Chapter 2 Miz
2
MIZ
Minutes later, despite being weighed down by the three meals and two snacks I’ve had today, plus the ordeal I’ve just endured, I fly out of the elevators and through the lobby, barely acknowledging Everest, the concierge, on the way. Once outside in the bright sunshine, I dash past Daniel’s usual parking spot, taking the side streets to Union Station until I get stopped by a light at University Avenue. Belatedly, I squat and tent the fingers of my right hand on the ground between my feet—a pre-run ritual for luck that I’ve had since I first started running when I was fourteen, when I first went to Ethiopia, when Dad, at a loss as to what to do with me, had plonked me in a kids’ running camp.
I inhale the clammy downtown Toronto air infused with the pungency of hot, wet garbage and let the din of traffic, sirens and jangling streetcars wash over me like spa Muzak to a city girl. My phone pings again. Jeez, relax, Aimé. I don’t even bother to read her text. I just check her location. Sure enough, her dot is still at Union.
The light changes, and I strap my phone back on and am off again, barrelling down University, weaving through students, office workers, shoppers and tourists as if I’m navigating an obstacle course. At Queen, held up by another light, I hop in place in time to the busker hammering away with sticks on overturned plastic buckets, the scattered beat fitting for my discombobulated state. From then on, I sail through four green lights in a row, through the financial district’s tunnel of skyscrapers, my aches and pains that are so much a part of me dropping in to say hi like old friends.
I make it to the meet-up point in nine minutes, record time even for me, emerging out of the congestion of downtown into the wide plaza in front of the station, under the expansive sky, thick with the aroma of grilling street meat and pulsing with a mix of commuters headed home and suburbanites coming into town for whatever game or concert is on tonight.
I see Aimé sunning herself at the base of one of the rows of giant columns fronting the station entrance and immediately feel proud of her for just having made it this far today. Months ago, I had proposed—ugh, that word should be banned! I had suggested —the idea of us doing a race together with the hope that it would get her out of her life slump. Aimé had been on the Olympic track as a pro sprinter until the grind got too much, so she’d switched to a job as a hearing aid specialist. After some cajoling, which included promising to do the Big Chop haircut with her in solidarity so she can start going natural, she had finally agreed to do a 10 k with me. I pick up my pace as I run past a row of taxis and toward my best friend of seventeen years, startling a flock of pigeons in front of me. When she spots me, Aimé takes her time standing up, leisurely wiping dust off her butt, sipping on an iced drink. I laugh as I take her in. Of course she’s jazzed up as if we are going to be trailed by photographers for a sports magazine. From specialty running socks to sweat-wicking head- and wristbands, Aimé has chosen high-priced brand names for every part of her running outfit, claiming craftsmanship impacts performance. I say only practice impacts performance. I couldn’t care less what I run in as long as I can move in it—and ideally without a diamond ring snug in my waistband pocket. I feel sick. Why did I think it was a good idea to bring this thing out with me?
Aimé squints at me with suspicion, and I feel as though she can see the ring pressing into my flesh. “What’s going on?”
“Hmm?” I say, hands on my waist, kicking at the heel of one shoe with the foot of the other, avoiding her eyes. I feel her waiting.
“Why are you being weird?” she asks, studying me. After nearly two decades of friendship, she knows me well. I am being weird.
I sigh. “Okay, brace yourself,” I say finally, and stick my hand in my pocket and pull out the ring. I hold it out in my palm for her to see, careful to keep my fingers curled in just in case a pigeon swoops for it. The pigeons in this city are rude like that. “Look what I found.”
Aimé’s eyes widen, and she leans in. “Miz,” she says carefully. “Em, what am I looking at?” Her confused eyes meet mine.
“I’d say it speaks for itself.” I let her take the ring in for another moment before I slip it back into the safety of my waistband pocket and begin to walk. Aimé falls into step with me, looking dazed. “Miz, ’splain.”
“I found it in Daniel’s gym bag,” I say flatly.
Aimé stops right on a subway grate, and I halt alongside her. She looks bewildered. “For you?”
I nod.
She shakes her head. “Why would Daniel have a ring for you ?”
“Exactly!” I feel almost relieved. I’m not crazy—even Aimé knows that Daniel and I weren’t that serious. Suddenly, I feel worn out, the weight of this situation exhausting me in a way that sprinting all the way from my condo to downtown hadn’t. I plop down on the edge of a black concrete planter, and Aimé sits beside me.
“Zang!” she says. “This is nuts.”
“Mm-hmm.” For a few moments, we just stare blankly at the giant Scotiabank arena screen at the far end of the street, as if we’re at home, zoned out in front of the TV.
“But…you guys just mess around,” Aimé mumbles, chewing on her straw. “Like, the math just ain’t math-ing.”
I keep my eyes on the screen as I respond. “I know. I’m racking my brain, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s thinking.” I finally break my eyes away and stare at Aimé. “Make it make sense.”
She glances at my belly suggestively. “Hey, who wouldn’t want to lock you down?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not pregnant.” I scowl at her. “Say something helpful, please.”
She finds her sentence carefully. “Uh, maybe he’s…holding it for a friend?”
My eyes bug out with hope. “Yeah?”
Aimé flinches and sucks in air through her teeth. “You said to say something helpful, not true.”
I throw up my hands. “Oh god. Why him? Why me? How? It just doesn’t add up!” But the evidence was right there, on my phone, in my shorts, burned into my retinas.
“When do you think he’s going to do it?”
I tug at my tiny waistband zipper. “He’s not. I’m making sure of that.”
“Meaning?” Aimé draws out the word as if she’s sensing trouble.
I avoid her eyes. “I’m going to handle it,” I say simply.
“Handle it how—” Her mouth falls open in dread. “Miz! What are you going to do with that ring?” When I don’t answer her, she grabs me by the shoulders and forces brutal eye contact. “Miz! You have to put the ring back where you found it.”
I shake her off. “I know! I’m not a thief! I just wanted you to see it.” Aimé looks doubtful, but I ignore her. “When I get home, I’ll put it back in his gym bag. Then, when he comes by later tonight, I’ll break it off with him. That way, I don’t have to say no when he actually proposes.” I extract myself from my friend’s tight grip and stand up. “It’s kinder.”
She looks at me quizzically. “Why can’t you just say no? Aren’t you sassy Miss I-Don’t-Do-Marriage? You’ve been saying no to marriage all your life, even though ain’t nobody ever asked you. But now shit’s getting real, and you’re too scared to say one little word?”
I deflate, mollified, mortified, mummified by this unflattering truth about myself I’ve been forced to face this afternoon; reality scares the shit out of me.
“Yeah,” I say in a tiny, sad voice.
My naked admission softens her. “It’s funny,” she says gently. “Isn’t being a couple a prerequisite for breaking up?”
I kick at a cigarette butt on the ground. “But I don’t see what else I can do. I’ve got to break it off.”
Aimé points up at me. “ After you return the ring.”
As if I want to keep this thing. “Obviously. When I get home, I will put the ring back, all slick and undetected. Then I’ll end things. He’ll be none the wiser.” I let out a long breath, close my eyes, and turn my face up toward the bright sunlight. “Phew, I feel lighter already.”
Aimé stands up and pats me on the back. “I’m glad.”
“But right now, we train,” I say, hopping up and down, windmilling my arms. “Let’s go!” I shout like an overhyped coach, turning back the way I came and breaking into a run. “Come on!” I holler over my shoulder, turning my head around just in time to run straight into a nasty cloud of cigarette smoke.
She comes up in my peripheral vision, doing something between a fast walk and a trot. “But…” She pants, the ice in her plastic cup clattering as she scrambles to catch up. “No pep talk? No speech?”
“No way. No other way but to dive right in! Remember, sip, sip, exhale, exhale!” I slow slightly at the intersection to turn south in the direction of the lake, but then, at the slightest taste of that breeze from the open water, I gun it like a cheetah chasing dinner (or escaping a wannabe fiancé, same thing), through an underpass. I suddenly hear Aimé yelling my name.
I stop and look back to see her bent over, heaving. I return to her guiltily.
“What is with you?” she snaps at me, her breathing clipped. “Might I remind you I’m retired from sprinting?” She finishes all the lemonade left in her cup. “This is not what I signed up for, Miz. Forget this.” She turns around. “I’m going home.”
“No, no!” I say hastily, grabbing her arm. “I’m sorry.” I move us to the side, out of the path of a couple struggling to wheel their suitcases across the cracked concrete. “My bad. I’m just in a rush to get back home so I can put this thing away.” I suddenly feel deeply stupid for having brought the ring with me, for dragging Aimé into this disaster.
“Well, I’m not about to die today because of that,” Aimé retorts, a hand on her hip. Seeing my expression, she softens and pulls me into a hug with a sigh. “Don’t worry about the run.” She pulls back and pushes me in the direction of my condo. “Go home and deal with Daniel.”
I smile at her gratefully and pull her in for another hug. “Thank you.”
“Just go home,” she says sternly. “You know how you do. You say you’re going to do five k and then end up doing eight. Today’s not the day for that. You go straight home, no detours, you put the ring back. You got it?”
“Oh, believe me, I do,” I say. It’s a known fact that if I could have one superpower, it would be to be able to run forever. “I’m beelining it home. Bzzz .” I give her a wave before I push off in the direction of my place, motivated, if not by beats bouncing, by time ticking. As I run home, I mentally replay the loop of Derartu winning for Ethiopia in ’92—a three-minute YouTube clip that gets me emotional within the first thirty seconds. Straight home. No detours. As my breath and stride fall into perfect sync, a sense of calm comes over me.