13. Rhodes
THIRTEEN
Rhodes
The Test Patch: New treatments are tried first in a small square somewhere the eye will not travel, so that a failure costs nothing. The trade calls it prudence. It is also the easiest way to find out what a thing will do.
I come into the kitchen with the truck keys already hooked on one finger.
Deuce bailed on me an hour ago, some story about a doubleheader he swears nobody told him about, and that's fine. I don't need him to ride. The new pipe is on, and I want to hear it open up on a real stretch, not the driveway. I'll go alone, the way I like it anyway.
I don't see her until I'm halfway across the kitchen. She's at the table with her bare feet up on the next chair, ankles crossed.
She’s wearing sleep shorts so short the gray hoodie eats them. Her hair's going every direction, and there's coffee steaming next to a paperback with its cover half torn off. Two fingers hold her place while she reads, not looking at me yet.
For a second, I take in the whole picture. Her bare legs are stretched out in front of her, her hair is wild, and her coffee and paperback sit beside her. Tallulah is folded up in my kitchen on a Sunday like she has been doing it forever.
My chest tightens, and heat drops low in my stomach before I can get ahead of it.
Nothing. It's nothing.
She looks up. "Where are you off to?"
"Our cabin out in Slidell." I lift the keys. "You remember our land out there, right?"
"Of course I do. I used to love going out there for those parties your dad used to throw when I was in high school. They were epic."
"Yeah, they were, weren't they? We might have to pull those back out."
"What are you doing out there today?"
"Put a new pipe on my dirt bike and I want to shake it down."
"Dare I ask what 'shake it down' means?"
I laugh at that. "I want to open the throttle and hear it."
"Can I come?"
I stop. That one I didn't have loaded. "You want to ride?"
"I've always wanted to ride with y'all since I was about nine." She drops the book flat. "Mama always put the kibosh on it. You and Coop used to just vanish on those things and I'd sit on the porch and watch the dust. Girl. Little. Whatever."
"It's not a rambler. You've got a clutch and you've got to shift."
"I've been ripping around Wadmalaw on a four-wheeler since I could walk. I know how to throttle and shift. Do not insult me, Stone."
That takes the legs out from under most of what I was about to say. She can. I've watched her do it.
"Hand clutch is different than a foot brake and a thumb throttle."
"I'm a fast learner."
"You know your brother will kick my ass if you get hurt"
"Tell me you didn't just say that. I'm going to act like you didn't bring Coop into this."
"If you come, you listen to me. Every word."
"Not a problem."
I catch it a second too late, the way you catch that you've already stepped off a curb. Looks like I'm teaching a girl how to ride my dirt bike, breaking one of my cardinal rules.
By the time I've got both bikes strapped down in the trailer, and she climbs in the truck, my empty Sunday's got Tallulah in it.
She's got her boots up on my dashboard before we're out of the neighborhood.
"Off."
"You wax this thing?" She wiggles her toes against the glass. "It's shiny."
"I don't wax my dash. Off, or you walk."
She drops her feet, reaches for the radio, flips through the Sirius stations in about a second and a half, landing on The Tens Spot.
"You realize you talked about that exhaust for four minutes in the driveway," she says. "I timed it. That's four minutes about a metal tube."
"It's not just a tube."
"It's a tube, Rhodes."
"It changes how the whole engine breathes." I glance over. She's got her chin propped on her fist, grinning at me like she's already won. "You'll hear it when I open it up. Then you'll understand my excitement."
"I doubt that highly, but I'm keeping my mind open."
"Buckle up," I tell her. "Might hit a bump. You'd scratch your precious tube."
I laugh before I decide to. It just comes out of me, and she looks pleased with herself, settling back into the seat like she caught something.
The trailer rattles behind us. She goes off about Josette's dog eating a crab, shell and all, how she freaked out and spent all day yesterday at the emergency vet.
I tell her about Deuce trying to bench three-fifteen and getting stapled to the rack. She's laughing so hard she has to wipe her eyes. "That was that guy with you at The Boot that night, right?"
"Yeah. Good memory."
"Hard to forget a guy that big named Deuce."
We both laugh at that.
The city thins out around us. Strip malls turn to pines, then to nothing much, and somewhere in there the talking goes soft and easy, gaps between it that don't need filling. She watches the trees. I watch the road.
It hits me like a freight train with no warning.
This is the easiest hour I've had in a long time, longer than I can put a finger on.
And it's not the road, or getting clear of the city, or a Sunday with nothing on it.
It's her, specifically, Tallulah in the seat next to me, making my own head quieter than it's been in weeks.
I turn that over once and set it down. I've known her since she was born. She's an old friend, and there's nothing under it worth digging at.
We turn onto the gravel, and the property opens up, hundreds of acres of it. The cabin sits alone at the end with its large front porch and the stone chimney I helped Reeves repoint last summer. There are no power lines, no neighbors, nothing out here that wants a single thing from me.
She doesn't steal the quiet I so love about this place, and I don't mind sharing it. I come to a stop by the cabin, and my head shifts to the job.
"You can stay in the truck, or you're welcome to walk around. I need to get the bikes down. Then we have a serious lesson."
"You already know I'm not staying put. I'm helping get them down. I want the full lesson."
We get both bikes down, rolling the small one out into the grass. Once everything's out, I hold out the spare helmet. "On."
She takes it, frowns at the fit, works the strap. It sits a hair loose on her.
She gets the strap under her chin and works the buckle with her head tipped back and her throat bare. Fuck me sideways.
"It's big."
"It's what I've got." I hand her the gloves next. They swallow her fingers. "Those too. You don't ride without them."
"I can barely feel the grips."
"You'll feel them fine. Safety first. If you really like doing this, we can get you better-fitting equipment, but for today, if you want to ride, this is what we have."
She pulls the gloves on and doesn't fight me on it.
I plant a hand on the seat. "Obviously, it's an open field out here, so we have some space to get your feel of it. We start out slowly, understanding the gears and how to shift up and down."
"Okay."
"First gear, second if you earn it. Don't try any jumps, and no wandering off to the trees because you think you're suddenly an expert. You have to wait until you graduate."
"I told you I'm a fast learner."
"No trails. Say it back."
"Field, first and second. No wandering off. Got it." She throws me a look. "I've done this before, you know. Geez. You act like I've never driven any type of vehicle besides my truck."
Swinging my leg over the small bike, I start the engine. "I'm not. I'm being careful. Get on. We ride together first, then you can take it."
She climbs on behind me and wraps her arms around my waist. Her hands settle flat against my stomach, and my body reacts in a way I wish I could control. I push it away.
Pulling the clutch lever in, I hold it so she can see. "Left hand's the clutch. Your four-wheeler didn't have one. It just went. This one, you've got to talk into it. All the way in, the gear's free."
I ease it out to where the bike wants to walk, hold it there, feed a touch of throttle, and it creeps. "That's the friction point. You find that, roll on gas, off the clutch evenly and you're in business. Both hands talk to each other."
It rolls a few feet, then I stop and kill it. I swing off, and she scoots up into the seat while I plant myself at her shoulder. "Now you try. Go slow."
She sets her feet, pulls the clutch, drops it into first. I watch her hand. She lets it out too fast, and the engine coughs and dies.
"Again."
She restarts and stalls it. Restarts and stalls it again, and the third time she feels it coming, her whole body tightening a half-second before the bike lurches and quits.
"I know what I'm doing," she snaps.
"Your brain does. It will just take a few tries to feel it. You've got this."
"Do you want to hold it or something?"
I step in, hand on the bar. "I can walk you through the—"
"No." She shakes me off. "Move. I've got it."
I put my hands up and let her do her thing. She wants to solve it, so I let her solve it.
She stalls it twice more, cussing under her breath each time, and I don't stop grinning.
Then her hand finds it. The bike catches and rolls, wobbles, holds. We ride a slow line out across the grass. It bumps into second, but she doesn't stall.
She rips a full lap, muddy, and skids back grinning like a lunatic. "Trails, now."
"No."
"You're scared I'll beat you."
"Surviving a field doesn't make you Pastrana. But I do think you've graduated to riding by yourself. Still take it slowly, though. Can you do that?"
"I can."
She's easy to coach once I'm off the bike and feels in control. We run lap after lap, and I hold the line on no trails even while she keeps lobbying for them, because there's a difference between fearless and ready, and today she's only got the one.
Our fuel is getting low, so I motion for her to follow me back to the truck. We've had a solid three hours of riding, so I'm sure she needs a break.
I pull next to the trailer and get off. She stops beside my bike and pulls off her helmet. Her blonde hair falls out around her shoulders.