Chapter Eleven
To the telephone line. Come on. Push through to the telephone line,” Pepper panted, running along the gravel road the following week. Okay, so not technically running. Senior citizens could outpace her with their walkers, but that wasn’t the point. She was out here, putting one foot in front of the other.
At last she passed the telephone pole and threw her arms up in a victoryV. Mission accomplished. Trouble was, she’d gone a mile and a half, and now needed to make it home. That feat required extra motivation. Popping on her earphones, she pulled out her phone and turned on her new running app, Zombie Sprint. It had been worth the download for the tagline alone: “We’ll make you run for your life.”
“Let’s do this.” She hit play and tugged down the brim of her favorite hat, a Christmas present from Tuesday that saidWILL JOG FOR CUPCAKES.
“One’s coming up on your left, kick it into gear if you want to keep your brain,” the authoritative female voice commanded in her ear. She was fond of her brain, so she dug in, picking up speed.Go. Go. Go.Her thighs burned. Lungs seared. Okay, no way could she keep this pace up long.
Or for another thirty seconds.
Oh God, it hurt to breathe.
If she were in a zombie apocalypse movie, forget about being the heroine. She’d be the extra who tripped during the scene one stampede and got skull-munched in the background next to the dumpster fire.
“They’re coming toward you. The only way out is to dig deep, give it everything and leave nothing behind,” the voice faded behind simulated static and zombie groans. On her left, screams came through the forest, from the direction of Happily Ever After Land, heightening the ambiance. Roller coasters left her queasy at the best of times, but the idea of hurling around a hundred-year-old track made her downright nauseous.
She grit her teeth and swung her arms. No one would eat her brains. Not today. Not ever. She rolled her ankle on a loose rock with a sharp gasp.
Holy shit painful.She braced her hands on her knees and squeezed her eyes shut. That hurt. That hurt a lot. Luckily the coast was clear, and no one bore witness as she limped off the road to brace against a tree trunk. Below, the Everland River moseyed along, the current unhurried, sunlight bouncing off the water. She stretched, pointing her toes with a wince. A sweet wildflower scent hung in the air. She gingerly put weight back on her foot. The pain subsided as a gust of wind shook the branches and snatched off her cupcake hat. It floated down, down, down into the scrub brush.
“No!” Her sister felt far away, and that cap was sentimental. Bum ankle or not, she had to get it back. Gingerly, she scrambled down the embankment. The path was narrow and smooth. The riparian area stretched to a wide sandy shoal as thick vegetation blocked the road from view. Alone with the cicadas, rustling trees, and gurgling river, the real world felt far away.
And there was her hat in the middle of the Everland River, perched on a patch of dry bark on an otherwise submerged log.
She’d have to swim out, but if she jumped in wearing these shorts, the homeward run would be one heck of a thigh chafer. But she couldn’t walk away. That hat had emotional value, dammit.
She’d worn it on weekend jogs in the city, before meeting up with Tuesday to hit the Magnolia Bakery in Rockefeller Center. The hat conjured up memories of German chocolate cupcakes smothered in coconut, caramel, and pecan icing and people-watching the tourists posing in front of the Prometheus statue outside 30 Rock. It was more than just a hat; it held happy pieces of her past, sweet city days with her sister.
“Ta-weet! Ta-weet!” A nondescript brown bird watched from a bush.
“I’m not leaving,” she told it, setting her phone on a flat rock and hiking off her shorts. “I can’t abandon it. I won’t.”
And darned if that little guy didn’t burst into woodland song.
She hung the shorts on a low-hanging branch and frowned at her legs, a grooming no-man’s-land. Glossy hairs dotted her calves. She hadn’t shaved in order to get a wax but was now too broke for a salon. If she buckled down until Halloween, she could go as Mr. Tumnus, the hairy-haunched Narnia faun.
Her racer-back jogging top came off next. It had a built-in bra shelf, which meant that except for her panties she’d stripped almost naked. This felt like the beginning of a bad idea, except that hat flapped out in the river, daring her on.
She eyed the water, hugging her chest. Sentimentality was cold and wet, but she was in for a penny now.
Holding her breath, she dipped in her toe, and huffed a relieved sigh. The water wasn’t cold, in fact, the temperature felt nothing short of refreshing. She waded deeper, sweat whisking from her body. Why, she was as good as Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, splashing around the ol’ swimmin’ hole.
Except Tom didn’t have boobs that floated in water. Time to kick hard before she was spotted. She shoved off the bottom and tried for a decent freestyle stroke. The current was stronger in the middle, but no real challenge. When her fingers closed around the brim, she gave a victorious splash. Unbelievable. She’d swum into the river, tits out, in the middle of the day. That was the most physically daring thing she’d done since leaving Maine, when she used to go frog catching at the pond, or hike Bradbury Mountain State Park during the fall colors, or explore the tidal marshes around Cape Elizabeth.
She plopped the hat down on her head, blinking as water drops rolled off the brim to splash in her eye. Her throat was tight from the unexpected walk down memory lane. It had been a long time since she’d thought about any of that, but she couldn’t hang out and reflect, treading water mostly naked. Time to get back to shore and dress before anyone was the wiser.
Halfway back, the strengthening breeze increased to strong gusts. Her shorts swung on the branch, once, twice, andwhoosh!They took flight, skimming the air, light as a feather, before coming to a rest ten feet downstream, catching the current.
Shit the bed.
In three strokes she’d reached the bank, scrambled out and gotten her tank top safely in hand. But a fat lot of good it would do her without those shorts. She dove in. Good thing they were bright pink. She wasn’t sure of the color when buying them on sale, but now the outrageous color shone like a beacon from the dark water.
But the harder she stroked, the shorts stayed ahead, tantalizingly close but elusive. And town was fast approaching. “Stroke,” she ordered out loud. “Stroke!” The consequences of failure were too great to contemplate.
The moment of uncharacteristic sentimentality fast retreated behind a gathering shitstorm of reality. If she didn’t catch those shorts, doom and hellfire would reign on her nearly bare butt.
The Kissing Bridge loomed ahead, the last stand before town. She kicked double time and remembered. Oh. Shit. For real shit. After the Kissing Bridge was a waterfall. Nothing big. No Niagara. But a respectable ten-foot plunge that wouldn’t feel so great clad only in a pink ball cap and pair of cotton bikini briefs. Her legs became eggbeaters, churning the water.
And then…the shorts bobbed beneath the bridge, struck a half-submerged rock, flew into the air with a cheerful farewell and disappeared over the edge.
“Nooooooooooooo!” She grabbed a bridge piling and hauled herself onto the concrete stump, managing a few inches of toehold. Below, her shorts zipped around the bend, heading straight for downtown Everland’s river walk. She knocked her forehead against the wood. What did she do to deserve this, run over a guardian angel’s halo?
“Pepper? Pepper, is that you?” a low voice whispered. Not any voice either. Rhett Valentine was up on that bridge.
She jerked, releasing her hold on her tank top. It too rocketed over the waterfall with what remained of her pride.
