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71:52:00
As the escalator lowered Peter McDonald to the main floor of the convention hall, he observed a scene of complete chaos. Boxes big and small, sheets of cardboard, discarded paper and plastic strapping blocked most aisles. Teamsters directing traffic barked instructions adding to a din that echoed upward, reverberating against the steel ceiling high overhead. Fork trucks scurried back and forth, moving shrink-wrapped pallets into booths being hammered together by carpenters. Thursday was the day exhibitors began to prepare their booths for the Health and Fitness Exposition that preceded Sunday’s marathon, and for many occupiers of the bigger booths, it was an all-day task. Shoe companies, sporting goods stores, equipment salesmen and people pushing various running-related products all wanted a piece of the nearly 50,000 marathoners who would need to come to the Expo to pick up their race numbers starting the next day.
71:52:00. 71:51:59. 71:51:58.
Stepping onto the main floor, Peter tried to imagine himself as one of the runners who in the next several days would ride that escalator downward into the Expo signaling the start of their big adventure: the running on Sunday morning of a race 26 miles 385 yards long. What had he overlooked? Was there anything he had failed to provide for their comfort? What more must he do to enhance their experiences?
As race director, that was McDonald’s job description: enhancer of running experiences. Improving the quality of the Lake City Marathon both for elite runners and those in the back of the pack was his duty, as well as obsession. As a former track athlete, Peter knew that you are only as good as your last race. He hoped this year’s marathon proved successful, that all the first-timers finished, that the rest set Personal Records or qualified for Boston, making everybody happy, including the sponsors, but there were so many variables out of his control, particularly the weather. It would be hot—he knew that—though he tried to push that problem to a back compartment of his mind.
Peter McDonald arrived at the Metro Foods booth offering the trademark grin that many women found irresistible. Tall, trim, ruggedly handsome with wavy light brown hair, women took notice when he walked by, but Peter was barely aware of that fact. Since he lost his wife Carol less than a year ago, working late hours had served him as a narcotic to erase memories of a traumatizing event. The few women he dated seemed so unsatisfactory compared to his memories of Carol. He rarely asked a woman out for a second date, much to their disappointment. He lived lately in a shell, which worried many of his close friends. Peter realized that some time soon, he needed to move forward with his social life, but in the meantime, he had a marathon to run.
He nodded to cameraman Edmund Giesbert and extended one hand to the TV reporter, the dark-haired woman wearing a red jacket first spotted from the balcony above.
“Hi. I’m Peter McDonald. I apologize for being late.”
“No problem,” said the reporter, looking firmly into his eyes.
No problem, Peter thought. But talk about an icy stare: Whew! He could see the woman was irritated by his late arrival. But it was not that the TV3 reporter had been waiting unoccupied. She had someone else in the booth to interview while awaiting him.
The TV3 reporter apparently realized the same. Moment of irritation past, her look softened. She introduced herself: “Christine Ferrara. We’re just finishing another interview.”
Peter turned to the person being interviewed, a man skinny like all very fast runners, short, bearded, ruddy complexion, his sandy brown hair, sparse and flecked with gray, betraying his age. This was Don Geoffrey, Olympian, past Lake City Marathon champion, Contributing Editor for Running Magazine, author of the best-selling book Mastering the Marathon,a man nicknamed the “Turtle” despite his speed. During a lengthy and successful career, Geoffrey won most of his races by drifting patiently behind the main pack, waiting for fast-starting runners to self-destruct, smoothly striding past them in the final miles, as in the classic Aesop fable of the turtle and the hare. Geoffrey lived in Lake City and served as a training consultant for the marathon.
Responsible for arranged the interviews was Nelson Ogilvie, who handled media relations for the marathon. “We’re just finishing with the Turtle,” Ogilvie explained. McDonald stepped back to allow the interview to continue. Edmund the cameraman indicated to the TV reporter his readiness.
Don, we’re standing here in a booth at the Expo filled with food,” began Christine Ferrara. “What foods should runners eat before the marathon?”
As Don Geoffrey began to discuss the values of carbohydrates, a well-rehearsed response that he seemed to have given many times, Peter McDonald noticed with as much amusement as displeasure that the TV reporter had failed to mention—had avoided mentioning—the name of Metro Foods, the sponsor in whose booth they were standing. “A booth,” she had said, not “the booth of Metro Fresh.” The grocery chain, as part of its sponsorship arrangement, provided yogurt, bananas, chocolate chip cookies and other food items for runners immediately after they crossed the finish line. Not that Peter had expected such a plug. He had been in the marketing business long enough to know that TV stations avoid commercial plugs for which they are not getting paid. Fair enough. The name of the race was the Lake City Marathon, almost identical to the name of the Lake City Bank, his main sponsor. There was no way you could talk about the race without tying the bank to it. He hoped that the new owners of the bank would comprehend that—if they did not try to change the name of their newly acquired subsidiary, a distinct possibility.
Peter wore a light blue golf shirt, one that displayed the logo of the Lake City Marathon. Not large enough to be recognized by anyone watching on television, but an identifying symbol of the marathon organization. The race director also wore sharply creased Dockers trousers, dark blue. Black shoes: highly polished as they might be worn by a banker. Peter McDonald lived in a sartorial world halfway between that of the banker and that of the more casually dressed runner. His only item of jewelry, since he wore no rings, was a silver chain, barely visible beneath the collar of his golf shirt. The chain had been a gift from his wife, Carol. She had brought it back from a charity walk to Africa undertaken with her college roommate. He never took it off. Not to bathe. Not to sleep. If he ever remarried, his second wife would need to live with that necklace, or she never would become a second wife. Peter suspected there just might be one woman somewhere who could learn to love the memory of Carol as much as he did. Peter had just not met that woman yet. Waiting to be interviewed, he touched the chain lightly as he often did for good luck.
The TV interview with Don Geoffrey continued. The Turtle responded to a second question related to drinking during the marathon after which the TV reporter turned to her cameraman: “Is that a wrap?” Edmund indicated, yes.
Interview over, Geoffrey turned to McDonald: “I need to squeeze in a workout between now and the press conference. See you later, Peter.”
As the Turtle departed, Peter McDonald and Christine Ferrara turned toward each other. She was a very attractive woman, he decided, and with a very trim figure that her red TV3 blazer failed to disguise. Nice legs, thought Peter. Tall. I wonder if she runs. The woman’s hair was raven black, tumbling across her shoulders. Straight nose with a tiny wrinkle before the tip. Firm chin. Her skin was unblemished and bore a natural tan, not one that needed the help of a toning bed. Well, of course, her name was “Ferrara,” suggesting Italian roots. Brown eyes that did not glow, did not sparkle, but bored laser-like into his seemingly vulnerable blue eyes. The woman was strikingly beautiful. Peter was reminded of Sophia Loren, an actress whose early films he and Carol always enjoyed watching cuddled up on the couch. Carol: Would she forgive him for having allowed his interest in an attractive woman to intrude even briefly on the business at hand? The woman seemed strong-minded, a trait he actually admired. The woman had not hesitated to display her displeasure at his late arrival.
Peter tried to move past that awkward moment. He said quietly: “Where do you want to do the interview, Ms. Ferrara?”
The TV reporter did not answer immediately, considering the question. For a moment, her eyes and his eyes locked. She could sense that he knew she was perturbed. Well, get over it, Christine said to herself. Peter, meanwhile, wondered: What’s her problem? Each shifted their gaze, hers toward another booth in the front center of the hall. She said: “How about moving to the marathon booth?”
“I was going to suggest just that.”
While reporter and cameraman gathered their equipment for the move to the nearby Lake City Marathon booth, Peter McDonald turned to Ogilvie, who dutifully had been hovering just out of camera range. “Everything ready for the press conference?” McDonald asked his media director.
“We roll at noon. We’ll have a dozen or more top athletes, the usual suspects, sitting in the front rows. The Mayor has promised to attend, although he may come late. The Chief knows her lines. She’ll accept a ‘whereas’ plaque from the Mayor.”
McDonald nodded. In the last several years, The Lake City Marathon had achieved a level of respectability within the city that surprised even him. Longtime Mayor Richard T. Danson had not always been a fan of the marathon. The first African-American mayor in Lake City history, the Mayor once considered the marathon the sport of wealthy white people, even though runners from Africa usually crossed the finish line first. His department heads for some years had treated the race, its organizers and runners as an intrusion on their business day, a drain on public services. Blocked streets along the 26 mile 385 yard course caused complaints from citizens caught in traffic. Then shortly after Lake City Bank had assumed sponsorship, the Bank’s Chief Executive Officer, Robin Carter, sought a meeting with Mayor Danson.
Robin Carter was unique among bankers, not many females having crashed the glass ceilings in corporations much less elbowed their way to the top of the stodgy banking world. Carter, having started in the bank as a lowly teller with a night school degree in economics, wasted few words. Meeting with the Mayor, the bank chief slid a single sheet of paper in front of His Honor’s eyes. It was an accounting of how much money runners had spent the previous year on hotels, restaurants, taxicabs and other activities, including shopping. “That’s last year,” she said. “The dollar figures will increase as the popularity of the marathon continues to increase.”
The marathon was not merely a sporting event, it was a convention, the bank chief explained to His Honor. The Mayor examined the figures, eyebrows raised, smiled, and passed the sheet back to Carter. “Point made,” he said. The following year, services provided by the city improved significantly. The Mayor had never attended a pre-marathon press conference before. He began doing so. Banks do have clout, McDonald realized. The bigger the bank, the more clout.
“How’s Aba?” Ogilvie asked quietly so the TV reporter would not hear.
“Still sick,” Peter responded in a whisper. “Throwing up. Her husband doesn’t seem to know why. I gave them the name of a doctor. We may lose her.”
The media director winced when he thought of how much time Peter had spent wooing Aba Andersson and her husband/agent Bjørn, convincing them to select Lake City for her fall marathon. Given all the pre-race publicity, certainly they had gotten value for money offered, but what substitute story could he now offer to the media? He disliked seeing reporters focus on negatives. Not all would understand the reasons offered for why the marathon’s main attraction might not run. Baseball and football players play if they catch colds, don’t they?
Not coincidentally, when Christine Ferrara began her interview, the first question referred to the world record holder. “The Lake City Marathon has a lightning fast course,” she began. “How important is that in attracting elite runners like Aba Andersson to your race?”
“It’s important to the elites,” McDonald began, but then the media-savvy race director quickly changed direction. “It’s equally important to the 50,000 runners finishing behind.”
Peter continued: “Everybody wants to run fast. Even someone running their first marathon and hoping to finish in six hours wants their experience to be pleasant as possible. We have 8,000 volunteers who will guarantee that happens.”
The race director had done enough interviews for television to know that TV is a medium that thrives on sound bites. Depth is for shows like Sixty Minutes. For the Ten O’clock News, any response that rambles is liable to either fall to the cutting room floor or be mangled so you don’t recognize your message. Reply with more than fifty words, Ogilvie kept reminding him, and you’ve lost the viewer—if the viewer even gets to hear what you said. More than likely, the reporter will simply not broadcast your comments.
Christine Ferrara was media savvy enough to know that the race director had dodged her question. You did that purposely, didn’t you? Christine left that thought unsaid. She did not want to offend her interview subject—yet.
The TV3 reporter offered a series of questions, which allowed McDonald to respond with many of the figures at his command: 50,323 official entries, a few over their 50,000 limit; twenty-nine charities in their Charity Program, raising $34 million; 1,462,500 paper cups into which would be poured 41,780 gallons of E.R.G. (he mentioned that sport drink’s name) along with water from “our beautiful lake.”
Christine let the mention of E.R.G. slide past her, somewhat bothered by the commercial implications of the plug, but not wishing a confrontation at this point. She could always slice the E.R.G. plug from the interview as it aired, although she expected that might be difficult to do so because he had, almost casually, referenced the sponsor in the middle of a lot of gee-whiz numbers she probably would want to keep.
This guy has been media-packaged, thought Christine. Probably trained in some room without windows so he could respond to my probing questions. On the other hand, he’s drop-dead gorjus!
“Let’s talk about Aba,” she asked. “Is it reasonable to expect a world record given the predicted hot weather?”
This girl did her homework, thought Peter. Most TV sports reporters who followed professional sports would not make the connection between warm weather and slow times.
“I flunked Meteorology in college,” said Peter, attempting to sidestep the question.
Christine refused to let him do so: “So did most of our TV weathermen.”
Peter smiled: “Touché.”
"Seriously,” she continued to bore. “Warm weather; slow times. Yet all of your press releases have promoted the fact that Aba could set a world record on Lake City’s fast course.”
“Aba’s from Sweden. She loves warm weather. Also seriously, Ms. Ferrara, we have a press conference with Aba scheduled for Saturday noon. I’ll let her address your legitimate concerns, which I share. I apologize for ducking your question, something I usually dislike to do.”
The reporter nodded, indicating that she accepted his response. But only grudgingly! She suspected that when she returned to the TV studio, she would discover that nothing Peter said related to Aba Andersson and the weather worked as a sound bite.
“One final question,” Christine Ferrara offered. She smiled to soften its impact. “The marathon’s contract with its main sponsor, the Lake City Bank, ends this year. A foreign conglomerate has just swallowed the bank whole. Has that caused you any sleepless nights, not knowing whether or not they’ll be back? Do you feel that the marathon needs something spectacular this year, whether or not a world record, to keep the momentum going?”
Peter McDonald recognized a fact of media life: Reporters always save the tough questions for the end, knowing that if the person they’re interviewing gets mad and stalks away, they will at least have answers to the preceding easier questions on tape. He had expected the question, because whether or not the bank, under new ownership, would continue its sponsorship this morning had been the main story in the sports section of the Lake City Ledger, the city’s main newspaper. The article was the work of Jonathan Von Runyon, a hatchet man, a thorn in Peter’s side.
“I’m not looking past Sunday,” the race director replied, smiling to show no displeasure. Five words. Not enough for a sound bite. Nothing that could be edited to distort his words or his meaning! Standing behind the reporter and her cameraman, Peter’s media director suppressed a grin. Well done, Peter, Ogilvie thought. He held up his right hand, thumb elevated, to indicate approval.
Christine Ferrara sighed, making no effort to hide her displeasure. She stood motionless, staring intently at the man she was interviewing. Does this woman have X-ray vision? Peter wondered. If she can read my mind, she may learn about Celebrity X.
For a moment, the TV reporter continued to hold the microphone between her and Peter, debating whether to continue to probe or let the subject drop or maybe plunk him over the head with the mike. The investigative reporter inside her clambered for a follow-up question, but in reality she thought the Ledger article and its suggestion that the marathon might be in financial trouble if the bank bailed was a stretch, something not worth wasting a lot of air time on before the race. Maybe after. Better to keep comments positive rather than negative going in, especially since TV3 would televise the marathon. Christine lowered the microphone and turned to Edmund the cameraman. “That’s a package.”
Turning back to Peter, she looked at him without speaking. Nor did he speak. For one second, two seconds, what seemed like an eternity, neither one spoke to the other.
Christine finally broke the silence with another sigh. “You know, Peter… May I call you Peter?”
Peter nodded, indicating that use of his first name was proper.
Still another sigh, then an admission, “…I’m being terribly rude.”
He thought so too, but did not want to say so. “I hadn’t noticed.”
She knew he was lying, but that was okay. She was in the midst of an apology. “Overslept. Didn’t get my second cup of coffee. And…”
Peter finished the sentence for her: “…And I was late.”
Christine knew there was another reason related to time-of-the-month, but she was not about to share it with a man just met. She offered her hand: “Let’s be friends?”
"Let’s be,” acknowledged Peter, shaking hers, then adding: “I’d offer to buy you that second cup of coffee, Christine, but I’m on too tight a schedule this morning.”
While packing his camera equipment, Edmund had been observing this mating dance with mounting amusement. “I have some coffee in the truck,” he suggested.
“Be quiet, Edmund,” said Christine. “I’m trying to be humble.”
Peter sensed a chance to escape. “Gotta fly,” he told the reporter, instinctively touching her lightly on the shoulder. The moment he did so, he worried she might misinterpret that touch.
Apparently she did not. Her response was warm, friendly. “I’ll probably see you at the press conference, Mr. McDonald,” said the reporter, shifting politely back to his last name.
“I’ll be there,” Peter replied, “but I need to take a walk through the hall and see how work is coming. Good to meet you, Ms. Ferrara.”
Christine Ferrara watched Peter McDonald as he moved away, thinking: Here I am new in town, without any significant male companionship, and I act like a clueless teenager with the first good-looking guy I meet. Christine allowed one final sigh to escape her lips, then began to walk with her cameraman toward the escalator.