by Ann Christy
At the door, she hesitated to close it after her family came in, instead looking up and down the hallway for any sign of where he might be or go. All she saw were the dim shadows of doors under the red lights. Nothing stirred now that both families had retreated with their noise and celebration. It seemed all the neighbors that lived here had either turned in or were still out at whatever party they might be attending. It was with reluctance that she finally closed the door.
When she woke, she sprang from the bed thinking she was late for training. Then she remembered, fell back into the bed with a delighted stretch and grinned at the ceiling. Her mother was bustling about in the main room beyond her door. That must have been what woke her. She took her time getting up, the stretch having brought out the many aches and pains that seemed to have multiplied while she slept. Her legs she could understand, but why her shoulders and arms were sore she had no idea. That certainly hadn’t happened that she could remember during a run before. Training, yes, but that worked all of her.
She shook her head at the ceiling and then forced herself back out of bed. After a few minutes of loosening up, she pulled on the coveralls from the night before. The new patch required a little admiration and she ran her fingers over the threads that made up the running profile, the number 89 and the single most important word in Lillian’s lexicon: Runner. Rummaging around in her pack produced a single hair-tie. She seemed to be incapable of keeping the rough bits of cloth.
Opening the door brought the smells of breakfast and she let out an involuntary groan as she finished tying up her hair. Her mother turned at the sound and waggled a spatula in her direction.
“Potato pancakes and fruit salad. I’ll bet you’re hungry,” she said and turned back to the stove to attend to her pan. “Come give me a kiss.”
When Lillian approached to give the requested kiss, her mother stepped to the side to put herself between Lillian and the spattering pan of potato pancakes. It was done without thinking or any show at all. It was just the sort of thing her mother always did.
She dropped the kiss on her cheek and asked, “And how are you this morning?” It was a simple question but a loaded one. The night before they had all been strangely subdued once the door closed and it was just the three of them. Clara had tried to fill the gaps with banter, but Lillian was so tired she could barely stay awake and her mother kept giving her looks like she was trying to memorize her face. That was probably what she was doing, considering what she felt about the race. The certainty of Lillian’s run outside was pairing up with the ill-fated run her father had taken, she was sure.
Her mother didn’t take the bait though and flashed a bright smile. “I’m good. I slept better than I thought considering it isn’t my bed.” She flipped a couple of the pancakes and then met Lillian’s eyes again, full mother mode in force. “What about you? Do you feel alright after yesterday?”
“Just hungry and the smells aren’t helping. My tummy is sucked in on my backbone!”
Ruby laughed, deftly freed a crispy brown potato pancake from the pan and deposited it on the quickly filling serving plate. “Not too much longer, honey. You want to fill the cups with some hot tea?”
It struck Lillian that this compartment had been mostly bare of supplies the day before. The only things they had put into the fridge were leftovers from their deliveries. She was about to ask where the groceries came from when the door burst open and Clara came in, the picture of an aggrieved teen. She leaned against the closed door and sighed dramatically, a bag dangling from one hand.
“What’s up, Clara?” Lillian asked, moving toward her little sister.
“Oh Silo! I went to get the groceries for mom and then delivered some to Aunt Elma’s but then she wouldn’t let me go. I had to help her shred potatoes.” She held up her hand, two fingers wrapped in gauze. “You know how I am in the kitchen.”
Lillian laughed and grabbed Clara into a hug. She was still shorter than Lillian by a head, but she was growing fast and would definitely be the taller of the two eventually if her awkward, but long, legs were any indication. A friendly rub of knuckles across Clara’s scalp produced a squirmy squeal and earned Lillian a reprimand from her spatula waving mother.
Clara shoved the cloth shopping bag at Lillian’s chest when they separated and said, “You add the rest of this fruit. I’m injured.”
She accepted the fragrant bag of berries and retreated, knowing defeat when it got shoved into her chest.
Twenty-one
Standing with her arms out while being poked and prodded told Lillian that any break in routine for rest and celebration was definitely over. Several of the support team that had observed training but never interacted aside from a few questions muttered as they circled her and poked at the bits and pieces stuck under her skin suit. It was embarrassing to wear anything so form fitting, but even worse when people she didn’t know peered intently at her with their faces mere inches from her body. And then poked her or tugged at the bits to test their stability.
Greg stood nearby with Zara watching the process. Discreet fingers pointed at various spots on her and they discussed those points. She couldn’t hear them but when Greg looked up and met her pained expression, he offered her a wink or a smile. It made the whole process of being fitted bearable.
One of the fitters, a generally nice guy named Jerry, pounded with the flat of his hand on her back, hitting one of the battery packs arrayed along the line of her shoulders and asked, “Does that hurt?”
Lillian looked over at her shoulder, thinking he must be either an idiot or messing with her. His guileless expression hinted at the former. She sighed and answered, “Well, you’re pounding on hard squares stuck to my back, so…” She let the sentence trail off and raised her eyebrows.
Jerry cleared his throat and reached out to tap one of the boxes with just a finger. “Uh, what I mean is does it feel like it is poking you or do you feel anything sharp or anything like that?” he asked.
Tapping wasn’t going to do anything more than smacking her would, so she rolled her shoulders and jogged around in a tight circle, letting her arms move like they did when she ran. That the small boxes were there was clear, but they didn’t hurt so she answered, “They’re fine.”
He nodded, satisfied, and then extracted the metal frame that would hold most of her gear from a box. He held it up like a prize instead of the torture device it appeared to be. “Your rack is ready. Let’s try it!”
She had to smile at how excited he was over the skeletal metal object. “Or, we could dump it back in the box and go raid the refrigerator,” she counter-offered.
The frown that formed on Jerry’s face as he considered her suggestion made Lillian laugh. She decided to take pity on him and be as serious as she should be. “I’m sorry. Go ahead. I promise to be good.”
The rack wasn’t perfect and two others came over to join Jerry for more poking. The arms that went over her shoulders dug into her collar bones where they crossed and the bottom didn’t curve enough so it cracked against her hip bones when she ran. Once she was done with all of that, she gratefully went to strip off the skin suit and get into coveralls for her next class.
Key codes were something that Leo had done better on than she during their training. Now that she was the winner, it was imperative that she be as good at it as every previous outside runner. The complicated set of taps and pauses that made up the alphabet had to be second nature and at the moment, they weren’t even third nature. A few simple messages she had memorized by rote and could do quickly. But when she was given a message other than those and told to key it in, it took so long that it often translated as a jumble rather than information.
Greg wasn’t waiting for her in the training room. Instead, Zara sat with the key code book squarely in front of her on the table and the key waiting for Lillian on the other end. After a quick greeting, Lillian took her seat but rather than give her the first sequence, Zara said, “We need to discuss something.”
The tone was serious enough to be worrisome. She could guess the subject, too.
Zara straightened the already perfectly aligned book without looking up and said, “We need to discuss what’s going on with you and Greg.”
The flush on Zara’s cheeks as she said it made Lillian shift in her seat and she could feel the tell-tale heat of her own reddened cheeks. But she had nothing to be embarrassed about and meant to be firm. “Fine. We can talk about it, but I don’t see what the problem is.”
The older woman’s eyes narrowed a bit as she searched Lillian’s face. In return, Lillian fought down the reflex to obey and be cowed. She raised an eyebrow and kept her gaze fixed on Zara’s.
Suddenly Zara let loose with one of her loud laughs and shook her head at Lillian. “You’ve just got no end of dash, don’t you?”
That wasn’t necessarily a compliment. To have dash might be a good thing if one were referring to a great performance in a play or a competition. It was good to be thought of as a dasher when running. On the other hand, dash in other ways, such as a relationship that wasn’t favored or in dealing with problems, was definitely not a good thing. Lillian didn’t think she was being dashed about Greg.
“It’s not dash and nothing has happened. Besides, I checked and he is nowhere near me in relation,” she paused and did flush red then, right to the roots of her hair. People only checked relationships for one reason and now Zara knew she had done it. “And age shouldn’t matter. You’re three years older than your mate.”
“Three is very different than 18,” she replied quickly, her voice serious. “It looks bad. He’s your trainer.”
“And like I said, nothing happened. I’m not saying it won’t at some point but…”
“Your mother and the rest of your family can worry about that point, but for now we have to have some sort of agreement.”
Lillian looked at Zara, eyes narrowing a bit in suspicion. Wasn’t she just going to tell her what to do and be done with it? “What agreement am I required to agree to?”
Zara shook her head again and gave her a look that could only be exasperation. “He has no idea what he is in for.” At Lillian’s look of affront, she held up a hand and said, “I would like you to agree to keep some distance between you until after your run. Before you go all up-top about it, just listen to me. We’ve already had an incident with Toby, two close family members ran against each other for the first time and now there is a whole lot of talk about how close you and Greg are. We just don’t need rumors going around that you won because of some impropriety or anything like that. The rules are clear that no trainer can be…well, involved…with any trainee.”
“We’re not involved.”
“And it needs to be seen to be so,” Zara countered. “Perception is what matters in things like this. So do all of us a favor and just put it on a shelf until after the run and a little time has passed.”
Lillian bit at her lip— a bad habit she had almost broken until it resurfaced in training— while she tried to think logically. It was difficult because what she really felt was that Zara was trying to take away something important and she was worried that if she let it go, it would never come back. Would he be interested in her if she left him alone long enough to think about it? It was selfish thinking and it was immature thinking but she really couldn’t help the way she felt. She could only control the way she acted on what she felt.
Her fingers strayed toward the key. She had difficulty remembering many of the letters but the first two signals she had learned were easy ones. One short for no and two short for yes. She rested a finger on the key and a short flat buzz broke the silence as she pressed down. Before Zara could do more than narrow her eyes, Lillian nodded at her and said, “Okay.”
The difference between what Lillian had said and what she had signaled didn’t seem to satisfy Zara. She said nothing for a moment, just looked at her intently from her spot across the table. It felt a little like being in trouble at school, the kind of trouble that meant a parent had to come and discuss the problem. Lillian shifted in her seat. “I mean it. I will.”
That seemed to settle the matter. Zara leaned back, pulling the code book toward her and opening it up to a seemingly random page without looking. “Let’s get started then,” she said, dismissing the topic.
“He’ll understand what’s going on? I mean, can I talk to him at all? What about my training?”
Zara sighed and pursed her lips, her eyes communicating that she wanted to move on. “Your training is more about getting ready for the run. Fittings and such. I can take over a lot of that from this point. And yes, you can still talk to him. He’s still your run coach, just not your only one.”
At Lillian’s raised eyebrows, Zara went on, “And yes, he’ll know and understand what’s going on. Probably better than you. Can we move on now?”
There was nothing to be done about the situation and Lillian knew it. It just seemed so sudden and she had no opportunity to talk to Greg, to let him know that this separation would bother her. She hadn’t ever really told him what she felt, though the reason she hadn’t was that she really didn’t understand it herself rather than out of any real reluctance. She’d never been shy about her feelings but for some reason she couldn’t define, it felt like a big step to just tell Greg how she felt.
Whatever the situation may be, for now she needed to work and not think about Greg or Leo or anyone else. She sighed and slid her hand across the battered table top once more, a finger ready to respond using the keys.
“Right,” Zara said and opened the book. She flipped the pages and scanned until her eyes lit on something she apparently liked. “Give me the signal for sighting another person outside.”
Twenty-two
The evening the water fell outside and the wind tore the brown sky to tatters streaked with gray, Lillian finally felt the press of what she was going to do. It was like a hand running through her guts and squeezing whenever she got used to the sensation just to remind her it was there and she shouldn’t be comfortable.
It was Zara that burst into her room, a wide and uncharacteristic grin splitting her face, and grabbed her hand. While it wasn’t quite a drag down the hallway, it was a firm lead. At Lillian’s expression, Zara laughed and said, “You’ve got to see this. I think it’s almost time. The weather is horrible!”
She said it with such delight that Lillian caught the excitement from her like a fever and felt her own grin spread across her face. And then the phantom hand made its appearance in her guts and her nerves jangled. Outside the training area, Zara tugged her into the observation room where the monitoring station was.
Two of the IT staff—ones Lillian assumed must be big brains that spent their lives trying to use current conditions to predict future conditions—sat in front of the two screens and talked quietly to each other, pointing at different spots on the screen. They both turned at the sound of entry and waved Lillian and Zara over when they saw who was there.
There was no prelude or polite greeting. The observers got right down to business. The older of the two, a man so old he seemed shrunken, said in a surprisingly strong voice, “Look there, you see that gray there, with hints of very dark gray?” He drew his finger away from the screen and frowned. Lillian saw nothing save the same brownish sky through the water drops marring the view. “Uh, just wait for it. It comes and goes.”
They were all silent, watching the screen for whatever might appear, looking around the water drops that fell on the screen, ran down and were then replaced by more drops. Finally, Lillian thought she saw something and was about to say so when the man jerked his finger toward the spot. “There! See that? Just keep watching.”
They all watched, nothing but the sound of four people breathing breaking the silence and Lillian saw exactly what he was saying. The brown dust, captured as it was by the water, made it hard to see through the drops on the screen, but there was a distinct change in color up high. A grey so dark it was almost black peek
ed through and then the entire screen went white, a sharp and crooked line of something bright streaking down from that dark patch. All four of them jerked back. Lillian didn’t know what to think of it, but it didn’t look good.
The old man recovered first. “Don’t worry about that. It’s pretty spectacular but it also means we’re getting what we need out there. That light, whatever it is, comes down when the sky waters the ground very intensely and usually means there will be a lot of wind.” He turned and smiled up at them, holding a finger up like a teacher who wanted to be sure his students listened. “That is what we want. When this passes, they’ll be less of the dirt and dust in the air and visibility will be great.”
He turned back to the screen, his head bobbing in agreement with his own words. The two observers resumed their whispered conversation and intent observation. Lillian had seen the view a lot since she started her training and plenty of times before that, but what she saw over the shoulders of the observers was just plain frightening.
Lillian tugged at Zara’s sleeve but it took a moment for the trainer to tear her gaze from the screen. When she met Lillian’s eyes and saw the confusion there, she gave her a sympathetic smile. She hung a long arm around Lillian’s shoulders, gave her a squeeze and said, “It looks bad, but this is exactly what you need for a run. Most runs just get a good watering before the observers declare the day propitious, but this is much more.”
Another of the white flashes lit the screen and drew their gaze. Zara must have felt Lillian tense because she squeezed again. “This is better than just a watering. You see how the wind is blowing the drops on the screen sideways? That means the dust will be blown too. It will be thinner outside and you’ll be able to run a lot longer before you go red!” At Lillian’s dubious look she added, “You have a much better chance of beating my mark.”