Along for the Ride(90)

‘Ouch.’

‘But the pièce de résistance,’ he continued, tapping his chest, ‘is right here. All titanium, baby.’

I just looked at him. ‘What is?’

‘The plate they used to put my sternum back together,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Two years ago. Broke it with my full-face helmet going over a jump.’

‘You know,’ I said, considering my scrape again, ‘you’re kind of making me look like a wimp.’

‘Not at all!’ He smiled. ‘It all counts. If you’re not getting hurt, you’re not riding hard enough.’

‘Then I,’ I said, ‘am riding really hard.’

‘That’s what I hear,’ he said, picking up the box again. ‘Maggie says you’re like an animal out there.’

I was horrified. ‘She what?’

‘I’m paraphrasing,’ he said easily, flipping his hand. ‘She says you’re really working hard, that you’re doing great.’

I shrugged, capping the Neosporin. ‘I don’t know. If I was good, I wouldn’t be all banged up like this.’

‘Not true.’

I looked up at him. ‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘Of course not. Look at me. I’m a great rider, and I’ve bit dirt more times than I can even count. And the pros? They’re, like, bionic, they’ve crashed so much. Look at Eli. He’s broken his elbow, and his collarbone multiple times, and then there’s that arm thing…’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘The arm thing? You mean the scar?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I thought that was from the accident.’

Adam shook his head. ‘No. He was doing some tricks out on the pier and landed wrong. Sliced it wide open on the edge of a bench. There was blood everywhere.’

I looked back down at my knee scab, small and almost a perfect circle, shiny with ointment.

‘It all counts,’ Adam said again. ‘And the bottom line is, what defines you isn’t how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it’s one more, you’re all good.’

I smiled, looking up at him. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘you should be a motivational speaker, or something.’

‘Nah. Entirely too dorky,’ he replied easily. ‘Hey, is Heidi around?’

‘No. She’s at lunch.’ I didn’t add that she was with my dad, their first formal meeting since he moved out. Heidi had been so nervous all morning, walking around the store, straightening displays and hovering over me in the office, that I’d been relieved when she finally strapped Isby into the BabyBj?rn and headed off. As soon as the door shut behind her, though, I’d gotten uneasy myself, wondering what she’d have to say when she returned. ‘She’ll be back in an hour or so, probably.’

‘Oh. Well, I can just leave these, then.’ He put the box down on the desk to my left. When I glanced at them, he added, ‘Prom shots from my yearbook days. She said she wants them for decor for the Beach Bash, or something.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘Can I take a look?’

‘Sure.’

I lifted the lid. Inside was a big stack of pictures, mostly five-by-sevens, all black and white. The one on the top was of Maggie, standing with Jake by the tailgate of a car. She had on a short, dark A-line dress and strappy heels, her hair spilling over her shoulders. There was a corsage on her wrist and she was laughing, holding out a bag of Doritos to Jake, who was in a tux shirt and pants, barefoot on the sand. I flipped to the next picture: also Maggie, this time alone, the same night, standing on tiptoe to check her reflection in a mirror that said COCA-COLA across its center. In the next shot, there was Leah, in a more formal pose with a guy in a military uniform, both of them looking at the camera, followed by one of Wallace on a dance floor, cummerbund loose, in the midst of busting some sort of move. Then Maggie again, another year, in another dress, this one white and longer. In the first shot, she was walking down the boardwalk, holding the hand of someone whose shoulder alone made it into the picture. In the one beneath it, she was reaching out for the camera, fingers blurred, her mouth half-open as she laughed.

‘Wow,’ I said as I kept flipping through them. There was Leah again. Esther. Maggie. Wallace and Leah. Jake and Esther. Maggie. Wallace and Esther. Maggie. Maggie. Maggie. I looked up at him. ‘You’re not in any of these.’

‘Nah. I was always behind the camera.’

I moved past yet another shot of Maggie, this time on a bike, her white dress gathered up in one hand, her helmet in the other. ‘Lots of her here.’

He kept his eyes on the picture, his tone noncommittal, as he said, ‘I guess so.’

‘What are you guys looking at?’

Adam and I both jumped as Maggie herself – in the flesh and flip-flops and jeans – appeared behind us in the doorway. ‘Prom pictures,’ I told her, casually flipping back to the one of Leah and Wallace. ‘Heidi wanted them for the Beach Bash.’

‘Oh, no.’ She sighed, then stepped forward to lean over my shoulder. ‘I can’t bear to… look! Junior year. Leah’s date was that marine, remember?’

Adam nodded. ‘I do.’

‘And I had my white dress. I loved that dress.’ She sighed again, this time happily, and reached over me to flip to the next picture. ‘There it is! Man. I agonized over that outfit like you would not believe. Kept it clean all night, even when I was on a bike on a dare. And then Jake threw up all over it on the way home. The stain…’