After my shift ended, I stayed on to talk to Ben.  I needed to lay out my incredible blunder to someone but I was also looking to share the blame.  After all, hadn’t it been his advice to try to get in with the mother?

“Man, I’m not sure if that’s ingenious or incredibly stupid,” Ben said to me after my plight was told.

“I’m leaning towards the stupid description myself,” I replied.  “First, I was a guy without a girlfriend and now I’m two guys pursuing the same girl.”

“You mean one guy,” Ben pointed out.  “One guy pursuing but maybe also one guy that her mother wants to set up with her daughter.  I don’t know whether to envy you or hit you over the head.”

As if to answer, I leaned forward and offered myself up for the blow.

“I know one thing for sure, Steve Wilson isn’t going to show his face around there again,” I said.  It was the only clear path forward for me.

“Wait a minute,” Ben chided.  “Steve Wilson’s your in with her mother.  Don’t throw that away.”

“But Steve Wilson’s not real!” I exclaimed.  “I can’t keep on being Steve Wilson with her mother and Jeff Carter with Pippa.  I’m going to get found out!”

“Not if you don’t get caught,” Ben offered up.  “Her mother’s looking for information on Pippa and you’re looking to resolve a stalemate between Pippa and her mother.  Steve Wilson is the guy that can do that for you.”

“But Steve Wilson’s not real!” I exclaimed again.

“I know that and you know that but her mother doesn’t know that.  Steve Wilson is someone her mother has already met and accepted.  Now you go to work on Pippa and let her know about Steve Wilson.  If Pippa’s in on it then you are Steve Wilson whenever you’re around her Mother.”  I wasn’t sure if I was going crazy but what Ben was saying was sounding logical to me.

“Eventually the truth is going to come out,” I said.

“Eventually is the future, Jeff.  I say you take what you can whether that’s as Steve Wilson or as Jeff Carter.  Don’t worry about the future until you have to.”

Admittedly Ben was making a great deal of sense.  Why worry about the future when my present could be spent with Pippa?
“I’ll think about it,” I said.

After I left Ben at the Texaco, I decided to do a nighttime run by the avocado house in order to mull over Ben’s advice.  It was after midnight when I ran past and there were no lights on in the house.  I noticed that the recliner was gone as well.  Hopefully, it had found a good home.  Frankly, I didn’t really give a damn about the recliner.  If it hadn’t been for the recliner, I would not have stopped to lend assistance to Pippa’s mother.  Her mother’s vehicle was in the car-port so that eliminated any temptation.  If the car hadn’t been there I might have decided to go around to Pippa’s bedroom window and rap on it until she awakened.  I’m not sure what I would have said to her but in my frame of mind, I might just have been stupid enough to tell her the truth.

I should have killed off Steve Wilson when I had the chance.  In fact, I should never have given birth to him.  I had been desperate and worried and I panicked.  Now, I was stuck with him.  After my midnight run, I decided to commit myself to Ben’s plan if it wasn’t already too late.  If Pippa could look past my indiscretion and play along with me as Steve Wilson then we could be together.  Getting Pippa to that point was only one of my concerns.  What if Pippa’s mother had already confronted her daughter and grilled her about dating someone on the track team?  Information she had garnered from none other than Steve Wilson.  

Ben had said to focus on the now and let the future sort itself out.  I should have realized that was a mistake.  The future is unpredictable unless you do something now to direct the outcome.  I was trying a bit to focus on that aspect.  I was worried about what was coming toward me and was trying to figure out how to deflect it away from me or at least find a way to get out of its path.

Steve Wilson was the source of all my problems but he also had to be the key to any solution.  I had created this character out of desperation and he existed now in the real world as far as Pippa’s mother was concerned.  Steve Wilson had no bearing when it came to my relationship with Pippa.  I was Jeff Carter or Pink and until my recent stupidity, I had always been a nice honest guy.  I knew Pippa saw me that way but her mother only saw me that way as Steve Wilson.  

When I left Pippa’s house after my midnight run I stopped at the school track.  There was a moon out by then so I could see the track quite well.  I had been accustomed to carrying a backpack with my running shorts and new sneakers in case I decided to do some running after work.  Usually, I had only stuck to running home but I’d deviated by running past the avocado house in the dark then was running the track by moonlight.  

My laps that night were almost purposeless.  My thoughts were full of Pippa and her mother and that idiot Steve Wilson.  I hated him and I channelled that hate into my running that night.  I imagined running so fast that I left all of my problems behind me.  I imagined not Pippa passing me but Steve Wilson and I ran harder trying to catch him and leave him in my wake.  It was stupid but Steve Wilson kept pace with me and there was no shaking him.

I said my laps served no purpose but they did manage to exhaust me.  I was bone tired when I got home and I fell into bed without changing out of my clothes.  My dreams that night were fitful but I remember racing against an identical me in the guise of Steve Wilson in Collegiate colours.  We were racing against each other in the long relay and he was keeping pace with me.  When it came time for the baton handoff, I was passing to another me.  It was Jeff Carter or Pink because he was dressed exactly like me.  We tried to make the connection but we faltered and dropped the baton.  Steve Wilson passed to himself and kept on racing.

I woke up drenched in sweat as if I had really competed in a track event.  I didn’t know what the dream meant but I suspected it wasn’t anything good.  My interpretation was that we were running toward the future and Steve Wilson was the only one to make the transition in that race.  

Before I left the Texaco, the previous night, I had arranged for an afternoon run with Ben.  He didn’t have to work the next day and he could catch up on his sleep later.  I needed a running partner because I was planning to run the Harrier route again past Pippa’s house.  I knew that Pippa would be working but I wanted to show myself running down her street in case her mother was home.  My thought was that by running past the avocado house, I wasn’t running away from any conflict.  As much as I wanted to get rid of Steve Wilson I realized if Steve Wilson suddenly changed his pattern and disappeared then her mother would have become suspicious of Steve Wilson.  My fear then would be that she would begin a deeper investigation into my alter ego and everything would come to a head too soon.  With Ben in tow, if we did come across Pippa’s mother then she would be less likely to be suspect of Steve Wilson as anything other than a runner in training.  I knew Ben would back me up.

I needn’t have worried.  Her mother was not home when we ran past.  I pointed out the avocado house to Ben and mentioned I’d only been invited in once by Pippa and once by her mother.  I wasn’t building up a very good visitor record.  We continued on our run but it began to rain so we both hustled on our way.  Ben went his way and I hurried off home because I still had to work that evening.

By the time I arrived at work, it was raining quite considerably.  I had a pattern of not stopping at Pippa’s place of work when it was raining because I didn’t want to get drenched running back across the street to the Texaco.  On those days, Pippa hurried home as well to avoid the rain and would skip meeting up with me.

I was well-established in the kiosk when it came time for Pippa to leave from work.  I had been hoping to catch a glimpse of her even if she was not stopping around.  A few minutes had gone by after her expected time but I didn’t see her.  It was shortly after that when a very familiar automobile pulled into the Texaco to fuel up.  I recognized it as Pippa’s mother’s car and when she got out to pump the gas, I recognized her immediately.  I tried to avoid looking directly at her but I was surprised when I looked past her and saw Pippa in the front passenger seat.  Her bicycle was sticking out of the trunk with the hatch secured by a rope.  Obviously, she was getting a ride home due to the rain or maybe her mother was even more suspicious and moving into another stage of protectiveness.

Pippa looked a little nervous sitting alone in the car but managed a little wave toward me when her mother wasn’t looking.  I didn’t wave back because I was facing her mother and her mother knew me as Steve Wilson and in that guise, I had said I only knew her daughter in passing.  Eventually, as I knew she must, her mother came to the kiosk window to pay for her gasoline.  There was no way that she couldn’t spot me. 

“Oh, hi Steve,” she said as soon as she recognized me.  “I didn’t know you worked here.  What a coincidence.  My daughter works across the road.  That’s her in the car.”  I pretended to show no interest but also not to look too disinterested so that Pippa’s mother wouldn’t think I was deliberately trying to avoid interest because I had something to hide.

“Oh, hello Mrs. Bailey,” I replied, “that is a coincidence.  I don’t go in there myself because I’m not a fan of their burgers.”  That was partly true.  Steve Wilson didn’t frequent that restaurant and Jeff Carter didn’t like the burgers.

“I’ll tell my daughter that.  She might get a laugh out of it.  Well, no sense gabbing out here in the rain,” she said as she made an effort to go.  “Maybe I’ll see you running past the house again.”

“Maybe,” I commented.  She had made her payment and her pleasantries and was now on her way back to her car.  I didn’t dare acknowledge Pippa but I so wanted to warn her.

That was close.  It was one thing to be Steve Wilson when I was running past her house but it was another to be Steve Wilson out in public.  There were getting to be fewer and fewer places I could be Jeff Carter.

I watched Pippa and her mother drive away.  What were they talking about in the car?  What would they talk about at home? It didn’t seem like anything had come out of the day before at the avocado house because Pippa had at least acknowledged me with a wave.  If her mother had said anything then I’m sure I would have been ignored.  Her mother also didn’t act like she knew Steve Wilson and Pippa’s secret boyfriend were the same.  That future Ben had told me to ignore was coming faster toward me than I had expected.

I was feeling alone and scared.  I needed to talk to someone.  Ben wasn’t working that night so I decided to give him a call and hoped he was awake.  He tended to go to bed early on the nights he wasn’t working.  There were a list of employee names and phone numbers on the back wall of the kiosk.  I called up Ben and told him about the encounter at the Texaco.

“You told her Mother that you didn’t like the burgers across the road?” he asked after I had detailed what had transpired.  “You really messed up there.”

“I did?  But it’s true, I don’t really like their burgers.  I wasn’t lying about that.”  I was trying to justify the comment.  It seemed innocent enough.

“But didn’t she say she was going to tell her daughter to see if she got a laugh out of it?”

I had forgotten about that.  Ben was right.  I really had messed up there.  I could almost imagine the conversation.

“Say, Pippa,” her mother would begin, “do you know that Steve doesn’t like the burgers where you work?”

“Steve, who’s Steve?”  Pippa would ask.  

“Oh, Steve’s the young man who works in the kiosk at the Texaco,” her mother will respond.

Either Pippa will slip up and say “that’s not Steve, that’s Jeff” or “his name’s not Steve, it’s Pink.” Or maybe she would ask how her mother knows this Steve she was talking about.

It would all come out then.  If Pippa revealed my true name then her mother would know I was lying about Steve Wilson.  She would tell her daughter that first, she shouldn’t have been sneaking around dating a boy at all and second this boy was not to be trusted because he had lied about his identity.

There would definitely be an argument and the short of it would be her mother would tell Pippa she couldn’t see me anymore or Pippa would be angry at me for the deceit and she would make the decision not to see me anymore.  Regardless of the outcome, it didn’t look good for me.

“What are you going to do man?”

I suddenly realized I was still on a phone call with Ben.  My mind had travelled to that future I had been contemplating either avoiding or trying to control.

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “I think my world’s unravelling as we speak…as they speak”

“Don’t panic Jeff.  Remember what Coach says, stay in your lane.  Keep moving forward.”

“Shut up Ben,” I countered.  “Running’s what got me into this.  If I hadn’t run by her house that day, I wouldn’t have met her mother.”

“The advice is still sound,” Ben replied.  “The race hasn’t changed.  You don’t know yet your girlfriend knows about Steve Wilson.  The way I see it, you keep on being Jeff with Pippa unless you get the signal she knows the truth.  Keep running the path and when it crosses the mother you pass the baton off to Steve Wilson.  Don’t fall back on the truth until you need that option.”

“But I think I should tell Pippa the truth now.  Maybe you’re right, maybe she doesn’t know but convincing her to go along with me being Steve Wilson is sounding crazier and crazier.”

“Suit yourself Jeff but allow me to make one last suggestion.”

“What’s that?” I asked with curiosity building.

“Learn to like the burgers across the road,” he replied.

“Thanks a lot, Ben.  Go back to sleep.”

After I hung up the phone with Ben, I mulled everything over.  I didn’t think Ben had been much help.  Of course, he had pointed out where I had erred.  I shouldn’t have made the comment about the burgers.  Pippa’s mother would undoubtedly mention that to her daughter.  I felt like that mistake was going to lead to the death of my relationship with Pippa and it would be forever etched on my tombstone:  “Here Lies Jeff Carter, He Died Alone And Unloved Because He Told His Girlfriend’s Mother He Didn’t like the Burgers.”

I had to know where I stood with Pippa.  My conversation with Ben hadn’t helped and I was growing more and more desperate.  I was so desperate in fact that I decided to run by her house after my shift.

The rain had at least stopped by the time I reached the avocado house.  It wasn’t quite midnight when I arrived at Pippa’s home.  There was no moon and the nearest streetlight was down about half a block.  I knew that Pippa’s bedroom window was around the back of the house and I would have to let myself in through a gate into the fenced yard.  

The gate to the rear yard was accessible through the back of the carport and connected up with the side of the house.  I cautiously made my way through the carport alongside her mother’s car and made sure that I hunched down as I made my way past and underneath a kitchen window and the one for the bathroom.  I quietly unlatched the fence and let myself into the yard.  There were two windows at the back of the house and I knew the closest one was Pippa’s and the far one was for her mother’s bedroom.

There was no light on in her mother’s bedroom but the glow of a lamp emanated from Pippa’s room.  I had to be very quiet so I didn’t startle her or make any other noise to awaken her mother.  Hunkered below the sill I reached up and began to make a scratching noise at the window.  I waited until I could hear the window slide back.  There was no screen so Pippa’s head appeared in the opening.  I rapidly rose in one motion and clamped my hand over her mouth.

Pippa started to squirm and it looked like she would have screamed if she hadn’t immediately recognized me.

“Pink, what are you doing here?” she whispered.  “You scared me half to death.”

“I need to talk to you,” I whispered back.

Pippa put a finger to her lips to silence me and then made gestures that I should go back the way I came.

“But I need to see you,” I said as quietly as I could but still adding emphasis.

“I’m trying to tell you to meet me in the carport.”  I had obviously mistaken her gesturing as instructions to leave.  I believe she knew something about me or Steve Wilson and she didn’t want to talk to me ever again.  Asking me to stick around and meet her in a different location was at least a positive sign.

I made my way to the carport and closed the gate behind me.  Pippa was quietly exiting the house as I came along even with the side door.

“Pink, what are you doing here?” she asked still whispering.  She had asked me that before but I hadn’t noticed until she repeated it again that she had addressed me as Pink.  I wasn’t Jeff and I wasn’t Steve.  I wanted to heave a loud sigh of relief but I couldn’t risk it.

“I needed to see you,” I said trying to match the volume of her voice.

“I know we didn’t get to see each other today at the Texaco or at my work but it was raining.  My mother gave me a ride.  Remember, I gave you that wave?  Couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow?  My mother might come out here at any minute.”  

I froze.  I wasn’t sure how to answer.  Everything seemed to be okay.  Did I risk exposing the truth?

“Pink, you shouldn’t be here,” Pippa said.  “What is this all about?”

“I love you.”  I had found my voice.  “I needed to tell you that.  I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.”  That was the first time I had ever told her I loved her.

Pippa fell into my arms and hugged me.  I heard her whisper in my ear.  “You’re crazy.  You come here in the middle of the night and risk getting caught by my mother to tell me you love me.  It’s about time.  Do you know how long I’ve been in love with you?  I’ve loved you ever since that slap.  I had hurt you so much and when I realized how much hurting you was hurting me, I realized I was in love with you.”

This was madness.  Here it was midnight and we were confessing our love to each other for the first time in her family’s garage.

“I needed you to know that,” I said.  “I’d risk anything to tell you that but I also don’t ever want to hurt you.”  I was building to the truth.

“Pink, I wouldn’t want to hurt you either, “she responded. “I’ve done that once and I’ll never do it again.  To be honest, I’d rather lie to you or keep the truth from you than to ever hurt you again.”

Okay, wait.  She said she’d rather lie to me or withhold the truth to prevent from hurting me?  That cut me to the quick.  What was I to do?  If I told her the truth then it would upset her and I just couldn’t do that.  Did she just give me an out?  If she could keep the truth from me so I wouldn’t get hurt then wouldn’t that work both ways?

“Pink, you have to go.  It’s not just my mother that I’m worried about but Roger’s here too.”

I hadn’t seen Roger’s motorcycle but when I looked over the hood of her mother’s car I could see the handlebars.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked.  We were still embracing and whispering into each other’s ears.

“He wiped out on a slick road just outside of town.  He’s alright but the motorcycle has some scratches and dents.  That’s why my mother picked me up from work.  She wanted to talk to me about Roger.  She hates that motorcycle and now that Roger’s afraid to go home and face my dad about it, Mom’s hoping she and I can convince Roger to move back in here.”

I pulled myself back from Pippa and looked at her.  I certainly didn’t want to face her mother but imagining a confrontation with her brother might be even worse.

“Does Roger know about us?” I asked.

“You’re a well-kept secret Pink, she replied.  “I can’t let Roger find out or he might tell both of my parents.  I’m sorry Pink but you better leave.  Give me just a little more time.  I’ll think of something.”

That loud sigh of relief I had wanted to utter earlier when I realized she was still calling me Pink would have been a murmur compared to the one I wanted to sigh at that moment.  I hadn’t ruined everything.  My comment about the burgers had not been passed on to Pippa.  Obviously, Roger’s accident was the topic of discussion and I was in the clear…for now.  I decided to give her that time she asked for and during that period, I was determined to make Steve Wilson disappear.

We embraced again and I told her I loved her again.  She went back into the house and I quietly stole away.  

On my way home, I stopped by the track to run a few more laps.  It was back to changing in the bushes again.  

There was no moon and the track was not lit.  It was stupid to run the track but I could make out the general shape and I could see the track beneath my feet.  The rest was instinct.  My feet found their path and I jogged slow and steady.

My mind started to clear.  I didn’t have to do anything.  Steve Wilson could run alongside me all he wanted.  It wasn’t a competition.  My girlfriend had virtually given me permission to lie to her so she wouldn’t be hurt.  I was trying to see a downside.  Ben had been right, I didn’t need to worry about the future in the now.  The future was unfolding on its own and I wouldn’t have to get out of the way of it.  I had to run toward the future and embrace it.

The future was shining in the distance.  The future was looking brighter. 

Unfortunately, it was night time and I couldn’t see the dark clouds on the horizon.