Patina

by Jason Reynolds

  So, “I think so,” is what I said back to him.

  Coach cut his eyes at me—not satisfied.

  “Well, to make sure you know so, let me make it clear. We are a team, Patty. You can pout and shout, but you cannot check out.” Coach took a second before praising himself. “I should’ve been a rapper. Out here running on a track when I should’ve been rapping on a track!” He laughed. I did too, an inside belly chuckle. “So, you understand now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, because I don’t feel like running no more.” Coach made a hard left off the track and started walking across the grass. He flipped the baton in his hand over and over. “Hurry up and finish, Patina. . . .” Patina. Coach was always trying to be funny, and I knew he thought saying my name like that was comedy gold. He lifted the baton in the air like a wizard casting a spell and yelled, “We got work to do!”

  TO DO: Dance, this time, like an old king is watching (stiff and boring)

  BY THE TIME I reached the other side of the track, Coach was already laying out what everyone needed to do in practice, which, for the most part, was basically what we always did on Mondays. Fartleks—fart licks—which is basically just when you run kinda fast for three minutes then real fast for one minute. Then kinda fast for three, real fast for one. Over and over and over again. Then there’s some specialized training, where the sprinters would break off and do their own thing, the mid-distance runners would do the same, and the distance runners, well . . . they just run all practice. But then, out of nowhere, Coach threw a wrench in the plan.

  “We’re also gonna spend some time working on relay,” he said, slapping the baton against his thigh. “Not all twenty of you.”

  “There’s nineteen of us, Coach. Chris is gone, remember?” Aaron slipped in. Coach just raised his eyebrows, glared at Aaron in the I’m talkin’ way. Plus, rounding up ain’t against the rules. Seriously.

  “Anyway, just my mid-distance runners for now,” Coach elaborated. “At some point we’ll develop the 4x400, but we don’t have enough veteran sprinters on the boys’ side for that. He nodded at Ghost and Lu. “We’ll get you newbies where you need to be soon. We got a long season ahead of us. But for now, let’s start with one of our sweet spots—the 4x800. Let me get Freddy, Mikey, Eric, and Curron. And for the girls, I need Deja, Krystal, Brit-Brat, and joining them as the fourth will be Patty.” He glared at me. “Can you handle that?” I nodded. “Good. Coach Whit is gonna work with y’all. These two groups are our 4x800 relay teams. If anyone has a problem with this decision, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  I looked around the circle at all the faces, each one either nodding or smirking. I was cool with running relay, even though I never had before. I’ve watched it enough times—at meets, the Olympic races they show on TV, and Internet clips—to know that all you had to do was take the baton, then run as fast as you could to hand it off to the next person. Like passing the collection plate at church.

  “All right, ladies, come this way,” Coach Whit called, leading me and the other three girls to the outside of the track. She was holding a small radio, one of the old ones with a CD player and a handle. The kind Cotton’s grandma got in her kitchen. Whit set it on the track. Then she gave us what I can only describe as an evil grin. “Today, I’m gonna teach y’all how to dance.”

  Wait. What?

  “Dance?” Brit-Brat bawked. “I don’t know about them”—she thumbed at us—“but I already know how to do that.” She put her hands together in a single clap, then put them up to her chest, palms out, and started shoving the air—a standing push-up—like they did on the old-school rap videos my father made me watch. Salt-N-Pepa style.

  “Heyyyyy!” Deja howled, joining in, dipping low.

  “Go, Deja! Go, Brit-Brat! Go, Deja! Go, Brit-Brat! It’s your birthday, but not really. We at track practice. We at track practice. Track, track, track, track!” Krystal chanted.

  I didn’t join them, but their silly dancing definitely helped with the process of pulling me out of my second-place slump. Brit-Brat’s craziness reminded me so much of Cotton’s, jumping around, clapping, telling me to make sure I’m getting good angles with the phone. This was something Taylor and TeeTee and Becca, and all the hair flippers I went to school with, couldn’t do. What I was missing. Even so, though me and the girls on the track team could kinda relate, I was still the new girl, and I hadn’t really gotten close to everybody yet. At least, not the vets. My crew were the newbies, and the only one of them I could see breaking out in a full-on dance break was Sunny—which would be the funniest dance break of all time, with his lanky self. So I didn’t feel like I could really join in. But Brit-Brat’s goofiness definitely made me feel like maybe I could vibe with them. Maybe next time. Like maybe the vets were cool.

  “Okay, okay.” Coach Whit tried to settle us down and hold in her laugh at the same time. “You do know there are other dances that don’t involve all that booty action, right?”

  “Whatever, Whit. You probably be just like this in the club,” Brit-Brat said, tapping Deja with the back of her hand.

  “You be goin’ to the club, Whit?” Deja asked, smiling all silly.

  “None of your business. And this is not the club,” Whit shut them down, shaking her head. “Anyway, we’re gonna learn a different kind of dancing.” She pushed play on the radio. And the music that came out wasn’t . . . it wasn’t classical, but . . .

  “Oh, so the track ain’t good enough to be a club, but it is good enough to be a ballroom, huh?” Krystal jabbed.

  Ballroom. That’s the kind of music it was. All royal sounding, like we were about to witness a prince and princess have their first dance or something.

  “That’s right,” Whit said, stepping back and lifting one arm up and the other arm out as if she was being held by someone. “Now, this is called the waltz.” We all stood there looking at her like she had lost her mind as she lifted onto her tippy-toes and started counting, “One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three,” moving robotically, back, then left, then front, then right, dancing in squares, the violins from the music whining in the background.

  “What y’all waiting for?” Whit called out, stepping and sliding, her back stiff as a board.

  “We waiting for you to stop,” Krystal said.

  “And I’m waiting on y’all to start,” Whit threw right back, one-two-three-ing forward. I glanced over at the track. The other runners were doing their own thing, for the most part. The distance runners were working on pacing, the other eight-hundred runners were running fart licks, working on endurance, and the sprinters, well, specifically, Lu and Ghost, they were looking over at us, smirking. Ugh.

  “You serious?” Brit-Brat was asking, already knowing the answer. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even wait for Whit to answer and instead saved herself the frustration by being the trailblazer for the rest of us and getting in position. One arm up as if she was waiting for someone to grab it and arm wrestle her, and the other arm curved as if wrapped around the waist of somebody else. Someone with a rose in their mouth.

  Krystal didn’t follow.

  Neither did Deja.

  But me, I was new, and it didn’t seem like a good idea to pop slick on one of the coaches. So I did what I had to do and became a real-life dance mannequin. As soon as I lifted my arm, I could feel Lu’s and Ghost’s snickers run down my spine, prickly like ice water. I didn’t know if they really were laughing, but I was pretty sure they were. And even if they weren’t, I could feel them thinking about it.

  “One-two-three, one-two-three.” Coach Whit was still counting and pacing, ignoring the fact that Deja and Krystal were holding out.

  “Just do it,” Brit-Brat groaned at them. “So we can get it over with.”

  “I just don’t see what this has to do with running,” Deja said, reluctantly lifting her arms.

  “I wanna tell you, but since y’all making me dance alone, I can’t,” Whit said, batting her eyes
, laughter just under her tongue.

  “Ugh.” Krystal threw herself into a lazy karate stance.

  “Very nice. Now ladies, follow me.” And then, back to the one-two-three, one-two-three, except now we were following Whit’s steps. Backward. Left. Forward. Right. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. Four-five-six, seven-eight-nine, blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, I muttered to myself, betting that this was what the real fart lickers, Lu and Ghost, were saying to each other, their tongues hanging from their mouths like hounds, mimicking us (me) by doing the robot or something. And Aaron was probably saying something like, “You can’t win first place being ballerinas,” even though this wasn’t even ballet. But he was probably right (if he was saying that). I, a second-place winner (loser), couldn’t win first doing this. I didn’t know what kind of training methods Whit had, or what discount aisle Coach found her in, but . . . dancing? Dancing?

  “One-two-three, one-two-three. Very nice, girls,” Whit said, all coachy like this was real practice. Then she sideswiped us. “Now, pair up.”

  “What?” Krystal stopped. Arms down. Head cocked.

  “You always run when the gun goes off, so I know you ain’t deaf, Krystal.” Whit was clearly reaching the end of her patience rope. And I couldn’t blame her. But I also couldn’t blame Krystal for being snappy. This was wack. “Pair up. You’re gonna dance with each other, and you can pout and suck your teeth and whatever else, but if you wanna win as a relay team . . .” Whit stopped dancing, folded her arms across her chest. “It’s your call.”

  Well, no surprise here. I wanted to win. I really wanted to win, and straight up, if Whit told me that having my blood cleaned was the way to win, I would go to dialysis just like Ma. Now, I know that ain’t the case. But I’d do it if it was.

  I glanced over at Brit-Brat. Nodded. She turned toward me and reached for my hand. “Let’s just get it over with,” she mumbled, facing me but directing her words to her fellow vets.

  Krystal and Deja let out loud breathy huffs and positioned themselves in front of each other.

  “Now, just like before, but this time guide each other. Trust each other.” Whit took a pause, inhaled and lifted her arms as if she was conducting an orchestra, and started again with the count.

  One-two-three.

  Me and Brit-Brat took a step back. Back for Brit, forward for me. It was awkward.

  “Same leg, same motion, same time,” Whit instructed.

  One-two-three.

  Me and Brit-Brat moved left. It was a little smoother.

  One-two-three.

  Forward, which was actually backward for me. Not smooth at all. As a matter of fact, Brit-Brat stepped on my foot. Good thing she’s light. Keep moving.

  One-two-three. To the right. Decent.

  And on and on, but every time we’d make the step forward (which was my step backward) Brit would crush me. Just squash my feet with hers, until finally I just couldn’t take it no more.

  “You think you could watch your feet, Brit?” I said, trying to be as nice as possible. I didn’t want her to think I was coming at her or anything. I didn’t need no drama. But I did need my toes. I mean, who can run with broken feet? When I said it, I braced myself for the quick, sharp tongue-lashing that I usually served up whenever somebody tried me.

  “My bad,” Brit-Brat said softly, which I have to admit, threw me for a loop. I guess I shouldn’t have expected her to trip, especially since she was the first person to even give this whole dance thing a chance. “My feet are huge.”

  I looked down. Whoa. When most people say that, well, first of all, I’m only used to them being boys. Boys around Barnaby Terrace like David Hunter, who at ten years old wore a size ten shoe. My mother said he had feet like rowboats. And if that was the case, then Brit-Brat had yachts. How you even run with those things? I wanted to say.

  “It’s cool,” is what I actually said.

  One-two-three.

  But it wasn’t cool, because it kept happening. She would try to move them to the side, but they just . . . were everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

  One-two-three.

  One-two-three. Ouch!

  I had to adjust. Started taking bigger steps back in hopes of steering clear of those floppers. And it worked, but then she adjusted to my adjustment and still caught my big toe. Argh!

  “Very good, ladies. Now, I want you to take one step back. Hold your pose, but separate yourself from your partner,” Coach Whit instructed, the song now fading out, a new one beginning. The sound of claps came from the other end of the track. I cringed, already knowing what was happening, but I had to look anyway. And there they were, Ghost and Lu, slapping their stupid hands together like clowns.

  “Dancing with the stars, Patty!” Lu yelled out. And before I could say anything—and I was going to—Coach, like, Coach Coach, started laughing too. He had been working with the boys’ relay on the field and was now walking toward Lu and Ghost, letting out the nastiest cackle ever. So loud and ridiculous that everyone stopped what they were doing to watch him. He laughed and laughed, slapping his knee and patting his chest and throwing his head back, all the way across the field until he reached Lu and Ghost up by the hundred-meter start line. He threw his arm around both of their shoulders. They were still chuckling. Then Coach whispered something in Lu’s ear. Then in Ghost’s. And then they weren’t smiling no more. Coach pulled away from them and took a few steps back. Ghost and Lu looked horrified. But then they faced each other, awkwardly, took each other by the hands, awkwardly, held each other (barely) around the waist, awkwardly, and did their version of the waltz. Whoa. I almost passed out, and I wasn’t the only one. Everyone started losing it.

  “C’mon, fellas, stay on beat. One-two-three, one-two-three,” I yelled, snapping my fingers on count. Brit-Brat jumped right in, and so did Krystal and Deja. Even Whit joined us.

  “One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three,” we all chanted, eventually leading to everyone chanting, all the runners, even Sunny.

  Then we were all singing, “ONE-TWO-THREE!” waving our arms around like conductors (I don’t know why, it just seemed appropriate), watching Lu and Ghost waddle side to side like toddlers who had just pooped their pants.

  “Okay, okay, ladies,” Coach Whit cut us off, still laughing, and tried to wrangle us back in. “Let’s refocus.” We all regained our composure and tried to reposition ourselves for more waltzing. Just as we grabbed hands, Coach Whit said, “We’re gonna do the same thing, but this time, let go of each other’s hands. Separate yourselves so that another person could fit between you.”

  “Wait,” Krystal said, immediately winding up. Her arms went from around Deja to her own hips. “So now we gotta dance in threes? Well, if that’s the case, I volunteer Deja to dance between them two.” Krystal pointed at me and Brit-Brat.

  “Krystal . . . no. Just . . .” Coach Whit was stuck, struck by Krystal’s ridiculousness. “Could one of y’all explain, please?” Deja took on the task. Then we took our places again, but this time Brit and I were standing about a foot away from each other. We held our hands the same, and on Whit’s count, danced the waltz once more.

  “Back,” Whit instructed. “Nice and smooth. Remember when you were closer, the pressure of your partner, knowing the steps, working and moving in unison.”

  “You like a hippie or something?” Deja asked.

  “Focus,” Whit said. “Might learn something.”

  “Doubt it,” Krystal groused under her breath, but still loud enough for us to hear.

  One-two-three.

  “Left. Now, forward.” I was happy—relieved—there was space between Brit and me. Space for her feet to meet ground, and not my toes. It was also kinda cool to see all four of us moving around, swaying and stepping all at the same time. Reminded me of the Olympics—the only thing I like to watch, besides running, are the synchronized swimmers. I mean, to move like that in the water is crazy. Cheerleaders do it too, sort of. But not like synchronized swi
mmers. And me, Brit-Brat, Deja, and Krystal (once she finally shut up) were like synchronized swimmers . . . uh . . . synchronized runners. Ah. Ahhhhhhhh. Sneaky, sneaky, Whit.

  We had made like twenty or thirty squares before Whit, finally, thank you Lord, cut the music. “Okay, that’s enough. Good job. So, how did it feel?” Then she pointed at Krystal, who was already fixing her mouth to crack a joke. Whit didn’t say nothing to her. Just pointed, like, Don’t.

  “It felt weird at first,” I spoke up.

  “Yeah, definitely. And I kept stepping on Patty’s feet,” Brit admitted. “But then we kinda adjusted, y’know?”

  “Right. Same for us. Like after a few times you just kinda stop thinking about it,” Deja said.

  Coach Whit looked at Krystal, who was smirking. “It was cool,” she said with a shrug, eyes everywhere.

  Coach Whit nodded, poked her bottom lip out, not in the sad way, but in the surprised and satisfied way. “Well, let me ask you all this,” a clever grin replacing the pokey-lip. “How many of you realized that I stopped counting a long time ago?”

  The rest of practice was Whit giving us the rundown about the handoff—the passing of the baton—and how it was just like dancing the waltz, but we didn’t actually practice it. She said we would be spending a portion of every practice for the rest of the week doing relay work; she was hoping that we’d be ready to give it a try by Saturday’s meet.

  I found out after practice that Krystal, Deja, and Brit-Brat had run relay last year, which is why they were so annoyed by the whole dance thing.

  “I’m just sayin’, it ain’t that deep. You run, then you hand the stick to the next person. Then they run.” That’s pretty much exactly what I thought it was. “All this cha-cha mess was . . . I mean, it was fine, but it ain’t necessary,” Krystal complained afterward. She took a swig of water, then threw her bottle in her duffel bag, zipped it shut.

  “The waltz,” I corrected her, even though she was echoing my own feelings. It was cool, but it didn’t really seem all that helpful. At least not yet. Krystal shot me a look, but I didn’t pay it no mind because over her shoulder I could see Maddy coming toward me. Krystal went on mimicking the one-two-three count, Deja chiming in with the perfect amount of complementary snark, Brit-Brat laughing at them both.