Bike Week Blues

by Mary Clay

  The Marine Conservation Center was a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and the preservation of the Indian River Lagoon, North America’s most diverse estuary. I have to admit that I didn’t have a clue what estuary meant when I started work, but soon learned the word referred to the part of a river where it met the ocean, which in New Smyrna’s case was the inland waterway. Initially, I visited the center because of an interest in sea turtles developed on our earlier, chaotic visit. Fortunately for me, a part-time job opening was posted on the very day I arrived to take a tour. My inner voice said, “Grab it,” and I did. Except for the kidding episode, I’d never had a doubt about the decision. It’s hard to complain about living in paradise and working at the perfect job. A year ago, I was in the pits of depression over my divorce. Although I was not completely over it, things had turned out better than I’d ever imagined.

  Ruthie, our metaphysical expert, said that stresses like divorces are the times for the greatest spiritual advancement. “Unfortunately, we all get set in our ways. Sometimes it takes a big jolt to catapult us to the next level.”

  I’d been catapulted, all right. Shot from a cannon, or so it felt. But, four months after October and the Big Split, I had to admit that I was a lot better off. I’d come to realize it was the fear of change that plagued me all those months. I’d become comfortable with my BMW, big house, social standing, and perfect kids (okay, they weren’t completely perfect; but damn good by most standards.) Truth be told, I had stopped growing or evolving as Ruthie would say. I was in a comfortable rut to nowhere—a bored stupor of luxurious existence. A darn shame it took a skinny stripper with silicon breasts to blow me out of the rut.

  Penny Sue emerged from the dealership with the salesman.

  “Remember,” the dealer said as he handed her the key, “don’t go over sixty for the break-in period. And, be sure to alternate your speeds.”

  Penny Sue nodded obediently.

  “Check the maintenance schedule in the owner’s manual.”

  She nodded again.

  “I know you took the riding course, so you can handle the bike. Is there anything you’d like to ask?”

  “Yes,” she said with a glint in her eye. “You’ve been very nice. Are you married? I have some single friends.”

  If he hadn’t been standing there, I would have kicked her. The nerve!

  He glanced at me and chuckled. “I appreciate the compliment, but I’m taken. Four kids.”

  Penny Sue gave him the up and down. “Too bad,” she said, straddling the white and chrome bike. I retrieved her helmet and jacket from my car. An instant later, the bike came to life with a deep rumble.

  I waved as she maneuvered the Harley into the parking lot and headed for Route 44. I couldn’t help but notice that all heads turned as she roared by. Decked out in white leather, riding a slick new bike, Penny Sue was not as slim as the woman in the skimpy outfit, but she was still a traffic stopper. I glanced down at my cotton capri set and suddenly felt very frumpy. I got in my car and started my Beetle. Next to the roar of Penny Sue’s Fat Boy, my car sounded like the little bug it was.

  Darn, I was totally out of sync with bikers and Bike Week. There wasn’t anything I could do about the car, but I could at least buy some biker-friendly garb. I resolved to swing by the shops on Flagler after work to look for some cool duds. In any event, The Wicker Basket had received a shipment of swimsuits that I wanted to check out before they were picked over.

  The Wildlife Nature Cruise had left by the time I arrived at the center, which meant I had a good two hours of uninterrupted work. As part-time bookkeeper, my primary duty was to tally and reconcile receipts from donors and the various cruises. I had all but finished the weekly reports when Bobby Barnes, our pontoon boat captain, ambled in. A retired Navy Seal with bulging biceps, he was the perfect person to lead the cruises. While most of our patrons were responsible adults and families, sometimes a vacationer arrived who’d had one Mimosa over the line. Bobby’s commanding presence at the helm inevitably kept them in line. A light-hearted comment about one of his Navy adventures was all it usually took to keep the sobriety-challenged patron seated and quiet.

  “Sandra said you stopped by the Harley shop on your way to work. Did you spring for a Harley Sportster?”

  “No, your old Seal buddy, Saul’s mopeds are more my speed. But, Penny Sue bought a Fat Boy.”

  Bobby let out a low whistle. “Not bad. Good for Penny Sue. Are you and your friends going to hit the biker hot spots this weekend?”

  “Penny Sue definitely is. She has her eye on a biker for husband number four. I don’t know if Ruthie and I will go. I’m not sure we’d fit in.”

  Bobby sat on the edge of the desk. “At least, you have to go to the Pub. Half the people there aren’t real bikers. They drive their cars and park across the street at the shopping center. It’s fun, a big party. There are bands, lots of food, and a hoard of geezers like us pretending they’re young. It’s an experience—something you’ll talk about for years. You shouldn’t miss it.”

  I’d had that thought. Next to stock car racing, Bike Week was the area’s main claim to fame. A Daytona Beach tradition dating back to 1937, it started small with a handful of bikers racing a three-mile route, half of which was on the beach. Since then, Bike Week festivities had spread out to the adjacent communities like New Smyrna Beach and evolved into a ten-day festival of bikes, beer, and scantily clad babes. People attended from all over the world, so shouldn’t I at least sample the experience since it was right in my backyard?

  An image of Penny Sue and her white leather getup popped into my mind. “What do people wear?”

  Bobby frowned at my beige capri set. “Jeans and a tee shirt, preferably one with Harley-Davidson on it. You could have picked one up at the dealership or the Pub next door.”

  Easy enough. Maybe Ruthie and I should go after all. I’d run it by her at dinner.

  Bobby chatted for a few more minutes, then left for lunch. I buried my nose in the books, determined to finish early so I could do my shopping before Ruthie got home at three. I’d entered the last number into the computer when Frannie May arrived. “Go,” she insisted. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

  She didn’t have to offer twice. First, I went to the Pub and picked up two black tee shirts for Ruthie and me. Tight fitting, sexy jobs with a zipper down the front, I chuckled at Ruthie’s anticipated reaction. She was a conservative dresser, to say the least, and the shirt had to be a first for her. Actually, it was a first for me, since I usually bought my clothes from beach boutiques or Dillard’s Better Sportswear department.

  Shirts in hand, I drove back across the North Causeway drawbridge to Flagler Avenue, the beachside commercial district. Luckily, tourists were still on the beach or taking a siesta, so I didn’t have to fight a crowd at The Wicker Basket. With the proprietor’s help, I’d tried on four swimsuits, made my decision, and was headed back to the condo by 2:50 p.m. Not bad, even for a person who hated shopping, having acquired a bad attitude about retailing from selling children’s shoes during college.

  I took a left onto the unpaved, sand driveway for Sea Dunes and rounded the corner to our oceanfront unit. I expected to see Penny Sue’s yellow Mercedes. Instead, I found the new, white Harley with her expensive leather jacket hanging from the handlebar. I pulled into a space on the far side of the bike and quickly gathered my packages. Something was wrong, very wrong.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  The one and only time I could remember seeing Penny Sue cry was when her mother passed away—that is, until now. She sat on the loveseat in the living room, dressed in her kimono, swigging wine. Her eyes were red and puffy with mascara streaked down her cheeks. Half-hearted attempts to brush away the tears had only succeeded in smearing her makeup. I dropped my purse, package, and her jacket on a stool at the kitchen counter and rushed to her side.

  “Are you all right, honey?” I asked, wedging beside her on the loveseat and putt
ing my arm around her shoulder. “You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” I held her at arm’s length to check for blood and bruises.

  “No, no,” she said, sniffling. “Rich dumped me.” She stared into the wineglass.

  “Dumped you?” I repeated stupidly, as if she needed a reminder.

  Tears sprouted like a sprinkler system. “He said things were going too fast, and we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”

  He must have recognized the white leather wedding ensemble! I’d worried about that, but Penny Sue was an all or nothing type of person. She wouldn’t have listened if I’d voiced my concern.

  “Hi, y’all. What a beautiful bike!” Ruthie called as she emerged from the hall into the open expanse of the living, dining, and kitchen area. “Are you going to take us for a—” One look at Penny Sue, and Ruthie clamped her mouth shut.

  Penny Sue’s bottom lip quivered, and she took a drink to cover it.

  Ruthie shoved her books onto the kitchen counter. “What’s wrong?” She sank into the sofa beside the loveseat.

  Penny Sue’s eyes brimmed. “Rich dumped me. He doesn’t want to see me anymore.” She waved her empty glass and headed for the refrigerator.

  Ruthie glanced my way, eyes pleading for an answer. I shrugged.

  Penny Sue turned to face us, holding her glass in one hand and a bottle of Chardonnay in the other. “Come on, girls, I’ve got a bad case of the blues. Don’t make me drink alone.” She poured some wine and raised the glass to her lips.

  “Wait,” Ruthie shouted. She dashed to the counter, pulled a small vial from her purse and squirted several drops into Penny Sue’s wine. “Rescue Remedy,” Ruthie explained, taking the wine bottle from Penny Sue and pouring short glasses for each of us.

  Penny Sue toasted the air. “To Rich. It was great while it lasted.”

  “Start at the beginning. What, exactly, happened? You went to the Riverview to show Rich your bike, and he just piped up with ‘See you around?’”

  “Close. I called his room from the house phone. Instead of inviting me up, Rich said he’d meet me on the front porch.

  “I showed him the bike, and he made over it a little. That’s when I noticed that two guys had come out of his room and were watching from the balcony. I called ‘Hi’ to them and asked Rich to introduce me to his friends. He pulled me around the side of the building like he was embarrassed to be seen with me.” Penny Sue took a big swallow of vino. “Rich said the guys were old friends, and he’d been doing some thinking. He wasn’t ready for a relationship and needed space. He thought we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”

  She slumped onto a stool at the end of the counter and rested her forehead on her folded arms. “I should never have worn that outfit,” she said mournfully.

  “Yeah, he must have recognized it,” I said.

  She looked sidelong. “Recognized? What are you talking about?”

  I sure didn’t want to broach the subject of the wedding ensemble if she hadn’t already considered it. “What are you talking about?”

  “White before Memorial Day is bad taste—before Easter it’s downright bad luck.”

  Ruthie leaned across the counter and stroked Penny Sue’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. If those were old friends, Rich had probably been talking about old times, which brought up memories of his wife.”

  Penny Sue sighed heavily and raised up to her elbows. “You’re right, of course.” She smiled weakly and took another sip of her drink. “My wise, spiritual friend. A kick in the butt is what I need.”

  “Try this.” Ruthie balled her right hand into a fist and started beating her breastbone, at the point above her breasts. With each blow she emitted a breathy HA. HA, HA, HA. She did it three times, then dissolved in a wave of giggles.

  Penny Sue curled her lip at the maneuver. “That’s an interesting chant. What happened to OM-M?”

  “It’s not a chant; it’s the thymus thump. I learned this at the seminar. Whenever you’re out of sorts, this will realign you energy centers.”

  “You expect me to beat myself up and laugh about it? What kind of masochistic philosophy is that?”

  “At least say HA, HA, HA.”

  Penny Sue rolled her eyes. “Ruthie, you’re really getting weird.”

  “Come on, do the HA, HA part. I’ll bet you can’t do it without laughing. You’ll try it, won’t you, Leigh?”

  Why not? As long as I didn’t have to pound my chest like a Neanderthal, I’d give it a whirl. I sat up straight and started in, “HA, HA ...” After about the fifth repetition, I started to laugh. Damn, it worked! Whether the giggles came from the HA’s or simply because I felt like a fool, I can’t say. Of course, it didn’t matter, laughter was laughter.

  “See?” Ruthie said to Penny Sue. “Try it once—that’s all. One time.”

  Penny Sue let out a half-hearted HA, HA.

  Ruthie snapped her fingers. “Pick up the pace.”

  “HA, HA, HA, HA ...” It took six or seven throaty attempts, but Penny Sue finally started laughing. The mood was contagious. We all joined in, giggling like ninnies until tears streamed down our cheeks. Penny Sue wiped her eyes as she reached for her glass.

  I nodded at the wine. “Alcohol is a depressant, Penny Sue. You probably shouldn’t drink, it will make you feel worse.”

  She cut me an I know that look. The sass was back—a positive sign.

  “That’s why I hit the wine in the first place. I wanted my body to feel as bad as my heart. At the very least, I hoped it would put me to sleep. Better still, a massive headache that I could blame on Rich.”

  “I see your point,” I said, reaching for the bottle. “Want some more?”

  Penny Sue put the glass down. “No, I’m over it.”

  Good, she was back to her spunky self. Crying in her beer was not Penny Sue’s style. In the old days, she’d have walked away from Rich and never given him a second thought. A new soul mate would have manifested within hours. It was uncanny how she drew men, absolutely like ants to honey. Yet, her crying jag told me that, either Rich was indeed special or Penny Sue’s hormones were seriously out of kilter.

  The H word was something I tried to ignore since, at forty-seven, I’d reached the age where the old juices started a downhill slide. I’d never given the issue a thought until our last trip. Penny Sue had harped on it continuously, warning Ruthie—who absolutely could not pass a bathroom without going in—that peeing all the time was not normal and one of the first signs of plummeting estrogen. Foggy-brained, weight gain, unstable emotions—Penny Sue’s warnings went on and on. I’d have dismissed it all as her normal chatter had it not been for the fact that she started waving a gun around.

  In the months since then I’d noticed one or two of the symptoms in myself. With time on my hands, I decided to do some research. I wish I hadn’t, the darn books read like horror novels. First, there was perimenopause, the stage where the hormones became unstable. Up and down, up and down, a roller coaster that somehow involved the pituitary gland. The bottom line of all of this being that many women experienced depression and wild mood swings—PMS run wild that could last as long as ten years!

  There was the story of a lady who walked down the aisle of the supermarket, looked at the corn flakes, and burst into tears. Two minutes later, a clerk gave her a sidelong glance and the woman took the poor girl’s head off (figuratively, I assume, unless she packed a weapon like Penny Sue.) There were other terrifying tales about memory loss. Misplacing the car keys was nothing, many women suddenly forgot their names and addresses. As if that weren’t enough, the anecdotes ran on to encompass wrinkles and osteoporosis and sagging breasts and fat stomachs. Horrible, truly horrible, especially the stuff about memory loss, because I’d experienced some of that myself.

  I tried to write it off as being preoccupied, which was part of the problem, but I’d had trouble remembering my name and address on more than one occasion. I didn’t think there was a family history of Alzheimer’s; s
till, the episodes were so unnerving, I’d called Ruthie for advice.

  “That’s great,” she’d said.

  Great? Did she hear me right? “Ruthie, I said I’m losing my memory. I can hardly recall what I did this morning and I’ve actually forgotten my address and phone number a couple of times. It’s like a brain cramp.”

  “The past is gone, it can touch me not.”

  “What?”

  Ruthie had slid right through hormones and health into spirituality. “Come on, Ruthie, I’m serious. Do you think I could be getting Alzheimer’s?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Do you think I should look into hormone replacement therapy?”

  “Couldn’t hurt, if it’s bothering you.”

  Well, I didn’t check into it, because all the latest studies came to wildly conflicting conclusions that confused me more. So, I decided to muddle through until my symptoms got worse. If push came to shove, I could have my clothes monogrammed to jog my memory or start wearing my driver’s license hanging from my neck like people did in airports nowadays.

  But, Penny Sue was another matter. She was on HRT, she’d mentioned having a hot flash that morning, and now the depression and crying episode which were totally out of character. Perhaps her prescription needed to be adjusted. Then, I wondered if she still carried a .38 in her pocketbook. I wasn’t sure I could take another vacation with a flighty Penny Sue wielding a revolver.

  “By the way,” I said as casually as I could, “I ran into Woody the other day. Did you ever get your gun back?”

  “Heck no, I had to buy another one,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondered.” I took a good slug of my own Chardonnay.