Chapter Seven #2
I went inside and sat at my desk while the girls continued to sleep.
On the boat Alex and I talked freely, about the girls, the guests, our strange neighbors.
But the few times we’d run into each other off the boat could only be described as awkward.
Would carpooling be more like our boat conversations or our interactions on land?
I thought Alex had been avoiding me, seeing as he never came around outside of work, but now here he was, basically inviting me to spend more time with him. It didn’t make sense.
There had to be a way to get out of carpooling, but I still couldn’t think of an excuse.
I turned my mind back to the list and opened my laptop, sifting through marathon listings for a race that took place on my birthday.
At least my birthday cake would be well deserved.
Today was a practice day, I told myself. Tomorrow I really would run four miles.
I turned at a sound from behind me and found Kitty’s face looming over my shoulder.
“It’s rude to spy on people,” I said.
Kitty looked me up and down, no doubt taking in my still-heaving chest and flushed face. “In English class this year we did this whole unit on Japanese poetry, and my teacher showed us this one poem in which all the words meant more than one thing.”
“That’s . . . cool.” I turned my attention back to the screen. Thirteen-year-olds were so random.
Kitty sighed and placed her chin on my shoulder. “You don’t get it.”
“Synonyms,” I said, scrolling through another page of race listings. “Words that sound the same but mean different things.”
“No, that’s homophones.”
I spun my chair around to face her. “All right, Professor Catherine, what’s the lesson?”
Kitty pointed to the thirty-by-thirty list. “Run a marathon. You don’t need to run a marathon with your legs.”
“How else am I supposed to run it?”
“Run,” Kitty said again, “as in being the one in charge.”
I laughed when I realized she was serious. “Kitty, how in the world am I supposed to organize a marathon in less than two months?”
She smacked a hand against her forehead. “You are so slow sometimes. Marathon. The list doesn’t specify what type of marathon.”
Finally, it clicked. I hadn’t even thought of looking at the list that way.
I’d always taken the items at face value.
Could I bend the rules this late in the game?
I looked at the listing for the race on my birthday.
My mouse hovered over an image above the registration form depicting a group of incredibly fit runners, their faces determined and triumphant as they crossed the finish line, their legs well muscled, a lot like Alex’s, really, and their arms raised above their heads in victory.
And here I was taking an Uber after two miles.
When it came down to it, the real question was if I could finish the list without bending the rules.
Nina had said I’d need to think outside the box, and Kitty was right, I hadn’t specified what I’d meant by the words run or marathon. If Kitty’s Japanese poetry could be open for interpretation, why couldn’t something as insignificant as my list?
I exited the browser, banishing race listings from my life. “You’re a genius, Catherine Taylor. What type of marathon should we put on?”
“Movie marathon,” a voice grumbled, and Mia’s face emerged from the blankets.
“Like a Harry Potter marathon?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Everyone does that.”
“Then what are you thinking?” Truthfully, movies weren’t really my thing.
Sitting still in the dark for two hours?
No thanks. I was more of a TV show person.
Short, sweet, and to the point. With TV I could tap out whenever I needed to.
I could skip the episodes I didn’t like, the ones that got too dark, or sad, or heavy, and not miss much.
“Maybe we don’t do it based on the movies, but on the actor,” Kitty suggested.
Mia propped herself up to look at her sister. “Like when Shia LaBeouf sat in a theater and filmed himself watching his entire filmography.”
“That sounds . . . odd,” I said.
“It was,” Kitty said. “Mia made me watch it. All of it.”
“It was art.” Mia flopped back onto her pillow.
“So who should we have a movie marathon of?” I asked. “Chris Evans?”
“Gross,” Mia and Kitty said.
“He’s so old,” Mia added.
“But he’s hot.”
“No way.” Kitty crossed her arms, deciding the matter.
“Zac Efron,” Mia said. “We should totally do that.”
Kitty’s eyes widened, and she jumped onto the bed, singing, “Mia loves Zac Efron! Mia loves Zac Efron!”
“I do not!” Mia cried. She chucked a pillow at her sister’s head. “I like him in an ironic way.”
“Oh, please. I remember a certain toddler who was obsessed with High School Musical,” I said.
Mia rolled her eyes, the color rising in her cheeks. “I was a kid.”
“No need to be embarrassed. Have you seen his abs?”
“It’s decided,” Kitty said, still standing on the sofa bed. She pounded a fist into her open palm. “The Zac Efron movie marathon is on.”
Mia groaned, disappearing again beneath the blankets, but I could tell she was excited. And I was, too, not least of all because I could toss my running shoes to the back of my closet and never look at them again.