Chapter 10: Lake Road

"Tell the desk to walk her out," Glenn said into the phone. "If she won't go, call the police."

He ended the call.

We stood in the church parking lot, and the streetlight turned his face yellow.

"What's the arrangement, Glenn?"

He looked at me for a long time.

"I'll tell you," he said. "I'll show you, the way it should be shown. But not tonight, with her in my lobby and your father in the truck."

"That's a no."

"It's a not yet." His voice was rough. "Please. Give me one night where I'm not the man in the file."

I thought about the word please, and what it cost him.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere you've never been."

He drove my father home first.

My father got out and looked at the two of us.

"Take care of her," he said.

"She doesn't need me to," Glenn said.

Then we stopped at the house, and he did something I did not expect.

He walked me into the garage, past the water heaters and the ladders, to a tarp in the back corner.

He pulled it off.

Under it sat a motorcycle, long and low and matte black, with a dent in the tank.

"You have a motorcycle," I said.

"I bought it at twenty-three. I kept it." He wiped the seat with his palm. "I haven't ridden it since the wedding."

I looked at the machine and then at the man.

"You never told me."

"You never asked about anything I liked."

"You never offered to tell me."

"No," he said. "We were both very polite."

He took two helmets off a hook and held one out.

"Get on, Veda."

I got on.

I put my arms around his waist and my cheek against his back.

We went out of the city on Route 4 with the engine alive under us.

I had never felt so much wind.

It went through the leather jacket and the red dress under it.

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