On an April Saturday morning, Lincoln Prep High School was mostly still and quiet, with sun dust floating in empty classrooms and shadows undisturbed in the corridors. But there was a pocket of activity in a small room alongside the gym, from which crashing metal sounds emerged and then died three-quarters of the way down the long hallway. The noise was the responsibility of a junior named Jane Danforth, who was working with brisk and sweaty determination on the school’s Nautilus machine.     

Jane sipped water and then positioned herself for a seated shoulder press. She wore a tank top and shorts against the room’s humidity. It was clear from her manner – and body – that this was not her first time in a gym. Jane inhaled deeply, and then forced the bar upward. Her breath puffed out and her deltoids quivered, then popped, as the steel plates slowly rose. She did ten difficult reps, generating streams of perspiration that shone on her skin and darkened her outfit. Jane had an audience of one, a young man named Muller who, though strictly a spectator, took breaths as full as the girl’s.    
Jane released the bar and stood, her cheeks as pink as cherry blossoms. She looked at Muller with a minimum of curiosity. 

“How’d you get in here, anyway?”

 
Muller sat hunched forward on a bench. His hair was closely cut and he was clean shaven. His chest filled his short-sleeved polo pretty well. “Vendor’s pass,” he said, holding up a photo I-D card. 

It was true: he worked for a company that sold athletic equipment to the school. He had been here just last week, checking this very machine for a busted pulley. That was when Muller had first seen Jane, a tall girl with spiky hair, stealing a glance in the mirror.

“Remember?” Muller said.   

Jane stepped to the next station, the reverse-grip bicep curl. “And you just happened to stop by again,” she said. Muller saw a sly smile creep through. It accentuated the best thing about her face: her eyes, which were large and deep blue, the spark inside burning with an appetite. Jane grasped the handles attached to a low pulley, her sinewy legs bent at the knees. Muller shifted, attention fixed, savoring his anticipation.

                                                                                                 ---

​

“Last month I started core training at the ‘Y,’ Jane said. “If your obliques are in shape you’re geared for anything.”

“They’re your engine,” Muller agreed. “Lately I’ve been working on my upper body. Concentration curls, barbell rows, lots of bench presses.” He closed and opened a fist to make his veins pop. “The best thing for your abdominals is an exercise ball. You got one around here?”  

“We used to,” Jane said. “But they got rid of it. These guys were grandstanding and tried to like balance on top? One fell and busted his head.” 

They were still in the exercise room with its steamy air. Jane had finished her workout and sat relaxed on a bench, a towel draped around her neck. Her shirt was wet; her skin had a soft glow. A few moments ago, Muller had tossed her the towel and his thrill lingered from when she had caught it.   

“Hmm,” Muller said. “I never heard of that before.” Feeling the heat rise, he ran a forefinger around the inside of his collar. He remained on his bench, with half of the room’s 25-foot length separating them. The mirror gave the illusion that the room was larger, but each could see the light in the other’s eyes. Muller knew he had edged into hazardous territory: if anybody at work knew he was here, he’d be out of a job faster than the door could hit him on the ass. But he felt his behavior was beyond his control, like it was governed by the kind of devilish excitement a firebug seeks as he returns to the scene. 

“Doesn’t matter," Jane said. “We have exercise balls at the ‘Y.’” She touched a finger to her temple. “This is what’s most important. Our track coach was telling us about the eastern religions. Like in China and Japan? They say your mind can fix it so you can do about anything. Like those guys who karate chop a pile of bricks.” She pushed the towel through her hair, and light brown tufts stood. “Ever try yoga?” 

Muller, halfway to his degree in Exercise Physiology, had a passing knowledge of the practice. “No. But I know people who swear by it.”

“Deep breathing.” She demonstrated, lifting and lowering her arms in a circular motion and streaming out air. “The ‘Y’ has classes. But I don’t have the time for it. Not yet.” As she crossed her legs Muller was stirred by the display of her shifting quads.  

 
He felt compelled to do something. He stood abruptly and felt lightheaded, as if the blood in his brain couldn’t deal with his resolve. Or maybe it was that after a draining week he had awoken unusually early on a Saturday. His reflection in the mirror wobbled. Muller saw that Jane had a fingernail pressed pensively against her front teeth, and her bright eyes had a dreamy look. He stood still for a few moments, steadying himself.      

He asked if he could give her a ride home.

                                                                                                  ---

​

Swinging his car out of the parking lot, Muller said, “I have a confession. You told me you usually work out Saturday mornings. So I took a chance and came.”  

Muller drove a six-year old Nissan, with no frills except a CD player that he needed for distraction while traveling between clients. The car’s worn body was decorated with pollen dust, flora, and bird waste, but Jane hadn’t scoffed at the ride. Instead, she had donned a sweatshirt and agreeably climbed in. They traveled through the hamlet of Lincoln, New York, with its old-fashioned storefronts and sugar maples starting to bud. The sidewalks looked weathered, battered by winter. The morning was cool with a bright sun. 

“That’s what I figured,” Jane said.

 
Muller said, “Hope you don’t mind.” He stopped at a red light, beyond which the town seemed to end. On the other side of the intersection, the road climbed steeply before curving behind a grove of pines. A squirrel hunched in the middle of the road, gnawing something. Muller took a breath, feeling a little calmer—driving was a familiar activity that wouldn’t, in itself, get his balls cut off. But the girl beside him exerted a captivating pull that kept him glancing over. He yearned to reach out and lay his palm against her bare leg, an urge so powerful that he could taste it. “Straight through?” he asked.

“Why should I mind?”

 
Muller felt a pleasant flush. He may have just been complemented.

The light turned. “Yes. Keep going, please.”

“I hope the squirrel moves,” he said.

As his car bounced and rattled along he saw on his left what looked like a small junkyard. Shells of automobiles were piled like insects, sunlight sparkling off their frames. A rusted trailer leaned over dangerously. Tires were scattered about. The Nissan passed a couple of old houses with lopsided roofs, clay yards and gravel driveways. Bare trees lined the road, which continued to climb. Behind the trees, messy fields of weeds and shrubs thickened. Though Muller drove a great deal, he had never gone this way before. 

Jane asked, “So, are you good with your hands?”

 
Muller looked over. “How do you mean?”

“Are you mechanically inclined? You know, for your job.”

 

“We’re taught how to maintain the equipment. It’s not too difficult.”

“Is it a full-time job?”

“Yeah. I also go to night school.”  

 
Jane rolled down the window, turned her face into the breeze. “I got a couple of jobs myself. What do you study?”

“Physiology.”

“Really? Is that like biology?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a subset of biology. It’s about what’s inside us, what makes us move.  My goal is to be a personal trainer.”

 
“Too good!” Jane clapped and laughed. “A man after my own heart.”

“It is pretty cool,” Muller agreed.

“Right here past the fence. Take a left.”

Muller steered onto a pitted dirt road, barely wide enough for one vehicle. To the left, a straw-colored field sloped away; over bare treetops Muller had a bird’s eye view of Lincoln, vivid and still in the morning brightness. He asked, “If I wasn’t driving, how would you get home?”

“I ran there, I’d run back.”

Muller whistled. “Impressive.”

“Mister Danello says the hills will help my stamina. Like when I do the 440 and half-mile, I’ll have an awesome kick.”

“That you will. I used to run some track myself.”

  
“Slow down. It’s the red one.”

Muller pulled in front of a small house with wooden slats that sat back from the road. As he slowed, he heard gravel crackling under his wheels. Sunshine highlighted fine clumps of yellowed grass, along with scattered dirt patches and a faded red paint job. Two windows were on either side of the front door. Behind the house was a grove of trees. 

The Nissan stopped and Muller looked around. “You got a nice view from up here.”

 
“Thanks,” Jane said. “And thanks for the ride.”

Muller thought she might leap out of the Nissan, but instead she turned toward him. She lifted her eyes to meet his and he held her gaze despite every urge to flee. A woman’s mutely piercing eyes tended to overwhelm Muller. Jane may have been a girl but her eyes had the deep glittering life of a woman’s.  

Muller leaned closer, driven by a sweet longing that pulled from his gut to his throat, where it tightened like a noose. Jane’s eyes grew damp and reflective. Muller thought they had the radiance of the universe in them: he advanced at a hungry pace. Their lips came together and stayed that way for a couple of seconds—his heart was whipped into liquid—before they parted with anticipation and regret. 

                                                                                                ---

​

He was back at the red house two Saturdays later. Now he was inside—having walked across a faded linoleum floor to sit at the kitchen table with Jane and her mother. The older woman was the image of Jane if you aged her skin and swapped the splendid body for a lean one. She wore a print dress and glasses, her graying hair hanging free. Jane was dressed in an astonishingly alluring fashion: a tube top that showed off her wide shoulders, and tight blue shorts that reached just past her butt. Muller tried to keep his gaze from slipping down the glossy curves of Jane’s legs but failed; accordingly he found himself regularly cutting his eyes beneath the table at the girl’s piercing red toenails. 

If Jane’s mother had an opinion about the way her daughter was dressed, she kept it to herself. Instead, she expressed the same unhesitating affection for Jane that her daughter showed her: regular hugs and smiles, and attentiveness to the other’s feelings that Muller found uncomfortably foreign.  

There was a fourth in the room: a burly Rottweiler panting in a corner as if ready to leap at Muller’s throat at the appropriate command.

 
“Where are you from, Mark?” the elder Danforth asked with an encouraging smile.

Muller sipped instant coffee. “I grew up in Goshen.” He thought that might suffice but Mrs. Danforth’s eyes – blue, like Jane’s – kept twinkling at him, so he continued. “I went to Goshen High, then to college at Binghamton for two years.” His throat tightened as he divulged his probable age. “Now I go to Orange County Community College at night.” He quaffed coffee. “And work,” he added.”  

“I told Mark that I work and go to school, too,” Jane said. She reached over and patted her mother’s shoulder.

“Jane’s always on the go,” said Mrs. Danforth. 

“Made 15 bucks in tips today,” Jane said brightly. “I don’t think the other girls came close.” She turned to Muller, who thought he discerned some caginess in her eyes. “I waitress at Friendly’s, Saturdays and Sundays.”

“That doesn’t leave you much free time,” Muller said.

 
“I get all I need,” Jane said.

“She never complains,” Mrs. Danforth smiled. “When I was Jane’s age, I was – well.” Her smile broadened. “Never mind.”

Jane kissed her mother on the cheek and said, “You rascal, you.” 

“Funny you went to Binghamton,” Jane said to Muller. “It’s one of the schools I’m looking at.”

 
“I know they have a good track program,” Muller said.

“I’m applying for a Regents’ Scholarship.”

“Jane gets straight A’s,” said Mrs. Danforth.

 
“Did you run track there?” Jane asked.

“Pole vault.”

“How’d you do?”

Muller thought about how to explain the puzzling experience. In fact, he had underperformed at Binghamton and the school withdrew his scholarship. “Funny thing,” Muller said. “I made the team but I never vaulted as well as I did in high school.”

Jane gave him an appraising look. “How high did you go?”

“Well I cleared thirteen feet at Goshen. That was pretty good back then. I made it to the sectionals. But in college I couldn’t hit twelve and a half.” He shrugged. “I can’t explain it.”

Jane offered a small smile, her expression still penetrating. “Well you have the shoulders and arms for it. Doesn’t he, mom?”

“Yes he does.”

Jane ran her fingers through her mother’s hair, got up, and walked out of the kitchen. The Rottweiler bounded after her. Muller was blushing. They could hear Jane speaking from another room.

“Cell phones,” Mrs. Danforth said. “I never know who she’s talking to. What’s a mother to do?” 

“I guess there has to be an element of trust,” Muller said.

  
Now Jane’s voice was louder. “I’m gonna show you my training schedule,” she called. “I want you to tell me what you think.”

“Glad to help,” Muller said, smiling at Mrs. Danforth, as if the two were helpless allies trying to keep pace with the girl.    
                                                                                                      --- 

Muller and Jane held hands as they walked through the back door and made their way over the grass toward the grove of trees, a mix of maple, spruce, and pine. Leaves were emerging from buds and spreading like jade necklaces. A soft breeze carried a heady smell, a blend of soil and blossom that struck Muller as just right. He was with a girl who had worked her body to an exalted state, a body that could release nothing but the same earthy scent. Muller found warm life in her fingers, and he clung to them like the two shared one bloodstream. He inhaled deeply and smelled only the sweet earth. 

They went from honeyed sunshine into cooler shade as they entered the woods. Muller looked up at the canopy of entwined treetops, with gaps filled by pools of sunlight. It looked majestic. He and Jane stopped and faced each other, their hands instinctively reaching out and settling onto the other’s waist. Jane leaned back into a dark maple.  

“I was a little nervous back there,” Muller said. “Being older and all. Not that I’m that old.” 

“You look young,” Jane said. “You look awesome.”

Muller laughed. He felt so delighted. “Not like you. You’re – incredible.”

“My mom was 16 when she married my dad,” Jane said. 

“So that’s what she meant,” Muller said.

Jane smiled. “She can be a real firecracker when she gets going.”

“How old was he?” Muller said. “17?”

“A little older. He’s gone now. Five years ago in March.”

“I’m sorry,” Muller said slowly as if his life depended on striking the right tone. 

“It’s okay. It just. Well, it made me a little more determined.”

As they kissed, Muller went deeply into her mouth as if trying to locate and absorb whatever it was that made her run. He pressed her against the tree. When they parted, she had pieces of bark on her shoulders and hair. They walked further into the woods where the shadows were dimmer, the air was cooler, and the ground was as soft as clouds.   

                                                                                                        ---

​

Later in his apartment Muller sat on a couch with a sheaf of papers on his lap. It was the training schedule drawn up by Jane’s coach that she wanted him to look at. He was hoping that the program had flaws, that he could criticize it and inflate himself further in the girl’s eyes. Though he felt pretty puffed up at the moment.

The schedule had been set down in a series of e-mails. What was the name of the guy? There: Danello, Tom in bold letters at the top of the page. The coach. 

Now there was a job for you. 

He skimmed the material. Progressive Run: Four miles. Intervals. Hill Run. One Mile Repeats.  Information about target heart rates. Anaerobic: 80-90% of mhr. Redline: 90-100%. Push yourself uphill!! Incline and Decline Chest Fly, Rapid Squats, etc. A paragraph about interval training.

The plan looked standard enough, though it seemed a decent amount of work had gone into it. Muller riffled through more pages. He saw a line of print in a smaller font at the bottom of a page. It would’ve been easy to miss.  

Dearest Janey, You have the sweetest breasts I’ve ever seen. 
                                                                                                ---

It was three weeks later. Muller hadn’t called Jane and she hadn’t contacted him. He understood that he had had a close call. He was relieved but he thought deeply about the girl in weak moments, and sometimes he couldn’t get past an empty feeling that put his striving loneliness in relief. 

Muller’s boss was named Jones, a guy with a crew cut and jug ears; he was about ten years Muller’s senior. They were sitting in Jones’s office and Jones was behind his desk looking into his laptop.

The boss leaned back with an amused look. “Big doings at your client’s place,” he said. “You hear about what’s going on at Lincoln Prep?”

Muller’s guard came up. “I don’t know. Some cows get loose?”

 
Jones read from his screen. “Science teacher suspended.”

  
“I hadn’t heard,” Muller said, relaxing a little.

“Here’s what I love,” Jones said. “’Inappropriate relationship with a student.’” He laughed. “Wonder what the hell that means. Any ideas?”

 
Muller’s stomach grew queasy. He stared at Jones. 

“You know this guy Danello?”

Muller shook his head.

“Wonder what kind of science he peddles,” Jones laughed. “Well he’s in deep shit now.”

 
Muller agreed. “Seems that way.”

“I can’t understand some bastard hittin’ on a kid—at work yet! You have got to be some dumb son of a bitch.”

Muller stared at him.

“Well anyway I thought I’d let you know,” Jones said. “Not that it matters anymore. Lincoln Prep reneged on its contract. So I don’t need you or anybody going there. At least till this thing’s settled.”

Jones gave Muller a speculative look. “What’s the matter?”  

Muller stood. “Got it. I’ll swing by Middletown later. All right?”

“Keep your hands to yourself,” Jones laughed.

​

Muller drove on Route 302 not far from Lincoln, past a horse farm and a corn field, his air conditioner blasting icicles. But it wasn’t cool enough. Sweat pooled beneath his neck and he could feel it spreading downward. By the time he got to Middletown, he’d need a shower. 

The road ahead didn’t seem real. He was gaining on a plodding tractor that looked like it was skating over a shimmering heat mirage. He turned the air up another notch. The system roared at him. 

Muller’s phone went off. He glanced down at the screen. The information startled and excited him. It said, “Janey D.” It sounded again, some stupid melody he hadn’t bothered to change. He pressed his brake gently. The Nissan slowed, its driver exerting a devilish type of control. 

​

                                                                                               THE END

​

​

​

​

​