Over the past few days, she had gone back and forth in her head, listing pros and cons of buying a motorcycle, especially when she didn’t know how to ride one. More cons than pros, as to be expected, but there were three things that stood out on that side of the paper. One was a repeat of her thoughts when she had seen Mr. Rogers ride away on his motorcycle: a solitary activity, but forced to be in the world.
Another pro was a memory of being a kid and standing in the back of the farm truck, holding with white-knuckled fists to the headache rack as her friends drove fast down a dirt road. The wind would whip her hair around her face, feeding the feeling of freedom found in that rush of air. Head back, eyes closed, she remembered the blinding flicker of sunlight through trees that lined the road, and the knowledge that the world was right there, not separated by a door or pane of glass.
The third was her views on letting fear stop her, because it was one of the things she hated most about her anxiety. Often it wasn’t an anxiety attack that drove her to stay home, behind her door, or sometimes hidden beneath her covers. No, the fear of an anxiety attack could be the biggest impediment to getting out. With people being one of the largest triggers, she’d already found her activities curtailed to what she’d recently deemed an unacceptable level as she unconsciously avoided situations that could set things off.
As she thought this through, it seemed that being afraid of learning to ride a motorcycle would be normal. It was a real fear that most people would have. And as such, it seemed to be something she could tackle. An expected fear of something physical could be surmounted by besting whatever it was, and she saw this as a way to give her a foothold on recovering ground lost to intangible ones.
Staring at the motorcycle on the screen in front of her, she lifted her chin. Picking up the phone, she called the number of the local store and waded through several automatic messages until she could press the appropriate corresponding number for sales. When a man finally answered, she was proud that her voice didn’t quaver when she announced, “Your website has what is generally accepted to be a good starter motorcycle for women for sale. If it’s still available, I’d like to buy it.”
An hour later she received confirmation from her bank that the couriered check had been signed for, and she clicked the button to upgrade her automotive insurance online. Two hours later, she had delivery set for the following day and was immensely glad her garage was two bays, so she didn’t have to decide what to do with her car. As easy as that, she owned a motorcycle. Now she just had to get through the night.
***
She had heard the bewilderment in the salesman’s voice when she arranged delivery, and he had tried to argue the point of signing for the motorcycle. But before making the call yesterday, she had written down how she wanted things to go, so she had a script to refer to when he wanted to push back against what he’d seen as an unreasonable request. Now, today, this morning, she was waiting in the window seat overlooking the backyard, watching anxiously for the truck that would bring her new motorcycle home. “I bought a motorcycle,” she said, testing the words aloud, looking down at her twined fingers and laughing for the hundredth time at the ludicrousness of the statement.
A low rumble came through the windows, and when she turned to look outside again, she saw a motorcycle ridden by an older man coming up the street, followed by a truck with the dealer’s logo on the front door. After a moment, she realized he was riding her motorcycle to deliver it, and she gaped at the sight of the bike turning into her driveway. Belatedly, she hit the button for the garage door, watching through the window in the pass door as he rode it into the open space, making a quick three-point turn to park the machine facing out.
He dismounted and looked around as he pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket. Seeing the envelope where she had laid it on the hood of her car, he stuffed the papers inside and then walked through the pass door, politely hitting the button on the doorframe to close the overhead door on his way through. It seemed only moments later she heard the letterbox on the front door rattle so she stood and made her way into the dining room. Nothing bad will happen. Tentatively approaching the door, she stooped and scooped the envelope from the floor, pulling out the delivery receipt notification. Quickly scribbling her name across the bottom, she shoved it back into the envelope and slipped it outbound through the letterbox.
Long, tan fingers came into view and plucked it from her hand. Cassie jerked back, startled at the nearness. “Ms. Williamson,” the man called, his voice pleasant, and she must have made a noise because he continued. “If you need anything, I wrote a phone number on the card attached to your paperwork. I can come show you how to check the oil, explain the gauges and switches, talk you through your first ride. You need anything, you call and ask for Tugboat, yeah?”
He didn’t wait for her response, and she stood frozen, listening to the sounds of his footsteps moving away.
Then she was alone in the house. Alone in the house, with a motorcycle in her garage.
Shaking her head, she sucked in a big breath and then blew it out slowly. “You did it,” she muttered and turned to walk upstairs.
Where she would stay for two days.
Because there was a motorcycle in her garage.
Every day is easier
Hoss
Standing in the workshop, he looked at what Woody had done and grinned. “Prettiest goddamned frame you’ve ever made me, man,” he told his patch brother. Lying on the workbench between them was a rectangle made from three different kinds of wood, the inlay worked so fine it was seamless. An odd shape, because the sketch was much more rectangle than the norm, and even though it wasn’t mounted in the frame yet, he could see it in his mind’s eye. The lightly stained cherry used to accent the corners of the frame would highlight the bright blonde of the woman’s hair, while the ash that was her hoodie would offset the deeper shades of the burled oak along each long edge. “Beautiful,” he said softly.
“Matches the piece, brother,” Woody told him, his voice whiskey-rough with decades of sucking down sawdust in his workshop, washed away by cheap scotch and beer. “Who is she? Can’t remember ever seein’ this one around.”
“Only seen her to speak to once, man. Made an impression.” With a tip of his chin, he thanked Woody again, and reached out to pick up the frame. If he could get this back home in time, he could still organize the delivery for today. Tamara wasn’t happy he had decided to give one of his highest-paying collectors a freebie, but she could wallow in her disappointment for all he cared.
Standing in the hallway of their home with phone in hand, he looked up as Faith came through the door. “Hey, Dad,” she called, dumping her tablet case next to the couch. “Oh, wow,” she said softly as she rounded the counter into the kitchen and caught sight of the framed piece lying on the table. “That worked up nice.”
Walking towards her, he agreed, “Yeah, it did, didn’t it?” He was proud of this piece, something he hadn’t felt in a while. Working in the studio was satisfying, creating his snapshots, capturing the feelings that moments evoked in him was something that kept him going. His craft allowed him to loosen the ties held by anger and grief, helping evolve those emotions into something that people could see and appreciate. That was nice, but the act of getting it out there where he could see it was the best. Hoss punched the button to dial a saved number and waited.
The framed sketch, however, was something different. He had made something for Cassie, even without knowing it at the time. After he had looked at the piece, and then studied the walls of his workspace, he knew it didn’t deserve to be sentenced to obscure invisibility. Didn’t warrant being allotted only the most minimal of attention. This drawing rated the care that Cassie gave every piece she owned. She would delve into it, find the right emotion to accent and articulate, and then she would make it more by doing what she had done to the other paintings and sketches. Make it more than he could do on his own.
“Barry,” he said
when the call connected finally. “Isaiah.” He waited for the normal pleasantries to be finished, and then drove forward for the purpose of the call. “I have a delivery for that Miss Williamson. The lady who bought Endless Golden Beauty. When can you schedule the pickup?”
“Uh. She bought another piece? That’s awesome. I’ll call her and see when she wants it delivered. She’s…a little particular about timing.” Barry’s voice gave away the fact he was dancing around the difficulties that Cassie faced with them in her house, the same way he had done when Hoss had insisted on joining him for the previous delivery.
“No, she doesn’t know about this. I wanted it to be a surprise. A gift from me.” He smiled confidently because he understood exactly how much she would value the art.
He heard matching gasps of dismay, one from the phone and one from the kitchen beside him.
Faith said, “You can’t give her that picture of herself, Daddy.”
Barry said, “Boss, she doesn’t do surprises.”
Faith tugged at his arm and pulled his full attention to her. “Daddy, how well do you know her?”
“I’ll just give her a quick shout,” Barry said, and the call disconnected. Hoss gripped the phone tight, frustrated at the brushoff he hadn’t earned.
“When did you two first meet? At the last show? How long have you known her?” Faith’s questions didn’t make sense, but he couldn’t concentrate on her right now.
“Hold on a second, honey,” he said, hitting redial on the phone. “Crap,” he said when the tone indicated the line for the delivery company was busy. He hit redial again and Barry answered. Before the man could say anything other than “Hello,” Hoss told him, “Don’t contact her. I’ll find another way.” Then he hung up on Barry. Fuckwad.
Turning to Faith, he said, “What do you mean I can’t give it to her?”
“Daddy, did you look at it?” She paused, then continued, speaking slowly, “I mean…did you really see it?”
At her questions, he turned to the framed sketch again, eyes tracing over the lines and arcs, the whorls of dark and light that made up the drawing. Vulnerable and soft, the woman’s gaze was fixed on the man in the picture, his back to the viewer. Him. Cassie held her hopes and desires in her eyes, in her smile. His touch on her skin was possessive, tender in a way that told you the man cared deeply for her. This was a couple with a history of something good between them. Faith’s voice cracked when she said, “You can’t…that looks like you love her, Daddy. You can’t just surprise someone with that.”
He saw it, had surely known it when he was working on it. Knew what that emotion felt like, because it was something he saw in Faith’s face every day, different from what was in the sketch, but still love. His subconscious even knew it when he titled the piece, Declaration. What he saw in the sketch, what he had drawn there, was the kind of love he’d shared with Hope. Fuck.
“You’re right, Faynez,” he agreed softly, his hands reaching out for the edges of the frame, not willing to look at his daughter for fear of what he would learn from her expression. She made a distressed noise, and he shook his head, silencing whatever she’d been about to say. Throat tight, he told her, “I wasn’t thinking, baby.”
Without another word, he gathered up the frame and walked to the studio, adding the piece to one of the stacks leaning against the wall. He stood for a moment and stared at the beauty of the drawing framed in the work of love Woody had made, then turned his head, looking away. What the fuck were you thinking, old man?
After dragging a drape over the canvases, he twisted to look at the other sketches he had done of her. There were a dozen studies tacked to the working wall near an easel where he had begun a canvas using oil. It was his memorized view of her from the showing, in part profile, part silhouette, all beauty. In this scene, the painting she was looking at unremarkable, but her figure was vibrant, filling the canvas with life.
Drawn to it, unable to help himself, he picked up his palette, eyes on the unfinished painting as he squeezed additional pigment onto the board. Tipping his head to one side, he reached for a clean brush, dipped it into the paint and stroked the color onto the canvas.
***
Cassie
She woke, a scream trapped in her throat, feeling the stare of someone watching her, tracking her movements in the bed. Eyes tightly shut, she had a child’s belief that if she couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see her. She knew who it was, knew their voices if not their names, heard the hushed whispers, fierce grunts as they tore her world apart. Get out, get out, get OUT! Shrieked in her head, the words had no more effect than the night she had uttered them aloud.
One slow breath at a time, she reclaimed her composure until she felt the muscles of her body relaxing. Sweat sticking the sheet to her legs, she kicked hard and shoved her limbs free into the chill of the air in her bedroom. Turning to her side, she folded her hands underneath her pillow and mouthed the words she wanted to be true. “It never happened.”
But it had. So, she breathed the words she knew in her gut were true. “I survived.”
An image of Mr. Rogers flashed through her head, the sound of the motorcycle sounding strong and courageous as he rode away, the heat from holding his hand still echoing through her flesh. My friends call me Hoss. In a whisper now, she promised herself, “Every day is easier.”
His voice rang in her memories, sure and patient, sounding like its own version of a promise that she was afraid of. I’ll make it work. I promise. She sighed and then, in a voice that was a little stronger than her previous whisper, she said, “I can do this.”
Want that for you
Cassie
Two weeks, she thought, easing into the chair at the kitchen table, the leather of her jacket creaking in response. Two weeks and two tries, and she had yet to make it into the garage except to escape with her car. At least the neighbors don’t think I’m weird for parking on the street. Or maybe they did, she didn’t know, because she hardly talked to any of them. “Okay. Today’s the day. Third time’s the charm,” she muttered, sweat breaking out across her face and shoulders. At least this sweat didn’t have anything to do with fear but was due to the massive black leather jacket she was wearing.
Her two weeks of working up to this hadn’t been spent idle. In between the demands of her job as fact researcher for an online technical magazine, she had gone shopping. Not in a store, of course, that would be predestined to wind up a disaster, but online where she could be anonymous. She snorted. Retail therapy done my way.
The jacket she wore, unremarkable in design, felt soft as butter against her skin, and fit her well. It should, as it was the third one she had ordered, finding out that the places that included measurements instead of sizes were the only ones that had a handle on what would work. Jacket, gloves, boots, headband—although, to be fair, that wasn’t leather—and she also had a pair of chaps on order. Today isn’t so cold I’ll need those just to walk to the garage, though, she thought and snorted again.
Today her goal was to walk to the garage, open the door, and go stand next to the motorcycle, helmet in hand. Mentally she rehearsed the things she needed to do. The first being stand from the safety of her chair. Yup, she thought, stand and walk to the door. Open it and walk outside. Five steps to the garage. With a sigh, she stood. And, immediately sat again, stomach quaking. “Nothing bad will happen.”
An hour later, she made it.
An hour after that, she was still standing beside the motorcycle, helmet in hand. Not because she was afraid, but because she had no idea what to do. If she sat on it, would it tip over? Could she break it if she pushed the wrong button? Would it roar to life and crash through the garage door if she did the wrong thing? Remembering the man who delivered the bike, she retreated to the house and found the card. Without giving herself time to chicken out, she dialed the number written there in bold ink and waited. A man answered, “You got the house, whatcha need?”
Looking at the card, she read a
loud the name written there as if it were a question, “Tugboat?”
“Minute,” came the response and the call went silent. A moment later and a different man’s voice said, “You got Tug, whatcha need?”
“Mr. Tugboat,” she began and was startled to silence when he laughed loudly.
“Just Tugboat, or Tug, honey,” he told her warmly, amusement still in his voice. Cassie grimaced and made a mental note, hating she’d already messed up.
“Tug,” she began again, feeling stupid saying it because it seemed absurd to call a man by the same name you would a ship. Is a tugboat a ship, or a boat? “This is Cassie Williamson. You told me to call if I had questions—”
He interrupted her, his voice smooth and soothing, somehow becoming even more welcoming. “Yeah, I remember you. You picked up that pretty little cruiser we had. Nice choice. That’s a real nice bike. How’s she ride?”
She huffed out a silent sigh. He was right. The bike was pretty, and the way he’d immediately associated the machine as female, anthropomorphizing cold steel and paint into something more welcoming, seemed to fit. Girls need names, she thought, then dismissed it as she said, “Well, that’s kind of why—”
“You don’t ride, do you?” His question wasn’t condescending or snide, more like he was trying to make sure where he was in the conversation. Looking for a handle on a problem he wasn’t certain how to approach.
Cassie Page 5
