The Girl of His Dreams Read online

  When the little boy with the blue panda got off the bus, Willis went forward and sat with Sophie. She looked at him. “Hi,” he said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “You’re mad at me,” he said.

  “Brilliant!”

  “Why should you be mad at me?” he said. She wanted him to be something he wasn’t. What if he said he’d never look at another girl? It would be a lie. “Guys look. Girls do, too. Don’t tell me you don’t look. You made such a big thing of not liking Benny, but you cozied right up to him.”

  “Different!” she said. “Benny? I’d never choose him over you.”

  “I didn’t choose Lee. I caught her when she fell off the camel. If you fell off a camel, I’d catch you. Did you see me do anything else?”

  “You didn’t just catch her. You know you didn’t. I saw your face.”

  “I know I wasn’t in the greatest mood.”

  “What’s mood got to do with it? I know about your mood. I didn’t mind that. You hurt me, Willis. You acted like I wasn’t important to you. Sometimes you act like you care and sometimes you act like you wish I’d disappear.”

  “No,” he said. He started to answer, then he shut up. Why? Because it was true? No, it wasn’t true, but it was almost true. “I’m moody sometimes, but even when I’m moody, I’m glad you’re there,” he began, but then he couldn’t go on. “I can’t be making speeches all the time,” he ended lamely.

  “I’m not talking about speeches. I’m not talking about moods. I’m talking about us.” She was speaking very softly and there were tears in her eyes. “You didn’t want me, Willis. You wanted her.”

  She didn’t say anything else, and at the next stop he pulled the cord and got off the bus and walked the rest of the way home.

  Later, at home, he fed Zola and watched some TV just to have something to look at. Finally, he had to get out. He told himself that if he ran, he’d feel better, but he didn’t run. He wandered around for a while downtown, noticing all the couples, making himself feel good and miserable; then he went home.

  The next couple of days he didn’t try to make up with Sophie. When he went to work, he walked by the newsstand. He didn’t stop, he didn’t say anything, but he looked over, gave her a hurt look. She saw him and she didn’t say anything, either. She didn’t want him.

  This person he saw across the street wasn’t the person he knew, not the Sophie who worked at the newsstand and didn’t know her way around the block. This wasn’t somebody waiting for him in the doorway, somebody who was eager and glad to see him. This was somebody he didn’t recognize. The way she stood there, the cool way she looked over at him—everything about her said, Who are you? What do you want? What are you doing here?

  The hell with her, he thought. He stayed away, didn’t go to her house, didn’t even go get his car, which was still parked up near the zoo. Maybe if he left it there long enough, they’d tow it away and he’d have to pay a big fine to get it back. It was just one more lousy thing to think about.

  He kept going over and over their fight. Sophie. The zoo. The camel. Lee and Benny. Then back to Sophie. Lee and Sophie. Lee like a movie star and Sophie like, well, Sophie. Being around Lee, how could he not look at her? She was beautiful. Sure, he’d liked it when she’d fallen into his arms. He’d liked rescuing her. So what? He was a rescuer. He’d rescued Zola and he’d rescued Sophie, and now Lee.

  Thursday was a lousy day. He had to wait around for an hour for work and it made him nervous. He began to think that there was no work and the job was coming to an end. And where would he get another job? Being fired would fit in with everything else that was happening to him. Miholic finally stuck him on a job with Vinnie and Wolpe, old molasses and glue themselves.

  Friday, he couldn’t stand his misery anymore and he stopped by the stand. “Have you got my copy of Runners’ World?”

  “No,” she said. She’d changed her hair. She had a green scarf around her shoulders. She looked cool, pale and distant. She turned to another customer and didn’t come back to Willis.

  Thirty-five

  Monday, on the way to work, he scratched on the side of the newsstand, like Zola announcing herself. “Zola says hi, Sophie,” he said. A kid popped out, a blotchy-faced boy he didn’t recognize. “Who are you?” Willis said. His face got hot. “Where’s Sophie?”

  The kid didn’t know anything about any Sophie. All he knew was that Carl picked him up this morning and told him he was working here for now.

  “Sophie Browne. Where is she? Did Carl put her at another stand?”

  The kid didn’t know anything.

  “When’s Carl going to be here?” The kid didn’t know that, either.

  After work that day, Willis went over to Sophie’s house. In the parking lot, four little girls were skipping rope. Brenda’s kid, Jessie, was with them. “A my name is Anna and I come from Alabama,” a girl sang. “My boyfriend’s name is Andy and he really is an actor.”

  He went inside and knocked on Sophie’s door. What was he going to say to her this time? Sophie, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Let’s not fight. Or, if we’re going to fight, let’s fight and get it over with.

  “Sophie?” He knocked again. Then he went downstairs and knocked on Brenda’s door.

  “Sophie’s not here,” Brenda said.

  “Where is she? When’s she coming back?”

  “She went home,” Brenda said coolly.

  “Home?”

  “Uh-huh.” She started to shut the door.

  “Hey, wait! What’s going on here? Stop jerking me around, Brenda. What do you mean, she went home?”

  “She went home, that’s what I said.”

  “To the farm?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did she leave a message for me?”

  “No.”

  “How’d she go?”

  “Her brother came and got her.”

  “Floyd? When?”

  “This morning.”

  “She left this morning?” He wasn’t getting it. He didn’t want to get it.

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “Is that all? She didn’t even leave me a message? Nothing for me? Did she say when she was coming back?”

  “She said she’d let me know.” Brenda closed the door.

  He knocked again. “Did Pat have the baby?”

  She opened the door a crack. “Not that I know about.” Then she couldn’t contain herself. “She went to get away from you. And after what she told me, I don’t blame her.”

  He went outside and sat down on the stoop, where the kids were skipping rope. He was stunned. All this time he’d thought, okay, Sophie was mad, but she was here. It was just a matter of time.

  How had things gotten this bad? He sat there, taking deep breaths, feeling worse and worse. She was gone. Sophie was gone.

  He didn’t go to work the next morning. He took Zola and went out. No place special, just walking. When he got hungry, he stopped to eat. Later, he was in the park. He didn’t know how he got there. It was like a summer day. There were people everywhere, sitting in the sun and lying on blankets on the grass. Didn’t anybody work? He went down to the pond, where he’d seen Sophie that day, where everything had really started. He remembered how happy he’d been.

  Willis walked around. He knew Sophie wasn’t there, but he kept looking for her. Near a stone wall, a photographer was taking pictures of a model in a fur coat. A man in white coveralls was arranging her hair, and a woman adjusted the coat. Zola ran right into the picture. “Take, take!” the photographer cried.

  On the far side of the field there was a crowd listening to some musicians. The drummer was a skinny black man with a white goatee. A girl in a purple sunsuit was dancing alone on the grass. From a distance, the triangle player looked like Sophie. Maybe it was Sophie.

  The closer he got, the more she looked like Sophie. She wore baggy pants and her hair jetted out in spikes. She was half turned away, her eyes closed, swaying and playing
the triangle.

  “Sophie,” he said under his breath. “Is it you?”

  He knew it wasn’t Sophie, yet he felt it could be her. He wanted it to be her. Hey, Sophie, he’d say to her, Brenda told me you left. Am I glad you didn’t go. Am I glad to see you. Then he’d tell her again he was sorry. Really sorry. He never thought the fight would go on this long. And she’d say she’d missed him, too. And they’d kiss and everything would be good again.

  The music ended, the players drifted away and the girl who looked like Sophie came toward him.

  It wasn’t Sophie. Not just the hair. Everything about her—not Sophie.

  There was only one Sophie, and she was gone. He’d lost her. And it hurt so much that he knew he loved her.

  He loved her.

  It was the first time he’d ever said it. He loved her, and she was gone. It was as if everything that had ever been between them had disappeared, too.

  It was like the music. Before you heard it, everything was ordinary. Then you heard the music and you went toward it and you saw the players and people dancing and you felt like dancing and you were happy and you thought the music would never stop. And then it did. The music stopped and there was nothing but you, sitting alone on a park bench, talking to yourself.

  He started running again, running and training, doing everything he’d done before. He didn’t think he was going to do it. He didn’t plan it. He just woke up the morning after the park and went out and ran. It was like calling Sophie back to him.

  He talked to her as he ran. See, Sophie, I’m running again. Nothing’s changed. One stupid remark shouldn’t change everything. Or one stupid afternoon.

  He was running as well as he ever had, maybe better. Running hard, more intensely, and with some recklessness. He wasn’t holding back. He wanted the pain. He was in pain. Only when he ran did the pain go away. When he ran he believed Sophie was coming back. When he got home he thought he’d find her waiting for him, like that day when it was raining and she’d come with the cookies.

  He started dreaming and thinking about the Invitational Race. The Aaron Hill race. One night he dreamed that he was on the starting line and his shoelaces broke. He knotted them and they broke again. He looked into the crowd. Somebody was there. He kept looking. And waiting. Looking for somebody he couldn’t find.

  He woke up and knew the dream was about Sophie.

  Sometimes Zola gave him a puzzled look. Something was missing in her life, too. She’d get her paws up on his knees and look into his eyes. Where’s Sophie?

  Every day, every place he went, he looked for her. When he went by the newsstand, there was that lift, that moment of anticipation. She was going to be there and she’d give him that smile she always gave him, and everything would be the way it was before.

  And then she wasn’t there. She was never there.

  Thirty-six

  You go your way, I’ll go mine.

  The morning of the race, Willis woke up with that phrase in his head. You go your way, I’ll go mine. Sophie wasn’t coming back. He rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head. An awful, sick feeling spread through him. You go your way. Her way was to leave him, to go back to the farm. And his way? What was it? Was he going to race? He didn’t know anymore and he didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to do something to make the sick feeling go away.

  He got up, made Zola’s breakfast, made himself eggs and toast and then couldn’t eat it. He flipped on the TV to get his mind off the race and watched cartoons. Would Sophie be at the Dome? Would she remember what day this was?

  He scratched Zola’s head, then teased her, held her muzzle. Zola raised her white eyebrows, her forehead wrinkled. Why? she seemed to say. Why are you doing this? She fought him, broke free and grabbed his wrist with her hot, wet mouth.

  What if Sophie was at the Dome and he wasn’t?

  He crossed the room. Zola followed him with her eyes. He saw the Dome, saw the track and the stands, saw Sophie there, looking for him. Waiting for him. He knew she was going to be there and he had to be there, too.

  He got dressed. He put on a pair of black running shorts with a gold stripe and a gold mesh, sleeveless jersey. He pinned the number 19—his age—on the back of the jersey, then pulled on the nylon warm-up suit that Sophie had bought him. He put his track shoes in a paper bag.

  Before he left, he glanced at the Aaron Hill poster and his whole stomach heaved. He washed his mouth out and brushed his teeth again and put on his white Raleigh racing cap.

  At the Dome he bought a general admission ticket. He didn’t think about what he was going to do. He’d stopped thinking. He was just doing it.

  There was a good crowd, but not a sellout. He didn’t see Sophie anywhere. He took a seat not far from the judges’ table. He kept looking around for Sophie. The Hill race, the men’s fifteen hundred meters, was scheduled for later in the morning. He stood up. If she was there, she’d see him. He even waved, but then he felt foolish and sat down.

  The judges, timekeepers and reporters shared one long table. The State U coach who’d talked to him was with his star runners. Bonner and Klein would do well, Willis thought, but neither one could take Aaron Hill.

  He watched the relay races and saw a few runners he recognized. The black guy he’d talked to at practice ran the final leg. His team lost.

  Willis found it hard to concentrate. His mind was on fast forward, jumping to that moment when he would enter the race. The first few seconds would be critical. When the gun went off, he’d be behind every runner. He’d be alone, vulnerable, easily picked off. To stay in the race, to even get into the race, he had to hurl himself forward, throw all his energy into those first moments. Timing was everything. If he started too soon, if he jumped in before the gun went off, they might scratch the race. And if he was too slow, if he didn’t leap forward and get solidly into the pack fast enough, they’d grab him, pick him off like a bad egg.

  There were six runners. He would be the seventh. His mouth was dried out and he kept swallowing. He picked out the point where he’d have to be when the race began.

  “The next race will be the men’s fifteen hundred meter.” The announcement came over the PA system and then they started calling off the runners and their schools. Willis put on his track shoes and shoved his other shoes into the paper bag. He left his seat and went down to the row of seats closest to the track.

  A couple of guards were chatting near the gate that he had to enter. He walked toward them. One of the guards looked at him. Willis nodded to him. “Good luck,” the guard said.

  When Aaron Hill came out from the lockers, there was a ripple of applause. He was wearing gold around his neck and on his wrist. Willis wiped his hands on his pants. You only had to look at Hill to see that he was a champion.

  Willis kept his back to the coach and started stretching out. The runners were moving toward the starting line. Aaron Hill passed him and took his starting position. Willis took off his warmup suit and threw it onto the benches. He knelt down and tied and double-tied his laces. He held his cap under his arm. He was sweating and his hands were shaking.

  Again he looked up into the stands. High up, something red flashed. He moved along the edge of the track. The starter raised the gun. The runners leaned forward on their arms, one leg thrust back. The gun went off. The runners sprang away. Willis jammed his hat on his head and leaped onto the track after them.

  He was alone too late. The runners seemed a great distance away from him. How had they gotten so far ahead of him? A man was waving ferociously at him from the side. Willis sprang away. Another man grabbed at him. He veered, ducked, then plunged after the runners. The numbers on their backs were black and as large as placards.

  A runner with a bristly ginger-colored mustache turned and showed Willis his teeth, then shoved him aside.

  Willis stumbled, kept running. He passed a green-and-yellow jersey, then another. He swung in behind a man with a black-and-gold shirt. He was safely in t
he pack.

  Thirty-seven

  “This is Andy Lipski at WIBB, broadcasting from the Dome. Something extraordinary has just happened. The runners in the fifteen hundred meters are off to a fast start, but now there’s a disturbance on the track. A runner, looks like one of the State University athletes, just came from the outside and swerved in between Parsky and Sanderson. Looks like Parsky swung at him. An official just ran out on the track. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Holy cow!

  “That runner there doesn’t belong. The officials are trying to get him off, but he keeps eluding them.… Bear with me, please, I’ve never seen anything like this before. The intruder, he’s got a white cap on. He just jumped in when the race started. There were six runners, now there’re seven. That’s not a school uniform he’s wearing! I see it now. This guy bolted in! I confess I didn’t see it happen, but that’s what it must have been. He’s right in there with the pack. The officials are trying to head him off and not stop the race, but they can’t get him. He’s in there, in the middle of the pack. Do the lead runners know? I don’t think they do, folks! Hill, Bonner and Robinson—they’re just running their race.

  “Holy cow, someone just tried to tackle this guy. I thought they had him, but he just sprang up like a deer and jumped over him. He’s running down the track like he’s doing the hurdles. He’s not wearing anybody’s colors. He’s got a number on his back, but it’s not on the program. He’s nobody I recognize. It’s somebody who bolted in from the stands. There’s no way they can get him now without stopping the race.

  “He’s wearing a white cap. Did I say that? I don’t believe this. The cap looks like a biker’s cap. I have a feeling he’s in the wrong race. He could be scheduled for another race and got in here by accident. But I don’t think so.

  “But he’s a runner, folks—holy cow, they just tried to reach in again and yank him out. They can’t touch him. He’s slippery. He slipped right out of their hands. I’ve never seen … in all my years in broadcasting, this is a first.

  “They’ve come around the first lap. He’s still in there, still solid in the pack. He can run, folks. The judges all have their heads together. I thought they were going to stop the race, but they’re letting it go on. It’s a good race. It’s tough. Blistering. Up front, it’s Robinson, then Bonner and Hill. And then it’s Sanderson, then the mystery runner, he’s hanging in there! Parsky and Ciotti in back.