Running Lean (22 page)

T
he scents of a May morning ride, of dew and fresh grass and honeysuckle in the woods, lingered on Calvin’s clothes. They wouldn’t last, though. Soon the closed-in atmosphere of the school building, with its noise and schedules and the heavy smell of floor polish in the hallways, would demolish all the sensations from his five-minute ride. Especially the sense of freedom.

He leaned against the wall opposite the administrative offices, his jean jacket still on and his helmet dangling from its strap in his fingers. More and more students passed in front of him on their way to morning classes as Calvin watched through the office windows, waiting for Stacey to reappear. The secretary behind the high partition scuttled back and forth, handing out passes and forms and answering questions for other students and a couple of parents. Stacey had hoped she could simply hand in the note from her parents explaining why she’d been out for three days. Instead, the assistant principal had taken her past the partition and into the inner sanctum of the administrative offices.

This couldn’t be anything but bad.

The large clock suspended on a bracket above the office door reminded Calvin he had only three minutes until class. He still had to go to his locker. He pushed away from the wall and paced four
steps one way, five steps back. Stacey would understand if he left. But he just couldn’t, not until he knew she was okay.

With a minute and a half to go, Stacey finally emerged. She walked with her head down, her books held tightly to her chest, and a white business-sized envelope clutched in her hand. She wove her way through the remaining people by the front desk then turned left in the hallway as if she didn’t see him.

Calvin caught up with her. “Hey. What happened?”

She jumped at the sound of his voice. “Oh! I didn’t think you’d still be here.” Her face was wet with tears, and she backed away from him as if she didn’t want him to know.

“What happened, Stace. What did Mrs. Farley say to you?”

She sniffed and looked at the envelope. “If I miss any more days of school, I’ll have to do summer school, maybe even repeat my junior year.”

Calvin’s jaw dropped, and he was barely able to make it move to speak. “But—but you’re an honor student. How can they do that?”

Stacey sniffed again, and a renewed flood of tears gushed from her eyes. Still hugging her books, she leaned into Calvin to cry on his jacket. He could only hold on to her with one arm and wait for her to get control of her sobbing. Around them, the hallway cleared out, and the clock over the office ticked down toward the first bell.

“I hate this place.” Stacey’s voice was muffled by his chest. “I wish we never moved.”

The sting of that remark lasted only a second. She was upset and didn’t mean she wished she’d never met him. Calvin cupped her cheek in his hand and lifted her head up. “It’ll be okay. We’ve only got three weeks left. You can make it.”

“Calvin, you’re the only good thing in my life. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He forced a smile. “I don’t know about that. But let me help you,
Stace. I know you had the flu, but I think if you ate more healthy food, you might not get sick so often.”

She tried to shake her head, but he hooked his thumb under her chin to stop her.

“Listen, okay? Please? I’m not trying to make you gain weight or anything. A healthy diet. You need vitamins and stuff that you get from food. So let’s get together, either at my house or yours, and we’ll look up some good diets online. We’ll do it together, okay? I’ll even eat the same stuff as you.”

She lifted a shoulder coyly. “No more bacon cheeseburgers?”

“
Blee-yuck
. No. They’re history.”

The little smile she gave him disappeared. “How can we even do that, Calvin? Both our moms are in love with butter and potatoes and stuff. I’ve tried to cook for my family, and all they do is complain.”

He took a deep breath and plunged. “We’ll talk to them.” She shook her head and pulled away from him. He had to catch up to her again as she started down the hallway.

“I appreciate the offer. It’s sweet. But this is my problem, Calvin. I have to deal with it.”

“I want to help you!”

“I have a pass, but you don’t. You’re going to be late for class if you don’t run.”

She was right about that. “Okay, look,” he said, “we’ll talk about this later, after school. I’ll meet you in the parking lot, okay?”

Stacey blew him a kiss. “Run. You don’t need to be in trouble too.”

Nothing more he could do or say. He took off, walking fast and running when he thought he could get away with it. He skidded into his physics class before the teacher had closed the door, but his classmates were all in their seats and every eye was on him, his helmet still in his hand, and a big wet mark on the front of his jean jacket.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Greenlee,” Mr. Atkinson said. “We were thinking we wouldn’t be able to start without you.”

A few of the students chuckled as Calvin swung into his desk along the wall, two seats back from the front. His helmet clunked as he set it by his feet and then rolled into the middle of the aisle, prompting more awkward laughter. At least the teacher hadn’t busted him. Mr. Atkinson resumed his opening statements for the class while Calvin rescued his helmet and dug into his backpack, trying not to make any more noise.

He breathed out, made an effort to rearrange the synapses in his brain to focus on school, not Stacey. But he couldn’t escape one thought: she’d shut him down again. No matter how understanding he was, how nice he acted, or how much he tried to “love her through it,” Stacey was the one with the power to say no. Now she was in trouble with the school. She might think herself fat or unworthy or unloved, but the one thing she prided herself on was her academic achievements. With those in jeopardy, maybe she’d wake up and change.

Somehow he doubted it.

Kneeling in front of a chair in the dining room, Calvin touched a wet cloth to Jacob’s bloody knee. “Okay, this isn’t bad. You can handle this little scrape, right, big guy?”

Jacob’s mouth trembled into a smile. “I caught the ball. Did you see me?”

“I did! That was awesome. But Dad’s got the smoker going, and there’s a lot of people out there, so maybe y’all shouldn’t be throwing the football in the driveway right now.”

A pout replaced the smile. “It was Zach’s fault. He don’t throw
good.” Jacob waved his uninjured leg, his heel thumping the rung of the wooden chair. “Michael said he was gonna teach me to play football.”

The comment stopped Calvin’s hand as he reached for a Band-Aid on the table. Jacob still didn’t quite understand that Michael was gone. On this Memorial Day, when the family was gathered to honor their fallen soldier, could Jacob have misunderstood and thought his big brother was finally going to come home?

Calvin forced his hand to retrieve the bandage. Without lifting his eyes, he tore open the paper sleeve. “Hold still.” He stretched the Band-Aid across Jacob’s knee. “Done.”

Jacob slid off the chair and ran back outside.

Calvin didn’t want to follow him. He wished Mom hadn’t set this whole thing up. It gave her something to do, a way to focus everyone’s thoughts on Michael, because, she said, he deserved it. But would Michael even know, sitting up in heaven? Calvin wasn’t sure about the theology of that question, and he really didn’t care. He’d woke up that morning, with the sun already beating down on the roof of the house, baking the air inside his attic bedroom, and pulled his sheet over his head anyway. Wuss. Coward. He didn’t have the emotional strength to face the day. Whatever he might have had, dealing with Stacey had sucked it right out of him.

Calvin pushed himself to his feet and forced them to carry him outside. Bright sunlight blinded him, and he squinted to pick his way down the two concrete steps to the backyard. Southern gospel music blared from the speakers in the open workshop. Jacob chased Zachary and two cousins toward a soccer net at the back of the yard. Beneath the old oak tree, Grandma Elizabeth fanned herself, overflowing a webbed lawn chair, while Emily toddled over to show off a yellow dandelion. Lizzie lay sunbathing with their cousin Bailey, their beach towels spread across the weedy grass. And all around aunts, uncles, and cousins clustered in every available patch of shade.
Kids Calvin didn’t bother to count chased each other around the yard, shouting and laughing as if there was nothing different about the day.

It all felt wrong.

Calvin sighed and leaned against the corner of the workshop. Michael wouldn’t want him to mope around like this. He would’ve been running around with the little kids, acting like a goofball, or cutting up with the uncles talking about NASCAR. He’d make it his mission to cause at least one aunt to blush.

But Michael wasn’t there. And Michael didn’t have an anorexic girlfriend who’d promised she would be there by ten a.m. to help him get through the day.

It was almost noon.

The warm breeze shifted, bringing smoke thick with the aroma of barbecue across Calvin’s face. Standing next to the big metal smoker, Dad pulled meat off a side of pork that had been roasting since before dawn.

Calvin wandered to the top of the driveway and peered toward the street. No blue Honda; she wasn’t coming. All the food had scared her away. How sad—how wrong—that her need to avoid food, even after all her promises, could overrule his need to have her there with him.

Almost choking on the thought, he wandered toward two long folding tables draped with mismatched tablecloths, where Mom and Aunt Sally were arranging the food. Wide mixing bowls and big casserole dishes contained potato salad, slaw, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, and Jell-O salad. Sliced watermelon, peach cobbler, and pie—at least three different kinds. Calvin filled a red plastic cup with lemonade.

His little cousin Morgan, looking so cute in her blonde pigtails and pink overall shorts, reached up to clasp his hand. “Is your bike fixed now, Calvin?”

“Uh, yeah, but I think we’re going to eat soon. Tell you what, though. I bet Lizzie will watch VeggieTales with you.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Go ask her. She’s right over there.”

He pointed, and Morgan scurried off toward Lizzie. Calvin swigged more of his lemonade and ducked around the side of the house before his sister could launch a counter assault. He sat on the front porch steps, where the squealing of playing kids and the chatter of adults who could somehow be happy didn’t surround him. He stared at the street, until gulp by gulp, his drink cup was drained.

Still no Stacey.

He could go inside and call her, but what was the point? She’d just make an excuse, and he’d feel even worse. Calvin certainly didn’t know everything there was to know about love, but he’d learned it involved sacrifice. He’d sacrificed a lot for Stacey. It seemed a long time since she’d sacrificed anything for him. All the drawings and poems and the deep conversations about Michael, the things that made him love her so much and made him feel that she loved him, he hadn’t seen any of it for weeks. Things had got tough for them, and it seemed she was withdrawing—even pushing him away—more each day.

“You said you needed me,” he muttered to the air. “Actually seems like I love you more than you love me. This hurts, Stace. It hurts bad.”

In the backyard, Mom yelled, “Y’all come on. We’re ready to eat.”

Calvin lumbered off the steps and shuffled toward the backyard. There, Dad carried a huge platter of pulled pork to the table and set it in the spot Aunt Sally had cleared for him. People gathered in and formed a circle around the tables. One by one the voices fell to whispers and stilled.

“Let’s pray.” Dad’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard.

Twenty-six family members clasped hands. Calvin set his empty plastic cup on the ground between his feet then took hold of Zachary’s hand to his right, Bailey’s to his left. He swallowed and looked down.
Get this over with
.

“Father God …” Dad said.

The breeze whispered in the oak tree and birds chirped. Calvin opened his eyes enough to see his father with his head lowered to his chest.

Don’t. Don’t start crying now
.

“We’re gathered here on this day … to honor our brave men and women in uniform for their service to our country. Yet our hearts are burdened as we think of … a son, a grandson, a brother … a loved one, who gave the ultimate sacrifice and is with you now. We thank you …”

Dad’s voice failed. Calvin squeezed his eyes tight. He couldn’t look up again, couldn’t bear to see the pain that would be written on his father’s face, the trembling of his lips as he tried to find words. Tears burned beneath Calvin’s eyelids, the pressure built until it felt like the water was behind his eyeballs too. It wouldn’t take much for him to lose it.

Dad sniffed. “We just thank you for Michael, for the time we had with him. Help us to find peace in the knowledge that he’s in your keeping now, healed from all wounds and happy in your presence.”

Happy …

Water rolled down the side of Calvin’s nose. A muscle in his forearm twitched, desperate to wipe the tears away.

Finish! Finish already!

“Would anyone like to add anything?” Dad said.

No. No, please. Can’t we just eat?

Mom started talking. A different prayer erupted in Calvin’s head.
Oh, God, please, no. I can’t take this
.

“Lord, Michael was a very special young man, and we all miss him so much. He made us laugh and was always there to help out wherever he was needed. We were so proud that he wanted to serve his country—”

“Stop …” Calvin swallowed, choked, and whimpered. “Stop, please.”

Someone whispered. He was attracting attention. His mouth fell open and rasping breaths came out.
Hold on. Hold on
.

“Cal?” Zachary said softly.

“I’m okay.”
No I’m not
.

“—but he left a hole in our family and in our hearts that can’t be filled by—”

He broke, and his sob stopped Mom’s prayer. He felt the weight of everyone staring. Calvin let go of hands and turned around without opening his eyes. He staggered and caught himself on one hand, the gravel tearing into his palm. Allowing in slits of light, he could see colors blurred by his tears as he ran toward the cotton field. Voices called after him, so he ran faster.