“I’ll be there.”
“And don’t forget to bring some friends, got it?”
A flash of doubt crossed over her face for an instant before she settled into an easy grin and hefted a thick book close to her chest. “Sure, I’ll ask around.”
He glanced at the book. “What are you reading?”
“The Road Back.”
“Is it for class?”
“No, but I liked All Quiet on the Western Front and the library just got this one in. It’s the sequel.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Not exactly light reading.”
“No, it’s not,” she conceded, looking sheepish. “But it’s literally heavy so if I carry it around enough, it’ll make me stronger, right?” She flexed the biceps of her arm that was holding the book and laughed. She sounded loud and nervous, like she was trying too hard to amuse him.
“Huh. Maybe I’ll have to try it. I could use something interesting to read.”
She closed her metal locker. “See you tomorrow.”
“You bet.” He watched her make her way through the crowded hallway. Judging from the way she towered over the other students, he guessed her to be about six feet tall. Though she greeted a few kids, she walked alone. A girl like that—tall, athletic, tomboyish—she probably wasn’t one of the popular kids. And clearly if she spent her time outside of school reading stuff by authors like Remarque, her social calendar couldn’t be too full. Maybe joining a school team could be just the thing to help her fit in.
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, a gaggle of girls led by Helen approached Burton where he stood by the track. He hadn’t been sure she would show. Since girls didn’t run track at Fulton High School, it felt like a good idea to keep this experiment quiet so he had sent the boys off on a three-mile run. That would keep them busy for a bit. Patches of muddy puddles filled the inside of the track and a sharp wind blew from the north. His nose dripped from the cold, and he rubbed at it absentmindedly, amused by the sense of anticipation filling him. All this for a 50-yard time trial.
Once the girls reached him, he greeted them and explained what he wanted them to do. They listened, blowing on their hands and hopping up and down to stay warm. When he had spoken to her the day before, Helen had been outgoing, but now, surrounded by the other girls, she acted quieter. She kept her shoulders hunched around her ears and slouched as if making herself less noticeable.
Burton showed them how to start by crouching low and springing forward and then pointed to the line he had dug by dragging his heel along the cinder farther down the track. “Don’t stop at the finish line,” he said. “Run all the way through and wait to slow down until after you’ve crossed it.”
He lined them up and then walked to the finish. On his command, the pack dashed forward and sprinted toward him.
Helen flew past first. He clicked his stopwatch: 5.8 seconds. He stared at the time, scratching his head. That couldn’t be right. Helen was fast, but there was no chance she could be that fast. The girls, panting hard, all gathered around him.
“So?” asked a dark-haired girl. “How did we do?”
“Not sure this darned thing is working.” He shook the stopwatch. “What do you say we try it one more time? I’ll head to the start, and we’ll just reverse direction. Take a minute to recover.” Without another word, he turned and paced the 50-yard distance again, hoping none of them noticed him checking his watch, but the girls were giggling with excitement as they resumed starting positions and not paying any attention to him. He clicked his stopwatch on and off several times, watching the hand tick along smoothly, and then held it to his ear, listening to the smooth grind of its interior mechanisms. The darned thing appeared to be working just fine.
He took his spot and called out, “On your marks. Set. Go!”
Off they went, legs and arms pumping with exertion.
Again, Helen cruised over the finish line. Click. He took a deep breath before looking at his stopwatch. Again, the timer was frozen at 5.8. He felt his jaw drop, and he gasped. It felt like he had taken a wallop to the chest. The girls crowded around him expectantly, but he continued to stare at the stopwatch in disbelief. Jesus, she had just run that in the same time as Betty Robinson, the world record holder.
“Did I earn a varsity letter?” asked Helen in a nervous-sounding voice.
Dazed, he shook his head, still staring at his timer. “In fact, Helen, yes, you did.”
One of the girls cheered.
He raised his gaze to meet Helen’s. “I mean, this run wasn’t sanctioned or anything and my timer may not be fully accurate, but there’s no doubt that you’re really fast. All of you were fast.” His mind was racing. Holy buckets, what does this mean? What do you do with a find like this?
“I can’t wait to tell my parents about this,” said a thin blonde, the second girl to pass over the finish both times. Her time was nowhere near Helen’s, but still, under normal circumstances he would have been impressed by her pace too.
“Wait a minute, ladies. Let’s keep today’s results to ourselves for a bit. I’ll follow up in a couple of days to see if we can get some practice times set up.”
The girls called out goodbyes, walking off in pairs, already preoccupied with discussing homework and babysitting schedules. Only Helen hung back.
“So, my time was really good?”
“Yeah, it really was.” He showed her the stopwatch, still frozen on 5.8 seconds. “I’ll be totally honest with you. I don’t know what happens next. Let me figure out the AAU’s spring meets that are open to girls. Think your folks will approve of you taking up track?”
Helen scratched her shoulder. “I don’t know. Money’s pretty tight. Will it cost much?”
“Let me see what I can do.” He looked out over the field to check that the boys were nowhere in sight.
“Coach?”
His gaze returned to her.
“That felt good. I think I might be able to get pretty fast if I practice more.” She grinned, and a surprising shyness lingered in the way she tried to cover her birthmark with her hand.
“Bet you’re right. You’re a good kid, and you’ve easily qualified for a varsity letter already. How about you come back on Monday and try practicing with the boys?”
“Really?” Her eyes widened with excitement and her shoulders dropped as she stood straighter. “They’re not going to know what hit them.”
Coach Moore laughed. Once she had a little training and started running in earnest, he had a feeling no one would know what hit them. She said goodbye and headed back to the school building, kicking her cracked leather boots at the occasional pebble in her path, her hands in the pockets of the baggy pantaloons she must have thought constituted a gym suit. How on earth did she run a world record time in that getup?
A few minutes later, on Burton’s way out of the school, he stuck his head into the music room. A familiar song trilled from a flute being played by a redheaded girl, but there was no sign of Mary Lou. He entered the classroom and headed toward a door on the far side of the room, passing two boys writing music on the chalkboard. Sure enough, in the classroom’s office behind a desk covered with several stacks of sheet music, there she sat.