The Men of CLE-FD updated (11 page)

Regan folded her arms across her chest.  “Oh, yes I am.  Go wash your hands because we are heading to the mall, my friend.”

*****

The phone buzzing stirred Regan from an uncomfortable sleep.  Her hand fumbled across the coffee table in search of the annoying noise.  Rolling on her side, her back ached from sleeping on the hard sofa.  She clicked on the phone rubbing sleep from her eyes.  “Hello,” she answered groggily.

“
Good morning!  Are you up for a little adventure?”
 

Regan looked at the phone number glowing on her phone; it was Orlando spreading sunshine before the sun was up on a Sunday morning.  “It’s 4:00am, Orlando.  Why are you up and sounding so dang merry this early?”

“
I’m up at my normal hour on my days off.  Are you going to answer my question?
”

She needed a drink of water to clear the cobwebs from her throat.  Dragging her body off the sofa the stiffness in her back from sleeping one position all night deepened.  She couldn’t wait for Anthony to go to work so she could sleep in her bed again.  “What kind of adventure are you proposing?”  She asked going to the fridge for a bottle of water.  She sat at the table fighting to keep her heavy eyelids open.

“
I wanna take you bike riding.”
 

She almost spit water across the table.  “What?  You mean like on a real bike?”

“
Yeah, is there any other kind of bike?”
 

“Orlando, I have not ridden an actual bike in years.  The only bike I’ve ridden lately is a stationary one for spinning class.”

“
Get dressed.  I’ll be to get you in thirty minutes.”
 

“Orlando…”

“
Wait, do I hear bellyaching from the woman who professes to be able to do anything?”
 

A smile broke across her face.  He’d remembered what she’d said which meant he listened to her when she talked.  That fascinated her since Mark tuned her out every chance he got.  He never took sympathy or consoled her when she received rejection letters from jobs she’d applied for.  He would only nod his head and tend to his own busy schedule.

She cradled the phone to her ear loving the sound of Orlando’s husky voice early in the morning.  Orlando was nothing like Mark and that made her decision to agree to go bike riding before the birds were singing, easy.  “I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

The helmet was too tight and made her scalp sweat.  She couldn’t believe Orlando talked her into bike riding.  He’d adjusted the gear on the ten speed mountain bike letting her mount it for comfort.  He then adjusted the speed on his bike, which was huge.  She had never seen a bike as tall as the one he was riding.  Her leg barely made it over the bar on the bike she was riding.  She would need a step-stool to mount his bike.

Yet, here she was following behind him enjoying the view he presented to her, a view of his well-toned body in dark blue bike riding gear with matching helmet.  She suspected Orlando took bike riding seriously by the results of his masculine legs.  The calves of his legs were muscular with sparse black coarse hair covering them.  The stride at which he rode showed he was not a novice biker but experienced and she was definitely holding him back.

They took a minute to snack on fruit and granola bars before hitting the bike path however, she was tired again.  They had been steadily riding and already her sports bra dripped with sweat rolling down her back.  She figured she smelled like dirty socks and lilac body wash and would have to ride home with the offensive smell clogging her nostrils; there were no showers on bike paths. 

Oh, what fresh hell is this?
  Regan thought pumping her tired legs.  Her thighs burned, her butt hurt from the hard plastic seat that barely fit her bottom, and she was out of breath from tackling the steep hill.  This act of physical activity was harder than sitting on a stationary bike peddling to hip-hop music in a controlled environment.  The only benefit she found doing this was the beauty of the bike path and the fresh air. 

Plenty of trees provided shade from the sun and the complex pattern the sun created filtering through the trees offered a scenic picture.  They’d spotted deer, rabbits, and other animals hunting for food before chased away by walkers, bikers, and runners. 

She was not into extreme exercise.  Her workouts consisted of light calisthenics and spinning and never all on the same day.

Orlando slowed down yelling back at her. “Yo, pick up the pace—you’re dragging ass.  Don’t tell me you’re tired already?  We have another mile to go before the next rest stop.”

Regan didn’t have the breath to reply.  She’d run out of gas by the time she hit the top of the hill.  Her chest was burning and her legs didn’t have the strength to peddle five feet much less another mile.

Weak, hot and hungry, she took her eyes off the path and fell into a ditch filled with dead leaves and God knows what else.  “Whoa!  Man down!”  She yelled landing on her stomach with the bike on top of her.

“Shit,” Orland huffed, turning around to check on her.  Hopping off his bike, he lifted the ten-speed off her.  “Regan, are you okay?”

She sat up spitting dirt from her mouth.  Unstrapping the helmet, she tossed it on the ground nursing her bruised ego.  “Yeah, I’m okay.  Good thing I had on knee and elbow pads.”

“Which you said you didn’t need,” he replied sarcastically.  He examined her bike.  “You got a busted tire.  It won’t take long for me to fix it.”

Regan rest against a tree, the soft grass felt like a mattress against her sore butt.  She closed her eyes, saying, “Whatever.  Take your time.”

*****

Orlando repaired the inner tube placing the wheel on her bike before filling the tire with air.  Regan had been quite during the repair and he glanced at her a few times making sure had not fallen asleep under the tree.  She was busy going through her phone.  He shook his head.  She seemed attached to that thing and the fall was an excuse for her to check messages.

Using a hand pump, he filled the tire and checked the air pressure making sure she was good to go.  He had to give her credit for going the distance she had.  The former wife of a celebrity attorney gave it her best shot proving she was not a prima donna by completing the first nine of the eighteen miles, he intended for them to ride.  Dirt covered her body, her hair was a mess tangled with grass and twigs, and the odor seeping from her was not of an expensive perfume.

All that combined, he admired the way she looked sitting under the tree.  Her physical activities consisted of going to a gym, but the fact Regan agreed to go biking with him showed true grit.

He finished her bike and grabbed a bottle of water from the saddlebag on his bike.  Sitting next to her under the tree, he pulled his knees to his chest and nudged her with his shoulder.  “The bike is finished.  When you’re done resting, we can continue.”

“Okay,” she replied laying her phone on the grass.

“Why the long face?  Did you get some bad news?”

“Nothing I’m not used to.”  She poured water on her hands rinsing off some of the dirt.

Orlando didn’t understand what caused the changed in her attitude.  She went from bubbly to flat an unemotional in the fifteen minutes it took to repair the flat tire.  “Regan, what’s going on?”

She hemmed and hawed, “Oh, just another rejection letter from a job I applied for.”

“Sorry, chica.  What did you apply for?”

“I applied for a position as an anchorwoman at a public broadcasting network.  I can’t even get a job at a station that has fifty loyal viewers at best.”

“I see.  I didn’t know you were a television journalist,” he said drinking his water.

She sighed.  “I’m not.  I have a degree in journalism but no experience in television, newspaper print or anything.  Let this be a lesson, Orlando; never put your career on hold for another person.  My ex-husband is living his dream and I can’t even get my foot in the door.  Do you think he’d help me?”

 “I’m going to go on a limb and say no he didn’t.”

“His contacts span around the globe but he never offered to help me.  I was by his side every step of the way helping build his career.  I typed, licked envelopes, made phone calls.  Whatever it took for him to succeed I did.”

He received his answer; the email and ex-husband had pissed her off and was ruining his day with her—he wasn’t having that.  “Whoa, Regan; calm down.  You did all that but, as a result, look what he lost.”

“He hasn’t lost anything, Orlando.  The money he paid me for our divorce settlement probably came from his penny jar.  The only reward I get from him is my credit cards.  He has to pay for those.  He’d better be glad I’m not a shopaholic and only buy what I need.”

He rested his hand on her knee.  “I’m not talking about money or credit cards, Regan.  I’m talking about you.  He lost you and I bet he regrets it to this day.”

“That is nice of you to say, but a man with no soul has no regrets.  But, I’m going to be okay.  My lawyer got me a settlement I can live with, so I’m not starving or ready to take residence in a cardboard box just yet.”  She raised an eyebrow laughing, “Although, a cardboard box might be a tad more comfortable than Lincoln’s lumpy sofa.”

He put his arm around her shoulder.  “The man is an asshole.  He will look back on his life and realize he doesn’t have it all.  The person that was by his side through thick and thin is no longer there.”

“He has Naomi on his side.  She is doing everything I used to do for him.”

Orlando used his thumb to remove a smug of dirt from her cheek.  The urge to kiss her knocked on his brain but this was not the time to be spontaneous.  She was hurting.  “Well, my grandmother used to say, a successful man will never keep his place in the world by wronging the people who helped him succeed.  Regan, he is going to fall and wonder how it happened.”

“I don’t wish him any failure; I just need a little luck to kick-start my career.  Working as an anchorwoman is a competitive field.  The major networks want attractive woman in front of the camera.”

He agreed.  “I guess you have a point,” he said.

“Oh well, the days of having to be knowledgeable and intelligent to report the news have been passed to a pretty face that can read a teleprompter.”

“Sweetheart, don’t be a defeatist.  Continue to apply and don’t give up the fight to live your dream.  Regan, you’re strong, beautiful, intelligent, witty, pushy…are you getting my point?”  He asked trying to make her laugh.

She smiled.  “Yes, I am.  Thank you, Orlando.  You are a great friend to let me cry on your shoulder like this.”

“Anytime you need a shoulder, I have two reserved just for you.”

“I promise not to take advantage of your friendship.  Tell me; have you always wanted to be a firefighter?”

He took a long swig from the water bottle, causing the plastic to shrink as he drained the liquid.  “Yup, since I was a little kid.  I had to be around eight or nine years old.  My brothers and I would hang out at the firehouse, watching those guys wash trucks or clean their equipment.  They’d even let us sit inside the trucks.  We thought it was so cool to sit that high and see so far.  I envied those guys rumbling down the street blowing the horn, having cars yield to them ‘Hey, get out of the way; we’re coming through.”  His voice animated.

“What do you do all day?  I’ve driven by firehouses and seen the guys sitting outside or washing the trucks.  How do you fight the boredom of being around men all day and no women?”  She laughed.  “That is probably a loaded question.”

“People have the perception we sit around and eat or twiddle our thumbs until the alarm rings.  We do a lot of preparation by holding mini drills.  We have to maintain the firehouse and the equipment to make sure it is in working order.  Since I’m an officer, I have tons of paperwork to tend to.  I have to juggle schedules for guys on vacation or if a firefighter is injured or sick.  Plus, I work closely with the other lieutenant and the battalion chief stationed at our house.”

She drew her knees to her chest.  “Wow, I never knew all that went on inside a firehouse.  I guess it’s sorta like policemen and the donut shop.  Just because you see them there doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sitting around all day eating donuts.”

“We do have downtime, but not ‘
hours of boredom before minutes of terror’
as is assumed by most people.  There are days that I’m not only a leader but also a grief counselor and consoler depending on what the emergency entails.”

“It’s amazing you followed through with your dream.  Are your brother’s firefighters also?”

He dropped his head.  “I had to follow through or become a statistic like my brother.”

She placed her hand on his arm.  The warmth of her touch spread up his arm and across his chest.  Normally on a sunny day like this, he would ride his mountain bike from his apartment grinding the MetroParks trail to the end and back.  It was his way of dealing with stress or shutting out the world when he needed to be alone.

He stopped reminiscing when she said, “Is it too personal to talk about?”

“Not that it’s too personal but the typical story of boys falling into the wrong group of friends.  My brother got with the wrong people and it got him killed.  After his death, I felt lost without him and I wanted revenge for my brother murder.”

Regan chewed her bottom lip.  “Goodness, Orlando, you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Of course I didn’t.  I was walking by the firehouse where some of the guys I used to hang around still worked.  The chief remembered me and we talked for a long time.  He convinced me the streets didn’t have to rule me and I didn’t have to fall into the stereotype of Hispanic males.  He helped me get my life together and after I finished school, I joined the fire academy.  Now I am a part of the firehouse that was my home away from home.  I can’t see myself ever doing anything else.”

“That was a great story, Orlando.  I mean I’m sorry about your brother, but you turned out great.  How about your other brother, is he doing okay?”

“Yeah, he is a teacher.  Not a profession I expected him to join since he didn’t like to stay in school.  But we had to make a change after Lorenzo died.  My mother refused to lose another son to violence.”