“Slacker.” A slight smile. I busied myself with my food, feeling awkward. She looked at her watch, then spoke again. “It’s nearly time to get back to class. But I want to ask you one more thing. Are you a Motown fan?”

“What?”

“I know it’s an odd thing to ask, but we’re about the same age, and I’d swear I heard you whistling ‘Just My Imagination’ when you were looking at the bulletin board before I spoke to you.” She laughed. “I’m being silly, I guess.”

“No, actually, you’re not.” Heat suffused my face. “I happen to have an … an extensive—you might even say exhaustive—collection of Motown records. The vinyl, not the CDs.”

“Of course.” She was smiling.

“I’m a bit shocked you picked up on it, though. It’s not something I talk about. It … it doesn’t really go with the way I’m perceived.”

“Yes, well, things aren’t always what they seem, are they?”

“No, I don’t imagine that they are.” She brushed some stray hair behind her ear. A sweet, unconscious gesture. I suppose it was then that I began to lose my way.

The air had that fresh crispness that is peculiar to fall in Connecticut as I made my way out to the athletic fields beyond the school where the cross-country team practiced that afternoon. My encounter with Ms. Hansen still flitted through my mind periodically, but with some effort, I could swat it away. So I did. I drew great breaths of the air and turned my mind to the coaching ahead. What I love about running is the same thing I love about Latin—its clarity and solitude. The slow ache of muscles, the sound of one’s own breath in one’s ears, the sweet moment when there is nothing on one’s mind but the rhythm of one’s feet against the ground. That moment when you are only running, nothing else, not flesh or thought or body; only speed. I got into coaching under duress—the head coach, Jonathan Sasser, found out about my running and drafted me. But I have come to genuinely enjoy it. Today was our first practice of the year—I was anxious to see who had come out for the team.