The Running Dream (30 page)

Cross-country practice has already begun, and although I can’t go out for the team this year because most of the race-courses are over uneven terrain, dirt hills, or gravel paths where my running leg’s not designed to go, I run laps around the track and continue to do speed work. I race the straight-aways, then jog the curves. Or I sprint a 200, then jog a 200. Or if the team’s doing street work, I join them for that. For most of us, cross-country is what we do to build up our base for track. Kyro unofficially requires it unless you’re doing another fall sport, and although I was never a fan of distance running before, Kyro’s “you’re on your honor to run this weekend” is what got me into running the Aggery Bridge loop.

So I’ve been working hard and improving at a pretty good rate. I’m up to at least eight miles a day, five of them with the wheelchair—a wheelchair that my dad’s made much easier to push. It now has big wheels, a padded seat, and a broader footrest, plus a serious seat belt and a hand brake for safety. He’s also welded a crossbar between the handles so I can push one-handed if my arms need a break.

He didn’t stop there, either. He replaced the potting soil with twenty-five-pound sandbags, got me bike gloves for my hands—which are a lifesaver—and added pouches to the sides for water bottles, which is something I’ve really needed in this heat.

I also got a good tip from Hank—I put antiperspirant on my stump. I was sweating and getting hot spots on my leg, having to dry out my liner mid-run to keep from getting blisters. The antiperspirant has really helped.

I’ve been avoiding Rosa’s house because I didn’t want her to know what I was planning until I was sure I could do it. I’m still not sure that I can—not even close to sure—but my mom brought up a good point: “What if her mother doesn’t want you to do this?”

So the Saturday before school starts I finally decide that it’s time, and I jog over to Rosa’s house with Sherlock and the wheelchair.

Rosa sees me coming. “Jessica!” she calls through the screen door. It’s only ten in the morning, but it’s already eighty degrees out—a good day to stay inside. “Hey, what’s that?” she asks, motoring out onto the porch.

“Is your mom here?” I ask.

“Mo-om!” she calls over her shoulder, then turns back to my wheelchair. “Who built that? What’s in the seat? Where are you going?”

Rosa’s mom is on the porch now, too. “Hello, Jessica! Do you want to come in? It’s awfully warm out here.”

“Uh, no. I just need to ask you something.”

Rosa shakes her head. “All of us are asking questions! Who’s got answers?”

I smile at her. “I do. To answer yours first … my dad retrofitted my wheelchair so I could run with it.”

“You
run
with that?” Rosa asks.

I nod. “And what’s in the seat is one twenty-five-pound sandbag, and”—I pick up the white kitchen trash liner that’s next to it—“two five-pound sacks of flour.”

They both look at me like I’ve got sunstroke.

I laugh, but I’m suddenly feeling very foolish. I focus on Rosa. “You know how you ask me about running? How you talk about the finish line? How it’s some mystical thing that you wish you could experience?”

Her eyes are growing wide.

“Well, I’ve been running with this almost every day, adding weight to it, trying to build up to—”

“Really?” she asks, and her eyes are enormous. “You’re going to run
me
in that?”

“What are you saying?” her mom asks, and there’s definitely concern in her voice.

“Well … I’m thinking Rosa and I could do the River Run together. It’s a ten-mile race, which is long, but it’s the only community run around here. It’s in November, so I have
about two months to build up my endurance. But before I go any further with my training, I thought I should make sure it’s okay with you. And make sure Rosa wants to do it.”

“Yes! I absolutely want to!” Rosa squeals from her seat. “Yes!”

Mrs. Brazzi seems very skeptical.

“My dad’s put on big tires and a padded seat to make the ride comfortable, plus there’s a wide seat belt and a hand brake for safety.” I feel like a used-car salesman, and Mrs. Brazzi is looking at me like I
am
one. “I promise I’ll be safe,” I tell her.

“Please, Mom?” Rosa asks.

Mrs. Brazzi sighs, then looks at me. “It’s you pushing, right? No one else?”

I nod.

She looks at her daughter.

Looks at me.

Looks at the chair.

Finally she sighs again and says, “If this is what you girls want …”

“Awesome!” Rosa cries. Then she looks at me with wide eyes and says, “Can we try it now?”

I think about it, then give a little shrug. “You probably ought to try out the chair and see how it feels.”

So while she powers down the porch ramp in her motorized wheelchair, I remove the sacks of flour and the sandbag from the running wheelchair. Then Rosa locks her wheels and does a transfer. She’s wobbly on her legs, and they won’t really support her, but the transfer is actually very smooth.

Her mother fusses with the safety belt and says to Rosa, “I’m going to get you a helmet.”

“No!” Rosa cries. “No helmet!”

Rosa says it so forcefully that Mrs. Brazzi and I are both startled.

“I don’t want to be the weird kid in the helmet,” Rosa says quietly. “And I want to feel the wind.”

I think back. How many times have I told Rosa about facing into the wind; cutting into the wind;
feeling
the wind run cool fingers through your hair?

More than I can count.

“Believe me,” I say to Mrs. Brazzi, “I won’t be going that fast.”

She considers all this, then heaves another sigh. “Okay, then.”

“Thank you, Mom!” Rosa cries. “Oh, thank you!”

So I push off and run Rosa around the block.

One short block.

Rosa’s mother is waiting on the sidewalk when we return, and Rosa is ecstatic, bubbling about how much fun it is.

Me, I’m pouring sweat and exhausted. I want to yank off my leg and jump in the mermaid fountain.

It was only one block.

One short block.

Rosa and her mother have both come on board with this, but now I do seriously wonder about the sanity of it.

If one block was this hard, how will I ever make ten miles?

T
HERE REALLY IS NO BACKING OUT NOW
.

Gavin, Fiona, Mario, Mom, Dad, Kaylee … they all tell me everyone will understand if I decide it’s too hard, but I can’t quit now.

I just can’t.

So I confide in Kyro, and I ask him to help me. “I need to get strong enough to do this,” I tell him after school is back in session.

We’re in his classroom, and I watch as his strong, graceful hands sort stacks of papers, clipping them into groups as he thinks.

Finally he says, “Pushing close to a hundred pounds … plus the weight of the wheelchair … that would be hard for an able-bodied person.”

“Hey! I’m able-bodied.”

He eyes me. “You know what I mean.” Then he adds, “And more important, it’s the weight. How much do you weigh, Jessica? One twenty? One thirty?”

With or without my leg?

I just shrug.

“So you’re pushing close to your own weight over ten miles.”

“Look,” I tell him, “I’m going to do it. I’m asking you to help me.”

He holds my gaze for a long moment, then nods. “Okay.” He turns to his calendar. “What are we looking at? Eight weeks? And what are you up to?”

“The River Run is the first weekend in November. I did five miles with forty pounds this morning.”

“Plus the wheelchair?”

I nod.

“And what was your level of effort?”

“It was hard,” I admit.

He nods again. “Okay. I’ll work up a schedule. And we’ve got to get you into the weight room. And on a muscle-building diet.” He eyes me, but there’s a twinkle behind the seriousness. “You thought the four hundred was bad?”

I laugh, but I know I’m in for it.

And that’s okay.

It’s the only way I’ll get Rosa over that finish line.

I
STICK TO
K
YRO’S PLAN
. I alternate running and lifting. I’m sore a lot. I ice my legs after hard runs. I hydrate the way he wants me to. I eat a lot of tuna. I take good care of my stump, watching for hot spots, avoiding chafing and blisters.

I add another sandbag to the wheelchair.

Guys in the weight room eventually accept me; eventually quit staring at my leg. I go in, work out, sweat buckets, and get out. I focus on the goal. Focus on Rosa’s happiness. Focus on the finish line.

Gavin runs with me when he can, and we do our homework together almost every night. Kaylee’s a freshman now, and very impressed that my boyfriend is Gavin Vance. “He’s, like,
popular,
” she tells me one night.

I laugh. “Yeah. Unbelievable, huh?”

And then one Saturday afternoon I’m doing a long, slow distance run without the wheelchair when a funny thing happens.

A stranger calls out my name.

“Jessica!”

I’m near Old Town, familiarizing myself with the River Run route, and when I turn, I see a woman with her two children waving at me from across the street.

“You’re Jessica!” she calls.

I laugh and wave. “Yes, I am!”

“Good for you!” she calls back. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you!” I shout, and continue running.

This buoys me through my run, and after this first time, it happens almost every time I run. People call to me from cars, wave at me from bridges, shout, “Run, Jessica!” from across the street … somehow the word has spread through our little town that the one-legged girl is running again.

As I run, I wonder how many of these people helped buy my leg.

I wonder about the deep, wide abyss between good intentions and concrete action, and how many of them leapt across it.

Is that why they’re so happy to see me run?

Because they helped make it happen?

Or are they just happy to see the girl they read about in the paper—the one they saw peg-leg around on TV—running again?

Either way, I find their enthusiasm to be contagious. It helps me press on. Helps me add weight to the wheelchair. And when they ask why I’m pushing sandbags in a wheelchair, I’m happy to tell them about Rosa and the River Run. “Wish me luck!” I always say, and they do.

I get a lot of thumbs-ups.

I give a lot of thumbs-ups back.

Some weekends Gavin joins Sherlock and me on my distance run. He’s offered since the beginning to take turns pushing the wheelchair, but I made a deal with Mrs. Brazzi, and besides, this is something
I
want to do for Rosa.

Then Fiona and Mario decide they want to join us, and as my entourage grows, so do the cheers.

“Man!” Mario says one Saturday after about the tenth Go, Jessica. “This is crazy!”

But as much as I like the encouragement, something about it bothers me. And after it happens again, I tell the others, “This is supposed to be about Rosa, not me.”

“But you’re the one doing it,” Fiona says.

I slow down, then stop. I’m pushing seventy-five pounds, and all of a sudden I’ve had enough.

“You okay?” Gavin asks.

I shake my head. “I probably spend too much time thinking about this, but in my mind this is more than just a run
for
Rosa. It’s a run
about
Rosa. You know … like a coming-out party? Where we can say, Hey, this is our friend Rosa. Pay attention, people. She’s a really great person, and a math genius, too!” As we walk along, I tell them about Rosa’s notes and what she wrote about wishing people could see her, not her condition. “I want people to see
her
. I want it to be a really special day for her.”

Gently, Gavin tells me, “But if you’re our town celebrity—which it looks like you are—you’re the one who will bring the attention to Rosa. You’re the one who will help people see Rosa. If I pushed her, it wouldn’t have the same impact as it will when you do it.”

Everyone’s quiet for about half a block, and then Fiona says, “Remember last year at the River Run when Kyro had us passing out Gatorade? There were runners who had their names on their shirts? And complete strangers would shout their names as they ran by? Maybe we can make
CHEER FOR ROSA
or
TEAM ROSA
shirts?”