Latitude Zero (7 page)

12

SOON AFTER
my friends left, my dad came home from his retreat. After he and my mom talked in hushed voices in the kitchen, he called a family meeting in the living room, where he handed me a legal pad. “Here. Draw everything you remember about the crash scene, while it’s fresh in your mind,” he said. “We should be prepared for all possible outcomes.”

I sighed. Possible outcomes and worst-case scenarios were a popular topic in our house. My parents always tried to help me steer clear of anything that could hurt my chances of getting into a good college and having a perfect and successful life.

“Possible outcomes? What are you getting at, Randall?” my mom asked, evidently thinking along similar lines.

“Police may want to question Tessa as part of the crash scene investigation.”

My stomach lurched. Police? Investigation?
No, no, no, no
. I’d wanted police to look in the woods and stop a
bike theft
. I didn’t want them looking for the cause of a crash: me. Jake’s words haunted me. If I reported the bike in the woods now, the police might start wondering what I was doing on the route, so close to Juan Carlos when he went down. They’d ask more questions. I’d have to explain the unsafe merge. The leeched paceline. The reckless pullout. I was pretty sure I’d broken no laws, but maybe I could get in serious trouble for negligent riding.

I should tell my parents the truth. Especially my dad. He practiced environmental law, but still he’d know what to do. But what they thought I’d done today—sneaking off with my boyfriend, riding for charity without raising money—was bad enough. My dad had already had one heart attack and bypass surgery. The death of his father and his grandfather at age sixty weighed on his mind; my dad had turned sixty last month. Even my mom suddenly looked older: silver glinting through her brown hair, shadows under her eyes.

I couldn’t let them down or make them worry anymore.

“Tessa?” my dad prompted gently. I took the pen and paper. I sketched a basic diagram of the crash site. I added the
SLOW DEAF CHILD
sign, and the downhill curve on the map. I made sure to put me, crashing, behind a downed paceline.

“It all happened so fast,” I explained. “The road was wet. Other riders went down. I couldn’t stop in time. People were swerving all over the road.”

“Rider errors are inherent risks of this or any sport.” My dad pressed his fingertips together. “And Chain Reaction is a reputable organization. But maybe parts of the course were not well maintained.”

“That’s true,” I said, even though I couldn’t recall obvious road hazards, other than the rain-dampened asphalt. No sand patches, no stray rocks. The road was newly paved.

“We’ll want to have you checked out by Dr. Ellis tomorrow,” my dad went on. He scrawled notes on a legal pad. “If Dr. Ellis thinks you have any lingering issues, we can discuss possible next steps.”

I swallowed. Would my dad sue Chain Reaction? Then I’d have to retell this story and relive this day, and drag Jake into all of it. I’d be back on his emotional roller coaster. I wished I’d never gotten on a bike that morning.

“What happened to Jake out there anyway?” my dad asked, as if reading my mind. He lowered his glasses to look over the rims at me. “Your mother said he roped you in to this crazy stunt.”

“Which is completely bizarre to me, by the way, since you told us you guys were through,” my mom chimed in. “You’ve been sneaking around seeing him? That is just not okay.”

I picked a thread on a sofa cushion. “He didn’t make me do the ride. He mentioned it’d be fun to do together, and I chose to go. Okay? I
chose
. And he got way ahead of me. I don’t even think he knows that I crashed.”

My parents exchanged a look, confirming their suspicions: Jake was a champion asshole.

“Fine. I did lie to you guys about breaking up with Jake,” I said, “and I’m sorry about that. But I didn’t think you had the right to tell me to break up with him. It’s my life.”

“We were worried.
Are
worried,” my mom corrected. “I mean, he was accused of doping! Someone like you—a media personality, a role model—you can’t be dating a doper.”

“It wasn’t a doping charge, Mom. It was possession. And he’s—oh, forget it.”

My mom sighed. “Jake may be a great, fast bike rider, but honey, he’s going nowhere. I always thought he had character flaws, and now I really see it.”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” I got it. I couldn’t be with a guy who’d drop me on a ride, and I was sick of him jerking my emotions around. I just didn’t want my mom to think she was the one who convinced me.

My mom smiled sadly. “Maybe the silver lining of this whole incident is that you’ll get some clarity from it. I’m sure you’ll go on to make good decisions, like you usually do.”

“You mean like
you
usually do.” The words flew out on their own. “Don’t you guys make all my good decisions? What classes and extracurriculars to take? How to budget every second of my time?”

“Tessa. That’s enough,” said my dad. “What your mother’s trying to say is, you’re our only child, and we want the best for you.”

“I thought you wanted me to open my eyes to people’s struggles. You’ve been pounding that into my head since I was in preschool, and you made me give my birthday presents to a charity of my choice.”

“Yes, of course. We think having a social conscience, and awareness of inequalities, is very important,” said my dad. “But we don’t want
you
to struggle. It isn’t necessary. Your mother and I have worked hard to help you avoid just that.”

“Yeah, but I’m just so tired of—oh, forget it.” I sighed. “Can I go to my room now?”

“That sounds like an excellent decision,” my mom said in a clipped voice. “Then later we’ll talk about consequences.”

“Consequences?”

“Of riding in a charity event without raising any money.”

“Awesome. I cannot wait.” I stood up, with some difficulty.

“One more question,” my dad said. “Did you hear about the downed Team EcuaBar cyclist?”

I felt a weird rushing sound in my ears. “Yeah.”

My dad gave me a long look. “Did you know him?”

“Not really. I mean, sort of. I’d met him a few times. At Jake’s races. They rode on the junior team together.”

“I thought his name sounded familiar. Were you anywhere near him when he went down?”

I hesitated, then shook my head.

“Good. Promise me,” he said, “if the police contact you with questions about the ride, don’t answer without me or your mother there.”

“Okay. But why not?”

“You were with Jake. Jake’s got a rap sheet now, and I just think we should be careful. I’d like to keep you far away from this investigation, with college applications on the line.”

College applications! I wanted to throw something. It was summer. I’d just caused a huge pileup at a bike event. I didn’t care about college right now.

“Oh, Randall. This all sounds a bit extreme, don’t you think?” said my mom.

“It’s not extreme. When there’s a fatal accident, an investigation follows. Anything out of the ordinary will be looked at. Tessa and Jake bandit riding? That could attract attention.”

“Wait. Fatal accident?” said my mom. “Aren’t we being prematurely catastrophic?”

My dad looked from my mom to me. “You mean, you two don’t know? Isn’t the news always on in this house?”

“Your daughter was overdosing on it. I enforced a media break.”

The room was swaying. “Dad,” I said. “
What happened?
”

“Oh, honey.” My dad crossed the room and came over to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “The doctors couldn’t revive him. He . . . he died.”

My mom’s hands flew to her mouth.

I snatched the remote from the coffee table and turned on GBCN. The reporter was now in front of Mass General.
BREAKING NEWS: CYCLING TRAG
EDY
ran across the bottom of the screen, in red, like pooling blood.

13

I WOKE
the next morning twisted in my sheets, my eyes salted with dried tears. All night I’d had crazy dreams of looking for Juan Carlos after the race. I was pushing through crowds, calling his name, seeing the back of his jersey but never his face. As I pushed, the green rain forest vines shown on the cycling outfit started to grow around my feet, pulling on my legs and tripping me.

Now I sat up and gazed at a box of Tres Leches EcuaBars I kept on my desk for late-night study snacks.

Juan Carlos was dead.

Never again would I see him fly down the road on his bike.

Never again would I see him pray before a race. Or bump into him after to offer congratulations. Or shoot the breeze—in Spanish, so I could practice—about school or movies or
KidVision
or bikes.

And I would go the rest of my life without knowing what Juan Carlos Macias-Léon wanted to talk to me about so urgently.

I swung my legs out of bed and felt a weird pain in my chest. Then I looked down and realized what it was. I’d fallen asleep with that crucifix necklace, turned the wrong way against my chest, and it had left marks in my skin. I adjusted it and promised myself not to fall asleep with it on again. Much as I wanted to wear it forever, close to my heart, it was too awkward and painful to sleep with it on at night.

How did he race with this thing on anyway? Wouldn’t it fly up and hit his face, or bang against him if he unzipped his cycling jersey, as most of the cyclists did to cool off?

I swallowed hard as another reality hit me. Now I would never get the chance to return the necklace to him.

I reached for my laptop at the foot of my bed. I’d finally fallen asleep last night after hours of crying alternating with chasing Juan Carlos—online anyway. I’d watched race videos, where he seemed very much alive. I’d viewed shots from his most recent races. Astonishing breakaways. Stunning wins. In each case, he overtook competitors at the last minute, passing them on hills and flying over the finish line. His sudden speed seemed to come out of nowhere. I could hear the crescendo of spectators’ cheers every time he flew by. Sports commentators said he raced with an ease and confidence far beyond his years, and was proving himself to be, potentially, as great a climber as the young Colombian cycling star Nairo Quintana.

I’d left off my tearful viewing last night with an archived
KidVision
video. It was the story we’d done on the EcuaBar junior development team last summer.

I took a deep breath and fast-forwarded to the end of the segment, where I’d introduced Juan Carlos as the hotshot rider recruited from Ecuador who shared the team’s mission of community service. Off-camera, before the shoot, Juan Carlos had been nervous, I now remembered. I’d told him—in Spanish—to talk directly to the kids.

“I can talk to kids,” he’d said, flashing me a grateful smile. The camera rolled, and when he spoke, he looked straight into it and relaxed. “
¡Hola,
KidVision!
¿Cómo están?
Me llamo Juan Carlos, y soy de Ecuador
. In my home city, Quito, I worked with an advocacy group. This group is called Vuelta. We work hard to make the streets safe for bikes. We also teach kids how to ride and we have a racing club. I hope to continue this work in some ways, now I am here to Boston.”

He’d traveled so far to change his life. Not to end it. What was the point of coming all the way to New England to develop his racing career, only to wind up at eighteen in a hospital morgue? What good was it to fight to make public streets safe for biking if he couldn’t survive a crash on a controlled route for a charity race?

I toggled over to Juan Carlos’s fan page, which swelled with comments and condolences.

Mi más sentido pésame.

You were a shining inspiration to others.
Vaya con Dios, el Cóndor.

Condolencias a la familia y los compañeros del equipo.

My hands hovered over the keyboard. Then fell to my lap. What could I possibly say? He was gone. He wouldn’t be reading this page. Words wouldn’t undo anything.

I managed to get dressed, despite my awkward wound dressings, and limped down to the kitchen, where I found ibuprofen and a note on the table.

Your dad had a client to visit this morning. We’re seeing Dr. Ellis at ten. Please be ready to go by 9:40 and let me know if you need help. I’m in the studio. xoxo mom.

I took the ibuprofen and brewed coffee. I peeled a banana. I focused on the positives. It was a new day. The rest of the summer sprawled out before me. I had not been killed or seriously injured in a bike crash.

I switched on the TV and flicked through channels as I ate, lingering on the Spanish station. I closed my eyes, just listening to Spanish pouring over my head like water. Commercials for cars, cleaning products, and cereal. Urgent pleas to call now and take advantage of limited offers.
¡Llame ahora mismo!
I kept listening for words Juan Carlos had used, or voices that sounded remotely like his, trying to feel closer to him or bring him to life just by listening to his native language on a TV station he might have turned on every day.

The banana was tasteless, mushy. I almost gagged. I looked down and saw it was almost black inside, rotting from the inside out. The sticker on the peel said
FAIR TRADE
BANANAS. PRODUCT OF E
CUADOR.
Everything reminded me of another product of Ecuador, Juan Carlos Macias-León. El Cóndor, the great bird. Downed. All because of me. I threw the banana away.

I slipped on my flip-flops and limped out the back door. I paused at the addition on our Victorian house, and the
KATHERINE
TAYLOR PHOTOGRAPHY
sign on the door. My mom was talking to a guy around my age who was standing in the doorway, probably picking up his graduation portrait package. Sure that I looked as putrid as I felt, I snuck past them and padded onward, across the driveway.

I lifted the garage door open awkwardly with my left arm and limped inside. Shadows clung to spiderwebs in the overcast morning gloom. I quickly switched on a light.

The first thing I saw was my busted bike leaning against the wall next to my mom’s Lexus. I wheeled it outside. The spoke repairs were beyond me. The wheel needed truing, too. I didn’t know how to true a wheel.

I put one leg, my good leg, over the bike frame, testing myself. I hoisted myself onto the seat. My eyes swam. The ground felt like it was rising to meet me. I quickly dismounted, breathing hard. In an instant, the full horror of the crash had returned. The scrapes, the whines, the frantic cries of “Riders down!”—it all came back again. And the news report on Juan Carlos’s death. I shivered. Who ever came up with the crazy idea of riding at high speeds on skinny tires and pieces of metal? This wasn’t a harmless sport. It was lethal.

I pushed the bike back into the garage and let it fall against the wall.

Then I noticed something strange.

The back door to the garage, which led out to a small storage area for our back yard, seemed to be cracked open an inch. We never opened that door. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen it open at all. I walked to the door and pushed on it. It swung wide with a creak.

I inspected the old lock on the outside. There were scratch marks around it, as if a sharp object had been used to pick the lock.

I scanned the garage. My dad’s tools looked intact. The leaf blower and lawn mower were there. The kayak still hung from the ceiling. Big-ticket items, all worth stealing, all left undisturbed.

I shivered. Someone had broken into our garage.