In Every Way by Nic Brown

dreams. She feels only young.

CHAPTER 8
    M ARIA FINDS A tandem bicycle in the back of Karen’s storage shed. The seats are cracked and dusty. There is a clatter of metal on metal as she pulls it into the light, its various mechanisms long ago loosened and rusted. But it rolls. She puts air in the tires with a foot pump. She is embarrassed at the prospect of riding this thing by herself, its second seat empty, but she wants at least a bit of speed for the trip she is going to take. In the basket affixed to the handlebars, she places a white canvas tote bag monogrammed with Karen’s initials. She folds the bag over on itself, self-conscious about being seen with anything monogrammed. Inside it are three Mirado Black Warrior pencils, a blue sketchpad, and a towel.
    Four days have now passed since she made out with Christopherson in the abandoned house. Since then, Maria has kept her distance, a task that has been surprisingly easy. With a friend, Christopherson runs a little lawn care service, and this time of year they are fully employed, blowing leaves out of neighborhood yards into tall, tidy piles at the foot of the curb. He is almost always out of the house. Maria has heard him talk about her with his partner in the yard, though, mixing oil and gas for their leaf blowers, using the words Chapel Hill as some type of teenage totem. She has witnessed these words work their magic before, conjuring the specter of college before wide high school eyes.
    But even though Maria has avoided Christopherson just enough to let him know that any romance between the two cannot progress, she does not regret what happened on the dusty floor of that dark abandoned house. She has thought about it many times since, each time gaining a confidence and a rush of feeling wanted. She is aware of a need to be wanted.
    But Christopherson has not given up. Last night he passed a note under Maria’s door, but she did not find it until morning. It was a drawing of a cartoon ghost with an empty thought bubble floating above it. Underneath was written: HEY GHOST — WHAT ARE YOU DOING ? Maria folded the note, like it was a piece of artwork by a child, and carefully placed it into her address book.
    With Karen helping care for her mother, Maria now feels untethered. Not pregnant, not required to be near her mother’s bedside, confident about the home of her daughter, she is once again a young woman with time on her hands. Her void of responsibility seems more profound than a mere reprieve from the chores of life, as if it is the emptiness of age, earned. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be retired. She feels like she might have earned this time, at least for now. This day.
    Squeaking at each push, she pedals onto Federal Street, a short tunnel of arcing chestnut limbs interspersed with a dense network of honey locust and crape myrtle. Though the bike emits a constant rattle, she aspires to be inconspicuous. She can just see the driveway of Philip and Nina’s house, where twice in the past four days she has glimpsed her daughter, both times exiting a small blue Mercedes, not modern, perhaps from the 1980s. She rattles even closer. This morning the driveway is quiet. Empty. There will not be another sighting today.Maria is not disappointed, though, only more determined. She will return again, maybe tomorrow, maybe later that same day, because the urge to see Bonacieux has increased not only with each glimpse Maria has caught of her, but even with each failed attempt. It is a growing thirst, and she knows now where the well is to sate it.
    So she pedals on, continuing toward the water. She does not care that a few people have turned to watch. It is enough to have a means of escape, particularly today, after an earlier conversation with her mother—a conversation that she is happy to leave behind.
    From her bed, her mother had said, apropos of nothing, “Do you miss Jack?”
    â€œLess than I thought,” Maria