The Soccer Star's Forgotten Wife novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Forty Meters

Meg trains with Robin, Cody and his stopwatch-mad daughter while the agent's viral clip calls her a crazy housekeeper, and on test morning Dex is waiting in the bleachers.

Cody Duffield was waiting at the gate of the high school track in Wash Park at six on Saturday night.

He was taller than I remembered, in a gray fleece with reading glasses pushed up on his head.

He had a clipboard.

Of course he had a clipboard.

"Raynor," he said.

"Duffield."

Five years ago he'd run my line for a whole season.

He was the assistant every center wanted, because he was never wrong about offside and never let you forget it.

"The chief says you've got nine days," he said.

"Eight and a half."

"Eight and a half." He wrote it down. "You still run like you're angry at the grass?"

"I'm angry at a lot of things."

"Good. Use it." He looked at me over the clipboard. "For the record, I never believed you quit for personal reasons."

I didn't know what to say to that.

So I started stretching.

A small girl in a referee jersey that came down to her knees climbed out of his truck.

She had dark-blond braids, a gap in her front teeth and a stopwatch on a lanyard.

"This is Junie," Cody said. "She's nine. She's in charge."

Junie looked me up and down.

"Are you the one who's out of shape?"

"Junie."

"Dad said she's five years out of shape. That's a long time."

"It is a long time," I said.

"Okay." She held up the stopwatch. "Go to the line, please."

The first night was a disaster.

I ran six sprints of forty meters and Junie read every time out loud in a voice like a judge at a hanging.

"Six point nine. Bad."

"Seven point one. Worse."

I threw up behind the bleachers after the fourth.

Robin rubbed my back with one hand and ate a granola bar with the other.

"That's the five years coming out," she said. "Better out than in."

Sunday was worse.

Tuesday Junie said "okay" instead of "bad."

"Your arms are crossing," he'd say. "You're running like you're carrying groceries."

"I carried groceries for five years."

"Then put them down."

Wednesday the clip went up.

Somebody at the steakhouse had filmed it on a phone, and somebody else had cut it.

It started on me in his gray T-shirt and sweatpants, hair falling out of the tie.

It cut out the photo.

It cut out "she keeps my place."

It cut out the ring.

It kept my face going hot, and "Then I quit," and Dex looking down at his plate like a patient man.

The caption said "Dex Lovell's housekeeper meltdown."

It had four million views by lunch.

The account that posted it first belonged to a sports gossip page.

The agent's agency followed it.

Robin read the comments out loud on the bleachers until Cody took her phone and put it in his pocket.

"Hey," she said.

"You can have it back at the end of practice."

"You're not my teacher."

"I'm everybody's teacher," Cody said. "It's a curse."

That night my own phone buzzed.

A number I didn't have saved.

It was a PDF.

A non-disclosure agreement, nine pages, with my name typed on the signature line as "Megan Raynor, household staff."

Under it, a text.

"Sign and return by Monday. Mr. Lovell also reports a gold ring missing from his residence. We'd prefer not to involve the police."

I knew whose voice that was without the name.

I read it to Robin and Cody in the parking lot.

Robin said a word Junie repeated before Cody could cover her ears.

Cody drove us all to get ice cream, because nobody makes decisions about crimes on an empty stomach.

On the way he turned the radio up and sang.

He sang Fleetwood Mac.

Every word was correct.

None of the notes were.

"Dad," Junie said. "Stop."

Cody hit the chorus a full key under the radio and held it.

"Dad, you're embarrassing Meg."

"Meg's fine."

I was laughing so hard I was crying.

I hadn't laughed in a car in five years.

Dex only played podcasts about mindset.

Thursday I ran the long intervals.

Seventy-five meters hard, twenty-five meters walk, forty times round.

Junie stood at the line with her stopwatch and shouted at me each lap.

"You're slow on the turn."

"I know I'm slow on the turn."

"Then don't be."

Friday I made all forty.

On the last lap Junie clicked the watch and looked at it.

She looked at it again.

"Okay," she said. "That's actually good."

Cody wrote the number on his clipboard.

He underlined it twice.

"You're not even going to say good job?"

"Junie said it. She's harder to please than me."

Saturday night Robin fed me a mountain of pasta on her couch.

"You know you can stay as long as you want."

"Your couch has a spring in it."

"That spring builds character."

Monday I woke up at four and couldn't get back to sleep.

The test was at eight on the league's training pitch in Commerce City.

Robin drove.

Cody met us in the parking lot with Junie.

She'd been allowed to miss first period for what Cody called a field trip in applied physics.

There were twenty referees warming up on the grass.

Most of them looked away.

Then I saw the bleachers.

Dex was sitting in the third row in a Front Range hoodie.

He had a paper cup in each hand.

An oat milk latte, extra hot, no sugar.

My order.

And beside him, legs crossed, scrolling his phone, sat his agent.

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