“I would visit!” LaoLao’s words are bigger than mine. She’s standing, and I can tell I’ve upset her. “You think she so special? She making him better? Who is paying for him to be in hospital? Me! I want to visit him too.” She’s a shaking mountain, like a volcano about to burst. “I would visit him every day! If I could! But I work and then my bones are so tired.”
Granny Dee turns to face LaoLao, and if LaoLao is a shaking mountain, Granny Dee is a tree blowing in the wind, bending this way and that, trembling, but never breaking.
“I would work! Don’t you dare say that I wouldn’t. But … no one will take me! I can’t cook like you, at least not dumplings or noodles or any of that. And no one wants to hire me to make stew or any of the things I can make. What do you think I should do? So high and mighty! You been workin’ just a few months. A few measly months! What about when you first moved in? You remember that? Who was workin’ then?”
“I was taking care of Winnie! And the babies!”
“Well, now I’m taking care of the babies! They just ain’t babies anymore.”
The two women glare at each other, each one immovable, and I think we’ll never leave the table, that Granny Dee and LaoLao will sit and stare at each other till Granny Dee sprouts roots and LaoLao turns to stone.
Then LaoLao looks away, puffing her cheeks up full of air, just as Granny Dee bites her own, making her face look sunken and older than it is, especially in glow of the flashlight. LaoLao exhales, loud and long like a teakettle shooting out steam, and reaches out to pat Granny Dee’s brittle branch of an arm.
“Next time,” she says, her words coming out heavy, “next time you visit Marcus, I go too. I know is hard to go alone.”
In my room, the Riveo Running Girl entry form shimmers and glows. Using a flashlight, I read and reread the terms and conditions. I read about the prize. The winner of the Riveo Running Girl Race becomes the official Riveo Running Girl. She will be featured in Riveo ads across the country. On billboards. The Riveo Girl will be in a commercial. The Riveo Girl will be paid a lot of money.
I stare at myself in the mirror, at my face that doesn’t look like any other face I’ve ever seen, and try to imagine it on a billboard, or in a commercial.
I can’t.
I just can’t.
Winning the race is one thing. It’s what comes after that that scares me.
But for Marcus, for my family, maybe I can.
I have to.
The entry form asks for a parent’s signature, but I can’t ask for that, not with everything going on, so I forge my mama’s signature. Not hard to do, I’ve seen it enough times. My lioness comes out from under my bed and nips at my ankles, but I ignore her. I can’t risk asking my mom and having her say no. Or worrying about the pressure. I need this. Our family needs this.
I’ll go to the Riveo store tomorrow and hand deliver it.
I think about what Eliza said at Hilton Head. How I won’t be able to win if I run like I did that day. I can’t be distracted. I’m gonna run harder, faster, better than I ever have. Than anyone else.
I can’t afford not to.
And then when I win this thing and get the money, maybe my LaoLao and Granny Dee will laugh at the dinner table, my mom won’t look so stressed, and maybe even Marcus will wake up. Because if I can become the Riveo Running Girl, maybe anything can happen.
CHAPTER 48
“Wing! College scouts are comin’ to our races in the next few weeks.” I haven’t seen Aaron much since Hilton Head. I’ve been scared that if I see him, that feeling I had on the beach, the feeling of drowning in him, will come back. And I’ll be slow again. Because he turns my bones into honey, and I can’t have that. No matter how much I want it. I’ve turned in my Riveo Running Girl form. It’s official now; I’m going for it. And if I’m gonna win – and I’ve gotta win – it’s gonna take all my focus. I can’t afford to be thinking about Aaron.
I can’t afford much of anything right now. The electricity only came back on yesterday, and that was after my mom finally got through to a nice person at Georgia Power and convinced them to extend our payment period. I don’t know what she thinks is going to happen in the next three months, but at least we’ve got power again. Until we lose the house.
“Scouts? That’s great,” I say, looking down, worried that if I look too closely at him I won’t be able to control myself and I’ll jump on him like some kind of feral cat. “University of Georgia?”
That’s where Aaron is hoping to get a scholarship. He’s already been accepted, but his scholarship is dependent on his spring track performance. A bit like the Riveo competition.
Do I distract him too? I wonder what I do to his bones. What I do to his heart. I don’t want him slowing down either, not when he’s got so much at stake.
Not when we’ve both got so much at stake.
“Yeah! And I hear you’re going for this Riveo Running Girl thing?” He whistles low and long. “Gonna be tough, but I bet you can do it.”