Catalyst

  The Godmobile stops and parks in a visitor’s slot, next to the nurse’s car. I’m halfway out of my seat before I realize it.

  “Kate Malone? Is something wrong?” Miss Devlin asks.

  Delete that thought. Reality intrudes. The mail never, ever, ever comes earlier than four o’clock. There is no way on earth he can have that letter. No way. I sit back down. “Leg cramp,” I say. “My gluteus maximus hurts.”

  Mitch chokes back a laugh. Miss Devlin knows nothing about my anatomy, but he does.

  The door of the Godmobile opens. It can’t be the letter. It can’t be the letter. Dad sits there for a second, then he takes off his seat belt and gets out of the van. I hope it’s the letter. He looks very small from up here.

  Miss Devlin draws a family tree of the Greek gods on the board. Athena was born from the skull of Zeus, jumped out as a full-sized adult, dressed for battle. (Bad Kate screams: Why do we need to know this?) Time drips off the clock while I keep one eye on the door and the other on the parking lot. This is the type of torture that Zeus would approve of.

  Dad returns to the Godmobile just before the period ends. He’s wearing the Serious Loving Pastor Face. Dad is on duty. It was a false alarm. I have to breathe again. Damn.

  Miss Devlin writes out our homework on the board: Study the incarnations of Athena. Greek vocab definitions (2 pts ea.!): academy, hubris, catalyst, catharsis, agape. Essay on Artemis due next week!

  I flip open my agenda book, every hour penned in, every minute accounted for. At the top of the page, in the righthand corner, in red ink, is a fat number one. One more day. I started counting ninety-three days ago, when my application was shunted from the Early Decision to the Everyone Else pile. It feels like a lot longer than that. But now we’re down to real time, meat time, flesh and gristle time. One . . . more . . . day . . . until the waiting is over. The letter will come and everything will be okay.

  Bad Kate wants to stand on the desk, rip off her shirt, and dance like a wild woman. Good Kate won’t allow that. She draws a heart around the red number one.

  2.7 Solubility

  The Springville coach calls us to the starting line. “Hurry up, men. Ladies, too. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Move it, you slackers,” Coach Reid shouts.

  This is not officially a meet. Coach Reid and the Springville coach cooked up an unofficial “scrimmage,” a 5K race between the long-distance runners of the two teams. The spring track season depresses cross-country runners, because we can only officially compete in the two-mile runs. We like to go the distance.

  Cross-country was made for me. I’m small and wiry and tenacious as hell. Any fool can run fast on an expensive track with lane markers, starting blocks, and a tailwind. Show me a girl who can slog it out against driving sleet, wearing mud-caked shoes and a wool cap that drips down the back of her neck—now that’s a runner.

  The windchill is below forty: spring in Syracuse. At least it’s not snowing. I pull my orange cap down so that it covers my ears and smack my orange-mittened hands together to keep the blood flowing. All this orange against my purple Merryweather uniform makes me look like a psychedelic Teletubby.

  Focus on the race, Malone. Focus on the race. Win. My glasses slide down my nose. I push them back up with my mitten.

  “Take your marks.” The Springville coach lifts his arm in the air, pretending he’s holding a starting gun. “Bam!” He shoots the air.

  I hesitate, freeze on the line. My glasses slip again. The screws must be loose, but I can’t worry about that now. I take them off, toss them at the coach, and run.

  I jog at seventy percent to let my legs warm up. Let the hotshot underclassmen dash ahead. No one sprints for 3.1 miles. I’ll catch them in the end. I pick up the pace half a mile in, when my gears are oiled. Sweat beads between my shoulder blades, under my breasts, at my waistband. My left Achilles tendon aches. I run faster. The sweat blooms into the rain that soaks my uniform. I pass one body, two, three. Keep your eyes on the ground, Kate, don’t turn an ankle. Slow down to skitter over sodden leaves, accelerate uphill, pass a pack of six. The Achilles relaxes and stretches, my thighs heat up.

  I shift gears again. Eighty percent. My dad used to run long distance. He still wears his marathon T-shirts sometimes. You’ll never catch me doing a marathon. I love to run, but come on, twenty-six miles? That’s wack. Mom was a sprinter. She could do the hundred-yard dash in just a few heartbeats.

  The path wanders through a dark pine grove. The air is colder here. Focus, Malone. Run faster. My feet feel out the path, testing the traction of the wet needles. Set the pace, find the rhythm, find the pattern. The run-till-you-win pattern: stepstepstepstep—breathe . . . breathe . . . stepstepstepstep—breathe . . . breathe . . . One more sound, my braid smacking against my spine like a rope against a flagpole. Stepstepstepstep. Thwackthwackthwackthwack. Breathe . . . breathe . . . Running is the mathematical sport. My races are a consistently balanced equation: effort=result.

  Relax, Malone. Relax. Run faster.

  The day jumps back at me in jagged fragments. The Godmobile in the wrong place, my father wearing the wrong face. Stepstepstepstep. Thwackthwackthwackthwack. Dad never comes to school, not even for track meets. Did somebody get busted? Try to kill themselves? Was he called in to counsel Teri? (He’ll have a black eye tonight if he did.) He just looked so weird, so small and not Dadlike.

  Lactic acid is weighing down my legs. I haven’t passed anyone in a while. Am I in front of the pack? My Achilles hurts again, and that stupid, pulled pec. Breathe . . . breathe. Control the mind. Need a positive, rhythmic phrase. Almost there . . . al-most there. Oh, so close . . . oh, so close.

  Another phrase wells up from the mud on the bottom of my sneakers: no envelope—no envelope—no envelope. Bad rhythm, out of sync. I stumble and have to slow down for a second. Negative thoughts are not allowed. Run faster.

  New phrase: MIT! MIT! MIT! MIT! Much better.

  Stepstepstepstep . . . Thwackthwackthwackthwack . . . won’t let you in . . . won’t let you in . . . won’t let you in.

  Another tight turn, no other runners. Did they all go the wrong way? I check my watch, bring it up to my face so I can see the numbers. I should be near the school by now. I’m on pace to be crossing the finish line.

  My feet slow down, then stop. The rain changes to hail.

  I went in exactly the wrong direction in the woods. I am dead last, so last they aren’t even timing me. The Springville coach, wearing a winter parka now, approaches me. “You must be Katie Malone. I think these are yours.” He hands me my glasses.

  “Kate,” I correct automatically.

  “Rhymes with late,” he says with a chuckle.

  “Ha-ha,” I say. Steam rises from my head when I take off my cap. I wring the water out of it and stick it back on, then I put on my glasses. The coach’s face is fluid and wavy.

  He grins. “Got lost, huh? Bet it was in the woods.” He is oddly cheerful about this. I bet he’s wearing thermal underwear.

  The Merryweather bus pulls up alongside us. I yank my cap down over my face and feel my way up the steps.

  2.8 Reduction

  When we get back to school, I beeline from the bus to my car. I take Mitch’s crimson Harvard sweatshirt out of the trunk and put it on, then take a water jug and refill the radiator. My nose hairs are frozen. I am soaked to my underwear. I want to stand in a hot shower until the marrow in my bones boils.

  Bert’s engine starts right away and he steers us toward home. I got lost on the course. How stupid. How stupid, pathetic, lame, ridiculous, moronic, and, and . . . I need another adjective. I’m sure there’s a better word for this feeling. It’s like pouring vinegar into baking soda and having it vomit all over the lab table while a panel of distinguished judges observes.

  I flick on the turn signal, check my mirror, check the mirror again—God, I look like a refugee—and merge onto the highway. I hate merging. I can never tell if I’m supposed to speed up or slow
down. Just a few more hours, Malone. MIT. MIT. The letter is coming. Hang in there.

  The traffic thins as I approach my exit. My teeth chatter. Is it possible to knock out a filling by chattering too hard? I’m going to stand in the shower, then drink hot chocolate and curl into my bed with all the extra blankets and a heating pad and Mr. Spock, and even Sophia can join us if she’ll contribute body heat.

  Off the exit, skim down a few country roads, past a dead strip mall, past a newly plowed field. Past the blinking yellow, turn right. I can see the church steeple and the roof of our house. Quarter of a mile later, here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors, and see all the . . . dear God.

  I pull in the driveway. The parking lot is overflowing with cars.

  It’s Chicken and Biscuit Wednesday.

  “Oh, Katie, thank heavens you’re here,” Betty clucks as she rummages through our silverware drawer. “We can’t find the big box of spoons. You know the one.”

  Betty is our church secretary, organist, and official busybody. She is six inches shorter than me, three times as wide, and smells of face powder. Each Christmas she knits me a tacky cardigan that I pretend to hate but secretly adore. I am going to put one on as soon as I get out of the shower.

  She closes the first drawer and opens another. “I checked everywhere in the church. They have to be here.”

  “I hav-v-v-ven’t seen them.”

  My capillaries are jammed with ice floes. I grab my brother’s jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and slip it on.

  Betty stares at the water running down my legs.

  I rummage through the pile of newspapers on the table. “Where’s Toby?”

  “He’s playing video games in the family room. That cough of his sounds better.”

  “Good.” I lift up the pile and look under it. “Where’s the mail?”

  “What mail?”

  “Our mail. The family mail. My mail.”

  “Well, it’s not on that table.”

  I inhale slowly, counting to ten. “I know. I just looked.”

  “A boy called for you, that cute one, with the freckles.”

  “Mitchell.”

  “I think you should marry him, Katie. Jesus would approve.”

  (Jesus lives in the back of Betty’s television set. They chat. A lot.)

  “I’m not getting married until after graduate school, Betty. I just want the mail. Where’s Dad?”

  Betty’s left eye twitches. “I don’t know. Are you sure you don’t know where those spoons are?”

  I count to sixty-four in base two. “Betty, when you see Dad, tell him I desperately need the mail. I’ll be in the shower, thawing.”

  Betty rifles through our junk drawer. “Oh, no, dear, you don’t want to shower now. The hot water’s all gone.”

  “Gone? But . . . ” I shiver at the horrifying vision of showering at school, or worse, at Betty’s house.

  “Your boiler is broken. You don’t have any hot water.” She pulls out an ancient silver tablespoon. The spoon part is bent up and back, making it look like a golf club. Betty slips it into her pocket. “No telling when it’ll be fixed. You might as well come over to church and help.” She closes the drawer with a dramatic sigh. “Of course, if you want to stay here, well, I won’t tell you what to do. Even if the Catholics are coming.”

  The word “Catholics” is whispered, as in those people. Betty is five hundred years old, old enough to remember the Catholics and Protestants at war.

  “The Catholics won’t bite, Betty, I promise. They’re nice, normal people, just like me and . . . just like lots of folks. And I’d love to help, but like I said, I’ve had a long day, a long, bad day. You’ll have to do chicken and biscuits without me tonight.”

  Heavy footsteps announce the approach of the Presence. Betty looks over my shoulder and smiles.

  “Good evening, Reverend,” she says. “My, don’t you look handsome!”

  2.9 Surface Tension

  The church kitchen is crammed with ladies hovering over giant vats of bubbling food. It’s hot in here, and it smells like a chicken sauna. When I walk in, the ladies smile at me, then point to the sink. They’re a bit phobic about handwashing. I set my watch in a chipped teacup on a shelf above the sink and scrub my hands. The water is hot enough to melt wax. If our boiler doesn’t get fixed, I could always bathe in this sink.

  The ladies have prepared the dinner with military precision. The food has been purchased, chopped up, and cooked. They always know how much to make, even though they never know how many people are coming. (This may fall under the heading of a religious miracle.) The dozen cardboard boxes on the far counter will be filled with meals for the poor and elderly. Put these ladies in charge of the United Nations and we’d have an end to world hunger in a month.

  Ms. Cummings rushes in carrying two heavy grocery bags. “Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find lemonade anywhere,” she tells the ladies. “Kate! Did it come?”

  I scrub under my nails. “Nope.”

  She puts the bags on the counter. “I can’t believe it’s taking so long. Is there anything I can do? Do you need to talk or something?”

  I dry my hands on a blue-striped towel and pick up a ladle. “No, thanks. I’m all good.” Before she can say anything else, I scoot over to the food line.

  Chicken and Biscuit Night is simple and profitable. Pay your money and you get a plate and utensils wrapped in a paper napkin. You can choose one biscuit or two. Hand me your plate and I ladle on pieces of chicken and gravy as fast as I can, trying to remember to smile. Drinks are at the end of the line. Desserts are on the preschool table by the upright piano.

  The line moves. Dip, ladle, don’t drip. Smile, nod—next! Dip, ladle, don’t drip. Smile, nod—next! The Kate-a-tron has been activated. Dip, ladle, don’t drip. Smile, nod—next!

  “Howdy, Miss Kate. How’s it going?” An old man hands me his plate. Mr. Lockheart, our handyman, my savior. One of Dad’s strays. Some of the kitchen ladies don’t like the fact that he drinks whiskey, but I don’t see any of them offering to patch the roof or clean out the nest of squirrels in the attic.

  I pile three biscuits on his plate. “Mr. Lockheart, I am so happy to see you.” I dig deep in the pot for hunks of chicken. “Our boiler is broken and we don’t have any hot water.”

  He nods once. “Yeah, I heard.” He rubs the white stubble on his neck. “Coulda lost the pilot light. That’d be bad, gas in the basement.”

  The fellow behind him, a farmer, leans in. “Gas would mean an explosion.”

  “That’d be bad, too,” says Mr. Lockheart. He stares at his plate. I pour on the gravy slowly.

  “Course, it could be a loose wire, electric problem,” the farmer says.

  “Or the ignition switch,” muses Mr. Lockheart. “That goes at the wrong time, and boom, you got another explosion.”

  An executive-type dad fidgets behind the farmer. He butts in. “Can you discuss explosions at your table, please? Some of us have things to do tonight.”

  Mr. Lockheart ignores him. “Could be the darned thing just died. It’s old. I’ll take a look after I eat some.”

  “Great,” I say, handing back his plate. “Could you try to fix it tonight?”

  “I’ll do my best, Miss Kate,” he says solemnly. “Hey, the reverend told me you was running in a big race today. You beat ’em?”

  His watery eyes open wide, his smile shows brown, chipped teeth. His wife and children were killed years ago when he drove the family car into a snowplow on Route 81 during a blizzard. He didn’t drink much before then.

  “Yes, Mr. Lockheart. I beat ’em. I beat all of them by a mile.”

  “That’s my girl!” he cackles. He leans over and gives me a smelly kiss on the middle of my forehead.

  “Thanks, Mr. Lockheart. Don’t forget the boiler.”

  The farmer gets two biscuits. The ExecuDad gets one, and I’ll be darned, but I can only find flakes of chicken for him. Shucks.

 
The line shuffles forward and I keep ladling. I’m warmer now, and I don’t think my own particular body odor is stronger than anyone else’s in here, or maybe it’s the smell of the cooked chicken that masks everything. The tables have filled up, and I think the (whisper) Catholics are mingling. Chicken and Biscuit Night makes more sense to me than Sunday morning services. If my father ever decides to talk to me about religion again, I’ll point that out to him. People who avoid his sermons turn up here every month.

  “Kate?”

  It’s Sara. “I’ve been calling and e-mailing constantly. You’ve been, like, nowhere.” She points at me. “What happened? You look terrible.”

  The man behind Sara interrupts. “Excuse me, but some of us are hungry.”

  Another ExecuDad. What is it with these guys? I dump some gravy on his biscuits, then Ms. Cummings appears next to me and takes my ladle. “Go ahead and eat, Kate. You must be starving.”

  I take three biscuits (my wages) and an extra-large helping of chicken and gravy and scoot out of the ladle line. Sara and I take a table in the corner.

  Sara strikes people as a vegetarian, save-the-whales type chick, but she loves eating meat. She just says little prayers to whatever she’s eating, thanking it for the sacrifice. She chews her first bite of chicken in silence.

  Prayer’s over. She swallows.

  “So why are you here?” I ask.

  “Well, Mitch was IMing Travis and Travis was talking to me so I heard how you almost had a heart attack in English because you thought your dad had the letter and then I got a message from Amy and she said you blew out your knee at the track meet but she always exaggerates but since I hadn’t heard from you I figured I should come over.” She pauses to inhale. “I thought you could use some moral support.”

  I plop one of my gravy-soaked biscuits on her plate. “You are the best friend in the universe. In this entire plane of reality.”