In the Unlikely Event... (18 page)

Chase thought about it. She didn’t want to do it again. “I’ll consider begging off next time. I could donate the crepe paper.”

“Perhaps that’s a better solution. It sounds like your heart wasn’t in it.”

“I think you’re right.” Chase glanced at the clock. It was time.

“We’ll deal with your road issue next week. Remember: Change can be fun, and it is a known constant in the human condition.”

“So what you’re saying is that I better get used to it.”

“Precisely,” Dr. Robicheck said.

On the way out the door, the idea hit her. “You know this group-therapy-laugh thingamabob you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it would work on hormonally challenged lesbians?”

“Hormonally challenged?” Dr. Robicheck folded her fingers into themselves.

“Menopausals and left ovary only women.”

“Why do they need laugh therapy?”

“Because they need to relax and grasp the concept of humor. Lacey’s Institute needs you. Lesbians are not exactly the most humorous of people when you group them together in a compound. It’s positively frightening.” Chase refrained from telling her about the handcuffed-to-the-chair incident. She didn’t want to scare her off.

“Frightening, in what way?”

“They’re at war.”

“At war with what?”

“Each other. The Left Ovary women started it by saying that they didn’t feel like real women because they were no longer completely female, having only a left ovary.”

Dr. Robicheck nodded.

“So the menopausals got all twisted up because female identity should not be tied up to monthly menses.”

“That’s the war?”

“Yes.”

“I can fix that.”

“You can?” Chase was incredulous. “How?”

“For me to know and you to find out,” Dr. Robicheck said, in a wry imitation of a Valley girl. Moon Zappa would have been proud.

“Okay,” Chase said, clearly disconcerted.

“I’ll pencil you in,” Dr. Robicheck said, waggling her eyebrows up and down and affecting having a cigar using her pencil. Groucho Marx came to mind.

“That’s weird.”

“Get used to it,” Dr. Robicheck said.

Chase studied the design on the underside of the skateboard. It was a pterodactyl. She contemplated the symbolism. Was it indicative of her advanced age, as in being fossilized? The flying above the treetops could be a sign of aspiration. Or was it fleeing from an enemy?

“I picked it out because of its organic quality,” Bud said, adjusting her helmet strap.

“I’m not certain I agree with this,” Chase said, studying the elbow and kneepads that went along with the helmet—all necessary safety equipment, according to Bud.

“What’s not to agree with? Look at all the precautionary equipment,” Bud said, putting on the padded gloves.

“But should we be interested in a sport that requires so much safety equipment? What is going to potentially happen that requires most of my body to be encased in padding?” Chase inquired, as she double-knotted her new navy-blue-with-white-piping Van’s skateboarding shoes with no-slip soles.

“All the important stuff is padded in case of an emergency ejection.”

“Should we be doing something that requires bailing out?” Chase stared down the freshly blacktopped road, thinking that the county should really have used that red oxide-colored tint like the pavement in Zion National Park so that it wouldn’t clash with the natural environs.

“I think you need to explore new things,” Bud said. She stepped on the edge of her skateboard and flipped it upright.

Chase stared at her and narrowed her eyes. “You’ve done this before.”

Bud didn’t meet her gaze. “I always made sure to wear a helmet,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to risk brain damage. I knew that would really make you mad.”

“Getting brain damaged? Yes, it would, although I would get you the best medical care available.”

“I appreciate that. Besides, I only practiced tricks. I didn’t hurl myself down a hill or anything.”

Chase studied the grade of the road. Bud seemed to sense what she was thinking. “The skateboard doesn’t go as fast as you think, and we’ll start slow.”

“Don’t you think…,” Chase hated to admit this, “I’m a little too old for this?”

“Tony Hawk is in your age bracket.”

 “Who’s he?”

“Just the most amazing skater on the planet as well as a marketing genius and mentor for up-and-coming skaters. He even has his own clothing line.”

“You seem to know a lot about a sport you’re new to,” Chase said and then admonished herself. Bud knew everything about everything. She was worse than Addison in that respect. Bud, she was certain, knew the entire history of skateboarding.

Bud nodded. “It really started out with these kids in southern California who were originally surfers, but the waves were unpredictable, so they…”

Chase held up a hand. “I get the gist.”

“There’s a documentary called
Lords of Dogtown
which explains the history. They embraced their situation and ran, or rather, rolled with it.”

“We’ll watch it later if I need to learn more.”

Bud raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not sayin’ I’m not interested.”

“I have it on loan from the library for another week.”

“I’m thinking, as I’m sure you are, that after I do this I will either fall in love with skateboarding and want to watch the video, or I will never want to hear about skateboarding again.”

“I kept the receipts, but I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised,” Bud said and winked at her.

Has everyone gone weird? Her therapist kidded around and talked like a Valley girl and now her daughter had taken up winking.

Chase surveyed the skateboard. “What do I need to know?”

“Stance, position and weight distribution. Watch me.”

Chase mimicked Bud and put her right foot parallel to the skateboard.

“You’re going to push with your left foot, get the board going and step on, putting your arms out for balance.” Bud demonstrated.

“Be careful,” Chase called after her as she took off.

Bud didn’t go far, only about twenty yards. “See, I told you so. Try it.”

Chase pushed off and the board wobbled a little and then glided. At first, she panicked as the ground beneath her moved, but as she stepped off and gave herself another push she realized that she was only two inches off the ground. All she had to do was step off the board and she would stop. She watched as Bud made small side-to-side movements that made the board turn. Chase did the same. By the time they’d gotten to the bottom of the road, Chase was hooked. It was a worse addiction than her Mentos problem, which was under managed control. Her Mentos addiction was a crutch. Skateboarding was a blast. Chase glowed. She could even feel the glow—she was awash in what she knew was the brain chemical dopamine, the result of fear and exhilaration. It was like learning to use Phyllis Dildo—sex and skateboarding.

Bud glanced over at her and smiled with what Chase took to be trepidation. “Are you all right?”

“All right? I am fucking fantastic. Let’s do it again.”

After they’d gone up and down what they now referred to as the “Silk Road,” Chase had entered a state of bliss. The sky seemed bluer, the mountains more purple, the air fresher, the dying Indian paintbrush alongside the road more tragically poetic, and even the old codger up the road almost seemed benevolent as he crept slowly past them in his burgundy Jeep Liberty. For half a second, Chase’s hand wanted to reach out and grab the rear door handle and let Ralph E. Severson and his SUV pull her down the road. She’d seen kids do it in town and she’d been outraged at their complete disregard for personal safety and now here she was, moth-to-flame, wanting to do it herself. The only thing that stopped her was that Bud, who followed behind, would have seen her do it and disapproved.

After Ralph E. Severson and his tempting door handle passed by and turned on the county road, Bud said, “You weren’t going to…”

“Like those kids we’ve seen in town?” Chase said before she realized she’d indicted herself. She put her foot on the back of the board and flipped it up like she’d seen Bud do. “Of course not. It’s not safe.”

“Oh, good, because I thought for a minute there you were going to—”

Chase interjected. “I’m not like that.”

Bud backpedaled. “Of course you’re not.”

“Now can we do it one more time?” She couldn’t get enough. It was the thrill that drew her.

“Sure, and then I have to do my homework,” Bud said, picking up her board.

When Gitana got home, Chase was making angel hair pasta with marinara sauce and soy meatballs. She didn’t know how the vegetarian food scientists had done it, but they’d managed to make the stuff stick together into something that resembled a meatball.

Gitana pulled her Day-Timer from her work bag and then put it in the kitchen nook labeled “Gitana’s stuff.” She slumped in the chair at the kitchen island. Fall was a tough time for the nursery, Chase recalled. Corporate parties requiring centerpieces, the Food and Beverage Conference at the Expo Center, as well as Chase’s publisher, Eliza P. Newman, who sent her clients orchids at the slightest provocation, all kept the nursery hopping. Eliza’s clients generated even more orders from New York as buyers insisted on purchasing “the Gitana orchids.” They drew out the syllables of Gitana’s name from its customary three to the Eastern linguistic proclivity of nine so that Gitana’s name seemed to stretch across the state of Rhode Island. These sales were a boon for the nursery, but the packing was a nightmare.

“How are you holding up?” Chase asked.

Gitana rubbed her temples. “As best I can. Did you know that China recycles Great Britain’s cardboard and turns it back into cardboard?”

“No, I did not know that.” She rolled over toward the stove and stirred the sauce.

“This cardboard is essentially reconstituted, which is not as strong or durable and does not qualify for a weight allotment like the stuff produced here.”

“Cardboard sounds a lot more complicated than I was aware,” Chase said, rolling over to the fridge and pulling out a Gatorade for herself and a Dasani for Gitana.

Gitana took a sip and then continued her diatribe while Chase washed and dried the mixed greens. She was proud of them as they were the first salad greens to come out of the small greenhouse she’d constructed over the summer. She wanted to have fresh salad stuff into the fall and winter if possible. Chase was still ruminating on what else she could grow when Gitana thumped the kitchen counter as if calling court into session.

“And you know what the fucking stupid idiot said? She said cardboard is cardboard and if I don’t think it’s strong enough, double it up, honey. If I could have crawled through the fiber optic network to her desk I would have throttled her.”

Chase stared at her.

“What?” Gitana said.

“You never talk like that.”

“Well, it was bound to happen one day or another. That’s what going big will do. Look at you. You turn psychotic when you have to become Shelby McCall. Sometimes I don’t even recognize you when you go into that mode.”

“Really? Am I that bad?” Chase angled up on her skateboard. It was if the skateboard had become part of her and this was her new thinking posture. Perhaps Gitana was right. She did adopt certain mannerisms as Shelby McCall. Shelby was far more confident than Chase. Shelby was pushy when she didn’t get her way, and if you pissed her off, she exhibited unrestrained petulance. Shelby McCall was a bitch.

“Chase?”

“Yes?”

“Are you standing on something? You look taller.”

“I’m learning a new sport and I need to practice weight and balance distribution.”

Gitana came around the kitchen island and peered down at the skateboard with what the Asberger card labeled as “anger.” She narrowed her eyes and said, “Do you know how dangerous skateboards are?”