Going for Kona

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Taper? Where in hell had my mother learned triathlon terminology?

  Sam spoke in a slightly less grumpy voice. “Geez, Mom, don’t just stand there. Gigi’s got this.”

  They were right, of course, but something had come off its track inside me, like the belt from the flywheel on my abuela’s antique sewing machine. I used all my strength to will my feet to move. I grabbed my bag as I passed it and left the room.

  My condition was more than inertia, though. I dreaded facing the pool. Dreaded it more than death. Adrian’s words replayed in my head. “You’re not safe. It’s not over,” he’d said, then disappeared in a way that screamed “gone” at me all over again. Gone. Was Adrian really gone this time? I knew, but I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out. If I dove into that water and he wasn’t there, what then?

  I spent three and a half hours in the water aqua jogging and swimming without a flicker of connection with Adrian. Not the tiniest bit of signal. He was gone, truly, and a piece of me broke off and floated away.

  ***

  From the gym I went to the police station. It hadn’t changed since my last visit, but I had.

  A text came in on my phone from Robert: “Sam discharged. I have him.”

  “It’s not over,” I said aloud. Sam would be safe with Robert, away from whatever it was that wasn’t over. More safe than with me, at least, the woman that couldn’t keep Stephanie Willis from getting to him. I shivered and put my hands around the warm Styrofoam cup in front of me and sniffed. The coffee smelled like weeds. I sipped. It tasted like weeds, too, but I knew I needed it.

  Young, Marchetti, and Nickels entered together, and we exchanged greetings as they sat down. Marchetti’s sweaty shirt stuck to his chest.

  Young took charge. “Thanks for coming in. We got Sam’s statement this morning with his father present. I think we’re good there.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m glad he’s all right, Mrs. Hanson,” Marchetti said.

  I sighed. “Michele. And thank you.”

  Young grilled me for over an hour. They weren’t happy I’d taken the investigation into my own hands, but I deflected their disapproval. I hadn’t broken any laws, and we’d ended up in the right place. I could let them have this.

  “We have evidence that suggests Ms. Willis killed your husband. She kept notes of every time she followed each of you. What you were doing. When. Where. What she did.” He cleared his throat. “She made a note on August second that she ‘took care of Adrian Hanson’ near Meyerland Plaza at 4:05 p.m. And, of course, the paint on her car is a match for the paint on Adrian’s bicycle.”

  I sat, stone-like, even my heart and lungs on pause. I had known this, but I hadn’t had the proof. “So is this enough for you? I thought you had an eyewitness who told you different?”

  He looked down and moistened his lips. “There’s more. She also made a note that she contacted the police and gave an eyewitness statement that a white Ford F150 driven by a young man in his late teens had hit a bicyclist.”

  My heart restarted with a jolt. “She was your witness?”

  “She was our witness.” He held up his hand. “We had no way of knowing she had any connection to Adrian, or any motive to do anything other than help us solve a crime, and she had a clean record. However, I am very, very sorry that it misdirected our investigation. So, yes, it’s enough for us. We’re going to close the case.”

  His words sank in slowly. All of this. She had done all of this. Everything I lost, she took. I closed my eyes and saw my claws landing on her back, grabbing her, and my great orange and black wings beating the air around her and lifting her up with her head down and her arms and legs trailing limply. I opened my eyes and swallowed. Young was still talking. I had to stop letting myself think like this. It wasn’t real, and it wasn’t helping me. Sleep, I thought. I need sleep. I gave my head a tiny shake.

  Young kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I knew I should tell them about Adrian’s money, but I couldn’t do it. I could keep my good memories as long as I learned to forget about that damned account, and I intended to try. None of it mattered, anyway. It didn’t tell me why Stephanie had done what she did, why Rhonda followed us, or why Adrian told me it wasn’t over. I chuffed very softly. What were the words of a dead man, anyway? I knew what Young would call them. Delusions. I didn’t need to hear that. Whatever the reasons, Adrian was gone.

  Papers appeared in front of me, I signed them and said my thanks and goodbyes, and I left the room. I opened the front door to the station and stepped out into an army of cameras. Their shutters clicked and whirred. Microphones advanced at my face. Reporters fired questions at me.

  “Tell us about Stephanie Willis, Mrs. Hanson. Did she kill your husband?”

  “How was Ms. Willis connected to your husband? Did he have an affair with her, too?”

  “Michele, where’s your son? Is he going to be all right?”

  “Are you still doing the Kona Ironman?”

  “How has all of this affected your book sales?”

  I shielded my face with my hand as I pushed through the crowd. I’d had my fill of vultures and their intrusions. This was my life, my wretched life. Or what was left of it. I made my way to the parking lot, dragging my throng with me. My parents had picked the Camry up for me last night from Waller, and I was grateful for it as I clicked the fob. Several reporters ran ahead to it, drawn by the flashing headlights.

  A Hispanic-looking female reporter in a summer-weight tan suit blocked the driver’s door, pen poised over her notebook. Print journalist. “Can you comment on the statement Rhonda Dale made this morning? Are you going to accept her olive branch?”

  “Excuse me.” I looked past her faceless form.

  She didn’t move.

  My reaction took even me by surprise. My wings flapped on either side of me and I saw them—boney and black, dagger-tipped with a smattering of coarse black hair. I bared my fangs, more bat now than butterfly. “Get the hell out of my way, puta.”

  She took a step back, her hand to her throat. “What the hell’s your problem?”

  I raised my wings to their full span. “Really?” I hissed under my breath. “Really?”

  She scurried away.

  I tucked in my wings and retracted my fangs, then turned back to the group. “My family thanks you for your respect for our privacy at this time of tragedy and grieving.” I got in the car. The reporters blocked my path. I blared the horn until they let me through.

  I drove away from the station aimlessly. I had no job and nothing to do before it was time to train again the next day. Long bicycle, my brain inserted automatically. But I had totaled La Mariposa, and what was left of her was in police custody. Adrian had picked her out for me. Every component, every setting of that bike Adrian had customized himself. I could ride Sam’s old bike, the one he rode ten inches ago in seventh grade, but it wouldn’t match my body precisely enough to get me through the Ironman bike course. Body position and comfort mean everything in avoiding severe pain and even injury.

  I turned right instead of left at the next corner. Ten minutes later, I pushed open the door of Southwest Cyclery on South Braeswood. Cold, dry air infused with stinging droplets of condensation hit me like a blizzard. I let the door swing shut behind me and inhaled the smell of rubber tires and lube oil. Bicycles hung from hooks on the wall and in the ceiling, and row after disorganized row displayed triathlon and bicycling accessories from ear plugs to seat covers. Adrian loved this place. I never really had until that moment. Something about the chaos that had repelled me before was calling to me.

  A twenty-something man with sleeve tattoos on both arms greeted me.

  “Is Pilar here?”

  He twisted his face toward the back of the store and yelled her name. I winced. She emerged from the doorway to their bike repair shop. Pilar could have sprung from the same womb as the man. Both of them were tall and stooped with bright blue eyes that peeked out from under sun-bleached brown hair.


  “I’m Pilar. How can I help you?”

  I introduced myself and she shook my hand. “I’m going to Kona to do the Ironman in October. I totaled my bicycle yesterday.”

  Groans of sympathy came from both of them.

  “I have a strong emotional attachment to it. My husband customized it for me, and he died recently. He said you helped him get the bike. His name was Adrian Hanson. I was hoping you’d remember it.”

  “Oh my God, I knew I recognized you. Mrs. Hanson! I loved Adrian. I just read about your wreck online one minute ago. You know—in the retraction that woman made where she said none of the stuff she blabbed about to the media was true.” I blanched. “Here, let me show it to you. It’s awesome. Completely vindicates Adrian, but I’m not surprised.”

  We went behind the counter and she typed a few keystrokes on the computer, then turned the monitor to me: Dale Retracts Statement and Apologizes to Hanson Family. I scanned down to the good stuff.

  Dale said she was approached by Scarlett Thomas, the publicist for Juniper Media. Juniper, Michele Lopez Hanson’s employer, published the Hansons’ book, My Pace or Yours, and also puts out Multisport Magazine, to which Adrian Hanson contributed a monthly column. “Scarlett showed me the picture of Adrian and me from his book launch, and she offered me $5000 if I’d send this story she had written to the media, with the picture. She told me it would be good publicity for the book and would help Adrian’s widow and kids. And that it would help me get acting jobs, like in commercials, because she knew people.

  Last week Mrs. Hanson came to see me and I realized Scarlett was wrong. I’m not a bad person, and I admit I was interested in her husband, but I should never have followed him around, and I should have never taken money to tell lies. I’m glad the woman who took Mrs. Hanson’s son and killed Adrian is dead. He was a great man.” Neither Ms. Thomas nor representatives for Juniper Media could be reached for comment, and Mrs. Hanson declined to comment.

  “Wow.” Scarlett was an even bigger bitch than I’d thought. And that reporter had moved fast to print a diplomatic description of my comment about Rhonda, which was probably better than I deserved.

  The young man spoke in a serious voice. “We loved Adrian. We never believed that stuff.”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, thank you. Now, about my bicycle—”

  Pilar lifted a toe against the baseboard in front of the register and rocked forward in an Achilles stretch. “I remember your bicycle. He had it painted like a monarch butterfly.”

  “Yes.” I tightened my lips to keep my voice from shaking. “La Mariposa. That’s what we called it.”

  “I’m glad you and your son are okay.”

  “Thank you. Can you replace that bicycle? I want one exactly like it.”

  Pilar nodded, bouncing her hair. “I’ll bet I can find one by this time tomorrow and have it in shipment within days.”

  “That would be wonderful. Adrian tweaked my bike, taking out spacers, cutting things down. I want to match the old one’s settings exactly. And the paint job. The police have it now, but I could bring it in a few days. Could you do that?” I didn’t have to tell two bicyclists how important this was.

  “Absolutely.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Pilar to the rescue. I was grateful, truly, I was. Yet this bike would only be a replica. How could an imitation ever be enough, really, once you’d had the real thing?

  When I got home, Robert’s car was parked out front. Great. I thought when he said he had Sam that he meant at his house. I needed privacy, alone time, thinking time. Well, I wasn’t going to get it. I opened the door and headed in. Precious didn’t greet me.

  Robert’s voice reverberated. “We’re in the living room.”

  I set my purse on the island in the kitchen. “Okay.” I went into the hallway bath and splashed cold water on my face. A gray-haired woman stared at me from the mirror. “You look like I feel,” I told her. But I wasn’t falling for the tricks of my overactive imagination.

  I trudged into the living room. Precious was sitting in Robert’s lap, purring as he scratched behind her ears. Traitor.

  “Jeez, Mom, what happened to your hair?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Robert’s brows rose to upside down V’s, like insert marks. “Did you color it?”

  My stomach knotted. “What color is it?”

  Sam walked up to me and touched my hair. “Gray, or white, nearly.”

  I dropped down onto the ottoman and put my head between my legs as the room itself grayed out. Sam was at my side in half a second, patting my back. “I’m fine,” I said. Only I wasn’t. I thought overnight grays were an old wives’ tale. I raised my head. “Thanks, Sam.”

  “I think you should get your money back.” Robert sounded entertained.

  “It’s not color. I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know when it happened.”

  “That’s freaky.” Sam’s voice held a lilt.

  Robert scooted forward on the couch and his knee started to bounce. I wanted to scream and clamp it still with my hand. “Since you’re going to be so busy for the next two months, I wanted to offer to let Sam stay with me. Kind of flip his living arrangement for a while.”

  Sam scowled. “Mom’s fine. I have a car. We—”

  I shook my head at him. “It’s okay, Sam.”

  And shocking as it was to admit it to myself, it was. It was more than okay. This was the perfect solution to keep Sam safe from whatever it was that was still out there, whatever threatened me, and—I had to believe—anyone with me.

  “You guys haven’t spent any time together this summer. Sam hasn’t exactly made himself available.” I turned a serious gaze to Sam. “I think it’s a good idea.”

  “Mom?”

  “You only have two years of high school left. You’ll regret it later if you don’t spend more time with your father.”

  Sam slumped back on the couch, holding on to his elbows, one with each hand. “I do see Dad. I see him lots.”

  Robert beamed. “This is going to be great, Sam, I promise.”

  “Well, then, that’s settled.” I ignored the glares of my son.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Monday was a rest day. I got to Blake’s clinic before eight. I didn’t have an appointment. I only wanted to tell my story once.

  The receptionist recognized me. “Michele, we’ve been worried about you. You disappeared on us. Then we saw the news, and I’m so sorry. Let me call Dr. Greene. We’ll work you in.”

  She called her, but it was Blake who showed up. He smiled at me. “Michele, come on into my office.”

  I didn’t want to, but all the resistance had gone out of me. His office was small, and diplomas hung on one of the walls. Texas State University chiropractic. Texas A&M bachelor of science. Pictures adorned another wall: Blake with clients, Blake in bicycle attire in a crowd of people in street clothes within a large crowd of other bicyclists in front of the courthouse on the square in La Grange, a spot I recognized instantly.

  Blake saw me staring at the photo. “Me and my fan club. That’s the start in La Grange of day two of the MS 150. I’m a hometown boy, so every relative I have comes out to say hello.”

  I nodded without replying. The MS 150 Houston-to-Austin ride for multiple sclerosis. Adrian and I did that together.

  “You look like you could use a hug.”

  I didn’t want a hug. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  He hugged me anyway, then sat down at his desk and motioned at the chair in front of it. I sat with my left leg out straight. “You’ve had a rough week.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “And no privacy. It must be hard, everyone knowing your business. I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do?”

  I shook my head.

  He put his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands. “What are your plans for Kona?”

  “The same.”

  “You
’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He frowned slightly, then lifted his eyebrows. “Let’s go see Dr. Greene, then.”

  We left his office and walked with Dr. Greene down to the first exam room.

  “How’s your knee?”

  I crossed my fingers in the hand they couldn’t see. “About the same.”

  She probed my leg, knee to hip. “It feels like a rockslide from your hip down to your knee.”

  Blake stepped in. “Okay, the question is how do we get Michele ready to run a marathon on the tail end of a hundred-and-twelve-mile bike ride and two-point-four-mile swim, in—” he looked at the calendar on his phone, “yikes, in eight weeks.”

  I pressed my lips together hard. “I can do it. I only have to run this one race, then it doesn’t matter if I ever run again. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”

  Blake crossed his arms. “Michele, if you want to finish this Ironman, you have to follow our plan from here on out. If you stick to the plan, it will be doable, but painful. Very painful.”

  I nodded. Pain was the only thing left that confirmed I was still alive.

  ***

  An hour later, per my request, Brian met me at the rear entrance to Juniper. I was there per his. He held the door open and I ducked in. He followed me into what we called the “huddle room,” right next to the emergency exit. He shut the door behind us.

  I turned to him, but he wouldn’t let me speak. “I’m batting first, Michele. That’s not a request.”

  The old Michele might have fought him, but this Michele didn’t care. I sat down in a black swivel chair and leaned my head back.

  Brian lumbered back and forth across the room, punching the air in front of him with his index finger as he talked. “Juniper has canceled Scarlett’s contract. Even when you ran out of here last week, she didn’t admit a thing. I thought you’d lost it, honestly. It’s not like you’ve had an easy time of it.” He held up his hand so I wouldn’t interrupt, but I wasn’t going to anyway. “At that point, all I wanted was to make it okay for you to come back when you had calmed down. Everything’s changed now, though. I didn’t call that play she ran, and I didn’t even find out about it until that newspaper article came out last weekend.”