He once read a survey of Olympic aspirants that reported 80% would take an illegal drug that would enable them to win a gold medal, even if the drug would kill them within two years.
Chapter Eight
MARY SANGER
Jeremy thought he might never fall in love. Actually, it was unimaginable anyone would fall in love with him, the way he was. No girl he had ever dated could understand what making the Olympic team meant to him.
He once read a survey of Olympic aspirants that reported 80% would take an illegal drug that would enable them to win a gold medal, even if the drug would kill them within two years.
Did he want a gold medal that much? No way – life was too dear, too exciting, there was so much to experience.
Would he do everything in his power to make the Olympic team? Jeremy knew at fourteen he wanted to dedicate his youth to the pursuit of that dream.
So, female companionship, sex, and especially shared love were cloistered in his mind as nice-but-unlikely occurrences until his quest was completed. It was therefore unbelievable when Mary entered his life.
They met after he spiked her at the Penn Relays.
Five hundred meters from the finish, at the water jump, Jeremy caught up to the lead pack of three. He ran wide, but Josh Silverman of Navy stumbled in the water and careened into him. Jeremy bounced to the right and crashed into the line of photographers who crouched along the outer edge of the water jump. He stepped on someone, fell, scrambled to his feet, then sprinted to re-catch the three leaders.
He ran down all but Silverman to place second in 8:25.30, then jogged slowly back up the track to see if anyone was hurt. A trainer was pouring antiseptic on the calf of a woman who had come under Jeremy’s spikes.
“Don’t fuss over me so much,” she smiled at the trainer. “I’ve had my tetanus shot. It looks like I’ve been snake-bit.
“Here’s the man responsible for my injury,” she said merrily as Jeremy walked up, dripping wet from his race.
“I’m awfully sorry, Ma’m,” said the boy steeplechaser. “Is there anything I can do?”
“You would have won that race,” she said, “if I hadn’t been in your way! I’d like you to join me for dinner tonight to make up for it.”
“Uhh . . . well . . . I don’t think I would necessarily have won . . . uhh, it was an accident . . . I’m sorry you’re hurt . . . dinner?” he stammered.
“Yes!” she asserted. “Where are you staying?”
The reporters, photographers, and trainer had no inhibitory effect on the woman who was the center of attention, sitting on the rough apron of the water jump, her injured leg extended, the other tucked beneath her full green skirt. She was about 40 years old with dark skin, black hair, and deep brown eyes.
“Uhh, I’m at the North Philly Radisson,” Jeremy remembered.
“Good. My name is Mary Sanger.” She reached up and offered her hand. “I’ll come by at seven if that’s alright with you.”
“Sure, Miz Sanger,” Jeremy grinned, holding her hand tentatively. He jogged off to cool down, asking himself what he thought he was doing.
Mary Sanger lived near Columbus, Ohio, and had driven nearly 500 miles to watch the Penn Relays. Nothing else seemed so fundamentally pure to her as foot racing. Running required clean living and was simple. She had grown fond of clean and simple things since her marriage had decomposed and rotted ten years earlier.
Mary always took a week of her vacation to attend Penn, the largest track meet in America. Thousands of high school, college, and open athletes competed every spring in the venerable old stadium.
She went to see Ohio State’s crack sprint relay teams race. There were always former and future Olympians competing. And she went to watch Jeremy Stanfield race again.
She had watched him at the Buckeye Games, twice, first as a wide-eyed 17-year-old in his first open meet, and again, just eight months ago. In that race, she watched, riveted, as he turned the simple competition into a memorable event. She saw him surge and struggle, fight and sprint, then saw him lift the winner to his feet.
The image of this lithe boy with the carriage of a mature veteran had struck her as no man had ever done before. She followed his progress through Athletics Gazette and learned about his solitary training regimen from a friend in Wellston.
Then she started dreaming about him. They would run together across a wildflower meadow, through daisies and chicory and Queen Anne’s lace. They never spoke but they smiled at each other as they bounded toward the infinite horizon. They ran, sometimes touching fingertips, with great flowing strides. She would awake abruptly, flush with sexual excitement, sweating, happy. Soul travel? The boy had never heard of her; never met her; never dreamed her. How ridiculous!
And now she limped around her hotel room in Philadelphia with a spike wound, getting ready for a date with a dream lover half her age.
Jeremy sat in the bathtub at his hotel and kneaded the soreness from his calves. I didn’t even tell her my name, he recalled. The lady must have been jerking me around, talking about dinner.
He returned to his bedroom and pressed the blinking MESSAGE light on his telephone.
“You received a message, Sir, from a Ms. Mary Sanger,” said the hotel operator. “She will meet you at seven o’clock in Chef Andre’s Restaurant, just off our lobby.”
How did she know my name? What should I wear? What will we talk about?
“Hello, Jeremy!” She smiled a warm greeting when he was led to her table. “I hope this isn’t too late a meal for you.”
“Hi, Miz Sanger,” he replied. He felt relaxed, more confident, and pleasantly tired – the way he often did following a hard race. “No, not too late for me. It’s my usual suppertime.”
“Please order whatever you’d like,” she told him, “my treat. And please call me Mary. I’m going to have the seafood sampler.”
Jeremy smiled weakly. The woman wore a dark green dress and swept her long black hair to one side. She wore no makeup. Her eyes were so dark – made darker by the dress – that they seemed bottomless. Her hands were smooth, with big veins, like his. He kept his head in the menu, thinking. He wondered if his mother might be her age if she hadn’t died. He looked up at the patient waiter and ordered the seafood sampler.
“How’s your leg?” Jeremy asked.
“It’s just a minor puncture wound. I cleaned it again and put an ice pack on it. It’s just a little sore.”
“I’m really sorry you got hurt,” he said earnestly.
“I meant what I said at the track – I believe you would have won if I hadn’t tripped you.”
“If you folks hadn’t been at trackside, I might have run into the brick wall and not finished at all,” Jeremy smiled. It was getting easier to talk with her.
“Anyway, at least I improved my P.R. – my personal record time.”
“Yes, I know,” Mary replied. “By ten seconds, wasn’t it?”
“How’d you know that?” he asked quizzically.
She mentally scrambled for an answer.
“Your name was in the program . . . along with your old P.R.” She hoped it was true.
Two immense seafood platters were served and they both laughed at the impossible volume of food set before them.
Jeremy ate slowly and reminded himself to look her in the eyes whenever she spoke.
“What do you do, Mary, I mean your career?” Her name left his lips with difficulty. He wouldn’t dream of calling Harold Bond, Harold.
She was chewing a crab leg and he smiled, realizing he would have to wait until she swallowed. She grinned like a teenager; he dropped his gaze to ease the awkwardness.
“I’m a nutritionist, Jeremy. I teach classes at Franklin Community College and plan meals at two retirement homes in Columbus,” Mary replied. “I’m also a freelance photographer. That’s how I got down at trackside today!”
“Are you married?” he blurted, still having no good idea what he should talk about with this mature woman.
“I’ve been divorced for ten years. I have a home in Grove City and an aquarium with 20 tropical fish – at least I had that many when I left them on Wednesday!” She smiled again, hoping to put him at ease. She wanted to tell him her life.
“Tell me something about yourself, Jeremy.”
“What would you like to know?” he asked, not at all sure where to steer this conversation. He was grateful that they were eating so the conversation was punctuated with chewing and swallowing. He could not think clearly enough for sustained talking.
“What music do you like?” she asked.
“Popular or classical?’
“Either,” she said, glad to get him going. “Both!”
“Well,” he rolled his eyes upward, as if scanning his frontal lobe for an answer. “I enjoy most every symphonic work by Beethoven. If I had to listen to just one thing, it would be the Organ Symphony of Saint-Saens. Or Brahm’s First!”
“And popular music? Any favorite singers?”
He thought a bit then answered, “I like ballads. Soulful music with emotion. What about you?”
Mary was quick to reply. “I like love songs by female vocalists. Slow, romantic love songs. As for classical, I want to hear Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony at least once a week, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet, and Schumann’s piano concerto. And Les Preludes by Liszt!
“I’ve written a poem, an idea that’s been in my head for years – Green is the Color of Courage. When I finish it, I want to make it into a song.”
“You’re a poet and a composer! Wow! What other talents do you have?”
Now Mary was uneasy. I should have told him something else, she thought.
Before she could answer, he asked an even more awkward question.
“How old are you, Mary?”
She knew it would come up, but not so soon. “Thirty-eight,” and she could think of nothing else to say, to make the number seem smaller.
Thirty-eight years old. To a boy just eighteen that must seem like sixty, she thought.
“I’m eighteen,” he blurted, like a nursery school child holding up his fingers. He wished he was older. For some reason, he wanted her to be interested in him.
“Where will you be racing next?” she asked. “I’d like to see you compete again.”
“Boston, next month. The East Regional. I haven’t entered yet, but I’d like to race Baxter – he’s a British Olympian, a finalist in the last Olympics.”
“I know the meet director here at Penn. Perhaps he can put me in touch with the manager of the East Regional. Would you like for me to do that for you – compensation for messing up your race today?”
She grinned at him and he knew to smile back. OK, he thought, that would be helpful.
“Sure. Thank you, Mary.”
After the meal’s remains had been swept away, they lingered at the table, talking. A piano player stroked out melancholy tunes and Jeremy told her his life’s story.
He made quick work of his mother’s death, his father’s absence, and the farm work and training that ordered his life. As he spoke of stoic philosophy, the Olympics, and his hopes for a higher order of things in the world, she knew that he was the special man she hoped he might be.
His eyes were aflame with conviction when he concluded, “I believe that running is as important as anything else in life and I intend to take it as far as I can.”
Mary nodded and asked, “When do you fly home?”
“My plane leaves tomorrow at six p.m.”
“Are you running anyplace special in the morning?” she asked. “I’d like to join you if you don’t mind. I’ve got to stay fit, too.”
“I was going to run at the Villanova track at nine o’clock. If you come, I promise I won’t spike you!”
“It’s a deal,” Mary laughed. “See you there in the morning.”
They stood for the first time in two hours and Mary’s knee buckled. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked.
Her broad smile told him yes and she thanked him for his thoughtfulness. “Good night, Jeremy. It was so nice to spend the evening with you.”
Back in their rooms, it was hours before either of them fell asleep.
The hotel shuttle took Jeremy and four other athletes to Villanova to train. Mary was already there, trotting around the grassy infield, tall and fit. She had begun running to escape her abusive husband and to regain the fitness she had known in college.
Jeremy noticed the broad gauze bandage on her calf and inquired about the wound.
“Not a problem,” she told him. “Just trying to keep it clean. How far do you plan to run?”
“Five miles of easy fartlek this morning. Then a few miles when I get home tonight.”
“There’s a park a block from here. It would be a great place for fartlek.” She led him out the stadium at a surprisingly brisk pace. For the next 45 minutes, they jogged and talked, he threw in the occasional hard surge, then doubled back to chat some more.
Mary offered him a ride back to her hotel for lunch. She no longer seemed old to him and he felt far more comfortable. No games were being played as he had experienced with girls his age. So, when she invited him to shower in her room, there was no second-guessing.
“Sure, thanks!” he said and slung his gym bag over his shoulder and followed her to the elevator.
Mary bathed first while he sat on her bed, watching a baseball game. She came out in towels–one around her head, one around her breasts, and a third around her hips. A sweet flower smell followed her into the room. She smiled warmly.
“Your turn!”
An avalanche of thoughts shattered his calm. What am I doing in this room? Why am I suddenly so hot? Is this how a woman seduces a man? What does she expect me to do now?
Jeremy showered quickly, dressed to leave, and exited the steamy bathroom. Mary sat in a chair, fully clothed, reading a book.
“Ready for lunch?” she asked.
He smiled, relieved, and a little embarrassed for his unsophisticated thoughts. On the flight home he pondered the majestic beauty of cloud-tops, the strange compulsion of distance running, and his chance meeting with this mysterious woman.