Free On the Road to Find Out by Rachel Toor Page B

especially when shopping. Shopping was one of the things they loved to do together.
    Joan said she looked forward to seeing me at the race, and I said it sounded like fun, which maybe it would be.
    Mom thanked her and smiled at me in a way that made me tell her she had lipstick on her teeth even though she didn’t.

 
    14
    The next day I put on my new clothes and, get this: I felt different, like I was a real runner. When I headed out the door I ran stronger and faster than ever. My new shoes might have had wings attached to them, like the sandals that belong to the god the Greeks called Hermes and the Romans renamed Mercury.
    I made it to the boulevard and could not believe how easy it was. I zoomed along and passed people right and left, all forward motion. I thought about what I’d learned in physics and how I had not only speed, the equation for which is distance divided by time, but also velocity, which is change in position over time.
    I was a vector; I had magnitude and direction.
    Then it all fell apart.
    Somehow I had managed to run into what Jenni calls the Drop Zone or the DZ. She’ll come over, won’t say a word to me except, “I’m in the DZ,” and head straight to the bathroom. I don’t know where she came up with Drop Zone, except it probably has something to do with spending so much time with jocks. There’s also the PZ, the Pee Zone. They work the same way. I’m sure I don’t have to explain.
    Every step I took made the feeling in my gut worse. I had to stop, walk, and waddle home. I thought I might not make it in time. That I did well in physics and understood Newton’s three laws of motion didn’t change the fact I barely made it to the downstairs bathroom. I’d never felt so relieved—or so much like a loser.
    I could hardly control my own bowels, much less my destiny.
    Walter-the-Man was parked in front of the TV in the Walter-the-Man-shaped dent in the couch watching a Duke basketball game. My parents were nowhere to be found.
    â€œYo,” he said.
    â€œHey,” I said, and came in and sat beside him.
    He screamed, “GET IT TOGETHER! Did you see that? That was a foul. Are these refs blind? THAT WAS A FOUL, YOU DICKWEEDS!”
    When he watched basketball games, Walter-the-Man tended to scream a lot. I used to find it amusing.
    â€œHelp a fellow out? Fetch a fellow a beer?”
    Instead of arguing like I normally do, I went into the kitchen and got one for him. He held out his hand for the bottle.
    â€œStill sulking, I see.”
    â€œI’m not sulking.”
    â€œNOT ANOTHER THREE! COME ON, GUYS, STOP TRYING FOR THE THREES.”
    And then, “Looks like sulking to me.”
    â€œI suck,” I said.
    â€œAnd why is that?”
    â€œYou know why.”
    â€œTell me.” He screamed, “YES, OH YES! YES!!” and put his hands together as if he was praying, and clapped them like a lunatic as the ball went through the net.
    â€œVaseline! VASELINE!”
    Maybe he said, “Gasoline.” Or maybe “Maybelline.” I had no idea what he was saying because he wasn’t talking to me anymore. He cheered for the team as if he was the sixth man, as if they could hear him, as if his coaching advice—“OUTSIDE! GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY! WATCH THE OUTSIDE MAN!” — was going to be heeded by these five guys on the court miles away and visible only on TV.
    He looked hard at me and said, “Okay, Alice, tell me why you wanted to go to Yale.”
    â€œWhy are you doing this?”
    â€œDoing what?”
    â€œYou know all I ever wanted was to go to Yale.”
    â€œAnd now?”
    â€œNow my life is pretty much over.”
    He thought about it for a minute, rubbed his head with his hand as if he was shining his scalp, looked back at the TV, and said, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ARE YOU GODDAMN FREAKING KIDDING ME?”
    I slumped down farther in the couch and after two more