Chapter 10 #2
“My specialty.” I smile. “Spinach and egg whites, no salt.”
Dressed in puffer jackets, because the Pacific Northwest hasn’t gotten the memo that summer is merely a few weeks away, we walk down to the underground garage of the Met.
“They keep a bunch of extra bikes around for guests to borrow. This one’s about your size,” he says, choosing from the rack a bright purple bike that looks impossibly tall and spindly.
“I thought we were driving to the gym.”
“Easier to ride. Then I’m warmed up by the time I get there.”
I shift uncomfortably on my feet, looking down.
Danny tilts his head. “You do know how to ride, don’t you?”
“Of course I know how to ride,” I say, taking the bike from him as if I hold these things all the time.
Danny selects his own steel-gray bicycle, and we wheel them out onto the buzzing street.
A car flies by, dipping dangerously into the bright green bike lane.
My anxiety spikes, little tingles everywhere like my blood is carbonated.
Of course Danny’s preferred method of warm-up would be something as juvenile and reckless as riding a bike around a major metropolitan area.
I take a centering breath. Riding a bike is simple. Children do it all the time. Just remember, speed assists balance. Speed assists balance.
“It can get a little hairy during the morning rush, so stay close,” Danny says, hopping on his mountain bike. “One wrong turn and you can end up getting pancaked by a commuter.”
I nod, swinging one leg over the frame, trying to project confidence. Inside, alarm bells are ringing. My hands are slick with sweat on the handlebars. I lick my lips but my mouth is dry.
What am I doing? I should be on a grassy field at six years old with a parent running behind me, secretly letting me go once I find my balance. Not tagging along for an elite athlete’s warm-up ride on city streets when I’ve only ever ridden a Peloton.
“Let’s hit it,” he says, turning his bike and popping a little wheelie. I take a deep breath and place one foot on the pedal, gripping my handlebars so hard the webbing of my thumbs feel like they’ll split.
Here goes nothing.
I push down hard on my left pedal and raise my right foot up.
Miraculously, it works, and I’m gliding along with the bike, weightless and in perfect balance.
But my momentum slows when I fail to make another rotation on the pedals fast enough.
Oh shit. I careen sickeningly slowly, leaning to the left before crashing hard on the asphalt. Bright pain screams from my elbow.
Danny looks behind his shoulder and expertly hops off his bike while it’s still moving, resting it on the ground and running over to me.
“You OK?”
I nod, the sting of my skinned elbow mixing with humiliation to bring childish tears to my eyes.
“I don’t know how to ride,” I admit. “I never learned.”
I wait for him to laugh, but he just looks carefully over my elbow, gently brushing some debris from my scrape. He shifts his small backpack down from his shoulders and gets to work mending me with a travel first aid kit. Then he fastens a bandage with gentle pressure.
“Only have Spider-Man ones,” he murmurs. “All set. Ready to go again?”
“Go again?”
“Riding your bike. Come. I’ll teach you.” He helps me up first, then gathers the bicycle and checks the gears. “We’ll just walk to the greenbelt first.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Riding a bike is one of the greatest simple pleasures on earth, Theranos. You must learn.”
“I’ve gotten through life just fine without knowing.”
“Is that how high the bar is for your life?” he says, his eyes narrowing. “Just getting through?”
“No.” I sigh, reaching for the handlebars and following him down the road to the greenbelt.
Mature trees shade the park, and a small circular bike trail frequented by children on balance bikes surrounds the playground. We head there, and Danny steadies me as I hold onto his shoulder and mount the bicycle. His arms flex, holding both the seat and one handlebar, keeping me steady.
“Are you going to do that thing where you let go and don’t tell me?”
“I won’t let you go.” His voice drifts from directly behind my ear. “Now, pedal. Hard.”
I do what I’m told. The bicycle lurches forward, wobbling as I overcorrect first to the left and then to the right. It’s clear he’s using brute strength to keep me upright while jogging next to me.
“You’re fighting for control,” he says, the effort he’s exerting obvious in his voice. “Relax and you’ll find your balance.”
“If I relax, I’ll fall,” I say through gritted teeth as the bike fights me.
“No, you won’t. Because I’m right here.”
Something about his voice, the steadiness of it, relaxes me ever so slightly. He’s so sure I can do this. I close my eyes, loosening my grip a bit on the handlebars. My legs pump hard, but I relinquish control everywhere else until a lightness takes over. My balance point.
“Good,” Danny says. He relaxes, too, but doesn’t take his hand away from my saddle. The gentle bumps of his fingertips still rest under my bum.
Another wobble. My eyes pop open. “Say something to take my mind off what I’m doing.”
“Like what?”
“Tell me why you got so mad at your last fight. When you stormed out during your interview.”
Danny adjusts his grip underneath me.
“Storming out was the restrained choice. I really wanted to deck the bastard.”
“Who? The announcer guy?”
Danny nods. “His name is Brent McGovern. ‘The Voice of the UFC.’ He’s one of the early investors who took underground cage fighting and turned it into a legitimate sport. Everyone worships the guy, except me.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a fucking hypocrite. Always calling me out for my behavior while pretending to be some devoted family man and tweeting bible verses. Meanwhile, he’s got about five girlfriends on the side, and we’re all just supposed to pretend we don’t notice.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah. No one ever calls him on his bullshit because he’ll retaliate. Blacklist them from the industry. I tried to, once. Called him a fucking hypocrite on a fight podcast.”
“What happened?”
“I got passed over for a fight that should have been mine.” Danny shakes his head. “If I could find a way to look at him without wanting to break his jaw, my career would be much better off.”
“You know,” I say, relaxing into the rhythm of my pedaling feet, “hating a coworker is a common problem I see with my clients. A common solvable problem. There’s a trick for it.”
“Yeah?” Danny says noncommittally, but I can tell he’s interested.
“Next time he interviews you, think of just one thing you admire or respect about him—it can be anything, even something superficial,” I say, when Danny grunts his objection.
“Even the color of his shirt, or the moons of his fingernails—anything. Once you’ve found that one thing, mentally focus on it when you’re speaking with him.
The small amount of respect you’re experiencing will shine out, changing the energy by attracting his own respect for you.
It won’t make you besties or anything, but you should be able to withstand a postfight interview. ”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
I bite my lip to cover a smile. Belinda said I should find another way to get through to him, and maybe I’ve found it. He’s coachable, as long as he’s teaching me something new too.
My bike glides arrow-straight down the path, and I no longer feel the threat of falling sideways.
“Do it,” I say.
“You sure?”
I nod, wiggling my fingers so I don’t grip the handlebars too tightly.
Danny puts his arms up to show me he’s let go.
The rush of forward momentum feels even better knowing I’m doing it on my own.
Remember this. Take all of it in. I open all my senses so I can revisit this memory in detail while journaling tonight.
The sounds of the city, the sun-dappled shade in the safety of the greenbelt, the freeing feeling of symmetry and balance as I become one with my bicycle.
I glance at Danny jogging next to me and find his expression is as exhilarated as mine, but the effort makes me wobble slightly.
“Woah,” I say, recovering my center.
“You’re a natural.” He sounds winded, so I slow my pedaling slightly. “Why’d you never learn until now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe life got in the way.”
“Does that happen to you a lot? Life getting in the way?”
“Maybe a touch more than it should.”
After several laps around the greenbelt, we stop so Danny can grab his own bike. I relish the lactic acid rushing into my calves and thighs. Accomplishment roses my cheeks even more than the chilly spring morning air. I check my watch.
“Oh, we better hurry up and get to the gym.”
“Let’s make a quick detour first. I know a place on the way that makes chocolate croissants the size of dinner plates.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”
The fight gym is a modest, warehouse-style building down by the docks, near Pier 57. It’s salt-air-rusted and frequented by seagulls who pay no mind to the cruise ships bellowing nearby. We hop off our bikes and wheel them in through the roll-up garage doors.
A giant of a man with boyish features and close-cropped blond hair walks toward us. He has full-sleeve technicolor tattoos down both arms.
Danny breaks into an easy smile. “Topher, my man,” he says, bringing him into a hug. He turns to me, and surprisingly his hands make elegant gestures while he introduces me. I recognize them as American Sign Language. “This is Lauren. She’ll be keeping me out of trouble.”
Topher grins and quickly signs something I don’t understand.
“He says ‘good luck with that,’ ” Danny translates, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “Topher is my long-suffering training partner. He fights a weight class above me and currently holds the championship belt in his division. But that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally knock him on his ass.”
Topher rolls his eyes and smiles. Then he looks past us to the entrance, curiosity flooding his turquoise eyes. He signs something quickly to Danny, who turns and bristles next to me.
“Oh, fuck.”