Chapter Four

Mackenzie slammed the door shut and bounded up to the front of the classroom. She heaved a bulging backpack off her shoulder and dumped it on a front row desk. Three textbooks and the two full liter bottles of water that Mac always carried, but never drank, slid out. Banging on the desk with her fist, she announced, “I move that the Bike Geek meeting come to order.”

Charlie leapt up from his seat and picked up the bottles, one in each hand. “What’s the deal, Skater?” he asked Mackenzie as he curled them like weights. “Aren’t you buff enough?”

She turned to face him, eye to eye. They were the same height, but with opposite coloring; Mac’s straight white blond hair hit her chin at the same spot Charlie’s blue-black curls met his. His dark, almost black eyes twinkled, laughing at her, while her cornflower blues gave nothing away. She wouldn’t let him get to her. He folded his arms in an effort to make his shoulders appear broader than hers, but carrying around two liters of water every day does work its wonders, and she inhaled and matched him.

Mac took the bottles and shoved them back in her pack. She blew her bangs off her forehead and, ignoring Charlie’s question, sat on the desk and counted everyone who was there. “Dante, don’t start the minutes of the meeting until Otis gets here, okay? He’s on his way. We need to go over my application to get certified, and he forgot the papers.”

“Why would anyone ever go to some bike mechanic boot camp to learn something you already know how to do?” Charlie said. “It’s a waste of time.”

“Hey, you’re the one who wants to work at the shop,” Mac answered. “Get serious about getting your license and maybe Otis will get serious about hiring you. Besides, with my license, I’ll be able to earn big cake doing race mechanics.”

“I can’t even apply to get into the workshop if I don’t have the hours at a shop, and if he won’t let me work there how can I get the hours?…” Charlie waved her off with his hand. “I might as well forget it. It’s a vicious cycle.”

The girl slouching in a back row seat guffawed.

“What, Frankie?” Charlie looked back at her. She twirled a long dreadlock around her neck, covering both the dashes tattooed there as well as the words “cut on the dotted line” inked beneath them.

She said, “Dude, why don’t you open your own shop? You can call it The Vicious Cycle.”

He squinted at her for a split second before turning to face the front to loudly ignore her. “Can we just start the meeting? It’s already 3:45, and I want time to ride to Hudson and back before dinner.” Charlie was doing his best imitation of politeness. Frankie snorted.

Charlie turned to her and frowned. “What now, Frankie? You don’t think I can?”

“Depends how late you eat dinner,” she said.

“How are you going to get to Vermont and back wearing those baggies, Charlie?” Dante teased, “Isn’t it like riding with a parachute brake?” Dante had no problem wearing spandex.

“Just ’cause I don’t wear that road rider crap doesn’t mean I’m not for real.” Charlie blew a kiss to Dante. “However, for you, the spandex is probably a perk.”

“If you were serious, dude, you’d at least shave. You’re dragging air with those bush legs you got,” Frankie said.

“It’s too queer,” said Charlie. “No offense, Dante.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment, darling,” Dante said, blowing a kiss back at Charlie.

Frankie heaved a huge sigh and shushed everyone. “Mac, since we can’t start before Otis gets here, why don’t you tell us about the bike?” She gestured for Mac to move on.

Mackenzie couldn’t conceal her excitement. She curled one ankle around the other, twirled them apart, and did it again. “Okay, so, he took my measurements—”

“Lucky guy.” Charlie didn’t even bother to feign courtesy, and made a big show as he checked out Mac’s face, sketched down her chest and then her long legs as she crisscrossed them beneath her.

Frankie glared and shook her head. No one understood how Mackenzie was able to ignore Charlie whenever he pulled this crap, but actually, she wasn’t. For her, it didn’t even exist. If he went there, Mac just erased him just like she erased anything unpleasant. Why focus on the negative? You couldn’t get anywhere doing that, anyway.

Frankie hissed, “Watch the drool, Chaz.Go on, Skater, tell it.”

Mac continued, “He took my shoe size, shoulder width, checked my hams and hip flexibility—”

“Like I said, lucky guy.”

“—and asked about any injuries and stuff like that. There were form questions about how I ride, if I take hills standing, and riding goals and stuff, but Otis and I have skimmed enough blacktop for him to know my style.”

Dante asked, “How long till you get it?”

“Well, I still have to pay for it, but even with my pro discount I’m short. O’s helping me out, so I’ll owe him hours.” She sighed, but it was a satisfied sound. “A lot of hours.”

“Not that many,” Otis said as he hurried in and waved his hellos. “Your time at the workshop counts—and once you’re certified, it’ll be worth it to have you as my race mechanic.”

“Yes!” Mac fisted the air and smiled. “Hey, O, I thought MaToya was coming?”

“She hit a snag on a big term paper. She’ll be here next meeting.” He settled himself in the back row and started to shuffle through a stack of papers on the desk in front him.

“But Ma’s definitely coming on the trip with us?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Aw, c’mon, O,” Charlie said. “We don’t need no stinkin’ babysitter.”

Without looking up from the papers, Otis said, “If I’m your van support, you need MaToya on the road with you for safety reasons. Not to mention school sanctioning and all that stuff. Besides, she’s been on every trip since we started this club. She knows the ride.”

Mac added, “Plus, Ma’s the best mechanic I’ve seen, and she’ll be able to give me some good pointers before I hit the workshop.”

“I can fix my own bike, thank you very much,” Charlie said.

“As long as you keep your hands off mine.”

“Your what?” Charlie leered. “Oh, you mean you won’t share your RoadCap?” He stuck out his lower lip and pretended to cry.

“Darling, if I worked as many extra hours to pay for a custom-built bike, I wouldn’t let you even look at it,” Dante said.

Mackenzie rummaged through her backpack and grabbed a notebook. Opening it, she glanced at her notes and said, “Okay, we have, like, three—”

“Wait, wait,” Charlie said. “You’ve worked extra hours?” Turning to the back of the room, he said to Otis, “I thought you said you couldn’t hire anyone else?”

“Charlie, I told you. Mac’s going for her mechanic’s license, making her eligible to be on my race team, and in exchange she gets her RoadCap,” Otis explained. “Besides, there’ve been plenty of times she’s gone above and beyond at the shop.”

“I didn’t know blow jobs were considered above and beyond,” Charlie muttered under his breath.

Frankie whispered, “Dude, you are such an asshole, you know that?”

“Whatever.”

“Is there anything you don’t whine about?” Frankie looked over Charlie’s mismatched outfit. “Though I might start whining too if I got caught wearing a kit as dorked out as that.”

“Yeah, dude, how can you wear your mountain bike shorts with the Geek shammy, and what is on your feet?” They all leaned over to check out Charlie’s socks.

“At least I’m consistent,” he said, stretching his legs out and making no effort to hide what he was wearing.

Dante said, “Scandalous. Mixing kits from three different clubs? Have you no shame?”

Charlie licked the tip of his thumb and touched the blue sock, then the orange one, and made a sizzling sound.

Frankie said, “You wish.”

Otis looked up from his puzzle of papers and clapped his hands. “C’mon, people. Stop fooling around. You have a lot to cover.”

They went over the bike-a-thon treasury and set a date to present the Westchester Children’s Hospital with the money they had raised, and agreed new trikes for the littlest patients were the best way to start indoctrinating future riders.

“Hey, can we talk about the killer pothole I hit yesterday? I almost tacoed my wheels,” Frankie said.

Mackenzie sighed. “What’s the point? The costs—”

“Yeah,” Frankie continued. “We ought to hit the town meeting or whatever, and get them to deal with the side streets. They’re, like, completely lame. I mean, after what happened to me.” She rubbed her knee.

“Charlie, can’t you talk to your dad about it?” Frankie asked. “If he’s on the town council, we should at least have an ‘in’ or something.”

“Yeah, talk to your dad for us,” Dante agreed.

“Talk? To my father?” Charlie said. “What a concept!”

“Nice, real nice,” someone mumbled.

“Gee, thanks for the help, Chaz,” Frankie said. “Why am I not surprised?”

“As I was saying,” Mac said, shooting Charlie a look to shut him up, “it’s a money thing. It’s no news the town’s going to spend the budget on the streets where the hottest businesses are.”

It went on like that for a while, everyone moaning, as usual, about how riders aren’t respected, and if the mayor were a cyclist, the streets would be perfection.

Otis brought his fingers to his mouth and gave a crisp whistle. “We leave the Friday after school is over, so we’re talking June 29th. Between now and then, I want you riding at least thirty-five miles a day, midweek, and fifty to sixty on weekends. It’s a long way to Vermont, and just because the snow’s gone doesn’t mean the mountains have left too. Mac, you’ve been leading the group rides once a week, right? Well, I want you to schedule at least one, maybe two more a week now. You guys are going to be kickin’ it.”

Charlie snapped his fingers. “No prob, O.”

Otis shot him a doubtful smile. “Do the thirty-five every day, Charlie, understand me? Dante and Frankie, your permission forms aren’t complete. Mac, your dad didn’t send yours in at all. Here’s another packet, in case it got lost in the mail.”

Mackenzie took the packet from Otis and flipped through the thick wad of papers, silently cursing her father. Fat chance, lost in the mail. He knew she was going. He’d been promising for six years.

“… I repeat, no forms, no trip. Are we clear, people?” Frankie, Dante, and Mac grunted a chorus of yeses. “One last thing,” Otis said, reaching into a box at his feet. He held up a bright red shammy in one hand and a pair of spandex bike shorts in the other. “The new kits came in!”

Everyone rushed to the back of the room and grabbed their proper sizes. After the meeting, Dante and Mac walked through the breezeways up to the main building. Everyone joked that some architect from California must’ve designed the school, since you had to walk outside every time you changed classes. There were five different buildings, all connected by breezeways, as though the town of Wheaton never went below fifty degrees. If it rained, kids got wet. If it snowed, you either took your coat with you from class to class, or, if you were a macho football player type, froze your butt off as you ran from building to building.

Frankie caught up to them as they got their bikes from the rack in front of the school. She leaned over, hands on knees, massaging a still-red scar. “Dudes, I gotta get in shape if I want a slide ride.”

Mac commiserated with a wince.

“I have a feeling we’re gonna be baked no matter what,” Dante said.

Frankie straightened and started untangling her bike from the lock. “Hey, I was doing forty a day, but after I popped my knee …”

Dante grimaced, looking at her scars. “You’d think that’d be the one pothole they’d fix, considering the gravity tattoos you collected on that crash.”

Mackenzie said, “There’s still time to get in shape. And your knee’s pretty good now, Franks.”

Frankie flexed her leg and said, “Yeah, it’s good. I just have to get my endurance back. I’m cranking with Charlie to Hudson later, even if he is an asshole. Actually, the more assholic he is, the more motivated I am to leave him in the dust.”

“Front or back, and are we doing our ride now or later?” Mac asked.

“Front. I don’t want to abuse my tires going the back way. I just tuned up. And yeah, let’s do the ride now. Let’s just dump our books at my house first since it’s closer.” Frankie hopped on her bike and took off, stuffing her dreads under her helmet as she rolled.

They peddled down the street that led from the school to the main part of town. It was a pretty ride, curling around the winding streets of the little community, past the carefully tended gardens and lawns.

Before Mac’s family moved there, Wheaton had been mocked as the slum of Barclay, the rich hamlet nearby. But it had become a wealthy place in its own right, with up-and-coming moneymakers like her dad moving there, planting McMansions wherever a small lot was still available.

It was early spring, and the buds were starting to pop. It had rained, and Mac took a deep breath, inhaling the satisfying freshly soaked smell of wet blacktop.

“Man, you are this close to owning an RC,” Frankie said, holding her finger and thumb two inches apart. “I am so totally jealous.” She switched gears to make it up a hill. “It’s just amazing. You’re really going to have a RoadCap.”

Mac switched down too and stood up to get some muscle going. It felt good to feel her thighs working it. She loved going uphill, visualizing her quads bunching up and hardening, then stretching out as she pressed the pedal down again. Keeping the cadence constant always soothed her. It made her feel like a machine, powerful and beyond human frailty. She smiled to herself.

“Otis said after today, there’re two more fittings,” she said.

“And you’re still not letting your dad chip in?”

“It wouldn’t be mine if he paid for it.”

“You’re crazy. Man, if my dad said he’d buy me a custom-built bike, I’d jump at it,” Frankie said for the hundredth time.

Once again, Mac fleetingly thought about telling Frankie the real reason she wouldn’t take anything from her dad, but why go there? In any case, when Mac mounted her RC it would be on her terms. She’d never take his money. Mackenzie smiled, remembering that it was only after he married Barb that she even had anything to save.

Barb’s first act as “mom” was to insist Mac get an allowance. Mackenzie remembered the argument because she’d never heard anyone stand up to her father before. It had never occurred to her that it could be done.

“She’s almost eleven years old, Stan,” Barb had argued. “The kid needs to learn the value of a dollar.”

Stan had pointed at Barb’s growing belly and said, “Oh, like you know the value of a dollar, with what you’re spending on decorating a nursery for that?”

But Mac had started collecting an allowance that weekend.

In the five years since, Mackenzie’s lack of monetary generosity had become legendary, and she’d been nicknamed Skater … as in cheapskate. Everyone knew if you were so much as a nickel short for a soda, you didn’t ask Mac. Anything else, and she’s right there. But money? Every Bike Geek knew Mackenzie Douglas had been saving for a sweeter ride than any of them dreamed of, so her nickname was more of a badge of honor than insult. Even from Charlie.

If her dad got humiliated, that was just icing. The more embarrassed he was that people might think he couldn’t afford it, the more determined she became to save every dime on her own.

The girls sat up straight as they headed down the other side of the hill, the last on their way back to Frankie’s, and raised fists to the sky, giving their customary whoop of joy. The wind shushed through the vents in their helmets and was the only sound above the lubricated whirr of their bikes as they sped down.

At the bottom they stopped at the red light, and Mac took her helmet off, shook out her hair, damp with sweat, and readjusted the strap.

As she hooked it back on, Frankie asked, “What does Barb say?”

“She’s all like, ‘If it were up to me, I’d make you put that money toward college.’”

“And he still wants you to spend it on a car?” Frankie asked.

“Even said he’d pay for the insurance.” They made a left onto the next street, coasting until they got to Frankie’s house, and slowed down.

“Do you think we’re the only teenagers on the planet who’d rather have a bicycle than a car?” Frankie asked, setting her bike against the garage. She saw her mom through the window and waved.

Mackenzie grunted. “Nah. There are at least three other kids in the club who’d do the same.”

“Ha, yeah. Totally.” Frankie led the way through the back door and into the kitchen. The girls grabbed two apples and a bag of Lay’s and went upstairs.

When they got to Frankie’s room, Mac ripped open the chips and said, “I cannot be within a 1.2 mile vicinity of a potato chip. I told Barb to stop buying them. If I’m going to ride from here to Vermont and back, I have to get in shape.”

Frankie shook her head. “You’re not starting this again?”

“What?”

“You’re a human lung. You barely breathe while everyone else is gasping.”

“Still,” Mac said.

“Shut up! You are perfect. Charlie was practically flooding his desk he was drooling so much. Though, I gotta say, I think he’s looking more buff than during the winter.”

“Who can tell with those baggy clothes he wears?” Mac said. “And anyway, it’s good for a woman to be in shape. If she’s strong, then no one can take advantage of her.” She peered into the bag of chips and breathed in their scent.

Frankie put her hand out. “You planning on sharing those?” But Mac wasn’t done appreciating their delectable fragrance. Frankie crossed her arms and sighed. “Well, still, he was looking at you like you were candy and he had a big ol’ sweet tooth. How could you not notice how many guys eye you everywhere you go?”

“I only care about Grady eyeing me.” Mackenzie counted out nine chips and handed the bag to Frankie. She pulled a long, embroidered case out of her backpack and untied the red ribbon that held it closed. Folding back the flaps, she slid out two dark wooden chopsticks and added, “As long as his eyes only go where I want them to, that is.” Mackenzie tweezered the first potato chip, brought it to her mouth, and nibbled on the edge.

Frankie flopped down on her stomach and grabbed out a handful of chips. “Get out. You still haven’t lost all willpower to the famous Grady charm?”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever? I’m your best friend. What does ‘whatever’ mean? C’mon, spill.” Frankie flipped over, causing a potato chip landslide.

“Me spill? You should talk!” Mac said. “Oh, crap—is your clock right? I was supposed to get home and make dinner. The Brat gets really cranky if she doesn’t eat by half-past too early.”

Frankie said, “Did my mom tell you she bumped into Barb and Lily the other day? She wouldn’t shut up about how Lily is exactly like you when you were her age. She said it was like seeing you in two different time continuums.”