Page 17 of Pick-Up
Almost every morning as he eats breakfast, Bart asks me myfavorite color of the day. I appreciate that he doesn’t expect me to pick one and stick with it, always. He understands, every day is different. Some days are green tea tinted, while others burst out in crimson. As I run, I lift my phone, awkwardly, to snap a photo of a particularly flamboyant maple. I’ll show it to the kids later.Thisis my favorite color today.
But, between my deep thoughts, photographic endeavors and the running app that periodically interrupts my podcast of celebrities interviewing celebrities, my brain and body get jumbled up and I stumble. Luckily, I catch myself before I hit the concrete and dirt path, but I look up just in time to seehimsee me. Demon Dad. Coming from the opposite direction. Looking like a catalog model forRunner’s Monthly, with just a dash of curated scruff.
He looks shocked. Which is how I feel too. Who knows why, since we live in the same tiny neighborhood and literallyeveryoneruns here. Caught off guard, he waves in greeting, aborts halfway, then seems unsure of what to do with his hand. He scrunches up his nose like he’s caught a whiff of the sulfurous ginkgo tree to our left. Then, as we pass each other, at the last second, he opens his mouth to speak. Mucked up by ambivalence and the speed of sound, all I wind up hearing is a garbled rumble as if from a trapped animal surrendering. Kind of likemleghhh.
That’s when I realize that, in the midst of this profound millisecond exchange, I have been staring dumbly, my mouth hanging open like a bulldog.Dammit. A missed opportunity to glare at him or snub him or at least look “on top of things.”
I am left with a buzzing feeling, like something significant has happened when it hasn’t. Like suddenly I am awake. I try to recenter and think about something else. Not the hoodie. Not the lost drama class. Not the ways in which I have disappointed my children and this man has made it worse. Not how the divorce still feels like a failure akin to original sin. All of that sits solid in my chest, a burden to carry and keep moving.
To my chagrin, instead of waning, the shot of adrenaline fromseeing that Ethan person shifts into a nervous drip. Anxiety trickles through me.
What if I don’t get this job? Is my mother losing a step? Did I leave the oven on?
I try to think hopefully about my meeting on Thursday. Plan an outfit for it. Envision it going well. Them hiring me and inexplicably paying me $2.5 million for a four-day shoot. But even that fantasy can’t settle me.
What is with this guy? Is he destined to destroy any semblance of serenity for me? Has he come into my life as a hurdle I must somehow leap in order to ascend to the next level?
The more I think about him, the more I spiral into anger. My run is sacred time! And I’ve never noticed him here before—not like the Orthodox Jewish girl who still manages to run with a wig or the inexplicably pale eighty-year-old man in full race regalia who I pass on every jog. How dare Demon Dad disturb my run by… existing! That’s right: how dare he exist!
Also, is this run almost over? Because this is not one of those easy, breezy jogs. I am huffing. I am puffing. There’s a crick in my neck.
I look down to check the remaining distance. How am I not done? Of course, when I glance back up, I make eye contact with Demon Dad.Again!What is this karma?!
This time, he looks more prepared, maintaining an even expression with only a slight raise of his eyebrows. But I am exponentially annoyed. Really? He lapped me? In the time it has taken me to move ten feet, he has run three-quarters of the loop again?
I’m contemplating to what far-flung land I can relocate my biweekly run—is it disrespectful to jog in Green-Wood Cemetery?—when I sense more than see someone jog up beside me. Like the Angel of Death, his shadow overtakes mine.
“You’re running the wrong way,” Ethan says. He has clearly hung a U-turn and is now jogging in my same direction.
I do not look his way. “There is no wrong way,” I say, between pants. “There are only wrong people.”
“Well, most people are running the way I was running. Therightway.”
“Please feel free to resume running in the other direction. Away from me.”
I speed up. He keeps pace with me, easily.
“You don’t like me.”
“That’s surprising to you?”
“Maybe just the depth of your contempt.”
“I have great depth.”
“I have no doubt.”
He continues running beside me, quietly for a few paces. And, to my chagrin, I can sense him there almost physically. At my side. Like an itch. “You know, you should really run with your hands held higher up in front of you.” He demonstrates as if he’s about to start a boxing match. Punching himdoesseem like a good idea.
“Weirdly,” I say, instead, “I don’t remember asking for your advice.”
I am reminded of Cliff’s unsolicited note on myfinishedfinal film project in college. “You might want to do it more like… me.”
“I’m just saying”—Ethan shrugs, with irritating ease—“holding your hands up allows you to protect your face and body if you fall.”
I say nothing. I am honestly just trying to keep breathing. This is faster than my usual pace. But there is no way I’m slowing down.
“ ’Cause I saw that. Before,” he says, pointing his thumb behind us, “when you almost ate it back there.”
