When the day came for her three-month review, Marion invited Brooke to lunch.
The owner tried to be nice, because of Brooke’s mom and her nine-holers, but the review wasn’t good. For one thing, Brooke had often broken Marion’s rule of never driving on a street with a “For Sale By Owner” sign in a yard. There were others as Marion went on, but Brooke had stopped listening.
Brooke knew her personality didn’t let her tell others what to do, didn’t say, “Buy this before it gets away,” and all the other things Marion said in the meetings. Brooke even pointed out the flaws, something else Marion said was a No-No.
Brooke could feel what was coming. Toward the end, she heard, “Then there’s your little car from college. It just won’t do. We do things BIG in this zip. Big cars, big houses, even big hair.”
Suddenly – just like that – lunch was over and so was Brooke’s first job.
“Oh well, real estate wasn’t much fun anyway,” Brooke kept repeating, trying to hide her broken heart, even from herself. The hours were crazy, working nights and weekends. She received calls wanting to see houses when she had tickets for a local concert, or when Katie was back in town to play somewhere. It was as bad as the restaurant business, and she remembered saying she didn’t want any part of that.
Her parents were disappointed. “Poor Marion,” her mother said, “having to do that, and all.”
“Mom, it’s not poor Marion, it’s poor Brooke, I’m the one who got fired!” Brooke yelled, “I wish you cared more about my feelings than what your nine-hollers think.”
“You know Brooke; I’ve been thinking about that old Subaru. It’s gotten all three of you kids through college, and it was used when we got it for Bobby,” her dad said. “I’ve got a friend at the club who trades every year. He’s in a Range Rover now, and I’ll bet he’ll give me a good deal, save a few bucks.”
Brooke only shrugged, thinking how helpful they thought they were being, her mom worried about the talk in her golf group and her dad trying to save money.
That first day was miserable and the evening was even worse. The review with Marion was just another example of how Brooke would never fit in.
She returned to her apartment with extra burritos (one chicken, one cheese). Brooke would have walked to the store for chocolate ice cream if it wasn’t so far.
After crying over dinner, Brooke watched a sad movie on TCM and fell asleep before it ended.
Everything had been easy, and now everything was so darn hard. Adulthood was supposed to be awesome, nothing like this, was her only thought.
Brooke woke up Tuesday, determined to feel better. She laced up her namesake shoes and headed out for a long run. People say, “Out with the old and in with the new,” so that’s what she’d do. A quick coffee downstairs, then a long run on this cloudy morning and she’d be fine. Get back in the game and find the right job was the new plan.
Running was important to Brooke. It was who she was. She was a “runner,” and it had helped pay the tuition at Chapel Hill. Being a runner gave her an identity, a way for a Xennial to say who she was and where she belonged — a place to fit in.
As Brooke ran, she thought about how simple and natural running felt and how she wished the rest of her life was the same.
Brooke’s running had started in elementary school when her mother suggested how, if she wasn’t going to take piano, she could be in the orchestra. Violin would be good, but definitely not drums. Ben played drums, but her mom sold Ben’s set on eBay the day after he went off to college.
One afternoon, as Brooke was peeling potatoes, helping get ready for dinner, her mom pulled out a list of activities she picked up in the office at Brooke’s school. As she began to read down the list, Brooke snatched it away.
“Mom, I’m in the fourth grade now, I can read,” Brooke said, as she read down the list, without moving her lips.
Lucinda knew her youngest was doing well in school. The teacher said her reading had jumped to a new level, and she was using phonics, even handling words with many syllables.
“You’re reading’s much better this year, Brooke. Your father and I are proud of you.”
“Thanks, mom. That’s because now I’m reading to learn and not learning to read,” Brooke said with a voice surprising her so often critical mother.
Finally, Brooke’s little fourth-grade finger pointed to one activity as she handed back the list.
The description told about a new program allowing girls to find their inner strength and live on their own terms, even make new friends. It went on, but the best part came at the end when it said all the girls would run a 5K race – together.
Lucinda snuck in a math question, “How far is 5K, Miss Smarty?”
“I’m not sure mom,” Brooke said, taking back the list. “But I’ll bet it’s a long way, and the important thing is we’ll be together. See, it says so here. It says, ‘when you cross the finish line, you will realize even the things that seemed impossible in the beginning, really weren’t – when you knew how.’” Brooke remembered being proud of herself for making it through the whole thing without stumbling on a single word.
And with that, Brooke had found her calling. It wouldn’t be a piano or violin; it would be running.
Brooke told her father about the choice at dinner. He said running was good exercise and asked if she’d pass the mashed potatoes, please. “They’re especially good tonight, Lucinda. Did you add extra butter?”
Brooke remembered her coach’s kindness and thought about her now as she ran from her apartment above The Clover, down East Boulevard toward Freedom Park. She could see Coach’s face as she would kneel to look her in the eye when they talked. Coach’s face seemed big to the fourth-grade girl, and her eyes seemed so wise.
There were twelve other girls in the group, and the ten-week program came to an end far too soon. She got a medal after the 5K. She’d won many in her years of running, but this was one of the few in her small jewelry box. Maybe she’d have it made into a broach someday, or be able to hang it around her daughter’s neck when the time came.
“5K is just over three miles,” said Coach that first day. “We’ll need to work together to get the job done.” Brooke was right; it was a long way. When you’re in fourth-grade three miles takes forever, even in your dad’s car.
Coach told Brooke, and her new friends, so much in those weeks. “Run like a cheetah,” Coach said. “Those slender cats, with their long legs, reach an extension that lets their spine recoil as it springs forward.”
Coach said more about how the cheetah kept its feet, even its toes, ready for action, but what the fourth grade Brooke remembered was cheetahs were fast, and if she ran like them, like Coach, she’d be a winner.
Then there was the day after school when a light rain was falling. None of the girls wanted to run, but Coach said, “Let’s give it a try, one lap can’t hurt.” They started together, and soon the giggling broke out. Each girl would lift her head, like she was home, taking a shower, then start giggling again. When they finished Coach said, “Congratulations, you’ve each run two laps!” The girls were puzzled until Coach explained how laps run in the rain counted double – in running and in life.
Coach made her feel like the most important girl alive, and how Brooke could always be the boss of her own brain. That was important today as she tried to forget about Marion and her way of being the boss of everything.
Brooke kept running, trying to forget yesterday’s lunch. To wipe the hardness from Marion’s face, and take away the look from her eyes, a look of contempt or anger, somehow, when she said, without caring, “You’re fired.”
Brooke knew the five stages of grief. She already moved past denial and anger, Now she was more bargaining than reasoning. She wasn’t exactly sure whom she was bargaining with, herself maybe, as she spoke out loud on her run, “All my friends have jobs. One has a baby, and several are getting married. What’s wrong with me?”
Brooke kept running; she wished she could ask Coach what to do, Coach would have an answer. She always solved problems when they talked.
Coach was a good runner; some said she was a natural, but it was around “her girls,” as she called them, that she came into her own. She not only had more energy when she was with them, but she also seemed to have more gears. She could go fast or slow, turn right or left, run sideways or backward and never lose the girl’s eyes.
Coach could probably run on her hands with her feet in the air and keep talking, but Brooke had never seen her do that. Coach was always the same: running in a group, kneeling beside you, or sitting in a circle to talk about the things little girls need to talk about – when they find someone who will listen and love them and ask, “What do you need?”
That was Coach, Brooke thought, always with something to pull it together for the girls. Like when she was getting them ready for the 5K and told them not to worry about where others were in any race. “Compete against others, and you get bitter; compete against yourself, and you get better,” Coach said. Or, telling them to remember how, “If you tell me I’ll forget, and if you teach me I may not remember, but if you go beside me I’ll learn, and we’ll be friends.”
When the girls practiced after school, Brooke would run as close to Coach as she could, not taking her eyes off her, even almost running over her best friend one day. Soon she had copied Coach and knew she could be just like her someday – if she paid attention and did what Coach said.
So this is how it was on the first morning after losing her first job. She’d find something and not get bitter. She’d keep running past others, like a cheetah, and soon she’d be better. Coach would be proud of her today, she thought.
Brooke stopped for a break at a bench on the greenway. She was eating the bar she kept in the pocket of her running shorts, when suddenly, up from the creek, came a large bushy dog, wet from swimming and began to shake – all over her snack, the bench, and her. The owner appeared with the dog’s leash, offering to help Brooke dry off. As the lady apologized, she said how Yogi didn’t know what he loved most – water or people. Brooke assured the woman she was fine.
Brooke slid off the wet bench, the one with three plaques – all with the same last name, but different dates. She got down beside Yogi and looked him in the eye.
“You’re a good boy, Yogi, and I’ll bet you’re a good swimmer. Your puppy mommy must be proud of you.” Brooke said as she rubbed his wet ears.
A light rain was falling as Brooke started her run back to The Clover. She giggled as she looked up into the sky and remembered how Coach said her miles would count double. Picking up the pace, she headed for home – thinking of Yogi and how his nickname would be “bear” if she were his puppy mommy.
She also thought about the bench with the three plaques. Someone had put those there, and they must each have a story. There is always a story, she thought. Maybe if she sat there often, on her runs in the park, someone would sit beside her and tell her the story. She hoped it would have a good ending, but she didn’t think it would.
By the time she reached the one-way street heading into town, she made up her mind. She would get a dog – a big dog like Yogi – to be her friend. They’d run together like a team.
A dog would give Brooke the acceptance she’d been looking for in her five-steps of grieving. It hadn’t taken long; the run had been what she needed.
As she got closer to home, passing the Greek Church where they have a big festival each fall, each detail was coming into place: she knew what her dog would eat, where he’d sleep, what they would do together, everything.
Now all she needed was his name.