Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts

First published in 2023 Copyright © Josie Shapiro, 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Allen & Unwin Level 2, 10 College Hill, Freemans Bay Auckland 1011, New Zealand Phone:(64 9) 377 3800 Email:[email protected] Web:www.allenandunwin.co.nz 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand. ISBN 978 1 99100 644 8 eISBN 978 1 76118 676 9 Cover design by Christa Moffitt Internal design by Kate Barraclough Cover image: © Shutterstock For Willa and Marnie PART ONE One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen PART TWO Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-one Twenty-two Twenty-three Twenty-four Twenty-five THE RACE THICK SEA FOG ROLLS IN before sunrise. The water isn’t far away, but it is as though it isn’t there at all. I close my eyes for a moment, and I hear it, the slapping of the tide against the rock wall. I watch the other competitors move through the whiteness, coming in and out of focus. Some jog around, warming their muscles, hyped up with anticipation and fear. I can almost smell it, bitter and sweet. Legs kick knees high; brightly coloured sneakers squeak on tarmac. My own legs quiver with the chill of a spring morning. I bounce, once, twice. My feet, clad in the lucky pink socks, feel like dead weights; I’m unsure in this moment if I can make even one kilometre. How to make it through forty-two? Well, the hay is in the barn now. I rub my calves, dig my fingers into the muscle, not too hard. A quick glance at my watch. Five minutes to go. The competitors clot together. Dawn is only minutes away. Above the hushed pre-race chatter: the haunting call of a tūī, high in the pōhutukawa bordering the shore. I slip around the side. I want to be much closer to the starting line, nearly at the front. Older men glance at me as I weave in front of them. They take in my not-quite-five-feet stature, my boyish hips, legs like chopsticks, long brown ponytail. I know their ONE THERE WAS NOTHING IN MY childhood that suggested I’d be a good runner, let alone a great one. My mother, Bonnie, was an intensive-care nurse, ambivalent about sports in general; my father, Teddy, was a journalist who fancied himself an eloquent man of letters, and whose attitude to all sports other than cricket and rugby was one of simmering hostility. Neither of them encouraged me towards athletics. Bonnie was loving but preoccupied with my older brothers and sister — the twins, Helen and Kent, and Zach. My father, well, he wasn’t there to direct me in one way or another. My mother told me I was late to walking, that I crawled like a crazed bear cub until I was eighteen months old. I refused to take a step, even with Bonnie, Zach, Kent and Helen all cajoling me to get up and toddle to their open arms. By the time I did take my first steps, Teddy was in Auckland, living with his new girlfriend. Once I was up on two feet, I didn’t stop moving. ‘You’re responsible for all these grey hairs, Mickey,’ Mum liked to remind me. ‘One for every time you did something you shouldn’t.’ I was born with big ears, and Bonnie said I made snuffling squeaks exactly like a mouse. My birth certificate might say Michelle Joan Bloom, but everyone called me Mickey. WE LIVED IN NGĀMOTU, ON a small section near the beach.