Winning Ruby Heart

by Jennifer Lohmann

  Her mother was still talking, still throwing out her attempts to manage her daughter’s life in the same way she tossed dead leaves into a bucket.

  “...then we would help you navigate the press. King seemed like he would be a good interviewer for you—your father watched some of his old interviews online.”

  “I can pick my own interviews now.” A slice of her forgave her mother for thinking Ruby still needed her interviews and reporters picked out for her. She’d delegated responsibility for her entire life to her parents when she was racing. The very idea that she’d want any independence back was a shock to their system, and neither of her parents, especially her mother, had fully processed the change yet.

  But if love resided in Ruby’s heart, fear in her lungs, and anger deep in her belly, forgiveness had long ago pitched its tent in her Achilles tendon, a vulnerable spot for any athlete and one where an injury could kill a career.

  “You’re here,” her mom intoned. “We can help you.”

  Yes, I’m here. Why am I still here? Any appreciation she’d felt for having her own bedroom suite and the expansive lawn for barefoot running exercises was long gone. Even her appreciation of the weight room was waning. Poor little rich girl, her guilt—which she was pretty sure resided in her liver—mocked. The gold surrounding you has a smudge and now you don’t want it.

  But was guilt a reason to stay?

  Before “the scandal,” Ruby had always credited her parents’ managing her every move as a kindness. Female athletes didn’t usually make enough money to hire people to take care of the business. It had been a blessing. And she still wanted to credit it as a kindness, but her parents couldn’t seem to get out of the habit of running her life, even when she had no life to run. Perhaps their management would smart less if they seemed to take an interest in her, as well.

  Now their management was intrusive and about them and their needs, rather than about her and her needs. Like her running, her life—both the highs and the lows—had started out about her and had become about her parents and their reputation.

  With one finger, Ruby touched the small lemon growing on the tree by the window. Not even a tree, because it was pruned regularly to keep it the perfect size and shape for this corner. And the poor lemon wasn’t even destined to be food—her mother didn’t like the taste.

  Ruby pulled her hand away before she gave in to her urge to pull the fruit off and kill what growth the tree was allowed. She was sick to death of being a stepping-stone for other people’s agendas. More accurately, she was sick to death of herself, for not having enough of a backbone to be her own agenda.

  “You know we always want the best for you. Everything we’ve sacrificed for your dreams, we wouldn’t have done that if we didn’t want the best for you.” Hearing her mother say they had only ever acted out of Ruby’s best interest made her want to vomit. She left the room without saying another word.

  * * *

  BY THE END of the week, Ruby and Dotty had gotten to know each other through their running. They would run for five miles, then Ruby would run with some other dogs and, depending on her training schedule, she might take Dotty out for another five miles. They’d grown to trust each other. Dotty’s quivering was now more excitement than nervous energy. Today the dog had sat on command only to hop up again.

  Once running had been an expression of joy for Ruby. It hadn’t been about winning but had been about being outside and feeling her legs move and her feet float above the earth. Freedom, pure and simple. She looked at Dotty, who was sitting down, then hopping up, then sitting down, then hopping up, not entirely able to control her eagerness for a run. Ruby bit back her enjoyment of the dog to reprimand Dotty, even though Ruby’s heart had swollen and nearly burst her sports bra. For the first time in many years, Ruby wanted to run longer than was on her training schedule. She could put on her shoes and they could go until they couldn’t go any longer.

  When Micah had asked her why she was racing again, the promise of finding joy mixed with peace that running offered was her real answer. She puffed air out of her mouth, the wisps of her hair dancing in front of her eyes. Even after they’d had that long dinner together, Micah probably wouldn’t believe that answer. Which shouldn’t bother her, but it did.

  Not that it mattered. Dotty wasn’t her dog. But she would stick to her training schedule and take this brief moment to be outside her life with Dotty.

  When they returned from their second run, Jodie was standing outside with a clipboard in her hand, which was unusual. Together, Ruby and Dotty slowed down their pace and stopped in front of the volunteer coordinator. Ruby pursed her lips in preparation for whatever had sparked Jodie’s serious face. Dotty sat close enough to Ruby that she could feel the dog’s heat, her tail kicking up dust that stuck to the sweat on her calves. When Jodie looked at the dog, Ruby followed her gaze. All the attention must have made Dotty nervous, because the dog interrupted her panting to lick Ruby’s hand.

  Jodie looked back up, tapping her pen on the metal of the clipboard. “Have you thought about adopting Dotty?”

  Ruby swallowed her first response, which was “Mom and Dad won’t let me,” because she was twenty-nine and few people understood how a twenty-nine-year-old who’d been on the cover of Sports Illustrated could be stuck living with her parents. Instead, she said, “I thought you were going to place her with one of the Dalmatian rescues.”

  “They’re looking for a foster home for her, but they haven’t had any luck. Thanks to your regular running, she’s stopped chewing on the bars of the kennel and ripping up blankets, but few people have the stamina for a Dalmatian. Every time someone looks into her kennel, I worry they’ll want to take her home and we’ll see her back in two months. You could take her running with you and she’d be fine. With training, she’ll go twenty, maybe even thirty miles with you.”

  “But what about my volunteer work here?” Most of her running was done at the shelter, with the dogs.

  “Dalmatians aren’t clever, but they’re obedient and generally get along with other dogs. Dotty’s no exception. As a shelter employee, I shouldn’t say this, but you could train her to run off leash and she could run along with you and any other dog. You’d have to make sure the other dogs also ran at your heels, or she’d get upset at the pack order, but I think you could handle that.”

  She looked down at Dotty, who looked up at her with large black eyes and a pink tongue lolling out of her mouth. The dog’s tail was still wagging. The sun cast a shadow on the ground, even of the tongue and the tail. Happy and carefree. And eager to go running again.

  “Okay.” Ruby couldn’t say no to all the hope bundled up in Dotty’s face.

  “Do you have a vet?”

  “No, but I can get some recommendations.” Affording a vet was another question. Ruby would have to figure that out.

  Jodie handed Ruby the clipboard. Ruby handed Jodie the end of Dotty’s leash.

  “Fill out everything you can. We’ll add the name of your vet when you pick one. Dotty will need to be spayed.” Jodie’s disrespect for Dotty’s former owners reverberated as she stretched out the syllables in the last word. “I have a guide for new dog owners for you at the desk, and you can pick up Dotty at the end of next week.” She clicked her tongue and Dotty stood, ready to follow Jodie into the building.

  Ruby looked at the application. She would have to write down her parents’ address, but she didn’t want Jodie to think she’d been misled. “Jodie, I’ll have to find a new place to live.”

  “Your current place?”

  “I can’t have dogs. But—” she hurried on before Jodie could interrupt “—I’ve been meaning to look for a new place to live, and this is the excuse I needed.”

  “If you’re renting, I’ll have to call the landlord.”

  Ruby looked at the Dotty, who was following the conversatio
n with interest, if not awareness. She tried to imagine the dog going back into the kennel with the cold concrete floor and fifth-hand dog bed. Dotty cocked her head to one side and blinked into the sun. If she let the dog down, Ruby didn’t know how she’d be able to look at herself in the mirror again. Having already been through one mirror-covering phase in her life, she knew she didn’t want to go through another.

  “No problem. I’ll take care of it.” She had no idea how she would take care of it, only that she wanted Dotty more than anything she’d ever wanted before, short of a gold medal. Patience, Micah had said. Ruby had been practicing patience for years. Patiently waiting for the lawsuits to be resolved. Patiently waiting for someone—anyone—to say they forgave her. Patiently waiting to forgive herself.

  To hell with patience. Her excitement over getting out of her parents’ house outran all the objections her fears threw at her. One step in front of the other, over and over and over until she crossed the finish line. The faster she ran, the faster that finish line came into view. Pain only ended when you crossed. “If I’m arranging for a new place to live, I won’t be able to come in next week.”

  Jodie nodded. “We’ll find another way to exercise the dogs. And since you have to look for a new place to live anyway, try to find a place with a backyard. You’ll both be happier.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MICAH WAS IN a dressing room washing makeup off his face when his cell phone rang. The number looked familiar, though he couldn’t place where he’d seen it before. Setting aside the washcloth, he dried his hands and answered the phone.

  “Before I talk to you,” Ruby said into his ear, “did you tell King Ripley who I was?”

  He smiled, pleased to hear force rather than fear in her voice and amused that she didn’t bother with pleasantries. He’d always admired her single-minded focus on her goals, even when they had proved to be self-destructive. “Since I want you to myself, that would be self-defeating.”

  He didn’t realize until after the vague statement of interest came out of his mouth that he didn’t only want her for the interview, and he didn’t just admire her body as casual interest. Sometime over the dinner conversation in Indiana, he had come to like Ruby. He liked that she was vulnerable and afraid and yet still had the instinct to put her head down and race as fast as she could to her finish line. Under all that fear was a tenacity he both sympathized with and admired.

  Admiration or not, the interview was going to happen. Dexter reminded Micah on a daily basis the cost of the production van and Amir’s time for the trip to Indiana, and the reminder would be the least of Micah’s problems if he couldn’t get the interview. There was absolutely zero room for pondering Ruby’s powerful thighs and gritty personality at work. Conflict of interest got a reporter fired, not promoted.

  In her single-mindedness, Ruby continued with her interrogation. “Unless you hoped to force me in your direction by pointing out that you wouldn’t be stupid enough to follow me in your car while I’m out running.”

  Micah winced. Subtlety had never been King’s strong suit. He also didn’t have a deep enough soul to realize that someone who had been followed by tabloids everywhere she went for the better part of a year wouldn’t take kindly to being tailed by a reporter.

  “I did not tell King it was you, though he could have looked at the video from Iowa and figured it out.” Maybe. Micah balled up the washcloth and threw it into the hamper. Bull’s-eye. “And there’s also that video from Indiana.”

  “I want that footage back.”

  Not going to happen. “You signed a release when you registered for those races.” He grabbed the hand towel and lobbed it at the hamper as well, though he misjudged the arc and it landed on the floor to the left of the opening. He’d been remiss in his practices with the hoop above his trash can in his office. Too much time spent looking at the video of his new favorite female athlete.

  “I didn’t expect you and NSN to be there with a camera. And I’ll bet the race organizers didn’t, either. Other racers might not want you holding film of them in such a condition. No one looks their best when running a 50K race.”

  Just because he didn’t blame her for being upset didn’t mean he was handing over the tape. Micah had read the release forms of both races very carefully before showing up with Amir, and the races might not have expected NSN, but they also hadn’t excluded the type of footage Amir had gotten. “I’m only interested in the film you’re in. I’ll even edit all the other runners out.”

  “About King, do you swear?”

  Micah squared his shoulders against the insult but didn’t say a word.

  Finally Ruby spoke again. “You said you’d be honest with me.”

  “You said that. I only agreed.” He liked Ruby with her hackles up, but he kept his tone warm enough so that she wouldn’t decide he was the enemy. And he really didn’t want to lie to her. Ever.

  “Just tell me, does the honesty offer still hold?”

  “So many questions.” He tsked.

  “You told me I could ask you one question for every one you asked me. And you asked me a lot of questions in Indiana. This is my due. I can’t afford a lopsided bargain with a reporter. Not now.”

  She must believe reporters only wanted one thing out of her, and it wasn’t the thing her mama had always warned her about. Or, knowing the little he did about Ruby’s family, interviews with reporters probably was something her mother had warned her about.

  “Honesty still holds. As does the question agreement. And yes, I swear I didn’t tell King who you were. I don’t know how he figured it out.” If it had been Amir or Dexter who had told King, then Micah had strong words for them.

  “One more thing. Did you tell anyone else I was racing again?” Apparently Ruby trusted no one, and Micah wasn’t sure he blamed her.

  “My producer knows, but he figured it out on his own from the video footage Amir took. Though I would have told him eventually, since the interview involves the station. And I told my father—he wouldn’t have told anyone.”

  Silence beamed through the phone. “Thank you for being honest. You could have lied about telling your father.”

  “What would lying have gotten me?”

  “You might’ve lied so I’d trust you more.”

  “And lose that trust if you ever found out? No thanks.” He paused before going on. “Why all these questions?”

  “My parents think I should go back down into my weight room and be happy with my life as a former track star turned mole rat.”

  Anticipation made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. “Ruby, I get why you’re asking me about the footage and King, but why are you telling me about your parents?”

  “I’m moving out of my parents’ house.” Her voice stilled and he wished he could see the look on her face. He couldn’t decide if the stall was anger, sadness or something in between. “I realize its far past time, but...”

  This moment of silence carried regret with it, which made him sad. Ruby should give her past a punch in the nose and then dash off to a greater future. “Looking back never helps.”

  “Right. Well, I got this dog and I know my parents would never let me keep her.” Her chuckle was as bittersweet as cheap lemonade. “Maybe King and his creepy stalking was what I needed at the time, because Dotty got her hackles up when she thought I might be in trouble and that was it. I couldn’t not adopt her.”

  “Dotty the dog?” He would have thought she’d be more creative in naming a dog.

  “Worse. Dotty the Dalmatian.”

  He laughed, a little in love with the fact that just when he thought he had her pegged, she could do something completely unexpected. “You could have named her Spot, I guess.”

  “She came with the name—I don’t want to change it. And she’s perfect. Jodie said that with a littl
e training, she can run twenty miles, no problem. So even if I’m not volunteering at the shelter, I will still have company for my long runs.”

  “Will she be able to keep up with you when you decide to get serious about the races?”

  “I am serious.”

  He wished he was in his office so he could call up some of the film, from both Indiana and Iowa. “You’re holding back. I have the video.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m doing exactly what I said I wanted to do. Run a race with other people and see how I did.” The words tumbled out of her mouth and Micah wondered if she believed them.

  “Ruby, why did you call?” He could continue to argue with her or he could press her for the real reason she’d called, because it wasn’t to tell him about her dog any more than it had been to ask him about King. Convincing Ruby to race like her body and her spirit wanted to race could wait for another day.

  “I’m twenty-nine years old and everyone thinks they know what I need, when really it’s just all about them. My parents won’t recognize that I need a new life for fear my existence will continue to make theirs more difficult. Hell, even King thinks he knows what’s best for me better than I do.” Her frustration shuddered through the phone connection in the deep breath she took. “I’m sick to death of it and of hiding. I’m not really sure you’re any better, but at least you qualify your offers by admitting to your own self-interest.”

  Micah needed a moment to rest and slowly fill his lungs with air.

  “What I’m saying is that I’ll do the interview.”

  “Gre—”

  “I have conditions, though. If I don’t want to answer a question, then I won’t, and I want you to edit out my refusal.”

  The carrot she hung in front of him might as well have been plastic for all the use it was. “That’s not an honest interview.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever I can about the doping, but no talk of my parents and or my life between the Olympics and now. This is about me getting back into running.”