The Breakaway(19)

There were none.

“Okay!” Abby said. “Real quick, before we go. Does everyone have a spare tube, in case of flats? How about tire irons? You should have at least three.” Abby made her way from rider to rider. Everyone was good, except the Bros, who had two tire irons and a single tube between them.

“Let me grab you another tube,” Abby said.

“We’ll be fine,” said Sebastian. Abby allowed herself another look at his broad, high cheekbones, a widow’s peak, and coppery highlights in that on-purpose-swoopy brown hair.

“Do you know how to change a flat?” Abby asked him.

Sebastian looked amused. “Yes, Abby, I know how to change a flat.”

Abby opened her mouth. To say what, she wasn’t sure—Good for you, or Glad to hear it, or, I remember you were good with your hands, or even, Please don’t say my name like that, I can’t stand it—when someone called, “Abby!”

She turned and saw a petite middle-aged woman with a let-me-speak-to-the-manager haircut wheeling a brand-new bike toward the group. “Hi, honey. Sorry I’m late.”

And Abby Stern, who’d just been thinking that things were already awkward, stared at Eileen Stern Fenske, her mother, and realized that the Universe could always find a way to make them worse.



* * *



After she’d gotten the riders onto the path and heading in the right direction; after she’d checked in on every single one of them as they pedaled the first miles, when she couldn’t avoid it any longer, Abby slowed down and waited for her mom to catch up.

“Mother,” Abby said, matching pedal strokes with Eileen until their bikes were side by side, waiting to see if her mother would explain herself. After a few minutes, it was clear that Eileen would not, so Abby made herself ask. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m spending time with my daughter,” Eileen said, her voice calm, her face serene. Although maybe that was the fillers, Abby thought. Maybe it was no longer physically possible for her mother to look irritated, or tired, or pissed, or anything other than pleasant. “I’m a delightful surprise,” Eileen said airily.

“Well, you’re definitely a surprise,” Abby muttered.

“I heard that,” said Eileen, still unruffled. “It’s fine. We’re going to have fun! I’ll get to see you in your element!”

Abby examined the remark from all angles, looking for implied criticism, then shook her head. Be the bigger person, she told herself. No pun intended. Maybe Eileen was being sincere; making a real (although belated) effort to get to know her daughter on Abby’s turf and Abby’s terms. She’d purchased a nonstationary bike, and the right clothes: terry cycling shorts, a hot-pink sleeveless jersey with three stretchy pockets in the back, padded gloves, and clip-in cycling shoes.

“Lizzie took me shopping,” she said, to Abby’s unasked question. So Lizzie was in on this, too? Abby made a mental note to have a full and frank conversation with her best friend at the earliest opportunity. “Don’t be mad at her. I swore her to secrecy,” Eileen continued. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“And you certainly have.” Eileen was trying, she thought again. True, Eileen’s hair was probably freshly blown out beneath the helmet, and yes, she was wearing a full face of makeup, and she’d clearly found time to have her legs waxed and her nails done, but she was here. On a bike. On the road. With Abby.

Which didn’t mean that Eileen was prepared for what was coming.

“Have you done any training, at all?” Abby asked her mother. “When was the last time you were on a bike?” Eileen opened her mouth. “An actual bike. Not a Peloton,” Abby said. Eileen shut her mouth and sniffed, looking affronted.

“I do the hour-long rides three days a week,” said Eileen. “The advanced ones. It’s not nothing.”

“No, but it’s not the same as riding a bike outside,” Abby said. “Where your bike’s actually moving, and you have to balance, and there’s bumps, and potholes, and dirt paths, and other people—”

“I’ll be fine,” Eileen said, nimbly steering around a bike messenger with a giant padded backpack to prove it. “You know what they say. It’s just like riding a bike.” She pointed her chin toward Lily Mackenzie, who was wobbling along ten yards in front of them. “I’m already doing better than she is.”

“Mom—” At least I came by my propensity for judgment honestly, Abby thought.

“I’m not here to cause you any trouble,” Eileen said. “I just thought it would be nice for us to be together.”

“Why?” Abby blurted.

“Because I’m sixty-three,” said Eileen. Abby waited, wondering if that was supposed to mean something. Eileen looked at her and shook her head. “You probably don’t remember. But my mother was sixty-three when she died.”

“Ah.” Abby could barely remember her grandmother Rina. Her mother’s mother had died when Abby had been six.

“And I really do want to spend some time with you, doing something that you love,” Eileen continued. She had her eyes on the path, not on Abby, when she said, “I understand I didn’t always make the right choices about your summers.”

Was that an apology? Abby wondered. She and her mother hadn’t talked about Camp Golden Hills in years. When Eileen didn’t say anything else, Abby decided that maybe even a vaguely worded acknowledgment was better than nothing. And, quite possibly, the best she could expect.