Running Against Traffic

by Gaelen VanDenbergh

  Al and Bryce were working on the front porch, repairing broken railings, and nailing new boards down to replace the old ones that were rotted out.

  Paige jogged up the walk. She looked around her at the wide open sky, and listened to the quiet of the empty road, birds twittering to one another in the trees in her yard, the thwack of Bryce’s hammer, the tap of her sneakers hitting the sun-warmed paving stones.

  Al smiled, revealing his deep dimples, and propped his elbows on the new porch railing. “Girl, what is with you and the happy pills?”

  “What do you mean?” Paige asked.

  “Come on, what are you taking? You look so relaxed and chipper.”

  Paige shrugged, then spit onto the grass.

  The corners of Al’s mouth drooped. “Oh yeah, that’s hot.”

  “Sorry,” Paige said. “But running makes me spit for some reason. You’ll see.”

  “Say what?”

  “I said you’ll see.”

  “See what?”

  “What running does to you.”

  Al stood upright and folded his arms. “What running does to who?”

  Paige bent over into a deep stretch. She rolled up, contentedly, feeling every muscle, loose and warm. “Oh Al,” she chided. “Did you think I was kidding about running with me if you want to keep on living here?”

  He hesitated. “No?”

  “There you go.”

  “Well,” he huffed. “I just thought you were pulling one of your little crazies.”

  Paige glowered at him. “Excuse me? One of my little crazies?”

  “Yeah, you know. This new you, it’s more…Free. Sometimes you get caught up in whims, and go off on little tangents, and whatnot.”

  “Excuse me? Whims? Little tangents?”

  “Here comes a little tangent now,” Bryce stage-whispered from the porch.

  Paige took a few deep breaths. Then she turned to Bryce. “This rule applies to you too, remember. We start as soon as your shoes arrive.” She sashayed up the steps and into the house, leaving the scarecrow and the lion again gaping in disbelief. Welcome to my world, she thought, secretly hoping that their shoes wouldn’t arrive for a while. She wasn’t sure if they were going to actually run, and she wasn’t sure she actually wanted them to leave.

  “Pay-ayge…” Mindy sang into the phone.

  “Good morning, Mindy. I was getting worried, you usually call earlier.” Paige closed her eyes and wearily groped the desk for her coffee cup. It was only eleven but it felt like an unbearably long day already.

  “Sorry, hon. I wanted to call, but I had so much to do.”

  “What did you have to do?” Shots? Shoot some heroin?

  “Howard emptied out all of our clothes from all the drawers and closets and threw em all over the place. I had to put everything away. Now I can’t find anything!”

  “Like what? What can’t you find, anymore?”

  “Jus’ anything. It was a mess.”

  “I am guessing you found something that you were looking for,” Paige said, flatly. Subtleties were lost on drunks.

  “Anyway, I’m thinkin’ I’ll come to the office today to visit.”

  Paige sat upright. “I’m thinkin’ that might not work, Mindy. I…I have an appointment so I won’t be around. There’s my other line, gotta go.” Why me? She thought. How did I inherit the Wells Lake bleak and troubled? And what’s in this for me, she thought angrily. And why has Al been no help?

  As she walked out the door that morning, Bryce had been stumbling in, pale and rank and barely coherent. She tried to march on by but was stopped by Thomas, who wanted to chat. She reminded him that he needed to leave her a note in the mail pail, so that she would know when he intended to stay for a chat. He looked so sad, and she felt like she had kicked a puppy. Mr. Hackney had greeted her at the front door of the office ranting about David not responding to his latest correspondence.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Paige asked. “He’s not going to answer my calls either!” Hackney shot back that he didn’t have time to deal with her issues at the moment, and speed-shuffled passed her out the door, grunting about a meeting.

  Paige laid her head on her arms and willed the time to pass more quickly. It was shaping up to be a five mile day. She thought of the Wiccans and their meditation and chanting. Conjuring up a clear image of her running shoes in her mind, she imagined spring breezes on her cheeks, cooling the sweat and the ugliness of humans evaporating as she sprinted down the soft wooded path by the river.

  The next morning, Paige jogged slowly down the town’s main road just before dawn. She paused behind one of the thick trees and peered around it.

  They were labeling boxes on the ground outside of Carmen’s Grocery, and then loading them into Darnell’s truck. Their heads were close; their expressions, from what Paige could glean from her distance away, were intent. Deirdre laid her hand on Darnell’s arm, smiling up at him and saying something, quietly. He leaned down and kissed her on her lips, slowly, then lingered inches from her upturned face for a moment, his smile wide. He then lumbered around to the driver’s side and hoisted his hefty frame inside. Deirdre stood watching him pull away in the truck, her hands on her hips.

  Paige darted back in the direction of her house. She jogged to the front walk, breathless and heated, her blood rushing through her and sweeping away worries, but leaving behind a bit of emptiness. A twinge of longing. She paused and glanced around the front yard, thinking of what she could do to make it less scrappy. She supposed she could spread grass seed. Maybe she could enclose it with a little fence to keep the neighbor’s chickens from dropping by to relieve themselves. The trees seemed to be in good shape, mature, no bare, dead limbs. She walked over to one to get a closer look. Its lower branches were within reach, and she reached up with both hands. The bark was smooth and cool. She wrapped her arms around it and lifted her feet off the ground, instantly exhilarated by the slight spring that bounced her in the air, and before she knew it her foot had swung up and over it and she was seated with her back against the tree’s trunk, straddling the branch. She looked up through the other branches, through the green leaves, and saw pieces of sky and clouds. The sun called to her in a gleaming voice to come up and say hello. She carefully grabbed hold of a smaller branch above her head and pulled herself upright, turned around and found a higher foothold and swung herself higher, her stronger body egging on her mind, making it feel easy, almost as if she was being pushed from underneath. She reached the next branch and then the next, her confidence soaring. Breathless and buoyant, she waved hello to the sun and perched on the branch to look around. She was quite high in the tree. So high, she realized, that climbing back down seemed awfully dangerous. Impossible, in fact. She wrapped her arm around a small branch by her side and pulled her cell phone off the clip at her hip.

  Al and Bryce peered up at her from the ground. “Paige, what are you doing up there?” Al finally asked. “Did David call you?”

  “Why would you ask me that?” She asked.

  “Because he makes you do weird things.”

  Bryce looked at Al. “She does weird things all the time. Oh, watch, now she’s going to go on a tirade at me from up there…”

  “Just get a ladder, please?” Paige yelled down.

  Al broke into a grin. “You can’t get down? You’re stuck up there? What’ll you give me in exchange for the ladder?”

  Bryce snorted. “Give her a glass of wine and take your shirt off. She’ll give you whatever you want.”

  They walked to the side of the house and returned with the ladder.

  Safely back on the ground, Paige climbed the sturdy new porch steps and saw that there were two UPS packages outside the door. The boys’ running shoes had arrived.

  Chapter 19

  Possible eviction won out over lack of sleep, not being a morning person, and anything else that might have kept the roommates snug in their beds the next morning. Paige dressed in yoga pants and a thick
, warm sweatshirt at six, and proceeded to bang on bedroom doors to roust the boys out of their blankets. They rolled out of bed, mumbling that they would meet her downstairs.

  Paige brewed a pot of strong coffee and waited. Al appeared first, dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, the hood pulled over his head. He stumbled to the coffee pot, mumbling indecipherably and mawkishly rubbing his eyes. Paige sipped her coffee and ignored him. Bryce arrived in the kitchen a few minutes later, looking like death warmed over. His skin was gray, and he had pulled on his jeans and crumpled shirt from the night before, but at least managed to remember to put on his running shoes. Paige said nothing, but led them to the front yard to warm up. She and Al did some jumping jacks, and a few stretches, and Bryce smoked a cigarette. They started off slowly on her three-mile loop around and through the town. After two blocks, Al was gasping for air and Bryce staggered to the side of the road to throw up.

  Al stopped jogging and bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees, eyeing Bryce. “Aw man,” he wheezed, “I got a weak stomach.” He dry heaved a few times, then looked at Paige like a thrashed puppy. “We done?”

  “Are you kidding?” she demanded. “We’ve gone two blocks! Challenge yourself! Let’s go.”

  Al hobbled over to Bryce who was lying in a shrub, moaning. He lifted him out and onto his feet, and the three of them started off again. Paige noticed a few neighbors peering out their front doors and windows at them as they jogged by.

  The next day, Paige decided that she needed to go for a very long, very intense run, a run that the boys could never handle. She told them after dinner that they had the next morning off, and they caught her up in a group hug, squeezing her tightly and thanking her over and over. She thought she heard Bryce sob a little bit.

  With each mile her tension eased, and what often felt like an iron clamp around her chest loosened with each strike on the pavement in a deeply soothing rhythm. Her angst dissolved into her salty sweat and was wicked away by the wind of the cool morning. The sun began to rise over the town with renewed, stronger warmth on her bare arms.

  On her way back home, she slowed to a walk on the main road, to catch her breath and watch the town slowly coming to life. Deirdre waved to her from outside the grocery store where she and Carmen were setting out the crates of produce. Paige noticed tiny pink petals fluttering down around her, creating a carpet over the sidewalk that flowed into pink tide pools in the road. She looked up into the branches of the trees and saw that they were all blooming, the length of the street, raining softly their blossoms, as the sun glinted through the knotty branches. She wondered how she had not noticed all of this before. Her thoughts skittered to Philadelphia, and how once a year the city bloomed pink and white, along the river, and through the city neighborhoods. She had never really noticed them there, either, not in this way. What had she ever been doing there, really? What had she done in thirty-three years, really.

  A brief, inane idea crossed her mind to call the Wiccans to discuss all of this. They would understand these deep thoughts and reflections, and maybe they could cast some spells to help her figure out her place in the world and what to do next. Or at least make the deep thoughts go away. She quickly dismissed the idea but decided that a consultation with just Deirdre couldn’t hurt, minus white robes. She darted home to shower and call her to meet her for lunch later at Darnell’s.

  Paige stepped out of Hackney’s office into the warm, spring sunshine. She was still buzzing from her long run that morning, and she was famished and looking forward to having the best burger in town at Darnell’s. The only burger in town, really, but still inarguably scrumptious. She set off down the sidewalk, and heard Al a short distance behind her yelling “Aw yeah, work it, girl! Lookin’ FINE!”

  Paige flipped her hair back and threw a flirtatious glance over her shoulder before wiggling her hips all the way down the road to Darnell’s, bringing more appreciative hooting and laughter from Al.

  She passed Carmen and Bryce standing outside of the grocery store, smoking. “They’re not having sex, are they?” Carmen asked.

  Bryce exhaled smoke. “Oh honey, they so are.”

  Paige sat opposite Deirdre at a small table, sipping a citrusy iced tea concoction that Deirdre had whipped up for the patrons. Deirdre sat opposite her, hands clasped, all business. “Kiddo, you need some hobbies. And I’m not talking quilting, I mean something that is fulfilling to your soul. Something new, and personally challenging.”

  “Hobbies,” Paige groaned. “I’m looking for direction in my life, not something to do with my free time.”

  “Free time is all you have. You are a blank canvass. Let’s paint.”

  Darnell set their burgers down in front of them and paused behind Deirdre’s chair, resting his large hands on her shoulders. “You listen to her,” he told Paige, sternly. “Do as she says.”

  Paige nodded, shrinking back in her chair. She believed that no one but Al would dare to buck Darnell’s advice. Her eye caught a movement of his hand, squeezing one of Deirdre’s shoulders and caressing her collarbone ever so slightly. Paige quickly looked down at her plate.

  Darnell returned to the bar and Deirdre smiled beatifically and popped French fries into her mouth, her cheeks spotted with pink.

  “Okay,” Paige said, relaxing slightly into the aroma wafting up. She inhaled deeply. “What do I have to do?”

  After Paige’s conversation with Deirdre, back at home, she lay on the couch brainstorming into her journal what her “soul-filling” hobbies might be, that could be more bricks in her path to somewhere, when Al joined her. She explained what was up, and he asked her why now, why did she have all of these needs all of a sudden.

  “I don’t know. But I do.”

  “Well, what did you do at home in Philly?”

  “Nothing.”

  Al sat forward, pressing his fingers to his temples. “Let me see if I’m following you. You lived your whole life in a huge city with lots of stuff going on, and you did nothing. Now you’re living in one of the smallest, deadest towns in the country, and you want to get some exciting, meaningful life started.”

  “I guess…I guess I just want to get a life started.”

  “Good luck with that.” He lay back on the arm of the sofa and crossed his ankles.

  “Come on,” Paige said. “Isn’t there something you want out of life, I mean, more than just this?”

  Al thought for a moment. “I’ll know when it happens.”

  “What if it never happens?”

  He shrugged. “Then I won’t miss it.”

  “Al, you’re a lay down the reins kind of guy, aren’t you?”

  “The horse will take me where I need to go,” he said.

  “Wow. That’s some deep shit.”

  He tisked. “Cussing is not becoming of a lady. Now. Let’s talk about something important. What’s for dinner, woman?”

  Chapter 20

  Paige jogged down the stairs at six in the morning to find the boys already there. They had been getting up to run with her for more than a week. Bryce had his head in his arms and he was snoring loudly but he was actually wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt with his running shoes. Al was looking rather more awake than usual. Bug-eyed and bushy tailed. She raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Three cups of coffee brewed to rocket-fuel strength,” he explained.

  “Ah. I see.” Paige turned to retrieve a mug for herself out of the cabinet. She could feel Al’s eyes on her bottom and she turned her head to catch him.

  “Damn,” Al says, cocking his head to one side, and then to the other. “Girl, you had a nice ass before you started this running thing, but damn! Look at that. Can I just…” He reached for her rear end with both hands and Paige leapt out of reach.

  “Hey, we’ll have none of that, mister. You don’t want that, remember?”

  He shrugged and dropped his arms. “It wasn’t a sexual thing. I just wanted to see if it was as firm as it was perky.”

  �
��Perky? Really, Al.”

  He shrugged again. “Okay, let’s roll. STARFIRE, TIME TO GO.”

  Bryce shot out of his chair and fell onto the floor. “Holy shit,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “No need to holler, man.”

  Al shook his head. “Man, I have been trying to wake you up for the past half hour. Now get your ass outside and warm up.”

  The boys were doing better, Paige noted, as they jogged through the town. Bryce didn’t throw up, or stop to smoke, and Al didn’t clutch his chest and shriek that he was having a heart attack. This was definite progress.

  Paige also noticed that many more townspeople were out on their porches with their coffee, waiting for them. A few cheered and leaned down for high-fives as they passed. Freaky, she thought. Al and Bryce seemed too focused on not dying to notice.

  Saturday, May 7th

  Deirdre is coming later with gardening supplies and starter plants, whatever that means. I don’t know how to grow things, or even keep already grown things alive, despite lessons from Bryce, but I suspect she will show me, and then we will drink wine to celebrate.

  Live in a tangle of weeds, and your life will be just that! Chaotic and disorganized. So far this has been the case. I suppose gardening is sort of a metaphor for life. My property looks like shit and I don’t have a garden. Yes, that about sums it up.

  After much pathetic groveling from the boys, Paige agreed to give them weekends off from running. Bryce disappeared to his new boyfriend Sam’s house, and Al had gone to open the bar for Darnell when Deirdre arrived with white wine to chill for later, and a car spilling over with gardening items, of which Paige could identify only the shovel and the rake. She helped Deirdre unload several dirt encrusted plastic trays of baby plants from the back her car. “Flats”, Deirdre called them. Flats of flowers and vegetable plants that had convenient, miniature labels stuck in the soil, with pictures. There were three kinds of tomatoes, green and red peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, and zucchini.