Page 70 of Perfect Mess

Between gasps of oven baked air, I wheezed, “We?”

Karen’s smile stretched wider. “Gary and I.”

“Karen signed me up last week.” Gary looked about as excited as Ralph did when I had registered him.

“I told him it was for charity,” Karen explained. “You know, for the children.”

“Right, the children,” Gary nodded.

“Can’t say no to the children,” Ralph agreed.

Karen said, “So, Mary, I never imagined you as much of a runner.” She looked me up and down like an MMA fighter sizing up the competition during ring introductions.

“Oh, but I am,” I said. “I run all the time. I love running.”

Karen’s head nodded, but her eyes bore into my soul. “I did track and field back in college. All-conference in the two hundred meters.” Karen wore her smug smile like a linebacker’s mouth guard.

Gary asked, “So Mary, does that mean you’re running for charity too?”

“Me? Oh no, no. No way. Not me. I would have loved to, but the registration deadline passed this morning.” It was true. I had submitted Ralph’s registration fee just under the wire.

“Gee, that’s too bad,” Karen pouted, her lips out like a baboon. “Would have been fun to see what you still got.”

“Oh, I got plenty,” I assured her. Gary and Ralph exchanged a look, as if questioning the rules of time and space.

Karen elevator eyed my running outfit. “So I see.” Clearly I was going to have to take this woman out. I wondered how serious Ralph had been about his ability to pull off a Tonya Harding.

“Wait a second,” said Gary. “Karen, didn’t you say you had extra tickets?”

“I did?” For the first time, Karen looked like she got caught off-guard.

“Yeah,” continued Gary. “You told me you had extra tickets, and you didn’t want them to go to waste, which is why you invited me to go.”

Slowly, the piranha smile crept back on to Karen’s face. “You know, I would love to give one to Mary, but we need the other tickets for the kids.”

“That’s not a problem,” Ralph chimed in, pointing to the flyer on the post. In big bold letters, the flyer proclaimed, “Thompson Family Fun Run: Kids Run Free!”

After reading it, Karen had the same expression on her face as the one she had when I pointed out that our camp shirts sucked.

“Then it’s settled,” Gary proclaimed. “We can all run together.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Ralph agreed.

“Remember, it’s for the children,” said Gary.

“For the children,” Karen mumbled.

“For the children,” Ralph agreed.

ChapterSixteen

The morning of the Thompson Family Fun Run, I rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn. Technically, it wasn’t really a roll. More of a stumble and a trip. Purrfect had decided the floor right beside the bed was a good place to stop and lick herself.

As I shuffled through my morning routine, every muscle and bone in my body protested the rude awakening, but I powered through. I had been up half the night thinking, mind racing. Now it was time for my body to race, too. I had a job to do, and I would not let sheer exhaustion stop me.

I fed Purrfect a can of tuna flavored cat food and made a banana kale protein shake for myself. When I grabbed my keys to go, Purrfect seemed annoyed that I was leaving so early. But then every other day, she would seem annoyed that I was leaving so late. Our relationship was still in the love/hate phase, skewed toward hate.

When I got to the park, it looked like the circus was in town. Tents lined up and down the sidewalks. Food trucks parked along the road. A clown made balloon animals … for the children.

---