Extraordinary (35 page)

Sarah was silent for a minute, concentrating on her own quad stretch. Then she said, “Lucy, I don't think you understand. I can't really control how I feel. I can't just look around for somebody else. I want what I want. Who I want.”

Lucy switched legs. She chose her words carefully. “But this is hurting you so much. It can't be right.”

“Love hurts,” said Sarah simply. “That's okay. It's supposed to.”

“I don't believe it,” Lucy said. “Look at Soledad and Leo.”

“People who've been married umpteen years like your foster parents are different,” said Sarah impatiently. “When you first fall in love, it's supposed to be awful. Awful, uncertain, scary, wonderful, confusing, all at once. That's how you know it's real. You have to care deeply. Passionately. That hurts.”

Lucy got down on the ground, stretched her legs to each side, and began pressing her head and torso out to the left. “I don't know.” As she switched to the right side, she found that Sarah had gotten down too, and was looking her in the face from three inches away.

“Lucy, look. You can't just make a list of what qualities would be compatible for you and pick somebody based on that. You have to, well, consult your heart. And if love doesn't hurt sometimes, well, then.” Sarah actually put a hand over her heart. “Then maybe you don't truly care.”

“Oh, please!” Lucy sat up. “Can't you consult both your heart
and
your head? Shouldn't they be in agreement? And, also, I'm telling you, I continue to not like the pain thing. Continued pain is a signal to the body that there's something wrong, not right.”

“But we're talking about the heart, not the body.”

“Why should that be different? Pain is to be avoided.”

At this, Sarah laughed. “Really? That's your philosophy? Tell me that after practice today.”

Lucy went to the left on her stretch again. “I don't
like
interval training! I just do it. Anyway, that's not the same kind of pain, and you know it.”

It was good to hear Sarah laugh, she thought, even though she knew that the abrupt change of subject meant that Sarah was done, wanted no more advice, and would, no doubt, go right on breaking her heart over Jeff Mundy.

Well, all right. Lucy had said what she had to say. And she would say it again if and when she was asked.

Or possibly even if she wasn't asked.

Sarah, who was done with her stretching, stood up. “Listen, Lucy. Now that you've got this kind-of-sort-of-maybe dating thing about to happen with Gray Spencer, with the prom and all, I'm thinking that pretty soon you'll start to see what I'm talking about.”

Lucy snorted. “I like Gray, but hello? Were you listening to me at all? About pain?”

“If you're expecting a walk in the park—”

They were interrupted by the coach calling the track team around and assigning them their workouts. “Call me later,” Sarah said. Lucy nodded, and Sarah went off on her run. Lucy and the other two hurdlers began doing drills with tightly spaced hurdles, practicing alternating their lead legs.

Lucy worked out hard. She always did; it was her strongest point as an athlete. She was good, but she didn't have any truly extraordinary level of talent, and she knew it. What she did have was will and determination. And next year, if she kept it up and was lucky, she thought she might have a shot at going to states and maybe also at some college scholarship money, which would be a big help to her foster parents. That was her real goal. Even though her parents had told her not to worry about college costs, that they would figure it out, she wanted to help all she could. Wonderful as they were, and loved as Lucy had always felt, she never lost a certain consciousness that she was indebted to them. She tried her best to be perfect for Soledad and Leo Markowitz.

Here it was really no problem, though. She loved hurdling. When it went well, when she got her striding length and her pace and her hurdles just right, there was nothing like it. Nothing like how competent and powerful and whole it made her feel.

Lucy didn't know exactly what made her lose her focus during that practice. A prickly feeling on the back of her neck? The creeping conviction that she was being watched?

But suddenly she lost her rhythm and messed up her hurdle. She landed hard on the track on one knee, with the hurdle coming down beside her. And she looked up to see her mother. Not her foster mother, Soledad, but her real mother, Miranda.

It was unmistakably her.