Not a Chance Page 9
Dad smiles again. Mom hesitates, and I’m afraid she’s going to come up with another reason why this will never work, but after a few seconds she nods. Dad passes her pen and paper, and we begin to plan.
* * *
“Pedal! Go, go, go!” I push the green bike forward. Nerick grips the handlebars like he can squeeze them into obedience, and he wobbles ahead on the pitted pavement.
I speed-walk behind him and pretend not to see his sisters and mom peeping around the edge of the cookshack. He’s so focused on the road that the mountains could sink into the earth and he wouldn’t flinch. His knees rise and fall slowly—too slowly—and the bike topples sideways.
He lands on the ground with a thud, and I pull the heavy bike off him. “You okay?”
He dusts himself off. “I liked it better when I was the one teaching you. Are you sure you don’t need work on your tree-climbing skills?”
I laugh. “Too bad you couldn’t make deliveries from the treetops. You’d be the richest guy in the valley.”
He makes a crack about needing to build a slingshot to hurl his deliveries to his clients, climbs onto the bicycle again, pushes off, rides a few meters, falls and does it all over again. Many times. Each time, he stays on the bike a bit longer, but eventually he asks me to ride instead, so he can watch.
I climb on and fly off down the bumpy road, a beacon of yellow tie-dye and red plaid. His sisters and mom come out of hiding and clap. At the bend in the road, I turn and race back, feeling the strength in my pumping legs for the first time in months.
Tomorrow I will stack the plaids, tie-dyes and tacky T-shirts on the teacher’s desk, and we’ll leave it all behind. In a few days, in the city, I’ll pull on a pair of slim-fitting brown shorts and a purple tank top, and I’ll tie back my hair at the base of my neck. I will look the way I’d wanted Nerick to see me.
And that will be nothing compared to this: me blasting along the pavement, giving the pedals everything I’ve got, with Nerick beaming at me and his whole family cheering, not just for this moment but for everything that we can make happen together. This is a memory we’ll all carry with us.
This is what I’ll take home with me.
Fifteen
The brown paper is worn, the corners are scrunched, and the stamps look faded, exhausted from the two-month journey to get here.
Aracely posted her letter the fifteenth of October. It’s December now.
Dear Dian,
Thank you for the paper, envelopes and the money for postage. This is the first letter that I’ve written to another country, and I’ve been trying since the day you left to think up stories interesting enough to send. In the end, though, I’ll just write what’s in my heart. I know you’ll be happy to hear from me, no matter what I say.
Things here are the same as always, with a few changes. Lety had another baby. Señor Morales passed away. Guin Sanchez took off for the city, and his wife is relieved, I think.
The market is getting busier for me, as more people are hearing about the herbs. Abuela still hates the idea of me selling them, but life is easier with money, and her complaints are mostly just for show now, I think.
Nerick still helps me bring the herbs to the market, which is kind because he’s very busy now, pedaling up the mountain with deliveries, flying down again and teaching people everything he knows about bikes, including how to ride. He’s like a different person. He looks people in the eye now, like he never did before.
He picks up the herbs from our house on the bicycle and drops them off at the market for me. We don’t talk much, but when we do, he talks about you more than anything. I tease him about it, and he says it’s because he spends so much time with the bicycle that he can’t help thinking of you. I’m sure that’s not the whole story, and since I saw how you two laugh together, I’m sure you share his feelings.
I’m going to finish my letter now because I don’t want it to cost too much to send. I hope you had a good trip home. Please say hola to your parents and to Emily for me, even though I don’t know her. You’ve talked about her so much that I feel like I do. I miss you.
Saludos,
Aracely
I read the letter a second time, studying the spots where she scrubbed out her words and wrote them again. Nowhere does she mention the Eye, but if Nerick’s doing well, I assume the Eye is keeping quiet.
Aracely hasn’t mentioned Vin either. I guess that means that the marriage is still on, but she doesn’t have any more news about him than when I left in August.
Brave, I think, as I flop onto our worn couch. I can’t imagine marrying someone I hadn’t heard from for a year. Then again, I can’t imagine most of Aracely’s life, even though I’ve been there with her every summer for almost as long as I can remember.
I set the letter to one side, kick my feet up and stretch back. My parents are still at work. I’ve heated up a pot of chili, but it’s getting cold on the stove now. I haven’t bothered eating because Grandma and I made brownies this afternoon, and I’m still full.
Things here are the same as always…I could use the same line in my letter back to Aracely. My parents still work too much and don’t rest enough. My grandmother and I still spend tons of time together, cycling, working in her garden and baking stuff. Emily and I go to movies, and I hang out at the bike shop. (Emily’s less scornful of my dirty fingernails now that she knows about Nerick, I notice. That hot guy? she asked, stabbing a finger at the photo my parents took right before we left. I’m in the middle, wearing the yellow tie-dye and red plaid combo, Aracely and Nerick have their arms around me, and we’re grinning into the camera. Yes, that hot guy. The one who still talks about me. The one I still think about all the time, even though I told my parents I’m not going back to Cucubano this summer.)
…with a few changes. I’ve got fifty-five bicycles in my grandmother’s garage, and so far we’ve raised a few thousand dollars to ship the bikes to the Dominican Republic. Last night I was on the news talking about it, and my parents broke their no-TV rule: we all crowded into Grandma’s living room to watch. Today one of the guys at school officially declared me a wack-job, and I laughed because I’ve never felt so sane in my whole life.
He frowned and told me I was just like my parents, but he’s wrong. I’m trying to help people, but I’m not raging at the world and refusing to enjoy life. My parents have tried the deadly-serious approach, and I don’t think it makes them very happy, no matter how much they achieve.
Collecting bicycles for Cucubano feels right, and the thought of Nerick and everyone else riding around makes me want to dance. It’s about balancing the dancing with the doing, and checking that balance all the time. I know that now.
What I don’t know is how the balance will look next summer. I can’t imagine yet if I’ll want to be back in Cucubano with my friends. Holding Aracely’s letter in my hand, I think it could go either way. For now, I’ll write back, tuck my words into the envelope and send my love. Sometimes, that’s the very best thing a person can do.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book always feels like a community effort, and this particular effort began almost twenty years ago, although I didn’t know it then. I’m grateful to HOPE International for the opportunity to volunteer in the Dominican Republic in 1996, and I’m grateful to all those with whom I shared the experience. Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for financial support of this project, and to Robin Stevenson, Holly Phillips and Susan Braley, who listened while I figured out what I wanted to say. Thanks to Ana David Emery for suggestions and comments on the manuscript, and to Erika del Carmen Fuchs for introducing us. I’m very grateful to Sarah Harvey for her insightful, creative and encouraging edits. Working with Orca Book Publishers is a great pleasure, and I count myself lucky to have a publisher with pizzazz; inspiring friends; and a loving, enthusiastic (and very patient) family.
Thanks, everyone!
Michelle Mulder’s favorite spot was the library when she was growing up, so it’s no surprise that she studied literature at university. After graduating, she cycled across Canada, traveled in South America and married the Argentine pen pal she’d been writing to since she was fourteen. She is the author of Out of the Box, After Peaches and seven other books for young people. For more information, please visit www.michellemulder.com.