why are we skipping out on what should be a great baseball game, not to mention the festivities afterward, to drive to Indiana and watch people run on dirt for eight hours?”
“We don’t have to stay for the whole race. Just until Ruby finishes.”
“Five hours, then.”
This race was hillier than the one in Iowa had been, but Ruby would be trying to run faster. “No more than four and half.” Micah had also looked at the race times for the top runners for this race. Ruby wouldn’t be at that level yet, but she would be gunning for it, even if she didn’t realize it, and those runners did this race in four hours.
“Still, there’s nothing interesting anywhere near this race.” Amir braked to avoid hitting the car in front of them, then moved to the left lane and passed a long line of cars while muttering under his breath about stupid drivers and stupid Indiana. He had made the same complaint in Iowa and Idaho and would probably repeat it again if they watched the ultramarathon in Chicago. “Why lower your standards to follow this fraud?”
“You never complain when I interview baseball players. And you didn’t complain about the Tour de France, either.”
“Sure.” Amir shrugged. “I like baseball and I’m not foolish enough to complain about a trip to France.” Amir had been his photog for almost three years and remembered those interviews as well as Micah did, though through a different lens. “But while the baseball players and the cyclists both wear tight pants, none of them have pigtails.”
Micah didn’t say anything. The pigtails probably spoke to some disturbing fetish hidden deep within, but he thought they were hot.
RUBY STOOD AMONG the other racers at the starting line, tapping at the dirt with the toe of her running shoe. The weather was perfect. Most of the race would be spent in the trees, so the bright overhead sun would be welcome, rather than a hindrance. The temperature was cool enough that she shouldn’t overheat at kilometer twenty and there was—thankfully—no rain in the forecast. Her main concern was that the loop crossed two streams and she’d not had much practice running with wet feet.
Still, she thought, lifting her head to look at the morning sky visible through the bright green spring leaves above her, she’d invited the deities Nike and Hermes along for the journey and they’d obliged. She could feel them crouching among the other racers. There would be no measly three minutes to haunt her drive home this weekend.
Haley had flatly refused to provide an alibi for another weekend. Her cousin had said she didn’t have a problem lying to Ruby’s parents, but Haley was all out of plausible excuses and she didn’t have the energy to think of implausible ones the Hearts would believe. Ruby had been about to forfeit her entry fee when her mom had announced that she was taking a spur-of-the-moment spa weekend, which meant her father would use the opportunity to stay in the city and work. Or whatever else he did.
She shifted her weight from side to side, partially to keep muscles pliable and partially to move the uncomfortable knowledge of how naive and self-centered she’d been far enough into the back of her head that she didn’t have to stare at it throughout the race. When she’d been training she’d been so focused on herself. Her entire family had been focused on her. All the spare resources went to Team Ruby. She hadn’t even noticed how unhappy her family was until she didn’t have anything else to occupy her mind and they no longer had her to rally around any. Her career hadn’t been the glue that held them together; it had been the butterfly bandage barely keeping them from falling apart when really they’d needed stiches. Now they were left with a scar that would never go away.
This time around she was racing on her own, with her own meager resources. Even though she wasn’t doing it to win, her entire family—maybe not Josh—would say she was being selfish. And they’d be right. She was here to find the good parts of Ruby Heart again. She hadn’t realized that for her first race, but she knew that now. Ruby Heart had been a scandal and she’d done something horrible, but she couldn’t be all bad.
She shivered as it felt as if a mouse ran down her spine. The crowds were sparse enough that she could glance around and see each and every person waiting for the gun to go off. Including the man she wanted to see least, the man who could wreck her whole plan to rediscover Ruby Heart. Micah Blackwell was watching her from the sidelines with his head cocked, a vague smile on his face and his hands on the wheels of his chair as if he were going to dart away from the sidelines to race after her at any moment. Right behind him stood his cameraman and the giant camera stared at her with its black, unblinking eye.
The starting gun boomed and Ruby burst forward. Try to catch me, she wanted to yell. She wanted to laugh. Micah could chase her all he wanted, but she was Ruby Heart, and he would never catch her.
* * *
MICAH SAT ON the sidelines, tapping his fingers against the wheel of his chair and watching Ruby work to keep her muscles warm for the race. The neon green hat Ruby had been wearing at the first race must have been completely abandoned in Iowa, because she wore a different hat today. The mud-brown canvas wasn’t nearly as eye-catching as the neon had been, but it didn’t need to be. The set of Ruby’s shoulders would attract as much attention as any ugly hat. Her hot pants were a velvety gray, and she wore a tight yellow running shirt. When she moved, he thought he saw a gray parrot silhouetted in the fabric of the back of her shirt. Not quite trying to hide in the crowds today. People would remember the parrot. He was going to remember the way her muscles shifted and moved, like watching a panther stretch.
Her body stilled. She had seen him watching her. Then she straightened and her shoulders rolled back. As the countdown got closer to one, Ruby tilted herself forward. When the gun went off, her muscles contracted for a blink of an eye before she burst forward. Ruby Heart was back. And different.
* * *
SHE FINISHED IN just under four hours, fifteen minutes, smashing her past race time and on a harder course, and all that was left to do was to enjoy the euphoria of finishing a race and eat her banana before she fell over. Instead, she took a sip of her beer and looked around. The congratulations friends and family offered other runners boomed over the clamor of the band onstage. The spectators also offered assistance. “How do you feel? Have a seat, I’ll get you some chips. The guac is real good.”
The top finishers in the race hung around, chatting with one another like old friends and cheering for the runners crossing the finish line. Step over that line from pain into party, their cheers promised. Supportive. Encouraging. A reminder of what it had been like to be a member of a team, even though these were all individual racers.
Her runner’s high put a goofy smile on her face and she stood there, not certain where to put her hands, where to look, wishing she had someone to hold a plate of chips and guacamole for her. Finishing one small plate of food was enough to make her feel ready to take the shuttle back to her hotel, so Ruby left the postrace celebration.
She, Ruby Heart, used to being surrounded by coaches and her mother at the end of a race, accustomed to the cheers of an Olympic stadium, had been the only racer on the bus ride back. Of course, old Ruby Heart had been accustomed to winning, not achieving personal bests.
The last of her race euphoria abandoned her when she crossed the threshold into her hotel room. As the sweat crystalized on her body in the dry hotel room air-conditioning, she wondered, who is Ruby Heart? Whoever she was, she needed to find dinner and rest, or else it wouldn’t matter who Ruby Heart was, because she’d be as stiff as a stadium seat in the morning and would have to drive like a zombie with her joints all locked up.
The phone next to the bed rang and Ruby had the relief of having something to do. “Hello?”
“Ruby?”
The velvet voice said her name, like it did in her dreams before turning on her. You had someone shove your failure into your arm and then you pissed your dreams away. When she hadn’t seen Micah at the finish line, she’d convinced herself that his presence at