A Bettered LifeChapter 15
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I loved bicycles. From first learning to ride, back before my parents divorced, until my recycling, bicycles had represented freedom to me.
At first it was the freedom to go further than I could walk without having to deal with Seattle’s bus system. Summers would see Dave and me, usually accompanied by the son of one of our parents’ friends, heading out from West Seattle, either down to Alki or across the drawbridge and into downtown. Sometimes we’d catch a ferry across Puget Sound to Bremerton or Bainbridge, watching for Killer Whales — no one we knew called them Orcas in the 60’s — and just generally enjoying being able to go places on our own.
In high school it was freedom to go to school early when working on the newspaper, and to leave late without having to wait for hours for my mother to finally deign to remember she’d promised to pick me up at 5:00. 7:00 was more likely and 9:00 wasn’t unusual. It was also the freedom to visit my first girlfriend — 10 miles away, without having to catch a ride with someone — without having to explain why my breath smelled like pussy before I had a chance to get home and brush my teeth. Good memories, those.
Even after I got my driver’s license my bicycle was still my preferred means of transportation. The wind in my face and the sounds of life around me were ample compensation for the what little extra time it took to commute by bicycle. It helped that I tended to work odd hours — like 4:30am to 2:00pm — so I missed the worst of Seattle’s daily traffic. When I couldn’t commute by bike — due to distance or timing — I would still try hard to find time to ride on the weekends or before work.
All of that came back in a rush that Monday morning. It was then almost drowned out by terror when I realized that my trip through time had taken away my security blanket: I had no idea where I could find a hard shell bicycle helmet in the summer of 1972! I hadn’t been on a bike without a helmet since 1979 when a bad fall had left me with a nasty concussion. Of course, I knew that insisting on getting one, assuming I could even find one, would be hugely anomalous behavior; but I might have done it anyway. It’s likely that nothing less than seeing Patricia would have gotten me on my bike without a helmet, but that was enough impetus to send me on my way.
I hadn’t remembered much about Denver’s layout but an hour with one of my father’s maps had refreshed my memory. The tricky part would be getting past the freeway — according to the map there wasn’t any route without going well out of my way and dealing with a major road. I remembered enough, though, to know that there were any number of trails under the elevated portions of the freeways created by kids who wanted to get somewhere and wouldn’t be stopped by mere adults and their concrete ribbons. I’d just have to find the right ones.
After mapping the route out as well as I could I got my bike out, checked the tires, and took off. Having subdued, if not completely tamed my fears about riding helmetless, I enjoyed the ride. After passing through the sea of trailer parks where we lived and getting beyond the freeway — only having to backtrack twice — it was mostly quiet residential streets. The streets were a lot nicer than a 2009 bike path any day.
My original intent had been to ride by after finding Helen’s house, but I just couldn’t do it. I had to at least see if Patricia was home so I parked my bike in the driveway and was just starting up to the door when April opened it with a scowl on her face.
“I thought you were supposed to call before stopping by,” she said, venom dripping from her voice.
I had to fight to keep my voice and body language mild and non-confrontational but I managed as I replied, “I will be calling before stopping to help Patricia with math. Today I was just making sure I knew how to get here and decided to stop and say hello on the spur of the moment. Is this a bad time?”
Patricia’s voice came from behind her sister, saying, “No, it’s not a bad time. In fact it’s almost time for lunch. Want to join us?”
Before answering I lifted an eyebrow to April to let her know that I realized she was in charge here. She just rolled her eyes and jerked her head toward the door so I answered Patricia, “If you’ve got extra that would be nice. I was planning on being almost home by now but the trails under the freeway got me turned around a couple of times.”
I followed April’s retreating form back into the living room and saw a vision of loveliness standing at the dining room table in a t-shirt and denim shorts, and giving me a warm, happy smile. Thank heavens junior was small enough at ten to not be too obvious in my cutoffs. I was a bit surprised that I didn’t stammer when I said, “Hi, Patricia. Thanks for inviting me to lunch!” Walking over to her I pulled back a chair and motioned her to sit. I think she got a kick out of it since she was grinning ear to ear when she sat down.
Trust April to ruin the moment. It seemed that she didn’t think her mother should have agreed to let me come over unsupervised. “I told mom last night that this is a mistake. I’ll just bet that you don’t know anything about math — you just want to be alone with my sister!”
Patricia started out to defend me but hadn’t gotten past, “April!” when I held up a hand to cut her off. Helen wasn’t the only one who found it hard to back away from a challenge, after all.
“April,” I said, holding her eyes with my fiercest gaze, “I won’t deny for a moment that I’m looking forward to spending time with your sister. Alone is fine by me, but if you want to be here too, that’s fine as well. I do plan to spend most of that time helping her with her math skills, but I’m sure that’s not all we’ll be doing. I also hope to spend some time just talking with Patricia and learning about her. We may also spend some time outside, going for walks or tossing a Frisbee around. Rest assured, though, you’re quite welcome to be there if you wish.
“If you’d like to make sure that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to math, please feel free to sit in with us. I promise you that in a few days Patricia will be having much less trouble with her fractions and by the end of July she’ll be doing just fine.”
Oops! My 47 year old mind had completely forgotten that she was facing a scrawny ten year old. I thought for a moment that she was going to deck me for having the nerve to speak to her that way.
Patricia came to my rescue when she said to April, “Well, I’m not sure that I want you around all of the time.” Turning to me she continued, “I suppose that if she wants to be there for our first session that would be all right.”
“I can’t be here, tomorrow,” April said, “I have to start work at 7:00. You can be sure, though, that I’m going to drop in on you two sometime and I’d better see you studying when I do!”
“Drop by anytime I’m here,” I said.
“You can bet your ass I will!” she replied, heatedly.
I really needed to watch my mouth! I wanted so badly to be friends with Patricia that I would have to try to be nicer to her sister, no matter how hard it was.
Patricia again demonstrated great timing. I don’t know what I’d have said next but it never became an issue because Patricia loudly announced, “I’m hungry! Let’s eat.”
Tensions were still running high when we sat down to a pleasant meal of left over pot roast and veggies. After lunch I took my leave, telling Patricia that I hadn’t planned to be gone this late and I didn’t want my father to get home and start worrying, but that I’d see her the next day.
Pedaling off into the early afternoon I was very pleased that Patricia had been apparently happy to see me, even without the phone call. If I hadn’t risen to April’s tone it would have been an almost perfect day.
I did get a little grilling when my father came home but it wasn’t bad. April had decided that Helen should know that I had stopped by, but Patricia had also talked to her mother and had gone out of her way to make sure that she knew I’d acted as a perfect gentleman.
In my previous timeline I was always nervous when calling a girl, or later a woman, for the first time, but Patricia’s friendliness left me feeling reasonably confident when I called her Tuesday morning at 9:30. My confidence was rewarded when she answered the phone and sounded almost excited about my visit. I’d spent some time that morning putting together a mini lesson plan dealing with fractions and greatest common divisors so I was able to toss some things into a canvas day pack, courtesy of my father’s stint as a Boy Scout troop leader, and head on over right away.
Maddy
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