Good Luck, Fatty

rubber grip onto one of the bike’s handlebars and say, “I’ve been doing eight or ten miles a week with Tom.”
    He stares at my stomach, as if he doubts I’m biking as many miles as I’ve claimed. “My offer still stands,” he tells me. “I’d be happy to take you on. And I’ve got quite a few tricks to jumpstart your progress. Don’t you want a shot at winning this thing?” He caps the valve stem of the back tire and moves on to the front. “The prize money for your age group is a thousand dollars.”
    I wouldn’t mind a cool grand, but I’m also a realist. “I’m not trying to be a downer,” I say, “but I don’t think there’s much of a chance I’d win. Since Lex got involved, the Yo-Yo’s blown up.”
    When the race consisted of thirty people, I’d assumed (probably erroneously) that I had as good a chance as most folks. But at last count, we had twelve-hundred registered riders (the largest number for which the town would grant permits) and another thirty-five hundred cooling their jets on the waiting list. Near as I can tell, I’m dead in the water.
    “I was hoping this would be a watershed moment for you,” Harvey says outright. “A challenge you could use as a springboard to bigger and better things. A pivot-point for charting your future.”
    I try not to think about the future, mine or anyone else’s. But it’s comforting to know that Harvey does. “I’m not quitting,” I assure him, my hands going to my hips in protest. “I just have other things happening right now. With Marie having the baby, and…”
    “Well, if you change your mind, let me know.”
    “Will do,” I say, and leave it at that.

 
     
    chapter 9
     
    I MIGHT be falling in love with Tom Cantwell. Not because he’s the hottest guy on earth (honestly, I’ve been screwed by boys who are, objectively speaking, much more physically attractive), but because he’s agreed to spend an entire Sunday afternoon searching for Buttercup.
    We kick our bikes away from the periphery of Gramp’s rain-soaked lawn, after a rough few days of storms that have finally begun clearing. This time Tom lets me lead, cruises leisurely along parallel to me at a quarter of a pace back. “We should start at the baseball field,” I say into the wind, which is still whipping mist at my face, despite the storm having ended. “He loves the woods back there.” While Evan Richter was screwing me by the dugout, crazy old Buttercup came strolling out of the trees and sniffed at my foot. Stupid cat.
    “I thought I saw him the other day by The Plough Horse,” Tom says, “when we were picking Wilma up from work.”
    It’s been four years since his dad married Wilma, and Tom hasn’t taken to calling her mom? Somehow this makes me like him more.
    “What was he doing?” I ask.
    “I don’t know? What do cats do?” He chuckles faintly. “Hunting, I guess.”
    We bang a right onto Marigold and follow it all the way past the shuttered knitting mill, the toothpick factory where Orv works (he really could walk instead of mooching rides off Miss Esther every day), and an outpost of the Industry Fire Department (why on earth did they hide the thing down here?). Just before Marigold dead-ends, we zip into a parking lot and stop fifty feet to the west of first base.
    I dig my toes into the gravel, scan the tree line for a fuzzy orange form. “See anything?” I ask.
    Tom doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he spends a solid minute or two peering squinty-eyed in the same direction I am. “Nah,” he eventually replies. “Nothin’ out here. We should probably check the trails, though.”
    “Trails?”
    He shoots me a frown that makes me feel a tiny bit pitiful. “You’ve never been on the trails?” he asks.
    Maybe if Marie and Duncan had stuck around and been real parents… “Oh… the trails, ” I say, as if my memory has chugged back into gear. “No, I’m afraid not.”
    We share an easy grin, the kind we’ve had ready for each other since second grade. “Good thing we came out here, then,” he says. “So we can fix the situation before people start to talk.” He wheels the BMX over to a rusty chain-link fence, and I follow.
      “What about the bikes?” I say, noticing he doesn’t have a lock and there are three punky-looking middle school boys loitering in the field on the other side of the baseball diamond.
    “Don’t worry about it,” he says. He jerks the BMX a few inches off the ground and suspends it by