Eleven Things I Promised

by Catherine Clark

  We all cheered and whooped. I felt a shiver go down my spine. I’d never been part of something this big, for such a good cause, before. Contributing fifty dollars to Stella’s ride last year didn’t really count. Neither did the dollar I threw into the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas.

  “Is everybody ready?” Heather counted down from ten, and everyone around me was chanting, too. “Three-two-one . . . bike!” we all screamed.

  I pushed off gingerly and tried to avoid ramming into anyone as I settled into the seat. “Step one,” Mason had coached me, “is stay on the bike.”

  My wheels were nearly touching the wheels of the girl’s bike in front of me, and her wheels were almost on top of the guy’s wheels in front of her. I thought we were in for a long, awkward ride, until faster riders separated off the front of the pack, the middle spread out, and the rest of us settled into the back.

  I kept my head down as I gained speed, getting into a good spot. I didn’t want to be last. If I started out in last place, there was no telling where I’d end up. Probably I’d never make it out of third gear. I might not even make it out of Bangor.

  I shifted quickly to higher gears, getting more comfortable as I focused on the road ahead. My muscles responded, settling into a good, sustained pace. Not everyone here was trying to set a speed record. There were at least a few dozen riders going my pace. Easy peasy, I thought, repeating something Oxendale had said in the van when we went over the instructions for our first day. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

  Speaking of Oxendale, I thought I spotted him up ahead. I tried to ride fast enough to catch up with him, but it was impossible. The faster I rode, the farther ahead he seemed to get. Not surprising. Suddenly Oxendale (or whoever it was) kicked up his pace a notch and zoomed to the front, like he’d just added an electric motor to his bike.

  Where were Cameron, Max, and the inseparable couple? Where was Margo? In a pack this big, we were going to need something more to keep track of one another—matching shirts or stickers, something bold and neon. This team might be great at athletics, but they were terrible at teamwork-type stuff. Maybe that was one of the pieces Stella normally brought to the group. Without her, we were just eight individuals; that is, if you counted Autumn and Alex as individuals.

  I thought back to the day I walked into our weekly team check-in meeting to tell everyone that Stella wouldn’t make it, that her leg was badly broken, but that I’d still be riding with them.

  They looked at me as if I were insane. As if they only wanted me if I were part of the package deal. They were all experienced cyclists, most of whom had done this same charity ride the year before. They planned on doing the sprint challenges every day, racing one another to the finish line, whereas I just had my sights set on finishing each segment. That’d be enough of a challenge for me.

  The more I thought about Stella, and her not being here, the harder I rode. I started passing a couple of people. Then a few more. Each time I reached a faster mph speed, the little computer on my handlebars beeped.

  I was looking down at it when suddenly I was crossing train tracks and my front wheel slid sideways a bit as my back wheel slid another way—the bike bobbled but I kept my balance, pushing hard on the handlebars and recovering into a straight but wobbly line. Phew, I thought as I glanced down to check the computer and try to get back up to speed.

  That’s when my front tire hit a deep pothole. I went flying over the handlebars, landing on my butt, scraping my wrist on the pavement as I bounced to the side of the road.

  Whoever said blondes have more fun had obviously never gone on a mass bike ride.

  I got up right away and brushed off the dirt and grit. It was only a few scratches and some missing skin. I’d have bruises tomorrow. Big ones.

  Please, I thought, let nobody be looking at me.

  “Hey, you okay?” Three different people stopped to check on me. “You want a Band-Aid? I’ve got one.” “Ouch. I hate when I hit potholes.”

  “I know, right?” I laughed, despite the fact that my road burn was starting to throb a little. “No, I’m okay.”

  “You sure?” a girl wearing a South High Sprinters jersey asked. She was even shorter than me, but her legs looked about ten times stronger.

  I nodded. “Thanks, though.”

  “I’ll just make sure you’re okay. I’ll ride beside you for a little while,” she said.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “It’s no big deal. I want to,” she said. “We’re all going to the same place, right?”

  “I guess so,” I said. Then I swung my leg over the bike, settled into the saddle, and started all over again.

  CHAPTER 3

  That afternoon we finished at a high school near Belfast, Maine, riding through an arch of red and white balloons. I might have been one of the last to finish, but I definitely wasn’t absolutely last. I made sure of that.

  “That counts, right?” I asked when I checked in.

  “What are you talking about? Of course it counts,” said the volunteer who was helping me. “You did great!”

  As I was setting my bike in the right corral for the night, Cameron appeared beside me. “See? It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he asked. “It’s not brain surgery. You ride, you get tired, you rest, you ride again. The only thing you actually have to fear is boredom. The way the road starts to look when it’s really hot and the pavement starts to shimmer.”

  “That didn’t happen—yet.” I didn’t point out the wound on my elbow, or the fact that I had two Band-Aids on my hand. I’d thought it was too pretentious for me to wear gloves, but since my wipeout I’d put them on, just as Mason had suggested I do from the beginning. “Actually, it wasn’t that bad, except for the part when I bit it.”

  “What happened there?” he asked.

  “I spent some quality time on the pavement. Hit a pothole. No big deal.”

  “Yeah?” Cameron examined my elbow. “You want to go to the medical tent and make sure?”

  “It’s just scraped up. I’ll put some ointment and a Band-Aid on it if it bugs me,” I said.

  “You know what this means,” said Cameron.

  “I’m clumsy?” I asked.

  “No! It means you’re officially a cyclist now. You have road burn.”

  “Oh joy,” I said. “When do I get my member card or badge or whatever?”

  Cameron pointed to my scraped forearm and elbow. “You’re looking at it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “No, really.”

  The field was covered in a sea of blue tents. I found ours and located my duffel bag. Taking out my cosmetics bag and a change of clothes, I headed into the high school to find the locker room. I waited in line for a bit and then got to take a quick, hot shower. I didn’t realize how much sweat and dirt there was on me until I washed it off. I felt like a new person when I was done.

  After I got dressed and walked out of the little shower stall, I saw Autumn at one mirror, doing her hair, and Margo at another, putting on mascara. It was really weird to be hanging out with people I’d never spent time with at school. Not that we were “hanging out,” exactly. We were just in the same real estate.

  It was bizarre to see my blond hair in the mirror. I tried to run a comb through it, but didn’t have much luck. The two-in-one shampoo my mom had bought because it would take up less room in my bag didn’t have much conditioner, and I thought I was probably breaking my hair more than I was making it look nice. How would she know, though? My hair is nothing like my mom’s. Mine has tight curls and looping waves because of my mixed-race background, while hers is stick-straight; she’s half Japanese and half Caucasian. My dad is half African-American and half French. Which means I am officially four things at once, and my hair has a mind of its own.

  I worked on it for a while, trying to make it presentable. I was pretty sure that the fact I’d bleached it wasn’t helping. I didn’t even know how to react to seeing myself as a blonde. Without Stella to bounce the concept off, it
was like I had no way to judge if I looked better or worse.

  “So. You finished?” Margo asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I have some moisturizer—”

  “No, I meant . . . you finished the ride?”

  “Of course,” I said with a laugh.

  “Don’t be so surprised I asked. You told us you were worried about it,” Margo said. “I didn’t know if you’d make it on your own or need the sag wag.”

  Margo really knew how to deliver an underhanded dig. “I did okay,” I said, leaning forward to put lotion under my eyes. “I wish I were faster, but I’m still pretty new at this.”

  “It takes months of training,” said Autumn, brushing her hair out after a blow-dry. “Months.”

  Outside, the smell of barbecue wafted through the air, and I made my way over to the row of grills, a large dinner spread of burgers, hot dogs, and various other food. I glanced at my phone. Thirty minutes until dinner started. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to wait that long.

  I wandered over to the support area: there was a small first-aid tent next to a tent offering free fifteen-minute leg massages. I peeked inside, but both massage tables were taken by others. I’d come back for that.

  I climbed up on the bleachers by the football field, looking at over a hundred tents, all the same blue. The tents looked like a temporary camping convention, like base camp at Everest, but with more oxygen.

  I fiddled with my phone. I really wanted to call Stella and tell her about this scene, but of course she already knew about it. She’d done this ride. She also knew how difficult Margo could be. She didn’t need to hear that I was having a hard time with her.

  I read through Stella’s F-It List again. I had to get started.

  That night we all gathered on the school’s football field, sitting in the bleachers to listen to a couple of short, inspiring speeches by local kids who were cancer survivors, followed by a bluegrass band performing on a small stage on the edge of the field, facing us.

  I looked at my phone, wondering when the official stuff would be over and when I could get started. I can’t stand bluegrass and I definitely couldn’t dance to it, which wouldn’t make this semi-spontaneous dance party any easier.

  “Have someplace else to be?” Cameron asked me.

  “What?”

  “You keep checking your phone. You have a date or something?” he asked.

  I nearly snorted out the Gatorade I’d been drinking. “No. Definitely not. But I have something planned.”

  “Oh. Like, a Skype visit? FaceTime?” he said.

  “Like that,” I said.

  The list was Stella’s to share, not mine, and she wasn’t ready, so I’d just have to appear spontaneously . . . weird. I wondered if I could present it as a “dare”-type scenario? That could make sense. Although Margo and Alex and Autumn would call me immature, they were probably going to call me that anyway.

  At the moment Alex and Autumn were cuddling by the closed concession stand at the edge of the football field. I was starting to wonder if they’d only come on the trip so they could be together. Like, together together. Because there had been chunks of time when they’d been nowhere in sight. And cycling still didn’t seem like their thing, but who was I to talk?

  Margo was busy going over the next day’s route on her phone, taking notes and crunching numbers. She had a spreadsheet spread out on the bleacher seat below us, and she was filling in information with a mechanical pencil.

  “How are you feeling?” Margo asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Your legs aren’t sore?”

  “Nope.”

  “Just wait until tomorrow,” she said. “I scoped out the route, and it’s a lot harder. A lot.”

  Why did she sound like she was looking forward to that? As if she wanted my legs to feel terrible. She couldn’t have been more obvious that she was going to take pleasure in my pain.

  “So I was thinking,” I said. Both feet on the edge of the diving board. Now jump. “What this place needs is a good party.”

  “You party?” asked Max, nodding. “Cool. There’s a guy you might want to talk to—name’s Scully. He—”

  “No. Not party like that,” I said quickly. At least, not yet. I’d have to remember the name Scully for future reference. “Just like, you know, dancing. Letting off steam. Having fun.”

  There was a deathly silence.

  “I was thinking of turning in early, actually,” Cameron said.

  “No, you—you can’t,” I said. I only had three guys to choose from, because if I asked Alex to dance, Autumn would probably knock me out with one punch. “Come on, guys. We have less than a week away from home, so let’s make the most of it, you know?” While I was talking and explaining the plan to turn the stage and football field into one big dance floor, Elsa vanished. I guess it wasn’t her kind of thing.

  “Yeah, all right. I’ll go with you, too, find some speakers,” Max offered.

  “Might as well,” said Oxendale. “It’s not like I can fall asleep before midnight. Ever since I got here I’ve been running on the wrong clock.”

  “Fine. I’ll come,” said Margo.

  “Great,” I said. Now it was bound to be a whole lot of fun.

  “Are you trying to be our team captain or something? Did Stella ask you to do that since she’s not here?” Margo asked as we headed down the bleachers to the field when the band wrapped up.

  “No, don’t be ridiculous. Like I could be the captain,” I scoffed.

  “Exactly. That would be insane. Besides, we don’t have a captain. But I still say you’re up to something.”

  “I’m not up to something,” I said.

  “Then why do you get so mad every time I ask you a question?” she said.

  “I don’t know, maybe because you don’t usually talk to me at school because you think you’re too cool to, and now you’re in my face?” I said. “You act like you want me to fail.”

  “No, I don’t.” Margo stopped walking and looked a little bit worried. “And I’m not trying to be in your face.”

  “Fine. Okay,” I said. “But you’re still doing a pretty good job of it.”

  “You’re just upset because you’re doing something that’s not your normal thing,” said Margo. “I mean, obviously. You’re outside your comfort zone.”

  Way outside was more like it, but I wouldn’t tell her that. “I’m not in any zone. I’m doing this because I want to.”

  Nothing like a conversation with Margo to motivate me. I quickly checked with Heather to see if it was okay if we made a little noise for a while by using the speaker system. I had to promise to end things by nine thirty, which was only half an hour away, but it still gave me enough time to get this task accomplished. I hooked up the phone and my dance playlist kicked out of the speakers, starting with a Fitz and the Tantrums song Stella and I loved.

  I waited during the first song. I waited for other people to start dancing. No one did. Out of over three hundred people here, absolutely nobody was dancing. I didn’t know Will that well, so I decided to start with the person I did know at least a little bit. “Cameron?” I asked. “Do you want to dance?”

  “No,” he said.

  “What do you mean, no?” I said. “You didn’t even pretend to think about it.” I pushed his arm gently.

  “Oh, uh.” He shook his head. “I don’t dance.”

  “It’s a rule?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “Okay . . . no problem. I get it.” So much for that strategy. He wasn’t the kind of person who danced, just like that.

  “Um, Max?” I turned toward him, but just as I did, he headed straight for a tall girl with long, curly black hair. “Never . . . mind,” I sighed.

  A couple of minutes later Max and the girl were standing close, completely wrapped up in each other’s attention. Then they started dancing, so at least they were playing along.

  With Elsa hibernating in the tent, Autumn and Ale
x stuck together like glue, Max on the make, and Cameron completely saying no, my choice was down to Oxendale. He was staring at me expectantly, like he was waiting for me to make a move.

  “I don’t even remember seeing you at the last school dance,” Margo said.

  “I was working, probably. I’m always working,” I explained.

  Margo gave me a puzzled look. She didn’t know that about me. She didn’t know that I was saving for my own car, saving for a drawing class at an art studio that summer, and saving for a prom dress. Of course, I wasn’t going to prom now.

  “So, would you like to dance?” I asked Will.

  “I’d be delighted.” His face broke into a goofy grin. He seemed shy at first, barely catching the rhythm as he stepped back and forth. But as soon as we moved out closer to the other dancers, he leaped into action, slamming against me, against other dancers, hip-checking the speakers, taking out a small child—

  Okay, I made that last part up. But the thing about being six foot six and skinny was that his elbows and knees were weapons.

  Don’t look at him, I told myself. Forget that he’s wearing a Connie’s Cycles bike jersey that has the worst logo ever designed, with a wheel inside a wheel inside a . . . God, it makes me nauseous to look at it while we’re dancing. Stop looking at it.

  I glanced out at the crowded field instead and saw dozens of other people moving, bouncing, unable to help themselves from dancing to Daft Punk, while others stood off to the sides, watching and talking. I hoped this would make Stella happy as I took a quick selfie of me and Oxendale.

  “I love this song! Don’t stop!” he shouted in my ear, pulling me to the center of the stage.

  The sacrifices I was making for this list. Two down, eight to go.

  Half an hour later, the four of us were in our tent, getting ready for so-called lights-out. I planned to check in with my mom and send a photo or two to Stella. Elsa was reading in the farthest corner from me, Margo was obsessively straightening her sleeping bag because it kept sliding too close to mine, and Autumn was sitting cross-legged on the sleeping bag beside mine, brushing her hair the one hundred times we’re all supposed to—again.