Resurgence (27 page)
For the ride along Route 22 to the Family-Mart, he stays with slow-moving traffic clusters instead of flaunting the El Camino in the passing lane. This could be more caution than needed, but he can’t afford another setback now. Getting picked up for a traffic violation now would be same as giving up altogether and creeping back to Bimmerman with his tail between his legs.
At the big discount store, he competes for a parking spot up front, in the most crowded part of the lot, where the El Camino may pick up a ding or two from shopping carts, but won’t stand out like it would if left in back by the dumpsters. He doesn’t praise himself for this better plan; he’s still got a lot to make up for, and a long way to go before he’ll let himself feel proud again.
Inside the store, he makes a couple of false starts before figuring out which department to go to. Then, in the toy department, with no one there to guide him, he’s met with more choices than expected. In the end, common sense says to go for a sturdy looking one and never mind the streamlined ones all tricked out with the sort of bells and whistles that led him astray when it was a truck instead of a bicycle he was buying.
The next item is easier to find. He saw the one he wanted when he bought the gym bag—when he might better have bought a backpack—so he knows to lug the bike over to the sporting goods department where choosing takes no thought.
At the last minute he remembers to add a chain lock to his purchases. He knows where those are kept from when he bought the padlocks. He makes his weighted-down way to that department, then to the front of the store and the checkout counters, where he’s stopped for trying to buy an already assembled bike they’re calling a floor model.
Yesterday, pride would have made him leave everything at the checkout and walk out of the store bullheaded and empty-handed. Today, without pride dictating any such foolishness, he offers to pay extra and the assistant manager they summon over the loudspeaker agrees to the deal.
The cash laid out is earned money from the motel job, so there’s nothing to be ashamed of there. Shoving everything into the back of the El Camino without worrying about scratching the bed liner shows he’s making progress, and gliding instead of squealing out of the parking lot shows he doesn’t need to drive the sleek one-of-a-kind maroon and silver truck like something’s after him.
On the way to the storage yard, he sees a cop car, but it’s going the other way and too far distant across the wide divider of Route 22 to be a worry. At the storage yard, no one’s around, so he needn’t conceal what he’s doing when he works the padlock and keypad, lifts the overhead door, and drives the El Camino inside with only inches to spare lengthwise.
There aren’t that many inches to spare crosswise; the driver’s door can be opened only wide enough for him to snake sideways through the narrow gap. And once he’s got his feet on the pavement and his eyes adjusted to the low light, he sees there’s no clearance to speak of between the truck and the items crowded into the far corner.
He should have thought to move Audrey and the other containers before he drove in. Another mark against him that he’ll have to erase the hard way—by hefting those items without room for leverage. Before he does, he thinks to raise the lid of the load bed all the way so he won’t have far to maneuver everything.
Again without worry of scratching the bed liner, he hoists the bins, file boxes, and bucket up over the side, slides everything to the rear, and climbs in after them.
He sits there, as nervous and tongue-tied as he used to be in high school, and as winded as he’d be after a hard pedal from Bimmerman to Paradise—or so he imagines, because today’s puny effort is nothing compared with one of those trips.
When he does screw up the courage to tell Audrey what he’s done, he doesn’t blat it right out—no “wait till you hear this” kind of announcement. He creeps up on the subject gradual-like, like when he’d take a try at conversation at the Paradise lunch counter.
“Just like old times,” he begins. “I bought a bike today and that’s how I’m gonna get around till I’ve done my penance.”
Good thing she can’t talk back because if she asked, he’s not sure he’d want to tell her why he needs to do penance. On the other hand, it’s too bad she can’t say something in agreement, something to encourage the plan to forgo the prized El Camino—forever, if necessary—and earn a fresh supply of luck.
He talks to her for another quarter-hour or so, giving assurance that she’ll be safer than ever under the additional lock on the rear compartment of the truck. He says nothing else about the bike. She doesn’t need to know it’s heavy duty, designed to stand up to rough ground as well as paved roads. She’d know without being told that this one’s no girls’ bike with a flowery basket on the front and fringes on the handgrips. And she doesn’t have to be told no one’s ever going to make fun of him again for that reason. Or any reason.
“I have to go now,” he says and scrambles to the tailgate to unload the bike and the backpack. Then, with a lot of squeezing and maneuvering, he retrieves the gym bag and the tool case from the cab of the El Camino. The contents of the gym bag don’t amount to much. Just the copybook and pens he hardly uses anymore, the personal papers that spell out a whole string of failures, and a few oddities, like the picture wallet he should have stowed in one of the bins but now dumps into the backpack along with the other useless things. From the tool case, he transfers everything but a rusted monkey wrench and a few worn bungee cords, and then has to paw through the backpack because he forgot to leave out the tools needed for removing the license plates holding the expired tags.
Sprawled on the hood of the El Camino, working upside down and mostly by feel, he manages to remove the front license plate. Doing it this way, the hard way, instead of backing the truck up a foot or two to provide working space, is a point of honor and could be the first step toward earning a lucky break. The back plate naturally comes off quicker and leaves him with no reason to hang around unless he wants to be seen as a loiterer.
He shoves both plates into the backpack, locks the passenger compartment and the covered bed of the truck without saying an official goodbye to Audrey. Or to the El Camino, for that matter. He just wants to leave, to get the worst part over, and get settled with the decision.
Unnerving as the maiden bike ride is along Route 22, Hoop feels at peace with his reduced means. This peace holds through a stop at the usual sandwich shop for the usual Blimpie and Coke, and lasts all the way back to the motel, where humble goes with the territory.
The rundown ground floor room they gave him when he went from being a guest to being an employee, can now be seen as a benefit for not requiring him to lug the bike up that flight of openwork metal stairs that make him dizzy even when he’s not drunked-up.
He applies the chain lock to the bike after he brings it inside the room and dips into the backpack for the padlock removed from the abandoned tool case. If need be, this lock can be rigged to the main compartment of the backpack, enough to discourage most snoops and some thieves.
When he unwraps it, the sandwich holds the same appeal as roadkill, and the Coke, when tasted, might as well be sump water. He leaves both on the desk and flops down on the bed to reckon how long it may take for his luck to change.
“I still don’t understand why Nate was in such a hurry to get back to New York,” Laurel says. “Did he forget this is Memorial Day weekend and the markets will be closed Monday?”
“The markets may not be the reason he left sooner than expected,” Amanda says.
“He didn’t say why he had to go?” Laurel slows their progress on the path leading to the oast houses.
Amanda hesitates before answering, “Not in so many words.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Isn’t that a little strange given your newfound relationship? No, wait. I shouldn’t be asking you that. That’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. You have to be as skeptical as everyone else about Nate and I being together—if together’s the right word.”
“I’m not at all skeptical. I saw potential for you two as long ago as when you bested him at that lunch he set up for the sole purpose of pumping you dry. And at the time you were lecturing me about
my
apprehensions—laughable, now.”
“I remember. I had the nerve to tell you that if I could have lunch with one of the wealthiest, most eligible guys in New York without peeing my pants, you could certainly grill a rock star about his personal life.”
“So you did, and so I did, after a fashion, and look where we are now.” Laurel does just that, stops to survey an already appealing landscape made lovelier in the late afternoon light.
“Look where
you
are.” Amanda makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses more than landscape. “I don’t yet know where
I
am.”
Whatever that means, Amanda doesn’t say and Laurel can’t guess. They walk on in weighted silence; several minutes pass before Amanda speaks again.
“I didn’t know he was going to do that.”
“Who? Do what?” Laurel stops in her tracks.
“Nate.” Amanda stops and turns to face her. “When he came backstage at the concert and surprised me and everyone else by . . . by being demonstrative.”
“That’s what’s keeping you from knowing where you fit into the picture?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That morning, the morning of the concert, Nate warned me that we couldn’t be seen together or Colin would think we were in cahoots and react by taking a hike. I didn’t argue because who knows better than Nate how Colin’s apt to behave, but I did offer my opinion that you wouldn’t let Colin get away with any crap and that was that, or so I thought, until Nate surprised me right before the concert and then I was confused because I couldn’t be sure if Nate was flaunting his relationship with me or just thumbing his nose at Colin and daring to do it because he could count on you to keep Colin in check.”
Laurel marvels—as she always does—at Amanda’s ability to say so much in one breath, then gently chides her for her groundless fears. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you don’t have enough on your mind. You shouldn’t be worrying about something as insignificant as that.”
“But—”
“Nate
unquestionably
seized the chance to both show off his relationship with you and cock a snoot at Colin. I applaud him for taking that chance, and so should you. I think that speaks extremely well for the way Nate views you.”
Amanda frowns. “Cock a snoot?”
“That’s what Anthony calls thumbing his nose. And speaking of Anthony, where is he anyway? I
told
him not to run too far ahead. That’s what I get for admiring the scenery—some apprentice mother
I
am.”
They hurry to the top of a rise overlooking the wild ungroomed stretch of land between them and the oast buildings, and catch sight of Anthony and his little dog, Toby, dodging through a thicket of coppiced sweet chestnut trees.
Amanda resumes her frown when they reach level ground again. “There was another time I felt doubtful,” she says. “Nate didn’t immediately correct the assumption I was his cutesy convenient little live-in secretary during the emergency meeting we had with the freelance journalist early Thursday morning when I was barely awake and a little slow on the uptake so I let it go at first and I suppose I should let it go now and I would if—”
“Amanda, hold on a second.” Laurel cups her hands to her mouth. “Anthony!” she shouts to the boy who’s about to clamber over the remains of an ancient drystone wall where stinging nettles are known to grow. “Wait right there! Do not go further without me!” She redirects at Amanda, “You were saying?”
“Nothing. Forget it. I need to just let it go”
“Yes, you do and you would
if
. . . that’s what you were saying when I had to interrupt.”
“At least I didn’t have to order coffee and serve it,” Amanda says.
“Nice try, but I still want to hear what’s keeping you from dismissing these ridiculous doubts.”
“It’s too good to be true!”
“Is
that
all?” Laurel releases the laughter she’s been holding back.
“Why is that so funny?”
“Because I had similar thoughts not long ago. Not that long ago I was spending every spare moment listening to Colin’s recordings and watching old concert videos. This had an effect that impacted on me the day he suggested our wedding date. I had some sort of delayed reaction. I finally saw him as others see him—the way you must have seen him—the way I refused to see him when he first came into our lives. All of a sudden I was staggered at thought of
the
Colin Elliot wanting me, of all people, and it’s a wonder I didn’t pee my pants. And it’s a wonder I didn’t fall off the roof when we went up there that day as a treat for Anthony and I surveyed the domain, so to speak—I fully comprehended that this mind-bogglingly beautiful place is my home. Does that describe what you’re going through?”