Maternity Leave Read Free Page A

smokes you in the sprints each and every time. Plus, she’s still really strong. As long as she can sprint and has teammates to get her there, she’s not relinquishing her designation as top dog, especially to a new rider like you.”
    I turned on Danny who sat casually in the driver’s seat, arm out the window, trim and tanned in his shorts and white T-shirt. “What does that mean?”
    “You’re already stronger than her and you’ve not even been racing a year
and
you’re doing it in your spare time when you’re not doing your little gig as a lawyer. It took her five years of sucking before she got to the top and she didn’t have a full-time job. You’re making it look too easy. She’s going to go ape shit when you learn how to sprint.”
    “I was a runner before becoming a cyclist. She was a chain smoker. Besides, if I’m so worthy of jealousy, why does every other girl in Florida want to be on her team? I swear Brenda is slipping those girls some sort of tainted Gatorade because there is no other reason for them to adore her.”
    “She’s the only professional female racer Florida has ever produced. Every single one of them thinks they’re racing for Lancette Armstrong and wants to impress their team captain. Besides, she’s mercurial. Her teammates have only seen her good side and you’ve only seen her bad side. Her teammates are actually nice, they’re just being aloof with you because they’re intimidated by you and don’t want to piss Brenda off.”
    “No one is intimidated by me. Did you see her henchman ram me into the curb?”
    “Sammy is a former track rider, that’s how they ride. Scary, but legal. Tomorrow is a hilly road race. It’s more suited to you and less suited to Brenda and her teammates. You’ll be fine. Sammy’s fat ass won’t even make it over the first hill.”
    “That’s a relief.”
    “Relax, everyone’s fighting to be the big fish in the little sea here. Things will be better when you go pro and the women are more supportive and less threatened by you.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “They seem respectful and professional when I read interviews and post-race comments on the Internet. I want to race at the level when that happens.”
    “You will.” Danny said this matter-of-factly.
    “I’ll never be able to turn pro unless I quit my job and sell my house. A drastic move to chase a dream where even the most seasoned professional woman rarely earns a five figure-salary.”
    “You’re smart, you’ll figure something out.”
    When I got home from the race, I napped for four hours then went out for drinks with some of my friends. I am single, as I have been for most of my life, save for a few disastrous relationships and horrendous first dates. I bear a lot of the fault for this, because I want to be swept off my feet by somebody tall, dark and handsome, who is athletic, brilliant, funny, nice, rich, and lives to please me. This results in being alone for long stretches of time. In reality, I like being alone and am not interested in any of the men I meet. However, I have made a concerted effort to date more often recently because I am nearing thirty and it is clear to me that, at this rate, I will surely be alone for the rest of my life. Consequently, I have forced myself to lower my standards and agree to dates that my gut urges me to avoid. If a guy is off-the-wall brilliant, he can be slack in all other areas and becomes dateable as long as he isn’t bland, hideous, on welfare, fat, and so forth. The same theory applies if a guy is an Olympic-caliber athlete, obscenely handsome, filthy rich or ridiculously funny. As a result, I have not dated the most well-balanced men.
    Even when I think I meet “the one,” there’s always a problem. Jason preferred
Friends
to
Seinfeld
; Alex sent emails confusing
to, two
and
too
(keeping
their, there
and
they’re
straight is also very important to me); Peter kept Kosher; Dan went to church; Aiden disliked beer; Mike knew too