“Hey,” she’d said, sauntering over in skintight black leggings and a white cotton top that was alluringly sheer where she’d sweated through it. Her smile and her gaze, attentive and intimate, made him feel like they were in a bar at closing time instead of at a gym at nine in the morning. “Sorry to bother you, but I can’t figure this out,” she said, and lowered her voice. “I think I broke it.”
Andy found himself whispering back, “What’d you do?”
“I don’t know.” Her pretty lips formed a pout. “Can you come look? I’d be very grateful.”
As it turned out, the only thing wrong with the elliptical machine was that someone had unplugged it. By the time she’d climbed aboard, Andy had learned that her name was Maisie, that she was a model, and that she actually knew who he was. “I recognized you right away from that feature in Runner’s World. I used to run track in high school—nothing like you, of course, not even close—but I still run to stay in shape, and I still get all the magazines.” She gave him a smile and put her hand, gently and briefly, on his forearm. “I’m rooting for you to make it to Athens.”
Andy thanked her. Maisie toyed with the strap of her sports bra and said, “I never, ever do this, but, if you’re free tonight, is there any chance you’d want to have dinner with me? Just, you know, as friends.” And Andy, who’d been traveling solo for two weeks while Rachel helped set up the Family Aid Society’s West Coast office in L.A., surprised himself by telling her, “Sure.”
That night, he’d met her in the hotel lobby in white linen pants and a dark-blue shirt, both borrowed from Mitch, the team’s fashion plate. Maisie had been wearing a blue-and-white sundress. “We match!” she’d said, delighted, and took Andy’s arm. He noticed how the dress left her shoulders bare, along with lots of cleavage, which Rachel never showed, because of her scar. Maisie smelled of white wine and cigarettes, an alluring bad-girl scent . . . and she was stunning, like God had taken a normal girl, pared her down until she was elegantly slim, given her high cheekbones that made her look mysterious, even dangerous, then softened her face with a sweet smile and beautiful lips, and eyes so big they were almost cartoonish.
The restaurant was a place that even he could tell was fashionable, buzzing with conversation, full of gorgeous women with important-looking men (and important-looking women with average-looking men). He felt people’s eyes on them as they walked to their table. Maisie ordered a white-wine spritzer, but when Andy asked for water, she’d asked him, “Is it okay if I drink? It won’t bother you? I know you’ve got a race tomorrow.”
“No, it’s fine,” he’d said. He couldn’t help but compare Maisie’s attitude with Rachel’s. “Oh, I shouldn’t,” Rachel would say . . . then she’d order some sweet cocktail with maraschino cherries and sometimes an umbrella, eight ounces of booze and liquefied sugar. She’d urge him to take a sip. When he wouldn’t, she would roll her eyes and say, “Is one sip really going to hurt you? It’s calories. You need those, right?” Maybe she didn’t do that all the time—in fact, maybe she’d done it only once or twice—but Andy had to admit that having a girl put his needs so far ahead of her own felt good.
When the menus came, Maisie didn’t even open hers. “Grilled swordfish, no sauce, whatever green veggies you’ve got,” she told the waiter . . . which was exactly what Andy was planning on getting.
“I can’t tell you how much I admire you,” Maisie began.
Andy waved away the compliment. She looked at him, her gaze intent and her drawl entrancingly sweet. “You’re being modest, but you don’t have to be modest with me. I used to run, remember? I know how it feels, when it’s the last lap and every single part of you is burning and it hurts to breathe and you don’t think you can even pick your foot up again and you find a way to do it.” She reached across the table and gave his hand a little squeeze. “I’d love to see you race sometime.”
“You can come tomorrow,” he heard himself say. “Madison Square Garden.”
“I believe I know where that is,” Maisie said, waving away the bread basket and giving him a smile.
He tried asking her about herself. At first she didn’t want to say much, leaving him with the impression that her early years hadn’t been easy, and that they had left her with a determination to work hard, to scoop up all the prizes the world could offer. She had grown up in a tiny town in Georgia, with a single mother, like him. She, too, had been an only child, the repository of her mother’s ambitions, but when he tried to ask her more about her hometown, her modeling, even her high-school track team, she’d turn the conversation back to him. She was a wonderful listener, her eyes always on his face, barely moving, hardly breathing . . . and then when she spoke she would ask some follow-up question that showed how closely she’d been paying attention. It made him feel like the most important person in the world, and he found himself doing some creative editing with his answers. He wasn’t leaving Rachel out of his story entirely—that would have been wrong, and probably impossible—but he was definitely downplaying her importance, in a way he knew would have infuriated Rachel if she’d been there.