He kept riding: beyond the school’s front entrance was Bayfront Park, where they ran the mile in PE, although Tristan himself had been spared this particular horror by virtue of weak knees and an indomitable mother. He’d spent hours on the splintered park bench, filling out worksheets on the rules of basketball or the tenets of weightlifting as he watched Calista Broderick cheat the course, disappearing into the willow trees with Ryan Harbinger. Ryan, who had made it his mission to prove that Tristan was unfit for this world. Calista, the girl with the magical name, an alien-princess name, and a distant look that sometimes crossed her imperfectly pretty face; Calista, the girl who he had sensed, or hoped, was like himself—with that Ryan-Abigail group but not of them—although he now saw how absurd that hope had been.
The air grew colder and damp as Tristan drew nearer the water. With no helmet, he felt the moist breezes whip over his scalp. He liked it. He steered onto the bike path that cut through Bothin Marsh. Before him stretched an expanse of green brush that turned to reddish reeds, and the water shone like mirrored glass. There were the echoing shrieks of gulls, the honks of pelicans. White egrets balanced on thin black legs among the reeds, stretched serpentine necks to watch him as he passed. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the teal rise of Mount Tamalpais, its profile the body of the mythic Sleeping Lady, its shoulders shrouded in gently shifting fog, and the valley nestled beneath it. He could appreciate the beauty of this place now, without a hint of pain or sadness, because in his mind he had already done it: he had already made the decision. This was why he’d slept so soundly the night before, why he’d woken determined and hopeful. For the first time in a long time, he’d felt power in his muscles and focus in his mind, had felt compelled to climb onto that bike and ride.
He pedaled on. The bike path circled wide and slid under the Richardson Bay Bridge, a flat, unspectacular span that stretched over the water on concrete grates. On the other side, he took the road to Sausalito. As cars paraded by, he kept to the path between the water and the road. At a stoplight a woman in a pearl Mercedes looked out and glared at him, and for a moment he feared he would be stopped, found out—but then she tapped her head and shook her finger at him, and he remembered about his helmet. He shrugged. The light turned, and the car pulled ahead.
He biked on. This was farther than he had ridden possibly ever, and his bottom was sore on the hard, hook-nosed seat and his legs were growing tired. The sun was burning through the fog, and even without the oppressive squeeze of helmet, his head was hot and wet, salty sweat dripping down his temples and eye sockets and into his eyes and mouth. He squeezed the rubber handlebars for strength. Passed apartments that crouched on stilts over the water. Finally, parched and heaving, he saw the Golden Gate Market and slowed, craving the sweet ice of a cherry-cola Slurpee on his tongue. But his pockets were empty.
He rode on. The road began to wind uphill. To the left was a battered metal guardrail and to the right were houses, so many houses, crowded as teeth, fighting for a view of that water. Tristan’s lungs tightened, his heart beat a galloping rhythm in his chest as the road slanted upward, and he was forced to slide off his bike and walk, leaning on the handlebars, the rubber hot now and slippery with sweat, to push the weight of both himself and the bike up the terrible slope. The pavement rolled beneath his wheel, glittering with glass and drifted garbage, debris of accidents already forgotten. To keep himself going, he tried a series of distractions. He thought of all the U.S. presidents in order. The prime numbers, starting with two. The times tables. The countries of Africa. Then Europe. The wars. The wiggle of shapes on the maps in his history textbook, with dark arrows of armies moving back and forth across.
An hour had passed and he was almost there. He got back on the bike and rode into the yellow-grassed hills. At a fork in the road he veered right. A green road sign pointed him forward: SAN FRANCISCO. When, finally, he reached Highway 101, the cars and buses blew by him in a noisome, furious rush. It was 7:45 a.m., and the working parents of Mill Valley were on their way to offices downtown. His mother, too, must be awake by now.
Turning to his left, he saw the red-orange spires of the Golden Gate Bridge, like masts of an enormous ship, like skyscrapers of an alien nation, like ladders to the sky. His heart beat frantically in his ears. Yet for the first time in a long time, he felt like he could breathe.
He got on his bike and skimmed along the path that sloped downward to the bridge. On the left side was the pathway for pedestrians, a narrow lane guarded by rust-colored bars to the height of his shoulders. He stepped off his bike and leaned it against the rail, not bothering to lock it. It was early yet for tourists, but there were some: mothers gazing over the water with sundresses whipped around their knees; fathers hiding behind large, expensive-looking cameras; kids running back and forth between their parents’ legs, or trying to poke their small faces between the bars of the guardrail and failing.
You had to go over, that was the thing.
Tristan knew this because he had studied. He’d learned everything there was to learn about the Golden Gate. For example:
The bridge was 8,981 feet long.
Until 1965 it had boasted the longest main span of any suspension bridge in the world, at 4,200 feet.
It was made of concrete and steel and painted a color called International Orange, which enhanced its visibility in fog.