Chapter nine
“GELSEY!” I YELLED IN THE DIRECTION OF THE house. “LET’S GO!” I was standing in the driveway, keys in hand, where I had been for the last ten minutes. I checked my watch and saw that I really should have left by now. Though I had no actual job experience, I had a feeling that that showing up late on your first day of work was probably frowned upon. The plan had been for Gelsey to bike to her first tennis lesson this morning. But her bike (technically, my old bike that was now too small for me) turned out to have a flat tire, and then Gelsey had some sort of meltdown, so it had fallen to me to drive her.
The front door slammed and she stepped out onto the porch, my mother right behind her. I noticed my mother stayed in front of the door, almost like she was blocking it, lest Gelsey try to make a break for it and run back inside. “Finally,” I said. “I’m going to be late.”
“You’ll be fine,” my mother said. Gelsey just glowered at me, as though I was somehow responsible for all this. My mother smoothed down Gelsey’s hair and straightened the sleeves of her white tennis dress, one that had been mine when I was her age.
“Are you ready?” Gelsey asked, as if it had been me who had been holding us up all along. She pulled herself away from my mother and stomped down to the driveway.
My father, shielding his eyes, came forward a few steps from the garage, where he’d been fixing up our bikes since most of them hadn’t been in a fit condition to ride. “Have a good first day, you two,” he called. “And when you come back, I’ll have the bikes all ready. So you both should be able to ride tomorrow.”
“Great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic about this while also trying to remember how many years it had been since I had ridden a bike.
“Have fun,” he called. “Do great things.” I turned back to wave, but he was already heading for his workbench, reaching for an air pump, humming tunelessly to himself.
“Can we leave already?” Gelsey asked, her voice heavy with disdain. I was about to throw disdain right back at her—maybe paired with a lecture about how it was her fault we weren’t leaving until now—when I realized we probably didn’t have time.
“Good luck,” my mother called from the doorway, smiling at me. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about my first day of work or about me getting Gelsey there in one piece, but I gave her a halfhearted smile back, then opened the driver’s door and climbed into the car.
I started the engine, trying not to panic when I saw that I had only seven minutes to drop my sister off at the Rec Center and get myself to the beach—not to mention that I’d received only the vaguest instructions from Jillian as to who I was supposed to talk to when I got there. So as soon as I’d reached the end of the driveway and passed out of sight of my parents, I stepped hard on the gas, now driving much faster than the WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN… PLEASE DRIVE SLOW! signs that dotted the road recommended.
Gelsey looked over from where she had been glaring out the window and glanced at my speedometer. “Speed much?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d been ready on time,” I said, hugging one of the curves as we barreled down Dockside Terrace. “I was about to leave without you.”
“I wish you had,” Gelsey said as she slumped back in her seat. I came to an abrupt stop that jolted us both forward, then picked up speed again as I headed toward what we had always called Devil’s Dip. It was a huge hill that dropped sharply, then went up again just as sharply on the other side, creating a giant U shape. The Dip had been my Waterloo when I’d been learning to ride a bike, and it hadn’t gotten any less steep with time. “I really thought Mom was bluffing. I can’t believe she’s making me do this.”
“Tennis isn’t so bad,” I said as we coasted down the hill and then back up the other side, while I tried to remember my own long-ago lessons. I had never loved it like my father and Warren, and hadn’t ever hung around the Tennis Center, working on my backhand on the practice wall the way that other kids had.
“Really,” Gelsey said flatly.
“Really,” I said, remembering how Lucy and I had spent very little time playing tennis, and most of our time talking. “It’s mostly just hanging out with your friends, with a little tennis mixed in.”
“Friends,” she repeated softly, looking out the window again. “Right.”
I glanced over at my sister before looking back at the road, regretting my word choice. Gelsey had never made friends easily, and had never had a best friend that I’d been aware of. It probably hadn’t helped that she had spent all of her waking hours, until now, in the dance studio. But Gelsey also didn’t do herself any favors, especially because whenever she got nervous, she masked it with haughtiness or disdain. “Look,” I started, a little uncertainly, glancing over at her, “I know it might be hard at first, but—”
“Taylor!” Gelsey’s voice was suddenly sharp. I glanced back at the road and then slammed on the brakes, hard, causing a loud screeching noise.
There was a girl on a bike directly in the middle of the road. She was riding fast, steering with one hand, the other holding a phone to her ear.
“Jesus,” I muttered, my pulse pounding hard, as I checked the other lane, then gave her a wide berth. As we passed her, Gelsey leaned over and honked my horn. “Hey!” I said, pushing her hand away. The girl swerved, her bike wobbling dangerously for a second before she righted it and glanced at the car. In an impressive move, she transferred her phone to her ear and gripped the handlebars with her opposite hand, so that the hand closest to my car was free to give us the finger. Her face was obscured by a curtain of dark hair, but there was no question as to how she felt about us at that moment. As we drove past, I looked back and saw her in my rear-view mirror, becoming reduced to a dot in a purple T-shirt.
“Don’t do that,” I said as I swung into the recreation complex parking lot.
“She was taking up the whole road,” Gelsey said. But her voice didn’t sound nearly as confident anymore as I pulled to a stop in front of the main entrance. The building looked exactly the same, a tall wooden structure with LAKE PHOENIX RECREATION CENTER carved into the awning. Just beyond the entrance, you’d have to show your badge to the employee inside to access the pool and tennis courts.