Eleven Things I Promised

by Catherine Clark

  I’d rather stay hidden, if those were my options.

  “We know this has been torture for you,” Alex added. He was talking in this sensitive-guy voice that made me want to bash him in the head. “I mean, you didn’t do this last year, and there’s a lot of stuff you can’t plan for, unless you know. We could have been more helpful. Because we would never have been able to be a team without you.” It was the first nice thing I’d ever heard him say. “So what can we do to help you?”

  I sipped the fresh cup of ice-cold Gatorade Alex had brought me during one of the awkward silences, and ran one of the ice cubes across my shoulders to soothe my sunburn. I held the melting cube against my wrist, which was throbbing.

  “There’s something else,” I added after a minute. “I have this list of things she wanted to do on this trip. I’ve been trying to complete it for her. Maybe you could help me with that after dinner?”

  I took a short shower, then went to find Heather. We headed to the medical tent to get my wrist wrapped and some aloe and ointment for my sunburn. While I was there, Heather and I talked, and I gave her a blow-by-blow description of what had happened while I was lost. She seemed pleased by the decisions I’d made, and sympathetic as well.

  Then I met the group at the outer ring of a large, but still sort of cozy campfire, which was part of the quiet, mellow evening that was planned for everyone. It was officially Campfire & S’mores night, and I was looking forward to having about a dozen.

  Apparently we’d just gotten through the hardest part of the journey—the remaining three days were shorter lengths, more like forty-five to fifty miles instead of seventy, and we’d be heading back to the coast, where the terrain tended to be flatter. It wouldn’t exactly be coasting from now on, but since there were four days down, and three to go, it felt like we’d really achieved something.

  I wondered whether I should call Stella, but I felt like I’d left too many texts, too many unanswered messages. Maybe she was upset about me and Mason, though I had no idea how she’d know that anything had happened, unless he told her. He wouldn’t have; I knew him.

  I wondered if we should all call her, if we should just come right out and say, Hey, everyone knows, and we all wanted to tell you we’re riding for you now. Then we could have a group hug. Over the phone.

  She’d probably be furious. She wasn’t a group hug person. And, I had to admit, neither was I.

  I sat next to Cameron, by the side of the campfire where the flames were small but the coals were glowing red. Perfect for marshmallow roasting. The night was getting cool, and I shivered a little; with the sunburn I had, I was either too hot or too chilled.

  While we passed around graham crackers and chocolate, and waited for marshmallows to toast just right, I told everyone how Stella had planned the F-It List for herself. How she’d joked about all her goals the past few months, and I thought it was all in her head, that she was just trying to get me psyched to do the ride. How I’d found the list sitting by her laptop. It seemed important to her, but I hadn’t known that she was that deliberate about it.

  “So, the surfer girl outfit today. Was that . . . ?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes, that was on the list—I’d never do something like that, ever—and when she’s better, I’ll tell her how awful it was,” I said. “In detail.”

  “I think she’ll see your sunburn lines and know,” said Margo.

  “You’re right.” It would have been funny if my skin weren’t inflamed. I’d taken a mostly cold shower and applied gobs of aloe to my shoulders, back, and neck.

  I went through the other things on the list that I’d done: the spur-of-the-moment dance party; leaving a giant tip at the diner; dancing in the rain; getting my navel pierced.

  I didn’t mention the night I’d gotten slightly tipsy from sharing a spiked lemonade. Nobody would want to hear about me breaking another rule.

  I also didn’t mention the epic kiss with Mason. Which, now that I thought about it, had been more like epic kisses, plural.

  The more I thought about it, the more worried I was. Stella didn’t need the extra aggravation of the two of us. Maybe I was reacting to the fact that I hadn’t heard from Mason in twenty-four hours. Of course, I didn’t have my phone, so . . . that was difficult.

  “So the whole dancing-in-a-downpour thing. That wasn’t your idea, either?” asked Cameron.

  “Wait. I didn’t see this,” said Margo.

  “No, it was a solo—I mean, private performance,” I said. That sounded just as bad. “Cameron and I were caught in a thunderstorm—when we did the farm detour. That’s all. That’s why no one else was there.”

  “So there was the dance party and the rain dance,” Oxendale said. “I didn’t know Stella wanted to dance that much.”

  “Yeah, I guess I . . . I guess I didn’t know that, either.” I was the one who always danced and wished I could be athletic, like Stella; now I was finding out that she maybe wanted to be a little more like me. But now, for a while, she wouldn’t be able to dance. At all.

  “Closet dancer,” said Max, nodding. “We’ll put that on her permanent record.”

  “So there are a couple of things left to do,” I said. “Start a food fight. Sleep under the stars.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” said Cameron, gazing upward. “Tonight we’re close to a city but tomorrow night we’re not.”

  “No, that one should be easy. But worst of all, I have to do some insane ride at Phantom Park. It’s the Devil’s Drop of Doom. Have you guys heard of it? I’m going to freak out. I’m just telling you now. I don’t like heights.”

  “So, I’ll do it instead of you,” Elsa said. “I tried it once last summer when it opened. It was fine.”

  “I can do it for you—for her—too,” said Margo.

  “But you guys can’t . . . I mean, I have to do it,” I said. “I’m the one who’s doing the list.”

  “Frances, you can’t do all this by yourself. I mean, look what it’s done to you,” said Cameron.

  “What? I’m fine. Basically.”

  “Your wrist is screwed up. You’re sunburned.” Cameron counted off the various issues on his fingers. “You’re exhausted from riding more than two hundred miles during the past four days—I mean, you’re doing this with a lot less training than we’ve had.”

  “Which is all my own fault,” I reminded him.

  “And you’re riding with the whole weight of worrying about Stella. We haven’t had that. Not until now,” Cameron added.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I have to do it because—look, I just do,” I said.

  “We’ll do it together, then. There’s no law against that,” said Margo. “The seats are two across. I went last summer. I’ll go with you.”

  “I’ll sit behind you and get it on video,” Elsa said.

  “I’ll cheer?” said Autumn.

  “I’ll buy cotton candy or whatever you want after you’re done,” Alex said.

  “I guess there’s only one job left for us. That means the three of us have to catch her when she falls,” Max joked to Cameron and Oxendale.

  I pushed him in the chest. “Not funny.”

  I stared into the fire, watching the coals break apart. I felt so relieved to have the truth out in the open. I felt equally guilty, though.

  I have to call Stella and be honest, I thought. I have to tell her that I broke my promise to keep her real condition a secret.

  “Can I borrow someone’s phone for a minute?” I asked.

  “Sure, take mine,” said Elsa.

  I found a private spot and dialed the familiar number. For once, she answered.

  “Hey, it’s me. I borrowed Elsa’s phone. How’s it going?” I asked.

  She cleared her throat. “My phone rang ten minutes ago and I thought it was you,” she said. “But it was Margo.”

  “Why would she . . . call?” I asked, glancing across the campfire at Margo.

  “She wanted to know how I was. She wante
d to know how my recovery was going. Margo. Of all people.”

  “She’s not awful,” I said. “She probably genuinely wanted to know—”

  “Why would she do that? I can’t imagine why she’d be so concerned about me, unless of course . . . you told her.”

  Right. That was why I was calling her. To tell her the truth. “Listen, it wasn’t something I wanted to do—”

  “I can’t believe you. You promised you wouldn’t tell,” she said angrily.

  “I—I tried not to. I didn’t do it deliberately, but—”

  Click. She ended the call.

  CHAPTER 16

  As exhausted as I felt, I didn’t get much sleep Wednesday night.

  It was like once I began remembering that day, that horrible, upsetting day when Stella talked to me as if I were nothing and no one, as if I were the one who’d let it happen to her, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  How awful the accident must have been for Stella.

  How downright gory. Nightmarish.

  How it all happened in the blink of an eye.

  I tossed and turned, each time wincing because my wrist would shift position or the sleeping bag would rub my sunburn the wrong way. Then there were the three times I had to get up in the middle of the night because I’d had so much water and Gatorade. My piercing was the least of my problems—I’d been cleaning it religiously, determined not to let it get infected. That happened when I finally got my ears pierced at thirteen, and it wasn’t pretty.

  Thursday morning’s ride to Newburyport, in Massachusetts, was hilly, but nothing approaching the Mount Washington–style peaks of the day before. I had a brand-new tube in my front tire, and the rim had been straightened by one of the mechanics. I also got to wear comfy clothes again. And best of all, I always had someone from my team riding beside me, and every once in a while one of the riders in the front would ride back to check in on me, and switch places. I liked the variety, getting to hang out with someone different—although of course when it was Alex and Autumn, they’d had to both come back and ride with me, one on each side. That could be considered progress, though. At least they weren’t right next to each other.

  Just before lunch, around one, we reached the ocean. We stopped at a scenic overlook.

  Stella loved the ocean. So much. I thought about the times in junior high we’d begged and begged our parents to take us to the beach and how they always insisted it was “too far,” because they had to work, or we had to go visit someone, or my mom didn’t want to get sand in the house because we were having people over. Now I’d gotten here on a bike—not all the way from home, but pretty close.

  When I turned around from looking out at the water, our whole team was standing behind me. “You okay?” asked Cameron.

  “Um, of course I’m okay,” I said. I brushed past them and walked over to the large metal-and-stone sculpture of a boat that marked the spot as a memorial to a lost ship. The sign below a large boat said:

  The John Q. Chambers Memorial Lobster Boat—Wrecked in 1879 Near This Spot

  Three Lives Were Lost as the Mighty Sea Raged

  Surrounding the boat were bronzed sailors in hats, slickers, and boots, clinging to the sides. The sculpture looked a bit neglected, but still had freshly painted signs on it that said:

  DO NOT CLIMB OR MOUNT!

  PLEASE STAY OFF—THIS MEANS YOU!

  Another sign was covered by graffiti: a face with googly eyes, a flourish of a nose, buck teeth, and a tongue sticking out.

  As I walked around to check out the other side, a voice called from above me.

  “Come on up!” said Max. I looked up and saw him sitting atop the boat. “Come on, guys. If we’re going to break some rules, we’ve got to start somewhere.”

  I took a tentative step toward the sculpture. Cameron, Oxendale, and Margo scaled the small ship, while Elsa, Autumn, Alex, and I watched.

  “Excuse me—A.J.? Would you mind taking our picture?” Max called to another rider standing nearby. “Autumn, you have your phone on you? Come on, everyone, crowd around. Let’s all get in the shot. Frances, don’t be last—come on, statues don’t bite.”

  I stepped up between one of the sailors and the boat in a little toehold. One of the sailor’s arms was broken off at the elbow. The feeling of the jagged edge made me shiver as I leaned against it; I hated rough surfaces.

  Everyone was laughing and leaning in for the photo. This wasn’t on the F-It List, but I still felt as though this was for Stella. I craned my neck forward and yelled, “Everyone say ‘Stella,’ okay? One, two, three, Stella!”

  “Stella!” Max cried at the top of his lungs, imitating Marlon Brando from an old movie that Stella kind of hates because it makes everyone scream her name like that.

  Just like that, everyone started yelling her name, louder and louder, making dramatic poses, flinging our arms out as if we were all onstage in A Streetcar Named Desire.

  “Hey! You kids!” A gruff-sounding man was walking toward us. “Get down from there! Show a little respect!”

  Our lunch stop was at a park on the water, and our bikes filled an entire parking lot, along with long tables covered with bag lunches. I grabbed one that said Turkey/Swiss and headed for a shady section in the dunes, where I wouldn’t get more sun. I ate the way I’d been doing all week—quickly, downing my sandwich, chips, fruit, and a cookie in record time. I’d probably lost ten pounds on this trip already, just by exercising, not that I cared.

  “Hey, Frances!” Cameron called to me as I was dropping things in the recycling bin. “Time to cross off something else.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked with a laugh. “Did you have a food fight without me?”

  “Never,” said Max.

  “Listen,” Oxendale said. “Stella did say to ride in a bikini and swim in bike clothes, right?”

  “Sure,” I said slowly.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? You think we’ll get a better chance than right now?” Oxendale threw out his arms. “There’s the Atlantic, baby!” He started to take off his cycling jersey, and I cringed. I did not need to see Oxendale’s skinny white belly.

  “That’s not on the list!” Margo called to him as I walked beside her toward the water’s edge. “It’s swim in your bike clothes.”

  I’d never been more grateful to her. “Thank you,” I said, taking off my bike shoes before I stepped onto the sand.

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” She placed her shoes carefully under the boardwalk. “There’s no way I’m taking off my clothes, either—and you know that would be the next thing they’d ask if they took off theirs.”

  I ran into the surf and almost got knocked out by the coldness of the water. I went out as far as I dared, closed my eyes, and dunked my head underwater. Then I dove all the way in, pushing off the sand with my feet, enjoying the rush of cold water surrounding my body. Swimming. It was another thing that Stella would have to adjust to. Swimming in the ocean. One of her favorite places, one of her favorite things. I stayed underwater, holding my breath, trying to imagine how that would feel.

  My bike clothes were sopping wet as I strode out of the surf. We all looked a bit like drowned rats, to be honest.

  Heather was standing on the shore, waiting for us. “I’m pretty sure that swimming after lunch wasn’t on the itinerary.”

  “Nope,” said Cameron.

  She shrugged. “I guess I can count it as a triathlon move. It’ll have to be okay. Come on, everyone’s getting ready to go. I suddenly realized the Sparrowsdale team was missing. I had a feeling you’d be down here somewhere, but swimming? At this temperature?”

  “Aw, the water’s perfect,” said Cameron. “You should try it. Come on.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” she said. “We have to get—”

  “Come on,” Cameron urged again. “It’s just water. And it does feel surprisingly good.”

  “Why are you all doing this? I feel like there must be some ulterior motive, since you’re the on
ly group down here crazy enough to do this.”

  “It’s for Stella,” I said.

  “Oh.” She smiled at me. “Well, in that case. Somebody get this on video.” Heather slipped off her flip-flops and dove in.

  It might sound horrible, but none of us showered before dinner that night. We’d already gone swimming, and besides, we knew what was in store. I didn’t have enough clean outfits left to spare, but I was hoping other people did—the idea wasn’t for people to hate us, just to have fun. With only two nights left to this trip, now was the time.

  “I absolutely love food fights,” said Oxendale. “They’re just brilliant.”

  “How can we have a decent food fight outdoors, though? Everyone can just run away.”

  “There are ways. And I bet other people have some steam to let off. If we get everyone in on it, then nobody will get in trouble—what are they going to do, kick us all off?” said Max.

  “It’s like you’ve done this before,” Autumn said. “Were you behind that horrible shepherd’s pie incident sophomore year? Oh my gosh. That was you.”

  Max grinned, leaning back with his hands behind his head.

  “I have a suede jacket that still smells like ground beef and corn after three cleanings. It’s disgusting,” said Autumn. “You should have to buy me a new one.”

  “I accept no responsibility for that,” said Max. “In fact it’s pretty much my life goal to not take responsibility for much. Except this ride. This thing matters to me.”

  “Me too,” said Oxendale.

  On a signal from Max, who was watching Heather and the other adults’ table to make sure they weren’t paying attention, I launched a grape tomato with my spoon, sending it flying through the air, across our picnic table, the next one, and then bouncing off a girl’s head at the next table.

  She rubbed her head and looked around, but didn’t seem to think anything of it.