On the Rim

by Florida Ann Town

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Our passport. Mom’s going to ask what we did this evening, right?”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll tell her we went to the movies — and here’s the ticket to prove it.”

  When they got home, Al casually laid the ticket stubs on the table as he talked with his mom, thanking her for babysitting.

  Her eyes took in the tickets and accepted them, and as she turned to get her coat from the hall, Al winked at Ellen. Moments later, one of the boys began to cry and Ellen scurried off to soothe away a troubling dream.

  Ellen presses her thumb against the ridged wheel of the thermostat, turning it down as she does every night. She can twirl it until her thumb falls off, but it never seems to make a difference. She suspects the thermostats are little more than window dressing to keep the tenants happy while the real temperature is controlled in the caretaker’s apartment on the main floor. She turns it up in the morning. Sometimes it warms up and sometimes it doesn’t. It likely depends on what time the caretaker gets up and adjusts the real thermostat.

  As usual, sleep is slow to come. The apartment isn’t restful. The building is noisy — not the raucous people-party noises or the hum and whir of machinery, but the more sinister and inexplicable night noises of boards that creak and groan, things that crack and bang, and unidentifiable sounds that whip her into heart-shuddering wakefulness, unsure of what snapped her from sleep, but knowing a return to restfulness is out of the question, at least for a period of hours, if not the rest of the night.

  These are the hours when Ellen has ongoing arguments with herself. Should she take sleeping pills to get through the night? Lack of sleep is tough enough, but it’s even harder to slam awake each night, sipping in shallow breaths of air and hoping she survives until the safe hours begin around 4:30 a.m. when the bad things go away. If she survives until then, she falls asleep easily and stays asleep until traffic noises wake her later in the morning. The problem is getting through the hours between midnight and the blessed hour when the hobgoblins go home.

  Okay, so I take a sleeping pill, she tells herself. So then if there’s any trouble, I’m drugged and can’t respond. I’ll get my sleep but it might cost me my life, or who knows what else.

  She knows, but won’t admit her fear. Not even to herself. She doesn’t want to bring back the memory of the nights her father came into her bedroom. Or the shattering time her mother discovered them and raged at Ellen: “How could you let him do that?” But her mother never told an eleven-year-old Ellen how she could have stopped him.

  She shivers, closing the door on the memory, groping for peace, fighting for calmness. There has to be a way to get over her fears, but she isn’t ready to admit to anyone what a sissy she is, or to discuss the things that terrify her. She reads articles by health gurus who claim everything can be solved with proper nutrition and exercise. She tries their programs, working out when she remembers, eating potassium-rich foods, swallowing stress-proofing vitamins, and drinking herbal teas until they come out her ears. Well, not quite her ears. The net effect of four cups of night-time tea is burping. Later the ructions move farther down her digestive tract. At those times, she’s glad she sleeps alone.

  She’d hoped riding her bike would help her sleep. Now that she’s more confident, she regularly rides to the library or the store, on errands involving items she can tuck in her backpack. An hour-long trip no longer leaves her exhausted, but she still can’t sleep through the night.

  Wearily, she continues her lockup rounds. Wooden lathes cut to size drop into the channels of the sliding windows. She checks carefully to make sure the stove and the TV are turned off before walking into the bedroom and closing its lockless door. She jams one end of a short one-by-six under the door and raises the other end of the board by propping it on a book — Hedley Donovan’s Right Places, Right Times does nicely. A wedge of wood would be a neater solution, but she doesn’t have one. A bag of empty tin cans hangs from the bathroom window, which swings out over the alley. If anyone touches the window, I’ll hear them in an instant, she reassures herself.

  She picks up the bedside phone and listens to the reassuring buzz of the dial tone. Two seconds to call 911 and summon help if I need it. She repeats the number, relishing the feeling of safety and security it engenders.

  As she lies in bed, waiting for sleep to come, her thoughts return to the commercials she watched earlier. Where would she like to go? What would be a fun place to see? She knows the answer before she can form the words. It’s a feeling, more than a specific place. It’s a mixture of sunshine, warmth, sea breezes, and sand: a visual impression of brilliant flowers and sun-bronzed people. Somewhere in California.

  So why doesn’t she go? What’s keeping her? Certainly not a job; she doesn’t have one yet. She has enough to pay for the apartment and cover basic living expenses, plus a small emergency fund.

  Maybe this is that emergency, she thinks. Why not? Who says emergencies have to be unpleasant? Emergencies are events that come up quickly and require sudden action. She decides she has an emergent need to go to California. All she has to do now is figure out where and when … and how.

  Rolling out of bed, she tugs the book and board from under the door and heads for the kitchen. A warm drink might help. This is the perfect time to try the decaffeinated coffee mix she bought on impulse weeks ago and hoarded, waiting for the occasion that never happened.

  As she steps through the doorway, a ray of light shoots in the window. Where it comes from, she doesn’t know, but it lands smack on the new bicycle and stops her in her tracks.

  “Of course!” she whispers. “That’s why I got it. I’ll ride my bike to California.”

  As quickly as the thought arrives, her uncertainty evaporates. A feeling of peaceful purpose fills her and a snuggly feeling of contentment surrounds her. The more she thinks about it, the more appealing it becomes. She wriggles with excitement, moves rapidly into the kitchenette to plug in the kettle and bring down the bright red tin of Swiss Mocha powder from its shelf, spooning it into her special cup. She can almost feel the road beneath her tires. If it wasn’t so late, she could start tonight. Then that damned logical voice intervenes again.

  Oh, no, you couldn’t, it says.

  Okay. Not yet. But soon. Soon, she promises herself.

  The cheerful hum of the kettle announces it’s almost ready to boil. Plenty hot enough for her coffee mix. Ellen fills her cup to the brim, watching the light brown granules float on the surface and the milky foam blend its way through the mixture. The drink is no longer consolation, it’s celebration. The rich, brown taste of mocha coffee slides down her throat and ricochets through her system, bringing warmth first here, then there.

  She picks up the bike books and riffles through the index. Her luck holds true. Nothing in it refers to California. Hopefully, she flips through the pages, checking out listed tours, just in case one of the maps might show the Pacific coastline. None do.

  Sighing, she returns the book to its spot on the shelf, searching for an atlas before realizing that she knows exactly where it is. Just where it’s always been. Back at the house in the spare bedroom bookcase. Not much of an atlas — they’d bought it years ago when the kids were in school. It wouldn’t be much use in any case. Atlases fall out of date with increasing rapidity these days.

  “Just like cars,” she says out loud, laughing wryly. “A new model every year.”

  Over the years, the African countries changed their names, the Middle East revised things, the British Commonwealth broke apart, the South Pacific fractured, and Europe reassembled itself with all new pieces and new players. Russia disintegrated and provided the world with half-dozen new countries that were actually old countries, whose names no one could spell, say, or remember. She strains to recall some of the old names — Rhodesia, Ceylon, and Zaire. A fuzzy contingent lurks just beyond reach of her memory. It reminds her of an old Danny Kaye routine, and she t
ries saying them, scat style, mangling the names. Then she grimaces, remembering something else. Danny Kaye did the routines but it was Sylvia Fine who wrote the clever material that catapulted him to stardom. Sylvia Fine, the invisible wife.

  She sighs. She doesn’t have an atlas here, but she’ll look at one tomorrow at the library.

  Ellen glances at the stove clock. Somehow, it’s almost 4:30 — time to turn in again. Relieved, she knows she’ll have no trouble sleeping now.

  And she doesn’t. She doesn’t even dream, or if she does, she doesn’t remember.

  One thing she does remember: California and the bike. In the brilliant rays of the morning sun the bike looks newer and shinier than ever. She peers in the mirror. She definitely doesn’t look either new or shiny. She looks old and haggard and tired. Very tired.

  Wearily she picks up the coffee cup, holding her hands under the running tap water, watching bubbles form on her wrists as she rinses it out, rubbing away the crusty brown circle around the rim.

  What a silly idea that was, she tells herself. Imagine thinking someone my age could do such a thing.

  She looks again at the bike. The sun glances off the shiny paint, twinkling at her in invitation. A dare.

  “Oh, come on,” she tells it. “Would you really want to go on a trip like that with an old fogey like me?”

  At that moment, the sun reaches the shiny chrome nut centring the handlebars. A splash of light cuts, with laser-like precision, into her eye. She’s taken aback. It’s as though the machine is trying to communicate with her. Or she with it. “Get a grip,” she tells herself. “Next thing you know you’ll be parking under a crystal. Or maybe a triangle.”

  She giggles at a sudden thought. “Maybe it’s a Harley Davidson that’s come back as a Nishiki.”

  Struck by a sudden impulse, she steps to the bike, raises her leg and straddles it. It feels good. The saddle is no longer strange — it’s a comfortable friend. Her fingers fall readily into the subtle indentations on the handle grips. She clicks the hand brakes, watching the small square pads on the front brake clasp themselves along the rim of the wheel.

  Maybe it isn’t such a silly idea after all. Maybe she could do it. Maybe she could at least find out a little more about it before dismissing the idea completely.

  “Okay. First stop, library,” Ellen tells the bike later that morning, after carefully taking it out into the corridor, down the elevator, and edging her way through the door. As she pedals away, she’s awash in good feelings.

  “This is a wonderful idea,” she says. “It isn’t silly. I’m not too old. I can do things by myself. Al can go take a flying leap. I don’t need him anymore.”

  The wheels purr happily as she pumps along, the tinkle of street gravel hitting the inside of the back fender punctuates the sound of the tires, creating something that’s almost music. The click of the chain drive adds an undercurrent of rhythm and she smiles. A lightly scented breeze rushes playfully along. The sun adds a benediction. Somewhere inside her mind music bubbles up: “California, Here I Come.” Corny? Well, yes. But what the heck. If she’s going to be eccentric, she might as well enjoy it.

  For a brief moment she thinks about the kids, then tells herself to forget them. They won’t approve, but she doesn’t need their approval. She doesn’t need anyone’s approval anymore. Ellen nods her head. Her shadow echoes the motion, her helmet enlarging her head, making the move even more emphatic.

  Another song inches into her mind. “What a Wonderful World.” She listens to the familiar lyrics in her mind, hearing Satchmo grind them out. That’s more like it. Anyone who’s going to ride a bike to California is entitled to happy thoughts. And damn it, she’s going to get what she’s entitled to.

  The wind sings gently as it whispers through her spokes.

  It is a wonderful world.

  — 5 —

  IT’S STORY TIME AT the local library. Little kids slump bonelessly on the floor, giggling as a ventriloquist removes a book from the shelf and converses with its characters. Mothers drape themselves against the wall, enjoying the chance to do nothing. Ellen unfastens her bike helmet and pats her hair into some kind of order.

  A quartet of women at a reading table nibble at conversation: mice gathering crumbs from yesterday’s words. Their eyes swing toward Ellen as she enters, measuring her like scanning devices at the airport. They are a neatly matched set. Each is the colour of well-done toast, the generic snowbird complexion that looks like plastic masks in the joke shops. Their jersey tops fit snugly to show slim waists, while sleeves mask their flabby arms. Each has a short, fluffy hairdo in some shade of Clairol and wears party makeup: eyeshadow, liner, and blusher. Lipstick creeps in lines and runnels around their shrivelled lips.

  Ellen feels naked. She hasn’t worn makeup for years.

  The polyester glee club is polite about her aberration. They don’t frown or stare openly, only a flat, sideways sliding of the eyes that registers the rolls in her spandex shorts and her dishevelled hair. Like ripples through water, a subtle lip quirk circulates around the table before they return to their conversation. They don’t laugh or even smile, just that light flex in the wrinkles around their mouths before they dismiss her.

  She feels diminished. Resolutely, she trudges through the tables, making her way to the in-house computer. Hesitantly, she brings up the travel category, adds guide books and California, Oregon, and Washington to her search. The computer whirs and churns, creating the illusion of busy fingers inside the machine, flipping through files and catalogues as small people scurry around searching industriously through miniature lists.

  Their search is successful. They produce several promising titles. Ellen jots the numbers of one of the little pieces of paper that sit in hopeful stacks near the computer; recycled paper, not good paper. Or is recycled paper now the better kind of paper?

  Dewey decimals send her to the right section and the right shelf, but the aisles are too narrow. Can’t blame Dewey for that. Nor for the fact that she forgot to bring her glasses. By the time she stands back far enough to read the titles on the book spines, her bum is in the middle of the row of books behind her. I’ve pressed spines with some of the world’s best authors, she thinks.

  She builds up a stack of possibilities, flipping through pages at random. The library limit is fifty titles, so she decides to take them all — all the books in her stack. Nine titles, not fifty. She laughs at a mental picture of someone staggering out the library door with fifty books in a pile. Does anyone ever take the limit? she wonders.

  Story hour is winding down. If she doesn’t check out soon she’ll end up in a mob of knee-high lenders as the kids grab armloads of books. Ellen wonders how many actually get read. Her kids used to come home from the library with stacks of books, too. They’d read about three, then ignore the rest until a thin film of dust muted the colours on the jacket of the top book. She could have either nagged them about taking the books back or take the easy way out and do it herself. It usually became her chore, largely because if she didn’t take them back, she was the one who had to pay the fines. Was there an obscure clause in the Children’s Allowances Act that prohibited using allowances for things like library fines? The howls that greeted her suggestion one day that they pay their own fines made it seem that way.

  “That’s not fair,” Jennifer muttered. “We can’t take them back unless you drive us to the library, and you didn’t.”

  “You didn’t ask,” Ellen countered.

  “We’ve got a game on Saturday,” Robbie mumbled.

  “We do too,” Joanne added.

  Four pairs of eyes focused glumly on the books.

  Ellen gave in.

  “All right, I’ll take them back. But this is the last time.”

  She probably should have insisted. It would have been a cheap lesson on how the world works: builds character; generates good habits. It would also have set off a tempest of whines. Ellen hated coping with the monumental sulks that follow
ed when the kids were forced to do something they didn’t want to do. Looking at it another way, it was a small price to pay to encourage literacy — if that was what was actually happening.

  She’s knocked out of her reverie when the librarian reaches for her books. Ellen fumbles for her library card and places it on the counter, barcode up. The red light of a computer pen flashes over it and a machine whistles encouragingly as the librarian slides the pen over the bar code on the outside of the book, then lifts it to pass the spine of the book over a pad that neutralizes whatever it is that sets off the exit door alarm on unchecked books. The new system may be efficient, but Ellen hates it. She never knows when the books are due back. She wishes they’d go back to the old system of stamping a date on a slip pasted on the inside cover of the book and making friendly conversation while they did it.

  Outside, Ellen juggles the books into her saddle bag, snuggling them together tightly so they won’t bump her leg while she pedals. Then she unlocks her bike and re-wraps the chain. The lock is Kryptonite. She used to think Kryptonite was a name made up for Superman comics and was surprised to find it was real stuff. She’s still not sure it’s an actual element, but who knows?

  Ellen mounts the bike and pushes off, heading for home. Her muscles feel good now. She pictures them sliding smoothly over one another as she pedals along. They seem to be happy muscles. She feels the pleasure they get from a workout. Do muscles sweat? The top of her head is warm under the helmet and there’s a damp spot forming in the curve of her lower back. She can’t keep Kleenex in the middle pocket of her bike jersey. It gets soggy with sweat.

  She slows for the traffic light, flashing amber, then red, and pauses to pull her water bottle from its holder, enjoying a fast drink. She used to feel embarrassed drinking from it in public — too much like a baby bottle. Now she doesn’t care. It’s quick and it’s easy. If anyone thinks it looks funny, that’s their problem, not hers. Her body is specific in its demands now. When she works out, it wants water, and wants it frequently. There’s a trail of water bottles in her apartment. One waits in the fridge, ready for reading or TV watching. Another sits on her night table.