by N. Griffin
“You all look scared shitless,” Eddie said into the mirror as they drove away. “Don’t be. This is our practice meet. Bett and Dan, you just keep your stride open and you’ll be fine. Ranger, don’t start out too quick or you’ll get tired too soon.”
The bus was silent.
“What are you all so quiet about?” cried Eddie.
“Don’t worry. We have adrenaline,” said Bett. “Believe me.”
“Well, let’s see it, then. Eat a PowerBar or something. I’m not bringing sacks of sand all the way over to compete in this meet.”
“Who’s this meet with anyway?” Dan asked.
Bett’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Not Rayfen,” she asked, suddenly feeling nauseated. How had she not considered the meet might be there? And what if her mother had told her father about it? Then her stupid father might stupid come—
“No,” said Eddie, looking at her in the mirror. “Not them.”
Thank God.
“It’s Crow’s Nest,” Eddie continued, “because they’re the ones who invited us, and that’s where we’re going. There might be one more school going as well. A triple meet. There was a question mark on the schedule.”
* * *
Eddie drove like a mad thing over the roads made muddy and rutted from the rain.
“What the hell!” yelled Dan. “Baby on board, Eddie. BABY ON BOARD!”
“I’m not a baby!” yelled Ranger.
“I don’t mean you!” Dan shouted back.
Anna snorted behind them. She wasn’t supposed to run in this meet, obviously, because she had only had one practice, but they were going to sneak her in to get the right number of students from Salt River to count as a team. And Bett was on duty with Dan to wrangle Ranger. What with Mutt denying he had drawn them, Ranger’s truthful, terrified little mouth couldn’t be trusted not to start confessing all over the place and getting himself into trouble.
They rode along in silence, Bett worrying and worrying about how they were going to be punished for last night. Legally. Not just by having to do this meet. And when was her damn ear going to start working again?
54
Saturday, Meet Day
THEY FINALLY PULLED INTO THE Crow’s Nest school parking lot. Bett gulped in a huge breath and let it out again.
“Don’t be nervous,” said Dan. Bett watched his lips carefully. “You’re the best runner on this team.”
Bett started.
“You are,” he said. “You see anyone else getting chased with a bus?”
Bett smiled smally.
“Are your parents coming?” Dan asked her.
“You mean my mom? I doubt it. God, I hope not.” That was all she needed, to have her mom shouting eighties cheers at her as she ran. But she figured her mother would be so busy getting ready to deal with Mutt that she wouldn’t be able to come, anyway.
“Mine are,” said Dan dismally.
“Just keep loose, Bett,” said Eddie, talking at her in the mirror as he pulled the bus into its parking space. “This distance is nothing for you. You could do it in your sleep.”
Bett nodded.
“All right, you twerps, we’re here!” Eddie boomed, stopping the bus with a wake-up jar. “Stop the tiredfest and get focused on your running or I’m going to smack you all silly.”
“You’re not supposed to threaten us, Eddie,” said Ranger wanly.
Bett needed her soda, needed the caffeine. She slipped it out of her backpack and took a sip, craning her neck to see out the window. Who was the other school?
And then she was choking. Coughing. Bett choked on the fizz, and the can flew out of her hand and soda was everywhere, can fallen on the floor, and Bett was out of her seat and pulling up the emergency handle on the back of the bus and out, flying down the road and running as fast as she could, running down this rutted awful road in front of the Crow’s Nest school until she was far away, so far away that running was the only thing left.
Behind her the bus was still, growing smaller and smaller until Bett outran the sight of it over her shoulder and reared down a side road even bumpier and smaller than the one she left. Eff no Pluses. This running was no Plus. The other school was the Catholics, and guess who was getting off their bus.
Stephanie.
55
Saturday, Meet Day
THIS IS WHAT I GET for doing a Fizzicle Feet, Bett thought as she ran, with no need for Eddie to chase her with his bus. This is what.
A long, red, vintage Mustang pulled up beside her, a familiar face at the wheel—a guy with dark hair, so familiar but . . . grown, adult even.
Oh, my God, who is this?
It was Stephanie’s brother, Bill. Of course it was.
“Bett!” Dan was calling her now from behind as he ran toward her. Eddie must have sent him, she thought. Dan? Bill?
“Bett!” Bill was rolling down his window and calling her from the side of the road.
Bett was trapped. There was nowhere to go. She stopped.
Bill leaned over and pushed the passenger door open. “Get in, Bett,” he said. “I saw you jump off that bus. We got business.”
Bett hesitated. Then she got in the car.
“Why are you even here?” Bett asked. Dan was still running down the road toward them. But Bill threw the car into gear, and as she and Bill passed Dan, Bett saw him peter to a stop and look back at the car.
Bill glanced at her. “I’m here to watch my sister,” he said. “Why else? I don’t have to be back at college until next week.”
“Stephanie is doing cross-country? That’s why she’s here?”
Bill cocked his head. “All you need is two feet to run, Bett.”
Two feet and one left eye.
Or two feet and one right ear.
But Bett didn’t say anything aloud.
“Bill,” Bett whispered, and Bill pulled over and parked the car.
“I know,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.
Dan, jogging up to the car from behind, stopped, clearly having no idea what to do now.
“Excuse me,” he said into the open window. “Bett, I don’t know this guy.”
“I don’t anymore, either,” said Bett, breaking into sobs. “I just cry on random people and get snot on them.”
“To be fair, that happens when you laugh, too,” said Bill, and Bett managed a chokey smile through her tears.
“Uh, Bett, um, we have a meet . . .” Dan obviously didn’t know what to do with himself, and Bett didn’t know what to do with him, either. Because Bill was right. She and he had business, and she had to take care of that. Most of what she had to take care of could happen after she ran this meet, after she was done and had run every word she had ever written on her soles and into her feet. But she and Bill had business now, and she had to take care of that first.
“Give me a minute? Five, tops?” Bett asked Dan. “Tell Eddie that my running out of the bus can count as my warm-up. I have to talk to Bill.” She gestured back and forth between the two guys. “Bill, Dan, Dan, Bill.” They chin-nodded at each other.
“Okay,” said Dan. “But you’ll miss walking the course. And don’t miss your race. Eddie will go ballistic.”
“I won’t,” promised Bett. But how could she run? She was suddenly just so damn tired.
But Bill was promising: “I’ll get her there,” and Bett knew he would.
* * *
As Dan jogged back to the school, Bill turned to Bett.
“First thing,” he said, gazing levelly at her. “Why haven’t you ever once come to see my sister? Not even once!”
Bett’s body was on fire with remembrance.
“Bett—” Bill prompted her when she didn’t respond.
“I couldn’t. I can’t.”
“Why not?” Hard, firm.
“Because she was a perfect friend and a perfect human and I wrecked her. I wrecked her!” Bett burst out at last.
“No,” said Bill. “Wrong. But put that to one side for a min
ute. Next: Why has she never gone to see you?”
Bett’s head snapped up. “Why would she want to?” she asked, and here came those tears again. “It’s my fault she lost her eye.”
Bill stared at her. “Bett,” he said, his voice cracking. “You saved her.” His hands gripped the wheel so hard, Bett thought it might snap. “You broke her fall and rolled her away. She would have—Bett. You didn’t . . . You saved her.”
“NO!” cried Bett. She’d heard all this BS before. Her mother, Aunt Jeanette, the pastor. But she didn’t, couldn’t believe them. “I didn’t! That explosion—it was all my fault! She hates me!”
“Are you kidding me?! She thinks you hate her.”
“Why would I hate her?”
“Because our stupid mother fell for your stupid dad and wrecked your family.”
“It’s my stupid dad who fell for the Fl—your mom. And he wouldn’t have if I hadn’t blown up those gas pumps!”
“What?!” said Bill incredulously. “Hold on. Hold the hell on. There is too much here.” He took one hand off the steering wheel and held up one finger. “First thing, who says it was you who blew up those pumps? One of the valves was so fragile it was about to blow at any second. That’s what the insurance guy said.”
“But I’m the one who made them do it,” said Bett. “I’m the one who jumped on the hose.”
“Trying to save my sister from her inept jump down our porch steps, I might add,” said Bill. “Bett, anything could have made that gas pump burst.”
“But I jumped on it. And it did burst.”
“It did.” Bill looked far away. Then his eyes were filling with tears, too. “We almost lost you both.”
“I’m okay,” said Bett. “Really. Who needs two ears?”
Bill smiled briefly, then got serious.
“Bett, you are not okay. You’re not okay if the mere sight of my sister makes you run like hell down this road because you feel too guilty to—to . . .”
Be here.
Be.
But she wouldn’t say that, although she knew it was true.
“If I hadn’t encouraged Stephanie to do her Fizzicle Feet,” Bett said carefully, “I wouldn’t have jumped on that hose and there wouldn’t have been an explosion and my dad wouldn’t have shown up and fallen in love with your mom. He wouldn’t have decided to leave me, I mean my mom, in, like, three days, the way he did. My dad would never have seen how gorgeous the Fl—your mom is.”
“Oh, Bett,” said Bill. “Come on. You’re not that clueless, are you? My mom. Your dad. They’d been having an affair for almost a year. Our parents blew up our families, not you.”
What? What?!
But then, of course.
Of course.
The flowers. The phone call. The good-looking-dad comment from Stephanie, which must have been an echo of Mrs. Roan’s own words. Bett’s dad drawn to delicate and sweet, and surrounded at home by sturdy and competent.
Of course they had already been having an affair.
“Stephanie didn’t get it either,” Bill said. He shook his head. “She thought the same thing you thought. You two. So dense. You missed all the signs.” He sighed and turned toward her again. “You understand now?”
Yes. But it didn’t make a damn thing better.
56
Saturday, Just Before the Girls’ Meet
AS THE ONLY GIRLS ON the Salt River team, Bett and Anna had to share a locker room with the other visiting team.
Stephanie’s team.
And there she was.
She had gone from pretty to gorgeous, her long dark hair shining in its ponytail, done up at the top with a clean blue ribbon like all the other girls on the Catholic team. She was still slight and tiny but more developed now, though not the way Bett was, which made sense, because Bett was pretty sure Stephanie didn’t hide emergency Ho Hos in rock caves above the river.
Bett dug deep for the courage to speak.
“Stephanie,” she said finally.
“Bett,” said Stephanie.
They were silent. Bett wanted to look at Stephanie’s false eye but couldn’t.
“I hate your father,” said Stephanie finally.
Bett’s eyes went wide. That, she hadn’t expected.
“I hate him, too,” she said. “Also your mom. I hate her, as well.”
“Oh, me too,” Stephanie agreed. “I hate them both. Your father more, though.”
“I get that,” said Bett. “He’s a twiddly little thing.”
“He just doesn’t ever shut up,” said Stephanie. She was quiet. Then her whole body stiffened and she looked straight at Bett.
“I am so MAD AT YOU!” she cried.
Bett had been waiting for that. She forced herself to look into Stephanie’s eyes. If Bett hadn’t known one eye was pretend, she wouldn’t have guessed it, but then Stephanie burst into tears and then Bett could tell, because although Stephanie had the same noisy weeping she’d had two years ago, tears came out of only one eye as she crarked like a crow.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Now tears were flowing down Bett’s face, too, but from two eyes. Two.
“Why did you never come see me? I lost an eye, Bett! Why did you hate me for it? You never even called or texted or anything!”
“Hate you? Hate you for what? It was my fault!” Bett’s head was bent almost to her chest. “How could I face you when it was all my fault?”
Anna and the Catholics were gaping, yet trying not to gape. Then Anna nudged their captain and the girls moved away, letting Bett and Stephanie be alone.
“Your fault? What are you talking about?” shouted Stephanie.
“I stomped on that hose! I made the gas tank explode!”
“How stupid are you, Bett?” Stephanie cried. “That valve was ready to blow at any second—the insurance guy couldn’t believe it hadn’t already!”
“No!” cried Bett again. Stephanie was just echoing her brother and all the rest of them. “No!”
But this time was different.
“Yes.” said Stephanie. “Yes.”
Bett’s left ear popped. She felt fluid trickle down her ear into her throat and the noise that came with it from the left was a surprise and too loud.
“I am so sorry, Stephanie.” Bett’s own voice boomed in her too-clear ear. “I am so sorry. I never hated you. Never.”
“I hated you a little,” Stephanie confessed, but before Bett could say anything, Stephanie added, “for abandoning me. With your father, of all people.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. But I didn’t hate you. I just didn’t know what to do.”
“I didn’t, either. Maybe I should have called you.”
“Why should you have when I avoided you this whole time?” Bett swept tears from her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Stephanie! I’m so sorry!”
“So am I,” Stephanie said. “You were my warrior Fizzicle Feet bestie, Bett.”
“You were my beautiful-hearted best friend,” Bett replied. “You’re still beautiful.”
“So are you.”
“No, I’m fat.”
“Not mutually exclusive, Bett.”
“It is if you eat all the time until you’re the size of a boulder.”
“Who cares if you’re fat? Who cares?” Stephanie cried.
The door to the locker room opened. It was the coach from the Crow’s Nest team.
“Come on, girls,” she said. “I don’t know what drama you have going on in here, but you’ll have to save it for later. The girls’ race is starting.”
“Wait—Bett—so—what are we?” asked Stephanie.
“I don’t know,” said Bett, wiping more wet from her face.
But she did know. One each of their selfish parents had made sisters of them.
And she tried not to cry again as they headed out for their race.
* * *
The gun went off, and off they went, Bett running like she hadn’t run in years, her stride open and loose, no backpack to m
ake it harder, but no choosing to stay still to take the Plus-feeling away, either. She owed it to Eddie to run. She’d been stupid, ignorant—thinking that war made all people crazy. She owed it to her team, who were in who-knew-what kind of trouble. She owed it to the fire of competition she couldn’t hide in her heart. Did she owe it to Mutt? Oh, she didn’t know. She couldn’t think about that right now. She had to run.
The course was a double loop, just like the practice loop at home. There was a part that ran along a fence, and that’s where all the spectators were. Bett saw Bill, then Dan and Ranger’s mom and dad and, surprisingly, Paul there with his mother, and Eli, too. They must have come to show support for the Break-In Elite Force runners. And oh, no—Mom and Aunt Jeanette were there, too, after all, screaming, “GO, Bett! GO, Bett!” and Bett had to pretend she didn’t see them as she pounded past.
The course wound through a narrow path in the woods, which was great, because it meant there was no way Eddie could chase Bett with the bus in here, even if he got mad at her. And he was mad. She passed him by the fence on the second loop and he screamed at her. “Get up GET UP GET UP!” and Bett moved faster until she thought she’d bust. She did it, though. Finished the second loop. Time 21:55. But she only came in second. One of the Crow’s Nest girls was even faster.
But No worries, thought Bett. I’ll beat her next time. She knew she could. And that she would.
* * *
Bett waited for Stephanie at the finish line. Stephanie came in second to last to Anna. Stephanie’s time was 33:24. “I don’t care,” she said. “I just do it because I want to be more badass like you.” And, just like in ninth grade, the two of them laughed until, again, they cried, now with Bett noisy as a crow and Stephanie’s tears streaming out of her one real eye. And Bett didn’t care if the laughing was ten thousand Pluses. She didn’t care at all.
Once they got control of themselves, Stephanie said, “You know . . . your dad? He really wants to see you. Even if he is a twiddly jerk and won’t shut up about self-reflection the whole time.”
“I don’t want to see him,” Bett said quickly. “I’m not ready to forgive him.”
“Oh, don’t forgive him,” said Stephanie. “Jesus, no. Just see him and let it suck.”
