“ NOW WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF MARCH, YOU'RE PROBABLY THINKING you can shuck that Gore-Tex suit, start training in the kind of clothes you'll be wearing the day of the race. Forget it. Weather around here stays bad so long, it's better to keep warm when you run. Less chance of getting some kind of bug, knock you for a loop. Also more chance of losing a couple more pounds, which'll help your knees and ankles for the longer mileage this next month. So, stay with winter clothes for a while yet.
“ Another thing. You've got to start focusing on your diet more. Backtrack from race day. Morning of the marathon, real early like six in the A.M., eat a banana for potassium. And toast, no butter, for carbohydrates. Some of the world-classers, they carbo-deprive from about race minus ten days to race minus three days, then carboload for seventy-two hours. They know what their bodies can take; you don't. So instead, eat maybe sixty percent carbohydrates for about a week before the marathon. Carbos give you energy, and they also store water a lot better than proteins or fats. Forget anything with alcohol or caffeine for that week. They're diuretics, and you'd be peeing away water that you'll be needing during the race.
"Running the marathon, whether she's a warm day or cold, be sure to start drinking water early, even before you're thirsty. The water you drink at mile two is the water your body's using at mile twelve, and so on. Your system can't just absorb and benefit from water like a shot of adrenaline.
"One more thing for today. You'll be running as a bandit, not a qualyfier. Since the officials'll force you to the back of the pack anyway, take my advice and go way to the back, like the last two or three rows. It'll be slower for you at first, but then as things start to open up, you'll be passing people instead of being passed. Sounds like a little thing now, but that'll psych you up, make you feel like you're winning rather than losing. Feeling like you're losing can sap you,
wear you down mentally. And you just can't afford that over twenty-six miles, three hundred eighty-five yards."
You look like you did back in high school, John.
Smiling in becoming modesty, I laid Mrs. Feeney's St. Patrick's Day carnations crossways to her, the dipped-green flower heads slanting down toward the foggy harbor.
Well, maybe more like college.
"I have to admit, Beth, I feel pretty good physically. I thought I'd get rickety running almost every day, but I feel better, more relaxed even, than I have in years."
And Nancy. What does she think?
"She still thinks I'm stupid even to try it."
Really?
"That's what she says."
Oh, John. Always dense as a post that way.
"What do you mean?"
Don't you see that Nancy's opinion might be her way of supporting you?
"Frank1y, no."
Then think about it some more. Are you still working on that case for the law professor?
"Not much in the month since the shooting. I talked with everybody who seemed connected with guns."
What about the police?
"Ballistics couldn't do a lot with the slugs. Based on the alloy, they think it was older ammunition, though."
Older?
"Yes."
Is that helpful?
"Depends. If we can come up with another slug, they might be able to tell they came from the same batch and maybe even the same weapon. On the other hand, there haven't been any more notes since the shots were fired."
What about the gay man who…
"He's been doing pretty well, I think. He left a message for me to call him early this week. I've tried three times since, but his answering service says he's out of the office for a few days. The professor isn't due back from the West Coast till April, so everything else is kind of on hold for another month."
Does that mean you and Nancy can enjoy the parade today at Chuck's house?
"I will. Nancy's working on a murder one, which means we're just going to have dinner together afterward at my place."
So you're going to the party stag?
"Not exactly."
Not exactly?
"There's somebody I think could use some cheering up."
Inés Roja tugged on the bottom of her green sweater. "I have never seen a St. Patrick's Day parade."
I inched the Prelude through the traffic just east of the veterinary clinic. "I thought New York staged a pretty big one?"
"I never knew anyone to go with before."
The last time I'd checked in with Roja about notes and Maisy Andrus, the secretary had apologized for not being more available. She'd been putting in extra time with the vet because another volunteer had been sick. I'd asked her if that included Sundays. Inés said yes, but just in the morning. Knowing Nancy couldn't make it, I'd insisted over Roja's protestations that I'd be over to get her. At noon, in green.
I said, "Nice sweater."
Inés looked at me solemnly, as if to see if I was kidding. Apparently satisfied, she said, "Filene's Basement. A wonderful place."
I persuaded two barricades of cops to let us through on the strength of the address printed on our invitation. Chuck was born into the Lithuanian enclave in South Boston, his dad a marine wounded on Guadalcanal. Chuck left the city, making his fortune by wise investments. He returned to buy a huge white house occupying one of the few large pieces of land in Southie. A piece of land at the intersection where the parade wheels ninety degrees.
A big Irish flag in green, white, and orange rippled in the breeze over Chuck's front door. I parked the Prelude in his long driveway. As I killed the engine, Roja said, "Please don't leave me alone with people."
"I won't."
As it turned out, Inés was the hit of the party, a mixture of fifty or sixty people, only half of whom were descended from the Emerald Isle. We ate superb corned beef, drank enough Harp to float a PT boat, and got tours of the renovated house from Chuck himself, a rangy guy in a chartreuse shirt and cowboy hat. I took some good-natured ribbing about Nancy and heard Inés laugh for the first time, a merry, musical sound.
A whoop spread through the first floor, a lead element of the parade just reaching our corner. We joined the others carrying green beer and stronger spirits into the cold. Standing on the lawn, everyone applauded the bands and toasted the heroes and jeered the politicians. In between targets there were good stories and silly jokes and painful attempts to affect a brogue.
Back inside, folks opted for coffee and soft drinks to dilute the alcohol. As the party broke up around five, Inés and I said good-bye to Chuck, she helping me jockey the Prelude around the couple of cars that were staying later.
Stopping for a traffic light on Summer Street, Inés made a purring noise, then gave a tempered version of the merry laugh. "That was a wonderful party, John."
"It's a good time."
"The parade. You went to it every year?"
"When I was in the city. Even during Vietnam, when there wasn't much support for things military, the parade was a big thing because every block in the neighborhood had somebody in the service, many of them overseas."
"Tell me, from when you were a little boy, do you remember the parade the same way?"
"No, not really. I remember it being bigger and sharper and better. But I think that's just a function of growing up."
"Yes. Yes, you are right. We remember as better the things from when we were young."
I was about to keep the conversation going when I noticed a tear running down Roja's left cheek. I turned back to the windshield and watched the traffic instead.
At the Andrus house I pulled onto the sidewalk and came around to open the passenger door.
Inés got out and stood tall, still blinking away tears. Looking up into my eyes, she said, "That was the best time I have had in many years, John. If only…"
At which point Roja shook her head and pushed past me, fumbling out a key to open and close the front door as fast as she could.
"You didn't have enough at Chuck's?"
I took the wineglass from Nancy's hand. "Just carbos so far today."
" 'Carbos'?"
"Bread and beer."
"I hope you're learning more about running than you have about nutrition." She pushed the sleeves of a cowl-necked sweater up to her elbows. Topping off her glass, she raised it. "To St. Patrick?"
"Not after work kept you from the party. How about 'To forever'."
Nancy clinked her glass against mine with that half smile that makes a little ping in my chest. "To forever."
A minute later I had two hands on the steak tray, aiming it for the oven, when the phone rang in the living room.
"Nance, can you get that?"
"Sure."
I centered the steaks and flipped the dial to Broil. I was just setting the timer when Nancy's head came around the corner, minus the smile.
"It's Del Wonsley."