Eleven Things I Promised (8 page)

“Are you injured?” she asked. “Because you're riding like you're not.”

“I'm not. I lost my phone, so I tried to get them to go back and help me find it, but they wouldn't,” I explained.
Not that I need to explain myself to you.

“Seriously? Crap,” Margo cursed. “What are you going to do?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I really don't.” I reached for my water bottle and took a few gulps. We rode together for a few minutes. It actually didn't feel bad to be side by side. If everyone on this team supported me like this, I knew I'd be able to finish out the week, even if I hobbled in to the finish.

Margo cleared her throat. “I was hanging back, wondering where you were,” she said. “But now I know you're okay,
so—I'm going ahead. I can't ride this slowly for long. Makes my legs all jumpy.”

“You do what you have to do,” I muttered, wishing I could bop her with my water bottle, but she was already out of reach. I'd drift to the back where I was comfortable,
maybe too comfortable,
I thought as I watched her speed up and start passing people.

Why didn't anyone ride this like an actual team? In the Tour de France, which Stella has made me watch every year for the past three years, the teams all bunch together to support their best rider.

Huh, maybe that's it. I'm not the best, and I can't keep up with the best, so I should probably stop comparing this to the Tour. This isn't a tour. This is a gut-wrenching, muscles-burning journey. On my own.

Stella wasn't here to save me, the way she usually did when things got too hard.

I started pedaling harder. As I pumped my legs, the bike weaved a little. I wobbled into the middle of the road.

“Hey, watch it!” a girl trying to pass me yelled. “On your left!”

“Sorry!” I called, correcting my line.

“Oh. It's okay,” she said, riding beside me for a second. “I just don't want to bite it.”

I nodded. “Neither do I.”

We pedaled side by side.

“The good thing about riding in the back? Fewer people see your screwups.” She laughed.

I smiled. Maybe I'd get that printed on one of those cute little motto signs they sold at gift shops.

Ride in the Back. No One Will See Your Screwups.

Ride in the Back. No One Will See You Crash.

Just . . . Ride in the Back.

“We're kicking ass as a team, you
know that?” Max said at lunch.

I'd gotten there later than most people, but this time lunch was sub sandwiches, and there were plenty left to choose from. I'd taken extra bags of potato chips to stash for later; the salt would taste good when I was near death.

My team was sitting in the shade, under a tree beside a huge, beautiful lake that I wanted to dive into in all my clothes. Everyone was talking about the morning, how Max, Oxendale, and Alex had been third, fifth, and seventh in a wild sprint finish. “It's all going according to plan,” Cameron said confidently, leaning back against a tree trunk, straw in his mouth.

“You forgot your evil laugh,” said Oxendale. “You can't talk like a supervillain without an evil laugh.”

“When did I become a villain?” Cameron wondered out loud. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Is this trip starting to take a turn into a weird area?”

“I've always thought it was in a weird area,” I said.

“No, it's just we're back in New Hampshire,” said Oxendale. “I have yet to see a shire. New or old.”

“Oxo, quit it with the Brit talk,” said Cameron. “You're not from here. We get it.” He tossed the straw at Oxendale, and it bounced off his bony knee.

Everyone was analyzing the team results showing that we were third in the rankings, which was amazing considering we came from such a small town. Rankings factored in total fund-raising, and our town appeared to be very generous, when it came to that. When you added up our riders doing well in the challenges, winning even more in matching funds, our donation to the children's cancer research fund was going to be huge. That made me feel better about losing my phone. But not much.

After lunch, I asked Cameron if I could borrow his phone and found a private spot under a shady tree. I called Stella's number and crossed my fingers, hoping she'd been trying to call me and not getting through due to my misplaced phone.
Then again, she had been avoiding me for weeks. That probably wouldn't change in a day.

“Stella's phone,” said a male voice.

“What? Is that Mason?” I said.

“Frances?” he replied. “Hey. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, fine. More or less,” I said.

“What's this number? Why aren't you calling from your phone?”

“And why are
you
answering Stella's phone?” I teased back. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there might be a not-so-good reason for it, and I felt bad for laughing.

“Stella's busy. I'm in the waiting room.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” he complained. He sounded stressed out. “Sorry. We're at Mercy. They do outpatient stuff.”

“Say hi to LaDonna for me?” I asked, referring to a nurse I'd recently met.

“Sure. So, what's up?” he asked.

I cleared my throat. “Well, here's the thing. I sort of lost my phone last night.”

Mason laughed. “Sort of? How do you sort of lose a phone?”

“I'm not sure,” I admitted. “I had it last night and I was
charging it, and then I was late getting up today and I started riding before I realized I didn't have it and—I guess I was tired—”

“You lost your phone. Seriously, Frances?”

“I know, I know.”

“You can be spacey. Speaking of. What was up with you last night?”

“Up with me? Nothing, actually.”

“Are you sure? You didn't sound like yourself.”

“Who did I sound like?” I joked.

“You sounded delirious.”

“Oh.” How embarrassing. I'd drunk-dialed my best friend's brother. But I also knew it was no accident. I was getting more attached to Mason by the day. “I was super tired, just like you said. So, they're looking for my phone. Right now,” I said. “It might be in our tent or my sleeping bag. I'm sure I'll find it when we unpack tonight. But if I don't . . . oh, never mind, I just hate not having it.”

“What do you need one for?” he asked.

“Calling you, for example? I just feel so cut off from everything. And everyone.”

“It's been, like, a few hours.” He laughed. “What do you think you're missing? Anyway, you'll be home soon.”

“I know, and I know you're going to think I'm ‘just being Frances,' but do you think there's any way you could help me get a phone?”

“Me? Frances, I don't even know where you
are
,” Mason said.

“You have the itinerary!” I protested. “We're at Sebago Lake right now and tonight we're going to be in Waterville, Watertown, something like that.”

“Waterboro? That's like an hour and a half drive,” Mason said. “Each way!”

“I know, I know, but—”

“Can't you just borrow someone's phone, like you're doing right now?”

“But what if . . . you know. Something important happens,” I said. “Or an emergency.”

“Sorry, but we're done with emergencies. I just—I don't need this right now.” Mason sounded exasperated with me. “I mean, I don't know what you expect me to do. Drive there? With a new phone and everything? God, Franny. Sometimes you're so selfish.”

I felt ridiculous all of a sudden. He was right. Why was I asking
him
? My mom would be here in a heartbeat if I asked her—after giving me a lecture on how much phones cost. But I didn't want to see her. I wanted to see him, I guess.

“It's okay,” I said. “Sorry.”

“I need to be here. I'm taking Stella to appointments, and doing stuff at the house. So I'm going to hang up now, and when Stella's done with her appointment, I'll tell her you called to say hi and you're doing fine. You'll call again to check on her. End of story.” He ended the call abruptly, leaving me feeling about an inch tall.

When I looked up, I caught Margo's eye. It wasn't hard to do because she was standing there, apparently just waiting for me to get off the phone.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said quickly.

“How's Stella?”

I'm not sure, actually.
“She's doing well,” I said.

I didn't give Margo a chance to ask any follow-up questions. I found Cameron over by the rest of the team and returned his phone, then stretched out on the ground to catch a few minutes of relaxation. When I closed my eyes, facing up, the sun made my eyelids orange-red. I thought about the time Stella and I went to a beach near Portland two summers ago, when we were fifteen, and how we'd insisted my mom sit somewhere else so we could look like we were on our own.

We'd lain faceup in the sun for so long that we'd both been sunburned to a crisp at the end of the day. Being on our
own had meant forgetting to wear sunblock.

That was the summer Stella had a crush on Laird Offutt, who I insisted on calling Layered Outfit. He was very preppy, two years older than us, and she was convinced that they belonged together. He was going to be the captain of the boys' soccer team that fall, while Stella was a rising star on the girls' team. They trained together over the summer, and she was sure that they'd go to Homecoming together.

Instead, he went with a senior field hockey player named Muffy, and Stella and I stayed home and watched movies. Layered Outfit had horrible taste, we both decided. In clothes and in girls.

A foot nudged my side. “You ready to go?”

I looked up at Cameron, shielding my eyes from the sun. “What?”

“Come on, I'll ride with you. We can entertain ourselves by plotting how to break up Autumn and Alex.”

“It can't be done,” I said. “Besides, I don't care.”

“You're so right. About both,” Cameron agreed. “But come on anyway.”

“We shouldn't.” Cameron's chin rested on top of the fence rail.

“No,” I agreed.

“It's wrong.”

“It's
beyond
wrong,” I said.

“But that one over there is asleep, and it would be so easy to just climb on, get a picture, and then jump off. Come on. Let's do it!” Cameron sounded more excited. “You get on Daisy over there and I'll sit on Elmer.”

“You're naming them now?” I asked, smiling. “And who's going to take the pictures if we're both trying not to get thrown off by cows?”

“We'll get cow selfies. We'll send them to Stella. Wait till she sees we're not riding bikes, we're riding bovines.”

“You go right ahead,” I said. “The last time I got near a cow, something not so nice happened.” I took off my helmet and ran my hands through my hair, shaking it out. Cameron and I had taken a slight detour, leaving the rest of the ride to follow the signs for the dairy farm. Why he wanted to see it, I wasn't sure.

When I climbed off my bike, my legs had that shaky, weak feeling I seemed to get every afternoon right around three p.m.

“Forget the cows. I'm going to start looking for a horse on this farm to take me the rest of the way today,” I told Cameron, gazing around the large farm property.

Suddenly an image popped into my head: Stella, out
by the dairy farm. Stella, crumpled to the ground. My legs started to shake even more. I chugged some water.

Cameron laughed. “That would be incredible. Come on, let's leave our bikes here and go find someone we can talk to about that.”

“We wouldn't . . . actually . . .”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?” I said.

“Long.” We strolled past the herd of cows lazing by the fence.

“We don't ride horses, as a rule. We have to finish every day's ride on our bikes—that's another rule,” I said.

“Horse, cow, bike—what's the difference?” Cameron said. “They all end up giving you saddle sores.”

“Can we
please
not talk about that?” I asked. I'd put in more than a hundred miles so far “in the saddle,” and my body was not too happy about it.

Cameron pulled some long blades of grass and waved them through the fence, trying to get a cow's attention. “I see a problem with my plan. Once we got on one of these cows, would it even stand up? They look pretty lazy.”

I looked over at him. “Wait a second.”

“What?”

“The cows are lying down,” I said.

“Is that like . . . code for something? The cows are lying down,” he repeated in a deep voice. “The eagle flies at midnight. The red fox catches the brown mouse. Et cetera.”

“When cows lie down, it means something!” I said.

“Yeah, it means they're too heavy to support themselves any longer,” said Cameron. “It means they've been taking that growth hormone and it's made them all wacky.”

“No. It means it's going to
rain
, dummy.” I headed back for our bikes, taking a quick look at the sky. A few fairly ominous dark clouds were drifting overhead.

“What does ‘raindummy' mean?” Cameron asked, following me.

“It means we should try to outride whatever's coming, or we're going to get drenched. Or worse.”

“If you're talking about a thunderstorm, don't panic.” Cameron swung his leg over his bike. “We're not going to get hit by lightning or anything.”

I glanced up at the sky again. The dark clouds seemed to have increased already. “Maybe we should just stay here. We could, like, seek shelter at the barn.”

“You could, like, have a point,” Cameron said calmly as thunder crackled above us.

He was teasing me, in the middle of a severe storm. I got
on my bike, too, and we both started riding toward the barn, not sure if it would be open but hoping. The road was half dirt, half gravel, and as it started to rain, the ride quickly turned into a slow slog in the mud. Rain was falling in sheets, swooping as the wind blew sideways.

We rode up to a wide door opening, hopped off our bikes, and quickly ducked into the barn. It smelled like straw, manure, and dirt. I leaned my bike against a horse stall, and Cameron set his against a bale of hay.

We stood a few feet back from the doorway—I knew enough not to stand in a doorway when lightning was around. A boy in our junior high had been killed that way.

Rain was running off the roof in little streams, pooling into puddles just outside the door. Despite the storm, the air seemed to be getting hotter and more humid.

That was when I remembered it.

Dance in the rain or sleep under the stars. Or vice versa.

I pulled my shirt gently away from my stomach, and it made a slight sucking sound, like a wet bathing suit. My nylon super-fabric clothes were clinging to me, making me feel half-naked.
Yes, these are my exact curves and body proportions. Exactly.

Not that there was anything about me in Cameron's imagination, but if there was, this meant there'd be nothing
left
to
imagine. It wasn't exactly an ideal situation for me to be all confident and outgoing, but I had to try.

“So . . . this might sound silly, and I'm really not trying to make an, um, make an actual move or anything. But would you dance with me?” I asked.

“I told you. I don't dance.” Cameron took a step away from me, a smile at the corner of his mouth. “And what do you mean that wasn't an
actual
move? I think that technically it was. What's with this dance obsession?”

“I'm not obsessed. I'm just trying to make the best of a bad situation.” I wished I could tell him what I was up to; it wouldn't have been half as revealing or embarrassing.

I went outside, tentatively peeking around the corner to see if anyone was coming. Of course, why would they be? It was still storming, rain slashing at my face, although the thunder and lightning seemed to have passed.

How was a person supposed to start dancing on their own—in front of an audience of one? I thought back to the times I'd been nervous in recitals, the hokey phrases we told one another, like “Dance like nobody's watching,” which made no sense to me. If no one was watching, why would I dance, and wouldn't I be really sloppy about it?