Mayfair looked at Donna. “I’m not going to keep up with her.”
“Maybe she has Kenyan ancestors,” Donna said as they started out. “The combination of high-altitude training, consumption of a low-fat, high-protein diet, and expectations make them long-distance champions. It’s not simply because she’s African-American. I read Kerr’s The Myth of Racial Superiority in Sports yesterday.”
“You’re just trying to get me to run faster,” Mayfair said.
“So I am,” Donna replied, and pulled ahead.
Mayfair glanced back. The security guard had returned to his booth but still looked their way. She picked up the pace, and soon they were only six or seven feet apart.
After ten minutes of running, Mayfair had to confess to herself that she was feeling invigorated despite her attitude. She knew every aspect of the physiological changes her body was experiencing as she quickened and lengthened her stride. The cooler fresh air was sharpening all her senses. She inhaled the scent of the fresh foliage and then the heavy fragrance of pine. She could practically taste it when she opened her mouth. Small branches crackled like popcorn beneath her feet.
As the sun threaded its rays through the leaves and around the thicker, older trees, the forest seemed to awaken. She heard the mourning doves off to her left and an enthusiastic ladder-backed woodpecker to her right. Her own deep breathing resonated in her ears, as did the trailing sound of a fighter jet leaving the Palm Springs airport and then booming above them. Reluctantly, Mayfair admitted to herself that she liked being away from all the urban static. She was obviously not the only one.
Corliss, who had grown up in the urban jungle of Los Angeles, truly seemed to undergo a metamorphosis in nature. She took longer strides, seeming to float over the dark earth, fairylike.
“She looks like she sprang wings,” Donna called back.
“Yes,” Mayfair said. This was crazy, but her new girlfriends’ energy spurred on her own, and she found the urge to run faster. If only her stepmother could see her now, she thought, and smiled to herself at her envisioned look of shock and disgust. Sweat? Ugh. You could ruin your makeup.
They all slowed at a turn that soon opened to a short incline. Coming down from it, they had to slow and be careful because of the small area of rocks. They hit another straightaway and sped up and then came to another turn, descended, and went up another short incline that dropped into another turn. When Donna and Mayfair completed it, they stopped.
Corliss had already stopped. She was standing there, barely breathing hard, and staring at something.
“What’s happening?” Donna said. “I was just getting into it.”
“Check out the bottom of the fence at around one o’clock,” Corliss said, nodding in the direction she was looking.
Both girls joined her and looked.
“How did you spot that?” Mayfair asked.
“I saw a small coyote go under and charge over the hill.”
“That’s man-made for sure,” Donna said.
Corliss looked at her, nodded, and started through the brush to
ward the fence. The other two girls followed. It was clear to all of them that someone had dug a deep, wide path under the fence to either get out or get in.
“Shall we?” Corliss asked them.
Donna looked around.
“Stop worrying, Donna. We’re too deep in for the security cameras to pick us up,” Mayfair said.
“It’s still a serious violation,” Donna said. “Going off property without written permission.”
“Going off property? Sounds like Daddy’s talking,” Mayfair said.
Donna stepped back indignantly. “Excuse me?”
“Serious violation? Please. Spare me,” Mayfair said.
“Well, it is, isn’t it?” Donna asked Corliss.
“I’d just like to see where it goes, why someone would dig here, and what’s to see beyond that hill,” Corliss said, nodding at the incline just a dozen or so yards from the fence. She knelt and studied the ditch. “This isn’t recently done. See these roots? New extensions.” She looked to her left at the large red maple tree. “Red maples have thick, strong roots that grow near or above the surface of the soil, but this took some time.”
“Let’s go through,” Mayfair said.