Dancing With the Devil (6 page)

“So? Did you get it?” Frankie asked as she glided up and dismounted at the bike rack. Mac was bent over double, and Frankie watched as she tried to mate the key on the lanyard around her neck with the lock securing her wheels. “You know, that works better if you take it off first.”

Mac said, “Get what?”

Frankie made a noise that fused frustration and excitement, and threw up her hands. “The envelope! Did you get the envelope I left for you?”

Dante rode up and popped his front wheel off to lock it up with his frame. “Dudette, Charlie's gonna see you bending over like that and consider it an invitation.”

Mac straightened, her face flushed. She started to say, “If he ever—” but stopped as Charlie rolled up right then, dressed in his stupid baggies and a shammy from some mountain bike club.

“Hello, ladies, and I mean that in the
most
respectful way, Dante.” Charlie locked his bike next to theirs.

“Kiss, kiss, lover!” Dante blew him a couple of air kisses, which Charlie dutifully ignored.

Charlie continued, “You want to do another ride up to Hudson, Frankie?”

“Depends if you're ready for more humiliation,
Chaz
,” she answered. She looked over her shoulder at Mac and tilted her head toward Charlie. “We were going to do a dawn ride yesterday, but he was a no-show. Apparently he's not yet able to clear the trail logs. Or maybe your shoelace got wrapped around your crank and you fell?”

“I got no problem with my crank,” Charlie said, leering. As he reached to pop off his front wheel, his sleeves pulled back, revealing fresh bruises on his arms.

“You get some decent road rash to go along with those?” Dante asked. “At least you got the brain bucket goin' on,” he said, knocking on his helmet. “You wouldn't want an even
more
messed up noggin.”

Charlie jerked his head away and scowled at him, but Dante was unfazed.

He said, “I've got a fresh tube of Brave Soldier if you promise not to use it all.” He held up the ointment and waggled it in the air.

Frankie said, “I wish that stuff could've repaired the inside of my knee like it did the outside.”

Charlie waved them off and struck a pose like a veteran's statue. Quoting the Brave Soldier website, he said, “My wounds are the price paid for adventure or for victory!”

“Well, I hope you're having some of the adventure, 'cause it looks like those baby heads claimed victory.”

“Baby heads?” Mac asked.

Frankie patted her back and smiled. “See? There
are
purists left in the world. You are a true roadie, Mac.”

“Baby heads,” Charlie said. “The rocks in the trail the size of, you know, a baby's head. And I
am
clearing them. Usually.”

Dante made a face. “I don't know why you bother with the trails if it's so brutal.”

Charlie slung his backpack over his shoulder and winced. “It may be rough, but I only get cardio on the road. The trail's great for wind sprints and skills.”

“You better keep working on those skills then, dude,” Frankie said, pointing to Charlie's latest injuries. “And you better not let Otis see those. It's obvious you didn't get them riding pavement, and then he'll know the trails are keeping you from your road miles. The ones he assigned to get you ready for our
road
trip.”

Mac didn't even have the energy it would take to care about any of this. She just felt monotone. No thoughts. No interior monologue questioning it. Just a flatline of apathy. She shook her head to clear it. “I gotta get to class.”

Frankie trotted a few steps and caught up. “What?”

Mac barely looked up. It was nothing she wanted to talk about. “It's only … I don't know. Just … why bother?”

“What are you saying? The trip? The one you've been talking about for six freaking
years
? Your dad is finally letting you leave the house and now you're all like, ‘Why bother?' Did you even open the envelope?”

“No.” Mac was too exhausted with everything to gather enough curiosity to look at it.

Frankie growled in frustration. “Mackenzie! When are you going to open it?”

Mac stopped in the hall outside the main office and shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. “You obviously want to tell me, so just say it so I can get to class.”

Frankie sighed and shook her head. “For
weeks
you've been wallowing in all this self-pity, and when I try to do something that might make you happy, what do you do? Ignore it. If you want to know, open the damn envelope.” She stalked off down the hallway.

For the first time since they were little, Frankie and Mackenzie stopped talking. Days turned into weeks, and Mac still refused to open the envelope.

Mackenzie began to think of it almost as another person, mocking her, propped on her dresser as it was, taunting her. She willfully ignored it. She was stronger. She would win.

Lying in her bed after school one afternoon, she grunted as she stared at it, realizing she was having conversations in her head with a freaking envelope. She heard Lily's footsteps stomping down the hallway and come to a stop outside Mac's bedroom door. Mackenzie rolled over and lay with her back to the door, staring at the wall, when Lily tiptoed into her room. Mackenzie closed her eyes, hoping Lily would get bored and leave.

“Kenzie? Why are you always in bed from now on?” Lily asked as she crawled over Mackenzie's limp body and tumbled to the other side. She scooched and wriggled for a bit, finding a comfortable position to face her sister.

Mac just moaned and kept her eyes shut.

Lily raised her little hands and pressed them to each side of Mackenzie's face. “Kenzie? Are you in there?”

Mac heard her sister's question and marveled at how it echoed Frankie's weeks ago when she tried to get rid of the alien that had apparently taken over her body. Mac opened her eyes and looked at Lily.

“Peas?” Mac asked. Lily flipped around so her back was against Mac's stomach.

“In a pod,” Lily answered.

Her sister always fit so perfectly in her arms, and the minute she was cuddled up, they both sighed. Mackenzie buried her face in Lily's hair.

“I'm sorry about this morning, Brat. I was super mean.” She'd yelled at her again for some stupid thing. Mac had felt guilty all day.

Lily grumped, “Yeah.”

“Super duper mean,” Mac said. “I'm sorry. Do you forgive me?”

Lily grumped again and then shrugged her shoulders, and Mac knew she had.

“What kind of kiss?” Mackenzie asked. Lily was still facing the other way, but Mac could tell she had gotten a smile out of her. “Come on, what kind?”

Lily twisted around and looked up at her big sister with a grin on her face. “Ummmmmm … how about … a elephant kiss!”

Mac buried her face into Lily's neck and blew giant raspberries against her skin. Lily howled with laughter. She clambered out of the bed and ran out of the room still giggling, but Mackenzie stayed where she was and continued staring at the envelope.

She couldn't figure out why she hadn't touched it, hadn't
wanted
to touch it, but there it sat on her dresser, propped between the only two framed photos she owned. One was a shot of Mac on her favorite tricycle, her mom leaning down into the frame, and the other was taken on her seventh birthday, the day she rode her first two-wheeler. She lay on her bed, looking at her toothless smile, remembering.

As soon as her father had clicked the camera, Mac fell, bloodying her knee. She hadn't cried. She never did. Her dad was freaking out, running around trying to find the first aid kit, while Mac sat on the curb, watching the blood drip down her leg. She had been mesmerized, and remembered wondering, over those bright crimson tears,
my knee is crying blood.
As she sat there, calmly watching the droplets drizzle from her wound, it seemed odd that blood would be the same color every time it came out. It should change colors, she thought, depending on why you were losing it.

Mac's eyes drifted up to a gold medal dangling from a wide red ribbon. It hung from a nail in the wall above her dresser. Grady had given it to her after he'd won his first swim meet. She got off the bed and took it down, wrapping the ribbon around her hand. She rubbed her fingers over the embossed lettering as she looked back at the photo.

Her father had finally found the first aid kit and tended to her wounds.

“Does it hurt?” he'd asked.

Now, as she stood holding Grady's medal, looking at the photo, she snorted.
Does it hurt?

She hadn't answered. She hadn't known
how
to answer. It hurt, but who cared? She ignored it. She'd been through worse, and if she could ignore that, what was a skinned knee? If you paid attention to pain, you had to live with it, and she didn't want to do that.

Grady wanted her to hook up with him. She hadn't been allowed to say no to her father, but she sure as hell had a choice with Grady. And if he loved her, he wouldn't force her. He wouldn't expect her to do anything she didn't want to do.

Her heart still ached, but Mac had to admit that Frankie was right. She had wallowed enough and didn't need any reminders. If he were only in love with her so he could get some, then their whole relationship was bogus … just like the one she had with her father. If he really loved her, he wouldn't make her do those things.

Mac held her hand over the little tin trash can next to her dresser and let the ribbon unwind off her hand. The medal dangled from its leash, swinging slowly, like a pendulum on an old clock. Time to move on, it seemed to say. She dropped it, satisfied by the loud
clunk
it made.

The next day, as Mackenzie sat in her usual spot at lunch, Frankie walked by, and Mac caught her eye.

“Thanks, Frankie,” Mac said, tapping an envelope that sat on the table. It had a logo of a bike-riding knight in shining armor. “Want to sit?”

Frankie shrugged and put her backpack on the seat.

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better. I just needed time, I guess.”

“That, and an almost $8,000 bike,” Frankie commented, looking at the opened envelope.

“Well, with my pro discount it'll only be an approximately $4,500 bike.”

Frankie smiled as she eyed Mac's lunch of four plain turkey slices, dry salad, and bottled water. “Looks like you're back. Not that I missed your freak sticks,” she said, nodding at Mackenzie's chopsticks.

“Well, I do need some damage control if I want to make it to Vermont and back, don't I?” she said, pulling a ream of paper out of the envelope. “You've got to see this! You want to help me build it up after school? It's at the shop.”

Frankie rolled her eyes. “You are so beyond. How do you think I got that in the first place?” She picked up the specs. “Oh man, nice. You were so right to get Campy components … sweet.”

“Campy sucks.”

Both girls turned to see Charlie drop his tray on the table and grab up the spec sheet.

“No one asked you,” Frankie said, snatching it back and waving goodbye to him. “See ya.”

Charlie took the sheet back and sat. “This isn't a private table.” Turning to Mac, he asked, “You saved for six years and you wasted your bucks on Campy, Skater?”

Mackenzie grabbed back the specs and said, “Shimano's more disposable. I didn't want something that light.”

Charlie scoffed and snatched them again, holding the packet of pages above his head. “You're insane. Shimano's so nice
because
it's light. You're spending that kind of cake and you got stuck with that old world crap.”

Dante dropped his tray on the table and sat down next to Mac.

“Dude, don't you know what the pro mechanics call Shimano?” Frankie asked.

Dante sang out, “Shit, man, NO!”

Frankie smiled and said slowly, as though speaking to a small child or an idiot, “Because of the cheap construction and the fact that most pro teams avoid it at all costs. Besides, how does anyone with hands smaller than a shovel reach those Shimano levers? The handlebars are freakin'
huge
.”

“What's this, Charlie?” Dante said, eyeing a huge black and blue mark on his stomach where his shirt rode up. He poked it with his finger, making him flinch and lower his arms. “You are such a spaz. If you can't clear the logs, why don't you just stick to the road?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “Where the real riders are, anyway?”

As he and Frankie got up to leave, Dante playfully smacked Charlie's back, then, as Charlie actually winced, said, “I do not know why you put yourself through those baby heads, baby boy.”

“At least I'll be in better shape than you,” Charlie said as he tossed the specs to Mac. He tugged the bottom of his shirt and held it down. Turning to Mac, he said, “You're just a Euro snob. If I had the money, I'd get Shimano with those Mavic Arsis wheels. Those carbon spokes make it so high-end and sexy…” Looking at Mackenzie's lunch, he added, “So does this mean you're not going to sell me your bike?”

“You have no soul, Charlie,” Frankie said as she got up from the table, tray in hand. “That's why you'd never get Campy. You ride Shimano and you're rattling down the road on white bread.” She flicked her hand at him and left to dump her garbage.

“Yeah,” Mac said, “and I'll be cranking on focaccia. Besides, I thought you wouldn't want Campy, so why would you buy my bike anyhow?”

“You can keep your focaccia or whatever. I'm saving up for Shimano, and then we'll see what's what.”

“You're saving up? How much you got so far?” This was the first Mackenzie had heard this news. She thought Charlie was all about the mountain biking. Except, she conceded, then why would he bother going on the Vermont trip?

He pulled out a little black notebook with dark blue trim and fanned the pages in front of Mac's face. He covered the balance with his thumb, but she could see he'd scribbled in a long list of numbers—deposits, she assumed. “I have enough for a down payment,” he bragged. “Well, almost enough.” He blushed when Mac smiled. “Okay, half that. So I'm not as big a cheapskate as you, and it takes me longer to save.”

“Maybe you just don't want it as much. I am
desperate
to have this bike, Charlie. You have to be.”

“You have no idea,” Charlie said, and walked away from the table.

It was gorgeous, and Mac couldn't stop staring at it.

“It is completely stunning,” Otis said. “I may have to give you a raise or you're never going to work that beauty off.” Mackenzie didn't respond. Otis snapped his fingers until she managed to break her gaze from the RoadCap she and Frankie had just finished building up. “I have to go. You guys can lock up after you pick out your pedals and stuff.” He winked at Frankie, well aware that Mac had decided on every detail months before.

“Okay,” Mackenzie said. “Thanks for staying late, O.”

After he left and they finished up the last details on the RC, Frankie said, “I better get home.” She began putting the tools away. “Geez, Mac, you're looking at that sled like it's your new best friend.” She smiled. “Should I be jealous?”

“Of course,” Mac said, grinning. She walked around the RC, in her own world. She lowered her voice, imitating one of those cheesy, overly dramatic commercials, and said, “It is no mere bicycle. This is your trusty steed. Your means of … escape.”

“We're only going to Vermont.” Frankie snorted. “And by the way, we have to come back.”

Not if I had my way
.
Except for Lily. She's worth coming home to.
“Too bad, huh?” she said aloud. “If we could bottle that ride-zen we'd be rolling in it.”

“Totally.”

They straightened up the back of the shop, turned off the lights, and locked the door, leaving Mac's old bike inside. She'd pick it up another day.

“Geez, it's pitch black out here,” Frankie said. “Tell Otis to fix the light, would you?” They strapped on their helmets and were about to take off when they heard gravel crunching behind them in the dark. They whirled around.

“Who's there?” Frankie asked, squinting into the darkness. The girls looked at each other. “Say something!” Frankie called out.

“I am the ghost of crappy components!” “Charlie!”

Frankie said, “Like I always say, you are such an asshole.”

“It's my best quality,” he replied, approaching the RC. He whistled, soft and low. It was an appreciative gesture, Mac knew, but there was a longing under it that made her skin crawl.

“It's your only quality, Charlie,” Frankie said.

“Like I haven't heard
that
before?”

He stretched his hand out to stroke the seat, but Mackenzie jerked it out of his reach. It weighed so little that when she twisted it away from him, he got knocked in the shin with the gear wheel. “You can look, but you better not touch,” she said.

Charlie grimaced and rubbed his leg. “I hear that's your motto, Mackenzie.”

Frankie got on her bike and adjusted her helmet. “C'mon, Mac, let's go.”

Mac gestured for Frankie to wait. “What's that supposed to mean, Charlie?”

He strolled toward his bike, still unable to tear his eyes away from the RoadCap. “When you tease a guy, it's just not fair, Skater.”

“Hey, you want to touch an RC, find another, because you're not getting your hands on mine,” Mackenzie said.

Charlie laughed, but there was nothing nice in it. “Yep, that's exactly what I heard. When a guy can't get his hands on yours, he has to find another.” His cackle was swallowed up in the darkness as he rode away.

Mackenzie stood in the same spot, her eyes darting about, trying to follow her ricocheting thoughts. “What's he talking about, Frankie?” But she knew. And even though she thought she'd moved on, it still hurt, knowing Grady was seeing someone else.