Stunned that she would leave us in the middle of nowhere, I looked at Miles and said, “WTF?” Then I got embarrassed because what if he didn’t like girls who curse, even though, technically, I had not cursed.

  “Now we sweep the course,” he said.

  I thought: Sweep? Are you kidding me? We have to clean up all that flour he spilled on the ground?

  Miles had crammed all his stuff into his pack and slung it on his back. Then he raised his chin toward the trail.

  “Wanna?” he asked.

  “Wanna what?”

  “Run. Go ahead, take the lead. We’ll just do the last part of the trail to make sure no one has gotten hurt or lost.”

  He said it would be slow, since he’d raced the day before and had done a shake-out run that morning. “We’ve got just two miles back to the start,” he said, and I thought, right. Just two miles.

  I began running, and was winded in about four steps. I could barely hear Miles behind me—he ran silently and didn’t seem to need to breathe.

  Miles must have heard me panting. People on the other side of the ocean probably heard me panting.

  “So what do you like to read?” he asked.

  “Books,” I barked out. I could not manage more than one syllable at a time.

  “Here, let me go ahead,” he said, and he glided past, brushing me on the arm as he went by. Then he slowed way down. He said, “Do you know why a marathon is 26.2 miles?”

  Even though the pace had slackened, and my view had improved—his butt in those tights was supercute—I still couldn’t catch my breath. No way could I have a normal conversation while running. Miles seemed to sense this. He just started talking.

  “So, the legend goes that the distance is 26 miles to commemorate the run of Pheidippides, a messenger sent from the ancient battlefield of Marathon to the city of Athens to announce that the Athenians had defeated the Persians. He ran the whole 26 miles, burst into the assembly, blurted out, ‘We won!,’ and dropped dead. The extra 0.2 miles was added in the 1908 Olympics so the race could end in the stadium in front of the royal family.”

&nb
sp; “Huh,” I managed to snort.

  “Now that account is pretty bogus. Herodotus—you know, the Greek historian?”

  I made a noise that I hoped came out as uh-uh but probably sounded more like a grunting pig.

  “Well, Herodotus mentions a messenger named Pheidippides who ran from Athens to Sparta asking for help and then ran back—it was about 150 miles each way. No mention of him dropping dead. That would make him the father of the ultramarathon as well. Do you know about ultras?”

  (Pig noise from me again.)

  “So an ultra is any race longer than the 26.2 miles of the marathon.”

  “Longer?”

  “Yeah. Next step up is usually 50K—31 miles. Then there are 50-milers, 100Ks, and 100-milers.”

  He went on to tell me about all these crazy-long races that took place in the woods, where people ran through the middle of the night. They had water stations like ours, Miles said, that provided a buffet of snacks: cookies, chips, M&M’s, Gatorade, boiled potatoes, chicken noodle soup, pb&j sandwiches. Runners stopped, grabbed a handful of calories, and kept running. Miles had volunteered at some of them and that’s where he’d first met eighty-six-year-old Bob Hayes. That guy didn’t start running until he was sixty, Miles said, and now he’s done a bunch of 50- and 100-mile races, and it didn’t look like he was ever going to stop. Miles said that you get these giant silver rodeo belt buckles for finishing 100-mile races in under twenty-four hours. I don’t know what seemed stranger: running 100 miles in one day or a skinny runner dude wearing a big metal belt buckle.

  Miles talked and talked like a teacher lecturing about a subject he really loves. I listened and occasionally made the sound of a barnyard animal. I couldn’t believe it when we passed through a clearing and I could see the fire station where the race started. We were back already. Miles had talked the whole way and I’d been concentrating so hard on what he was saying that I had forgotten to be freaked out about running with him.

  While it wasn’t easy, it was by far the best two miles I had ever run.

  4

  We arrived as they were giving out the prizes for sixty-to-sixty-four-year-old women. Joan announced the names, and she gave each person, no matter whether they had earned first, second, or third place, a chocolate heart and a big hug.

  The man who won the race came over to talk to Miles. He still wore his tight red dress and I have to say, he had a better body for it than many of the Project Runway models. He carried a gigantic chocolate bar, which I assumed was his reward for winning.

  I wondered, briefly, whether, if Miles had entered the race and had won the bar, he would have tried to share it with me, the way he’d offered me a piece of every item he’d pulled out of his backpack. Maybe he would have even given it to me, like a boyfriend would win a stuffed animal at the state fair for his girl. I’d carry it around and everyone would know that—

  I had to mentally slap myself upside the head.

  A bunch of other guys came around to ask Miles about his half marathon the day before. They were speaking running. I edged away.

  People were busy taking down the finish line and when Joan hugged the last runner, she came over to me.

  “Did you have fun?” Her face was so open, so bright, she seemed illuminated from within, like she’d swallowed a lightbulb. Maybe she just had good skin.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Quite a fashion show.”

  “I know, people spend a lot of time looking for the perfect red dress for this run. Did you find any scraps of clothing on the trees in those last two miles of trail? Someone always manages to get a piece of dress ripped off by a branch.”

  I’d been so busy concentrating on running that if Cinderella’s ball gown dyed red had been hanging from a low bough, I probably would have missed it.

  “Did you get along with Miles?” When she said this, she cocked her head slightly to the right.

  “Um, sure.”

  “He’s a great kid. Oh, shoot,” she said. “I have to give him his workout for the week.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her jacket. “I can’t believe he doesn’t have e-mail. Can you give this to him?” She handed me the paper—on which was an incomprehensible script, things like 6 x 800 @ 2:20; 8 tempo; LR (12–13); 3 fartlek—gave me a hug, and told me to come by the store. Then she flitted off like a tiny running fairy.

  People continued to mill around, eating slices of oranges and chunks of bananas and drinking from the same paper cups we’d given out at our—I thought of it as “our”—water station. Everyone still had on their paper numbers and I wondered if any of them would end up on the wall at Joan’s store.

  It looked like the guys who had mobbed Miles were never going to leave, and I couldn’t figure out what to do and felt awkward standing by myself, so I walked over to Miles and shoved the paper at him.

  “This is from Joan,” I said.

  “Hey, thanks.” He didn’t introduce me to the guys he was talking to and I felt even more awkward.

  “She still coaching you?” asked a dude in a shiny strapless prom dress that kept falling down to expose his nipples.

  “Wouldn’t exactly call it coaching,” Miles said. “She writes out a weekly schedule for me. I usually end up doing more than she calls for, but it’s good to have a guide.”

  “Yeah, well, take it with a grain of salt,” said the winner.

  “Remember the trials—didn’t have the guts,” chimed in the guy in the wardrobe-malfunctioning prom dress. “But I’m glad she’s taken up race directing.”

  Miles said nothing. He folded and unfolded the sheet of paper I’d given him.

  “Gotta go,” I said, too loudly and too abruptly.

  They all looked at me and I wanted to die.

  “Cool hanging with you. See you on the boulevard sometime,” Miles said.

  5

  I could not wait to tell Jenni about my morning activities.

  I called her and said, “Come. Over. Now.”

  “What time is it?” Her voice was soft. I’d probably woken her up.

  “Time for you to be up. And for you to get your little self over here.”

  “Is something wrong? Did you hear from another college?”

  Cripes. I’d managed to stop thinking about the whole thing for one morning. Most colleges wouldn’t make the decisions until April, or at the very end of March. I still had a lot of waiting to do.

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s all good. Come over. Right. Now.” I added, “Please.”

  “I have to take a shower.” She sounded thick and blurry.

  “No, no,” I said, “you can shower here. You can take a soak if you want.” Jenni loved the Jacuzzi tub. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Okay, okay.” She always relented.

  I knew Jenni, being Jenni, wouldn’t be over for at least forty-five minutes. I was going to burst.

  Walter had been awake when I got home. He stood on his back legs and shook the bars of his cage. “You look like a crazed prisoner,” I said as I unlatched his door. He climbed out and, as I walked away, ran after me. I waited for him to do what he normally does: make a flying leap and land on my leg like a superhero scaling a tall building. But he didn’t.

  So I scooped him up and held him to my face.

  “Sweetest baby in all the world,” I said. “My little honey bunches of oats, my Walter-the-pole-vaulter, my Sir Walter Scott, my poochie snoggins, my Walt-with-no-faults, my bambino lovey-dovey man.” He sneezed and his body shook like he was having his own personal earthquake. Then he had to clean his face off so I set him back on the floor.

  I was starving, so I went downstairs and, realizing that Jenni probably wouldn’t have had breakfast, prepared a plate of her favorite foods: slices of kosher salami, chunks of cheese, a raspberry Pop-Tart (she liked them straight out of the package, unfrosted and not toasted), a handful of potato chips, and a bunch of chocolate-covered Brazil nuts. I made myself some Easy Mac and brought it and Jenni’s plate to my room. Walter, who h
as exquisite taste, also loves Easy Mac. When it had cooled enough, I offered him an elbow.

  At first he didn’t want it, but eventually he took it. Before he got down to the business of eating he turned his back on me. He often does this. I give him a piece of food and he pivots to eat it. I’m not sure if it’s that he doesn’t want to seem rude dining in front of me, or if he thinks I’m going to change my mind and take it away from him.

  When he finished, he licked his hands and begged for another piece by standing on his back feet and leaning toward me. He held up one paw and put it on my leg, and I could practically hear him saying, “Please, sir—I want some more” in an Oliver Twist English accent.

  “That’s enough for now,” I said. We both knew that he’d take more elbows but instead of eating them, would stash them somewhere, like inside one of my shoes or in a drawer.

  I sat at the computer and searched for Miles. I didn’t know his last name. When I Googled “Miles” and “half marathon” about twenty gazillion results came up. I didn’t have enough information to be able to stalk—I mean, find out more about—this guy. And I couldn’t stop thinking of him.

  So instead I did rat Googling.

  I found out that rats are both neophobic and neophilic. That means they are afraid of new things (neophobic) and also that they love novelty (neophilia). Being afraid of new stuff makes sense when people are trying to kill you. Because rats tend to be cautious with any food they haven’t had before, they are difficult to poison. I read a bunch about how smart rats are at outfoxing (you might say out-ratting) exterminators. If a rat sees one of his friends eat something new and the guy gets sick, he will avoid that food.

  Rats are also supposed to be thigmophilic, which means “touch-loving.” They don’t have the best eyesight, so they rely on touch to navigate, stick near the edges of things, stay on the sides of cages rather than run across the middle. Again, not my experience. If I bring Walt downstairs, or to some unfamiliar place, he might do that initially. Once he realizes he’s safe, though, he’ll go wherever he wants to, including the middle of the room and onto the lap of whoever’s nearby.