But I stopped short in the living room, seeing my mom on the sofa. It had been almost a week since our night at the hospital, and she’d gone back to work a few days ago, but she wasn’t one to sit still, much less lie down in the middle of the day.
“What?” she asked, looking up from her book.
“How are you feeling?”
She smiled. “Fine, Riley. Really.” She swung her legs over the edge of the sofa, stood, and turned around in a circle. “See?”
She looked solid and steady, the way I’d always pictured her. She’d been a runner in high school, had always hiked the trails behind our house and gone camping with me and my dad when I was little. I’d thought of her as strong like that long after it was true.
“Do I pass?” she asked, returning to the sofa.
“Yeah,” I said, thinking that if she were just honest with me about stuff, we wouldn’t have to go through this.
“Are you going to the Dash?”
I nodded, starting up the stairs. “You running this year?” I teased.
“Ha-ha.”
Twenty minutes later I hopped onto my bike after telling her, “I’ll be late. Don’t wait up.”
“I’m working till five in the morning,” she said. “Try to beat me home, ’kay?”
***
Sarah was watching for me, and waved when I swung off the bike. “Hurry,” she called. “The juniors are almost done.”
I nodded, locked up, and jogged to the base lodge patio, where the Stones were blaring across a crowd of at least a hundred people. As much as we complained about Buford, there was something pretty special about Dash weekend. People were smiling and laughing. Bill Winston, one of the mountain partners, moved through the crowd, glad-handing the seasonal people and chatting up the weekenders. A good winter was important to all of us—no one ever forgot that—and at this time of year there was always the sense it could happen. This could be the year people rediscovered Buford, the season we got record snowfall. It was probably like spring is in most places—the sense of a fresh start, new blood, a chance to re-create our town and ourselves.
I saw it in Sarah’s face, her eyes shining with excitement as we wove through people toward the red banner at the starting line.
Trip and Tannis were already there.
“You’re late,” Tannis told me. “The ski team’s about to take off.”
I craned my neck and saw Nat clustered with her teammates, all of them wearing red-and-white T-shirts emblazoned with the mountain logo.
“Sorry,” I said. “Had to work.”
“We’re going with the two forty-five group,” Sarah said, handing me our number.
I taped it onto my shirt, glancing at the huge clock on the peak of the base lodge. Thirty-five minutes. That should be enough time to get my heart rate down from the five-mile ride over.
“When are you guys running?” I asked Trip and Tannis.
“Trip’s in the third group, just after all the ski teams,” Tannis said. “My brothers and I are with you. We can say good-bye at the starting line,” she added, “since you’ll be looking at our butts the rest of the way.”
“Puh-leeze,” Sarah said, flipping her palm at Tannis.
People ran the Dash individually or in whatever haphazard teams they cared to put together, a semi-organized free-for-all. The starts were every fifteen minutes up until the last runner, which, by the looks of this year’s crowd, might be near dark. Times were posted on the lodge windows as teams came in, with trophies for each age category as well as a Worst Time, Dirtiest Finish, Youngest Runner, Oldest Runner, and a bunch of other nonsense. The course wasn’t long but it was tough, a combination of hiking; running; rope climbing; and sloshing through streams that, depending on how rainy it’d been, could be three feet deep. Pretty much everyone in town ran it at least once at some point or another, and lots of people did it every year. While we’d been rolling silverware that morning, I’d asked Moose if he was going.
“Are you crazy?” he’d said. “I get my recommended daily allowance of tourists right here.”
“You’ll miss the after-party.”
Moose had given me a funny look, like he was going to say something, then thought better of it. “Thanks, but I get my daily allowance of ass**les at school,” he’d finally said, adding, “No offense,” as an afterthought.
“Gee, why would I be offended by something like that?”
“I didn’t mean you,” he’d said. “But that guy you’re friends with . . .”
“Trip?”
He’d nodded. “Yeah. That dude’s a jerk.”
I’d shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Anyway,” Moose had said, “I’ve got my own after-party planned.”
I knew better than to ask him about that.
The loudspeaker announced the next group, and a few minutes later we heard the starting gun pop, and Natalie’s team took off. Within a minute they were around the first turn and disappearing into the woods.
“How are we going to beat that?” I asked Sarah.
“Where’s your positive attitude, Riley?”
“I knew I forgot something.”
Sarah smiled. “Remember, their whole team has to cross before their time counts. So having more people isn’t necessarily better.”
“Even if they’re all strong, well-conditioned athletes who know this mountain like the inside of their own house?”
She nodded. “Even if.”
Trip checked his watch. “I’d better get with the team. Good luck,” he said, adding suggestively to Sarah, “I can’t wait to watch you wash my car, baby.”
“That’s too bad,” she answered. “Because it’s going to be a loooong wait.”
“I like confident women.” He winked.
“Oh my God.” Tannis rolled her eyes. “How can you stand him?” she asked Sarah.
“I don’t know.” Sarah considered Trip with a grin. “He has a certain je ne sais quoi, don’t you think?”
“That’s French for ‘ridiculous arrogance,’ right?” I asked.
Even Trip laughed. “Nice smack talk, Ri, but let’s see how you race. Later, losers.” He jogged toward the starting line and a few minutes later took off.
They called us soon after. Tannis lined up with her two huge, muscular brothers. Sarah and I were at the other end of the starting line with a motley assortment of townies and tourists.