The Cure for Dreaming(54)

“You what?”

“Read the front page of today’s Oregonian.” I tilted my head at the nail marks on his face. “I scratched you up like a wild woman. I caused a terrible uproar in a hotel lobby. Oh, I even cursed at a drunkard I almost ran over with my bike. And I rode through the city by myself after dark, while my father imagined me sulking in my bedroom. We’re not curing my dreams.”

He arched his eyebrows at the emphasis on my. “Are we curing someone else’s?”

“My father’s. His life is the one that’s crumbling, because he’s doing exactly what he wanted to avoid—driving me away.” I kicked up my foot to find the right pedal and rang my little bell. “Now move, s’il vous pla?t. I need to ride home before my empty bedroom gets discovered.”

I pedaled toward him, but he pushed me backward by the handlebars again and said, “I’m going to escort you home.”

“How are you going to keep up with me while I’m riding?”

“You can’t ride through the dark streets on your own. If you fall and hit your head, who would know?”

“As I just said”—I steered the handlebars out of his grip— “how are you going to keep up while I’m riding?”

“I’ll sit on the handlebars if I have to.” He lifted his knee as if he were going to climb aboard.

“No, Henry!” I laughed and managed to back the bike out of his reach. “You’ll tip me forward.”

“Then let me sit in front of you so I can pedal while you hang on.”

“Ha!” I rode the bicycle off the curb with a jolting bump that startled more hair out of pins. “That would be a laugh.”

He leapt into the street behind me. “I’ll bet you’re strong enough to pedal us both.”

“I don’t know . . .” I rode around him in a wide circle. “I’m only a girl.”

“I’ll just chase after you, then, and try to keep up.” He laughed, a throaty chuckle—an enjoyable sound I don’t think I’d ever heard from him before. “Stop riding circles around me, Olivia. Let me get on. I’m willing to sit in back.”

“You’ll probably fall off.” I planted my feet on the ground. “I ride fast.”

“I bet you do.”

I hopped down from the saddle while still holding the handlebars, and—adding yet another transgression to my growing list of sins against my father—allowed Henry to climb onto the seat behind me. He tried putting his hands on the bars, next to mine, but I nudged them away.

“I’ll need to steer. You’ll make us fall if you’re hanging on, too.”

He held up his palms. “What should I hang on to, then?”

“I don’t . . .” I laughed and blushed and couldn’t believe I was letting him sit on my bicycle behind me, pressed up against my back, his mouth so close to my neck. I got chills just from the thought of him breathing against me. “Oh, just put your blasted hands around my waist. Help me push off, and if we somehow stay balanced, put your feet on the mounting pegs on the rear wheel.”

I pressed my right foot against the top pedal. “I’ll count to three, and then we both need to give a big push. Ready?”

He squeezed his arms around my waist and answered, “Oui.”

“One, two, three.”

He pushed, I pushed, and both of my feet left the ground. We wobbled and tipped, and he had to shove the soles of his shoes against the road more than once to keep us from falling on our sides like a capsizing ship. My legs pumped and strained, and somehow, one block south of the hotel, we managed to gain speed. Balancing became easier; the act of pedaling turned smooth and as simple as riding on my own. Our chances of serious injury increased, but my legs no longer ached from powering us along.

We cruised onward, past the slumbering businesses on Third. My hair streaked behind me and probably smacked Henry in the face, but he never complained—in fact, he chuckled the whole time, and, when I steered us around the corner to Yamhill, he whooped like a French Canadian cowboy.

“You’re not going to fall off, are you?” I yelled into the wind.

“Not unless you do.”

“In a few more blocks,” I called again, “you need to look in the window of McCorkan’s Bicycle Shop on our right.”

“Why is that?”

“They sell bicycle bloomers. Buying a pair is yet another one of my unladylike dreams.”

“I could get you a pair from backstage.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’ve seen them in the costume room.”

That grand possibility inspired me to pedal faster, and the chain buzzed like a mighty industrial machine beneath our legs. Overhead, the moon peeked between the clouds, washing the road before us in swaths of silver. “Beautiful Dreamer” waltzed through my mind, especially the line “Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,” which seemed particularly lovely in the lamp-lit splendor of the nighttime streets of Portland.

Henry’s arms tightened around my waist.

“I’m not going to stop,” I yelled over my shoulder, “because I don’t want to fall, but there they are. Turkish trousers.”

We sped past the red and blue beauties, which were mere poufs of shadow in the unlit store, and Henry asked, “Is it because you want to dress like a man?”