Ralph E. Rodriguez

The Music Inside You

Every morning at six a.m., Ariana Sánchez muscled through the rolling hills of Shady Acres Cemetery, her legs pulsing with energy, her fingertips smudged with a near permanent shadow of blue-black auto grease. In the afternoons, she worked out with her high school track team, but mornings, she retreated to the solitude that first turned her on to running. In the quiet splendor of the graveyard, with only some squirrels darting frantically across the lawn and robins wrestling worms from the dew-wet ground, Ariana got lost in the runner’s high of her mind. Sometimes she would sing Green Day’s “American Idiot” to herself. Other times she’d go over her Algebra II homework. Running gave her a thing for numbers. But more often than not, she’d daydream herself back into a classic race. With her spiked-up, dyed-pink hair, she would lope through the sweltering streets of Los Angeles beside Joan Benoit in her white painter’s cap and USA singlet. Sweat dripped down their faces as they dominated the final miles of the 1984 Olympic Marathon. Ariana would even wave to the tombstones, as if they were adoring fans. Then, as she glided down the gentle slope at the back of the cemetery, she squeezed the gray plastic elephant that dangled from her leather necklace, before blowing a kiss to the five headstones that marked the graves of her great grandparents, grandparents, and mother. Ariana would be the Sánchez who got out of Coleville. She was determined to get into the University of Colorado, where her hero Mary Decker had piled up record-breaking races. Soon, like Mary, Ariana would be autographing racing bib numbers, not collecting them. She just had to escape this town where the most celebrated thing in the local paper was a story about Mrs. Hovis’s prize-winning pumpkins accompanied by a corny picture of her in denim overalls crouching down next to them in her backyard patch. You never saw stories in The Coleville Ledger about local bands signing record deals or writers climbing to the top of the bestseller list. A track scholarship would save her from this burnt-out town of the average, the everyday. Then she wouldn’t end up a mechanic like her dad, stuck rebuilding engines at the local garage, or god forbid—and this was the worst nightmare for her punk-rock soul—find herself behind some café counter asking, “Would you care to make that a medium for fifty cents more?” She understood that was someone’s fate, but it couldn’t be hers.

Ariana returned home, showered, and swapped her shorts and sports bra for her plaid blue school skirt and white cotton, button-down top. She massaged a drop more gel into her hair and twisted the short, pink mop into a spiked nest. As a final touch, she tugged on the distressed, black pleather bomber jacket she’d found at the Goodwill. On the bus, she memorized the eight quarter-mile splits she needed to set the school record in tonight’s two-miler—75, 76, 75, 76, 75, 76, 75, 76. Two races over the next week would mark the end of her junior-year track season and her last chance to attract the attention of coaches, before applying to college in the fall. Rushing to first bell, Ariana chanted the splits to herself as a melody to soothe her nerves. She could do it, she thought. She had this.

At lunch, Ariana snuck up to the library computers to study her favorite track meets. She dug back decades to pull up the famous 1978 two-mile race between the dominant Kenyan Henry Rono and the lanky Brit Steve Ovett. For seven laps Ovett hung a stride or two back from Rono, seemingly unable to take the lead. But he’d been trailing on purpose, and, in the final stretch, he stole Rono’s triumph, pulling past him stride by stride. No matter how many times she’d seen Ovett take over in those last one hundred yards, Ariana would grab her elephant necklace and bite it between her front teeth, as if she might change the ending by force of will.

The elephant had been a gift from her mom who used to inspect them on the assembly line at the plastic factory. She told Ariana the elephant stood for good luck. When, nine years ago, her mom died of lung cancer from some chemical Ariana couldn’t pronounce, Ariana gave up believing in luck. But she believed in her elephant, believed it held a little of her mom in its tiny plastic features. After the funeral, Ariana clutched the elephant in her palm and pulled her dad out to the garage. He steadied her hand as she drove the one-eighth-inch drill bit through the elephant’s gray ear. Ariana hadn’t taken it off since.

“Hey,” Monica called, as she stepped into the room, “I thought we were going to eat outside and listen to some music.” She stood over Ariana, who couldn’t pull her eyes from the monitor. They’d been best friends since first grade. When Ariana’s mom died, Monica slept over for an entire week. “I just want to rewatch one more race,” she said, without looking away from the monitor.

Monica dropped down into the wooden chair beside Ariana. Whereas Ariana was bone thin through her chest and arms, Monica was a tangle of muscles from her neck to her ankles. Every day before practice, she sculpted her body in the weight room. She was the top sprinter not just at St. Mark’s, but in the entire district. “The Zola Budd and Mary Decker fiasco again,” she said, watching the Youtube video. “You know what happens. She trips Mary up. End of story. How is that going to help—”

“Shhh,” Ariana squeezed Monica’s hand. “Here it comes.” Slightly past the midpoint of the race, Budd steps in front of Decker, knocking her to the ground. As Decker careens into the grass infield like a car into a ditch, Ariana couldn’t help but squeeze her arm around her face. She wanted to block her eyes, but couldn’t look away as Decker grabbed at her hamstring, grimacing in pain. “Mary should have gotten up and hammered her.” “Come on, let’s go. I downloaded the new Death Rattle album. You need to get out of your head.”

Monica stood to leave, and Ariana grabbed her by the forearm. “Don’t go. Keep me company. You can watch the Sex Pistols on the other computer.” Monica sighed, then typed “Anarchy in the UK” into the search engine. She cranked the volume and slipped on the oversized headphones. When Steve Jones chunked down on the barre chords, Monica played air guitar along with him.

Ariana brought up the Steve Ovett and Henry Rono race again, but Monica only let her get halfway through before she pulled her from the chair and started slam dancing with her. “This is what you need,” Monica shouted over the music and banged shoulders with Ariana.

Later that evening, in the spring air laced with the downwind stench of the paper mill, Ariana was dominating the two-mile meet. She checked her watch at the half-mile mark, two minutes and twenty-three seconds. She had a twenty-stride lead on Pia Marra, St. Anne’s number one runner. Pia was no competition, and that was worse than having a challenger stuck so close to your side that you could taste her bad breath. It was worse than being up against her nemesis Claire Edwards, that prepster with the silly, blonde ponytail and ridiculous pearl earrings. On the days when insecurity wracked Ariana like an unforgiving side cramp, she fantasized about grabbing Edwards by her ponytail and hurling her like a discus into the stands. But Ariana also respected Edwards because she could push you to greatness. Behind that perfect white-toothed, Marie-claire-cover-girl smile was a determined animal.

“Sánchez, you’re going too fast,” Coach Williams yelled. “Slow down.” Ariana grinned and kept her pace. A 4:46 opening mile might be risky, but racing was an improvisation of pacing and daring. For the greats, there was a music to running. You had to dig inside yourself and grasp the emotions buried in the notes. Coach might have been the band manager, but Ariana was the star. It was a push and pull for power. To be exceptional, she alone had to command the music of her legs and her arms, the three-chord, punk anthem of her body racing down the track.

With a commanding lead, Ariana forgot about Pia. Instead, she imagined racing Lacy Butler, whose record of 10:05 set in 2008 at St. Mark’s, Ariana

had inched closer and closer to breaking. That record was the ticket to a scholarship at Colorado. At the start of every practice, she’d spend a few minutes admiring the framed photo of Butler mounted in the locker room. One day, she thought, there’d be a picture of her on that wall, raising her MVP trophy over her head.

She rounded the corner tight on the inside lane, picking up speed. If she reached her sweaty arm out, she could nearly touch the imagined Butler’s shoulder. With five laps to go, she had increased her lead to two hundred yards. Monica waited in the grass at the track’s halfway point. When Ariana passed, Monica cheered her on, wind-milling a power chord on her air guitar.

But Ariana did the math. She’d been losing time with each quarter mile. If only she had racing flats, instead of her clunky trainers. There wasn’t a precise calculus to it, but she knew the four-ounce difference translated into precious seconds. Demons of doubt danced in her brain. Edwards doesn’t slow down. Maybe you’re not strong enough. Maybe you should just be a mechanic. It’s a hell of a lot easier than this. She tried to crowd out the worries with images of Monica busting out of the starting blocks in the 220-yard and 440-yard sprints that she’d won an hour ago. Ariana could be that strong. She floated around the far corner of the track into the straightaway, completing the first mile in 4:51. Her quickest opening of the season. Pia had fallen to a distant fourth, behind Monica’s teammates Jenny and Liza.

She hated to do it, but at a mile and a half, Ariana lapped the slower runners. She knew it would razor their egos into confetti scraps, but she had no choice. She had to complete the next half mile in 2:25. Monica told her the arms were the engine to the legs. She pumped them harder to speed up. She replaced Butler with an image of Mary Decker, the greatest Colorado Buffalo ever.

When the official clanged the bell for the final lap, the digital clock read 8:54. Ariana had to burst around the track in seventy seconds. Her teammates lined the outer lip of the oval, hollering her on. Decker ran right next to her. Their strides perfectly matched. Ariana heard Decker in her head: It’s your gift, use it. She pushed against the thickening weight of her legs. She was only two seconds off pace.

Monica raced up and down the sideline yelling, “Drive it, Ariana, drive it.” Ariana dug in with even greater determination. Her stomach knotted. She spat a wad of bile onto the infield. She wasn’t about to ease up. As she rounded the corner into the final straightaway, the clock clicked 9:58, 9:59, 10:00. The team and Coach Williams sounded like a den of lions roaring her on. She pumped her arms faster, her legs gobbling the synthetic red track. The imaginary Decker gained a lead, and Ariana sprinted after her. Ten yards to go. Monica dashed across the field and waited for Ariana at

the finish line. Ariana dug deeper. The guitars were screaming in her head and the bass and drums throbbing. Three yards. Two yards. She bulleted on. As she crossed to victory, she threw her hands in the air, then collapsed into her teammates. They grabbed her under the arms and raised her onto their shoulders. The scoreboard glowed: First place, Ariana Sánchez 10:08. “Damn it,” Ariana yelled, wrestling herself free. She dropped to her knees, banging her fists on the ground in rhythm to her words. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Within seconds Coach was at her side. “Up,” he said, lifting Ariana by her forearm. “You will not make a scene.”

“I was so close.” Ariana shook her head. “Four seconds and the record was mine.”

“Wipe the dirt from your hands, and go congratulate the other runners.” Coach swatted Ariana’s shoulder with his clipboard. “The bus leaves in ten minutes.”

Monica waited as Ariana clapped hands with the other team and then she pulled Ariana aside. “I thought you had it this time.”

“I don’t know what else I could have done.”

“You get to race Claire Edwards in the final meet.” She threw her arm around Ariana’s shoulder. “She’ll definitely push you.”

“She makes me want to vomit.”

“Four seconds. That’s only a half second a lap. We can shave that off.” Monica tapped on Ariana’s elephant. “We’ll do some extra sprint work this weekend. We’re both getting out of here.”

“You really think so?” she asked softly.

“Absolutely. Go Buffaloes!”

Ariana hated herself for not having Monica’s confidence, for rubbing her lucky elephant and chanting splits like prayers. Monica hadn’t come up short in a race since freshman year. She couldn’t possibly imagine the what ifs that would parade though Ariana’s head this week.

When Ariana got home, her dad was waist deep in the engine of the vintage, red Chevy C-10 pickup he was rebuilding for their neighbor Mr. Santos. Hank Williams was crooning about a spurned lover from the tinny speakers of the radio perched on the wooden work bench. Wedged between it and the torque wrench sat a neglected rocks glass of bourbon, the melting ice watering down the alcohol.

“How’d the meet go?”

Ariana grabbed a spark plug from the floor and tossed it back and forth to herself. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“Hop in and turn the engine over, kid.” Her dad grabbed a flathead screwdriver off the chrome fender and slowly adjusted the idle. “Give it a little more gas. Okay, ease back.”

Ariana pretended to steer the truck, imagining the drive to Boulder. Seven hours through the mountains. She’d be far enough away that she’d have her freedom, and close enough to drive back if things got too much for her. She leaned out the window. “I won.”

“That bad, hunh?” Her dad chuckled, twisting the screwdriver as precisely as a surgeon.

“I didn’t get the record.” Ariana listened to the engine. “Do you hear that tick? Something’s still off. Let me give it a try.”

Her dad pulled his head out from under the hood and balanced his cigarette on the vise attached to the workbench. Thick, black grease climbed from his fingers to the heart-shaped tattoo etched with Sandra, Mi Alma across his forearm. He smelled of oil and rubber. He plopped the screwdriver in Ariana’s palm and got behind the wheel.

Right after her mom died, her dad had begun explaining the parts of the engine to Ariana. At first, they needed the distraction, and their backyard garage proved the perfect nest. Two years later, when Ariana was ten, they were still at it. She earned her allowance working with her dad on Saturdays. “You want something, you save for it,” he’d told her. It’s why she was still saving her ten-dollar-a-week allowance for the hottest new racing flats. It’s also why $52,000 a year for the University of Colorado would be too much for him.

According to her dad, a young woman needed to know the ins and outs of auto mechanics, but Ariana also knew her dad liked having her around. She didn’t mind it all that much either. It wasn’t like a trip to the zoo with her mom, but she loved the way her dad pumped his fist and squeezed her shoulder when she got something right. At first, he gave Ariana the parts gunked up with grease, which she dunked in a coffee can filled with solvent and then polished. A year later, she graduated to gapping spark plugs. Not long after, she was standing on a chair with her little hand gripped over the distributor cap and her dad’s calloused palm on top. They rotated the cap, adjusting the timing so all the cylinders fired in sync. She liked the feel of his hand on hers. At fourteen, with some gentle guidance, she had torn down and rebuilt the V-8 engine to their ’64 Impala. There was no denying she had a knack for the work. Some nights after her homework, she’d hang out in the garage with her dad, studying repair manuals to cars they didn’t even own.

“Give it a blast, then pull back by half,” Ariana said. She finessed the idle screw and adjusted the float. “That’s it. Stop.”

“Don’t say your old man never taught you anything. I wasn’t half as good with engines at your age.”

“I fixed a carburetor. I didn’t take down Lacy Butler’s record.” “That’s running. This is real work. This is the guts of life.” Her dad patted the hood to emphasize his point. After high school, her dad had joined the Army and served four years as a radio man. When he came out, he drove a cab nights and studied during the day to be a mechanic. He’d proudly been one ever since.

“Sometimes, Dad, I think you don’t listen. I keep showing you I want to be more than Mrs. Hovis and her stupid pumpkins. I need you to see me.” Occasionally, she worried, he did hear and see her, but couldn’t accept the idea of her and her mom both being gone.

“You mean you don’t want to be a mechanic like me.”

It was true. Ariana liked messing with the engines, but the work didn’t push her. It felt like settling. Running was a gift, an art even. Being a mechanic was mastering technical skills. She knew when she set down to pull a radiator or replace the gasket on an exhaust manifold, it would work out. There was no thrill there. The electrifying thing with running was testing yourself, not knowing when you stepped on the track if you were going to best yourself, or if you would fall apart midway through. The not knowing, the endless pursuit to be faster made her body tingle with every stride. But how could she tell her dad that without making him feel the way she felt right now—a small, little nothing who maybe couldn’t break Lacy Butler’s record?

“That’s not what I said. It’s just not my future.” She pulled her plastic elephant out of her shirt and nervously tugged it back and forth on its leather cord. “When I’m running, I mean something.”

Her dad offered a resigned nod and leaned back against the work bench. “Well, you mean something to me right here.”

Ariana twisted her lips into a pinched smile. “I should get in and catch up on my homework. Algebra II test coming up.” She reached down for her knapsack.

“I left you some dinner in the oven.” Her dad dug at the grease under his nails with the screwdriver. As she turned to walk away he added, “Don’t forget: up and at ’em early tomorrow. It’s Saturday.”

“I was hoping I could take this one off. I need to do sprint repeats with Monica.”

“You can be a hamster on her wheel when we finish.”

“Why do you refuse to get it!” Ariana threw her hands in the air. “Next week is my biggest meet.”

“You’ll have time to run,” he said firmly and then lit a new cigarette. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Ariana walked off shaking her head.

“Don’t be like that,” her dad called after her. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Ariana grabbed the plate of enchiladas mole (her dad’s specialty), refried beans, and nopalitos salad from the oven. She touched a little of the mole sauce from her pinky to her tongue. The chocolate, cinnamon, and chile danced across her taste buds. She was tempted to devour the entire plate. Instead, she had one more taste of the sauce and slid the meal into the trash can, covering it with newspaper. She didn’t want her dad to see she’d turned down his gift. She concocted a smoothie of chopped kale, boiled beets, two scoops of protein powder, frozen blueberries, orange juice, and a raw egg. The track-training website that she read daily claimed the drink sped up recovery time and promoted muscle growth.

On the kitchen table, pinched between the hen and rooster salt and pepper shakers was a letter to Ariana from the University of Colorado Athletics Department. It was smudged with auto grease fingerprints. She looked out the window toward the garage. Her dad was holding his bourbon glass and staring idly into the Chevy’s engine. She watched a minute longer, wondering what he thought about, what he saw in the maze of wires and metal, as he listened to his music. Then she took the smoothie and letter to her bedroom. Too nervous to open it, Ariana tossed the envelope on her desk. She took a gulp of the smoothie and ran her finger over the picture of the racing flats she’d taped to the wall. They were electric blue with silver stripes and black laces, weighing just over six ounces. The problem was they cost $130. Stuffed away in the back of her sock drawer was the sixty dollars of allowance money she’d saved. She imagined flying around the track in those flats.

She held the letter to her desk lamp, trying to see what it said. She spun it between her fingers a few times and held it to the lamp again. She could make out the words flight and excited. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she ripped the seal open with a pen. Coach Matthias wrote that he was excited by the prospect of her applying to Colorado in the fall. He would be coming to Coleville next week to watch her race Claire Edwards. Ariana jumped up and danced over to her Green Day poster, planting a big kiss each on Mike, Tré, and Billy Joe. Then she gave her Mary Decker poster a high five. She wanted to call Monica but worried that she would feel bad if she hadn’t heard from any coaches. Instead, Ariana got down on the brown braided rug and pumped out 200 crunches, keeping her eyes trained on the poster of Decker winning the 3,000-meter race at the 1983 World Championships. Decker is in midstride crossing the finish line, her arms raised in victory, her short brown hair blown back in the wind. At the top, it reads, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

At seven a.m. her dad, fully dressed, pushed on Ariana’s shoulder. “Come on. I’ve got a treat for you.”

“Oh, yay, more work,” Ariana grumbled and rubbed at her eyes. “Don’t be so negative, mi’ja. You never know how life is going to surprise you.” He yanked the pillow out from under her head and laughed. Ariana stretched her arms into an operatic yawn and then dropped her feet to the floor. Spotting the grease-smudged envelope on her desk, she flashed a smile. She wished she could get to the track and have Monica put her through a lung-crushing sprint workout. She had to be ready for Edwards. She shoveled down a bowl of cereal as her dad drummed his fingers on the table.

“Let’s get going,” he said.

“What’s with you? It’s not like Mr. Santos is going to freak out if his truck isn’t ready today. He’s got two other junkers to drive.” Ariana pulled on her black high tops, grabbed her leather jacket, and made for the garage. “Not that way.” Her dad gestured to the side door with his head. “Hop in the car. I’ve got something to show you.”

A crisp breeze clipped through the windows of the Impala as they rolled down Main Street. Taking a right on Blackstone Avenue, the morning sun pierced through the windshield. Ariana could close her eyes and predict every turn on the way to the junkyard—past the tired diner where her classmates wasted hours gossiping after sad high school dances and past the bulldozed lot where, for years, a mall had been rumored to go up. Her dad smoked his morning cigarette, spinning through the radio dial, not saying much. When he turned unexpectedly onto Exchange Street, Ariana was confused. They weren’t heading to the junkyard, but toward the industrial zone. A mile later, her dad pulled into an empty parking lot, at whose edge sat an abandoned three-bay auto garage. To its left was a boarded-up, two-story, brick building, formerly the home of the Dirkin Shoes assembly plant, rumored now to be converted into a multi-use residential and commercial space. To the right, tucked behind a battlement of scaffolding and surrounded by a crane and dump truck, stood the old factory where they once manufactured bobbins and sewing machine needles.

Just in front of the Impala, cracks spiderwebbed across the concrete. Weeds stretched up between them. An explosion of graffiti tags warred for prominence across the garage’s side wall. Outside the front door, a rusty metal oil drum overflowed with broken beer bottles, crushed pizza boxes, and a jumble of coil wires and distributor caps. The plate glass window to the reception area showcased a yellow vinyl couch patched with duct tape; four sun-faded, black plastic chairs; a cash register; and a vending machine full of what Ariana knew must be petrified pretzels and chocolates melted into misshapen globs.

“Well, what do you think?” her dad asked, stubbing out his cigarette with the toe of his work boot.

Ariana leaned against the hood of the car. “Of what?”

“The shop. I mean our shop,” he said proudly.

Ariana eyed the parking lot and the three-bay garage as squat and stout as a Bulldog. She didn’t do training runs through this part of town. The boarded-up store fronts, the pothole-ridden streets, and the closed-down plastic factory where her mom had worked all made her feel Coleville’s pain. But her dad squeezed her shoulder and couldn’t stop smiling at his little pet Bulldog, looking like he thought it was about to win the Westminster Dog Show and her thinking the kind thing would be to put it down.

“I decided to go all in. I’m finally going to be my own boss.” Her dad pulled a jailer-sized key ring from his pants, shaking it as joyously as a tambourine. “Let me show you the place.”

As he opened the door, a wave of stale air reeking of gasoline, tires, and old coffee crashed over them. “I know. I know. It needs some cleaning up. But can’t you see it? The waiting area full of customers. You and me in the garage rebuilding cars. And not just for Mr. Santos, for lots of folks. We’ll be making so much cash that we’ll have to hire an accountant. Everyone will want us to fix their cars. They’ll be bragging about us all over town. ‘Oh have you seen Guillermo and Ariana’s shop? It’s amazing! You have to bring your car to them. They’ll make it like new.’”

“You and me rebuilding cars? Our shop?” Her voice full of horror as much as disbelief. She collapsed into the yellow vinyl sofa, and a cloud of dust exploded around her. “You know I’m applying to college in the fall. In another year, I won’t even be here.”

“College, you don’t need college. Most of those graduates don’t even get jobs they’ve trained for. They just come out with a diploma and a bunch of debt. You got a future right here.” He tapped on the top of the cash register. “You’re a mechanical whiz. Don’t walk away from your genius.” “Knowing how to fix an engine hardly makes me Einstein.” Ariana kicked at a chip in the linoleum tile, the breath in her lungs tightening. She hated that her dad was flattering her mechanical talents to make her be practical. That’s how you stayed small. You forgot to chase the music inside you. No matter how many cars you fixed up, you’d still be boring, one-note Coleville. “I want to run.”

“I know that. I’m not dense,” her dad said. “But you’re not going to make a living running. Those runners you love, the ones on the wall of your room, they’re not Tom Brady.”

“Runners make money too. Lemi Berhanu Hale took home $150,000 for winning the Boston Marathon, and Stanley Biwott got $100,000 at the New York Marathon.”

“But there’s only one winner.” He held up his finger to emphasize his point, and Ariana wanted to break it.

“It could be me. I could win, if I had the right coach.”

“What if you don’t win? Or worse, what if you get hurt? Who pays you then?”

Ariana shoved her hands in her pockets. His what-ifs pissed her off more than her own. “I’m not going to get hurt,” she huffed. She felt the veins in her neck pulsing with irritation. She wanted to explain that there was endorsement money. Tell him how she was going to set records and get extra cash for that too. But the more they argued, the more his practicality and doubts suffocated her, the more it felt like the struggle for breath when you ran too far past your limits and puked on the track. “Why can’t you say I’ve got this, that you believe in me?” She squeezed at her plastic elephant. “That’s what Mom would say.”

Her dad’s lips tightened into a thin line. She could see him working to contain the explosion she knew was building in him. “I’m only watching out for you.”

“And for yourself,” Ariana mumbled, hoping he didn’t hear. She gave him a sullen nod. She wanted to get out of here and take a run in the cemetery. Hideout with her mom. Her headstone would have been weeded and decorated with fresh flowers. Her dad always left flowers after work on Fridays. It killed Ariana that she made more sense to her dead mom than her dad. “Come on, let me show you the garage.” He hurried Ariana through the side door. “Look at that.”

Ariana stared across the three bays. The bare concrete floors had been sealed and buffed to a cool, gray luster. The garage was outfitted with four chest-high, shiny red toolboxes, a diagnostic computer on wheels, brand new hydraulic lifts, and a wall full of batteries and deeply treaded tires, the thinnest nubs of fresh rubber poking out from the sides. “My god, how did you afford this place?”

“I cashed in a chunk of my retirement and took a second mortgage on the house.”

“Thanks for getting me some racing flats while you were at it,” Ariana sniped. Her back was turned as she fondled the tools spread across the wall-length workbench. Each one perfectly balanced. They felt like small, precious bars of gold. She rolled the socket wrench from her right hand into her left, enjoying the symmetry of its glide. She turned around and said, “I got a letter from Colorado.”

“I saw. How much do they want to soak me for?”

“It’s not a bill. It’s a chance for a scholarship, maybe even a full ride.” She picked up the timing light and pictured Monica clocking her as she did sprints. “The coach is flying in to watch me race next Friday.”

“Did you see the fuel injection pressure tester?” He grabbed it from the rack under the bench and tried to pass it to Ariana, but she didn’t take it. “Dad, this is a huge opportunity.” Her voice grew sharper.

“I know that.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“I can’t afford another mechanic. How do you think I can afford out-ofstate tuition?”

“You managed to buy this shop and these tools.” Ariana lifted the glistening black-and-silver air drill from the work bench.

“Mi’ja, the money I put into this garage will come back to us. It’s a business. It’s Colorado that’s a gamble.”

“You didn’t just say that.” Ariana threw the air drill down on the bench, and it sent the neatly arranged sockets clattering to the floor, smacking against the metal tool chests.

“I didn’t mean it like that. No matter how many times I refinanced the house or cashed in some retirement could I afford four years at Colorado.” Ariana squeezed her fist around her necklace so tight that her hand was shaking. Her dad pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. “I thought seeing the garage would excite you about your talents. I thought you would see that working with your old man could be a pretty great thing. Me and you. Sánchez Auto Repair.”

“I knew you were trying to trap me.”

“That’s not what I said.” He squeezed his hand around his forehead. “There’d be time to run after work. You could be a great mechanic.” “Running isn’t some hobby. You have to dedicate yourself to it, surround yourself with the best teammates and coaches. And they’re not in Coleville. I’m not going to be another headstone in Shady Acres.” Her arm lifted from her side, her hand moving toward her dad’s precious tools. She could send them to the ground in one clean sweep. She lunged forward, but when she saw the look on his face that said he knew what he was talking about and his teenage daughter didn’t know better, she stopped. No amount of tools smashing to the ground would change his mind. He was convinced he was right. “We’re done,” she shouted. Her sneakers slapped against the floor as she ran for the door.

“Ariana, get back here. You don’t walk out on your father.” Without turning around, Ariana barked, “I’m not some gamble. Running is my life.” She raced right past the Impala. She didn’t need anything from him. She ran toward home, but everything felt off. It felt like running on those days when you’re not the music, when each of your internal pistons is out of sync. When her father drove past without slowing down or even tooting the horn, her pistons nearly threw a rod.

It had been a tense week around the house. Ariana did her best to dodge her father. She worked out a little longer after school. She begged off dinners to study for made-up exams. She snuck out for her morning runs before her dad was awake and timed her return so that he would be gone for work. There’d been no more talk of college or the garage.

All that domestic discord fell into the background when Ariana stepped out of the locker room for Friday’s meet and spotted Coach Matthias talking to Coach Williams. Matthias had the talent and resources to make Ariana a Mary Decker, perhaps even the next Grete Waitz, the only person ever to win nine New York City Marathons. With that thought, Ariana ran behind the bleachers and puked, not once, but twice.

Forty yards away, by the utility shed where they stored the hurdles, highjump mats, and poles, Claire Edwards led her St. Andrew’s teammates through their warm-up exercises.

Monica found Ariana wiping the last bits of vomit from her face and lifted her from the ground. “It’s just another race. Pretend you’re running through that graveyard you like so much.”

“Just another race,” Ariana parroted back unconvincingly, pulling at her pink spikes of hair.

“Let’s get you warmed up.” Monica swatted Ariana into her prerace routine. They ran hundred-yard strides in the grass, going back and forth past Edwards and the other St. Andrew’s runners, trying to get into their heads. The loud speaker crackled, calling the two-milers to the line. The stadium lights sparked to life. Monica grabbed Ariana around the shoulders and started thumping her head as if she were in a mosh pit. Ariana bounced up and down and got into the groove, humming a Green Day melody. “That’s it,” Monica said. “Now go show that American idiot what it means to race.”

Ariana tossed her windbreaker to Monica and stepped onto the track. Edwards was in lane one scanning the 440-yard, red synthetic oval and windmilling her arms. Ariana lined up next to her in lane two. She stared at Edwards’s legs—long, sinewy sheets of muscle. Then her eyes fell on Edwards’s feet. They were decked out in the electric blue racing flats with the silver stripes and black laces. They looked like custom-fitted, satin slippers next to Ariana’s clunky trainers. She wanted to rip them off Edwards and clap her head with them. Instead, Ariana folded herself in half, stretching her hamstrings. She reached under her singlet and rubbed her plastic elephant three times for good luck.

The top three runners from each team were in place. All were bent slightly at the waist, their arms crooked at the elbow, ready to take flight. At the bang of the starter’s pistol, Edwards sped from the line. Ariana dashed after

her, struggling to match her pace. By the 110 mark, Edwards had taken the lead. Ariana ran two strides behind her.

As they approached the 220 mark, Edwards sped up, opening the gap. Ariana kept her pace. Monica had warned her not to take Edwards’s bait. It was important to run your own race. Punks don’t follow the rules she said. Then she flashed her the Madness shirt she bought on Ebay. The slogan “Fuck Art. Let’s Dance” framed cartoon figures of the seven band members skanking.

When Ariana hit the halfway mark of their fourth lap, she was surprised to see her dad standing next to Monica. He never usually had time to make it from work to her meets. She gave him a head nod, and her dad pumped his fist.

At the mile mark, Edwards had a thirty-yard lead, but Ariana came through the mile at 5:00 minutes, just as planned. Today she was the music. Today her arms and legs had all the energy of Madness’s unstoppable horns and keyboards. She was breaking moves all over the dance floor in her soul. She’d show Coach Matthias who was the strongest woman on the track. By the one-and-a-half-mile mark, Ariana glided stride for stride with Edwards, who still controlled the inside lane. Ariana would have to take it to gain an advantage. She opened her gait, but as she tried to come in, Edwards elbowed her in the ribs. Ariana jostled her back.

“Solo time,” Monica yelled from the sidelines, pretending to finger a guitar neck.

The official clanged the bell for the final lap. Ariana sprinted ahead of Edwards. Edwards hung right behind her, not fighting for the lead. An image of Steve Ovett sticking to Henry Rono’s heels flashed into Ariana’s head. She wouldn’t let Edwards outdo her in the home stretch.

The race clock read 8:52. Coach Williams jumped up and down on the sideline, his fists clutched in victory. “Take her, Sánchez. Take her.” The Colorado coach grinned. Ariana wanted to believe he was rooting for her.

She picked up the pace, but she couldn’t shake Edwards.

Monica and Ariana’s dad hovered at the edge of the track. Her dad hollered, “Give it to her, mi’ja,” and let out a wolf whistle. Monica sprinted up the grass, cheering. Jenny and Liza were a half lap back.

Coach Williams came up to the corner of the track and clapped Ariana on as she hit the final straightaway. Ariana surged. Edwards surged with her. It was as if she were toying with Ariana. With fifty yards to go, Edwards squeezed in beside her. Ariana tried to edge ahead, but couldn’t shake her shadow. The race clock read 9:55. The record within reach. Edwards pushed harder and closer to Ariana. Their legs nearly touching. Ariana opened her stride, but Edwards wasn’t letting go. Forty yards to the finish. Edwards

burst forward. Ariana went with her. Thirty yards. Ariana pumped her arms harder, an explosion of will power. Edwards dug into her finishing sprint. Her foot came down in front of Ariana’s. Ariana stumbled, arms flailing. She crashed to the ground face first. Her chest bounced up off the infield, before her body thudded to a stop.

She spat a gob of dirt out of her mouth and yelled, “Shit.” Blood streamed from her nose and lip. Grass stains streaked her cheeks. Laid out flat, Ariana watched Edwards cross the finish line, waving her hand in the air, as if she were the freaking queen greeting her royal subjects. The clock read 10:04. Coach Matthias stared down at Ariana. She wished her arms were long, sticky tentacles that she could sling around Claire’s neck and hurl her to the far end of the track. She was the hero, not that cheating prepster, that monster wrapped in pearls. She should be the one about to launch out on her victory lap. Coach Williams yelled for Ariana to get up, waving his hands as if he might miraculously raise her off the ground. She pushed herself up and dashed for the finish line, crossing it in 10:38. She raced for Edwards with the fury of 1,000 wronged Mary Deckers. Coach Williams chased after her, but before he could wrestle Ariana back, she had Edwards by the shoulders and was shaking her, screaming, “You piece of crap.” “Get your hands off me.” Edwards grabbed Ariana’s necklace, nearly tearing it from her neck.

“Pendeja, let go of that. I swear I’ll end you.” Ariana reached for Edwards ponytail, but Edwards shoved her to the ground. Before Ariana could get up, Edwards straddled her chest.

The teams ringed the mangle of swinging arms and kicking legs. “You don’t want to fight me,” Edwards threatened.

Ariana grabbed at her face. “Get off me.”

Ariana took a swing at Edwards’s jaw. Edwards swatted it away and threw a right cross. Ariana jerked her head to the side. The edge of Edwards’s fist grazed her ear.

The St. Andrew’s coach yanked Edwards up, and Coach Williams pulled Ariana from the ground.

“Let me go,” Ariana hollered.

“That’s enough.” Coach squeezed her tighter and pushed her toward the locker room.

When Ariana woke up, her poster of Decker and the picture of the racing flats lay in tatters on the ground. She’d ripped them down as soon as she got home from the meet. She touched her face. The welt beneath her eye throbbed. She gingerly fingered the jagged scab across her bottom lip. An image of that pony-tailed, pearl-earringed idiot crossing the finish line flashed into her mind. She kicked her smiley face trash can across

the room. If she’d been a little faster. If she just could have jumped over Edwards’s foot.

She checked her email. There was a message from Monica saying they should go dancing to burn off the hate. Below that was a message from Coach Matthias. While he understood Ariana’s frustration, he was disappointed in her outburst. Colorado women need to rise above the fray. Nevertheless, he was certain that he could channel Ariana’s energy into more productive results. He admired her tenacity in racing Edwards, whom he learned would be attending Stanford. He’d only seen a few young women this year with Ariana’s combination of drive and talent. She could be as good for Colorado as Colorado was for her. He would be offering her a full scholarship. As she read it again to be sure she had it right, she nervously pulled in her bottom lip and accidentally bit down on the scab. “Ow!” The pain and acrid taste of blood didn’t matter. They just confirmed she wasn’t dreaming. The words really were all there—talent, drive, and, most importantly, full scholarship.

“Dad, I got it. I got it,” Ariana shouted, nearly knocking her laptop to the ground as she jumped up from her bed. “Dad, where are you? You have to see this.”

He didn’t answer.

She found Mary Decker’s face in the shredded poster pieces and kissed her on the lips. “We did it! You helped me do it. I knew you were watching over me.” Ariana lifted her elephant to her lips. “Dad,” she hollered again. Nothing.

Ariana looked at the time on her computer. It was 11:00 a.m. How in the world had her dad let her sleep this late on a Saturday? She ran into the kitchen with her computer, hoping to find him eating breakfast and reading the paper, but there was only a half-gone pot of coffee and the cast-iron skillet on the stove from his fried egg. She ran to the garage. He wasn’t there either and neither was Mr. Santos’s truck. She knew where to go. She grabbed her dirt bike and pedaled down Main Street.

All three bay doors were open. In one was a metallic blue Mustang Fastback, in the other a faded orange VW Bug, its quarter panels dented and headlights knocked out. In the third, Mr. Santos’s truck was up on the hydraulic lift. Beneath it stood her dad, zipped up in a pair of blue coveralls, draining the oil. A cigarette dangled from the edge of his mouth. The radio at his feet playing some melancholy country tune. Ariana rode her bike right into the garage.

“You should have woken me up.”

“I thought I’d let you get some rest.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” She had wanted to tell him about the scholarship. She wanted him to be proud of her, but not waking her was a wall he had begun to build between them. “Quite a few cars you got here.” “Mr. Santos mentioned me to a couple friends,” he said flatly. Ariana popped the hood on the Mustang. “What’s wrong with this one?” “Needs a brake job and a tune up.” Her dad screwed the drain plug back in the truck’s oil pan. “That lip looks pretty nasty.”

“It’ll heal.” Ariana grabbed the spark plug socket from the workbench. “I hate that stupid prepster. I had the record.”

“Not fair what she did.” Her dad kept right on working, not looking at Ariana. “That Colorado coach got out of there mighty quick.”

“I guess so.”

“We’re going to have plenty of work around here. A Saab and an El Camino are coming in tomorrow.”

“Dad, I got the scholarship.” The quietness in her voice sounded more like she was telling him she was pregnant than that she had won a full ride to college.

“But that coach looked so upset when he left. I thought—”

“Are you happy I fell?” Ariana reached down for the spark plug gauge. “No, I’m not happy. I just thought maybe it would change your mind. That you would finally see the risk involved.” Ariana fought the urge to scream. “I couldn’t pay you much, but I’d cut you in as a partner. After a few years, you’d be doing pretty good. No risk that there won’t be cars to fix.” “Don’t talk to me about risks. Look around you.” She was standing nearly in his face, her voice shaking. “This whole place is a risk. Do you really think you won’t lose the house? That you haven’t blown your retirement?” “Don’t you speak to me that way. Of course, I’m worried. It keeps me up most nights.” Her dad reached up and punched the rear tire of Mr. Santos’s truck. “Why do you think I want you here? You’re the best mechanic I could hire, and you’re my daughter, my little Sandrita.”

“Don’t. That’s not fair.” She shook her head and wagged her finger. “Don’t you bring up mom. She would want me to go to school.” “Cuidado with that tone, mi’ja.” He reached for her forearm, but she tossed his hand away. His eyes narrowed, and he said slowly and firmly, “I may not be one of your coaches, but I’m still your father.”

“Then act like my father. I just got a full ride to school,” Ariana spat back. “I might even make enough money racing after college to help you out.” “I don’t want your money,” he said softly and slid down to the floor. “I want your company.”

There it was. All of the images from their Saturday mornings in the garage came flooding home. His calloused hand on top of hers, teaching her how to adjust the distributor cap. Her studying those repair manuals

while her dad’s country tunes filled the garage. Him tapping his hammer against brake shoes that refused to come loose. That night after the funeral, her dad guiding her hand as she ran the drill bit through the elephant’s ear. The two of them working side by side, him staring into the mouth of an open hood sizing up the engine with a glass of bourbon and Hank Williams on the radio. Those images were him loping through the rolling hills of the cemetery. It was his runner’s high, his music. She wasn’t giving up her dream. She would go to college, but she wasn’t going to punch her vulnerable father.

She sat beside him and placed her hand on his knee. “What did you say we needed to do with the VW?”

“Drop the engine and rebuild it. Mr. Gardner asked if I could rush it for him.” Her dad reached over and wedged his thick brown fingers into Ariana’s tangled pink hair. “That color looks nice on you,” he said. “You were a pink blur zipping around that track yesterday.”

She and her dad sat for another minute on the ground, before they got to work on the VW. While her dad clamped off the gas line just below the fuel filter, Ariana used the creeper board to slip under the car and free the other end of the line from the gas tank. As she tugged on the rubber tubing, her black high tops bounced against the reinforced tips of her dad’s work boots. When she slid back out, she reached into the gaping mouth of the VW and removed the alternator and generator wires. Her dad undid the accelerator cable. Ariana fussed with the heater tubes. Her dad asked her to pass the ratcheting wrench. Then with her shoulder pressing up against the comforting feel of his upper arm, she helped him wedge the wiring harness loose. The clicking sound of the tools, the banging on bolts rusted closed, the back and forth of their hands working in unison was their shared music, if only for a measure or two.