“Welcome, Lucy!” Mimi opened her arms and leaned over the utility table, pressing Lucy to her big bosom. “Any friend of Theo’s is a friend of mine.”

Mimi rooted through a box of manila envelopes. “Ah. Here we go.” She opened the flap and pulled out a long white neck strap looped through a laminated card that read: All Access Pass.

“Is this your first time at the State Games?”

Lucy poked her head through the strap and flipped the ID badge faceup. “Actually… uh…” Lucy forgot what she was saying because Theo had just reached over and extracted her ponytail from the strap, then stroked the back of her neck. “It’s my first Special Olympics anything.”

Mimi’s mouth opened in surprise. “Oh, wow!” She smiled at Theo conspiratorially, then squeezed Lucy’s hand in both hers. “It’s going to blow your mind, sweetheart.”

They went to a Mexican place on Fowler Avenue for dinner, where Lucy ordered the grilled sirloin, pinto beans, and a salad arid was thoroughly charmed by Theo’s family.

Vivian and Martin Redmond were much older than

Lucy anticipated, in their early eighties if she had to guess, and she soon learned they were Theo’s great-aunt and great-uncle. Vivian was gracious and kind and Martin was a firecracker and had them all laughing. Lucy saw immediately that Theo’s stunning blue eyes were a trait among males in the Redmond clan and Martin must have been a real looker in his day. Lucy glanced from Theo to his uncle and back again and was hit by this wistful thought-that it would be nice to know Theo when he was an eighty-year-old charmer, telling jokes to his grandchildren while they ate dinner at some Mexican joint.

Irrational longings like that did nothing to lower her expectations, Lucy realized. She had to stop being such a sentimental goofball.

“Lucy, we’ve been so impressed by your progress on the WakeUp Miami show.”

As nice as it was, Vivian’s comment brought Lucy right back to reality. It made her realize she’d gone several hours without thinking of herself as Lucy Cunningham, media makeover guinea pig. She’d gone most of the day without worrying how her legs looked in her shorts, whether her upper arms were too fleshy for this conservative tank top, or whether she was sweating like a sow in the sun.

She glanced at Theo across the round table and he smiled at her.

“Thank you, Vivian,” Lucy said.

“So tell us about your family, Lucy. Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

And apparently, that was it-there would be no haranguing her about calorie intake or how many abdominal crunches she did each day or the total inches lost off her upper-thigh circumference. They’d already moved on to another subject. Lucy sighed in relief.

“My mom and dad retired to Fort Lauderdale a couple years ago, and I left Pittsburgh and moved to Florida to be near them. I have an older sister who’s married with three little kids-she lives in Atlanta- and a younger brother who’s in his medical residency back in Pittsburgh.”

The table got very quiet, and Lucy looked over to see that Theo’s fork had paused in midair. He put it down and cleared his throat.

“Interesting,” he said. “I didn’t know your brother was in medicine.”

“Mmm-hmm…Pediatrics. He’s in the internship year of a three-year residency. We don’t see him often because I guess the internship year is the worst.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Theo was going to be a doctor,” Buddy announced matter-of-factly. “But then Mom and Dad died and he had to come home to be with me and then his girlfriend said she couldn’t love him if he wasn’t going to be a doctor. Norton didn’t like her, anyway.”

Buddy reached up and stroked Theo’s hair, as if to comfort his big brother. Then Buddy started to cry.

Lucy’s body buzzed in embarrassment. She felt like she was intruding on a private family matter.

Vivian caressed Buddy’s shoulder and Martin shrugged sadly and Theo looked at her from across the table and grinned.

That was the last straw for Lucy. Theo was so completely not what she’d first assumed him to be. He was single-handedly raising his brother. He had the patience to coach special athletes. He was brilliant enough to get into med school. He’d had his own share of loss and pain. And he was able to hang on to his fine sense of humor in the process.

She felt ashamed at how she’d once assumed Theo was just a pretty face and a perfect body. She’d done the one thing she’d always despised most-she’d. judged someone by his appearance.

And right then, Lucy knew that no matter how hard she tried to deny it, it would be a blizzardy day at Disney World before she’d ever find a man she wanted more than Theodore Redmond.

The pageantry of the opening ceremonies surprised Lucy. She was expecting something schmaltzy and low-budget, not something so powerful. Seventeen hundred athletes ranging in age from eight to eighty stood in clusters under bright field lights and a cobalt blue evening sky, their T-shirts forming a rainbow around the stadium track.

Loud, inspiring rock music blared from the sound system as a cavalcade of law enforcement vehicles roared onto the grass, their lights and sirens sending the crowd into a frenzy. Then the torch was carried into. the stadium by a small group of police officers who’d completed the last ten miles of a statewide torch run.

After a rousing welcome speech from the emcee, a young woman assigned the job of reciting the Special Olympics oath rose from her chair onstage. Little by little, she neared the microphone, her left leg dragging, her physical imperfections clear for all to see. She stood tall in front of the huge crowd and said the words slowly and deliberately, in a voice thick with difficulty: “Let me win,” she said. “But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”

Lucy sat in the bleachers between Martin and Vivian, humbled to tears. She wondered how many hours of practice had gone into that short walk to the podium and those simple lines of speech. She wondered how much courage it had taken for that woman to do what she’d just done.

Suddenly it was clear why Theo wanted Lucy to be here. He wanted to teach her a compelling lesson in a gentle way. He wanted her to learn to put her own struggles in perspective. Theo, who was out there somewhere in the sea of red shirts, was a very smart man.

Lucy tried to surreptitiously wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I cry every year.” Vivian handed her a tissue. “It can be overwhelming to see how much potential there is in all of us.”

Lucy appreciated Vivian’s words and her quiet smile and told her so. Together they watched as officers handed the torch to a few Special Olympics athletes, who took off around the track to light the Special Olympic Flame of Hope, the fire shooting high into the dark sky.

The emcee announced, “Let the Games begin!”

Competition began early the next day and ended late into the afternoon. Theo’s aunt and uncle lasted only a few hours before the sun and the heat sent them back to the house. They did stay long enough to see Buddy win the one-hundred-meter and the long jump and then receive medals for the events.

Twice that morning, Lucy, Vivian, and Martin left their seats in the stands for the shady picnic area, where the award platforms were arranged behind potted plants. Twice Buddy stood atop the highest of three blocks while a volunteer hit the play button on the boom box and the Olympic theme blared. Twice Buddy smiled, pumped his fist in the air, and the instant the music ended shouted, “Who loves me now?”

The second time he did this, Lucy turned to Theo to ask him what Buddy was doing, but Theo had already started to explain. He said it was Buddy’s good-luck ritual, one he’d used since he was eight, when he won his first Special Olympics event.