INT. BATHROOM – DAY

I stare at myself in the mirror above the sink. Eyes like pits sunk in bruised fruit. Skeletal cheeks. Parentheses framing my mouth as if I only voice the inessential. I’ve been awake for twenty-six hours.

INT. KITCHEN – DAY

KAY sits at the breakfast table with her head in her hands, a cup of cold coffee at her elbow. DETECTIVE GUZMAN and TWO PLAINCLOTHES COPS lean against the counter, eating breakfast burritos and talking in low voices. They drop silent at the sight of me.

ME

                                        I’ve got a meeting.

KAY

                                        A meeting?

How it’s been since Jennie disappeared: Kay repeats what I say, swallowed up in her own grief, slow to comprehend. The dialogue of poorly written TV shows.

I could cancel the meeting but need to keep busy.

INT. VOLVO STATION WAGON – DAY

I drive through the neighborhood, all four windows open, passing the same front gates and hedges, trees and lawns I always pass. I look at the houses and imagine the more or less comfortable lives going on inside them—so many people untouched by what’s happened to my family, completely unaffected. My suffering, as great as it is, turns small, which makes it worse.

I stop at a crosswalk to let THREE SCHOOLGIRLS pass. One of the girls elbows another, nods in my direction.

GIRL #2

                                        Fuck off, perv!

Laughing, the girls run down the street. Tears have started. I pull over until my vision clears. My meeting isn’t for another hour.

EXT. OLYMPIC BLVD. – DAY

The schoolbus dropped Jennie off at the corner not twenty yards from here, as it does every weekday afternoon. A couple of kids on the bus claim to have seen a white van around the time she was abducted. The police brought in dogs, forensic teams. Found a button that Kay says belongs to the shirt Jennie was wearing. Also, a Juicy Fruit wrapper, a venti Starbucks cup (no lid, nothing written on it), four cigarette butts, an empty Tic Tacs container, a quarter, and two soda cans—one Coke and the other Orange Crush.

I take a latex glove and a pair of tweezers from my pocket, put on the glove and search the area. I find what looks to be part of a white cotton sock. My gloved hand working the tweezers, I place the sock in a brand-new paper envelope. There might be blood on the sock. An airtight plastic bag would rot the blood, making it impossible to analyze.

INT. VOLVO – DAY

Idling in a line of cars, waiting to enter Paramount Studios. I call home on my cell, imagining the plainclothes officers in our kitchen suddenly alert to their surveillance equipment.

KAY (O.S.)

                                        Hello?

My wife and I have always argued over the typical things: dishes left in the kitchen sink, what we “need” to spend money on, the methods of raising a child in this increasingly suicidal world. I assumed that our silences at the dinner table were expressions of the deep comfort we felt in each other’s presence, bred from our years together.

KAY (O.S.)

                                        Hello?

I hang up.

INT. PRODUCTION OFFICE – DAY

KEVIN, Donna Ruskin’s assistant, sits behind a laptop at his desk. He rises to shake my hand. I’m still wearing the latex glove.

ME

                                        Sorry.

I don’t take off the glove. Kevin usually talks at hyper-speed, but today he’s tentative, unsure of himself. Do I want something to drink? I don’t. He opens his mouth and closes it again. I nod, as if thanking him for his concern.

KEVIN

                                        It’ll be a few minutes.

Producers always let writers wait. Protocol doesn’t make allowances for my loss and I’m momentarily thankful: it’s almost possible to believe that some things are as they have always been.

INT. DONNA RUSKIN’S OFFICE – DAY

DONNA greets me as she always does—a woman with too many important things to do. She looks at my hand, the latex glove.

DONNA

                                        You should’ve canceled.

Kevin enters carrying an iPad; he’ll be taking notes of the meeting. Associate Producer HUGH BROWN hurries in, and we all sit.

HUGH

                                        You’ve looked over Gwen’s comments?

The movie is called “Rx”—Gwen, the lead, some teenage ingenue, former star of a show on the Disney channel I’ve never seen. She plays the character Lindsey McGregor who finds a dog running through Pan-Pacific Park, dragging a leash. Lindsey asks around but can’t find the dog’s owner. She takes the dog home, hangs signs around the neighborhood that read FOUND DOG. She receives a weepy phone call from a woman who says the dog’s owner was murdered at the park and she hopes Lindsey will keep the dog. Lindsey meets with the woman and soon winds up in the middle of a big-time insurance scam run by a network of wealthy, murderous doctors. She threatens to expose the scam, so the wealthy, murderous doctors want her dead. I have my own private slug line for this project: Rx — a prescription for crap.

HUGH

                                        The motivation that draws her character into this thing is
                                        still sketchy. And what exactly the doctors are doing                                         and why they went so far as to kill this guy with the dog,
                                        none of us can exactly figure out.

In my initial draft, Lindsey was a documentary filmmaker, but Donna said that being a documentarian wasn’t enough to account for her officious curiosity about the dog owner’s murder, or her inclination to investigate it on her own instead of going to the police. Through later drafts, Lindsey morphed from bored housewife to what she is now, a cop-in-training.

DONNA

                                        Gwen also wants you to make her character
                                        stronger. We’re wondering if she shouldn’t have
                                        a superpower. Something subtle.

I’m expected to say something.

DONNA

                                        If you’re too stressed, I don’t think anyone 
                                        here would blame you if—

ME

(suddenly exploding)

                                        No!

My outburst surprises all of us. I’m standing in the middle of the room. Kevin taps furiously at his iPad.

Donna needs the new pages by tomorrow.

INT. VOLVO STATION WAGON – DAY

White vans are everywhere as I drive home. Siennas. Caravans. Sedonas. Odysseys. Vanagons. I follow an Econoline 350.

EXT. 76 GAS STATION – DAY

The Econoline pulls into the station. I park at the self-serve pumps and sit in my car, making no move to get out.

THE DRIVER steps from the van. He’s white, heavy set, 30-35 years old, about six-feet tall, with (sandy?) hair cut like a marine’s. Using my cell, I take pictures of him as he throws a crumpled bag and a plastic cup from McDonald’s into a trash can. He goes to the CASHIER’s window to pay in advance for his gas.

Out of my car, tweezers in gloved hand, I remove his McDonald’s cup from the trash. Back in my car, I place the cup in a brand-new brown paper bag—which, unlike plastic, will keep any prints from being rubbed out. I drive away, but not before taking a picture of the Econoline’s license plate.

EXT. HOUSE – DUSK

REPORTERS out front. News helicopters hovering above. I drive into the garage and the reporters crowd in behind me so that it’s impossible to shut the electric garage door. Surrounded, I can’t make sense of their shouted questions.

ME

                                        Please. Not now.

(I don’t feel like being reasonable)

                                        Get off my property, scumbags! Get off!

They fall back to the sidewalk with their cameras and microphones, staking out the closest available public space, where, under the aegis of Free Press, the law says they have the right to remain without a thing I can do about it.

In the solitude of my closed garage, I put the envelope containing the shredded sock and the bag containing the McDonald’s cup into my briefcase. I remember to take off the latex glove.

INT. LIVING ROOM – DUSK

I expect to find Kay in our daughter’s room, surrounded by Jennie’s things, exhausted from sorrow. Instead, she’s sitting on the couch in the living room, wrapped in a blanket and scribbling in a blue Mead notebook. Since starting therapy, she’s became a compulsive list-maker: daily lists of the number of times I annoy her in a twelve-hour period, each broken down into sub-lists based on the causes of her annoyance—my obtuseness, my tone of voice, my being lenient with Jennie when I should have been strict, or vice versa. I haven’t handled the list-making well.

She doesn’t look up as I pass through the room. If not for the police in the kitchen, I would snatch the notebook off her lap.

INT. HOME OFFICE – NIGHT

The McDonald’s cup and the sock in front of me on my desk. I take a fiberglass brush from a drawer, a tin of fingerprint powder, fingerprint tape, and a lift card. I twirl the handle of the brush between the palms of my hands to fluff out the bristles. I dip the brush into the powder and lightly dust one side of the McDonald’s cup. Three prints become visible and I dust lightly in the direction of the flow of the print. I press the fingerprint tape carefully down on one of the prints, making sure to leave no air pockets. I peel off the tape in one quick motion and press it against the lift card. I do all of this again, lifting the other two fingerprints. I spray the sock with luminol, checking for blood. Negative.

I turn on the television, mute the sound. Flip from channel to channel, news program to news program. I see the reporters standing outside my house, footage of me yelling at them in my garage. A school photo of Jennie appears onscreen and before I can stop myself I’m hiccuping with sobs. I cover my mouth to prevent Kay from hearing me.

SAME — MORNING

I stare out the window at the journalists on the sidewalk, swarming a box of donuts sitting open on the rear deck of a News 4 van.

It’s been nearly impossible to keep the police out of “Rx” long enough to endanger Lindsey’s life. She’s a cop-in-training, for Christ’s sake. Wouldn’t she tell other trainees what she was investigating? Or her instructors? As the story stands, she keeps quiet because she wants to solve her first case on her own.

I decide to make Lindsey McGregor an investigative journalist for the LA Times. She’s never had a big story and her boss is threatening to fire her. Uncovering the insurance scam could fast-track her career. Maybe her father, whom she’s never been able to please or impress (he wanted a son), will turn out to be the doctor running the scam.

I make the changes, substituting one bunch of crap for another, and email the pages to Donna’s office. The doorbell rings.

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

Kay answers the door, blanket over her shoulders like a giant shawl, ballpoint tucked behind her right ear, in one hand her stupid Mead notebook. It’s Guzman.

GUZMAN

                                        A jogger found a girl’s body. Off a fire road
                                        in Griffith Park.

Kay gasps.

ME

                                        What was a jogger doing off the fire road?

Guzman is practiced in the art of the silent stare: the narrowed eyes, the slight flare of the nostrils, the vertical crease in the center of the forehead. No doubt it’s a stare that has brought many guilt-ridden criminals to confession.

GUZMAN

                                        The body was spotted from the road.

The dead girl isn’t Jennie. I go into my office and come back with the fingerprints lifted from the McDonald’s cup.

ME

                                        Check these against your database.

Guzman, frowning, pockets the envelope containing the lift card.

GUZMAN

                                        We need one of you to come to the morgue.

Kay knots her hands together. I cover them with one of my own. I feel her stop breathing. The girl isn’t Jennie. This whole thing is ridiculous. But Kay won’t be put off. She’s coming, too.

INT. MORGUE – DAY

A cold room of stainless steel and tile, commonplace in thrillers and police procedurals. Most of the dead are kept along one wall, in vaults resembling oversized file drawers, but six bodies lie on gurneys in the center of the room, bare feet poking out from underneath the sheet, I.D. tags hanging limp from big toes. A MAN IN A LAB COAT waits for us at the last body in the row.

Guzman nods. The technician lifts the sheet. Kay has been a tightly wound presence till now.

KAY

Ha!

                                        

She laughs—relieved, hysterical laughter. The girl can’t be older than nine or ten. Her death is a tragedy, but it’s someone else’s tragedy.

INT. HALL OUTSIDE MORGUE – DAY

Guzman looks troubled.

ME

                                        What?

GUZMAN

                                        No one else has recently called in a missing
                                        girl fitting her description.

In other words, he’s got a body with no case.

GUZMAN

                                        I had someone check those prints you gave me.
                                        No match.

He doesn’t say what I already know: that the longer Jennie is missing, the less likely it is she’ll be found alive.

INT. DEN – DAY

There is nothing like the quiet of a suddenly childless home. Kay and I listen to voicemail messages from friends who offer words of hope. The phone rings. Kay makes no move to answer it. I remember a quote but not who said it: to have a child is to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body.

ME

(into the phone)

                                        Hello?

The voice on the other end—robotic, disguised—says Jennie’s name. An officer steps from the kitchen and gestures for me to talk, but I’m going to skip this part because no one wants their life to devolve too far into tired tropes. Besides, the voice is full of shit.

When the connection is cut, an officer takes the receiver from me and hangs it up.

KAY

(frantic)

                                        What do we do?

INT. HOME OFFICE – DAY

At my desk, staring at nothing, on a conference call with Donna Ruskin and associate producer Hugh Brown.

DONNA (O.S.)

(via speaker phone)

                                        The changes you made are great. Absolutely great.

HUGH (O.S.)

(via speaker phone)

                                        There are still a few details to discuss. Like we 
                                        don’t ever find out why the guy with the dog
                                        is killed.

DONNA

                                        And you definitely made Lindsey’s character less 
                                        reactive, but now we’re worried that she’s sort 
                                        of almost recklessly ambitious, and we’re still 
                                        wondering about superpowers…

I stop listening. They’re suggesting changes, revisions, which aren’t suggestions at all but requirements. If I don’t rewrite accordingly, I’ll be fired. I’ve already been fired three times from this project.

DONNA

                                        …and the pay-off of Lindsey’s father having 
                                        wanted a son isn’t all it could be.

I envision myself standing over Donna in her office, venting everything at her, demanding that she offer suggestions for me, my life.

EXT. OLYMPIC BLVD. – DUSK

The site of Jennie’s abduction. I bring the Volvo to a stop at the curb and turn off the engine. Out of my car, I lower myself to hands and knees and spread apart the blades of grass to get at the dirt, the buried roots. I touch my forehead to the damp, cool ground.

INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

Home after driving around for hours. Kay groggy from a Vicodin-induced nap. Guzman and an UNDERCOVER OFFICER are waiting.

UNDERCOVER OFFICER

(brushing at his forehead)

                                        You have…dirt.

I wipe the crumbs of dirt from my forehead. What I’m about to do is pointless.

EXT. DOWNTOWN LA – NIGHT

Northeast corner of Figueroa and 5^th Street. Per the disguised-as-a-robot-full-of-shit voice on the phone, I drop a backpack full of police cash into a trash can at exactly 3:30 a.m., and I’m walking away when a red Jeep Grand Cherokee speeds into view. A YOUNG MAN jumps out of the front passenger side and retrieves the backpack from the garbage can, the Jeep already rolling again before he’s back in his seat with the door closed.

Squad cars with flashing roof lights block Figueroa in both directions. I should have known this was going to happen. I sprint toward the MEN stepping from the Jeep with their arms raised, the POLICE with their guns drawn, standing behind the open doors of their cars.

Somebody grabs me from behind. I keep surging forward until I’m wrestling more than one person. Guzman points his gun at me.

GUZMAN

                                        Hold it! Just fucking HOLD IT!

I stop, breathing hard, a cop on each arm.

INT. POLICE STATION – BEFORE DAWN

I pace the hall. Guzman comes out of an interrogation room.

GUZMAN

                                        It’s not them.

One of his detective stares: gauging, interpreting. He’s no doubt adept at reading microexpressions. I don’t try to feign surprise.

GUZMAN

                                        They’re just a couple of rich asshole kids from the 
                                        Palisades who saw the kidnapping on the news 
                                        and thought it’d be fun to hit you up for cash.

He doesn’t say there are statistics to contend with: hundreds of thousands of children abducted every year in America, thousands never recovered.

ME

                                        I’ve stopped watching movies and most TV. Do you know
                                        why?

No expertise in reading microexpressions necessary: he’s confused.

ME

                                        Too often, what’s supposed to be emotionally 
                                        searing is crudely manipulative, maudlin, and 
                                        deals too heavily in the redemptive power of love, 
                                        which I find it hard to believe in, as much as                                         I wish I could.

GUZMAN

                                        Huh.

(beat)

                                        C’mon, I’ll drive you home.

EXT. HOUSE – DAWN

Guzman orders the reporters to keep their distance. They ignore him, jostling me as I struggle up the front walk. The door to the house opens and Kay emerges, wrapped in her blanket, anxious, straining to see if Jennie is behind me. I shake my head, and the reporters take pictures as my bawling wife runs up to me and punches my arms and chest, blubbering things through her grief-twisted mouth that I can’t understand, punching and swatting at me, and I let her.

CUT TO BLACK.

END.

 

 

 

Dr. Grene was the first to congratulate me on my gold medal, which I had won, not so much because I had finished in record time, but simply because I had aged into an older group and was now the youngest in a senior cohort where real competition was often sparse and occasionally nonexistent. Still, I was happy with my win and pleased by Dr. Grene’s recognition.

“I guess I’m one of the few people around thrilled to have finally reached the age of
sixty,” I told him, fully aware that if I stayed healthy enough to race, I would improve my chances of collecting medals as I graduated every five years from one age group to the next, while, ironically, probably falling further and further behind my fastest times.

“You’ll be in the winner’s circle more often than not now,” said Dr. Grene, patting me on the shoulder. “And, of course, you’ll never have to worry about me stealing your glory since I’ll always be ten years older. Nothing either of us can do about that. So, enjoy your birthday and your gold,” and then he left me as his name was called to collect his first-place medal in the seventy-plus bracket.

Dr. Grene was something of a phenomenon among the regular competitors in the 5k and 10k races staged along Chicago’s lakefront from early spring to late fall. I don’t recall, for instance, ever having seen him bested in his age group at either distance, and certainly none of his contemporaries ever came close to accumulating enough points to prevent him from receiving his annual “Best in Class” award at the Chicago Area Racing Association’s winter banquet.

For some reason he took a liking to me, perhaps because I was such a greenhorn when we first met and he regarded himself as something of a mentor. Or perhaps it was because we had both run track at Big Ten schools many years before—I in the sprints, he in the middle distances—although at that time I knew nothing of his past renown or of the peculiar end to his athletic career. Or maybe it was simply because we were two of the most regular of the senior runners and frequented the same races. In any case, he seemed to take some pleasure in my presence and—although I would never be a threat to his own standing because of the difference
in our ages—even greater pleasure in beating me soundly whenever we ran.

This last attitude, I suppose, was a product of our initial encounter at my first 5K. I had been aware of these events—usually organized around worthy causes—from the brochures distributed at my athletic club. But I had never thought to enter one until a severe tennis elbow forced me to give my racket away and seek some other sport to slake my competitive thirst. I had been a leisure jogger for some time, and when I received a pamphlet in the mail inviting me to enter the Race to Remember Rachel (a local newscaster who had died young of leukemia), I decided, after several weeks of hard training, to give it a try.

A frosty March mist hung over upper Hutchinson Field, obscuring Lake Michigan to the east, as I arrived shortly after sunrise, groggy from lack of sleep, for the 8 a.m. start. A frail, spindly man, who seemed to be many years my senior, was limbering up at one of the police barriers, and since from there I could see no signs identifying the event tents, I asked him if he knew where I could register. “Follow me,” he said, and he then led me to a table stacked with entry forms, showing me as well the corral where I could check my gear. “They’re a little late in setting up,” he said, “but as long as you’ve got twenty-five bucks in cash, I’m sure they’ll take
care of you,” and then he left me to return to his stretching.

I saw him again as we, along with several hundred others, lined up at the start.

“Do you mind if I run along with you?” I asked. “This is my first 5k, and I don’t have a
clue about pacing.”

“Be my guest,” he said.

“Just for the first mile or so, until I get the feel of it. I don’t want to pick up speed and extend myself too early.”

“Sure,” he said, “and then once you get the hang of it, you can turn on your after-burners and leave me in your dust.”

I smiled uncomfortably, realizing that he had sensed, not without some cause, a certain condescension in my tone. Fortunately, just then the starter’s horn went off.

I managed to stay with him for the first half-mile or so, but from the beginning, from the ease and naturalness of his stride in contrast to the ragged struggle of my own effort just to keep pace, I knew I was in trouble. As I fell behind, he seemed to gain strength and speed in direct proportion to my increasing exhaustion, and before long, he was nowhere in sight.

The final mile was a considerable ordeal, and although my finish time surpassed the best of my workouts. I was too fatigued and embarrassed to remain for the awards ceremony. A few weeks later, the silver medal I received in the mail for placing second in my age group—one of the few medals I’d ever received in an athletic competition—erased all trace of humiliation, and I was hooked.

From then on, in my fifty-eighth year, I ran competitively almost every weekend until Thanksgiving, and almost every weekend I encountered the frail, spindly gentleman, who eventually introduced himself to me as Dr. Grene, a professor emeritus in the Department of Pediatrics at Northwestern Medical School. He also lived on the Near North, and we often ran together at the lakefront races along Montrose Harbor or through Lincoln Park or east of the Museum Campus and Soldier Field. I hadn’t built enough stamina for 10ks or longer distances, and although Dr. Grene had finished several marathons, he preferred the 5k, too, where his kick over the last mile not only gave him a strong advantage, but was considered to be something of a miracle for someone of his age. By the end of my first season, I managed to keep pace with him for almost the first two miles, but grew accustomed to seeing him fade into the distance over the last long stretch of the course.

But no matter. Although the chance to compete successfully initially drew me to these races, it was the experience itself I learned to value. Running in the early morning hours with a community of athletes and amateurs of all ages, the soft green of the park lawns sloping down to the lake, the sun reflecting low and bright off the surface of the water, running past and below Japanese cherry trees and crabapples in full bloom, through shimmering green galleries and under the gold and yellowing foliage of late autumn, leaves crunching beneath our every stride,
the cornered and spired skyline, grey-black in the distance to the left, and then to the right, and then back in front, the pleasure of nearing physical limits and the exuberant acceleration as the finish line approached, and even the often stale doughnuts and bagels and greenish bananas at the end, washed down with Gatorade or bottled water, all in an effort to defeat Parkinson’s Disease
or renovate fieldhouses or feed the hungry—these were the experiences I looked forward to during the week and around which I planned my weekends.

The following year I ran even more frequently, branching out into the neighborhood races—Ravenswood, Wicker Park, Pilsen—and out to the suburbs, running through forest preserves, schoolyard playing fields, and over the sloping hills of farmland now landscaped into subdivisions, municipal parks, and country clubs. By then, I had begun cross-training and increased my running workouts to four times a week and invested in thermal wear and high-end motion-control shoes, and although I still preferred those mornings where the clear blues of the
sky and the lake met at the horizon and the sunny running paths were speckled with the shadows of maples, elms, and sycamores branching overhead, I was no longer intimidated by city streets dampened by cold and rainy fogs or by frozen dirt trails powdered with snow or speckled with ice.

But the following season, when I had turned sixty and entered the winners circle over and over again, my performances began to level off. Although I increased the length of my workouts, I could not better my times of the previous year. I felt as if I were running as fast as ever and finishing as strongly, but the watch on my wrist and the timer at the finish were telling me a different story.

And, of course, I could gain nothing on Dr. Grene, who seemed to be running even faster than the year before.

“I don’t understand it,” I said nibbling on a hard bagel after another disappointing
performance. “I can’t seem to improve at all, no matter how hard I work during the week,” and then I told him I was considering training for longer distances, perhaps even the Chicago Marathon, where simply finishing is as much of a goal as a fast time.

“You want to improve your speed?” he asked. “Have you ever tried fartleks?”

“Fartleks?”

“A Scandinavian term. It basically means incorporating bursts of speed—maybe twenty or thirty seconds worth—into your workout, and then slowing down until you can do another one and keeping it up throughout most of your run. From then on, you can increase the length of your sprints until you’re ready for more formal intervals—running, say, two hundred meters at three-quarters pace, then jogging four hundred, then running another two hundred until you can’t do any more. And then you gradually increase your running distances and shorten your jogging
intervals.”

“That sounds pretty rigorous.”

“It is. More than most recreational runners are willing to tolerate. But it worked for the Swedes. On the other hand, you can slow down, increase your distances, and work your way up to the marathon. But remember, they shut things down after six hours.”

I think Dr. Grene underestimated my desire. Over the winter, I incorporated his
suggestions into my regular routines, and gradually I began to sustain my speed over longer and longer stretches, deepening my endurance, and by the time the following season began, I quickly surpassed my own personal best, and began to approach times that I formerly assumed were far beyond my reach.

Most of the early races I ran in my sixty-first year were in the suburbs—once as far south as Munster, Indiana—and I didn’t encounter Dr.Grene until the Monsters of the Midway March in late spring. I noticed him in the crowd before he saw me, and as I trailed him by a few yards to the starting line, I wondered if he had been aware of my progress, since the official results of many of these races had been posted on the Internet.

“You mind if I tag along?” I asked as I lined up next to him.

“Be my guest,” he said. “Think you can keep up?”

“I’ll give it a shot,” and the horn went off.

For the first two miles I stuck close to him, but I doubt that he was aware of my presence several paces behind. In fact, if he gave any thought to me at all, I’m sure he’d assumed that I’d already fallen far back, since when I passed him with about a half mile to go, and he looked over and recognized me, a surprised, almost stricken expression appeared on his face. Remembering his usual strong finish, I pushed myself hard over the remaining distance, knowing that if he, in turn, passed me, I would probably deflate like a punctured balloon. For the final hundred meters
or so, I leaned forward into a sprint, pumping my arms, refusing to look back, certain I could hear him breathing heavily behind me, coming ever closer, sure to pull ahead at the very end. When I crossed the line, completely exhausted and well ahead of my previous best time, Dr. Grene was nowhere in sight.

When he finally staggered across the finish, he seemed to have aged considerably from the start of the race, frailer than ever. As he bent over, palms on his knees, his cheeks sunk more deeply inward with each subsequent breath.

“You have only yourself to blame,” I said, approaching him when he finally straightened up. “It was those fartleks you told me about.”

He looked at me without comprehension, as if he were concentrating too heavily on his breathing to respond coherently or to even recognize my existence.

“I never could’ve done it without those fartleks,” I said, patting him on the back, but
when he shuddered at my touch and again bent over, I retreated a few steps back.

“Well, see you next Sunday at the Run for the Zoo?” and when he nodded, I think it was rather more to get rid of me than to agree, and when he straightened up again, he turned away to search for a bottle of water.

I didn’t see him at the Run for the Zoo, nor in any other competition in the subsequent weeks, but it hardly mattered to me, since by the middle of the summer, I had withdrawn from the circuit myself.

From the beginning of my renewed interest in racing, I had always feared injury,
knowing that at my age, recovery from any serious problem would be protracted and frustrating, and that a return to competitive form would be equally slow and arduous. For that reason, I followed a regular stretching routine, endured long warmups and equally long warmdowns, and although I suffered an occasional muscle strain or twisted ankle, I took exceptional care whenever I felt a twinge of pain or excessive soreness, cancelling workouts and missing races to prevent more extensive damage or complications.

I managed to avoid all the usual ailments—tendinitis, ACL tears, as well as such chronic syndromes as plantar fasciitis and patellofemoral pain. But one morning, after a steep uphill climb in Hinsdale, I felt a sharp soreness deep within my pelvic region, and when it became more intense with every subsequent workout and then failed to diminish after two weeks of inactivity, I consulted my doctor.

He diagnosed an “athletic pubalgia,” and decided to refer me to a specialist in sports
medicine. “It’s commonly called a sports hernia,” he said, “but that’s really a misnomer, since it’s not really a hernia. In fact, I’m not sure we know exactly what it really is, and depending on whom you listen to, there are a variety of preferred procedures, Anyway, Dr. Sax will probably schedule some tests—X-rays, MRI—to rule out anything else, but if it continues to persist, I wouldn’t be surprised if he recommends surgery. Then you’ll have a decision to make.”

But before I could meet with Dr. Sax, I got another opinion, from Dr. Grene. I ran into him during an intermission at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, to which we both subscribed, although usually on different nights. But before we could discuss my own condition, Dr. Grene surprised me by revealing that he had given up running altogether.

“An injury?” I asked.

“No, not exactly an injury,” he said. “I seem to have lost both my strength and desire
together in equal measure, and I no longer have the will or the energy to turn things around. No one within fifteen years of me used to pass me anywhere in the last half mile, but recently. . .” and then he shrugged his shoulders and refused to look me in the eye as if I were somehow to blame. “But now,” he continued, “now perhaps I’ll take up golf again. I used to be pretty fair on the links when I was young. But what about yourself?” he asked, and then he added innocently
enough as if having entirely forgotten our last race together, “Are you still thinking about moving up to the marathon?”

“No,” I replied, “since I’ve turned things pretty much around, one personal best in the 5k after another . . . until this, anyway,” and I pointed to my abdomen. “Ever hear of a sports hernia?”

“An athletic pubalgia? Sure. They either disappear after a while or stick around forever,” and then he smiled, and his smile seemed odd to me, not so much because it was twisted or that there was anything wrong about it, but because, although he had always been friendly and cordial with me, I suddenly realized I had never seen him smile before. “It occasionally appears among professional hockey and soccer players, although now that all you baby boomers are pushing your physical envelopes way past your prime, it’s showing up more frequently in the clinics. It’s still something of a mystery, though.”

“So I’ve been told,” I said. “Anyway, whatever it is, I sacrificed half of my running
season waiting for it to go away, and now my doctor has referred me to a specialist who, I understand, looks after the Chicago Bear’s offensive line.”

“He won’t help you,” said Dr. Grene, still smiling at me. “Not if it’s persisted for this
long.”

“Oh? There’s nothing I can do, in your opinion?”

“Sure. Give up running. Switch to long walks. Maybe take up golf.”

“My doctor mentioned the possibility of surgery. He said it was a simple procedure, that…”

“They try to keep it simple and not too invasive, although it seems to vary from doctor to doctor. And that doesn’t mean there can’t be complications.”

“Complications?”

“There can always be complications. Look, if you were a young athlete, I certainly
wouldn’t discourage you. But you’re not, and . . .” He paused, as if uncertain on whether or not to continue.

“And?”

“I know of two cases personally. Both Chicagoans in their late fifties. Of course, it
could’ve just been a coincidence. Acute septic shock is far more common than most folks realize.”

“Acute septic shock?”

“Nobody really knows what triggers it, and that’s what would particularly concern me in these two very similar cases. In postoperative occurrences the body reacts as if it were being attacked by some toxic agent, but occasionally there’s no source of infection to be found. A precipitous drop in blood pressure followed by a sudden, almost total systemic shutdown. Steps can be taken to counter the symptoms and reverse the syndrome but they need to be taken at once, and that simply didn’t occur in the case of an acquaintance of mine, whose kidneys and liver had, according to the postmortem, been turned completely to mush. And, in the other case, a similar simple procedure to alleviate a similar pubalgia led to a similar postoperative reaction, although this time the patient was luckier. He only lost both feet just below the ankles. But then, of course, it could’ve all been just coincidence, although I’ve heard about other such coincidences, too, all involving similar cases. Of course, this is all such unexplored territory.” The smile returned to his face. “Ah, there’s the bell for the second act. Perhaps we can discuss your situation further at the next intermission.”

But this was only a two-act opera, and I never saw Dr. Grene again.

As Dr. Grene had predicted, Dr. Sax, after several consultations and tests,
recommended surgery.

“I can refer you to a colleague in Milwaukee,” he told me, “whose had considerable
success with similar cases. It’s a simple procedure, but quite innovative, and he’s the only one in the region performing it. The athletes I know who have had the surgery are back in training within weeks.”

“But someone of my age . . .”

“You’re in excellent shape, and I don’t see any cause for concern. As I’ve said, this is
generally a simple procedure, relatively painless, with a high rate of success.”

“But could there be complications?”

“There can always be complications. Nothing’s a sure thing. But I haven’t heard of any, certainly nothing serious.”

“But you can’t guarantee . . .”

“There are no guarantees in surgery,” said Dr. Sax, who, in view of my apparent
apprehension, seemed now to have adopted a more cautious approach.

“So your advice is . . . ?”

“It’s your call.”

I decided to take up swimming, and although the sports hernia eventually vanished, I have not returned to competitive running, both from a fear of a recurrence and a reluctance to undergo the long rehabilitation required to regain my former competitive edge, if such a thing were even possible.

The following year, at about the time I entered my first Masters Swimming tournament (where I finished sixth in my age group in the freestyle, although medals were awarded to all competitors), Dr. Grene’s obituary appeared in the Tribune. Apparently, he had been “courageously battling leukemia” for some time. The Tribune also informed me of his position of leadership in the medical profession, the seats he held on various nonprofit boards, and his
many contributions to the community.

It also reported on his extraordinary athletic career, many years before. Unbeaten as a high-school miler, he had gained three consecutive state championships at that distance. At Iowa, he concentrated on the 5,000 and 10,000 meter events, where he continued his winning streak. Known for his “blistering final laps,” he won several NCAA championships, and he remained unbeaten until the 1952 Olympic trials, where he was defeated in the finals at both distances by relatively unknown runners from small colleges, and failed to make the team. At the time, his losses were considered to be two of the most surprising upsets in the history of American track and field, and afterwards, according to the Tribune, he gave up his final year of eligibility, never to compete in another collegiate race, devoting himself entirely to his medical studies.

But the Tribune also commented on his running career following his retirement from Northwestern Medical School, quoting the Executive Director of the Chicago Area Running Association, who knew him well: “The fact is, Dr. Grene took great pride in his unbeaten record in the 5 and 10ks he entered as he competed his way through the senior age groups. And not only was he a familiar, indeed legendary, figure in the winner’s circle, but also in the early morning hours along the lakefront and on the running paths of Lincoln Park and with all those amateur runners and joggers who made his acquaintance along the way. He gave freely back to the
community, and offered both his time and helpful advice to all enthusiastically and selflessly.”

According to the Tribune, he was survived by two sons, both of them surgeons, and six grandchildren.

As Georgia was walking Sam, the dog of a friend, he lunged after another dog and
Georgia was so startled she dropped the leash. Before she could get it again, Sam ran away. They were on a residential Manhattan street, but there was steady traffic. Georgia was calling “Sam!” and crying when a young man who lived in her building appeared and offered to help. A few minutes later he found Sam sniffing a tree trunk a few blocks away. Georgia, who’d stopped crying, burst into tears of relief.

“I’m so grateful!” she said.

“You owe me one!”

Georgia assumed he was kidding.

His name was Jesse. Although she’d seen him around, their building had sixteen floors and two elevator lines, and she didn’t know anything about him. Skinny, just a little taller than her five feet five, he looked like he was in his mid-twenties. He had a narrow face, longish dark hair, and wore a pea coat and tight jeans. Georgia, almost forty, decided there was something feral about him, sexy rather than handsome.

As they walked to their building, she kept stopping to check Sam’s leash.

“I have a poodle,” Jesse said. “She was my mom’s.”

Georgia, not sure if his mother was alive, just nodded.

When they got to their lobby—beige modern furniture and ornate chandeliers—he
said he lived with his father in the three-bedroom line. Georgia was in a one-bedroom, on the side of the building without a view of the Hudson.

She wondered if she’d seen his father around.

“He’s a lawyer, but basically he helps rich people buy art. He travels a lot.” Jesse
gave her what she thought was an appraising look. “He was a young dad.” He bit his
thumbnail. “Women are always telling me how charming he is.”

Georgia touched her curly dark hair, which she wore pulled back. There was
something about Jesse that made her feel off-balance.

He said he’d dropped out of NYU for a few years to work in the music business.
Now he was back in school and had an internship writing copy for an ad agency. They’d promised him a full time job when he graduated. He couldn’t wait to get his own apartment.

“So, Georgia, what do you do when you’re not dog sitting?”

She said she worked in admissions at a pre-school.

It turned out he’d gone there.

“I probably couldn’t get in now. I hear it’s become one of those Baby Ivies.” He
bit his thumbnail again. “Do you have kids of your own?”

“No kids.”

“Married?”

“Nope!” She’d stopped telling people that she’d been married, briefly, right after
college.

“Actually, I should go,” she told him. “I don’t know how to thank you. If there’s
ever anything I can do….”

She waited for him to say how he was happy to have helped.

“We’ll see.” He gave her a big smile. “I’ll think of something.”

A few days later she noticed an attractive man in his early fifties, wearing a
leather jacket and expensive-looking boots, going out of the building. If she’d seen him in a different context she wouldn’t have noticed a resemblance to Jesse, but it was there, although his hair was a lighter brown and not as long.

“That man who just went out…” she said to the doorman, “does he have a poodle
and a son named Jesse?”

“That’s him. Ethan.”

***

The next time Georgia saw Jesse he was coming in and she was going out, carrying her late mother’s fur coat. She could still faintly smell her perfume.

“Nice coat,” Jesse said.

She was embarrassed. “It was my mom’s. I don’t believe in wearing fur, but she died three years ago and I can’t bring myself to just get rid of it.” The coat had first belonged to the wealthy daughter of an older man her mother been kind to when he was ill. Although her mother had had it altered, Vivienne, the woman’s name, was still embroidered across the lining.

“I’m taking it to a tailor to see if he can line my winter coat with it.”

“Don’t you know anything?” Jesse said. “Fur is really sexy.”

Georgia was taken aback. Part of her job was interviewing parents, and she prided
herself on her ability to read people, but Jesse was confusing. He wasn’t exactly
flirtatious. Maybe he was gay, although he didn’t seem gay.

“Don’t forget, you owe me one,” he said pleasantly as they parted.

***

It was application season and especially busy at school. Every season had its own
rhythm, but things were never quiet and Georgia enjoyed this about her job. Although the parents tended to be privileged and have a sense of entitlement, the application process made them anxious and Georgia liked helping people who were under stress.

At the moment she was running a Q and A in one of the classrooms for a group of
prospective parents before their interviews with the director. They sat tensely in the children’s brightly colored seats. Trying to be informal and non-threatening, Georgia sat on the teacher’s table. Her dark dress was short but demure. She wore pearl earrings and subtle eye make-up; her curls were pulled back into a glittering barrette.

After her PowerPoint presentation, she patiently answered the often repetitious,
sometimes irrelevant or aggressive questions that were almost always covered in the school catalogue.

“And don’t forget to breathe,” she joked at the end.

When she went to her office she was surprised and happy to see her colleague
Jim, who was on child-care leave and had dropped in to say Hi. He was smart and funny and they’d often have coffee or lunch together. He’d been married when they’d met, and Georgia liked his wife, too. As they looked at pictures of his baby and Georgia filled him in on gossip, she realized how much she’d missed him.

After he left, she sat at her neat desk and stared into space. For the first time in a
long time she worried she’d end up alone like her mother, who’d fallen in love with one unavailable man after another. Georgia had vowed to be different, but she’d married a man who’d turned out to be an alcoholic. She’d gone on to have other relationships that seemed more promising, but nothing lasted. And now here she was, almost forty and still alone. Unlike her single woman friends she wasn’t desperate to marry, but she was lonely. Dreading going back to her neat and orderly—except for her unwashed coffee cup in the sink—apartment, she told herself to breathe. It didn’t help.

***

Over the next few days, as Georgia went in and out of her building she’d catch
herself looking for Ethan. But it was Jesse she saw one Saturday, carrying a shopping bag from Saks.

“Where’s your mink?” he asked her.

“’Your mink’” annoyed her. “It’s still at the tailor’s,” she said.

He held up the Saks bag. “I got some clothes for my mom.” He explained she’d
suffered for years from a neurological disease and now had early dementia.

Georgia could feel herself becoming sympathetic.

“The laundry in her nursing home is always losing her clothes. Or they give her
someone else’s. My dad gets her extra stuff in a thrift shop, but I won’t do that.”

Georgia was touched. Idly she asked where the nursing home was.

“Jersey.” He gave her his shrewd look. “It’s just across the bridge, but it’s sort of
a lonely trip.”

She couldn’t believe he’d ask her—as some kind of bizarre payback—to go there
with him. She decided he wasn’t that crazy.

“I’m not going to ask you to go with me.” He smiled.

He was really preposterous. She remembered how he’d told her how charming his
dad was, almost as if he were…pimping for him.

She sighed. “I’ve got to go.”

“That’s okay,” Jesse said.

The next time she saw him he was in the lobby with a fancily groomed poodle and
a skinny blonde woman his age in a belted tan coat. There was something about the
closeness of their bodies that made Georgia think they slept together.

“This is my mom’s dog,” Jesse said. “Jane.” He didn’t introduce the blonde.

Georgia decided that even if she met his dad and they really hit it off, no amount
of charm would be worth having such a weird stepson.

***

When her doorbell rang on a Saturday afternoon without the doorman having
called up first, she assumed it was her neighbor, an old man who occasionally asked for help with his computer.

“It’s Jesse.”

She partially opened the door.

He wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and jeans.

“I’m bored, and my dad’s home with a date.”

Georgia just stood there. It couldn’t be easy to have his dad dating, but she wasn’t
going to ask him in.

“Can I come in?”

On the other hand, he lived in the building. And he’d found Sam. Even now she
couldn’t bear to think about how she’d almost lost him. “Just for a minute. I’ve got work to do.”

He sat on the sofa. She sat on a chair across from him. She didn’t offer him
anything to drink.

He talked about one of his courses. Georgia half-listened.

“So! Georgia!” he said. He pointed out that the pictures on her wall were too high.
He asked about her exercise routine. When she admitted she didn’t sweat when she
worked out he lectured her about how she was wasting her time. He had a theory about how people should touch their toes every day. He went on and on about how bad the food was at a neighborhood restaurant she sort of liked. He told her she should get a dog. He couldn’t believe she used margarine and not butter.

At one point he shook his head and said, “Don’t you know anything?”

She wondered why she was sitting there listening to this twenty-five year-old
college student scold her. Still, there was something sweet about his shopping at Saks for his mom.

“Did you get your mink back?” Jesse asked her.

She was wary. “Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

“You want to see my coat?”

Without waiting for an answer, she went to her closet: the sooner she got this over
with, the sooner she’d get rid of him.

Her coat was black wool, with shiny black buttons and a round collar. Although
she’d had the new lining for a while, it hadn’t been very cold and she hadn’t worn the coat yet.

She held it so Jesse could see the mink inside.

“Put it on,” he said.

“I’m not going to put it on.” She showed him the front and the back. “Here. You
can see it this way.”

“Put it on.”

He sounded vaguely threatening.

She just stood there. Still, sooner or later she’d be wearing the coat and she’d run
into him and of course he’d see her in it. And it wasn’t as if he were asking her to model lingerie.

“If I do it,” she said slyly, “I won’t owe you one. My ‘debt’ will be paid?”

“Yep.”

Shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe the stupidity of what was happening,
she put on her coat. It was closely fitted on the top and then flared out a little. It came to the middle of her knees.

“You missed a button,” Jesse said.

She felt irritable like when she was in middle school and her mom would make
her try on winter clothes in August.

“Not bad,” Jesse said. “May I?” He got up and walked toward her.

She stepped back.

“I just want to open the top button.”

“Why?”

“It’ll look better.”

“This is so stupid,” she muttered, unbuttoning it.

“That’s better. Look in the mirror.”

“I’m not looking in the mirror.”

“I want you to see how sexy you look.”

“Thanks so much,” she said sarcastically, taking off the coat.

Hanging it up, she realized she could no longer smell her mother’s perfume,
White Shoulders, a heavy scent she’d douse herself with every morning. Her mother was romantic and sentimental. She’d told Georgia she’d chosen her name so that “one day when your husband takes you to Paris, he’ll sing ‘Georgia on My Mind’ to you on the Champs Elysee.” Georgia hated the song, and her own perfume was light and delicate.

But she was sad she could no longer smell her mother’s White Shoulders.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Jesse asked her.

She’d forgotten he was there. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” He seemed concerned.

“I’m sure. I’ve got work to do.” As soon as he was gone she’d do something
relaxing like take a bath. It was still light out, but maybe she’d pour herself a big glass of wine and sip it while she soaked.
“You’re sure you’re sure?”

“Yes. I also have work to do.”

She waited for him to argue, but he shrugged.

After he left she realized that at least her stupid “debt” was paid.

***

Georgia started wearing her hair loose, and got many compliments. For several
weeks she went out with a friend of a friend, but they agreed it wasn’t going anywhere. She had the brakes on her bike adjusted and planned to ride it more often. She thought about applying for a job at an arts council. When she didn’t see Jesse for several months, she wondered if he’d moved out.

Late one afternoon in the spring, he rang her bell.

She barely opened the door. “What?”

“I’m miserable!”

“Did something happen with your mom?” She felt had for him.

“She’s the same.” He bit his thumbnail. “Can I come in?”

She opened the door, but didn’t move.

“What’s that noise?” he asked her.

“They’re renovating the apartment upstairs.”

“It’s loud!”

“I know.”

“What’s your neighbor doing for your pain and suffering?”

She lowered her voice. “Actually, they just sent me a fruit basket.”

“That’s it?”

She waited for him to lecture her.

“Let’s talk in my apartment. It’s quieter. My dad’s away. ”

“I have plans,” she said, although her friend had cancelled.

“It won’t take long.”

She’d never seen an apartment in his line and was vaguely curious. She checked
what she was wearing. Black pants and a blue and white striped jersey—neither sexy nor demure.

“Just for a few minutes,” she said.

In the elevator she realized she was still wearing her slippers.

***

The living room, much bigger than hers, had views of the Hudson. Georgia didn’t
see any photos of Jesse’s mom. Ethan probably didn’t want his girlfriends to feel
inhibited. Georgia wasn’t sure if she approved. She sat in what she thought was an Eames chair.

Jesse offered her some of his dad’s scotch. She’d never tried single malt. He
poured her a big shot, then sat on the floor with Jane.

“You’re not drinking anything?” Georgia asked him.

“I don’t drink. Not even coffee.”

Maybe he’d had an alcohol or drug problem. It was hard to tell anything with him.
She waited for him to tell her why he was unhappy, but he just sat there petting Jane. Perfectly groomed, she looked regal. Georgia thought of Jesse’s mom, in a room in Jersey, wearing someone else’s faded pajamas.

“I really like this girl in my statistics class,” Jesse said finally.

He showed her Mia’s Facebook picture. She was blonde, not the blonde Georgia
had seen him with, but also very pretty.

He’d only talked to her twice, briefly, and he couldn’t tell what she thought of
him. He hoped that another student he’d seen her with a few times wasn’t her boyfriend.

“I really like her,” he said almost shyly.

Trying not to smile because he sounded so “normal,” Georgia gave him the advice
she often gave: try to make your own life so satisfying that you’d have to think twice
about changing it for anyone.

“It’s what I try to do in my own life,” she concluded weakly, remembering how
lately it wasn’t working very well.

Jesse was rubbing Jane’s belly and didn’t seem to be listening.

“So, Georgia, what music do you like?” he asked her after a while. “Jazz? Frank
Sinatra?”

Do I seem that old? she wanted to say. “I just sit around in my mink all day,”
she said, “listening to the Great American songbook!”

He didn’t even smile.

“Actually, my mom loved Sinatra,” she said. “I mainly listen to podcasts. I should
listen to more music.” She could feel the scotch. “I’ll tell you one song I hate. ‘ Georgia on My Mind.’” She realized he’d probably never heard of it.

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s about Georgia the state, but it could also be about a woman. Ray Charles
sang the most famous version.”

“I’ve heard of Ray Charles.”

He took out his phone and played the song.

When it was over, he said, “Not bad.”

He went to the bookcase, plugged his phone into the stereo, and played the song
again. “Do you mind?”

Maybe it was the scotch, but it sounded pretty good to her.

Jesse stood up. When Georgia realized he wanted to dance, she let him pull her
up.

As he put his arms around her, Jane barked, then walked away.

He was a little tentative, as if he weren’t used to slow dancing. He didn’t have any
smell she could identify. Through his linen shirt, his body felt hard and skinny. She
couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard “Georgia on My Mind.” She should have
taken her mom to Paris. Her mom had never even been to Europe. Georgia had been there, twice, but she hadn’t gone to Paris.

Jesse drew her closer. Feeling him get hard, she pulled back a little. Neither of
them said anything. He kept dancing, and so did she.

Jane was barking again, but the music was so loud that for a while neither Jesse
nor Georgia realized Ethan was there. He wore a leather jacket and carried a suitcase and a briefcase.

Jesse and Georgia quickly moved away from each other, and he turned down the
volume.

“This is Georgia.” He bit his thumbnail.

Ethan gave her a big smile, but she was so embarrassed—the dancing, his scotch,
her slippers—she could barely look at him.

He told Jesse he’d come back early because he couldn’t find some contract. He
excused himself to go look for it.

“Don’t go,” he said to Georgia.

“I’ve got to go!” she whispered to Jesse, and rushed out.

Back in her apartment, quiet now, she washed the coffee cup she’d left in the sink.
Although Ethan was definitely attractive, Georgia doubted they’d be going to Paris.
When she saw him—or Jesse—again, she’d smile and keep walking. And that would be that. She felt weirdly happy. It was probably the scotch, but she had to admit it was Jesse, too. His desiring her was flattering and, maybe, just what she needed.