“Mr. Hill, Deb Thomas from Ford Models was hoping for a word,” Kendal said as she handed him the phone.
He listened and then nodded.
“Yes, that would be acceptable,” he said, and then hung up. “David, Sarah, let’s finish this shoot.”
“We haven’t resolved this,” Denise demanded.
“Call your office,” was all Mr. Hill said.
When we began again, Sarah struggled. I could tell that Denise’s tantrum had affected her. We had to get her head back into doing her job, so I tickled her. She jumped and gave me a look that told me I was dead meat. My eyes got big, and she laughed at me. Just like that, she was back to being her old self. We restarted the scene and she was fine.
We got all ten scenes done by two o’clock. Since we’d powered through lunch, we were all starved.
“Why don’t we go to my dad’s country club? We can grab lunch, and then I can go watch Peggy run her cross-country meet,” I suggested.
“And I’m buying,” Denise said, seeming to appear out of thin air. “I need to mend some fences.”
I was debating whether I wanted to spend time with this woman when Kendal nudged me. I looked at her and she nodded.
“I would be delighted if you joined us,” I said as graciously as I could.
I was surprised when Mr. Hill said he would come, too.
THE COUNTRY CLUB HAS a main dining room and a bar and grill in between the tennis courts and the pro shop. I took them to the bar and grill. I found Dad having a meeting with his employees. I grinned when I saw him and went over.
“I see someone’s working hard,” I said as I hugged him.
I introduced everyone to Dad and the people he worked with. Dad recommended the steak sandwich. They were trying it with rib eyes instead of mystery meat. I had mine with mushrooms and it was great. I could’ve eaten two of them.
Denise made nice. I think Deb Thomas must have adjusted her attitude. Mr. Hill was a nice guy, so he was fine. We talked about Sarah and me working more together, which I was all for. Sarah had to get back to school. I’d been neglecting my Wesleyan friends since Tami had left. I vowed to change that. When I could do it, though, I had no idea.
DAD’S MEETING BROKE up, and everyone in my group was taking off. Dad sat down with me and kept me company until the Lincoln High bus pulled up. I told him I’d call him if I needed a ride. Peggy got off the bus and had her game face on. She saw me but went to work organizing the girls and getting them to stretch and warm up correctly. It was good to see she was taking being captain seriously, even though her personal goals were right in front of her. I’d forgotten that cross-country was a team sport. If the other girls did well, then the whole team could go to State.
Soon several other schools arrived. I was kicking myself for not attending a girls cross-country meet before. I really was a ‘stupid boy,’ because this was the place to go if you were interested in athletic teen girls. I wandered through, smiling at and flirting with several of the girls. I was startled when someone grabbed my butt. I turned around and found Cassidy smiling at me.
“Peggy told me to come get you.”
I let Cassidy guide me back to Peggy, who then had me help her stretch.
“You ready?” I asked her.
“Yeah, can you help keep my pace?” she asked.
“Sure, what do you need me to do?”
She got out a map of the course they were running. It was three miles and wound through the three golf courses. It would be a pretty run, with the leaves turning. She pointed at several spots along the course.
“I need you to tell me my time at each of these spots.”
On the map, it had her target times. She’d really planned this out.
She explained that there would be six girls running from each school. They took the top five times for the team portion. The top three schools each got to go to State as a team. The top five individuals, regardless of whether their team made it, got to go to State. There were fifteen schools here, so they would run the race in six flights. The best went first. Peggy was scheduled to run in the first flight.
It was soon time, and I wanted to watch the start. I would have to hustle to get to the first checkpoint. All fifteen girls lined up. I was surprised at all the jostling going on. Peggy was in the middle of the pack; I’d hate to start there, but she seemed to know what she was doing.
When the gun was fired, the front girls sprinted out and were throwing elbows to establish position. Peggy had made a good choice to avoid the physical stuff at the beginning. Three of the girls got tangled up and went down hard. Peggy glided by them as she established a good rhythm.
I sprinted to the first checkpoint. I checked her target time, and when she went by I shouted, “three seconds up!” meaning she was three seconds ahead of her target pace.
I lost track of her because I had to cut across the golf course to get to the next checkpoint. I was at the bottom of a hill, so I couldn’t see what happened, but there was a moan from the crowd that didn’t sound good. I checked the clock and Peggy should be coming over the hill soon. A couple of other girls topped the hill and then ran by me. I watched as the seconds counted on, past her target time. Then she appeared. She was covered in mud and was struggling to keep her stride.
She was behind by 18 seconds. That was a lot of time to make up. I didn’t bother to tell her what her time was, I just started running with her. I had to make sure I wasn’t on the course, but she seemed to settle down. She looked over.
“Just like training. Go faster now,” I told her.
She nodded and picked up the pace. I cut over to the next checkpoint. When I got there, the three girls ahead of Peggy were just passing me, and I could see Peggy about thirty yards behind them. She was catching up. I probably did a bad thing.
“Oh my God! She’s going to catch them!” I yelled.
The three girls all looked back. They all sped up. I cheered Peggy on and then ran to the next checkpoint. Peggy smiled, and I could tell she was doing okay now. She slowed down to her normal pace. I was hoping the other three weren’t used to speeding up and slowing down. Changing your pace can take a lot out of you if you’re not comfortable doing it.
I ran to the next checkpoint. Two of the three girls were now hurting. I could tell that one of them was going to be fine, and Peggy had no chance of catching her. She was steadily gaining on them, though. When she reached the checkpoint, she sped up again.
I ran to the last checkpoint and saw that Peggy was just behind the two girls that were struggling at the faster pace. The one that was in better shape still had twenty yards on her. I watched as Peggy hit the last hundred yards and sprinted. She overtook the two slower girls, and they seemed to wilt when she passed them. The lead girl didn’t have a kick, and I thought Peggy might actually catch her, but it wasn’t to be.
When Peggy crossed the finish line, Mitch Evans and the boys cross-country team were there to celebrate her second-place finish. I was a little peeved when Mitch gave her a kiss. He gave me a smirk when he saw me. Peggy’s coach then took her aside and they talked. When she was done, Mitch tried to steer her away from me, but she wasn’t having any of that.
“Thank you, David. I’d have quit if you hadn’t been there to help me,” she said as she kissed and hugged me.
Mitch got the message and took off.
“What happened?”
“I got shoved into one of the ponds. We’re lodging a complaint,” she told me.
“What happens now?”
“We wait. If my time holds up, I get to go to State.”
We did wait. She was taking the suspense better than I was. We were all surprised when three girls in the fifth flight posted better times than anyone in the first flight. Peggy was sitting in fifth place going into the last flight. If anyone in that group beat her time, she was out. She finally made me sit down because my pacing was making her nervous. When the final group finished, Peggy was going to State!