His gave her a tight-lipped smile. “So I’ll be a new one.”
“Good night, Sebastian.” She hadn’t meant to say his name, but there it was, the syllables rolling around in her mouth. “Get some sleep.” She stepped back into her room and carefully closed the door behind her… then leaned against it, her breath coming quickly, her eyes squeezed shut and her heart thudding in her chest, part of her telling her to run from him, as far and as fast as she could, and the rest of her telling her to run after him, to grab his hand and pull him through the door and kiss him until nothing hurt him anymore.
Abby
Day Three: Poughkeepsie to Hudson Forty-three miles
Abby had a hard time falling asleep, and she was awake an hour before her alarm trilled. She packed up her stuff, got dressed, found an urn of coffee in the hotel lobby, along with packets of oatmeal, prepackaged muffins, and a few wan-looking bagels next to a toaster. She sipped her coffee and waited as the rest of the riders arrived. Lily was walking stiffly, like every part of her body hurt. Ted boomed a greeting, his clip-in shoes click-clacking on the tiled floor. Sebastian gave her a fast look, then quickly looked away.
They got their bikes out of a locked storage room and assembled in the parking lot, where Abby went over the route for the day. “We’ll be riding on some actual roads, with cars, so please be aware.”
She took the lead as they rode over the Walkway over the Hudson, where there were signs about the area’s history and coin-operated binoculars, and the river, far below. They pedaled past a mostly empty office park, off the trail and onto streets, through an actual neighborhood for a few miles before they were back on the bike path. Abby had to pay attention, guiding the group past playgrounds and historical markers and around little kids on training wheels and scooters. A detour caused by a fallen tree took them onto a street with a steep uphill and a hairpin turn. Abby was getting ready to tell Lily to put her bike in as easy a gear as possible, or even just walk it, instead of losing momentum halfway through the climb and falling, but she saw that the other woman had taken one look at the hill and preemptively, and wisely, had gotten out of the saddle.
“Slow and steady!” Abby called as Lily plodded past her. Abby thought the other woman’s smile was looking a little strained. Maybe since Morgan had already made it to the top, with Andy Presser riding beside her, and without sparing her mom a backward glance.
Ted got a flat, which Abby helped him fix, feeling proud at how well she could manage that part of ride leadership. A dog behind a chain-link fence growled and chased them as far as his enclosure would allow. Sue told a story about how a friend of hers had been knocked off her bike by a loose dog and had broken her arm in two places, and Lou described breaking her ankle on the GAP trail between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Maryland, and how the ride leaders had portaged her off the trail and onto the road.
Finally, the route became a trail again, mile after mile of straight, flat riding, where you could pedal mindlessly and your thoughts would wander, whether you wanted them to or not.
The weather that day was not being their friend. The sky was cloudy, a scummy pale blue that looked like a piece of paper that had been scribbled on, then erased. The air felt hot and sticky, with a headwind that sent eddies of dust swirling over the road and into open mouths and unprotected eyes. The forecast had called for a chance of thunderstorms, but the rain never came, just humidity and gusts of gritty wind and the occasional far-off boom of thunder. The group’s average pace dropped below ten miles an hour, then below nine.
All of it fit Abby’s mood as she pedaled along, each mile passing more slowly than the one before. She was ashamed of herself for how short she’d been with Sebastian; how unprofessional. And then, after she’d sent him away, Mark had called. Instead of answering, Abby had let the call go to voicemail. Her thoughts were an angry churn, and even though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, she felt ashamed.
Eileen rode beside her for a while, shooting curious looks in her direction when she thought Abby didn’t notice. “Windy,” she observed.
“Not like Peloton, right?” Abby asked. She prepared for her mother to take offense, but Eileen just nodded.
“No wind, no flats, no kids on hoverboards. Just Britney Spears songs, and instructors telling you to pedal harder.”
“Are you doing all right?” Abby asked.
“I’m fine!” Eileen said, her tone excessively bright and cheerful. Abby wondered how much she’d picked up on what was going on with Sebastian, or whether she’d start reminding Abby about her as-yet-unsettled future, or casually asking if she’d made any decisions about renewing her lease. But Eileen, blessedly, kept quiet.
As she rode Abby was remembering how it had felt when she’d reunited with Mark, and how she’d thought that relationship would spell an end to all the questions that had plagued her since she’d left college… and that it had. Until it hadn’t.
She’d been working that week as a counselor for a camp run by her friend Gabriella, who was a librarian in Kensington, right in the middle of Philadelphia’s most notorious open-air drug market. Gabi spent her days planning programming, helping patrons with their tax forms or their job hunts or their Internet searches. She’d check out books, read stories to little kids, monitor the public computer terminals, and, occasionally, barge into the bathrooms or race to the park across the street to revive someone who’d overdosed on heroin or fentanyl. The Philadelphia Inquirer had done a story about the heroic librarians of Kensington, who’d become as proficient with Narcan as they were with the Dewey decimal system. Inevitably, a GoFundMe had been set up and donations had arrived, along with volunteers who came to the park each morning to remove needles from the dirt and the grass, and to direct drug users to local soup kitchens, counseling centers, and needle exchanges.
Gabi had used some of the money to launch Camp Kensington, so that kids who lived in the neighborhood would have something to do during vacations when school wasn’t in session. She’d recruited friends, including Abby, to work as counselors, and put out the call to a local hospital asking for doctors and dentists and nurses to volunteer.
Over spring break, at the end of March, Abby had been assigned to the littlest kids. That afternoon, it had been warm enough to be outside. Abby had set up a table in the park and been helping her campers twist colorful yarn around Popsicle sticks to make pendants, when she’d noticed the fourth-grade counselor shepherding a trio of girls across the street.
“We’re going to see the doctor,” the counselor said, giving Abby a wink. Twenty minutes later, Abby had seen the sixth-grade counselor making the same trek. “Troy is having an asthma attack,” the counselor said. This appeared to be news to Troy, whose inhaler was still in his back pocket, but they were across the street and gone before Abby could ask any questions. Then, less than an hour later, she’d seen the fourth-grade counselor going back with a new group of kids.
At lunchtime, Abby cornered her friend to ask what was happening.
“Go take a look at the doctor,” Gabi had said, smirking. “Then you’ll understand.”