Paige Turned

by Erynn Mangum

  “Yep.” He grins, leaning against the high counter, watching me inhale the coffee like it’s the last cup I will ever drink.

  Oh, Lord, please don’t let this be the last cup I ever drink!

  To say I’m nervous is a huge understatement.

  “Dad helped me pay for one when I was seventeen. Good gas mileage and they never had to worry about me driving home with too many people in the car.”

  “My parents equated motorcycles with Satanism.”

  He grins wider. “Sometimes there’s a very thin line. Are you finally ready? I have to have the bike back by one.”

  Three hours. Something else ominous was three hours . . .

  My brain fills in the words. “A three-hour tour . . .”

  Yep. I think all of 1960s America remembers how that little adventure ended. Ninety-eight episodes later, Gilligan finally got off the island and got to go home.

  I look at Tyler, who is antsy in his excitement, and drain one more cup of coffee.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I say, groaning. I grab a jacket. I tried to dress as prepared for death as I could. I shaved my legs, I made sure all of my important documents were in the fire safe where I keep them, and I left instructions for Rick on how to collate the copies from the machine properly.

  Anytime Rick makes copies, all of the even numbered pages are always upside down.

  “This is going to be fun!” Tyler declares, running down my stairs. “Ta-da!” He does a Vanna White impression directing my attention to the parking lot.

  There’s a shiny silver machine of terror parked right beside my five-star safety rating car. “Yay.”

  “You’re not excited?” Tyler asks me.

  I’m trying my best not to show how my hands are shaking. Maybe honesty is the way to go. “I am completely terrified.”

  He looks at me and the sweetest expression crosses his face. “Are you really?” He walks over and takes my hands, eyes widening. “You are terrified!” He pulls me in for a hug. “Look, honey, it’s going to be fine, okay? We are going to be completely safe. I’m not even going to really drive on the roads. Deep breath in, okay?”

  I take a shuddering breath. “Maybe we could just take my car.”

  He pushes me back to shoulder length and flicks a hand through my hair, blue eyes staring right into my soul. “Paige, sometimes the best adventures are the ones that scare you the most.”

  He hands me a helmet and I hold it, looking at him. “Where did you get that?”

  “A fortune cookie last week from Panda.”

  My boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen.

  “Okay.” Tyler straddles the bike and clicks his chin strap down. “There’s a huge empty parking lot about two miles away. I’ll drive there and then you can take over.”

  I just look at him, still holding the helmet.

  “Well?” he asks me.

  “This goes against everything I was ever raised to believe as a child. Except maybe the ‘you can always get more but you can’t put it back’ advice my dad used to lecture us with after we were too exuberant with the ketchup bottle.”

  Tyler is laughing. “Will you just climb on, Paige?”

  It’s a good thing I believe in once saved, always saved. God forgive me. This is ridiculous. I’m twenty-three years old. I don’t think this qualifies as disobedience.

  Tyler pulls his helmet back off his head and looks at me, blond hair glinting gold in the sunlight. “Paige?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Just hold on.” He reaches out a hand to me. “I’m not going to let anything happen. Are you going to trust me or not?”

  He says it jokingly, but deep in my heart I hear the question in a different way. Am I going to trust Tyler? Ever since his confession at the mall, I’ve been holding back in a way, worrying that maybe, just maybe, he will hurt me in the end. That maybe he really hasn’t changed like he’s said he has.

  I bite my bottom lip, take a deep breath, and pull the extremely tight helmet over my head.

  His grin is worth it.

  I hold on to his shoulder and kick my right leg over the bike. The seat is cushier than I imagined it would be. Tyler turns around to look at me, still smiling. “Okay, so you put your feet on these little foot pegs. Whatever you do, do not take your feet off the foot pegs.”

  I anchor my legs in place, fear turning my stomach cold. “Why? Could we crash? Will we die?”

  Tyler pulls his helmet on. “It just makes it easier for me to balance. Try to keep your weight in the center of the bike, and it’s best if you don’t anticipate the turns. Just hold on to my back.”

  It’s hard to hear everything he says with the helmet on, so I just latch on to his back like some helmet-wearing leech. He turns on the motorcycle and the engine roars in my ears.

  We slowly step back out of the parking space and then Tyler turns slightly. “Ready?” he yells at me.

  I take a deep breath. “Okay.” I nod.

  He starts driving and my stomach is somewhere down in the toes of my shoes. I’m hanging on to him with every stitch of strength I’ve got, making sure my feet are completely planted on the foot pegs.

  We turn out onto the road and Tyler picks up speed. The landscape is flying past—much faster than it looks when I’m in a car. I lock my hands together around his chest and keep praying, squinching my eyes shut.

  I peek them open when I feel us slowing down. We are in a huge church parking lot and Tyler comes to a stop, pulling his helmet off and grinning at me.

  “All right, Speedy Gonzales, you’re up.” He sets the kickstand and then holds a hand back to me. “Go ahead and climb off because I want you to try climbing on by yourself.”

  It’s not like this was a horse and I was learning how to step into a saddle. I take his hand, though, and hoist myself off, standing there and feeling huge-headed and awkward in my helmet.

  “Okay.” Tyler slides off. “Now, the first thing I want you to do is to just sit on it with the kickstand off, just to get used to the weight you’ll be balancing on.”

  I swing a leg over the motorcycle and Tyler nudges up the kickstand. Immediately I feel off balance and clumsy. I grip the handles tightly.

  “Okay, I’ve got the back, Paige. See? You aren’t going anywhere.” Tyler holds the back of the bike with both hands.

  I feel like when I was seven and my dad was teaching me how to ride a bicycle. “Now, Paige, a bike is a huge responsibility and I expect you to ride it safely. Do you understand?” Dad used to say to me, making sure I knew how to check the spokes and fill up the tires before I ever even sat on it.

  My parents were very into safety.

  Still are. I’m hoping Preslee doesn’t tell them about this little experience I’m currently having.

  Tyler spends the next hour showing me where the gas is, where the clutch is, how to use my tiny mirrors, and how to make turns. Finally, when my brain feels like it might pop and I’m wishing I’d consumed even more coffee before we came out here, he pulls his helmet back on and nods to me.

  “Well. Let’s do it.”

  “Do what?” I hope he means drive back to the apartment and spend the rest of the day at a nice restaurant known for their desserts.

  “Let’s go. You’re going to chauffeur me around the parking lot.”

  I just look at him. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Oh, I’m as serious as they come, sweetheart.” He grins. He slides behind me on the bike, then nudges me up a little closer to the handlebars. “Do it just like we talked about. Kickstand up, now shift your weight so you’re leaning to the right . . .”

  He talks me through it, and what feels like a small eternity later, I slowly press on the gas and the motorcycle shoots forward.

  Tyler starts laughing and grabs me around the waist. “See? You’ve got it!”

  I’m losing feeling in my hands with how tightly I’m gripping the handlebars.

  “Now, remember what I said. Lean into the turn . . .�
��

  Twenty minutes later and I’ve circled the parking lot at about the same speed as my neighbor’s ancient German shepherd could have done, and the dog was half blind and pretty much lame.

  Poor dog.

  Tyler has talked nonstop the entire twenty minutes, throwing out words like “engine shut-off switch” and “down-shifting.”

  Because obviously I know what those mean.

  “Okay. Try giving it a little more gas,” he says when we get back to where we started.

  “More gas?”

  “Don’t worry, Paige. You’re doing great. You’re a natural on one of these things. Your parents should have named you Harley.”

  “Thank God they didn’t.”

  He laughs.

  I add a touch more gas and suddenly we are going at a good clip. It’s easier to balance and I take a deep breath, trying to relax my grip on the handlebars. Tyler’s arms are loose around my waist, his head close to mine.

  This isn’t so bad.

  “You’re doing great,” Tyler says again, and this time I believe him.

  I pull to a stop a couple of minutes later and set the kickstand. Tyler slides off and holds his hand out to me, helping me off and then pulling me in for a super awkward helmet-bonking hug.

  “That was fun, wasn’t it?” He pushes me back and pulls off his helmet. His hair is all sweaty and creased, and it makes me think about what a sight my own hair is likely to be. Lovely.

  I try to fight the smile on my face but it wins out. “Okay. It was pretty fun.”

  “Ha!” Tyler’s shout is victorious. “I knew it!”

  “Okay, okay. You win. You were right.” I take off my helmet, and rake a hand back through it. “I have no idea what I am going to tell my parents.”

  Tyler laughs. “You are a funny person, Paige.” He settles his helmet back on his head. “Come on. I’ll take us back to your house.”

  We drive back and this time I keep my eyes open for the ride. Tyler pulls in beside my car again, and I slide off after he puts the kickstand down.

  “Okay.” He grins at me behind his helmet. “Go inside, take a shower, and I will be back in time to take you to an early dinner.”

  “Is a tattoo parlor a stop along the way? I mean, since we’re marking off all the things on my ‘I Swear I Will Never Attempt’ list anyway.”

  Tyler laughs. “Admit it. You’ve always wanted an I Love Mom on your bicep.”

  “At one point I considered tattooing a coffee cup to my wrist.”

  He just stares at me. “Wow. Really?”

  “No, Tyler.”

  He grins.

  “Drive safe, please.”

  He nods and slowly backs out of the space. I wave once and walk up my stairs, exhausted.

  Time for confession.

  Mom answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “I just rode on a motorcycle.”

  “Well, that’s fun. Your dad used to ride a Suzuki something or another back when we first got married. He actually proposed to me on the back of it. We took a picnic lunch out to this little random, abandoned road that was covered in wildflowers.”

  It’s a good thing I don’t have one of those little robotic vacuums because I’m pretty sure my jaw would have gotten sucked up into it at that comment. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure. He was pretty cool back then. Had the long hair and the motorcycle jacket. I thought he was something else.”

  I sit on the couch, in total shock.

  Mom’s still talking. “Your dad stopped alongside this little river with all these little poppies blooming and told me that he wanted to be the river to my poppies.” She sighs. “It was very romantic.”

  It was actually pretty cheesy, but I wasn’t about to tell that to Mom. “Dad drove a motorcycle?” I ask again, incredulously.

  “Up until you were born. Then he decided to get something that would fit a car seat.”

  I have never known this. Ever. I’ve never seen pictures or anything of my father on a motorcycle. You’d think that would be something you’d show to your kids, like, look children, your father used to be cool.

  “How come y’all never said anything about this?”

  Mom pauses. “I’m not sure, really. When you guys were little, it just seemed pointless, and then as you got older, we wanted you guys to live as safely as possible so it seemed better not to mention anything.”

  I’m thinking about that when she starts talking again. “Well, anyway, honey, I need to go. Preslee really should have some sort of guest favor so I’m off to look for some. Have a good afternoon! Wear a helmet if you go out again.”

  She hangs up and I pull the phone away from my ear, staring at it before mashing another button.

  “Did you know Dad used to drive a motorcycle?” I ask Preslee as soon as I hear the click that she’s answered.

  “It’s a little late in the day for lying,” Preslee says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t Mr. Rogers say that in one of his episodes?”

  I open my mouth and then change my mind as far as replying to that comment. “Seriously, though. You can call and ask Mom. Dad drove a motorcycle. He even proposed to Mom on the back of it.”

  Preslee is quiet for a minute. “So how come . . .” she says slowly, drawing the words out, “when I was fifteen, Dad nearly had a heart attack when I told him I’d gone riding on the back of Cal Risewine’s motorcycle?”

  “Probably more because it was Cal Risewine, Pres. Didn’t he get kicked out of school for distributing marijuana?”

  “Well. That could have also played into it, I guess.”

  “My point, Preslee, is I have spent my entire life believing that motorcycles and tattoos and gauged ears were all the worst things you could ever possibly do, and now I’m finding out that the people who raised me to think those things got engaged on a motorcycle!”

  “I have two tattoos. What does that say about me?”

  I just sigh.

  I can hear the smile in Preslee’s voice. “I might be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure there are only ten commandments.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying to relax. If it’s not a sin, don’t make it one.”

  I rub my temples and stare at my blank TV, thinking about what she’s saying. When did my baby sister become so knowledgeable?

  “Well. Listen, I have to go. Mom’s trying to talk me into getting favors for all the guests, which I think is ridiculous because we are already feeding them an entire meal and giving them cake and a reason to spend the night dancing. I’ve never kept one of the favors I’ve ever received at a wedding, including the beta fish I got at the last one.”

  “What did you do to the poor fish?”

  “I did what anyone does with a fish they don’t want.”

  “You flushed him?”

  “No, I took him to the grocery store and left him on the fresh-seafood counter with a sign saying ‘Save me!’”

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course I flushed him, Paige! ‘All drains lead to the ocean.’ Didn’t you learn anything from Finding Nemo? Really, I was just setting him free.”

  I don’t bother informing my sister that most city drains lead to the sewage company. “Well. Have fun with Mom.”

  “Thanks. Less than eight weeks to the wedding and it’s like she’s not going to live long enough to see it with how stressed out she is. I’ve been calling Dad to make sure he gives her like melatonin or something at night because she’s so wired she can barely sit, much less sleep.”

  So my parents got engaged on a motorcycle and now Dad’s drugging Mom.

  Lovely.

  “Bye, Preslee.” I hang up and stare at my TV for another couple of minutes.

  “If it’s not a sin, don’t make it one.”

  I think about all of the rules I had growing up. Obey my parents. Stop at all intersections. Don’t even think about being late to curfew. Say n
o to motorcycles, drugs, alcohol, piercings, tattoos, and bleached hair. Buckle up any time in a car. Shorts need to come to your middle finger. No being alone with a boy—sex leads to babies out of wedlock and terrible diseases.

  Maybe . . .

  Maybe instead of hearing my parents’ warnings for what they were—warnings—I took them instead at the same face value as everything else they told me in lecture mode.

  I really was the perfect daughter.

  But maybe there is such a thing as too perfect.

  I turn to Layla, who is slumped over like a Creamsicle sitting out in the sun too long, and poke her shoulder. “Pastor Louis said we can go,” I tell her.

  The pandemonium that usually follows our pastor’s dismissal is in fine form today. Kids are yelling, parents are yelling back at them, people are laughing and hugging, and it’s like there’s this uncontainable joy in the room because it’s officially fall and not in the nineties outside.

  Layla looks over at me and rubs her blotchy red eyes. “Oh. Yeah. Guess we can go now, huh?”

  Peter is busy talking to Tyler on the other side of me, which is just a complete shock because Peter doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s like Layla and Peter have exchanged personalities here in the last three weeks before their wedding.

  “You okay?” I ask her quietly.

  She nods. “I was up super super late last night. Or early this morning. Or however you would say it.”

  “What time did you go to bed?”

  She pulls her cell phone out of her purse and squints at the numbers. “Well, if all goes well and traffic is good, hopefully in about twenty minutes.”

  “You didn’t sleep all night?” I gasp.

  Layla is not like this at all. Layla is the girl who refused to go to summer camp one year because the year before she didn’t get her customary ten hours of sleep every night. She’s been known to miss parties, graduations, and wedding receptions so she can go to bed.

  Her mother always said she was the perfect baby.

  “I was working on the programs,” she mutters, rubbing her hair.

  “Programs.”

  “For the wedding? You know, the who’s who of the ceremony.” She sighs. “Apparently it’s a big deal.”

  “A big deal to who?”