Warm-Up
Tish:Big news!
The message flashed up at Misty Kaufman from the phone on her desk.She’d left it there so she wouldn’t be distracted as she did a read-through of her latest client’s project, but she had gotten up to hydrate and seen the text from her best friend.
The text had a time stamp from about twenty minutes ago and nothing else after.Had Tish been waiting for her to ask?
Misty:Great!What is it?
Tish:I have to tell you in person.
Misty:Don’t leave me in suspense!
Tish:I won’t...on my way to the gym now.Can I stop by your place to tell you?
There was no shortage of gyms near Tish Douglass’ Upper West Side apartment and workplace, but she insisted on going to this huge, fancy downtown gym.It didn’t make sense to Misty, but she wasn’t about to question it, not when it sent her best friend into her neighborhood so often.She sent a reply—Any time you want—and took a sip from her water bottle, watching the level bob from ‘You are getting dewy...very dewy...’to ‘The true halfway mark.’
Tish:Great.You’re gonna want to hear this, and I hope you’ll want to join me.
That was it.Misty’s concentration was officially shot.She’d needed something constructive to do with her afternoons now that kickball season was over, and this commission to design a set of smart-ass mugs to correspond to a local author’s holiday romance couldn’t have fit the bill better.It had become her practice to hold off on doodling anything until the second read-through, but ideas were already starting to dance in her head during the first read.Now, though, curiosity about Tish’s big announcement was temporarily clogging her creative juices.
Misty didn’t have to dwell on it for long.The buzzer sounded less than ten minutes later, and she rushed to answer it before a jet-lagged roommate could get bent out of shape.She waited by the door and opened it to find Tish standing there with her curls pulled back and a burnt orange tank top that matched her patterned leggings.The color always made her skin glow, and her big brown eyes had an extra sparkle today.
“I got an email from Coach Brynn,” she said as they headed to Misty’s room at the back of the apartment.
“Okay.”That couldn’t have been the big news.Tish and her college track coach had been on good terms for all four years, and they were still on each other’s holiday card lists.
“She got an email from World Winter Games officials saying they’re going to introduce a four-woman bobsled event at this coming event.”
Misty was intrigued, if a little confused about where this conversation was going.“Is she going to be a part of it?”
“Sort of.They reached out to her to help with recruitment.Most of the current two-woman and monobob athletes have track backgrounds, and she thought of me because of that.”
“That’s awesome!”
“That’s what I thought.”Tish paused before looking Misty full in the face.“She also said to spread the word if I knew of anyone else who’d be a good fit.I’ve sent some messages to former teammates, but there was one friend I wanted to ask in person.”
“Me?”Not the most original response, but it was all Misty could come up with.It was like she’d fallen into a parallel universe where their positions had flipped.Throughout school, Misty had been the one who’d suggested running the Disney Princess 5K, pranking the boys’ team, and other fun ideas.Tish, on the other hand, had always had her eye on beating her times in the next event and staying hyper-focused on training.
“You, the one who can keep up with me on all my runs.You, who just led her kickball team to victory between running and kicking—that takes speed and lower-body strength, and that’s what you need for this.”
“Me who spent that ski trip alternating between the lodge and the hot tub,” Misty reminded her.She’d tagged along on the trip for the camaraderie but hadn’t been able to get behind the idea of going out in the cold for fun.Despite the heat of this day, the very thought of being out on an icy track made her want to grab a blanket or run a hot bath.
Tish paused.“I really did forget about that.All I thought was that you’re more than good enough for this and that you’re my best friend.We’ve known each other forever, done so much in that time, and how amazing would it be for us to go to the World Winter Games together?”
Misty softened at Tish’s words and the picture they painted.“What would I have to do?”
Tish pulled the desk chair up to the armchair, then found the email from her coach.“We’ll have to submit a video.The ones with the best times and results for these exercises will be chosen for this combine upstate where we get to drive a bobsled, do the workouts, and see how well everyone works together.They’ll choose the team from there.”
Misty looked over the list of requirements.She fell within the height and weight parameters...she could get the recommendations easily enough...the speed requirement looked easy enough...but what was this?She’d never even attempted a vertical jump in her life.Not to mention the heaviest thing she lifted was her grocery bags on the walk home, and she put them down at every red light.
She looked up.“I don’t know if I can do some of these.”
“You don’t know if you cannow,” Tish corrected her in the same tone her Olympic medalist dad had used on her growing up.“If you’re not sure, there’s time to get a personal trainer.”
“Is your dad taking on any others?”Misty asked.Tish’s father had been training her practically since she’d learned how to walk, and it showed in Tish’s record-breaking times.
“No, but there’s no shortage of trainers at my gym.Some of whom are kind of hot, I might add.”Here Tish went again, the sales pitch Misty had been hearing for years.
