The Rules of Love & Grammar Read Free Page B

sit in two of the three bays. In front of the cars is a large space filled with things my parents can’t part with. It looks as though a tidal wave came to shore and swept out again, leaving its debris—a rusted hot-water heater; a motorbike without an engine; two pink porcelain lamps with frayed wires; a mahogany table missing a leg, with the splintered half of a Louisville Slugger baseball bat as a prosthesis; old car tires; tennis rackets; gardening equipment; a microwave oven with no door; cans of paint labeled Versailles Blue; and two stacks of plastic coolers with hinged lids are just a part of what’s there. The garage is our own Sargasso Sea.
    I manage to clear a path to the coolers, and when I lift off the one on the top of the pile, what I see behind it makes my breath catch in my throat. It’s Renny’s racing bicycle. Although I can still see bits of the names Schwinn and Paramount, the frame, once a bright cherry red, is covered with dust and grime. The tires are flat and cracked, and the material on the sidewalls is flaking off. The wheel spokes, once shiny silver, are dark gray and speckled, and the chain is encased in rust. The bell Renny loved, with the blue enamel flower, is still on the handlebar. But when I pull the ringer, all I hear is a grinding sound.
    I remember the summer Renny and I bought our bikes; she was twelve and I was ten. After weeks of stopping by the Bike Peddler, the cycling shop in town, and studying the different models, I decided on a new Raleigh Mercury, white with orange and gray trim. Renny had been eyeing the Schwinn for a while, even though it was secondhand. We trotted into the store, our pockets bulging with cash we’d saved from chores like dog walking, weed pulling, and window cleaning, supplemented with money from Mom and Dad, and we walked out with the bikes. I’ll never forget how proud and grown-up we felt, having made our first big purchases on our own.
    I look at the Schwinn now, and I can see Renny, the way she used to bend over the handlebars in her Peace Corps T-shirt, her long legs pedaling defiantly, probably to the tune of some teenage-angsty Tori Amos song playing in her head. Her tawny hair would fly behind her as she breezed down a hill, turning a corner ahead of me.
    Often, on sunny summer mornings, she’d say, Come on, we’re going for a ride. We’d fill our water bottles, stash sandwiches and fruit in our baskets, and we wouldn’t come back until evening. Usually we’d ride with a particular destination in mind—a friend’s house, the beach, or the Hickory Bluff Store and the dock. But sometimes the destination would find us.
    One Saturday when I was thirteen, we rode to Miller’s Orchards, a farm in Dorset where apples have been grown for more than a century. We bought cheese and crackers and juice in the market, and then we walked into the orchards, where the trees grow in rows on a hundred and fifty acres of green land and the branches stretch their arms toward the sun. As we picnicked, the sky began to rumble and turn purple, and before we could reach the parking lot, it started to pour.
    We ran inside the market, and the woman at the cash register gave us each a black plastic trash bag to wear. She cut holes in them for our necks and arms. The ride home was crazy, with rain pelting our heads and water running down our hair, into our eyes. The trash bags flapped in the wind, and the puddles splashed up and soaked us, but we laughed and screamed the whole way. I often think of that day when I think about Renny. I look at it as a kind of high-water mark in our relationship, because it was after that when things started to change.
    I move the rest of the coolers out of the way and stare at the bike. I still can’t believe it’s here. I thought my mother had donated it to the thrift shop years ago, when I told her she could take my Raleigh there. I pick up the Paramount as though I’m moving a patient in critical condition, and I carry it