Lock and Key(93)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Welcome to the Vista Five-K!” a voice boomed from the stage as I worked my way toward the main entrance, stepping around kids and dogs and more runners stretching and chatting and jogging in place. “If you’re participating in the race, please make your way to the start line. Ten minutes to start!”

The crowd shifted as people headed toward the banner— VISTA 5K: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!—strung between the parking lot and the mall entrance. Following them, I kept an eye out for Olivia but didn’t see her—just runners of all shapes and sizes, some in high-tech lycra bodysuits, others in gym shorts and ratty T-shirts.

Inside the mall, it was much quieter, with few shoppers moving between stores. I could still hear the announcer’s voice from outside, along with the booming bass of the music they were playing, even as I walked from the entrance down to the kiosk courtyard, where I found Harriet and Reggie standing at Vitamin Me.

“I’m not doing the fish oil,” she was saying as I walked up. “I’m firm on that.”

“Omega-threes are crucial!” Reggie told her. “It’s like a wonder drug.”

“I didn’t agree to wonder drugs. I agreed to take a few things, on a trial basis. Nobody said anything about fish.”

“Fine.” Reggie picked up a bottle, shaking some capsules into a plastic bag. “But you’re taking the zinc and the B-TWELVE. Those are deal breakers.”

Harriet shook her head, taking another sip of coffee. Then she saw me. “I thought you might turn up,” she said. “Forget vitamins. Money is crucial.”

Reggie sighed. “That kind of attitude,” he said, “is precisely why you need more omega-threes.”

Harriet ignored this as she walked over to her register, popping it open and taking out my check. “Here,” she said, handing it over to me. “Oh, and there’s a little something extra in there for you, as well.”

Sure enough, the amount was about three hundred bucks more than I was expecting. “Harriet,” I said. “What is this?”

“Profit-sharing,” she said, then added, “And a thank-you for all the work you’ve put in over the last months.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” I said.

“I know. But I got to thinking the other day, after we had that talk. You were right. The KeyChains, all that. I couldn’t have done it without you. Literally.”

“That’s not why I said that,” I told her.

“I know. But it made me think. About a lot of things.”

She looked over at Reggie, who was still adding things to her bag. Now that I thought of it, she had been awfully receptive to that zinc. And what was that about a few things, on a trial basis? “Wait,” I said, wagging my finger between his kiosk and ours. “What’s going on here?”

“Absolutely nothing,” she replied, shutting the register.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Fine. If you must know, we just had drinks last night after work, and he convinced me to try a few samples.”

“Really.”

“Okay, maybe there was a dinner invitation, too,” she added.

“Harriet!” I said. “You changed your mind.”

She sighed. Over at Vitamin Me, Reggie was folding the top of her bag over neatly, working the crease with his fingers. “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “Initially, I just went to tell him the same thing I said to you. That I was worried about it not working out, and what that would do to our friendship. ”

“And? ”

“And,” she said, sighing, “he said he totally understood, we had another drink, and I said yes to dinner anyway.”

“What about the vitamins?”

“I don’t know.” She flipped her hand at me. “These things happen.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking over at Reggie again. He’d been so patient, and eventually he, too, got what he wanted. Or at least a chance at it. “Don’t I know it.”

By the time I went to the bank, ran a couple of errands, and then doubled back around to the greenway, the Vista 5K was pretty much over. A few runners were still milling around, sipping paper cups of Gatorade, but the assembled crowd had thinned considerably, which was why I immediately spotted Olivia. She was leaning forward on the curb, looking down the mall at the few runners left that were slowly approaching the finish line.

“No Laney yet?” I asked.

She shook her head, not even turning to look at me. “I figure she’s dropped out, but she has her phone. She should have called me.”

“Thanks to everyone who came out for the Vista Five-K! ” a man with a microphone bellowed from the grandstand. “Join us next year, when we’ll run for our lives again!”

“She’s probably collapsed somewhere,” Olivia said. “God, I knew this was going to happen. I’ll see you, okay?”

She was about halfway across the street when I looked down the mall again and saw something. Just a tiny figure at first, way off in the distance.

“Olivia,” I called out, pointing. “Look.”

She turned, her eyes following my finger. It was still hard to be sure, so for a moment we just stood there, watching together, as Laney came into sight. She was going so slowly, before finally coming to a complete stop, bending over with her hands on her knees. “Oh, man,” Olivia said finally. “It’s her.”

I turned around, looking at the man on the stage, who had put down his microphone and was talking to some woman with a clipboard. Nearby, another woman in a Vista 5K T-shirt was climbing a stepladder to the clock, reaching up behind it.

“Wait,” I called out to her. “Someone’s still coming.”

The woman looked down at me, then squinted into the distance. “Sorry,” she said. “The race is over.”

Olivia, ignoring this, stepped forward, raising her hands to her mouth. “Laney!” she yelled. “You’re almost done. Don’t quit now!”

Her voice was raw, strained. I thought of that first day I’d found her here with her stopwatch, and all the complaining about the race since. Olivia was a lot of things. But I should have known a sucker wasn’t one of them.

“Come on!” she yelled. She started clapping her hands, hard, the sound sharp and single in the quiet. “Let’s go, Laney!” she yelled, her voice rising up over all of us. “Come on!”

Everyone was staring as she jumped up and down in the middle of the road, her claps echoing off the building behind us. Watching her, I thought of Harriet, doubtfully eyeing those vitamins as Reggie dropped them into the bag, one by one, and then of me with Nate on the bench by the pond the last time we’d been together. And if I don’t? he’d asked, and I’d thought there could be only one answer, in that one moment. But now, I was beginning to wonder if you didn’t always have to choose between turning away for good or rushing in deeper. In the moments that it really counts, maybe it’s enough—more than enough, even—just to be there. Laney must have thought so. Because right then, she started running again.