She Rode a Harley

by Mary Jane Black

  By this time, Dwayne has the door open, and he’s helping me out of the back seat. We get in my car, and I speed out of the parking lot. At the first stop light, he leans over and gently places his hand against the back of my head. His wide fingers thread through my hair. He pulls me to him. We kiss stretched across the gear shift. Cars honk loudly, and we break apart.

  At the hotel outside his room we sit in the dark car without speaking. Then I open the car door and walk to his room. Under the glow of the light over the door, I stand waiting. He joins me there. I take the key card from his hand and open the door. We step into the dark room together.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, and he drops down beside me. The bed sinks with our weight. He lays his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him. I kick off my shoes, and he slides off his boots.

  We swivel in unison and fall back against the pillows. He kisses my ear, my nose, my throat, and finally, my mouth. We lie face-to-face in the middle of the bed. I lay my arm over him. I tug his shirt out of his jeans and push my hand up it. I feel the hard, smooth muscles of his back.

  He rolls on top of me, and I feel his weight against me. I feel his hand cup my breast. My ragged breath moans from me. I force back the reminder in my head that I’ve never been with a man except Tom. I have never understood my divorced friends’ stories of one-night stands. Now I do.

  He jerks away. I look at his face in the glow of the neon light outside the window. He leans on his elbow by my pillow. He pushes my hair gently from my face and kisses the tip of my nose.

  I move away from him, trying to sit up. I swing my legs to get out of the bed in an effort to leave the motel room. My face burns with embarrassment.

  “Baby, listen.” He reaches up and pulls me down by him until I settle into his shoulder. His low voice murmurs in my ear, “I know you’ll think I’m crazy. But I can’t go through with this. You ain’t no one-night stand.”

  I whisper an apology against his chest. I stumble over the words to say I’m sorry for not being what he wanted. “My God, how could I think anyone would want someone like me?”

  He tilts my chin up. We look into each other’s eyes. “You are who I want. I just know that the first time we make love is going to be when we have time to enjoy every minute of it and not worry about a damn alarm going off in a couple of hours.”

  He pauses and strokes the curve of my throat. “I want you to believe me when I say we’re going to have the rest of our lives to love each other. I just know I’m going to love you until I die.” He laughs softly and murmurs, “After two nasty divorces, I probably shouldn’t be such a damn romantic fool.”

  I tell him about my leaving a brutal marriage and going through a messy divorce myself. “I have never believed in romance, but now I do.” I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince him or myself.

  As we lie in the darkness together, he tells me about his time as a member of a band in Texas. He wishes he had his guitar here. “We have a song now, you know?”

  “We do?”

  He sings softly in reply, “I’m a believer.” He murmurs the lyrics about finding love at first sight until I relax into his arms.

  As I listen to his voice rumbling beneath my ear, I fall asleep. At four in the morning, the alarm wakes us up. Dwayne walks me to my car and kisses me goodbye. I drive home to my sleeping daughter.

  Four days later, a letter arrives in the mail. The return address says, Lonesome Dwayne, Parkview Motel, Cleveland, Ohio. On the back flap of the envelope, he has drawn a detailed sketch of a lioness from the Cleveland Zoo. Underneath he has written, Love me back it will be good for you.

  BROKEN PROMISES

  After finishing his work at the Cleveland Zoo, Dwayne stops in Springfield, and I climb into the truck to join him on his trip home to Texas. During the weeks after our blind date, we talked each night on the phone and wrote each other a stream of letters. Now as the sun rises behind us, we talk as if we’ve known each other for years, not as if we just met on a blind date.

  After an hour of traveling and sharing stories, he cracks the window and holds a cigarette up. The smoke blows into the wind. He stares at the pavement. “I was in Vietnam right after I turned twenty. I stopped in Bryan to visit my mom after riding a Harley all over the country. A draft notice was waiting for me.”

  I slide closer to him on the seat, sitting thigh to thigh on the warm vinyl. I lay my hand on his knee.

  “It was the only time my master sergeant father was proud of me. I don’t like to talk about it but felt I could tell you.” He snaps the cigarette out the window. “I don’t sleep too good at night sometimes.”

  “You can tell me anything.” I lean against his shoulder.

  We stop for gas in Arkansas. Dwayne buys a burrito drying under the heat lamp and piles jalapeños on it. I buy a piece of fried chicken. Sitting by each other at a scarred wooden picnic table, we eat together, the two of us—the only other time we shared a meal was with Vicky and Tod after they arranged our meeting.

  We pull into his driveway in Bryan at sunset. He carries my suitcase into the rusty trailer and down the long narrow hallway. I follow him. We stand by his bed.

  Dwayne says, “We’ve been waiting since our Chili’s date for this moment. Do you want to go get some dinner first?”

  “I don’t want to wait anymore.” We move toward each other.

  I wake in the night to the sound of the air conditioner rattling in the window. I listen to Dwayne breathing beside me. I stare into the darkness and match my breath to his until I fall asleep.

  Over the next three days, Dwayne and I drive across the flat Texas prairies to his mother’s house in a small nearby town, and he introduces me to her and his brother, Doug. The small house they share sits in the shadows of live oak trees with a Texas A&M University flag snapping in the wind. We share Sunday dinner together, and his mother, Roberta, tells me stories about Dwayne as a little boy.

  On the way home, we pick up his daughter, Jessica, at her mom’s house. Dwayne introduces me to Janice, his second wife, and tells her, “I had to go to Missouri to find the perfect woman.”

  The three of us go to a movie together. Dwayne sits between us and holds both of our hands.

  He takes me to Baker’s Garage, where he works when he’s between jobs. I meet some of his mechanic friends and shake their hands.

  He tells them, “This is the girl I’m going to marry.”

  A month after coming home from my visit, I wait one night for hours for Dwayne’s call. I worry about what might have happened to him, and I don’t sleep, staring at the ceiling in the dark. My newfound belief in love at first sight fades in the dim light.

  The phone rings at six the next morning. He starts talking as soon as I say hello. “I got laid off yesterday. I’m back at Baker’s Garage. Call you when I can.”

  The hum on the line tells me he hung up. I sit, unable to move, at the kitchen table with the phone still in my hand. Minutes click by on the digital clock over the stove until I finally hang it up.

  I call him every day, but he never answers or calls back. On my birthday, a florist arrives at my school and brings me a dozen yellow roses. Only his name is written on the card. The roses propel me to make the decision to confront him about his cutting me out of his life. I buy a ticket for a one-day visit to Bryan.

  Now the small plane drops out of the Texas sky onto the tarmac with a bump. I rise from the seat, bending my head under the low ceiling. I grip the back of the seat with my shaky hands. I drag my wobbly wheeled suitcase to the door and down the stairs into the blast of the July sun. I blink in the bright sun. My eyes water, and I’m not sure if it’s tears or the glare.

  Within minutes I am in a rental car and driving through the unfamiliar streets of Bryan. I didn’t see much of the town during my short visit. Browning leaves on the few short trees shrivel in the heat. Every street sign lets you know what state you’re in. Lone Star Avenue. George Bush Drive. Crockett Street. The Lone Star flag dro
ops in the humid air from flagpoles on most of the lawns.

  Soon I pull into the driveway of Baker’s Garage. The concrete walls of the building are covered in graffiti, and inside auto parts posters with girls in bikinis hang over the workbenches. All of the garage doors are wide open to catch any cooling breeze.

  I recognize Dwayne’s scrawny body in faded Wranglers bending over the engine of a truck. I sit in the hot car and practice what I’ll say to him. Then I get out of the car and slam the door.

  He pulls his head out from under the hood and rubs his hands against the sides of his ragged jeans, smearing grease on them. He takes a step toward me, stopping to stare at me. I lean on the car, feeling the heat of the metal against me.

  I watch him without speaking. The other two mechanics look at Dwayne and then me. They stand without moving to watch us.

  Dwayne walks toward me and wipes the sweat off his face with a shop towel. “Mary.” Only one word as we stare at each other.

  I move my gaze over his shoulder to break the eye contact. “We need to talk.”

  He steps away from me. “Yeah, we do.” He waves at his friends and gets into my car. I drive us to the nearby café, the Kettle, where we ate with Jessica.

  Beside me, I hear him ask, “How’s Steph?” I tell him she’s looking forward to her junior year at a private high school.

  I ask him about Jessica, who’s starting junior high in the fall. He tells me she’s nervous but has asked if I’ll help her with her English class. The comment halts the conversation. The strain between us hangs in the air. We know we’re not talking about the reason for my visit.

  When we get to the café, he swings open the door for me and then follows me. In the chill of the air conditioning, I shiver. The waitress leads us to a booth in the back. We order iced tea and sit without speaking or looking at each other until it is delivered.

  Dwayne leans across the table to face me. “This only makes it harder, you know.”

  I dig my fingernails into my palm. “Nothing makes this harder than it already is.”

  “You need to move on with your life.”

  After not being able to talk, a flood of words rushes out of me. “I need to know what is going to happen with us. You call me in the middle of the night to tell me you’ve been laid off your job. Roses show up, yet you’ve not returned a single damn phone call or answered one letter. I deserve better from someone who claimed he loved me.” I close my eyes against a wave of nausea and lean back against the sticky plastic of the seat.

  “Exactly. You deserve better. Better than a half-assed mechanic who doesn’t have a real job. Better than living in a trashed-out trailer.” His voice rises with each word. “Mary, you need to get out of here and get away from me.”

  He spreads both hands flat on the tabletop. I look at his large capable hands and swallow against the heavy lump in my throat.

  “Mary, Mary, Mary,” he chants like a prayer. “What the hell are we going to do?”

  “That’s up to you. You’re not including me in the decision.”

  “Yeah, I’m an asshole. Hate me. Forget me.” He stands up abruptly. “I’ll walk back to the garage.” He turns to leave but pivots to face me.

  I bend my head back and look up at him as he stands stiffly above me. I remember Tom standing above me with a face filled with anger. With a deep breath, I stand up, so we are face-to-face.

  “Just go home. Find someone who’ll make you happy. Don’t turn into some psycho jilted woman chasing me around. This is over.” He marches away. I watch his familiar stride until he goes out the door. He doesn’t turn around.

  I sit in the café through the hours until my plane leaves. I drink one glass of iced tea after another brought by the sympathetic waitress. She asks if I need a menu, and I tell her I’m not hungry. Somewhere about the fifth glass of tea, she pats my hand. “Men are full of shit, girl.”

  When it gets close to time for my flight, I get into my rental car and drive back to the airport. I take the midnight flight home.

  I focus on being a teacher and on being a mother. I teach drama to my summer school students, and I pretend to laugh at their jokes. Stephanie and I take our summer trip to Kansas City and shop for clothes for the upcoming school year. For the first time, I don’t enjoy shopping with her.

  The summer passes in a blur. My divorce becomes final. I drink too much wine. I sleep too little. I lose thirty pounds.

  I don’t believe in love anymore. Every year I teach Romeo and Juliet to my freshmen students. The adolescent girls in my class obsess over the story of doomed passion and are always searching for their one true love. Their soulmate. They cry on my shoulder when a boy doesn’t change into their Romeo. I always tell them they can’t depend upon a man to save them.

  Now the lesson I teach the girls becomes a bitter pill of truth. Love at first sight is a myth. A Romeo and Juliet lie.

  September for a teacher always promises a new start. After the beginning of school, I pack a small box with the gifts Dwayne gave me in our few weeks together. A Harley T-shirt. A pair of silver earrings. A book of the paintings by his favorite artist, Salvador Dali. A small stack of the sketches he drew for me.

  Next, I put in the packet of his letters tied with a blue ribbon. I can tell the order they’re written by the return addresses. Lonesome Dwayne. Falling in Love Dwayne. Missing You Dwayne. The Man Who Can’t Live Without You.

  Finally, I write and place a final letter to him on top. We got to know each other through those first letters after our blind date. Now I have tried to put my feelings into a few words. I miss you. I still love you. Your Mary.

  I mail the box to Dwayne. I have no expectation of an answer.

  Four weeks pass. I’m fixing dinner when Stephanie slams into the apartment after school. She skids the mail onto the counter by me. A corner of an envelope sticks out of the pile. I recognize the writing. The return address only has his name. Dwayne.

  I flee to the bathroom with the envelope. I slip down the wall and sit with my back against the cool porcelain of the bathtub. The letter is short. Getting my gifts back broke what was left of my heart. I miss the sound of your voice through the phone. I won’t ask you to forget what I did. Can you forgive me? Call me. D

  But I don’t call. I carry the letter around with me and read it several times a day. The paper wrinkles and creases. The ink smears on the envelope. I wake each morning to the same question. Can I ever trust him?

  After two weeks of agonizing over the letter, I reach for the phone. Sitting in the middle of my tangled sheets after another sleepless night, I grip the phone in my sweaty hand.

  He picks up on the second ring and says hello. There’s his familiar twang.

  “It’s me,” I say in a shaky voice.

  “Mary. Baby.” His name for me fills the distance between us.

  After talking about our daughters and his work at the garage rebuilding cars, we agree to be more cautious this time. Before saying goodbye, Dwayne says, “You are my best friend. Let’s be that for now. I’m a lousy husband.”

  I tell him I would love for us to spend time together as friends.

  Both of us may be too afraid to be more than friends, but every three weeks, one of us drives the six hundred miles between Texas and Missouri for short visits. We leave each other each night and sleep in motel rooms.

  I learn to cover my ears when the drag cars blast across the starting line. He wears his starched Wranglers and cowboy boots to my students’ plays and to chaperone the homecoming dance with me.

  By November, he gets back his job at the research equipment company. He’s on the road all the time now. We end most nights talking on the phone. During one call, he complains about the assistants his company sends him. “They can’t follow a simple instruction on how to do something without arguing with me.”

  I laugh and tell him I was my dad’s assistant carpenter. “He taught me to keep quiet and to do what he told me.”

  Dwayne doesn’t
say anything for a few seconds. “How would you like to be my assistant on weekends and on your breaks?”

  I don’t hesitate. “I would love that.”

  “I’m going to teach you how to build gorilla cages and lab cubicles. What do you think about that?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  As Dwayne’s assistant, I fly into the place where he is working. Baltimore. Long Island. Mississippi. I walk off airplanes and find him waiting for me. His tanned mustached face wrinkles into a grin when I wave across the crowd. As we work side by side, I do learn to build laboratory cubicles and zoo equipment. We become better friends and now coworkers, but we still sleep in separate hotel rooms.

  In each city, we always visit a Harley-Davidson dealer. We buy T-shirts, and Dwayne draws a crowd with his stories of motorcycle rallies and kick-start Harleys. He walks around the gleaming motorcycles and describes each one. I soon can match the cryptic Harley code letters to the bike. FLHT are baggers. FLSTC are Heritage Classics. FXDF are Fat Bobs. I watch women riders with envy when they wheel their Harleys into the dealership parking lots.

  Often I follow Dwayne into the back area where the mechanics work on the motorcycles. He and one of them lean over a Harley with its engine parts scattered on the floor and talk about how to make it run faster. I begin to feel at home there in the brightly lit space with the sound of the powerful motors booming off the walls.

  On a visit to Bob Dron Harley in Oakland, we stand face-to-face across a shiny candy-apple-red Harley, a Fat Boy model. Its chrome V-twin motor and low-slung body stretch close to the ground and promise speed and adventure.

  Simultaneously, we sigh our appreciation for the bike in a long aaaah. Dwayne grins at me. “You really would ride a Harley with me?”

  I laugh out loud. “You promised me on our blind date you’d take me for a ride. I’m still waiting.” Across the black leather seat, I reach out and grab his hand.

  We drive back to the airport and board separate planes home. I know my students will want to know about my adventures the next morning. I lean my head against the cool window and drift off to sleep. I dream of flying—on two wheels. I feel the vibration of the engine under me on my own motorcycle. Independent. Free.