Bossy Women Always Win

         “Did you get that hoodie at Dick’s?”

         I turned my head to the left and saw the owner of the voice. A short, slender girl barely topping out at five feet with cropped blonde hair and green eyes hidden by rectangular glasses. As an afterthought I noticed her lack of chest and figured high school must have let out early.

         With my usual sharp wit, I responded, “Huh?”

         “That hoodie, it’s one we sell at Dick’s”

         “Oh, yes I did buy it. It was on sale.”

         “Knew it,” she grinned as she exclaimed this, the smile brightening up her pale face; “I sell quite a few of those athletic hoodies.”

         “Oh…They hire high school kids at Dick’s?” I asked innocently.

         She scowled a bit, lines deepening in the corners of her mouth, “I’m a junior at Potsdam jerk.”

         “Oh, I’m sorry, I uh, I didn’t know.” I was a bit taken aback by this, but as I looked closer I could see her age a better.

         “So, do you run at all? That’s one of our best hoodies for track.” she asked, still with a slight frown.

         “A little, only when I run with my dog rea—”

         “Great,” she interrupted, “We should race then.”

         To say I was taken aback would be an understatement. A girl challenges me to a race out of the blue, all because I liked this cheap blue hoodie. It just seemed very surreal. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking. Was her training bra so tight it was cutting off oxygen to her brain?

         I swallowed the quip and said instead, “I don’t really run that much, like I said, it’s-”

         “Ooh, afraid you’d lose?” she taunted.

         “No, but I—-”

         “Good, let’s race, come on.”

         I realized the futility of my arguments and just followed the strange girl to the sidewalk. Damn bossy woman. No, I corrected myself; there are no bossy women, just women. Grinning at my unsaid joke, I followed the short girl.

          “This is the starting point.” she said, pointing at the sidewalk square, “The end of the sidewalk is our finish line, just across the street.”          

         “So we run across that busy street then? Great idea”, I commented dryly.

         “All part of the challenge, there's a crosswalk ain't there?”

         I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “All the way down there?”

         “What do you mean all the way down there? It’s not even a fifth of a mile.”

         I regarded the stretch from the starting point to the end like Moses must have looked at his journey across the desert.

         “I’ve just got no endurance for this.” I said, still trying to weasel my way out.

         She just flashed a lopsided grin and said, “On three, got it?”

         I groaned and glanced around, glad that there weren’t that many people out this early to see me lose to this uppity girl.

         “One.”

         I stretched my legs and started to feel a trickle of adrenaline seep into my veins.

         “Two.”

         I steeled myself, looking sideways at the girl who had just gotten into a natural sprinter’s position. I could also see the words “Track and Field” emblazoned on her sweatpants.

         Well shit.

         “Three!”

         Then I understood what being left in the dust really meant. It was like watching an antelope take off on the Discovery Channel. In comparison, I started to plod along far behind, trying to lengthen my stride so I could use my long legs to my advantage. Soon, my long shanks started to eat up the distance between us, but I could already feel embers starting to kindle in my lungs.

         My breathing ragged and my legs growing more stiff, I looked ahead to see the street 100 feet away and my heart almost stopped. The crosswalk light was on, but so was the traffic light for cars to cross the crosswalk. I started to slow my pace, but the girl, head down and breathing hard, did not. I started to speed back up, the embers growing into flames, burning my lungs.

         “Stop!”

         I shouted at the girl, but she just turned her head and smirked at me. I cursed myself for drawing her attention away.

         My body reacted before I could really think about it, and I really wish I had thought about it. I lunged at her, hands outstretched. My feet found a bump in the sidewalk and the lunge turned into a fall. I managed to grab the back of the girl’s sweatpants and I yanked for all I was worth.

         As I effectively pantsed the girl, two thoughts came to mind. The first was, chivalry is goddamn stupid. The second was, who the hell wears Hello Kitty panties? As my knees slid on the ground, I pulled the girl behind me as I hit the pavement in a tangle of limbs. The girl’s momentum landed her on top of my left arm. All these impacts registered as soon as I stopped rolling and had a nice view of the girl and the street.

         The girl was looking at me in disgust, but that soon faded as the heavy bass of a car’s stereo passed by. Some Jersey Shore reject was behind the wheel, talking on a cell phone.

         “There’s a car idiot” I grumbled.

         She just stared as her lips quivered and she started to shake. So, with my left arm still under her, I held her as best as I could. That initial exterior of a tough tomboy crumbled in the face of near death, as I assume it would for anyone.

         So I just tried to comfort her as she trembled in my arms. She relaxed after a minute and seemed content just to be next to me. As nice as it was to hold a girl for the first time in a year I said, “This is nice and all, but medical help would be better.”

         She got to her feet, pulled up her pants and she grinned that lopsided grin.

         “Thank you, can you get up?”

         Slowly, I got my broken self into a sitting position and that exhausted me more than the run.

         “Come on! The health office is just across the road!”

         Then she ran across the road as if she hadn’t almost become a pancake. Well, at least she looked both ways before she crossed the damn street. What a bossy woman. Still, like an idiot, I got up and chased after her. Well, hobbled anyway.