The Amazing Race
By Melinda DeFrain
Jill skated over: unruly hair clenched in a ponytail. She enjoyed rollerblading, usually with three kids in tow. They made an impressive train; three-year old Indigo, followed by six-year-old Sage and of course the engine, mother Jill, powering Sierra’s stroller. But that day we didn’t invite the kids. It was mom’s turn in the spotlight. We planned to drive to Green Bay in my red Saab, which I’d just bought, mainly because the salesman, a greasy guy with a Great Lakes moustache, insisted I’d look hot driving it. We were going to audition for the Amazing Race, the show that takes travelling to the next level.
On this reality pageant that premiered in 2001, contestants hop on planes, take helicopters, drive trucks, cycles and cars, hail cabs, board trains, buses and boats and use their own feet to reach the final leg through a series of roadblocks and detours with the winners receiving a whopping one million dollars. The show consists of teammates battling other fierce duos to solve mental and physical challenges and racing to designated Pit Stops or points of reckoning before they are axed. Although the cold million was appealing, it wasn’t the real reason I wanted a spot on the show. Instead, I longed to see myself on the screen, admired or condemned by millions, at least for a moment. I felt prepared to throw down for my fifteen minutes of fame; this was a way to solidify the idea that I was a real, important person. And I figured Jill and I could hack it. I was ecstatic she’d chosen me as her partner. Jill exuded a confidence that couldn’t be undercut, and it felt great to share a dream with someone like her. Lonely before we met, I’d slogged through our first Wisconsin winter indoors with my baby and toddler, watching seasons of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
The application process for the race was more involved than getting a job, something I couldn’t claim. For one, the show requested applicants create an introductory film highlighting their appeal. Eagerly, Jill and I got dolled up in old Prom-wear, dresses we both clung to and that represented the only “fancy” clothes either of us owned besides wedding gowns. Although we needed to squeeze a little extra flesh, we looked Wisconsin-good. Our husbands, supporting our newest crazy plan, edited our posturing and yammering into five-minute supercuts.
On the video, I played up my TV-readiness. Truth be told, most of my days dragged on, alternating between paring apples for my toddler and reading Flannery O’Connor. I tried sounding interesting by emphasizing my success at juggling motherhood with my MA degree. Jill’s video clip documented her piloting a school bus, changing foul diapers and gushing about her dream—to open a midwife clinic. She sounded like the one with a clear goal. I sounded like a desperate for attention, validation-seeking moron pursuing a non-lucrative degree.
“Stick out your chest,” my husband coached. “It’s for TV.”
A month later, we received the news we’d been selected for the in-person interview. Already a validation! But this validation came wrapped in reality: it could happen! If it did, I’d leave my husband and daughters behind for months. We’d never been separated for more than a few nights. Jill’s determination spilled over though, at least enough to reassure me.
The day of our interview, Jill careened into the passenger seat, tugging off a roller blade. She lofted it into the back. I shot a concerned glance backward, wondering if she’d gotten mud on my new leather seat.
“Let’s go,” she shouted. “And don’t drive like some grandma!”
But before we left, I wanted to show off some gizmos and gadgets on my car. I punched buttons to retract the moon roof and to fire up the sports mode, even pushing a few buttons I didn’t know the function of. I didn’t even really know what the sports mode could do, but I thought it sounded impressive. Then I cranked the music. Superchunk’s “Hyper Enough” spewed out: “When all our bone and muscle hurt/What’s so funny about that?”
“Great stuff,” Jill acknowledged, though she preferred hippie music. We didn’t share musical taste, but the trip called for something aggressive and loud.
I nodded too. I loved Superchunk. At least right at that moment. This was starting off as a real party. Jill and I shouted: “I think I’m hyper enough as it is.” I’d consumed so much coffee before leaving that I vibrated. Neither one of us knew all the lyrics, but we clung to the chorus.
We kept up these awful vocalizations the entire way to Green Bay. Once there, Jill directed me to an exit and afterward a crowded bar with an outdoor patio. “Get a seat,” she commanded, pointing at two empty chairs. We ordered Leinenkugel’s, since that’s what you ordered in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the early-2000’s.
An hour later, a tanned, muscular man appeared. “Jill Bonavitch,” he shouted. “Jill!”
“Good luck.” I ordered a second Leinenkugel’s. God, the sun blazed! Jill didn’t return immediately, and so, nervous, I ordered another. After this beer, I admitted to myself that I was guilty of the beer sweats. My black short-sleeved shirt was soaked, not the best interview look, and I’d become tipsy, so who could guess what might fly out of my mouth? I practiced what I would answer when presented with the interview questions. My husband had advised me to act enthusiastic. “Be yourself,” he said. But I needed this to be an impressive version of myself.
“How’d it go?” I quizzed Jill when she returned, perky. I anticipated a leg-up for the interview.
“Fantastic,” she chirped. “I said I would take out my best friend if it came down to winning.”
“Oh,” I said, woozy, pretty sure Jill didn’t refer to me. Would she really take out her best friend?
And what if they picked me for the show? Would I become suddenly famous? At least off-brand famous? I’d always craved celebrity. Or at least I’d managed a decent job at imagining myself in famous roles.
When the muscle man announced my name, I followed him inside to a table where an even more obscenely athletic man sat. The buzz from the beer started, and I could barely shape answers to his invasive questions: things like how often did I brush my teeth? Did I floss? In the morning and at night? Did I use daily deodorant? If so, what brand? “I’m ready for anything!” I claimed when he inquired about what lengths I’d pursue to gain a spot on the show. “I’d take out my best friend if it came down to it!”
The interviewer raised a brow. “We’re not asking anybody to do that.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, we’ll be in touch.”
Did I get the deodorant questions wrong? I froze. I’d driven forty-five minutes in this kind of heat to be so quietly dismissed? I considered belting out more Superchunk but decided it wouldn’t help salvage anything. On top of my personal sense of failure, Jill would be beyond pissed if I’d messed up her chance.
“Ummmmm,” he cleared his throat again. “We’ll be in touch.”
Jill and I sobered up on the patio, along with a number of people waiting for their dreams of fame to get clobbered. By this point it was easy to tell who still grasped stupidly to their dream. Apparently, the show’s selectivity was less of an issue than I’d imagined. Had they contacted everyone with a video? Who didn’t they call? People without friends?
“Do you think we have any chance?” I asked Jill.
“I’d guess. If they’re scouting for someone camera ready with charm.” Jill smiled. “That’s me of course.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me too. Surely, we’re ahead of all this.” I gestured around the bar. The dark-haired woman with the skull t-shirt next to me squealed at her friends. Her partner with the red and blue leg tattoos held my stare. “What are you looking at?” he growled.
Returning to Appleton, our moods progressively and palpably soured. Our attempts at promoting ourselves seemed increasingly goofy and juvenile. Embarrassing even. Most of the ride back passed by in an awkward blur, the void of my disappointment filled by the annoying sense that Jill blamed me for screwing up her chance at stardom. I felt like punching her in the kidney.
I shot into the driveway, furious. “We’re here. Get out!” Maybe I’d started menopause twenty years early. At least that explained my profuse armpit sweat.
“I know!” Jill threw back, likewise sweating buckets.
“What’s wrong?” My husband had wandered out, faded from watching the girls for half a day.
“Nothing!” I shouted, my anger a dam for my reservoir of failure. Who was I to think I could be famous? Who was I to think I had more going for me than writing culture theory papers about Lady Death Strike from The X-Men, papers only my professor would read. Papers that would never succeed at making me famous.
He glanced inside the car. “Why are the seat heaters on?” He sucked in an incredulous cheek.
“Seat heaters?” I aped, suddenly understanding our murderous moods.
“No wonder you guys are sweating,” he laughed. “It’s 98 degrees today!”
Jill leapt out of the car like a pissy tigress. “Figures.” She reached into the backseat and snatched her prized rollerblades. “I’ll let you know if I hear.” If we couldn’t manage a half-hour drive together, how would we manage a show?
I listened to the smack-smack-smack of her fading blades, the back of her shorts so covered in sweat I guessed she’d peed. Unable to peel myself out of the hot car, my face glowed sweaty in the rearview mirror. This wasn’t the kind of hot I’d imagined when the salesman threw that line.
My husband grimaced. Maybe Jill and I had both peed on our seats too. It couldn’t all be sweat. He disappeared and returned with paper towels, then reached a hand down to yank me up. When I stood, my sweaty skin made a loud sucking sound.
“What the hell?” he asked, wiping down the seats. “We just got this.”
I’d met Jill the spring after we moved to Wisconsin. In fact, I’d done my best to stalk her. I found it hard to find adult friends, particularly when everyone in Appleton met each other in kindergarten. One day, I’d spied Jill and her girls out in her yard hawking pink lemonade and pop tarts. Jill and her husband seemed like hippies in an otherwise normie community. She sported Birkenstocks and her hair spiraled from under a do-rag. Jill even excelled at lemonade sales. The jar on the table was loaded with sweaty dollar bills. I admired the snappy way she commandeered her batch of kids, coaching them to say “thanks” and count out change. All of them stayed in line on her watch. I wanted someone that resourceful in my life.
Jill acted more confident than anyone I’d ever met. And I admired her natural beauty. She looked strong and possessed good features and striking blue eyes, as if Lynda Carter’s seventies Wonder Woman smoked strong weed. Jill didn’t wear any make-up and obviously considered herself beautiful without it.
I thrust my phone number forward. “We’re new.” She fingered the piece of paper and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Welcome to Appleton.”
That same evening Jill phoned to ask about my availability for babysitting. My first worry with new friends is always how abjectly shitty I am at small talk, but she dispensed with that concern right away.
“Um,” I said. “When?” I didn’t call myself spontaneous. Still, I didn’t want her to know that yet.
“Tomorrow.” Jill moved fast. I enjoyed feeling her trust.
The babysitting went well, our children nearly the same ages, and the success cemented our relationship. The first time she invited our family over to her house, she and her husband rolled a battered ping-pong table out into their back yard. The games couldn’t be described as friendly. Instead, they matched the intensity of one of the challenges on The Amazing Race. It became clear that no “getting to know you” sportsmanship would happen.
“Ten-seven,” Jill snapped. “Sage, watch me take her head off.” She was unabashed in her competitiveness. She’d told me several times since I’d met her that she’d lettered in everything in high school and had been all-state in soccer. By contrast, I’d participated in the swim team my freshman year.
“Go Mom,” Sage encouraged from a swing, beaming.
Jill served up everything with forceful gusto, so I had no chance of returning the ball. Jill’s serves continued for at least five points before she’d miss, and the serve would rotate. Her best friend, Heather, another ultra competitor, egged her on. I couldn’t compete in other ways with Heather either. She’d birthed more kids than Jill, and they’d known each other since high school. Their kids managed their first steps together. Every afternoon, they shared beers and gossiped about friends, probably about me too. Eventually, Jill would introduce me to these others. Like Heather, I didn’t really like any of them. This math didn’t make sense. Maybe jealousy played a role, but it remained a mystery why I liked Jill but none of her friends, who didn’t act too keen on me either.
And I was still trying to figure out the broader, strange culture. We’d only lived in Wisconsin for a little while. I figured the level of ping-pong aggression must be correlated with enduring ten long months of the year crouched inside, slurping Leinenkugel’s and listening to Sublime.
Still, Jill could act genuinely nice. She watched my kids whenever, despite three kids of her own and an exhausting job. And it was probably a good thing for me that she got so competitive. It forced me to spur myself on by trying to match her levels of skill and enthusiasm—the healthy, good part of things. The bad part was how low I got when I didn’t measure up.
One time Jill invited herself over to rummage through my closet. She was in the habit of inviting herself, and usually I didn’t mind. I liked her attention. She’d volunteered to relieve me of some things that I didn’t wear anymore. Jill dug sharing and recycling. But she’d shed ten pounds with the stomach flu that March, so none of my clothes fit her, except maybe some SpongeBob socks. When Jill hit me, she hit where it hurt, like we’d known each other forever, though at that point we’d only known each other four months.
She dropped a pair of baggy jeans onto my closet floor and snatched up my planner off the bed. “What’s this doctor’s appointment about?” Jill asked, pointing at my scrawl.
I ripped the planner away. “What are you doing?” I shrieked.
“What? I always peak at my friend’s planners,” Jill returned innocently.
“Oh, you do, do you? Why?” This odd behavior didn’t strike me as a Wisconsin thing but instead a distinct Jill thing.
She tilted her head like a toothy cartoon animal. “That way I learn something new about you.”
Clearly, Jill played by her own social rules. The rules maybe stemmed from her self-confidence. But maybe snooping through planners wasn’t that weird. Maybe I was too uptight.
My husband and I met in Manhattan, Kansas, the ignominious Little Apple. As soon as we got married, we relocated to Texas and then Michigan and then West Virginia before Wisconsin, in the span of eight wild years. We ran our own crazy Amazing Race, but nonetheless moved more slowly than Jill, who’d never left Appleton. After five years in Wisconsin, the time came for another move. All our Wisconsin neighbors helped us pack and prepare the house. Everyone said it was a strange thing to move away. In our five years, we’d gotten to know several people who’d never progressed south of Milwaukee. After helping us load boxes, Jill promised that she’d visit within the year. I felt excited, thinking about showing her around our new town, but also dread at the thought of Jill outside of Appleton.
“I want to make more money than you,” she said, winking. “So, I need to know what job you wind up with.”
“Uh…okay.” I often found it hard to tell when Jill joked and when she just said the part that other people only thought out loud, but my mind was busy with the details of another cross-country move. “We’d love seeing you.” I’d said the same thing to all our friends in Texas, Michigan, and West Virginia when we’d moved away.
Good as her word, six months later Jill journeyed to Kansas. As always, I admired her follow through. I experienced a difficult time driving the two hours to my brother’s house by myself and here again burst Jill on the scene to outshine.
“What do you want to do while you’re here” I asked, after we’d unpacked their suitcases. I’d imagined taking her and the kids to the zoo, or maybe the museums on the river. Sage and Indigo bounded on and off the sofa, full of pent-up energy. They reminded me of shaggy puppies, since none of them had had their hair cut in ages.
“Tennis?” Jill suggested.
“Um. Sure.” Jill and I’d played tennis once or twice in Appleton. I remembered that she liked to run the net and spike the ball at me. “Why not?”
“First, I’ll prep dinner.” Jill unloaded the groceries she’d brought in. Then before I could count to six, she proceeded to fix a mongo batch of vegetarian enchiladas. I felt shuffled aside in my own kitchen, but granted people struggled to be good vegetarians in the Midwest where some people claimed outright that the only good vegetable was a baked potato.
After dinner, we packed up our rackets. The sky above us hung grey. The television forecasted rain, but in Kansas nothing is certain, I assured Jill. We located the free courts in an old, established neighborhood. They appeared out of place surrounded by so much affluence. Ankle-busting cracks snaked everywhere with scraggly grass poking through.
“Sage, grab some balls,” Jill shouted. “By the fence.”
Sage scurried over and gathered two yellow fuzzies for her mother, just as efficient as those kids at the Wimbledon courts. I admired how fast she ran when Jill snapped out directions. By comparison, everything with my daughters reminded me of a lengthy hostage negotiation.
“Now watch a winner,” Jill pronounced.
“Go mom. Break her down!” Sage shouted. For sure, that hadn’t changed.
My own kids huddled, miserable in the humidity. “Mom, can we go?” my oldest asked, staring down at her feet.
“Not yet, honey. Help Sage pick up balls.”
My daughter frowned. “It’s too hot,” she whined, wiping at her brow and slumping down dramatically. “I can’t.”
Jill shot me a look. “Hmmmmm. Little Miss Helpful?”
She served first, taking three games in a row, but glancing at my own daughters hunched against the fence, watching, I suddenly inspired myself to play harder. I slammed the next five points, acing Jill. Hope blossomed.
Jill grimaced. A drop of rain struck my forehead. I glanced up, anxious about the weather. We needed to play at least three more games. I didn’t want anyone getting struck by lightning, but the rain seemed to help my game.
“Mom,” my daughter shouted. “It’s raining.”
“Jill,” I called. “You feeling this?”
“So?” Jill shouted back. “It’s my serve! Let’s go.”
And then the rain drenched the court, soaking the kids, the court cracks overflowing into small ponds. “Mom, let’s go home!” my oldest daughter wailed.
Even Sage was through. “I’m getting wet!” she howled. “My new shoes.”
Jill dropped her athletic arm. “Sage, honey, this is for all the marbles. We can throw your shoes in Melinda’s dryer.”
“Okay,” I yelled to be heard over the drum solo of the rain. This rain struck me as epic. Biblical. As if a myth was in the making. “One more. This is for the whole darn tamale.”
Adrenaline surged. And then it hit me: I wanted this win! I squared off, though I couldn’t see Jill’s expression in the downpour. I wouldn’t go down without a struggle, even if it meant beating someone who’d just driven over one thousand miles to see me.
Jill slammed the serve and snatched the soggy tamale away.
No one spoke on the ride home, but I sensed Jill’s smirking: familiar territory. When we got back, the kids scattered to peel off their wet things. My daughters looked dejected and cold, and I cursed myself for getting so caught up at winning. Afterward, when everyone had gotten warm and dry, Jill suggested a different game.
Really? Jill’s desire to compete existed on another plane. Hadn’t she beat me at everything already? In the intervening months since we’d moved, I hadn’t located a real job yet, at least a salaried one. My MA degree earned me a whopping $6.50 an hour at the local college’s Writing Center: a pity hire. Meanwhile, Jill secured a loan and began opening her own midwife clinic, one with a real-life lobby. She’d probably designed a sign to hang out front that read: “Babies by Jill, Not so much happening for Melinda, from what I hear.”
“Let’s play!” Sage shouted. “Twister!”
What a terrible game to choose. I groaned but tugged the beaten-up box out of the cupboard, eager to be a good host.
“Okay.” I passed the spinner to Sage thinking: “Let’s get this over with.”
The kids perched like wannabe circus performers, waiting for the spotlight to perform their contortions. Sage spun yellow. Then she spun blue. Then green. Jill’s leg bumped against mine, hard, knocking me over on my back. Stunned, I lay on the mat, wondering if I’d pulled a groin muscle. “I guess I’m not good at this either,” I sounded self-pitying.
“It’s okay, mom,” my youngest said. “It’s okay to be bad at things.”
Jill snorted. “It’s NEVER okay to be bad at things.”
“Yeah,” Sage said. “That’s like being a loser.”
The next morning Jill announced that they should exit early for a midwife conference on the way back to Appleton. She’d just driven down to see where we lived. Figuratively to snoop in my new planner, I reasoned.
“Your house is nice,” she said. I experienced a brief swelling of pride. “You’re smart to buy the worst house in the best neighborhood.”
“The what?” I snapped my head around, pride bursting like the bubbles Sage and Indigo liked to form with their wands.
“You know, resale purposes,” Jill said cheerily.
We loaded her suitcases into her van. “You know,” she said. “We’ll probably never see each other again.” She gave me a powerful hug.
I stopped short, Indigo’s smelly teddy bear clutched in hand, Jill’s honesty cutting in contrast with my stupid fantasy. With all my moving around, I still believed that friendships lasted forever. That they hung on stubbornly through time and space like old games you took back out of storage and blew the dust from.
Still, what if Jill was right? She usually ended up that way. The potential loss of her friendship struck me as horrible, worse loss than anything she’d beat me at so far.
I fumbled around, searching for maybe the last thing I’d ever say to her.
“You never know. You might see me on television someday.”
Melinda DeFrain teaches literature, composition, and pedagogy at Wichita State University. She has earned an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing. She has lived in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, and Kansas. She is married and is the mother of two twenty-something daughters. She lives happily with her husband and two dogs in Wichita, Kansas and travels whenever she can.