Jennifer Lohmann - Winning Ruby Heart

“King won’t like it,” Amir said. But this argument flopped on the dirt, sucked in a few last gasps of air and then stilled like the dead fish it was.

“King will like it too much.” The man would think he had a chance to take over this story, and he didn’t even have the foresight to know what the real story was. “Look, King is loud, obnoxious and he can’t withstand a direct charge. Ignore his bluster and any advice he gives you and stick to getting the footage I want. Half Currito, half that woman. Good shots of the face. I don’t want anyone to doubt who she is when I’m done.” Micah thought for a minute, then added, “And try to make it look as if you’re not focusing on her. I don’t want to spook her.”

“Who is she?”

“And give you a name for King to weasel out of you? Hell no.” If rumors about the upcoming anchor opening were true, King would be fighting Micah to the death for it, and getting an interview with Ruby Heart would be equivalent to securing the nuclear arsenal. “Get the shots—I’ll confirm the name afterward.” The rough, wet dirt stalled his exit, but Amir knew better than to offer help. Micah wheeled himself over the rocks and sticks in the trail to his car and drove off.

Back at the hotel, he connected to the wireless and started digging. Most of the pictures he found were of Ruby as the world had known her—sharp points of her short platinum hair aimed directly at her painted red lips, looking more like a younger, edgier version of Marilyn Monroe than an athlete. But buried on her college’s website was a team photo from her freshman year. There, Ruby Heart looked like the girl next door. Her hair was still short, but it lacked the snap of her Olympic haircut and was the same mousy brown he’d seen today. The eyes clinched it. Without the heavy makeup, there was nothing to hide those doe eyes gracing the face of the girl who would become America’s Darling two years after this photo was taken. Even in the picture of her during his interview, after her cheating had been revealed to the world, her brown eyes had dominated her face, giving her an aura of innocence.

“You understand what I’m going through, right?” she had asked him after the camera stopped rolling on that memorable interview. “We both had our passions taken from us.” Her voice had sounded so young, adding to the blameless look she’d had on her face and almost making him agree with her. As if their careers had ended the same way. “It wasn’t fair.” He’d added whiny to the list of her defects. When he’d told her that her entire athletic career hadn’t been fair to her competitors, she’d jumped back as if he’d swung a fist at her.

Micah pulled himself away from the memory, found the list of participants in today’s run and looked for the name. According to the website, no Ruby Heart had registered, but there was a Diana Heart. A Wikipedia page didn’t offer Ruby’s full name, only a short summary of the girl’s soaring rise to greatness and her crashing fall. Icarus, with his wax wings climbing higher and higher toward the sun until the lies he’d woven into the wings melted from the heat. Only Ruby had been the genuine flying article and she’d strapped wax wings onto her back anyway.

Her stupidity left a foul taste in his mouth the bitter coffee couldn’t overpower.

The current Wikipedia photo was Ruby at her apex, with the American flag raised high over her head in a stadium of adoring fans. No amount of makeup could hide the pure joy overtaking the exhaustion on her face. The other photo on the page was a still from his interview of her—Ruby’s blond hair looking limp and fake, her eyes hurt and confused. Micah wondered how often the pictures were swapped out as the remaining few who cared—both fans and detractors—battled it out in cyberspace. Someone had cared enough about her to note that her suspension for doping was over.

While he didn’t recall the specifics of her complicated settlement, after she’d provided enough information to close several clinics, her lifetime ban had been converted into a suspension from all non-Olympic sports. Micah had a vague memory of the prep material he’d gotten for that interview, which had included Ruby’s full name and the fact that she went by her middle name.

Pitiful, really, to have disappeared from the American psyche so completely that all it took was a set of pigtails and different first name for people in your own sport not to recognize you.

CHAPTER TWO

BACK IN HER hotel room, Ruby Heart turned the television on for company, tossed the remote onto the bed and then eased her tired body into the chair at the small desk and prepared to indulge in her grocery store sandwich and chocolate milk. Her medal for finishing sat piled atop its ribbon, its tacky glitter weighing down her race bib. When she flicked at the medallion, her fingernail bounced off the cheap metal with a mournful ting, which her favorite medal—the gold one she’d had to give up—hadn’t had. She picked the medallion off her bib and turned it over in her hand. It might lack the sparkle of the Olympic gold, but no one could argue that Ruby hadn’t earned this one.

She had crossed the finish line of the fifty-kilometer race on her own two feet—which had been her number-one goal—in four hours and forty-three minutes, which was short of her second goal by three minutes. The race medal clinked against the desk when she dropped it. Three measly minutes. It had taken being handed a beer by a volunteer for Ruby to remember that she wasn’t competing against anyone other than herself. And still those minutes rankled. She allowed herself thirty seconds to clench her teeth before she took a deep breath and focused on what her goals had been. New goals for a new Ruby Heart.

As long as Micah Blackwell hadn’t recognized her, then she only had to prove something to herself, and crossing the finish line had done that, even if she’d skipped out on the postrace festivities. She hadn’t wanted to risk him catching sight of her again.

The short cameraman standing next to Micah at the start had been filming at several points along the race, but the camera had been rolling long before she’d run past it and had kept rolling; she’d looked over her shoulder several times to make sure. The cameraman was probably getting filler for whatever story they were planning to run on Currito. Ruby was nothing. Less than nothing. Her past was forgotten and her future was nonexistent. Even if Micah had recognized her, no one would be interested in her story. She was the detritus of American sensationalism.

Today was also proof that she could stay that way—run a competitive race, return home and not hear her father say, “Do you know what it’s like for me at the office?” Or her mother complain about the gossip at the salon. Or her sister about the rumors on campus. Or any number of the other places her family had gone during the two weeks when the cameras had been camped outside her house and she’d been trapped inside.

She swallowed a bite of her sandwich, chewing through the bread and the ideas of risking another race. She’d finished, but there were those three minutes... She bit her lip, then licked the little bit of mayo off. Had today proved it could be done, or had it only been proof it could be done once?

Micah’s warm, confident voice came over the television, and Ruby rolled the desk chair back to watch. After Micah introduced him, Currito talked about his race and his training. His black curls bounced about his face and his dark skin was shiny with sweat. “It’s all mental,” the runner said. “I’m not saying anyone can run one of these things, but it’s your mind that works hardest.”

“You’re also an accomplished artist,” Micah said on the television as he leaned back in his chair and opened his arms, inviting the world in. A trademark move, and she’d fallen for it along with a hundred other interviewees. After an interview during the Olympics, one of the gymnasts had said it felt as though he was inviting her onto his lap to whisper intimacies in his ear.