by Earl Emerson
When Zak put his arm around Nadine’s shoulders, she collapsed against him. They sat that way for a long time, breathing in concert.
“One time,” Nadine said, “I was getting the flu, and I told him I could hardly breathe and I was feeling sick and I didn’t want to, but he grabbed me by the hair and forced me. I threw up in his car and then he got really angry. I said I was going to tell my father, and he said if I ever told anybody he would kill them and then he’d kill me. I was so upset and sick I wasn’t sure I was even hearing him right. I’m still not sure that’s what he really said.”
Zak was sure.
18
August
“Remember,” said Giancarlo. “It’s wider than it looks, and it’s off camber for the first part.”
“Okay,” Zak said.
As he waited, he could feel the blood pumping in his veins. He couldn’t quite believe how nervous he’d gotten in the past few minutes, or how angry he was at Scooter for slapping Hugh, for his comments about Nadine, for his general air of contempt and superiority. There were a lot of things that could go wrong in a race. He might get a flat tire. He might screw up and fly off the road. Zak was good at descending, but he didn’t have a genius for it like Giancarlo. And Scooter had already had one practice run.
“Get ready, boys,” said Roger Bloomquist, who would be the starter this time. “Remember. It’s a ten-second gap.”
“What?” Zak said.
“Fifteen was too long. He never even saw the bike. Ten’s more fair.”
“That’ll put us too close if something happens.”
“Five, four, three, two, go,” shouted Bloomquist, dropping the makeshift flag.
Stephens, who had been holding Zak upright, merely let go instead of giving him the same shove Zak had given Giancarlo, forcing Zak to push hard on the pedals for ten or fifteen revolutions of the cranks. It wasn’t a lot of lost time, but it was a short race and the start was crucial. They should have talked it over, but Scooter had been rushing things. Now, with the hot wind screaming past his face, nothing mattered except staying on the road and maintaining the highest speed possible. He knew as long as he could keep his fingers away from the brakes, he would be okay.
The key was to stay focused.
He let the speed build on the first slope, marveling at how fast he was traveling, then touched the brakes, scrubbing off more speed than he’d intended. He hit a washboard section and held on for dear life, then was out of it before he knew it, heading down the straights where he could see two blurred figures standing at the top of the first sharp right-hand curve. The road surface was all rock here, off camber, but when he put his weight to the inside and let the bike fly, he felt momentarily as if he were on rails. Vaguely, he could see the logged-off fields below.
The corner was tight and included a steep portion that was like a parachute drop, but he held on and stared at the line he wanted to take, feeling the centrifugal force of his weight carrying him farther and farther to the outer edge of the corner until he thought for sure he was going to smash into the rocks. Still, he did not touch the brakes. The worst time to hit the brakes was in a corner. You did your braking prior to the turn, then trusted your judgment. He could hear excited shouts from the bystanders who’d placed themselves at the apex of the corner. Then all he heard was the wind.
He was out of the turn, surprised that he was still alive, focusing on the next hazard, dips in the road followed by a washboard section he would fly over even faster than the previous one. He had the confidence now and was picking up phenomenal speed. The only thing left to worry about was the gravel at the bottom. And the truck.
As he floated over the washboard, aware that the shocks, both front and rear, were moving like crazy, he realized there was so much wind in his face and behind his sunglasses that his eyes were watering and he was beginning to lose his vision. He was like a kid on a runaway horse. And then he was in the gravel and touched the brakes, felt the rear tire skid, heard the noise, felt the back end kick out, and let off the brakes as the bike wobbled. He could feel himself beginning to crash. It was going to end in a bloody, tumbling wreck. Don’t crash, he said to himself. Don’t do it. Through sheer force of will, he held the bike upright and picked up even more speed. He could see the bridge now. More gravel patches came and went so quickly he didn’t have time to panic.
He was carrying so much speed he began to veer toward the right side of the bridge and the eight-inch concrete lip that stood in lieu of a railing, and then as he hit the first of the concrete, he saw Kasey’s Porsche parked at the far end, the front end sticking out three or four feet into the roadway. Zak was headed straight for the front bumper. He tried to shift his weight. Tried to straighten out. Was flying. Maybe forty, forty-five. Maybe fifty. It was hard to guess. And that damn Porsche was going to kill him. Wrestling the bars did nothing to change his line, and he knew he was going to clip it. There wasn’t anything he could do but keep on. And then he was past it, had cleared it by a fraction of an inch, shooting up the road into the dust, skidding the rear tire to show off.
When he turned around, the white Ford was nowhere in sight. If they’d really started ten seconds behind, he’d beat them even more handily than Giancarlo had. “Shit!” yelled Kasey, his back to Zak as he watched the white Ford come skittering down the logging road.
The Ford was sliding sideways, overcorrecting and sliding in the other direction. For a second Zak thought it was going to run off the road, but it managed to avoid an accident, and then as the Ford came across the bridge Scooter gunned it, showering pebbles on the spectators and peppering Kasey’s Porsche.
“Nice,” said one of Nadine’s friends sarcastically, as she shielded herself. Instead of asking if everyone was okay, Kasey went directly to his SUV to check for damage.
While the Ford turned around in the distance, Kasey walked over to Zak, who said, “That parking job almost got me killed.” Kasey ignored him. Moments later the Ford pulled up behind the girls, enveloping everyone in another cloud of dust.
“We’re not paying,” said Kasey.
“What do you mean you’re not paying?” Nadine joined the duo. “If you’d won, you’d make Zak pay.”
“He played us. A guy plays you, there’s no money owed.”
“You underestimated him,” said Nadine. “It’s your own fault.”
“How much did I win by?” Scooter asked, scanning their faces eagerly as he strutted toward the gathering. “How close was it?”
“Not close at all,” said Kasey. “The bike won by five seconds.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, it’s not bullshit. He came down that hill like something from Cape Canaveral.”
Scooter turned to Zak. “I’m not paying.”
Zak looked at Kasey and then turned back to Scooter. “Spoken like a true gentleman.”
One of the things Zak had savored about his relationship with Nadine was their ability to spend time together without either of them feeling compelled to speak, and hiking up the hill after the race was one of those times. Zak was exhilarated over winning the race but quickly put it into the past. He was with Nadine now, alone, and happy about it in light of the fact that only two hours earlier he’d been of the opinion he might never see her again. They stopped twice to look at the view and assess the burgeoning sunset. As they approached the Jeep camp, Zak pushing Giancarlo’s bike, they closed in on the white Ford and the group surrounding it.
“How many times can I win the same bet?” Hugh asked, placing his face close to Stephens. He slapped Chuck on the back and approached Scooter tentatively. “I think you owe me something.”
“Fuck off. I wouldn’t give you a wet fart in a windstorm.” Scooter strode angrily across the camp toward the barbecue. The dog began barking after one of the Finnigan brothers teased it with a slab of steak. Zak looked around for some indication of outrage, but he only saw shrugs from the other cyclists and averted eyes from the Jeep crowd.
19
“I hope this doesn’t get worse,” said Nadine, searching Zak’s face for signs of irritation. “Because it’s all my fault. Everything that’s happening is because I told people where you were going.”
“Don’t worry about it. Seeing you makes anything worthwhile.”
“You mean that?”
“I’ve been thinking about you for weeks, Nadine.”
“I’ve been thinking about you, too.”
Nadine hoped she didn’t sound too eager. It was wonderful to see Zak again, but she knew they were walking a delicate balance. They’d been together, and now they weren’t, but even so she felt closer to him than ever. The dynamic that existed between them now that they’d split up was something she didn’t quite have a handle on, but she certainly wanted to explore it.
Nadine counted sixteen people as she looked around the group: five bicyclists, seven in the Jeep group, her three friends, and herself. Following Jennifer’s detailed instructions, they’d spent an hour driving through holiday traffic swollen with motor homes and trucks towing boat trailers. Nadine didn’t like duping the guard, and she felt even lousier when they found her brother’s camp and realized Scooter and Kasey had somehow located Zak and his friends.
Even though everyone in the Jeep camp was disappointed over the results of the races, they sat around the barbecue with the cyclists like old friends while Kasey passed out steaks and burgers. They ate and waited for the sun to finish dying and talked about coyotes after somebody heard a distant howl. Dozer began barking, and the Finnigan brothers howled with him, which only made him bark louder. The brothers laughed so long and hard Nadine thought one of them was going to have a stroke. It wasn’t until then that she realized how drunk they must be.
Nadine knew that in sitting next to Zak she was aligning herself with the bicyclists, but if she sat next to her brother, Scooter would view it as an invitation, and she didn’t want to send that message. If she sat with her girlfriends, Scooter would try to cull her out like a cowboy roping a calf, and she didn’t want to get into a struggle with him—not here, not with everyone watching. Even though she knew it was going to infuriate Scooter, the only safe place was next to Zak. And what if she made Scooter angry? He had no legitimate hold on her.
The group jabbered about everything except the races, Zak whispering details to Nadine to complement something one of his people had said, she adding information on a topic one of her people had brought up. After a while, Nadine said, “Come on. Show me your waterfall.”
“It’s up the hill.”
“Then let’s go.”
Together they walked up the steep road. As they left, Nadine caught a glimpse of Scooter staring at them with those large gray eyes she’d once thought were so beautiful—all pale with tiny black pupils in the middle, so that when he stared at you, if he didn’t move or blink, you thought you were watching a wax sculpture in a museum. Over the past month his eyes had become attributes she’d come to despise.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about them coming up here,” she said.
“The only thing that’s happened so far is we’ve pocketed a thousand bucks and are owed another thousand.”
“Yes. Well, you’ll never see that second thousand.”
Nadine accompanied Zak to an outcropping of rocks just below and to the west of the bicyclists’ encampment. From time to time they could hear the dog barking back in the Jeep camp. From the viewpoint, other than the dog and the smudges of smoke on the southwestern horizon, there were no indications anybody else lived on the planet. The distant buildings of Seattle and Bellevue had long been submerged in the haze.
She braved the first bluff and then steeled herself to follow Zak onto the farthest outcropping, to a point where they could look back at the mountain and view the steep, forested slopes. Nadine shuddered at what she believed was Zak’s recklessness as he blithely negotiated the narrow rock ledges, each with a drop of more than a hundred feet on either side. She didn’t want to look weak in Zak’s eyes, especially in light of what she’d just seen him do on his friend’s bicycle, so she followed him out onto the scariest outcropping she’d ever been on, finding it was easier to plunge ahead instead of hesitating or thinking about the possible consequences. Sometimes her mother was right. She was too much of a tomboy.
From out on the point the view extended alongside the mountain to the south as far as the small town of North Bend and beyond, with the occasional boulder larger than a house dotting the base of the mountain. At the tip of this bluff, they were as alone as two people could be.
Nadine had broken up with Zak at the beginning of August, almost three weeks earlier. During that time, she’d been busy with her tennis tournament, and Zak had gone to eastern Washington to train on the blazing-hot roads for the twenty-four-hour race he was doing in September. Breaking up with him, she now realized, had been the dumbest thing she’d ever done. Sure, he had a chip on his shoulder when it came to people with more money than him, but she would work with him and he would outgrow it. And anyway, he had never let his attitude affect the way he treated her. She missed him; in the beginning when he didn’t call for a few days, she found herself in agony. How could she tell him she’d made a mistake, that she wanted to see him every day now? How could she tell him after she’d made such a point of explaining how important it was for her to finish school without any outside distractions, after telling him how her family was making it increasingly uncomfortable for her to be with him? Zak’s constant arguments with her brother had been a nuisance, but really, when she thought about it, nothing more than that.
When they broke up, it had been so utterly different from the hours-long ordeal she’d undergone with Scooter. She could see Zak was hurt, but he hadn’t made a scene. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, though she agonized over the speech for two days before giving it, and then did it in a fairly public place so he couldn’t put on the same extravaganza Scooter had.
“I just want you to be happy, Nadine. If you’re happier without me in your life, then I’ll have to accept that. It hurts, but if that’s your decision, I’m not going to fight you over it.”
In the end—except for the pain she saw in Zak’s eyes, which nearly broke her heart—she found his calm acceptance of her decision nearly as infuriating as Scooter’s refusal to acknowledge their breakup.
Zak showed up a week later for her tennis tournament but sat apart from her family and friends, and spoke to her only briefly afterward to congratulate her on the win and tell her how happy he was for her. When her family and friends crowded in, he slipped away. Lately, Nadine had begun calling him, and it had been during one of those calls that he’d made the mistake of telling her his plans for this weekend.
“I don’t know why we broke up,” she said, staring at the sunset.
“You said you didn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“I don’t know how on earth I came to that conclusion.”
“I know how, and I don’t blame you one bit. I was irritating. I am irritating. You’re from a wealthy family, and I have this attitude that rich people aren’t part of the world the rest of us inhabit, that they’re not tuned in to reality. I know some wealthy people probably fit into my stereotype, but most probably don’t. I’ve been trying to cure myself, but I guess it isn’t happening fast enough. You were right to dump me. I wish it hadn’t happened, but objectively I think you did the right thing…for you.”
“Are you seeing anyone else now? I know we’ve never talked about it, but I would think you might be.”
“There’s nobody else. How could there be?”
It was exactly what she’d wanted to hear. Nadine sat on a flat rock, where she felt less likely to entertain the feeling of going over the cliff. “I’ve missed you. I made a mistake, and I’ve been regretting it ever since. And now I just want you to say you love me and you’ve missed me, and it’s been pure torture not to see me every day.”
“Well,” said Zak, sighing. “If
I wanted somebody to say something like that, I’d probably say it to them first. So…I guess I’ll have to follow my own advice. I love you and I’ve missed you and it’s been pure torture not seeing you every day.” He sat beside her and picked up her hand. “I really do love you.”
The sunset was beginning to damp down like a fire with a blanket thrown over it, and the colors from the horizon reflected in his brown eyes.
He kissed her. Or maybe she kissed him. She wasn’t really sure who made the first move or if there was a first move. They kissed until she was dizzy from the combination of kissing and the altitude and the encroaching darkness. “So we’re on again?” she asked. “We’re a couple? Please say we are.”
“What about your family?”
“You know my family is important to me, but I can’t let them dictate who I’m seeing.”
Zak would probably never get along with Kasey, but there was a slim chance that if he hung around long enough her father would come to accept him. After all, they were both men with strong ideals, men who’d thought through a clear and distinct vision of the world, even if those visions clashed. They’d both started off dirt poor and worked their way into something else. Nadine knew she could make this relationship work the second time.
“What the hell are you doing with my girl?” Scooter shouted.
Scooter was on the edge of the mountain with his hands on his hips. It was dark enough that Zak recognized him from his voice, a little high-pitched and narrow, even more so when he was peeved or attempting to be threatening. They’d been on the bluff awhile, had lost track of time, both aware from nearby voices that the cyclists had returned to their own camp. The sky had blued out and then gone charcoal black; stars were beginning to wink through the inky night.
Zak stared through the gloom at the pudgy young man in cargo-pocket shorts and voluminous white T-shirt. Scooter chugged from a brown bottle and tossed it casually onto the rocks a hundred feet below, where it exploded with a faint tinkling melody.
