Read Pascal's Wager for Free Online Page B

hands.
    Personally, I appreciated the solitude of the Loop more than the view. Unlike a lot of the people who went up there, I was unconcerned about the recent Stanford edict prohibiting anyone from leaving the main path to follow the myriad of bunny trails that wound among the widely scattered trees. To do so, we were told, would irreparably damage the ecology of the area. All I wanted was a path where I could run literally for hours and not have to speak a word. Where I could pass other joggers who were in search of aloneness and not even feel the need to nod for the sake of politeness. Where I could focus fully on the fitness compartment.
    At least I
had
been able to do that, until my mother wouldn’t get out of my head. Working, teaching, dealing with Tabitha, putting up with Jacoboni, all of those compartments kept me too busy to wrestle with my mother issues the rest of the time. But once I hit the hills in my Nikes, my concentration went down the toilet.
    Look
, I told myself the evening I finally put it together,
you can’t let this mess with your head. Mother is a big girl. If she can’t see she has a problem, you’re not going to be able to do a thing to change that. Now get your tail on up this hill and stop obsessing
.
    The first hill was a killer, shooting up for three hundred yards at a thirty-degree incline, and I prided myself on taking it on as a formidable opponent without batting so much as an eyelash. I normally latched my eyes onto the top and didn’t waver until I was standing there, and then congratulated myself on the factthat my thighs were still crying out for more. That night I took about two strides—pictured my mother lurching out of the booth at Marie Callendar’s—and was ready to bag the whole run. Only sheer stubbornness kept me going.
    By the time I got to the summit, I was breathing like a locomotive—no concentration whatsoever on controlling my inhale-exhale pattern. I actually started to get a stitch in my side, which hadn’t happened since about freshman year in college, and I slowed to a walk, hands planted on my hips in self-disgust. Thus, I was completely at my best when a figure just ahead of me leaped over the fence that caged us on the path and practically scared me out of my Spandex.
    He didn’t see me. In fact, he continued on at a long-legged, lazy lope as if he
hadn’t
just emerged from forbidden territory. That was fortunate, as far as I was concerned, because even from yards behind I could tell it was Socrates himself—Sam Whatever-His-Name-Was from the night of my mothers dinner. I’d rather have run into Alan Jacoboni at that point.
    As I waited to let him get beyond catching-up distance ahead of me, I had a brief lapse and considered the fact that he had great legs. Nice muscle definition. Confident stride. Smooth, golden-olive skin—
    I turned abruptly and headed back the way I’d come. If beating myself up about my mother and fantasizing about some religious fanatic’s legs were my only two thought choices, I
did
need to bag the whole run.
    The next day, I was wishing those
were
my only choices. When I got to my office, there was a Post-It note stuck to the door.
Jill
, it said,
See me ASAP
. It was signed
NF
.
    NF. Nigel Frost.
Dr
. Nigel Frost. My advisor. The man who held my future in his hands at that juncture.
    As I was going up the stairs to his office, Deb Kent was on herway down, her eyes blinking furiously in her contact lenses as usual. Deb seemed to be in a constant state of high-level stress. You’d have thought she was running IBM.
    â€œI was going to come looking for you,” she said. “Do you realize you and I have to do a tea in a couple of weeks?”
    â€œIf it’s not today, I’m not worried about it,” I said.
    â€œThat’s because you’re organized. Some of us don’t have minds that function like Day-Timers, okay?”
    She tossed her naturally