Race Across the Sky

by Derek Sherman

  “I guess Mack will buy us the plane tickets,” June nodded happily.

  “I don’t think,” Caleb said softly, “that he will.”

  She blinked, not following.

  “He won’t want us leaving here before Yosemite.”

  “But that’s not for seven months.”

  Caleb nodded slowly.

  “I have my license, I’ll rent us a car. Mack always says we’re free to leave.”

  “Yes. But not to come back.”

  She froze, understanding him now. “I need to come back here, Caley. This is where we live. I don’t want to live any other way.”

  “Then we need to ask him the right way, so he’ll help us.”

  “How do we do that?”

  Caleb considered this. If he came through at Yosemite, if he won and delivered Mack into the pages of Sports Illustrated, then surely Mack would give them a month away from the house and welcome them back, if only to disprove certain media reports that Happy Trails was a cult.

  But could Lily wait seven more months? Think it through, he told himself. Mack would never let him leave before Yosemite, but maybe he might let June and Lily go. After all, Caleb was his only chance to win. Didn’t he need him happy and focused?

  Possibly, Caleb understood, there was a deal to be made.

  He looked down at Lily. Being near her created surges of emotions that he could not identify. There was no godliness in the trails which touched the depth and power of this.

  “I love her,” he whispered, as Lily’s red and swollen feet kicked at the rug.

  June kissed him; her breath was thin and sour. Caleb held these two girls, all the time listening for footsteps, for whispers of someone coming to catch them, and take away his perfect peace.

  • • • • • • •

  The broker was a frighteningly thin Latino man in his early twenties.

  He wore a purple silk shirt and tight black jeans, and was the owner of a thin mustache that gave him the appearance, Shane thought, of a Guatemalan pimp. He walked Shane through a concrete building called Greenway Plaza as if it were an apartment complex on a beach. But it was not full of condominiums; the building was full of labs.

  “Only thirty percent occupied. Quiet.” He lifted a pointer finger to the air.

  Shane assured him, “Quiet is good.”

  This was the second building he had been shown. It was difficult to see a functional difference between them, but Greenway Plaza had the advantage of being just ten minutes from Helixia, up Pinon Drive. Every floor held five labs, each the size of a grade school classroom. The labs came bare, just a long bench, two stainless steel sinks, a tall shelved cabinet. Specific equipment, materials, even chairs would need to be leased or purchased. Rent was three thousand dollars a month; Shane had been hoping for better.

  “Will you be needing furniture?” the broker inquired with a smile. He must get a kickback, Shane realized.

  “All taken care of.”

  “Okay, okay. So what are you going to be doing here? Just curious.”

  “Curing a disease.”

  “Oh,” he nodded. “It’s a perfect space for that.”

  Shane left in a sunlit daze. He had expected signing a lease to leave him excited and proud. Instead, he experienced a flood of buyer’s remorse, which evolved into a previously unknown degree of terror.

  Looking back at the building from his car, it occurred to him how many excited people rent labs just like this, each certain they possess a secret which will change the world. How long does it take for them to burn through their seed money and wind up handing these dull keys right back?

  He desperately wanted to call Janelle and talk to her about what he had done. But he had made a decision that surprised him, which was to not tell her any of it.

  It was the first and only secret in their marriage. At first he been shocked that it had even occurred to him, but he had understood quickly that this was his only option. Janelle had been with Helixia for eleven years. They had hired her with no experience and grown her into a well-compensated product manager. She was a tireless, loyal, and dedicated employee, and as soon as he told her, she would face an impossible decision: to say nothing, which would make her part of this and put her at the same risk as he and Prajuk of being fired and ruined. Or to tell her manager, which would mean she would betray him, Caleb, and this baby girl. It would not be love, he thought, to put her in this position. Also, he was reasonably certain she would take a management view of this endeavor.

  Plus, Shane decided, there was no need to stress her out this early in the process, with so many pieces that could fall apart at any time.

  Then there was the money. A hundred thousand dollars was a future-changing amount of money, and this was no investment. There was no chance of him recouping even a dollar. Even the three thousand dollars he had just signed over would astonish her. But, Shane felt, he had every right to spend it. During the decade before they had met, he had amassed six figures in savings. Janelle had told him while they were engaged that she was setting aside her own savings for her parents’ care. How was this different? It was his money, from the same premarriage period, being used for his family’s health. Morally, he felt in the clear. The difference of course was transparency, but he was certain that once Janelle knew everything, the question of whose money it was would be a minor discussion.

  For these reasons, he had told his wife nothing as he researched labs, made appointments with this broker, accessed his entire Orco 401(k). But as he drove closer to home, he realized that there was yet another motivation to keep this to himself.

  And that was that it lit up some primal part of his brain, in an unexpectedly profound way, to shoulder this burden alone.

  One morning, after the drug was in Caleb’s hands, he would take Janelle out to dinner and tell her everything that he had done. His tale would be complete, with no hanging threads, no stress. He would pour her a glass of wine and, as if unveiling a painting he’d been working on, tell her, “So this is what I did.” And her eyes would widen. He very much looked forward to that.

  He used his time waiting in doctor’s offices with materials about Sorion to peruse online catalogs and order equipment. He was startled to find that any biological fluid and technology was available for rental and delivered as easily as dinner.

  Meanwhile, Prajuk began the process of finding a postdoctoral assistant. He placed calls to friends at Stanford and UCSF, describing a chance for a postdoc to work in a lab, doing hands-on gene splicing and cloning. Like all things associated with lab work, he informed Shane, this would take time.

  That evening, lying on their bed, his feet brushing up against a board book about farm animals, Shane stroked Janelle’s fine hair. The bedroom TV played meaninglessly in front of them. The baby was in his crib, trying to get himself down.

  During Janelle’s first weeks back at work, the interrupted sleep had not affected her adversely; in fact she had enjoyed waking every few hours to nurse. Maybe, Janelle had told him, sleep is like a glass of scotch, best enjoyed in sips. Her breasts, which she had been certain all her life were too small to ever nourish a baby, were producing enough milk to leave in sealed plastic bags for Hua to warm. Her mother would arrive at eight every morning in a huff of Shanghai provincialism, bringing herbs, reheating her sour cabbage soup. It all seemed perfect to Shane.

  But tonight Janelle was torn. At work, she confessed, she suffered a sort of Nicholas withdrawal. Her office computer was split between spreadsheets and mothering websites, and she found it impossible to focus for more than an hour without calling home. Hua had a lifelong problem with phones and refused to answer unless she knew who it was, which caused Janelle no small amount of aggravation. And Shane was busier than she had ever seen him. He was not, she felt, present with her.

  “Mom fed Nicholas bananas today,” she informed him
, sitting up.

  “I know we haven’t started baby food yet,” Shane commiserated gently, “but it’s not her fault. I saw a jar around here.”

  “Not baby food bananas,” Janelle clarified. “Actual bananas.”

  “Doctor Hess doesn’t want him to eat solids yet.”

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying.” She hesitated. “Should I stay home?”

  “Oh,” he said, nodding.

  Janelle stared at him. And then, taking him by surprise, she leaned over and kissed him deeply. Her tongue sent a shiver down his back. Recently their lovemaking had begun to emerge from its tentative state and capture some of its pre-pregnancy tension. Its reappearance was like a sudden electric current, shocking them both.

  In these dreamy moments afterward, strange memories came to him. With the birth of his son, a film seemed to have been lifted from his childhood. Specific images came rushing back to him as if they were boomerangs.

  Last night their upstairs bathroom had dissolved into a lucid vision of his bathroom in Issaquah. He could see his childhood sink, its toothbrushes and plastic superhero cups, so clearly that he felt amazed it was not actually there. He suffered a pang of longing for that sink that astonished him.

  In coffee shops, in waiting rooms, he was ambushed by visions of long-forgotten grade school and summer camp friends. Having this baby, he thought, had done something to his mental processes. He was unsure if these visions were charming or dangerous. Fatherhood had connected him suddenly and without warning to both his past, and the future. It had made him an electric conduit where his memories and visions of Nicholas’s life to come connected in an explosive current. He was expecting his first shipments at the lab, and responsibility of this secret second job began to build. To manage being a new father, his wife’s emotions, his new job, and this, would require great control, confidence, and focus.

  From his room, Nicholas began to cry.

  10

  • • • • • • • • • • • •

  On the first real snowfall of November, they realized Rae was gone.

  Winter had come. At night, the temperature in the valley fell to single digits and did not warm up until late morning. Caleb awoke to half a dozen inches of fresh powder. He could only imagine the scene thousands of feet above, in Breckenridge and Vail; the cheers seemed to echo down the Front Range. The perfume of decaying autumn leaves drifted in through the windows; on the trails the sun against the snow created golds in hues he had no names for.

  That afternoon, the Happy Trails Running Club meditated in a circle by the fireplace, their rows of wet shoes stacked neatly by the front door. Alice came slowly down the stairs. She stood there a moment, tears in her eyes, and announced that her roommate was gone.

  “She just left?” Kevin Yu asked, shocked.

  “I chased after her. I asked her what was up, but she just shook her head no. She was upset.”

  “Was someone waiting for her?” John asked.

  “She just started walking.” Alice told them, pushing tears across her cheeks with the flat of her hand. “I don’t know if she went to Superior, or up to the city, or where she went.”

  Mack walked in from his room and stood quietly against the bookcase, listening.

  “Is she going back to Portland?” asked Leigh.

  “She didn’t say anything.”

  “Maybe she had a family issue. Like, her mom.”

  “She would have told me if her mom wasn’t good.”

  “She’s been acting strange,” Kyle explained. His voice did not communicate empathy.

  Aviva stared straight down at her feet, her brightly tattooed arms balanced on her knees. While Alice had been Rae’s roommate, Aviva was her closest friend. She was clearly shaken.

  “Let’s go find her,” John suggested, standing. He ran his hand along his crew-cut white hair, and waited. “We can check the motels around here. The bus station. She’s probably still walking to Superior.” There was some agreement here; people started to rise.

  Then Mack dropped a book on the floor. It hit the ground with unexpected force.

  “She didn’t leave because she wanted to.”

  The room turned sharply to him.

  “Who would leave here on their own?” Mack asked them, his nasal voice low and calm. He watched members of Happy Trails consider this. Caleb saw the muscle of Aviva’s jaw tighten and release.

  “Anyone hazard, you know, a guess?”

  Kyle raised his hand.

  Mack pointed a finger at him. “My boy.”

  “She was expelled?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The room held its breath.

  “Was it because she didn’t want to run Yosemite?” Makailah asked.

  “That’s part of it. But that was a symptom. There was a root disease. She didn’t like it here anymore.”

  “She loved it,” Aviva muttered to herself.

  “She was ill.”

  People sat straight, surprised.

  “What’s wrong with her?” June whispered.

  Mack stepped closer to the circle. “Rae was infected with a virus. The virus of negativity. I asked her to participate in killing this virus, to use her kinetic energy against it, but she refused.” He looked around the room, making eye contact with each one of them. “What I ask you guys to do matters. Every run, every private energy session, everything goes toward the collective kinetic energy of our house. We can’t have one person refusing to participate. Creating stasis.”

  Caleb stole a glance at Lily, in June’s arms. Rae had spent a lot of time with her, encouraging her to sit up, trying to get her to crawl, cradling her, singing to her. Lily would miss her, Caleb realized. To be loved is to never forget.

  “When you feel negativity, like if someone at your job says something to you about us, or if you’re injured for a time, when you’re not sure what to think or what to do? Remember you always have the answer. What is it?”

  “Run it out!” Kevin called.

  “Run it out. Negativity comes from Taco Bells and flight delays, and its antidote is on the trails. When you’re exposed to it, don’t think, seek the trails. You always have a choice, to stop or to run. Rae stopped. What do we do?”

  “Run!” they each shouted, the mood shifting.

  “We’ll have a healing session now, a healing of the emotional pain of losing a loved one. It’s what we need.”

  Even Aviva nodded. Mack went to his room and emerged carrying a half-full bottle of Jim Beam and a small hash pipe. June took Lily upstairs and put her into her crib. John went to the fireplace and added a large amount of cherrywood, which popped like firecrackers in the flames. Caleb felt someone staring at him. When he dared to glance up, Mack caught his eye and winked.

  Then he sat down in between Alice and Makailah, and they all began to chant.

  • • • • • • •

  On Thanksgiving, Mack allowed a tofurkey with root vegetables.

  This rare deviation from their diet was accompanied by much local ale. The day began with the annual Thanksgiving Fat Race at Bear Peak. Two hundred locals showed up for the fifty-mile run through the snowpacked course. Caleb was a monster; he won by a full minute. Every member of Happy Trails finished in the top fifty, including, to Caleb’s pleasure, June. Everyone was overjoyed, and they invited the other runners over to the house to continue the party. A blowout commenced. Mack held an increasingly drunken court, opening big bottles of Beam, dispensing new ideas for the perfect head position during descents. Mostly the guests wanted to hear about the Yosemite Slam.

  “The most intense ultra ever run,” he beamed.

  “The ultra ultra,” a girl who had placed eleventh suggested.

  Mack laughed loudly. “The ultra ultra. That’s cool. That’s cool.”

  Caleb approached Mack when the last
guests had left. “Can we talk for a second?” he began nervously.

  It was eight o’clock, and Mack was tying his laces by the front door for an alcohol-infused sprint through the snow, one of his favorite things in the world. A new dusting of icicles grew against the windowpane like DNA, spiraling, precise.

  Mack looked up. His eyes were alight, the wrinkles around them like rivers flowing in reverse. He looked then as if he might accomplish anything.

  “You can come with me, brother.”

  Outside the cold greeted them harshly. The moon was buried behind a curtain of cloud. They took off as fast as their legs would carry them into the eight inches of new powder covering the field toward the base of the mountain, sinking with every step. Mack would not slow, Caleb knew. The idea was to run until exhaustion, to fill their bodies with blood and delirium.

  Suddenly Caleb’s right eye began bothering him; he felt a breathtaking and pure pain. Soon he could no longer blink. As they returned, wet with sweat and leaked toxins, sober and alive, Caleb stumbled against the side of the house.

  Mack leaned closer. “Hey, that fucker’s frostbitten.”

  He rubbed his palms together as if they were flints, breathing in deeply. He placed his palms an inch away from Caleb’s face, and immediately Caleb felt a warmth caress his eye. Then it began to burn, as if a match were being held to his pupil. He pulled back.

  Mack pushed his feverish hand closer to the white mucus of his eye, his face only inches from Caleb’s. “So,” Mack whispered, his breath full of Beam, “what do you want to talk to me about?”

  Caleb stammered, “My brother wrote me.”

  “Yeah? What’s Shane up to?”

  Caleb tried to jerk away, but the back of his head pushed against the wood wall of the house. A gust of snow blew over them.

  “He found medicine for Lily. If we get to San Francisco he can . . . oh,” he buckled over, hands on his knees. Mack crouched down beside him, his palm still pressed to Caleb’s frozen eye.