by Maggie Bloom
He’s lost me. “Huh?”
“You know how many fights I’ve been in because someone called you fat? Or when they said you were a slut?”
“I’ve never seen you fight,” I counter, because even if what he’s saying is true, I’m nowhere ready to accept it.
“A lot. It’s a lot of fighting, over the years. And it’s not getting any better.”
“So you’re quitting?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Sounded like you did.”
“He called you the c-word,” he says, a belated click of his tongue acting as punctuation. “I didn’t plan on hitting him; it just happened. Conditioned response, I guess. Pavlov’s dog and all that.”
“You’ve been punching people’s faces in for years, on my account?” Suddenly I feel ill.
“It’s not like that exactly,” he backpedals. “But I stick up for my friends.”
“But you’re not going to anymore?” When I called him, this wasn’t the conversation I had in mind.
“It’s just that…it’s everywhere. Since all the…” He stops, gropes for the right wording. “…sex stuff, it’s gotten out of control. I mean, your cousin’s wedding, for Christ’s sake? I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Sorry you feel that way,” I tell him tightly, a steel cage clicking into place around my heart.
“I think we should take a few days,” he says, barely above a whisper.
Is he breaking up with me? “To do what?”
“Nothing,” he says with a groan. “Anything. Just some time for, um, a break.”
There he goes, tossing the word break around. “Fine by me,” I say, sort of snottily. Because, to be honest, I’m starting to long for the good old days, when all I had to worry about was which boy was next in line to screw me.
“So I’ll call you?”
“If you want,” I mutter.
He says, “Don’t be like that.”
“I’m not.”
Without so much as a goodbye, the phone clicks off. I pull the receiver from my ear and stare at it, realizing there’s no way I could’ve hung up on Tom, because the nubby little button (which, for no good reason, reminds me of a tongue) that shuts the phone off is eight feet away, mounted on the wall. And no one’s touched it.
* * *
One sixty-two point nine! After untold hours of pumping along from the now-wobbly seat of the Schwinn, I have taken off a total of fifty pounds (or thereabouts, since I didn’t have the luxury of a scale when Tom and I began our training).
It just so happens I’ve taken off a few other things too: six fingernails, a three-inch patch of skin from my knee (and a matching one from the opposite elbow), at least two-hundred strands of hair (or so I’ve estimated, a clump of my chestnut locks ending up wrapped around a rubber band every time I ponytail them).
But it’s all been worth it, I think as I roll up to The Pit in the predawn blackness of race day, my mind swimming with last-minute tasks I’ve promised to complete for Harvey.
I ease off the Schwinn and wiggle the key to The Pit (Harvey’s trusted me with my very own copy!) from my shorts, then open the place up and wheel my bike onto the showroom floor, where I kickstand it to a stop in front of the display window.
It takes me about an hour and a half to plow through the handwritten list Harvey’s marked out on a neon-orange sheet of construction paper and duct taped to the counter by the cash register.
As the sun begins streaming into the shop, I cozy up on the bench where Lex Arlington’s girlfriend (I wonder if they’re still together?) once traded her bejeweled flip-flops for a sweet pair of K2s.
Then, apparently, I promptly fall asleep, because, the next thing I know, Harvey’s friend (boyfriend?) Scott is gingerly poking at my shoulder. “Hey there, sleepyhead,” he says in the juvenile tone adults reserve for puppies and small children. (If he weren’t so nice, the baby talk would irk me.)
I pinch my fingertips against the bridge of my nose. “Hi,” I murmur. When I try to stand, my back spasms, and I drop back down on the seat cushion. “Ouch,” I say under my breath.
“Harvey’s on his way,” Scott tells me, my eyes having trouble focusing on his smiling, mustachioed face.
“That’s good.” I shake my head to clear it. “What time is it?” It must’ve been just after six when I drifted off.
Scott notices me scooting to the edge of the bench and offers me his hand. “Seven o’clock,” he says. “Right on schedule.”
The Yo-Yo officially kicks off at ten a.m., but there’s a ton of pre-race prep work (to be completed by an army of volunteers, including Denise and Marie) still left to do. I take Scott’s hand, force the kink out of my back as I straighten up. “Everything’s done here, I think,” I tell him.
“What about the goodie bags?” he asks, dropping his backpack on the floor with a thunk.
“Goodie bags?” I remember Harvey mentioning something a month or two ago, but the details are fuzzy.
“Come on,” Scott says, winking an ocean-blue eye at me. He gestures toward the office. “I believe everything we need’s back here.”
I stretch out in a yawn, clomp along behind him to the office, where, piled in the corner, we find fifteen or so large paper sacks stuffed to bursting with donated doodads and thingamajigs. (Harvey’s been hitting the community up hard for consolation prizes for the Yo-Yo.) On the desk are numerous packages of brown paper lunch bags and a few colorful spools of ribbon.
“How do you want to do this?” I ask, a wave of exhaustion washing over me.
He plucks the top bag off the pyramid and unceremoniously dumps its contents onto the worn carpet between us. “Three or four goodies per bag?” he says, presumably doing a little mental math.
He sinks to the floor, and I flop down opposite him. “Flea collars?” I say, suppressing a laugh as I pinch one of the things between my fingers. “That’s what we’re giving people?”
Scott flips over a package of his own and eyeballs it. “And tweezers, apparently,” he says with a hearty chuckle.
“And breath mints,” I add, shoving a combination of the three aforementioned items into a bag and then reaching for a spool of ribbon. “At least the cats around here will be pest-free, with fresh breath and perfectly arched eyebrows,” I say, knotting the ribbon and setting the bag aside.
One down, hundreds more to go.
Scott grins, shakes his head. “You’re quite the cutup, Bobbi,” he tells me. “No wonder Harv loves having you around.”
Speaking of you-know-who…
The front door bell rings, and I hear the distinctive whirring of Harvey’s Trek coasting in. A minute later, he’s peering down at Scott and me from the doorway, a warm, fatherly look blossoming across his face. “Ready?” he says, rubbing his hands together like a smarmy villain from one of those old-school TV cartoons (Snidely Whiplash?).
“You bet,” says Scott, his voice already colored with triumph.
Suddenly I feel ready too.
chapter 17
THANKS TO Lex Arlington’s input, the Yo-Yo remains an amateur affair, the rules of the race prohibiting anyone who has come within sniffing distance of winning any other bike-related event anywhere from entering (and also assuring Lex a prime finishing spot in his division, I suspect). The ban on professionals, though, all but guarantees a motley assortment of mismatched bicycles and riders, all clambering for the same brass ring (or, well, a tiny trophy and a decent chunk of cash, not to mention all the bragging rights one can possibly bash over the heads of his/her fellow competitors).
“Oh my God,” I say to Denise, who’s manning (or womanning) a watering station at the edge of one of the first-aid tents. “Look!” What I’m pointing at (aggressively so, I might add) is the coolest RV on earth, a luxury model the size of a school bus that’s custom-painted with a larger-than-life wraparound mural of bright-eyed and voracious-looking tigers, set against a jungle backdrop.
Denise’s gaze follows my finger,
her jaw literally dropping. “What in the world?”
The RV pulls into the parking lot of the Baptist church, which is reserved by way of telephone pole signage for race-related activities. “It’s Lex,” I say, my voice taking on a eureka! quality. “I know it.” As these words escape my lips, I notice a news van jostling to a stop behind the RV. “And he brought his own press?”
With wonder in her voice, Denise drawls, “I guess he did.”
I slide a bottle of water off the table and crack its seal, my eyes still fixed on the RV. “What do you think it’s like to be famous?” I ask, taking a sip.
“Wouldn’t know,” Denise says with a shrug. “It’s probably horrible, those paparazzi after you all the time.”
“I dunno. It might be fun,” I say. “The money, anyways.” I could buy Orv, Denise, and me a pretty nice ride with the kind of dough Lex Arlington pulls down.
Denise rubs absently at her belly (she’s been doing that a lot lately, as if she’s encouraging the baby to hang on). “You think he’ll talk to anyone?” she asks, nodding at Lex’s tiger-mobile. “That’d be a conversation starter at Welcome Home, huh? Can you imagine?”
“He talked to me,” I remind her, “a little.” I mean, it was only a few words back in October (or was it November?), but still.
“Oh, yeah.”
A gaggle of kid competitors roars up behind me, hands grabbing every which way for Denise’s neatly rowed bottles. “One at a time,” Denise instructs pleasantly.
“Yes, ma’am,” a chunky little redheaded girl (who resembles a younger version of me with triple the freckles) says.
Denise is a ma’am, I think. Even at her age. In fact, I’d wager she was born that way—an old soul, as some folks like to say.
The kids traipse off, water bottles strangled in their hands, and disappear into the throngs of spectators lining the street.
“This is going to be epic,” I say out loud, the thought refusing to stay put in my mind as I survey the holding area for the Yo-Yo, which encompasses a block in either direction of The Pit, real estate that is currently abuzz with such anticipation and momentum that the air seems to be crackling.
In this cacophony of activity, presumably, are a number of people I have yet to encounter today: Tom, Orv, Duncan and Marie, even the quartet of jerkwad ex-screws who tried to bully me into that junky old Dart (and probably some kind of sick four-on-one wet dream).
“…if we have to,” Denise finishes saying as I tune back in.
“Huh?”
She wags a hand at me. “Oh, nothin’,” she says with a knowing smile. She squints into the crowd. “Isn’t that Tom over there?”
I hope it’s not, but, then again, I hope it is. Because even though we’re “on a break,” I can’t help fantasizing that Tom is as distraught over our separation as I am. “I think so,” I say, aiming to come off as nonchalant, when all I want to do is fly over to Tom’s side and tackle him, claim his heart and his virginity right here, for all the world to see.
“I should warm up,” I tell Denise, the starting gun a mere thirty minutes away.
She gives me a double thumbs-up, cocks her head and winks. “Knock ‘em dead.”
“If I win, I’m paying off the…car,” I say, still uncomfortable with the idea of naming the Royale’s successor. Getting too familiar with our new modus transportandi (excuse my rudimentary Latin) seems like a quiet betrayal of Gramp and all he stood for, in light of the buying-on-credit situation.
“Put that right out of your mind,” Denise exhorts, suddenly serious. “Any money you come by is yours. You ain’t in charge of takin’ care of Orv and me, got it?”
I study the stream of bodies floating by for an opening, then step into the fray. When I’m a few feet away, I call back at Denise, “We’ll see.”
* * *
It takes every bit of willpower I have to steer clear of Tom as the clock ticks down to race time, but I figure the effort is worthwhile. If we were to have a fight, my concentration would be shot for the rest of the day. And as every athlete knows, the mental game is half the battle.
I retrieve the Schwinn from The Pit, which is now the hub of media activity and Lex Arlington fandom. “Excuse me!” I bark at a truckload of middle-aged ladies jammed around the entryway, salivating over the prospect of a celebrity snapshot or autograph.
Nobody moves, even an inch.
“Coming through!” I try yelling.
Utter inertia.
I don’t want to do it; I really don’t, but…
With due care, I bump the Schwinn’s newly inflated front tire against a lady’s stick-figure leg, and she steps aside.
I bump again, this time into a blue-haired grandma, and—bingo (!)—a path begins to clear. But when I reach the sidewalk, the going doesn’t get much easier, so I bang a right onto a less crowded side street and, finally, mount the Schwinn. It feels good to have the wind at my back, the morning sun gently warming my face, and the feeling that, even if it’s just for today, anything is possible.
I do a couple of practice loops in and around the back lot of the liquor emporium, dodging entire families encamped with their collapsible chairs and portable grills, some of which (the grills, not the families) are already fired up and oozing the most heavenly charred-flesh smells. (What I wouldn’t give for a slab of beef or half a chicken right now.)
Which reminds me…
There’s a nifty little spot just ahead, adjacent to a coned-off fire hydrant and shaded by a mighty oak, where I pull over and unzip the admittedly dorky pouch under the Schwinn’s seat, then tug out an energy bar. As I’m scarfing the thing down, my heart stops and my eyes, quite literally, bug out.
This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
Enter Duncan Cotton, a.k.a. my father, whizzing down the street, not riding a bike but piloting some psychotic bird-machine contraption (from those blueprints he was so eager to conceal?) that looks like it crawled out of the rubble of a nineteenth-century circus (seriously, it has wings…and do I see feathers?!). Even worse, my father is sporting a top hat and tails.
If I had an ice pick, I would gouge my eyes out. Instead, I force them to flap shut and then open again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The spectacle Duncan is making of himself isn’t the worst of it, though, because as I stare in muted horror, I realize my father is being trailed by a handful of starry-eyed groupies who are feverishly pedaling along behind him like ducklings after a mother duck.
Unlike Duncan, the members of his entourage don’t appear to be freaks; they more resemble normal folks (children, mostly) who’ve taken leave of their roly-poly marbles.
“Cotton!” a male voice shouts behind me, or maybe off to the side. (I’m having trouble focusing on anything but Duncan the Mad Scientist.) “Yo, Cotton!” the voice calls again, louder this time and with an unmistakable edge of irritation.
It’s Malcolm Gates, jerkwad extraordinaire.
I hop back on the Schwinn and kick away from the curb, but not before Malcolm and Justin White (ex-screw and current Industry High quarterback) tool up beside me on their bikes, wearing enraged—and sex-starved—sneers.
“What? You’re too good for us now?” Justin taunts as I try to outpace him.
“Now?” I mutter.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demands Malcolm as he and Justin line up on either side of me, intent on pinning me in.
Ain’t gonna happen.
I drop back, let the jerkwad duo enjoy a near collision without me (which would’ve come to pass if Justin hadn’t managed to swerve left and pop a wheelie over a manhole cover, just in the nick of time). “Don’t you…gentlemen have anything better to do?” I inquire lightly, my gaze fixed on the stop sign ahead, where a simple right turn, followed by a sharp left (assuming I can bust through the human clog between here and there) will land me on the doorstep of The Pit and, more importantly, the cusp of the starting line. (It must be nearly ten o’clock, and that thousand-dollar prize has my name all over
it.)
The jerkwads circle me like sharks. “Show us your titties,” one of them (Justin, I think) prods.
No one (except me, of course) has ever seen my “titties.” (Hard to believe, I know, considering all the screwing, but there it is.) “Doubtful,” I say, drawing my lips into a stiff horizontal line.
Malcolm whines, “Then give us the beads.”
It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s talking about. Then it dawns on me: He wants the Mardi Gras beads I snagged at the flea market, all four strands of which are now slung around my neck. “You’ve got it wrong,” I inform him. “It’s beads for titties, not beads and titties. And I don’t see you with either.”
Humph. That’ll teach ‘em to mess with me.
“Oh, fuck you and—” Justin starts to spew, but suddenly I spy a break in the crowd and vanish into it.
Even though I don’t look back, Malcolm’s sarcastic wail reaches me. “Good luck, Fatty!”
Good luck, Fatty? Good luck, Fatty?!
Now I know for sure what happened to the Royale and exactly which jerkwad is responsible. (I also know that, if it weren’t for me, Gramp’s ol’ pride and joy would still be rolling happily along instead of crunched up in some junkyard waiting to be melted down and reincarnated as a truckload of Mountain Dew cans, a thought that makes me sort of ill but even more determined to knock this race out of the park.)
As a valued member of The Pit—and Harvey’s only real employee—I was able to bypass the registration process this morning (and the gigantic line accompanying it). But fifty or so racers still shift around on their feet and glance anxiously at their watches as Marie and Scott (one of these days I’m going to come right out and ask Harvey if he and Scott are a couple!) verify their paperwork from behind a resin banquet table on the sidewalk.
I spin past the registration table, shoot the unlikely twosome a peppy wave and a clipped, “Hello,” which they couldn’t acknowledge if they wanted to, their heads bent over twin copies of the lengthy, alphabetized Yo-Yo race list.