A Short Ride

Michael suggested borrowing a bicycle from Helen.

Laura had assumed that agreeing to go riding would require a purchase, and had been using this assumption to give herself time. She ran regularly. She had ridden bicycles as a girl. Neither fact explained why she felt uncertain about spending a Sunday morning on one with a man who regarded fifty miles as a reasonable distance to travel before lunch.

“Helen’s about your height,” he said. “She’ll lend you hers.”

“Does Helen know she rides?”

“Occasionally.”

Laura remembered the photograph of Tom beside his bicycle, looking as though he had narrowly survived an evacuation.

“And you’re proposing the same route you took Tom on?”

“No.”

He answered promptly enough to reassure her, though she asked for the distance before agreeing.

Twelve miles, he said. Mostly flat.

Laura had begun to notice the importance of qualifying words in his descriptions of outdoor activities.

They collected the bicycle on Saturday afternoon. Helen wheeled it out of the garage while Tom remained in the doorway, holding a mug.

It was blue, with narrow tires and handlebars that curled downward. Laura had seen enough of Michael’s bicycle to recognize the arrangement, but this one was apparently going to expect something from her.

Helen held it while Laura stood over the frame. There was room, though not much. Michael adjusted the saddle, then asked her to sit while he steadied the handlebars.

Her feet did not reach the ground.

“They aren’t supposed to from there,” Helen said, recognizing the look.

Laura glanced at Michael. “You might have led with that.”

He showed her how to move forward off the saddle when she stopped. There were ordinary flat pedals, which Helen had insisted on keeping, and a helmet that Laura tried before deciding to buy one of her own.

Tom watched Michael check the brakes.

“Twelve miles?” he asked.

“That’s the plan.”

Tom took a drink from his mug. “Get it in writing.”

---

On Sunday morning, Michael met her near a broad paved path that followed the coast. Laura had arrived early, partly to avoid making him wait and partly because she wanted a few minutes alone with the bicycle.

She had practiced in the quiet street outside her apartment the previous evening. Starting was manageable. Stopping required attention. Turning while thinking about stopping produced results she did not intend to repeat in public.

By the time Michael arrived, she had ridden two circuits of the parking lot and was standing beside the bicycle with an appearance of familiarity.

He wore cycling clothes. Laura had seen them hanging in his laundry but had not fully considered their effect when occupied.

She looked at him for a moment.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He glanced down at himself, then at her running shorts and T-shirt.

“You’ll be glad of the padding later.”

“I’m glad you have it now.”

He laughed and bent to check her tires.

The morning was cool enough that Laura kept her light jacket on. Beyond the parking lot, people were walking toward the beach carrying towels and paper cups. The ocean lay gray beneath a thin cover of cloud, with sunlight beginning to show through farther offshore.

Michael explained the brakes, the gears, and where she could place her hands. Laura listened carefully. He was thorough without making her feel foolish, though she began to wonder whether the bicycle had more functions than her car.

“Shall we go?” she asked when he started explaining something else about changing gears.

He looked up. “Yes.”

The first few minutes demanded so much attention that she scarcely noticed the water. The bicycle responded to movements she would not have thought significant. Looking over her shoulder made it wander. Reaching for the brake made her grip everything else harder. Michael rode ahead, leaving space, and called back before slowing.

She liked that. She could watch him without feeling watched herself.

After a mile, her shoulders began to loosen. She found a position on the bars that felt natural, and the narrow tires produced a pleasing hum beneath her. A runner approached from the opposite direction, breathing hard. Laura passed with very little effort and experienced a small, disloyal pleasure.

At the next open stretch, she pressed harder on the pedals.

The bicycle answered immediately.

Michael looked back, then let her draw alongside. She could feel the air moving through her shirt, cool against her skin. The path curved gently ahead, and for a little while the business of balancing and steering receded enough for her to enjoy the speed.

“This is different,” she said.

He smiled. “Yes.”

She went ahead of him.

There was no conscious decision to demonstrate anything. Her legs felt good, the path was clear, and she had spent enough of the morning being careful. She rode briskly through the next stretch, past low shrubs silvered by the salt air, and reached the beginning of a rise before she noticed that her breathing had changed.

The rise continued.

She stood on the pedals as she might have done on her childhood bicycle. The handlebars moved beneath her hands. She sat down again.

Michael came alongside.

“Try an easier gear.”

She moved the lever the wrong way.

The pedals became harder.

“Other way,” he said gently.

She corrected it, then shifted again. By then she had lost most of her speed and a surprising amount of confidence. Michael rode a little ahead, slowly enough for her to follow. She watched his rear wheel until the path leveled.

At the top, she coasted beside him.

“That,” she said, “was not flat.”

“Mostly flat.”

She turned her head toward him. He was wisely looking ahead.

Her breathing recovered. She could run considerably farther uphill than that without feeling so thoroughly inconvenienced. It annoyed her to discover that fitness did not transfer in quite the manner she had expected.

Michael seemed to understand without needing the explanation.

“Different muscles,” he said.

“I appear to have brought the wrong ones.”

“You’ll find them.”

She was less interested in reassurance than in discovering what she had done wrong. He explained about approaching a hill more gently and changing gears before the pedals became difficult. This time she asked questions.

At the next small rise, she tried it his way.

It worked well enough that she declined to comment.

They stopped near the turnaround, where a low wall overlooked the beach. Michael held her bicycle while she dismounted, and she was grateful to discover that standing still remained one of her better skills.

Below them, a dog ran after a ball, returned with it, and refused to surrender it. Its owner stood waiting with the patience of someone who had misunderstood the arrangement before.

Michael took two pieces of fruit from his pocket and offered her one.

“You carry provisions?”

“Usually.”

“For twelve miles?”

“I thought you might be hungry.”

She was. She sat on the wall and ate while he leaned the bicycles together.

Without the motion of riding, the morning felt cooler. Laura pulled her jacket closed and watched a line of surfers waiting beyond the breaking water. She had passed this stretch by car many times. From the road it was mostly parking lots and glimpses between buildings. She had not known there was a place to sit here.

Michael settled beside her.

“How is it?”

She considered the question seriously. Her hands were a little tired. There was a part of her that had become aware of the saddle much earlier than he had predicted. But she had liked moving through the morning under her own effort, covering ground while still close enough to hear the ocean.

“I’d like to be better at it.”

He nodded, as though that were a perfectly sufficient answer.

On the way back, he taught her to keep a steady rhythm instead of pressing hard and then coasting. She practiced changing gears on level ground. Once, she reached down toward the bottle and immediately decided she could remain thirsty until they stopped.

At an intersection, Michael put a foot down beside her. A group of riders passed on the road, moving closely together, their conversation continuing as they went.

Laura watched them disappear around the bend.

“How long have you been doing this?”

He told her. Years. Long enough to have forgotten some of the things she was learning that morning, though he seemed willing to remember them.

She asked where he rode when he went into the hills. He described roads above the city, early starts, places where the traffic thinned and the houses gave way to open country. She could hear his pleasure in the account. It was a different voice from the one he used when discussing a difficult week at the practice.

Then he looked at her bicycle.

“Ready?”

She pushed off, settled onto the saddle, and found the pedal without looking down.

They reached the parking lot shortly before noon. Laura stopped where she intended, moved forward off the saddle, and put one foot firmly on the ground. The clean execution pleased her more than she wished to admit.

Michael took out his car keys.

“Lunch?”

“Somewhere with upholstered chairs.”

They returned Helen’s bicycle that afternoon. Tom came out as Michael lifted it from the car.

“Well?”

Laura considered him across the roof.

“I was told twelve miles.”

Tom looked at Michael with immediate interest.

“It was twelve,” Michael said.

“Nearly fourteen,” Laura told him.

“The parking lot practice,” Michael said.

“And the place you thought might have a café.”

“It used to.”

Helen appeared in the garage doorway and began laughing before anyone explained.

Laura helped wheel the bicycle inside. There was a faint streak of grease on her calf, and she could feel her legs beginning to stiffen. She looked at the blue frame while Helen found its place against the wall.

“Would you mind if I borrowed it again next weekend?”

Helen glanced toward the driveway, where Michael and Tom were talking.

“I’ll leave it near the front.”

On Monday morning, Laura took the stairs to her office with unusual care. Her assistant looked up when she reached the landing.

“Good weekend?”

Laura paused with one hand on the rail.

“Yes,” she said. “Very good.”

Before opening the first file, she turned her desk calendar to Saturday and wrote Ride across the morning.