“You’re getting your stuff ready. Does that mean you’re not kicked off?” Margo asked.
“I’m still on the trip,” I said.
“Wait a second. You almost got us kicked off the ride?” asked Oxendale. “What did you do?”
Suddenly all seven other riders were circled around me. It felt like an inquisition. I had to talk fast or they might shoot me—that was how they looked.
“I broke a rule,” I quickly admitted. “It’s not a super-big deal. I talked to Heather and it’s going to be okay. I just have to check in with her more often.” And not spend the night with Mason again. Which would be easy. He was gone. Unless of course he came back tonight, too, which would be awesome. . . .
“What rule?” Autumn asked.
“I—well—see—Stella’s brother, Mason, we were talking,” I said. I couldn’t confess to the rest of it in front of all these people; I hadn’t even told my best friend yet. “The time got away from us, and I ended up falling asleep in his truck. I broke the tent curfew.”
Nobody said anything for a minute. Then Cameron asked, “How could you be so stupid? Don’t you know how long we’ve worked for this, how much is at stake? Maybe you don’t care, but we’re trying to make a difference here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I looked down, embarrassed. “Yes. It was really dumb. I promise I . . . I’m in this thing to finish.” Somehow it didn’t matter that I’d talked my way into staying. Everyone hated me anyway.
They went back to getting their bikes ready, and I headed for the locker room to change. Margo trailed along beside me. “Now you have two strikes against you. One, you’re the last one to finish every day. And two, you almost cost us the trip. You’re on thin ice.”
“Which is it?” I asked, annoyed. “A baseball metaphor or a skating metaphor? Because I’m confused.”
She stopped walking. “You know what? I’ve been trying to help you. But you’re on your own from here on out.”
“Help me? You?” I laughed.
I left her and went into a locker room stall to get changed. When I came out, she was gone. Outside, everyone was lining up for the start.
I tried to keep a low profile, which wasn’t easy in a hot-pink bikini top, with platinum hair and a pierced navel. This was getting ridiculous.
As I got on my bike and slowly rode over to the start, Max and Oxendale zipped past in a blur, followed by Autumn and Alex in their practically matching outfits. If they noticed me, they didn’t say anything.
I worked my way up in the crowd of cyclists and stopped to adjust my seat a bit. This wasn’t the day to ride in a bikini top. It really wasn’t. I made sure I had everything I’d need for what was going to be a hard day: water, the patch kit (Mason), extra socks (Mason), extra shirt, and the hundred-dollar bill I was carting around in my bike bag every day.
Suddenly I spotted Cameron off to the side, and I gradually made my way over toward him. I bumped his back wheel and he turned to look at me.
“What’s with the getup?” he asked.
I wished I had something, anything, even a giant peach dress to cover me. “It’s a dare, actually. Can you get a photo for Stella?”
“Maybe later!” he called as the horn sounded and he took off, at a pace I’d never be able to catch up with.
So it was going to be like that.
Well, maybe I deserved it.
After a few minutes on the road, the long line of riders stretched out, as we all got into our normal riding paces. Translation: Frances at the back.
Ride in the Back. No One Will Notice Your Screwups.
Ride in the Back. Nobody Will See You in a Bikini.
After a minute, I noticed Elsa riding beside me. Thank goodness for Elsa. She’d stick with me. She’d been nothing but supportive during this whole journey so far. She might not say much, but she was rooting for me, I could tell.
I turned and gave her a small smile. “It’s for Stella,” I explained. “The outfit. Do you think you could get a photo for me?”
“Sure.” She took out her phone, focused it on me, and clicked the camera button.
“Thank you so much. I promised her a travelogue of the trip.”
“It’s okay. Good luck,” she said softly, and then she took off with a sprint.
Well. So much for companionship. I was on my own.
I lowered my shoulders and focused on getting a good cadence going with my pedals, a strong, steady, rhythmic pace I could keep up for hours. I tried to ignore the slight pulsing feeling in my belly button.
Three more days after today. That was all I had to do. Three more days and I could see Stella again.
Three more days and I could see Mason again, too.
Stella, Mason, Stella, Mason, I thought as my legs pushed the pedals.
I didn’t know what Stella would think of me and Mason being together. She might not be a fan. On the other hand, she might think it was a good idea. It would depend on a lot of things, like whether Mason felt the same way about me as I felt about him. Maybe it was a one-time thing that would never happen again.
Thinking about him now, I didn’t want that to be true. I loved the way it felt when we were curled up together. I loved kissing him. I loved how he played with my hair, pushing the curls behind my ear, out of the way when we kissed, holding me close.
But if it made Stella uncomfortable or angry, I wouldn’t pursue anything with Mason. She had enough to deal with.
CHAPTER 12
That afternoon, the road was shimmering ahead of me, the way Cameron had once warned me it would.
Surprisingly, my legs felt okay, and my mind was focused, but I felt like I was about to pass out from sunstroke. I could tell that my shoulders were getting sunburned—it wasn’t like I’d had time to put on sunscreen. I also thought—no, I knew—I was lost.
I didn’t know how I’d gone wrong, whether I took a wrong turn or just wasn’t paying attention, or was I so far behind it didn’t matter? But that was where the sag wagon was supposed to be—behind the last person. So I wasn’t on the right path anymore. I hadn’t been since lunch, when I’d taken off without the group, since they weren’t speaking to me, anyway. I hadn’t eaten much, because I was too distracted, thinking of Stella, and Mason, and how much everyone else was angry with me.
I stopped for a minute beside the road, leaning my bike against the slight hill. I had to get back on course quickly so I could check in with Heather at the end of the day’s ride, or I’d forfeit the ride that I’d just argued to keep. I rode slowly—half out of necessity and half out of hope that someone else would come by. I drank some water and wiped sweat from my forehead with the “magic shirt” Stella had told me to keep in my bike bag—the one time she’d felt like talking to me about the ride.
That’s what she called it. Her magic shirt. A long-sleeved thin, black “technical” T-shirt that collapsed into what felt like a tiny scrap of fabric, so you could carry it with you in your saddlebag and it didn’t add any weight. She’d given me special instructions when she handed it over, as if it were a holy garment. “There’s nothing worse than getting drenched with sweat and then going down a long downhill and freezing. So keep this shirt with you, and you can always swap it out for the wet one,” she’d told me.
One of the few times she’d talked to me.
There were worse things than a sweaty shirt. Much worse. As we’d recently learned.
As I held out the so-called magic shirt to examine it and let the wind dry it out a bit before putting it on, I contemplated that it was more like a suggestion of a shirt. It was an arm’s worth of fabric, and maybe that would fit Stella, but it would never fit me. Still, I was desperate.
I put the black shirt over my bikini top because I was getting sunburned, and knowing Stella, this shirt had some massive SPF rating that would protect me. I should have thought of it sooner.
The fabric snagged on my new belly-button stud. I’d disinfected it at least five times since the night before, but
I was still worried it’d become a problem. Well, it was a problem. My mom would kill me when and if she found out about it.
Now the magic shirt was all sweaty, but so was I, so who cared? The last magic thing I’d put on had been that awful peach prom dress. Which, come to think of it, was not magic, and was still stuffed in the trunk of my mom’s car. I couldn’t stand to take it out and return it to the store. I owed Flanberger’s something for it, but I just couldn’t make myself deal with it because of what else had happened that day.
Every morning they gave us little maps to store in our saddlebags, in case this happened, in case we went off track. There was a problem with this plan: I was—and still am—horrible at reading maps. If I didn’t know where I was, then how could I figure out how to get where I should be? That was too deep to contemplate while I was lost. I unfolded the map, studied it as best I could. We’d crossed from Maine into New Hampshire before lunch, and were supposed to be riding into Concord, the capital, by the end of the afternoon. But no sign I’d seen recently had anything to do with Concord. We were taking lots of back roads because they were safer and had more room for large groups. But now I was a single, solitary rider and I felt deserted.
I decided to just keep riding in the same direction and see if I got to any of the roads that were listed. If a car passed by, I might attempt to flag it down. Or I might chicken out because I’d been taught never to flag down cars. For any reason.
I looked up at the sun but couldn’t see it through the mostly cloudy sky. Even if I could, how much would that help me? The sun rose in the east, set in the west, and it was the middle of the afternoon, so . . . I was somewhere between point A and point B, riding twelve miles an hour, at least according to the little computer thing on the handlebars. If I got this question in Algebra 2, I would have nailed it. I always nailed the math word problems. But I needed more information first.
If only I hadn’t lost my phone.
I kicked the ground, the pavement, scuffing the clippie shoes with their masking-tape messages from Mason. I knew I couldn’t give up, but I wanted to.
I climbed back on the bike and pedaled for a while. I came to an intersection, and the crossroad had more cars on it than the road I was on, so I turned right. After a while the road said I was going south, which boded well, so I kept going, my muscles burning as I climbed a hill that would have been at home at a ski area. In the Alps.
As I finally crested the hill—using the “granny gears” to get there—my eyes widened. There was a little café on the side of the road. As I got closer, I pedaled harder. Maybe this was an oasis, but if it was, it sure had a lot of trucks parked outside.
As I coasted up, a tall woman with short white hair was closing the door, with her key in the lock. “Wait!” I cried. “No!”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Can I help you?” She had a traditional, sort of old-fashioned pink waitress uniform on, the kind you see in old diner illustrations or on MeTV. She was wearing the kind of shoes that nurses wore—bright white and rubbery-looking.
“Please,” I said, stepping off the bike. “I’m lost. And I have to get back on course, and I’m out of water and—”
“Come on in,” she said as she examined the number pinned to my shorts. “You’re doing the Cure Childhood Cancer Ride? I heard that was passing near here—comes close from year to year.”
“Near here. That’s the problem,” I said. I glanced at the trucks in the parking lot. They all had For Sale signs in their windows. The other business at the same place was Dewey’s Trucks—New and Used and Spare Parts.
So the café wasn’t crowded with guests, like I’d thought. It really was closing.
“We close at three, but—”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Two fifty-eight. We haven’t had a customer in a while—we’re mobbed until one—so I was sneaking out early. I’m glad you caught me, though. You look a little worse for wear, no offense.”
“Oh, I know I do,” I said. “I’m doing all right, though. I just got lost and—I wasn’t wearing the right clothes. Actually, I’m still not wearing them.”
“You look beat.” She guided me to a seat at the counter of what looked like an old diner, one that had been here for eons, with metal counter stools that twirled when you sat down. I held on tight so I wouldn’t fall. My legs had hit the midafternoon wobbly stage. She handed me a cold, wet washcloth for my face, and I cleaned grit and sweat off my neck, face, and arms. When I was done, I noticed she’d placed a large red plastic glass of water in front of me. “Where are you from?”
“Sparrowsdale,” I said. “It’s north of North Conway?”
“Sure, sure. I know it. What do you need to eat?” she asked, catching me staring at the dessert case behind her. “I’ve got a nice blueberry cake—it’s not too heavy. And then I’ll make some calls for you?” she offered, getting the cake with one hand and the phone with the other.
I admired her balancing skills. “No,” I said. “I mean, no thanks, you can’t call anyone for me. I have to do this on my own. But, um, I would love a small piece of cake.”
She cut a hunk and served it on a little plate, where it hung over the edges. As good as the food had generally been on the trip, this was better by far. “You know what you need with blueberry cake? Lemonade,” she said, pouring a short glassful and sliding it over next to my giant cup of water. “By the way, my name’s Miranda. What’s yours?”
“Frances,” I said. “I know you have to leave soon, but maybe you could point me in the right direction?” I unfolded the small crumpled map and spread it out on the counter.
Miranda studied it for about fifteen seconds. “Number one, you’re not that far off course. Number two, you took the hard way. You’ve got a bit of sidetracking to do and you’ll find the right spot,” she said.
“Really?” I couldn’t believe it. Things were suddenly not as bad as they had seemed fifteen minutes ago. Quite the opposite, actually. We went over the map together as I ate the cake and rehydrated.
“I should probably get going,” I said after a few minutes. “I’m already pretty far behind.”
“Okay, then. Why don’t you bring in your water bottles and we’ll fill them up,” said Miranda. “One with water, one with lemonade.”
I tiptoed out of the diner on my bike shoes, as they made that obnoxious clip, clip sound on the floor. I sounded a little like a horse. Or, like a little horse. I wasn’t sure. I grabbed my two containers and brought them back inside.
Miranda quickly filled my clear water bottle, and then she started to pour lemonade into my Mercy Hospital travel mug. “Christmas travel mug, huh? I got a ton of Christmas mugs. Every year someone brings me another, like I work in a diner so coffee mugs must be my favorite thing.” She rolled her eyes. “Real original.”
“Yeah. It’s actually not a Christmas mug,” I said. “It says, or it’s supposed to say, Mercy. For Mercy Regional.”
“Oh. Does someone you know work there? That how you got it?” she asked.
“No.” I shook my head.
She waited for me to say more. She kept scrubbing a chrome napkin holder, although it looked perfectly clean to me.
“A nurse gave it to me. She was trying to comfort me by giving me some tea. I had just found out about my friend—my best friend. She was in an accident.” I couldn’t go into detail, I couldn’t go back to that day and think about it. “So I’m doing this ride for her,” I explained. “For my friend Stella, who signed up in the first place.”
Miranda stopped polishing. She slowly slid the Mercy cup toward me, across the counter. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I traced the fancy script letters in the Mercy logo. Mercy. Merry. It really depended on how you looked at it, whether you viewed it from one side or the other.
“I’ve worked here a long time, and I was married a long time. I’ve seen a lot of things. And if there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it’s to enjoy the time you do h
ave with someone,” said Miranda. “Make the most of it. Might sound corny or overused, but it’s the damn truth. Now, about your friend. Did she make it?”
“Oh yeah, she made it. I mean, she’s okay,” I said. Kind of but not really.
“So hurry up and finish this ride. That’s my advice.” She put the cake back in the dessert case and slid the door closed. “Not very original, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “It helps.”
What didn’t help was all the things this conversation was making me think about.
How badly off Stella was.
How much her life was going to change.
I couldn’t stop wondering, was she going to do the stuff we used to do or would everything be different now?
“Do you think I could use the restroom quick?” I asked. Miranda nodded, and I went into the ladies’ room to wash my face. I stayed in there a few minutes, running cold water over my wrists and splashing it on my neck, trying to keep myself from breathing so quickly. It felt like I was having a panic attack, not that I’d actually had one before. I took deep breaths and ran a cold paper towel across my forehead.
The ladies’ room was tiny, to the same scale as the small diner café. I looked at myself in the mirror: sunburned neck, bright bikini top under a thin black top, wrinkled race number pinned to my short bike shorts, a pierced belly button, and a line of bike grease stretching from my elbow to my wrist. I was a wreck, but Miranda had treated me like I was just another customer.
I reached into the small back pocket of my shorts, the only pocket with a zipper. I took out the hundred-dollar bill that Stella had made me promise to leave for someone unsuspecting. If I tried to give it to Miranda, she’d reject it—I was sure of it. But if I left it in the bathroom, how would I know she would be the one to get it?
I searched under the sink for something I could hide it in, but then, how would I get her the message to look? This was too complicated.
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