The White Bicycle Read online

  Apparently because our plane was late landing in New York, we missed our connecting flight to Munich—which was then supposed to take us to Marseille, where Alan Phoenix is meeting us in a car. Because we missed our connection, we have to stay overnight here in New York and take another plane the next morning.

  "See," I say. "When one thing changes, everything changes."

  My mother gets the h of wrinkles in her forehead.

  "Never mind about that now," she says.

  Before we leave the airport, my mother wants to go to the washroom and makes me go with her to hold her purse. There is a digital sign above the sink that says when the washroom was last cleaned. I wish we had one of those signs at home. It would keep track of how clean things are and it could also help me remember not to clean something that is already clean. I believe I will put "digital sign" on my Christmas list.

  After my mother uses the washroom, we stop at an airport café for supper and I watch the news on a big digital tv screen. New York is really a digital place. The news on the television is very confusing. There is a live-action broadcast where someone announces current events, but it is hard to hear. Simultaneously, there is a line of text at the bottom of the screen, with words that tell about different news stories. I read about a woman in Bangladesh whose husband beat her because she was getting an education. At the same time, I see a picture of a group of smiling children and a clown dancing around a big cake that is decorated with red, white, and blue stripes. These two stories do not go together. I have enough trouble keeping messages clear without having two opposite feeds coming in from the television.

  I turn my body away from the tv and look at the people around me. There is a cute guy sitting at the next table. He is wearing blue jeans, and I think he might be a "ten." I would ask Shauna if she were here, but she is not. I wonder if her husband is a "ten."

  "Everything is changing because one thing changed," I say again to Mom.

  "Stop telling me that," Mom says. "You're making me crazy."

  I am about to tell her that she can be crazy without my help, but there is a man at another table who is talking on his cell phone so loudly that I cannot concentrate.

  "I'm sorry … say that again," he yells. "Okay. Okay. Well, let me get her New Canaan number and I can phone her and leave a message with my email address. Yes, even if she isn't there right now, it will be fine to leave a message."

  "You shouldn't give out your email address!" I say.

  "Hush, Taylor," says my mother.

  "Thanks a lot. You too," says the man, but I don't think he says it to me. He says it into the phone.

  "Well, that's the rule," I say. "You never know who is going to be at the other end of the—"

  "Hello? Hello! Before you hang up, I just need to ask one more—"

  "I hope it's a safety question," I say to my mother. "If he does not know her phone number, he obviously does not know her well enough to share his email address."

  "It's not your business," says my mother, standing up. "Come on, we should go and find our hotel."

  As if it would be lost.

  "How many stars does it have?" I ask. "What if we don't like it? Just because the airline paid for it, do we have to stay there?" I know that the better hotels have five stars, the average ones have four, and the duds have three or less.

  "I'm sure it will be fine," says my mother and heads off so quickly that I have to run to catch up with her. This is what I hate about my mother. She does not always tell the truth. In fact, some people might call her a big fat liar, even though she is not very tall and not very wide, either.

  Overnight in New York

  The hotel we are staying at is not in the airport. And instead of waiting for the shuttle, as the airport lady told us to do, my mother insists that we take a city bus. I am glad about this because I have never taken a shuttle before and I do not want to take one this day.

  "I'm not waiting for an hour when the other bus comes right away," my mother says.

  She is correct and the city bus does come right away. There are bus stops just before the intersections, not after them like in Saskatoon. The bus driver is careful and waits until the light turns green before he pulls out. Suddenly I see a man running after the bus, but he is not fast enough to catch up.

  "Stop!" yells one of the other passengers. "There's a man wants to get on."

  "Not allowed," says the bus driver. "I can only stop at the bus stops. Regulations."

  "Hard-hearted," says someone from behind me.

  "Look at that guy run!" says another.

  "You'd think there'd be some flexibility here," says someone else.

  We go on like this for another block, through a green light, and the man is still running. He must really want to be on this bus.

  I look around at the scenery. There are warehouses and I think they look like buildings the Mafia would be in. I tell this to my mother and she tells me to stop worrying. But she looks out the window and I think she looks worried too. She has that H of wrinkles in the middle of her forehead.

  "The Mafia have big cars with colored windows," I say.

  "Oh, stop," says my mother. "You don't need to worry about the Mafia."

  "This is a large city," I say. "And that's where the Mafia work and live."

  Just then, a big van with colored windows pulls up alongside the bus and swerves until it is just in front of the bus. The bus lurches to a stop. My mother grabs her purse and hugs it to her chest. I look carefully to see if the Mafia are going to get out of the van and come in and rob us. But what happens is not the Mafia getting out of the van. What happens is that the running man gets out of the van. He sprints over to the door of the bus and gets on. The whole bus cheers and applauds.

  "Why would the Mafia care about a running man?" I ask my mother.

  "Hush," she says. "That was probably just a soccer mom taking pity."

  I do not know how she comes to these illogical conclusions. My mother does not base her thinking on evidence.

  When we get to the hotel, I do not like the smell of our room and it takes me some time to choose whether I will sleep on the bed or the couch. Finally, I select the couch. Then my mother calls Alan Phoenix to tell him about the change of plans. Her voice is in the red zone for part of the time, and while she talks I sit beside her and keep opening and shutting the clasp of her purse until she brushes my hand away. I am not feeling happy with this part of the trip and I don't want to sit beside her, but I do it anyway. Maybe this is what the new minister back home meant when he came to preach his guest sermon, before the congregation decided to hire him. In times of transition, he said, we look for islands of stability. Islands of stability. I didn't understand it then but I think I do now. In this new hotel room, my mother and her flowered purse are an island of stability, even though I don't want them to be.

  We spend the night in the hotel and then we go to the restaurant in the airport for breakfast. I have pancakes and I ask for blueberries, but the waitress says they don't have any. This is disappointing and I fill out the little card on the table where it asks for customer comments: Should get blueberries, I write. That will be smart information for them so that they can prepare for next time.

  Arriving in France

  On July 5 we fly overnight from New York to Frankfurt, where the time goes forward by five hours. Then we run through the airport for thirty-seven minutes and then we get onto a shuttle bus that takes us to the airplane going to Marseille. This is a day that has too much flying in it. The first flight takes eight hours and thirty minutes. The second flight takes one hour and fifty-seven minutes. My mother says if Alan Phoenix isn't there to meet us she is going to kill him, but I don't think she means it. Killing is against the law. And anyway, he is her boyfriend.

  Alan Phoenix is there to meet us and he has the rented car outside, but there is an important problem. The problem isn't Alan Phoenix and the car. The problem is that our luggage does not come off the plane after us. We have
to wait for a baggage attendant who speaks English to come back from her coffee break. She tells us that our bags are coming on the next flight and that they will be delivered to our home after 5 pm that evening. I do not want to leave the airport without my suitcase, but my mother says to get in the car and count to a hundred. Counting to a hundred isn't nearly long enough. When I am tired of counting, I start chewing gum. What I am thinking of is all the things in my suitcase and how each time I want them they will not be there and so everything will change.

  In particular, I will miss my alarm clock. I love my alarm clock. It has an entirely predictable face. It stands on four little legs and you can hear the ticking so you know it's working. It was broken once, and Danny my mother's ex-boyfriend said, "Too bad it can't ever be fixed." But he was wrong. Even after I threw it against a wall and the glass front fell off, he was still wrong. A watchmaker got it working again. The case is a nice sky-blue and the clock face is white. I've had it ever since I was a little kid. There's a toggle on the back that you have to crank every night. It works on the principle of springs, which unwind according to schedule if they are tightened in the opposite direction. Mom has stopped talking about getting me a new one because she knows what I will say. And I don't want a new one now.

  Now we are taking the a51 autoroute, and going through a gate, getting a ticket, and then driving along a straight road that Alan Phoenix says is a toll road. But apparently it's the wrong road, and we can't get off it. He is usually a quiet person but all at once his voice goes into the red zone. "Watch for a place to turn around!" he says.

  It is frightening to be on a road and unable to escape. My hands are wet with sweat. My mother keeps turning around and trying to talk to me but I can't tell what she is saying. We drive for a long time. Finally, there is a place to turn off, and another road that we can take to go back. Soon we're driving in the opposite direction on the straight road.

  "What about my shampoo?" I say finally, through dry lips. "I won't have any shampoo and I can't wash my hair, and then I can't go out because you're not supposed to show your grease to other people. And if I can't go out, I probably can't babysit Martin Phoenix and then Alan Phoenix will fire me."

  Alan Phoenix turns around and you're not supposed to turn around when you are driving and he says something in yelling that sounds like, "I'm not going to fire you!" But I can't tell if he really said that or if he's just talking about firewood.

  I take a deep breath and then I take another. I think about my two gerbils, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, safe in their cage at Shauna's house and not eating each other. I look out the window and see that the sky is all blue. There are no clouds anywhere and the whole sky is very big here. This is comforting because I like the sky, and I do not like clouds. Clouds are always changing. I take another deep breath.

  "And we have lots of shampoo at the villa!" Alan Phoenix says.

  "It's not worth breaking the car," I say. "Stop turning around and stay looking toward the road. And stop putting your voice in the red zone."

  Just as I say that, a driver passes us from behind and I see him reach out his right hand and show his middle finger. That is a very bad word to show to anyone.

  "Never mind," mutters Alan Phoenix. "People around here drive too fast."

  It is good that he is not yelling anymore.

  We pass through a toll gate and have to pay. Then we are back in Marseille again, looking for the right road. Alan Phoenix heaves a big sigh and we turn onto a road that looks different from the one we took earlier.

  "This is the one we want!" he says.

  I see that the fields on both sides of the road are flat. Instead of wheat or barley like we have in Canada near Saskatoon, the crops are something else with very green leaves.

  "What's growing out there?" I ask.

  "Grapes," says Alan Phoenix. His thin blond hair is stuck to his head and I think he has been sweating. It is good he is not yelling anymore. "These are vineyards, and you can see green or red grapes on the vines," he says. "In September they'll be harvested and made into wine."

  "Stop the car!" I say. "I need to take a photograph of this!"

  "We don't need to stop now," my mother says. "Let's just get to the villa."

  "It's okay," says Alan Phoenix. "I could use a drink of water anyways." Alan Phoenix stops the car on the side of the road, and I get out and take a picture for my photo album. Alan Phoenix finds his water bottle in the trunk and takes a long swallow. I watch as his Adam's apple goes up and down. I have noticed that tall skinny men always have big Adam's apples.

  Later, we pass a field of something purple.

  "What's growing out there?" I ask.

  "Lavender," says Alan Phoenix. "People harvest lavender for its oil. You've probably smelled it in bath salts or maybe in perfume."

  "It would probably give me a headache," I say. "But I like the color. Stop the car!"

  "Taylor, you have the whole summer to take pictures!" says my mother. "We want to get to our villa and unpack!"

  "We don't have anything to unpack," I remind her. Alan Phoenix stops the car on the side of the road and I get out to take a photograph of the boxes the lavender will be packed in after it is picked.

  "Is anyone hungry?" he asks.

  "I am," I say.

  "Good!" he says. "I was hoping you were because I missed breakfast. Okay if we stop for lunch, Penny?" He looks at my mother. "Penny for your thoughts?" he says. She sighs and then smiles.

  "Okay," says my mother. "But let's not stop for too long."

  In thirty-two minutes, we stop at an outdoor restaurant for lunch. The menu is written in French and my mother and I cannot understand it.

  "Is this duck?" my mother asks, pointing at something on the menu.

  The waitress cannot understand our English.

  "Try sign language," says Alan Phoenix to my mother. "Quack, quack." He flaps his arms and grins at the waitress. She nods.

  "Quack, quack," she repeats. "Oui. Canard."

  It is clear my mother does not want to try to speak to the waitress in French or in sign language. She just points at things on the menu to place her order. Alan Phoenix orders in French. So do I, by copying part of what he says.

  "Crêpes, s'il vous plaît," I say. My mother gets some kind of a salad that looks as if it has raw bacon on top. Alan Phoenix gets an omelet. I get a crepe with butter and sugar and I eat it all.

  "I thought my high-school French would come back to me, but it hasn't," Mom says to him. "Nobody will be able to understand me here."

  "Give it time. You just need to take chances. People will forgive you for making mistakes, but they can't forgive you if you don't try," he says.

  I did not take French in high school at all, because I had to take Special Education. From reading a translation book, I have learned some French words and I try using them on the waitress.

  "Merci beaucoup," I say when she fills my water glass, pronouncing each letter as carefully as I can.

  "Merci," she replies, and I think I have done it right.

  My mother's mouth curves up and then she turns her head the other way. Alan Phoenix asks for the bill. He tells us that waiters here think it is impolite to bring the bill unless you ask, in case you are interested in staying longer. He checks to see if he can use his credit card and then he pays. My mother could pay for us because she has the money from Grandma's will, but she does not.

  As we leave the restaurant, I ask when my job with Martin Phoenix is going to start, and Alan Phoenix says that it will start tomorrow and that after supper I can hang out and get used to the routines here.

  "I will hang out with Luke Phoenix and Martin Phoenix, but I will not hang out any windows," I say, just to show him I understand what he is talking about.

  I am excited about my new job starting tomorrow. I like Martin Phoenix and I have hung out with him in Saskatoon enough to know what he likes and does not like. His favorite activities are science and art, and he can navigate th
e keyboard of his Tango—a speech communication device that talks for him. He can also feed himself, as long as he has enough time and someone to help him clean up.

  I am proud to put this babysitting job on my resumé because it will make me seem important to have worked in France. When I get back to Saskatoon, other employers will see that I have worked in three places: Waskesiu, Saskatoon, and France. I hope this will make me more employable. And being employable means something great: being independent.

  The Lost Luggage

  At 5 pm that first evening in France, I look out the window of our villa and I do not see a baggage delivery truck, or a van, or even a car. All I see are the cherry trees in the front yard, and then the olive trees, and beyond these the vineyards, with the blue Luberon mountains in the distance. I thought that we would be staying in a town called Lourmarin, but we are in the countryside.

  "They're not coming," I say.

  "Give them time," my mother says. "They'll come."

  But they don't. We eat supper, Alan Phoenix, my mother, Luke Phoenix, Martin Phoenix, and me, sitting around a table outside the back door. On the table is a long skinny loaf of bread called a baguette, a plate of different kinds of cheese, a bowl of olives, and dishes of meatloaf, cooked carrots, and mashed potatoes. There is also a bottle of wine and a pitcher of water with lemons floating inside.

  Beside Martin Phoenix are smaller bowls that contain his portions; he has his carrots mashed in with his potatoes and wheat germ added to make it healthier. He also has his meatloaf mixed together with cheese. I am not hungry for anything.

  "Try the goat cheese," Martin Phoenix says slowly with his Tango computer. "It's good. The blue cheese is gross. It's from sheep."

  This kind of Tango is not a dance. It is a speech device that helps Martin Phoenix talk. It was invented by the father of another child with cerebral palsy, and it looks like a Game Boy but it is not a Game Boy. The screen has subjects arranged by icons, and when you press the icon, you go into lists of words from which you can create phrases or sentences. Then the Tango talks for you, using a recorded voice. Martin Phoenix's "voice" sounds like a thirteen-yearold boy, because that is what he is, and he would not want to sound like a woman or a man.