by Jean Haus
“An unexpected opportunity,” he says in a carefree tone.
Confused and feeling lost, I repeat his last word. “Opportunity?”
He leans his long body on the doorframe, crossing his arms. “A friend, well, more like an acquaintance, loaned me his bike for a few hours.”
“Bike?” I repeat, sounding like an idiot parrot.
He pushes off the doorframe, stretches out curled hands, and twists his fists, saying, “You know, vroom, vroom as in motorcycle.”
My brows lower and my fingers clamp around the edge of the door. “What? A motorcycle?” Rachel’s list lingers in my brain until I put two and two together. “I’m not…I couldn’t…I don’t have a helmet. Plus I need to go grocery shopping. So um…”
He grins fully. “I brought an extra helmet, but are you that scared?”
“A bit, maybe a lot,” I add out of the side of my mouth, always so damn honest with him. I force myself to let go of the door. “I really do need to go shopping.”
“Well, then let’s go. The bike is a real bike as in a Harley. There are two side compartments for your”—he slowly looks me over from head to foot—“two bags of groceries.”
“Three,” I say, through clenched teeth. “I usually have three bags of groceries.”
“Three will fit fine.” As I stand there silent, trying to think of another plausible excuse, he says, “Think of how impressed Jeff will be when I tell him you accomplished not one but two items off the bucket list.”
Well that does it. Progress, even fake progress, is a motivator. “All right, I’ll be down in five. Give me a few minutes to change.”
He smirks and I shut the door in his face. Inside my bedroom, I find the thickest pair of jeans I own, a heavy sweatshirt, and low winter boots. For a warm September day, I look like an idiot, but the fear of my body skidding across the cement is worth the extra perspiration and out of season look.
In the parking lot, I’m a bit shocked at the sight of the bike. He said it was a Harley but the spectacle of all the chrome wows me a little. “An acquaintance borrowed you this?” I ask Gabe, who waits on the side of the bike with the extra helmet in hand.
Gabe shrugs. “Dude who works at the shop.”
“The shop?” Apparently, I have to parrot him since he never speaks in complete thoughts.
“The garage I work at part time,” he says, lifting the helmet over my head.
Okay, yeah, given his outfit I should have put that together I realize as he clips the strap on the side of my chin. I’m beyond nervous.
He puts his helmet on and gets on the bike. I’m having a hard time making myself move. The questioning and pointed look over his shoulder gets my feet going. With a deep breath, I’m on the bike behind him and wrapped around him. “How many times have you driven one of these things?” I squeak out.
“Maybe ten?
“Maybe?” I practically screech as he reeves the engine.
And then we’re off. Way. Too. Fast. I hold on to his abs like they’re safety handles and bury my face in his back for most of the ride. When he slows or stops for a light, I do peek at my surroundings. Those little glimpses are few and far between. Finally, he pulls into the lot of a grocery store. Not my usual store, but at this point I just want off the bike.
Once I peel myself from him and stand on safe ground, he nods to a hardware store at the end of the small shopping center. “I need a few things. I’ll catch up with you in a few.”
My hand trembles as I unclip the helmet, then hold it up to him in question.
“Just take it with you,” he says, un-straddling the bike.
“Okay,” I say weakly, turning toward the store on legs that feel like rubber. Inside, I grab a cart, set the helmet in the seat, and begin to find my usual purchases in an unknown store. Between the unfamiliar store and brain fog, it takes me forever to shop. Irritated with myself, I open a box of granola bars and precede to eat one, hoping missed nutrition is the issue with my head.
I’m in the last section—dairy—when Gabe finds me.
He glances at my half-filled cart. “You’re not the quickest shopper, huh?”
“Do you need to be somewhere?” I ask, ignoring the remark and grab a carton of eggs.
“No, I just assumed you’d be in line by now.” He grasps the back of the cart and leans on it as I set the carton by the helmet.
“Never shopped here before,” I say in an apologetic tone.
He nods, inspecting the items—whole grain bread, dry pasta, granola bars, veggies, and fruit—in my cart. “Don’t think a diet is necessary for you.”
“I’m not on a diet,” I snap, dropping in a brick of cheese.
He shuffles through the cart. “Not one ounce of junk food in here.”
I snatch a bag of fresh carrots from his hand. “I like to eat healthy for…other reasons than what I look like,” I say defensively.
His brows go up.
“Poor eating habits and depression have been linked,” I stammer, then yank the cart from him and go to the yogurt section.
He follows and leans sideways at the end of the yogurt cooler. “So are you worried about becoming depressed or are you depressed?”
Am I depressed? Fruit flavors, blueberry, lemon, cherry, and strawberry swirl—a colorful kaleidoscope—in my vision. I never confront the depression question, even to myself, just skirt around it. Most people go through bouts of depression. It is normal to a certain degree. And no matter what, I have to keep going, so there is no point fixating on the question. “That’s none of your business,” I say, grabbing whatever yogurt flavors are in front of me, then spin away from him.
Luckily for me—or maybe for him since he hit a nerve—he quietly follows me to the cashier. Surprisingly, he carries the three bags out for me.
Outside, he shoves—hello, eggs!—the bags into the leather pouches on each side of the back wheel while I nervously clip on the helmet. Gabe mumbles a “Ready?” Then without waiting for an answer, he gets on the bike, facing away from me. After a deep breath, I force myself behind him and once again clamp onto him.
This time, I try to take in the moving scenery, try to see why Rachel would have wanted to do this, and try to find some enjoyment from it, but being on the back of the motorcycle makes me queasy and anxious. And way, way too aware of Gabe, specifically his six-pack, even I can admit the man has some serious wash boarding going on.
Finally, we stop below my apartment. Gabe offers to take the groceries up for me, but I grab the bags from his hand. “That’s okay. I’m pretty sure I can handle three bags. Um…thanks for the ride, for doing this for me, and telling Jeff,” I add, reminding him about our deal.
He settles back on the bike, looking me up and down. “How’s your piercing doing?”
Between his gaze and the reference to my itchy bellybutton, I’m suddenly excessively self-conscious. “All right.” I take a step back toward the stairs and the honestly he usually produces in me has me admitting, “A bit sore, other than that, its fine.”
He hits the kickstand down. “Not going to show it to me?”
“Ah…that would be a definite negative,” I say, trying not to imagine raising my shirt and him bending to check out my midriff. I turn around and go up a few stairs. Over my shoulder, I say, “Thanks again, see you Tuesday.” Then I practically run up the stairs because I’m losing the battle with my imagination and all sorts of odd things are happening in my brain, like Gabe’s hands on the bare skin of my midriff.
The entire image is unsettling and bizarrely exciting.
Chapter 10
~April~
I don’t rush out of group in my usual frenzy because for once group had gone well. Misha and her lap dog Chad were rude as predictable, but Jeff beamed at me when Gabe shared the two items we did to ‘complete’ the bucket list. I could practically see the report of progress he’d give Dr. Medina written all over his face. The expectation kept me giddy through group.
In fact, I’m
so slow leaving the building I miss offering Jason a ride. He’s already going around the corner of the building as I exit. I’m two steps into the parking lot as Gabe catches up with me. Strangely, being around him has become somewhat normal. Or maybe it’s that I feel normal around him. The shield of flawlessness I usually wear is refreshingly absent when we’re together.
“Got a favor to ask,” he says as he matches my shorter stride. “My truck’s in the middle of getting fixed. Think I could get a ride?”
“Um…sure,” I say, a little startled at the request. “How did you get here?”
“Sharon, my father’s girlfriend, drove me.”
I frown, thinking of someone going half an hour out of their way. “You should’ve got my number from Romeo or Riley and rode with me.”
“Thought about it. I didn’t know what to say.” He splits away from me, going around the back of my car to the passenger’s side. “Wasn’t sure you wanted them to know you’re in group therapy.”
I’m annoyed and startled that he can read me that well, but as usual, I’m all honesty with him. “I’d rather they didn’t know I’m in therapy, so thanks.”
He nods at me from across the car’s roof before we both get into the car.
As we buckle our seatbelts Gabe says, “Don’t want to ruin that Little Miss Perfect image?”
I push the keys in the ignition and turn toward him, my expression flat. “Nope, I don’t.”
His brows rise the slightest bit.
I shrug and shift into drive. “It’s not that I really want them to think I’m perfect or that I’ve ever been perfect...it’s just that this perfection image thing keeps me”—I pause, searching for acceptable ambiguous words—“keeps me going sometimes.”
I sense Gabe staring at me while I drive. The highway keeps my attention, but my fingers tighten on the steering wheel. I finally ask, “What?”
The seat creaks as if he’s sitting back. “Sorry, you’re telling me you weren’t always Miss Perfect?”
A boisterous laugh escapes me. “Hardly. I used to be normally imperfect.”
I sense his continued stare.
“I’m having a hard time believing that.”
“Don’t really care.”
This time he laughs.
The car is silent until he switches on the radio. A popular pop song by some teenybopper pervades the space with its bubblegum beat.
“Seriously?” Gabe asks with an incredulous tone. “You listen to this shit?”
“It’s just background noise.”
He’s soon pressing buttons, searching for a rock station. In less than a minute, loud guitar riffs and hard drumbeats fill the interior of the car. The song must be newer. I don’t recognize it.
At the commercial break, Gabe turns down the radio. “Hey, pullover.”
Seeing nothing but fast food places and a gas station, I ask, “Why? Where?”
“Burger joint.”
“Seriously? You eat that stuff?” I whine, copying his opinion of the radio station.
“I’ll pretty much eat anything. Cupboards were rarely full as a kid.”
Well, that has me turning into the restaurant. “Can I just go through the drive-thru?”
“Of course not, pull into a parking space,” he says in an authoritative tone.
My brow rises. Instead of arguing, I do as he instructed. The argument isn’t worth the time.
He reaches for the door handle, then glances at me expectantly. “Well, come on.”
“I’m not hungry. I’ll just wait in the car.”
“This isn’t about hunger.”
My look at him is quizzical.
He grins wickedly. “It’s about completing the list.”
Ugh. I should have guessed his intentions. “How can you remember every single thing on that list? It’s like you have a photogenic memory or something.”
He taps an ear. “It’s because I heard it as you read it. I would have remembered only half if I read it. Now come on.”
I keep my internal grumbling, recall Jeff’s beam, and get out of the car to follow Gabe around the back of the building and the drive thru speaker.
“This is not going to work,” I whisper.
“Never know until you try,” he whispers back, then clears his throat. “Hello?” he says loudly.
After several long seconds, the intercom comes on. “Um… can I help you?”
The male voice sounds young and confused.
“Sure can,” Gabe says. “We’ll take two fries, two cheeseburgers, a coffee, and a”—he gestures to me.
When I stand there, he nudges me with his elbow.
“And an ice water,” I blurt out.
The confused voice on the intercom repeats the order while Gabe smirks.
As we walk to the window, I dig in my purse.
“Oh, no,” Gabe says. “This one is on me.”
I keep digging. “I’ll pay for my therapy, thank you.”
“Put it away, April,” Gabe says in a harsh tone.
A glance at his harsher expression has me closing the purse. “Fine.”
The teenager at the window eyeballs us over, his face flushing with each second. “You’re not supposed to walk through the drive thru.”
Gabe puts his elbow on the window ledge. “It’s a bet dude. She”—he tilts his head my way—“didn’t think I’d go through with it. So I had to, right?” He holds out a twenty-dollar bill. “I mean look at her.”
The boy glances at me, blushes and nods before taking the money. “You’re lucky the manager’s on break,” he grumbles.
“Oh, yeah,” Gabe says. “I’m one lucky son of a bitch. Been lucky my whole life.”
His sarcasm and the ‘look at her’ comment, mixed with the fact that I’m standing at a drive thru window has me shuffling forward. I move onto the sidewalk past the window as a car comes around the corner.
Gabe waves at the car.
Finally, after what feels like the longest three minutes of my life, the boy hands over the drinks and a bag. I move to round the restaurant toward my car, but Gabe decides we need to eat at a picnic table on a little patio in front of the place.
I plop on the bench across from him. “We could have just ordered drinks. The point was to walk through the drive thru.”
He pushes a burger and fries across the table toward me. “True, but I missed lunch.”
I consider his grease stained T-shirt, then recall the also grease stained pants now under the table that Misha sneered at during therapy. “Fixing your truck?”
He unwraps a burger. “Yeah, then there was the ride thing that took some time.” He takes a huge bite of burger.
“Your father’s girlfriend who gave you a ride,” I say, pushing my cheeseburger toward him. “Is she the same one…from when you were fifteen?” I pluck out a fry, attempting to make it appear like the question is small talk. I’m not sure if I want him to think I’m not that interested or convince myself that I’m not that interested.
He nods.
“So she’s like a mom to you?”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple a bob. “Suppose so, don’t know what it’s like to have the real thing.”
“Oh crap, I’m so sorry. Your mother passed?”
“Not that I know of. My mother left when I was six.”
The fry in my hand drops to the table. “You haven’t seen your mother since you were six?”
“Maybe six and half.”
My mouth hangs open until I say, “And she left you with your father?”
He pauses unwrapping the second burger. “You know, once people hear that my father was abusive”—I continue to question the was—“that’s all they can see, but he never left me.”
My mouth becomes a flytrap again. “You’re defending him?”
Gabe sighs. “I know I make it sound like it in therapy because that’s what people want to hear, but it’s not like the man is just a fist. It’s not like I wasn’t a little shit. It’s not l
ike he hit me out of the blue.” He lifts the burger, then sets it down. “Well, most of the time.”
“Really?” The word rolls out of me in a dry incredulous tone, thinking no one, but especially a child, deserves to be hit.
“Really,” Gabe says in a confident voice, but his hands grip the edge of the table. “Though an asshole, my dad has had a rough life too. His mother was an alcoholic, and he has become one too—which is why I’m not in to drinking much. He never graduated from high school, never even got a GED because he started working at sixteen to support her. A shit job six days a week that he is still stuck in. I think he met my mom at the diner he’s a line cook at. He doesn’t talk about her much because yeah, she walked out on him and never looked back. And I could be a lazy, non-listening shit. Tried to get out of chores. Stayed out way past the streetlights coming on, even as early as the age of nine. Did stupid shit like light firecrackers in the basement…”
“Gabe,” I say softly, patiently. “No matter what you did, your father didn’t have a reason, or an excuse, to abuse you.”
“I know that.” He lets go of the table only to tap on the wood with his index fingers. “Trust me, my psychologist has brainwashed that into me. But I don’t want to remember only the bad. I don’t want my past to simply be belts and knuckles and the bottom of a boot.”
My eyes grow large as he continues, “There were other things.” Tap. Tap. Tap. Like a slow drum roll on the table. “A bicycle next to the Christmas tree when I was ten. A bicycle he couldn’t afford. Fishing from the river docks during the summer. Teaching me things like how to change the oil in a car. I’m not going to brush all the good away. I’m not going to ignore the shit life he has lived. I can’t”—his voice becomes hoarse as he stops tapping and glances down—“I don’t want the sum of me condensed to a mother who abandoned me and a father who beat me.”
At first, I assume this is about people pitying him. As I slowly take in his intense expression and clenched jaw, I realize he wants, maybe needs, to have a parental bond. Turning his father into solely a villain negates that connection. And perhaps having—even if imagining—the bond allows him to deal with his past.