Beverly Hills Maasai (19 page)

Our driver pulled the golf cart off to the very side of the boulevard, tight to the rope and directly under the big, blinking, ticking clock. I jumped off before he’d completely come to a stop and stumbled forward, almost losing my footing. Perhaps heels weren’t the wisest footwear for a marathon, even if I was only a spectator … but they were such
nice
heels.

The first three runners were almost upon us. Free of all the other runners, they were moving amazingly fast. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it.

“You can tell by the way they move,” the driver said. “They don’t run as much as
glide.”

I watched as they got closer. He was right. “Running” was hardly the right word to describe their motion. It seemed so effortless. They certainly
didn’t look as though they’d just covered ten miles—and done it in way less than fifty minutes. That was almost unbelievable.

A round of applause erupted as they passed along the route. It was loud, but not as loud as the cheers that had been following my Maasai.

“Mom, I need you to take a picture of the clock when the first three runners pass by.”

“If you want, but I don’t really know if it’s such a wonderful shot.”

“I want you to take the picture so we can snap another picture when Nebala passes by. That way we’ll know, to the second, how far they’re behind.”

“That’s a great idea,” Olivia said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. I need you to count the runners.”

“All of them?” she gasped.

“All of them until Nebala and Samuel and Koyati pass by. I need to know exactly how many runners are in front of them.”

“I don’t know if I can count them all … What if I miss a few?”

“That’s okay. Just sort of get a rough count. Do the best you can.”

The front runners got closer, and the people around us started to clap and cheer them on. I felt like booing, or maybe sticking a foot way, way out and trying to trip them. That wouldn’t have been very sporting, and it wouldn’t have worked, and it also would have potentially ruined a simply spectacular pair of Prada pumps.

“Take the picture of the clock now,” I said to my mother.

It read 46:45. They were doing each mile at just under a four-minute, forty-second pace. That was incredible … incredibly awful. Even if the Maasai had picked up their pace—by almost thirty seconds a mile—they’d still have fallen even
farther
behind the leaders.

“Are you counting, Olivia?”

“So far the magic number is three, but that’s going to change soon.”

Down the road, closing fast, was the pack of runners. I tried to do a quick count. There might have been thirty, maybe forty-five. They were all bunched in together so closely that they looked like one large organism with multiple heads bobbing and legs pumping, all wrapped within a bizarrely coloured spandex skin.

They ran by to renewed cheering from the crowd lining the route. I looked up at the clock: 47:20.

“I think that was about fifty,” Olivia said.

I wasn’t going to argue. That was close enough.

“Do any of those guys have a chance to win?” I asked our driver.

“A number of runners—including a few I know are in that pack—are sprint specialists. If they can get to within thirty or forty seconds of the front runners during the last mile or so they can kick into a much faster gear and overcome the leaders.”

It was good to know that he felt somebody could still beat the three front runners. Although as we stood there a steady stream of other runners raced past us, and none of them were our Maasai.

“You still counting?”

“Still trying … not easy … ninety-four … ninety-five, six, and seven.”

There was a steady line of runners racing down the road. It wasn’t a stream, but it was more than a trickle. And none of them were Maasai.

I climbed up onto the side of the golf cart so I could get more height and see farther back down the boulevard. I still didn’t see them. With each second, more runners were passing by.

I started thinking about what they were trying to do. I knew how hard it was to run a marathon. I knew how many thousands of runners—good runners … no,
great
runners … no, no, world
champion
runners—were in this race, but I’d always just thought that my guys were going to cross the finish line first. After all, as they liked to point out, they were Maasai. Now, standing here, I wasn’t sure. Not that I was counting them out, but really, could they pass all these runners and win?

Then again, they didn’t have to win the marathon; they just had to win enough money to pay for their well. And of course the airfare back. And some cows to make up for the ones they’d sold to get here. Even with all that, it wasn’t that much money.

“Excuse me,” I asked the driver. “I know how much money the first few racers get, but do lots of people get prize money?”

“I think there’s money for the first two dozen places.”

“So even runner number twenty-four takes home money?” This was wonderful news.

“I think around ten thousand.”

“That’s pretty good money,” I said.

I did a little mental calculation. Three airplane tickets at $2,800 per ticket would be $8,400—that would leave $1,600, which would be enough to buy almost twenty cows. That wouldn’t be enough to replace their herds, but it would be a start … although there would be no money to drill a well. Still, they could go home. Maybe come back another year and try.

Or maybe they could finish twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth, and then they would have enough money. All they had to do was finish behind twenty-one other runners. Let the Olympic gold medallist, the two world record holders, some sprint specialists, and a few other assorted runners beat them, and they could still drill the well and return home as champions.

“I think I see them,” my mother said.

I craned my neck to look as far as I could. The distance was a little blurry. I was starting to think I might need glasses. I didn’t want to admit that, even to myself. I knew there were wonderful designer frames available, and lots of the beautiful people wore them, but glasses were never going to be in—Oh, there they were!

They were running single file. Nebala was leading, then came Koyati, and Samuel was just a step behind.

“Olivia, how many runners have passed?” I asked.

“Around seven hundred and fifty.”

“Are you sure?” I snapped.

“I’m not sure of anything. It could be seven hundred
or it could be eight hundred and fifty. That’s just my best guess.”

“Sorry.”

Next I looked at the clock: 49:31 and counting.

I jumped off the cart and ran—as fast as my little heeled feet would carry me—until I was standing in the boulevard, with other runners brushing by me. The Maasai were getting closer and closer and closer. Nebala looked up, saw me, and waved and smiled. That was so good. After ten miles he was still smiling.

The ripple of applause built as they came closer. It was loud—much louder than it had been even for the
leaders.

“You’re doing great!” I yelled out. “You’ve already passed over twenty-four thousand runners!”

I thought it was better to tell them how many they’d passed rather than how many more they still had to get in front of. There was plenty of time for that, and maybe by the fifteen-mile mark there would be a lot fewer people in front.

They’d be here and then past me in a few seconds, and I needed to say more. I’d have to run along with them. I could do that for a couple of dozen yards … if I wasn’t wearing heels.

They were practically on top of me. I kicked off my heels and ran in my bare feet.

“How are you doing?” I asked as I started to run beside Nebala.

“We are doing.”

“Are you feeling okay … Are you doing okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Good. You’re doing good … but you have to run faster!” I said.

“Faster?” Nebala spun his head to face me.

“Yes, faster. You have to run faster.”

I was struggling to keep up with them. How could anybody possibly run so fast for so long?

“Can you run faster?” I asked.

“We are Maasai.”

Nebala barked out a word in Swahili and then he picked up the pace, and as Koyati and Samuel matched his pace I started to fade. I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t need to keep up.

“Keep running!” I yelled.

I started to slow down and was bumped suddenly from behind.

“Sorry!” a man yelled as he brushed by me.

I scrambled over to the side, nearly colliding with another runner en route as I managed to get out of the flow of the runners. Safely over by the rope I doubled over and tried to catch my breath. And I’d run with them for only thirty seconds!

The golf cart came whizzing up, with my mother and Olivia looking over the back seat toward me. The driver came to a stop right beside me.

“Jump in!” the driver said.

“I can’t. I have to go back to get my shoes.” That was three hundred dollars’ worth of Italian leather lying there in the middle of the street.

“I retrieved them,” Olivia said, holding them up.

I climbed in. “Thanks, that was so—What happened to my Pradas?” I gasped as I took them. The
leather was all scuffed up and there was a little rip on the side of one of them.

“I think they were stepped on.”

“By an elephant?”

“By a number of runners who didn’t see them on the road,” the driver said. “We’re just lucky that nothing serious happened.”

“Nothing?” I asked. “Look at these shoes! They’re practically
ruined!”

“But nobody tripped or fell down or was injured,” the driver said. “That would have been serious.”

Okay, I understood what he meant.

“I should have got them sooner,” Olivia apologized.

“It’s not your fault. Thanks for getting them as soon as you did. Let’s get going.”

The driver put the cart into gear, and we jumped forward as if the little vehicle had been stung by a bee. I slipped my shoes back on.

“I got some great shots as they passed,” my mother said. “They’ll look fantastic on the website.”

“Have you thought about doing that for a living?” the driver asked.

“Photography?”

“No, website design.”

Now I was feeling even guiltier about not having looked at it.

“Right now, I just hope that this website’s story has a happy ending,” my mother said.

“You mean with them winning the marathon?” the driver asked.

“That would be—”

“Do you think they could do that?” I asked, cutting off my mother.

“I think they’ve done very, very well …
so far.
I mean, to start in the last grid and get this far, at this pace, is in itself a major victory.”

“But you still don’t think they can win, do you?”

“If you look at things objectively they’re still a tremendous long shot. They’ve never even run a marathon before, so we don’t know if they can run the distance.”

“Oh, they can run that far, believe me.”

“But can they run that far at the pace they set for the first ten miles?” he asked. “That’s the question.”

It was. I only wished I had an answer.

The second group of runners—a total of about twenty-five—passed by. I looked at the clock: 1:15:30. These runners were now over a minute and fifteen seconds behind the three in front. They had lost thirty-three seconds in their race to catch the leaders. That didn’t matter much. What really mattered was how far back
our
guys were. I didn’t see them yet. In fact, I didn’t really see that many runners. There was a thin, straggly line of runners spread out into the distance.

“You’re counting, right, Olivia?”

“I’m counting. Do you see them?”

“Not yet.”

“Have they fallen farther behind?”

“Don’t know. Don’t see them.”

“But weren’t they only a couple of minutes behind at the ten-mile mark?” she asked.

“Two minutes and forty-six seconds behind the leaders, and two minutes and eleven seconds behind the second group.”

“How do all those numbers stick in your head?”

“They just do.”

There was a honk and I started, jumping out of the way, but there was no cart. The horn sounded again and I spun around. A little golf cart was coming toward us from the other direction—going against the flow of the runners and all the other race vehicles. He laid on the horn again. Why was he honking? He wasn’t even close to us.

Then I recognized the driver. It was Dakota Rivers! His cart squealed to a stop right beside me, and Dakota jumped out. His being here could mean nothing good. Was he going to kick us off the course, or try to disqualify our runners? I wasn’t going to let him get started. The best defence, I knew, is often an offence.

“You have some nerve showing up!” I exclaimed.

He looked surprised by my response. That was good.

“My father is looking for you at the finish line. Is that why you’re out here, so you can hide from him?”

“I’m not hiding from anybody. Actually, I came out looking for you.”

“Me?”

“Well, you and those Maasai.”

“You’d better not try to interfere with them in any way … or
else.
As it is, there’s hardly any hope that my father isn’t going to sue you. The nerve of you to put them in the last grid position!”

“Where else would I put runners with no qualifying times?”

“So why are you here?”

“I just wanted to see how our Maasai runners are doing.”

“Our
runners? Don’t you mean
my
runners?”

“Everybody in this race is one of our runners.”

“Like you even wanted them in your race to begin with!” I huffed.

“I certainly
am
pleased that they’re in the race.”

I gave him a look of total disbelief.

“I’m serious,” he said. “The press is just eating this up. They are becoming
quite
the story.”

“A story you didn’t want told, because you didn’t think it had enough class for your marathon!” I snapped.

“I’m so sorry if you got that impression. I certainly never met to imply that.”