Page 43 of The Big Race

Finding Buddha

“ W e should split up to look for this shop,” Ray said as we got off the bus. “Cover more ground.”

“No way,” I said. “We’re in this together.”

I looked ahead and saw a kiosk with city maps. “We’ll get a map and start doing this logically,” I said.

If only the streets in Ban Pong were logical. Instead, they were a crazy puzzle of narrow lanes, often circling around to bring us back to the same place. We saw the male models, and then Adrienne and Fletcher. They all looked as lost as we did.

I looked at the clue again. “It says we need to find the shop where Buddha’s peaceful smile guides travelers on their journey.”

“There are probably dozens of those in a Buddhist country,” Ray said, looking around in frustration.

“Wait,” I said, studying the clue more carefully. “There’s a symbol at the bottom that looks like an old-fashioned train.”

“The train station?” Ray suggested. “Maybe there’s a shop nearby.”

We rushed to the Ban Pong railway station, a small but busy transportation hub. Sure enough, across the street was a row of shops selling religious items, including several with Buddha statues of various sizes displayed in their windows.

“There are too many,” Ray said, starting to pace anxiously. “How do we know which one?”

We began checking the shops one by one, looking for anything that might distinguish one as our target. I was so tired when I noticed a small shop with a sign depicting a Buddha with a particularly serene smile and the English words “Safe Journey Buddha Shop” underneath.

I pulled him back as he started to charge ahead. "Look," I said. "There it is. That's the route marker."

"Good eye, babe," Ray said

The vendor at the shop gave us our next clue, and we headed for the Stop'n'Go at a temple complex the guidebook said was beautiful.

But within minutes of leaving the shop, the sky opened up with the kind of torrential downpour that only exists in tropical climates.

The dirt streets instantly turned to rivers of mud, making forward progress not just difficult but dangerous.

"This way!" Ray shouted over the thunder, pointing toward what looked like a small café with a covered porch. We splashed through ankle-deep water, Cody struggling behind us with his equipment.

The café was little more than a few plastic tables under a corrugated metal roof, but it was dry. An elderly woman gestured for us to sit, bringing us towels and steaming cups of tea without being asked. Through the drumming rain, we could barely see ten feet in any direction.

Ray paced the small space like a caged animal. "We have to keep moving. The other teams?—"

"Ray." I caught his arm. "Look outside. Nobody's moving in this."

He stopped, finally seeing what I saw: sheets of water cascading from the roof, the street transformed into a muddy river, palm fronds whipping in the wind. This wasn't weather you could push through with athletic determination.

"But we were doing so well," he said, sinking into the plastic chair across from me. "We actually had a shot."

I reached across the table for his hand. "We still do. When the rain stops."

"What if it doesn't? What if we're stuck here for hours and everyone else finds a way around it?"

For once, I didn't have a plan, a backup route, a solution researched in advance. We were at the mercy of forces completely beyond our control. And strangely, that felt liberating.

"Then we're stuck," I said simply. "Together."

Ray looked at me, really looked at me, perhaps seeing something in my face that surprised him. "You're not panicking."

"Should I be?"

"The Jeffrey I married would already be calculating alternate routes, asking the café owner about back roads, trying to control something."

I considered this, watching the rain create rivulets down the window. "Maybe I'm learning that some things can't be controlled. Maybe that's okay."

Ray leaned back in his chair, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. "I keep thinking I can just... push harder. Run faster. Force our way through."

"But we can't outrun ourselves.”

"No. And we can't outrun this storm either." He managed a small smile. "Guess we're both learning to sit still."

The elderly woman refilled our teacups, patting my shoulder gently. She said something to Cody, who had found a dry corner for his equipment.

"What did she say?" I asked.

Cody looked up from wiping down his camera. "Something about the rain being a blessing. That it washes things clean."

Ray and I sat in comfortable silence, watching the storm rage outside. For the first time in months—maybe years—we weren't rushing toward something or away from something. We were just... here. Together.

"You know what?" Ray said after a while. "Even if we come in last tonight, even if we get eliminated, I'm glad we did this."

"The race?"

"All of it. The race, the fighting, the talking, the figuring out who we are when everything gets stripped away." He squeezed my hand. "I'd rather lose the race and find us again than win a million dollars and go home strangers."

I felt tears prick my eyes. "Really?"

"Really. The money would be nice, but Jeffrey? You're worth more to me than any prize they could give us."

Outside, the rain began to soften, the torrential downpour becoming merely heavy. Other sounds emerged: motorbikes starting up, voices calling to each other, the normal bustle of life resuming.

"Time to go?" Ray asked.

I stood up, leaving money on the table for our kind hostess. "Time to go. But Ray? Win or lose, we're going home together. As partners."

"As partners," he agreed.

We stepped back into the rain, still falling but manageable now. The temple was another twenty minutes away through muddy streets, and we both knew we'd likely arrive last. But for the first time since starting this race, that felt like acceptance rather than defeat.

Together, we trudged through the flooded streets toward whatever waited for us at the finish line, no longer racing against each other or the clock, but simply moving forward as a team.

It was well after dark when we finally arrived at the temple complex, our shoes caked with mud, our clothes soaked through. Julie was waiting for us on the mat, along with a Buddhist monk in orange robes.

“Ray and Jeffrey,” she said, “I’m sorry to tell you that you are the last team to arrive. You’ve been eliminated from The Big Race.”

We hugged each other, and it felt completely natural. Ray didn’t pull away or stiffen up.

I was still breathing hard from our sprint to the mat, and my clothes were soaked with rain and sweat from the jungle heat. We’d given it everything we had, but sometimes everything isn’t enough.

Ray’s arm was around my shoulders, and I felt him squeeze gently. We’d known this was coming – we weren’t as young or as athletic as the remaining teams. But we’d made it to the final four, which was better than either of us had expected.

“Before you go,” Julie said, “I have a question. Jeffrey, at the beginning of the race, you said you wanted to use this experience to decide whether to reconcile with Ray or move forward with a divorce. Have you made a decision?”

I looked at Ray, seeing him clearly in the temple light. He was sweaty and disheveled, his shirt stained with sweat. But his eyes were bright and focused entirely on me, the way they’d been on our first date, when he’d made me feel like the most interesting person in the world.

“You know,” I said slowly, “I came into this race thinking it was going to be like a classroom, where we would learn new ways of working with each other.”

“And?” Julie prompted.

“And it was more than just a classroom, it was a reminder.” I felt Ray tense beside me, but I kept going.

“A reminder of who we were when we met, and who we’ve become together.

A reminder that even when things get hard – even when we’re tired and frustrated and covered in monkey poop –” Ray laughed at that, and I smiled too.

“Even then, there’s no one else I’d rather have beside me. ”

“Ray?” Julie asked. “What are your thoughts?”

“When I screwed up,” Ray said, his voice rough, “I slept on the couch for a while. But I couldn’t sleep.

I’d gotten so used to his breathing next to me, the way he always stole the covers around three a.m., how he’d reach for my hand in his sleep.

” He paused. “I thought maybe I’d just gotten too comfortable, too complacent.

That maybe I needed more excitement in my life. ”

“And now?”

“Now I know that the biggest adventure I’ve ever had is loving this man.” He turned to face me fully. “Every day with you is a challenge, Jeffrey, but in the best way. You push me to be better, to think harder, to slow down and appreciate the view sometimes instead of just racing to the summit.”

“Even when I’m being overprotective? When I won’t let you take the dangerous route?”

“Especially then. Because you’re not just protecting me – you’re protecting us. What we have together.” He smiled. “Though I have to say, you’ve gotten a lot braver since we started this race.”

“Getting dropped into a gorge on a bungee cord will do that to you,” I said. Then, more seriously, “I think I needed to remember that I could be brave. That I could face my fears and survive them.”

Julie cleared her throat gently, reminding us that the cameras were still rolling. “So, Jeffrey – about that decision?”

I looked at my husband, this complicated, frustrating, wonderful man who had changed my life in so many ways. “I think we still have a lot to work through. Trust to rebuild. Patterns to change.”

“But?” Ray’s voice was barely a whisper.

“But I want to do that work. Together.” I squeezed his hand.

“Deal.”

I turned back to Julie. “We may not have won the million dollars, but I think we found something more valuable.”

“What’s that?”

“Each other,” Ray said. “Again.”

As the cameras finally stopped rolling and the production crew began packing up their equipment, Cody approached us, pulling off his camera harness with obvious relief.

"Well, guys, this is where I leave you," he said, extending his hand to Ray. "It's been one hell of a ride."

Ray shook his hand warmly. "Thanks for everything, Cody. I know it couldn't have been easy, following us around for weeks, filming our meltdowns and breakthroughs."

"Are you kidding?" Cody grinned. "Your story was great. The way you two found your way back to each other... that's the kind of content that reminds people why they watch this show."

I felt a flush of embarrassment mixed with gratitude. "You were incredibly respectful through all of it. Even when we were at our worst."

"That's the job," Cody said simply. "But honestly? I was rooting for you guys from early on. You had something real worth fighting for."

He shouldered his gear bag and headed toward the production van where other cameramen were loading equipment. At the last moment, he turned back.

"Hey, when this airs, you're going to look like heroes. Just so you know."

And then he was gone, leaving Ray and me standing alone in the temple courtyard for the first time in weeks without a camera trained on us.

Later, after the van had taken us back to the hotel, Ray pulled me close. "I meant what I said, you know. About every day with you being an adventure."

“Even when I’m just sitting at my desk in a T-shirt and boxer shorts?”

“Even then.” He kissed me softly. “Because you’re there. And that makes everything an adventure worth having.”

We headed to the hotel, both of us exhausted but happy. “You know what I keep thinking about?” Ray said as we waited for the elevator.

“What?”

“How you used to say everything in our lives was a competition. But today... today felt like we were really partners.”

The elevator arrived, but I held him back for a moment. “Maybe we needed to be in an actual competition to figure out how not to compete with each other.”

He kissed me then, right there in the hotel lobby, not caring who saw. He was wet and smelled raw, but I didn’t mind. We’d earned every moment of this victory together.