Running from Love: A Story for Runners and Lovers

by Rozsa Gaston

  “I—uh. Why exactly did she say she didn’t think I had a girlfriend?”

  “She said you were very friendly at all of your get-togethers.”

  “All of our get-togethers? We only got together a few times.” He could feel his face flush.

  “Well, she said you’d really gotten together when you got together. If you know what I mean.” She looked at him curiously, as if she half hoped he’d deny what she was implying.

  “That’s ridiculous. We got together for a few interviews then we did the personal training session. That was it.” He shrugged, but inside his blood ran cold. Like Mark Anthony in the hands of Cleopatra, he’d been masterfully handled, then reduced to silly putty. He couldn’t stand these silky smooth society women. Especially the devastatingly beautiful ones.

  “Well maybe you should speak to her. She’s putting it out there that that was not all it was. Seems word has gotten round.” Ginny smoothed down her dress over one bony hipbone. Was she hoping he’d focus on her as his next subject?

  “Where is she?” he hissed, raging inside. It was time to have it out with Missy. She’d played him. Then when she hadn’t gotten the response she’d wanted, she’d slandered him to her friends. He rued allowing her to maneuver him into that confused state of being attracted to someone who was clearly manipulating him—a game some women were masters at, and many men proved helpless morons at resisting.

  Ginny shrugged. “This wouldn’t be the right moment, would it? And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “It’s not? I didn’t?”

  “What is your status these days?”

  “My status?” What was his status? Unhappily adrift. But did Ginny need to know that? He couldn’t stop thinking about Farrah next to him as they watched the sun set over the Hudson the last time he’d seen her. What had happened since then for her to freeze him out? He shuddered to think she had gone back to her ex.

  “Missy said you had a girlfriend but it didn’t work out.”

  “I was seeing someone, but I’m not now.” He gritted his teeth. “Thanks to her, as a matter of fact.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression. Well, you got yourself involved with a total powerhouse. I hope you know what you’re getting into.”

  “Ginny, I am not into or getting into anything with that woman. I told her that at the time, too.” He was beginning to sound like Bill Clinton. At least he wasn’t married. Farrah’s almond eyes floated before him.

  “When you play with Missy you don’t decide what you’ve gotten yourself into. She does.”

  He couldn’t believe his ears. He’d had enough of the self-assured Gold Coast, female commando style. He needed fresh air. Immediately.

  “I wasn’t playing with Missy. I interviewed her. Then I offered her a single personal training session just like you told me to. Why did you set me up to meet her if she was going to be trouble on wheels?”

  “I didn’t. I introduced you to Anne.”

  “Who introduced me to Missy.”

  “You’re the one who told me you needed help with your book.”

  “Missy’s the kind of help I don’t need. She cost me losing my girlfriend.” Farrah hadn’t exactly been his girlfriend but he’d certainly hoped she’d be.

  “Jude, no one can cost you losing someone you love other than yourself. I mean—outside of death or an accident or something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s like self-esteem.” She paused. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

  “What was that?” It sounded familiar, like some sort of old saying.

  “Eleanor Roosevelt said it. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

  Jude burned at the words. That hadn’t been true in his case. There were so many ways people had made him feel inferior growing up that he couldn’t bear to think about it. He’d buried all the subtle slights and digs under the rubric of “who cares?”

  “That’s great, except that Eleanor Roosevelt didn’t grow up on the wrong side of the tracks. What would she know about it?” Eleanor hadn’t been a looker but she’d come from a blueblood background, even fancier than her husband the President’s. It hadn’t been hard for someone like her to say something like that, he imagined.

  “My, you’re getting defensive,” Ginny remarked, taking a step back. “You act like you know something about it yourself. Are you identifying with the poor tired masses now?”

  “No. I’m just steamed because your friend messed up the best thing that’s happened to me in awhile.”

  “No one can mess up anyone else’s life permanently unless you let them. Barring physical injury of course...”

  Jude looked down at the floor then back up at Ginny.

  “Listen, I can’t talk now. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Sure. But just remember—you need to speak to Missy before she does any more damage. Then you need to talk to whoever it was you let get away.” Ginny looked wistful, as if she were harboring secret desires of her own that weren’t likely to be satisfied anytime soon.

  “Thanks for the advice. I just can’t take it right now.” He walked away, feeling like a tossed-out paper cup. Rich people did that. They used people they needed for the moment then tossed them aside when something better came along. But why was he letting that happen? It made him even more angry to realize it wasn’t rich people he was angry with. It was himself. Even worse, he couldn’t help thinking what a dignified soul Ginny was. She wouldn’t allow his lack of interest in her upset her apple cart. She felt pain, but she would never feel inferior. Unlike him, who felt both at that moment.

  He strode down the stairs, desperate to escape, his shadow following all too closely behind.

  “SO WHAT WERE you thinking to go bad-mouthing me to your girlfriends?”

  “I can’t remember at the time.” Missy fussed with her small, white tipped nail.

  “Look, are you for real? You just slandered me to my friends. In my own town.”

  “Maybe it’s time for you to get real. Those weren’t your friends, and this isn’t really your town.”

  “What makes you think it’s yours?” An anger way out of proportion to her words flared up inside him. She was a bit too prescient for his taste.

  “Who said I did?” She tossed her hair over one shoulder walking to her car in the parking lot of Greenwich’s Belle Haven Club.

  “I’ve lived here for ten years. This is as much my town as it is yours.”

  “Close, but no cigar. You live here but you’re not a player. I live here, and I am.”

  He felt the bile rise at the back of his throat. “What a relief to know I’m not in your club.”

  “But you want to be, Jude. Too bad, you’re not.”

  “Who says I want to be?” he roared back. Who the hell did she think she was?

  “Why else would you be writing a book on How to Marry Money?”

  “Who said that was the title?”

  “It got around.” She laughed. Apparently his secret had leaked out all over town.

  “It’s a job, alright? I write what my boss tells me to. It pays the bills.”

  “Why write on such a topic just to pay some lousy bills?”

  “Because I need to work for a living.”

  “Dear boy. You don’t think big, do you? Maybe you should move back to wherever you came from. A small town, no?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “You know it’s a lot more satisfying to find a job you’re really passionate about.”

  “You’d know a lot about that, I’m sure.”

  “I do,” she said blithely. “I love my job.”

  He couldn’t win with her. And he had to admit, it was clear she loved her job, or whatever one might call what she did for a living: Attract power, then use it well.

  “Too bad you don’t love your husband.”

  Missy’s face whitened just the tiniest bit.

  “Who
says I don’t?”

  “Do you even know what love is?” He was skating on thin ice now, not having a clear idea what it was himself.

  “Do you?” she shot back.

  The ice cracked, and he fell through.

  “I wish I did.” He shook his head sadly.

  “Then go after it.”

  He was startled. Her response was surprisingly fresh, devoid of malice. Out of the mouths of sharks, come pearls of wisdom.

  “What are you going after?” he asked, genuinely curious.

  “Nothing. I’ve already got it.”

  “As long as you’re sure about that.” He hoped she did. God knew he didn’t.

  She said nothing, but smiled serenely, except for the tiny tight lines around her mouth. Then she got into her silver BMW and drove off. This time, Jude didn’t check out the lines of the car as it peeled out of the driveway. Who cared what money could buy? He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but one thing was certain—money couldn’t buy it.

  TWO DAYS BEFORE Christmas, Jude sat at the bar at Ryan’s, nursing a Guinness. Missy’s words still rankled. Why had he cared whether the crowd at The Millbrook Club had frozen him out? Just as she’d pointed out, he wasn’t in their club or anyone else’s club in Greenwich either. When he went home he hadn’t been able to sleep. He was thirty-six years old, living over the garage of someone else’s house. Not a lot of progress from his childhood days. When he thought about it, he didn’t care much whether he owned his own place or not. It wasn’t about owning things. It was about owning his own soul.

  He’d gone down to Riverdale in the hopes he’d bump into Farrah. To be dead honest, he’d gone over to her apartment building to see if he could find her, but she hadn’t been home. The doorman had said she was away for the holidays and not expected back until after Christmas. Another plan gone awry.

  Still, he’d handed the modest bouquet of orange sweetheart roses to the doorman and summoned his courage to address his friend of the month before.

  “So tell me, buddy. You seen my competition around lately?”

  “No, mate. I haven’t.”

  “Think he’s out of the picture?”

  The doorman shrugged. “I thought you were out of the picture.”

  “So did I. Because he’s still in it.”

  “I don’t think so, friend. You’d better step up your game.”

  “Thanks, bud. Have a Merry one.”

  “You, too.” The doorman touched his cap and winked.

  Jude walked away, light on his feet. Was he still in the game? He hoped like crazy he was.

  As he contemplated the foam on his Guinness, he puzzled over why Farrah hadn’t responded to any of his communications over the past three weeks. If she’d broken it off with the other guy, why hadn’t she returned his calls? To get his mind off her, he pulled the notebook out of his pocket that he always carried. Maybe he could come up with a few new ideas for the finishing touches to his manuscript.

  He was on the final chapter, How to Close, and feeling about as clueless as Anne had pegged him. Not only did he not know how to close, he hadn’t even come close. Writer’s notebook on counter, the blank page stared up at him, a tabula rasa reflecting the state of his sorry soul—the one that wanted to write about things that mattered to him, not things that didn’t: such as moving between two worlds and belonging to neither; or about those who lacked the wound; and even more importantly, those who didn’t.

  Silently, he asked Farrah to come back from wherever she was and write on him. All over him. Whatever she wanted to say, starting with “I couldn’t forget you either.”

  Shutting his eyes, his mother’s face from the photo his father kept on his bureau came to mind. She’d had a fairy’s soul—ethereal, otherworldly, aside from an occasional touch of temper. Whenever his father had told him she’d been high maintenance, he’d said it with reverence in his voice.

  “Well worth it, son. I only wish I’d understood her better.”

  “You will, Dad. One day you’ll get to heaven, and you’ll have all the time in the world to figure her out.”

  Farrah’s featherlike floatiness reminded him of her. She wasn’t an easy read. He’d found his feather then lost it. The thought was unbearable.

  “Like I said, you’ve got to take the final lap fast,” a sharp female voice cut through the bar area’s background buzz.

  “You can only do that with a base. You’ve got to build up to that—twenty miles a week, minimum,” another female voice answered.

  “Twenty is nothing. Patterson runs eighty a week.”

  “That’s why his wife is leaving him.”

  “You are kidding, chica. No way.”

  “Shhh. Are we doing a table or the bar?”

  He looked around to spot two women heading his way. They weren’t bad looking, perhaps in their forties. Faces flushed, cheeks rosy, they both wore purple sweatshirts with VCTC printed on the front. He’d seen that acronym somewhere before.

  He peered closer. The one with wavy thick brown hair tangled in large, gold, hoop earrings seemed familiar.

  “Hey, are you Jules Farnsword? From Headless Horseman?” she asked, her eyes sweeping over him.

  “Jude Farnsworth, yes. Are you—were you—at breakfast that day after the race?” It was all he could do to hold her gaze.

  “Yes! You’re the guy who helped Farrah when she tripped. I remember you!” she exclaimed then looked at her friend with one of those female-type significant glances.

  “You’re an Ironman finisher, aren’t you?” Jude said.

  Blanca nodded, her smile widening. “I’m Blanca. And this is Ana.” The second one came forward, smiling at Jude.

  “Join me for a drink?” What good luck to bump into Farrah’s friends from her track club.

  The women leaned their heads together. Some junior-high-school-type whispering ensued then Ana spoke up.

  “Sure.” They sat on the two barstools next to Jude, depositing their bags at their feet.

  “Ladies, what’ll it be?” the bartender asked.

  “An Irish coffee and a glass of water,” Ana ordered.

  “Make it two,” Blanca added.

  Jude smiled to himself. The ladies would warm themselves and relax. Then maybe they’d let him in on what Farrah was up to.

  “You run with Greenwich Track Club, right?” Ana asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s it like up there?”

  “You mean where we run?’

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes we train on Tod’s Point, near the water.”

  “It sounds familiar.”

  “That’s where they run “Cook Your Buns,” Blanca cut in, referring to the annual three-mile race held at Greenwich Point, also known as Tod’s Point, on the beach each June.

  “Awesome. I love that race,” Ana said enthusiastically.

  “I love the burgers they serve afterwards,” Blanca added.

  “What other races do they have up there?” Ana asked.

  “There’s the Jingle Bell Trot. Farrah and I ran it last weekend,” Blanca said.

  “You did?” Jude wanted to kick himself. He’d almost run it himself, but it had been raining and he’d been busy with the book, finishing up the penultimate chapter. He still didn’t have the final one figured out.

  “It rained like hell,” Blanca said. “But my girl ran it well. She leaned into her downhills and didn’t wuss out this time.”

  “Your girl?” Jude asked.

  “Fairfoe. I’m training her to stop slowing down on the downhills. She finally got it last weekend.”

  “So your Saturday morning sessions worked,” Ana observed.

  “That’s not all,” Blanca replied. “She told me she had some sort of breakthrough with Ballet Boy the week before.”

  “You mean that jerk who dumped her?” Ana looked astonished.

  “The same.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s back in the picture.” Ana’s mouth turn
ed down at both corners.

  Jude strained his ears, praying Farrah found Ballet Boy as pathetic as his name sounded.

  “He resurfaced a few months ago and started making noises about getting back together.”

  “Why would she get back together with him? He was so lame.”

  “She told me in the car she hadn’t planned to get back with him, but things got confusing.”

  Jude frowned, unhappy with Farrah then with himself. He’d also been recently confused, thanks to Missy.

  “Yeah? Well I hope she found out why he broke it off with no explanation. She went through hell trying to figure that one out.”

  “She never really got over it, so maybe she needed some closure. When he started calling, she told him she needed to know why he left.”

  Jude’s heart sank.

  “Wasn’t it like some phone conversation where he said they didn’t understand each other? Then, poof! He disappeared?”

  “Exactly,” Blanca said. “Very weird.”

  “So what was the real reason?” Ana asked excitedly.

  “He dumped her to find a rich girl.”

  “You mean he didn’t think she was good enough?”

  “Nope. He didn’t think he was. He didn’t make any money. Did you know that?”

  “I thought he was some sort of fancy ballet composer,” Ana said.

  “He was. He’d won some big award. But there was no money in it. He tuned pianos to get by.”

  “Wow. She went for that?” Ana asked.

  “She was in love. She didn’t care about the money.”

  Jude silently blessed Farrah.

  “I still don’t get why he dumped her,” Ana said, looking confused.

  “He did care about money, okay? She was teaching back then. School teacher plus piano tuner didn’t add up to what he was looking for, see?”

  “What’s wrong with being a teacher? It’s a good job,” Ana huffed, fluffing her hair out. Her husband taught high school science in the Bronx.

  “It wasn’t going to get him where he wanted to go,” Blanca explained.

  “So where did he end up?” Ana asked.

  “He hooked up with some rich woman in Connecticut, but it ended.” Blanca turned to Jude. “From Darien. Do you know where that is?”