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“Aiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!” There is giggling and there is clapping and there are lumbering leaps of joy as I dance around the sweltering garage, while yips of glee squirt out of me, forming nonsensical utterances.

“If I’d known you’d have this reaction, I’d have given in sooner,” Fletch admits. “Now, why don’t you take her for a spin?”

I pull Big Red out of the garage and onto the blacktop. (Naturally a craft this fine deserves a name.) Like an Alaskan pilot inspecting a seaplane for her maiden voyage across the Bering Strait, I scrutinize every inch and seam, running my hands over her sparkly paint job and squeezing the handbrakes until I’m satisfied that she is, indeed, ready for flight.

I swing my right leg through the opening and place my foot on the pedal and then pull myself up onto the seat, which is cushiony as a cloud and generously proportioned even for those of us with the most ample posteriors.

Then I have a mental picture of how I must look.

“Do you suddenly have Queen lyrics in your head?” I ask Fletch.

“I’m not dignifying that with a response,” he replies, even though I’m fairly sure Internet trolls would be sure to comment on how I make this rockin’ world go ’round.

As I get my bearings, I note that I’m able to sit up straight, so I can focus on what’s in front of me, rather than staring at the ground beneath me. And I love how the whole thing is balanced, even as I sit completely still. Big Red feels solid and sturdy, ready to stand up against anything Across the Street Kent could throw at me.

“Are you just going to sit there?” Fletch asks.

“No, sir,” I say. “I’m going to ride.”

(Sidebar: As I type the above sentence, my iMac changes my word choice to “I’m going to die.” And
that
is what you call foreshadowing.)

8.

W
E
B
E
R
OLLIN’

You know that old adage about how you never forget how to ride a bike?

Lies.

Damn lies.

Somehow I thought the three wheels would make for a smooth ride, and I’m sure to an extent they do, but the last time I owned a bike, I weighed eighty-five pounds, which was a lot easier to balance and control. Plus, back then I wasn’t desperately afraid of falling off and splatting on the ground like a cartoon coyote after an unfortunate incident with an anvil.

I pedal down the driveway with great hesitation and I’m deeply dismayed by how placing even a tiny bit of inconsistent pressure on the handlebars makes this thing veer all over the place. If I were on the road, I’d be pulled over for suspicion of operating under the influence. On my way back up the drive, I careen off the pavement twice and once into a small oak tree that never stood a chance.

I take another spin toward the mailbox and this time I actually fall off, scraping the bejesus out of my knee. How did this
happen? How can this be? This is like falling off a golf cart or small tram. My God, what if I biff and chip my stupid veneers? I don’t even want to imagine that.

I figure I’ll improve with practice, so I take a third trip down the driveway, followed by a fourth, fifth, and sixth. Down seems to be the operative word. I can’t seem to master the turns and each time I try, I begin to list dangerously to the side.

Now that I’ve fallen off, I’m spooked, so I’m riding even more tentatively and each trip is an exercise in dread. If this driveway is any indication, I fear I’m going to seriously injure myself when I ride on the road. Would it be weird to not only wear a helmet, but also a mouth guard, elbow protectors, and kneepads? Maybe some soccer shin-guards for good measure?

I try and try for the next thirty minutes, assuming at some point my instincts will kick in and I can relax, but they don’t so I can’t. Why is this so challenging? Bike riding is a basic skill that can be mastered by your average elementary school student. Aren’t I smarter than a fifth grader?

So far, no, not in this instance.

After my third major fall and my sixth slaughtered sapling without ever actually having left the driveway, I call it quits and I slowly wheel Big Red back into the garage.

In my life, I have a tendency to pursue only that which I might have a talent for doing. So, sometimes it may look like I’m unfairly successful (aka the Facebook effect) but it’s only because I’ve already eliminated ninety-nine percent of the activities at which I’d fail. I feel deep-seated terror over being embarrassed by poor performance, which is why there are so many things I’ve never even tried. Couple that with the Things I Don’t Want to Do Until I’m Thinner (come on, you know you have them too) like taking horseback riding lessons or learning to tap-dance, and suddenly the options that are open to me in my universe can feel limited.

I thought this bike thing would be a fine, tangible way to push
my boundaries, but right now, I’m defeated. And how is it that in pursuing this bucket list item, which is all about thumbing my nose at my impending mortality, I actually feel older and more useless?

Fletch is in the kitchen making a sandwich when I enter the house.

“How’d it go, Lance Armstrong?” he asks.

Do I tell him that I’m an abject failure at bike riding and that purchasing a three-wheeled bike—I mean,
tricycle
—was a huge mistake? Do I admit that he’s been right all these years and that buying this thing was a terrible idea? Do I say we need to disassemble and return this thing in order to take advantage of Amazon’s generous return policy?

“Ready for the Tour de France, bro,” I reply with all sorts of false bravado.

I’m going to keep my internal struggle quiet.

For now.

•   •   •

“Hey, Jen, feel like going for a ride later?”

“Can’t. Conference call.”

•   •   •

“I’m thinking about taking my bike out—want to come?”

“Wish I could, but I’m in the middle of this chapter and I can’t walk away right now.”

•   •   •

“Want to pedal over to Starbucks for an iced coffee?”

“Oh, no, I just made myself a latte.”

•   •   •

“Are you ever going to ride your new bike?”

“Of course!”

Eventually.

•   •   •

I’m outside watering the plants when I sense that something is amiss in the force. “Ham? Libby? Come here, girls.” We’ve been keeping
an extra close watch on them when we’re outside, but I got distracted slaying the Japanese beetles eating my Peace roses (how’s that for ironic, Alanis?) and took my eyes off them for a minute.

I call them again, waiting for them to dash up to me, but the yard is eerily silent.

“Guys? Come here. Hammy, Libby, come to your mumma.”

They don’t materialize, so I call a little louder, dropping the hose and heading over to the side of the house. They’re nowhere to be seen. I hurry inside.

“Fletch, did you let the girls in?”

“No, I thought they were outside with you.”

“They’re gone again! Damn it!”

We live on a busy street, not far from the highway, and I can’t help imagining the Ding-a-ling Sisters blithely chasing each other into traffic. I grab my phone, instructing Fletch to head east while I search west. I chug along maybe fifty feet before I realize that I’m ill-equipped for running for a variety of shame-inducing reasons, hampered even more by my flip-flops and bathing suit. (I did have the foresight to pull on some cutoff sweatpants, but, still.)

I need to cover ground quickly because Hambone’s the fastest dog I’ve ever seen and she’s still such a baby that she’ll really panic if she somehow loses her Libby. But I can’t take the car because I won’t be able to hear their collars jingling. And we’ve already determined that running is not an option.

Without even thinking about it, I dash back to the garage and hop on my bike. I tear down the driveway, completely forgetting that I’m old and unstable and that my bike scares the pants off of me.

I just ride.

Fueled by adrenaline, I’m steady and quick, decades of muscle memory finally kicking in, because I’m more focused on the dogs’ safety than my own. I’ve always heard stories about moms lifting cars off their babies, so perhaps this is my equivalent.

As I speed down the street on the way to the forest preserve, it barely registers that all it took to succeed was to stop listening to my internal critic and to just start doing.

Perhaps I can apply this concept to the rest of my life, as well, after I find the girls, of course.

I speed along, calling out their names, but there’s no sign of them.

I’m about a mile away from the house when my phone rings. It’s Fletch telling me that the dogs have emerged from the woods, panting and grinning their massive pit bull smiles, so pleased to have taken themselves on yet another adventure.

So I turn around and head for home, now conscious of being on the bike. I can feel myself growing anxious again, but I fight it, instead concentrating on how exhilarating it was to be unafraid of the consequences of letting go.

I can’t stress this enough: I have to learn to apply this concept.

I pull into the driveway, where Fletch is luring the girls into the house. He seems surprised to see me on my bike.

He closes the door behind the bullies and then follows me into the garage. “You finally rode your tricycle.”

Indeed, I finally did.

•   •   •

I put away my bike and head inside. Then I clip the girls to their leashes and take them out to the backyard, while Fletch circles around to the front. I watch as they make a beeline for the space under the house that’s blocked with stakes and a forsythia bush. The stakes came unanchored over the winter, so the girls must have recently discovered they could nudge them aside and barrel
through the branches to go straight to Narnia. They don’t expect Fletch to be standing there, waiting to grab their leashes on the other side, but, really, they view seeing him as rather serendipitous and thump their tails. He immediately finds supplies to enclose the whole area, much to their profound disappointment.

After that day, Fletch and I begin to regularly ride our bikes on the trails by our house. Every time we take a spin, I notice how much slower I am than him, even though I’m working my hardest. I have to pedal three full revolutions to travel as far as he can on one.

“Is it possible this bike is malfunctioning? Do I need air in my tires? I can’t seem to really ‘cruise,’” I say, when we’re putting them away after a frustrating ride to Lake Bluff.

“That’s because your tricycle weighs a thousand pounds. Have you not noticed how heavy it is? Here, lift this.” He motions to his bike and I pick it up. Although it appears really solid, it’s amazingly lightweight. “Now try yours.”

I can’t even get the damned thing off the ground.

“The weight creates drag. If you had a two-wheeled bike, you’d be faster.”

I choose not to entertain this possibility. “What if I got a sheepskin cover for my bike seat? It’s relatively comfortable now, but I still can’t go more than seven or eight miles without wanting to cry because my booty hurts.”

“That’s why you get padded bicycle shorts,” he replies.

“You’re suggesting I wear skintight Lycra with extra cushion built in around the buttocks? In public? Not in this lifetime.”

We make a plan to swing by the bike shop to look at squashy covers, although Fletch insists they don’t carry them, while I argue that I’m sure they do.

We have brunch with our friends Gina and Lee and on our way home—after hitting Starbucks, of course—we stop into a
high-tech bike store one town over. A short white kid greets us while we peruse the accessories section. Fletch and I immediately confer, agreeing he looks almost exactly like Spike Lee’s character in those awesome old Michael Jordan Nike commercials. It’s all I can do to not say, “Money, it’s gotta be the shoes,” back to him. However, I decide to err on the side of not sounding like a jackass, especially with a reference that so dates me.

We scan the aisles, but I don’t really see what I’m looking for. Everything here seems more geared toward performance biking. I don’t need Pearl Izumi sun sleeves or Shimano road pedals or packets of GU energy gel supplements. Really, I could probably get by with a folded towel.