Along for the Ride(29)

I recognized Jake’s voice instantly. Sure enough, when I turned, I spotted him one row over and two down, leaning against a silver sedan. He had on jeans and a red long-sleeved shirt, the tails of which were flapping in the breeze as he took a sip of something in the blue plastic cup in his hand. It took me a minute before I realized he hadn’t even been speaking to me but to a tall blonde who was walking a few rows down, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket. She glanced up at him, smiling shyly, and kept walking. A moment later, he was catching up with her just a couple of cars in front of me.

Crap, I thought, watching as he flashed her that wide smile. Leaving right then would have attracted way too much attention, but it wasn’t like I wanted to sit and watch my biggest mistake in recent memory play out before me either. I considered my options a moment, then carefully opened my door, sliding my feet onto the gravel. I eased it shut, ducking down as I rounded the car beside me, then put another, and yet another between us.

Due to my zigzag escape, I ended up in an area off to the left of the jump park, where there were only a couple of bike racks and a few straggly trees. It was just out of the reach of the bright lights by the bleachers, so I could see everything without being spotted. In other words, perfect.

I leaned against a bike rack as I watched people move through the line of jumps. At first glance, each rider looked the same, but with further study I realized everyone was going at different speeds on their approach, and some stayed closer to the ground, cautious, while others rose up high, then higher still on the next. Occasionally there’d be a smatter of applause or some hooting from the bleachers, but otherwise it was strangely quiet, just the sound of tires on gravel, broken up by moments of silence as they went airborne.

After a while, I spotted Adam and Wallace, sitting on their bikes, helmets off, where people were lining up for the jumps. Wallace was eating Pringles, while Adam was looking up at the bleachers, gesturing for someone there to come join them. Following his gaze, I found Maggie again, still alone, still staring down at the ramps. You can keep looking, I wanted to tell her, but most likely, he’s under those bleachers, not in front of them. Stupid girl.

Just as I thought this, she stood suddenly, like she’d heard me. I watched as she reached up, pulling her dark curls back at the base of her neck, then twisted an elastic around them. She reached into the bag beside her and pulled out a helmet, grabbing it by the strap and starting down the bleachers to the boys waiting below.

I had to admit I was surprised. What I saw next, though, left me stunned: when she got to Adam, he hopped off his bike, offering it to her, and she climbed on, pulling the helmet over her head. He said something to her, and she nodded, then pushed back slowly, flexing her fingers over the ends of the handlebars. When she was about twenty feet back, she rose up on the pedals for a moment, squaring her shoulders, and started toward the jumps.

She hit the first one at moderate speed, kicking up a bit of dust, gaining even more momentum as she approached, then cleared the next. By the third, she was rising up really high, shoulders hunched, the bike seeming to float beneath her. Even from my limited experience, I could tell she was good: she hit the jumps squarely, and her landings were smooth, not clumsy like some of the other riders I’d seen. It seemed to take her no time or effort at all to do the entire set of them, and then she was circling back to where the boys were waiting. Wallace offered her a Pringle, and she took it, flipping up the visor of her helmet to pop it in her mouth.

I was so busy watching this that at first, I didn’t see the figure that had appeared off to my right, so it took a second to realize it was Eli. His hair was loose over his shoulders, and he had on jeans and a green long-sleeved T-shirt. Unfortunately, by the time I processed all this, I’d been staring at him long enough for him to notice. He turned and looked right at me, and I nodded at him in reply, in what I hoped seemed like a casual way.

He nodded back, sliding his hands in his pockets, and I thought of what Esther, Leah, and Maggie had been talking about earlier that day, how he did or didn’t ride anymore, and the reasons, or person, behind that choice. Not that it was any of my business. I was leaving anyway.

I started toward my car, which meant I had to walk right by him. As I got closer, he glanced up at me again. ‘Already leaving,’ he said in that flat voice I recognized. ‘Not exciting enough for you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Just… I have somewhere I have to be.’

‘Busy times,’ he said.

‘That’s right.’

I didn’t pretend to know Eli at all, but even so, I’d noticed that his manner was slightly hard to read. It was something in the way he talked that made it difficult to tell whether he was kidding or serious or what. This bothered me. Or intrigued me. Or both.

‘So,’ I said after a moment, figuring I had nothing to lose in asking, ‘do you jump?’

‘Nope,’ he replied. ‘You?’

I almost laughed, then thought of Maggie and realized this maybe was not a joke. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t even… I mean, I haven’t ridden a bike in ages.’

He considered this, then looked back at the jumps. ‘Really.’

This too was said flatly, no intonation, so I had nothing to go on. Still, I felt defensive as I said, ‘I just… I wasn’t much for outdoor stuff as a kid.’

‘Outdoor stuff,’ he repeated.