Page 3 of Meet Me in a Mile

Three

Lydia

“Y ou didn’t actually tell Jack you were going to run a marathon with him?” Ashley said. Lydia could hear her snickering through the phone. “You told him you were joking, right?”

“Obviously not. Why else would I be trekking out to the gym at some ungodly hour of the morning?” Lydia said, checking for traffic before darting across the street.

“You’re actually serious about this?”

“So serious that I’ve hired Luke to make sure I don’t make a fool of myself in front of the firm. Did you know a marathon is like twenty-six miles?”

“Twenty-six point two. And wait. Luke? As in the guy you walked face-first into and—”

“Told he took my breath away.” Lydia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You both have to get over that already. This is a do-or-die situation. The whole conference room was staring at me. And Marco thought it was such a great idea. I can’t disappoint the big boss.”

Standing up and announcing to the whole room that she’d deliriously volunteered because she was harboring a secret office crush wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that instilled confidence. If she wanted to impress Marco and the leadership team, she should probably try not to humiliate herself or Jack.

“Oh, you have it bad for this guy,” Ashley said. “You’re tripping over yourself to impress him.”

“I wasn’t trying to impress him,” Lydia argued. “I was just trying to be nice. He was standing up there all alone and the room had gone silent.” She couldn’t even say what it was exactly that made her speak up. Jack’s hopeful smile? His dimpled cheeks? The enthusiasm? Lydia ran her hand down her face, remembering the feel of Jack’s hand as he high-fived her and their fingers tangled together. A hot flush crept up the side of her neck. God, Ashley was right, she did have it bad. “He called me his running buddy. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I want to be his teammate. I want to see where this leads. Maybe there’ll be sparks when we cross the finish line. And it’s for charity,” she tacked on.

“You’ve had a whole fantasy about this, haven’t you?”

“Shut up. It’s for the kids.”

“Yeah, sure, the kids.” Ashley laughed. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this sooner. I would have met you at the gym.”

“I’m not going to the gym with you,” Lydia said, horrified by the thought. “You’re going to make fun of me.”

“I’d be there for moral support!”

Lydia snorted.

“Hey, I’ve always been there for you and your ridiculous ideas. Remember when you gave yourself bangs? Who fixed them? Or in middle school when you needed help convincing Mom and Dad that you were going to be a professional tap dancer? And then you never went to a single class because you always conveniently had a stomachache.”

Lydia’s lips twisted as she remembered doing everything she could to avoid going to tap class.

“You kinda like to jump into things without thinking them all the way through.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just saying. If you don’t take this seriously, the only thing you’re going to get to see is the back of Jack during the race as he runs away and you pass out from lack of oxygen.”

“That’s not funny.” Preparing for this marathon was going to be work. Lydia knew that. On top of her regular nine-to-five and prepping a competition proposal for the Manhattan Youth Center, spending all of her free time for the next five months training was going to take some serious dedication. But if running this marathon would force her to step outside her comfort zone, maybe volunteering hadn’t been such a bad idea. If she wanted to impress Poletti’s and get proper recognition for her work—if she wanted to get Jack’s attention—then she was going to have to start putting herself out there in ways she hadn’t before. “I think maybe I can do this, Ash.”

“You know twenty-six point two miles translates into hours of running, right?”

Lydia didn’t think about that. She thought about Luke promising to get her across the finish line as long as she remained focused and determined. She thought about the sense of accomplishment she’d have finishing the race. She pictured the glowing smile on Jack’s face as he lifted her off the ground in a tipsy, exhausted hug. They’d probably celebrate after. Marco would take them all somewhere nice for food and drinks. Maybe she’d finally tell Jack how she felt. Maybe he’d smile that dimpled smile, lean over and kiss her.

God, she wanted that.

“Are you even listening?”

Lydia threw open the door to the gym. “Yeah, hours of running. But I’ve got months to prepare, right? Anyway, I’ve gotta run. Literally.”

“Let me know how it goes,” Ashley said. They hung up and Lydia spotted Luke leaning against the front desk, holding a stack of papers. When he caught her eye, she straightened, wondering if he noticed her mismatched activewear—things she’d definitely raided from Ashley’s closet.

“Morning!” Luke flashed her a smile. She pursed her lips in response, making him laugh. “Not a morning person?”

“Not when my first stop of the day is the gym.” She glanced around at the people already sweating it out at the squat racks. “I don’t know how people do this every day. Seems like a certain kind of torture.”

“Torture that gives you endorphins. That energizes you,” he said.

“Pretty sure endorphins are a myth created to sell fitness equipment.”

“Oh, come on, tell me you’re at least a little excited to get started? This is where it all begins. A few months from now you’ll be running through the five boroughs—”

“More than a few,” Lydia interrupted. “I’ve got five months to mentally prepare myself for this. Don’t scare me like that.” She gestured to the equipment floor. “Should I hop on a treadmill or something?”

“Actually, I thought we’d take our session outside. It’s a gorgeous day. Plus, running outdoors will simulate the actual marathon environment. The sooner you get used to that, the better.”

“You want me to make a fool of myself in front of other people too?”

Luke responded by taking her by the shoulders and guiding her to the door.

“You’re going to be nice to me, right?” Lydia said as they stepped outside. He turned down the street toward Sixth Avenue and she followed hesitantly. “Like we’re gonna ease into this process?”

“Do I look like I would be mean?”

Her eyes cut to the side, flickering up and down his body. “I just want you to remember which of us is already covered in muscles and which of us doesn’t even bother running to make the subway when we’re late.”

“I’ll be nice,” he promised, catching her arm gently and leading her across the street between the traffic.

“Where are we going?”

“Madison Square Park,” he said. It was just two blocks east of the gym.

“And what’s that about?” she asked, eyeing the papers he carried under his arm.

“This is your very own personalized training plan.”

“Why do I need a plan if I have you?”

“In order to be in the best position possible to run the marathon, your training is going to extend beyond just our sessions. There will be days when you train alone. But don’t worry, I’m going to give you guided workouts. That’s what this first week will be about. Establishing a routine. We’ll do a long run on the weekends, outdoors if we can make it happen, slowly building up the mileage. You’ll have rest days Mondays and Fridays. Short runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cross-training on Wednesdays and Sundays.”

“Cross-training?”

“Aerobic exercise that allows you to use different muscles while resting. Cycling or even walking. Those are the days you can do in the gym without me.” They darted across another street. “Twenty-six miles is a lot to build up to. We have to make the most of the next twentyish weeks we have together.”

“Doesn’t seem so far away when you lay it out like that,” Lydia mumbled under her breath as they arrived at Madison Square Park—a greenspace at the center of the city surrounded by vibrant businesses and towering skyscrapers. Like an oasis rising out of desert sands, the park was part public garden, part arboretum and part open-air museum. Lydia had spent weekends here surrounded by art installations and horticulture exhibitions.

“The park is about half a mile around,” Luke said as he walked her through basic dynamic stretches to warm up.

She supposed it was to loosen her tired muscles, but a nervous tension coiled through her and when they were done stretching, Lydia felt even more stiff than before.

“I figure we’ll do three miles total this morning and start your short runs off easy.”

“Three?” she said, feeling overwhelmed by the thought. Long runs? Short runs? A training plan? Sure, this was what she was paying him for, but it all suddenly felt like too much. She’d barely survived the one mile on the treadmill the other day and now he just expected her to crank out three miles? “I think you skipped over two. I’d like to recommend that we try that first. Maybe even one and a half.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Luke said, chuckling. “You’ve got at least three in you.”

“I think you’re overestimating my abilities.” He started running abruptly and she darted after him. “Okay, we’re just gonna start casually like that?”

“How did you want to begin?” Luke laughed. “With a starting pistol?” She could tell he was taking things slow, because he kept up a stream of encouraging conversation as they made their first round of the park. Lydia just tried to remember to suck in oxygen as she kept track of the laps.

The park was bustling with early-morning joggers and dog walkers. She imagined they were all watching her make a fool of herself as she tried not to think of the stitch beneath her ribs that was threatening to turn into a cramp. She was suddenly very aware of the way her cheeks puffed and the way her hands cupped the air as she pumped her arms back and forth. Was she pumping them too much? Was her stride too short? Too long?

“Doing okay?” Luke asked.

“So great,” she gasped.

“Try inhaling and exhaling through your nose and mouth at the same time.”

“Why? Does it look like I’m about to pass out?” She wondered if he would catch her if she did. How mortifying would that be, and in front of all these people. Lydia sucked in a sharp breath through her nose.

“Try it,” he said encouragingly. “It’ll engage your diaphragm for maximum oxygen intake and help expel carbon dioxide more quickly.”

Lydia opened her mouth as she inhaled and exhaled, focusing on her breathing as they counted down mile two. It was trickier than she expected, and part of her felt like she was about to accidentally catch some nasty flying bug in her mouth, but Luke was right about her breathing becoming easier, so she was loath to change anything, no matter how ridiculous she might look.

She glanced over at Luke, trying to emulate his form: arms bent but relaxed, gaze straight ahead, shoulders in line with his hips, leaning slightly forward. He practically glided beside her, seemingly unbothered by the heat or the beads of sweat that gathered at his neck. She’d never thought this hard about running before. Wasn’t this supposed to be natural for humans?

“Almost there,” Luke said as they neared the end of their final lap.

Almost there was not close enough, and the moment they passed the tree Luke had selected as the lap marker, Lydia collapsed onto the lawn, her back to the grass, face skyward. Luke walked over and knelt next to her. “How’re you doing?”

Her chest heaved, and she thrusted her arm in his direction. “I think I’ve passed away. Check my pulse.”

Luke indulged her, pressing his fingers to her wrist. “Hate to break it to you, but you are still very much alive.”

“You’re sure? You’ve got the medical training to determine that?”

“I do in fact have an official pulse-checker certificate somewhere in my office.”

“The one that’s conveniently under construction?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Her chest still heaved, and she didn’t know if she should be embarrassed by the fact she was more breathless now than she’d been during the run.

Luke sat down on the grass next to her, checking his watch.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked, glancing up at him.

“That actually wasn’t bad. You averaged about twelve minutes per mile. As you build up endurance, we should be able to shave some time off that.”

“Endurance,” she said. “Can I buy that somewhere or—”

He smirked. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to acquire it the old-fashioned way. A lot of hard work.”

“Pretty sure I could buy it in California. They probably have endurance bars. Maybe they add it to their smoothies.”

“Well, until you figure out how to buy your way out of exercising, let’s head back to the gym. I want to walk you through all the equipment on the floor to make sure you know how to properly use everything for the days when you’re training on your own.”

“Running and gym school in one day,” Lydia complained. “Yuck. If I agree to eat really, really clean, can we cut out like one training session a week?”

Luke shook his head. “You already have two rest days, but that reminds me. We have to talk about protein.”

“This is probably not the time to tell you that I plan to go straight to Gramercy Kitchen for a mimosa tower after this, huh?”

Luke got to his feet. “You’re going to crush that by yourself, are you?”

“I like to reward my pain and suffering.”

“I do foresee a lot of suffering in your future.”

Luke reached down for Lydia’s hand and yanked her to her feet. He might have pulled a little too hard, because she went stumbling toward him. He caught her in his arms for a brief moment before she righted herself, but that didn’t stop her from flashing back to the moment she’d collided with him in the gym. She flushed, turning away as she said, “I guess I should just make a standing reservation then.”

“It’s the least you deserve after all this hard work.”

“The fact that you think I’m kidding is cute.”

“How about I let you get a coffee on the way back to the gym and we cut the difference?”

“Fine,” Lydia agreed. “But I don’t want to hear one word about how much sugar goes into my cup.”

“Whatever you say, Cold Foam.”

The Manhattan Youth Center was a large, blocky building on the corner of 53rd Street and 10th Avenue, made up of lime-stained brick and crumbling asphalt yards surrounded by rusty chain-link fencing. Beyond the worn exterior, colorful artwork had been taped to every window, staring out at the street like Picasso-approved stained glass.

Lydia liked the place immediately, and not just because the morning site visit had cut Luke’s gym equipment walkthrough short. She’d absorbed about all she could handle when it came to leg presses and leg curls and leg extensions for today.

“Are you going to stand there all day?” Erik called, halfway up the front steps.

Lydia lifted her phone and snapped a picture of the front of the building from the sidewalk before hurrying after him and the rest of the group from Poletti’s. She ducked past Erik where he held the front door open for her. “Thanks.”

“You’re supposed to be holding doors open for me.”

“True. Age before beauty,” Lydia teased.

“You’re lucky I’m not fully caffeinated yet or my retort would probably sting.”

“Please,” Lydia whispered as they rejoined the group. “You’ve been working on the same comebacks since I was hired.”

Erik made a face but said nothing as the group was greeted by a woman named Miranda. She was the volunteer coordinator and as bubbly as newly popped champagne. “I’ll just ask everyone to sign in,” she said, gesturing to a large binder on a desk. “Then we’ll get started.”

Lydia joined the line behind Erik, scribbling her name and the reason for her visit into the binder before flashing her ID at the man behind the desk.

The interior of the building reminded Lydia of elementary school. The walls were covered in peeling white paint concealed behind posters and artwork. Miranda gestured down the hall, escorting them from one end of the building to the other, giving them little facts about the building and what the kids got up to while they were here.

Lydia poked her head into every room, snapping photos. The gymnasium was old, the paint on the walls a dusty red. The colorful lines on the floor that had once demarcated free throws and half-courts had been scuffed away by sneakers. A set of rickety bleachers butted up against the wall and a pair of basketball hoops with raggedy nets were installed at either end of the gymnasium, but nothing about the space felt run-down—only well loved.

Several classrooms had been repurposed into art studios, and the small library was equipped with a few computers. There was a kitchen where the kids learned to bake, and even a small dining hall with a low-lying stage.

“The kids love performing,” Miranda explained.

Lydia couldn’t help but imagine a small auditorium with soft theater seating, bright red curtains and a sturdier stage for the kids to perform on.

Unsurprisingly, the center was practically empty save for the handful of employees and volunteers tidying up from the before-school crowd. That meant they had a couple of uninterrupted hours to explore and sketch and design.

“What’s out there?” Lydia asked, gesturing to a closed door before Miranda set them free.

“That’s the outdoor yard, though it’s in rough shape. Seems to get worse after every winter, so the kids don’t use it much. Sort of wasted space if you ask me.” She unlocked one of the doors and swung it open. “Feel free to take a look.”

Lydia poked her head out, staring across the cracked asphalt. There were some cute chalk drawings near the door, but everything past that felt like a wasteland of untapped potential.

“Want to go exploring?” she asked Erik.

He gestured to his practically bald head. “I try to keep this whole situation out of the sun, but you have fun.”

While her colleagues broke off into groups, chattering and pulling out their sketchbooks, Lydia stepped through the door onto the uneven pavement. There were faded white lines painted on the ground and a weather-beaten basketball hoop at the far end of the yard. A few tiny green sprouts had forced their way through cracks in the ground and her mind started spinning.

She’d taken a lot of courses in school on sustainable building, and now she couldn’t help but think about how this redesign could improve the quality of life on this block. This wasn’t just a competition but also her opportunity to showcase how this building could be both environmentally responsible and resource efficient.

She walked across the yard and sat at a lonely picnic table. From her position, she had a good view of the building’s exterior structure. She placed her sketchbook on the table and dug a pencil out of her shoulder bag, imagining a range of solar panels on the roof along with a rooftop garden that could harvest rainwater for irrigation. That would help reduce stormwater runoff and the urban heat island effect. Lydia scribbled the words onto the corner of her page. She might not be able to change all of Manhattan, but she could make an impact on this block, with this building.

She heard the door open and close but didn’t look up. She couldn’t. It had been a long time since she’d been this thrilled about a project, and her mind was so full she wanted to finish getting everything on paper before the ideas leaked out her ears. That was, until a shadow eclipsed her sketchbook, forcing her to stop.

“Hey, running buddy.”

Lydia tipped her head back, squinting into the sun as her insides did a somersault. Jack had a sketchbook under his arm and a stubby pencil behind his ear. She tried to appear unaffected. “Did you realize that this is where all the cool architects come to draw?”

“Obviously.” He sat down across from her, and their knees bumped together as he got comfortable. “Everyone else is in the gym. Their ideas are going to start to run together and everything’s going to end up being a variation of the same design. Clearly, we’re the geniuses of the group.”

Lydia probably should have blushed at the compliment, or at least laughed it off as a joke, but with him sitting there, the sun behind him, his face cast in shadow, he reminded her of a charcoal sketch and she couldn’t get over how handsome he was. Jack reached back to sweep the dangling hairs from his forehead and pluck the pencil from behind his ear in one smooth motion.

She blinked at him foolishly, only breaking from her trance when he leaned over to inspect her page. “What are you working on?”

“Oh!” she said, clearing her throat. She looked down to see the mess of scribbles. Jack’s lips twisted as if he’d just had the same thought. “There’s an idea here, I swear.”

Jack picked up her sketchbook, held it out at arm’s length, and squinted. Lydia tried to snatch it back. “Wait a second,” Jack urged. “It’s coming to me. I’m starting to see something.”

Lydia giggled, taking hold of Jack’s arm. The moment she realized she was touching him, her palm against his forearm, she flushed. She’d been crushing on him for so long that this unexpected attention felt strange.

“I’m only joking,” Jack said, still wearing a grin as he handed her sketchbook back. “I can see you’ve got a lot of really good ideas.” His finger dropped to the roof of Lydia’s hastily sketched building. “But why not a rooftop terrace?”

“What?”

His finger drifted across her page. He double-tapped on the spot where she’d scribbled rooftop garden . “That way it would be pretty and functional. You could have seating areas up there. Maybe a gazebo...”

“Ah,” Lydia said. “I was thinking less about it being functional and more about the heat island effect.” She glanced up for his opinion. Jack was part of the leadership team. If there was anyone that could give her a few pointers, it was him. “A massive rooftop garden could insulate the building from the heat.”

He nodded slowly.

Lydia laughed. “Silence. Is that your way of telling me it’s a bad idea?”

“It’s interesting.”

Interesting? Lydia looked down at the design. Was it too much? Was she overcomplicating things?

“That kind of green infrastructure can be expensive, which might work against you.”

Maybe it was a little complicated, but just this morning running three miles had sounded overwhelmingly complicated. Now she felt pretty great about it. Heck, if she could run three miles without puking her guts out, then she could figure out how to turn this space into an environmentally conscious, kid-friendly oasis. “I’m pretty certain I can pull it off.”

A grin split Jack’s face. “I do find it refreshing that your design ideas take into account the community, not just the building. And I like your confidence.” He got to his feet. “I’m excited to see what the finished product looks like.”

“You mean it?” Lydia said, looking up at him.

As Jack laid his hand on her shoulder, Lydia committed the warmth to memory. “In a sea of concrete,” he said, “I think we could use more interesting .”