“I think we just have to try and fail,” I reply, and he shoots me a disappointed look, as though my doubt is somehow more personally about his teaching abilities than my lack of bike skill.
I get back up and put one foot on a pedal.
“Okay.” He claps his hands together like he’s trying to hype me up. “So you’re going to push your right foot forward and down to get the pedaling started, and then you should focus more on the staying upright than the pedaling. But don’t forget to pedal or you’ll lose speed and fall. And if you get—”
“Eli, this isn’t helping.”
“Got it,” he says, and he grips my back. I sit up straighter from the contact. I don’t think I could be any more casual, with my hair in a messy braid and my billowy boxy shirt, but every time he touches me, it’s as though he’s pulling a match too slowly across its striking surface—not quite enough pressure to light the fire but certainly enough to cause smoke.
“I’m going to start pedaling,” I say, as though if I get moving, I can push the thought from my mind.
“I’m going to hold on for the first few tries,” he says, and I nod, wanting more than anything to just pedal away and get the feel of his fingers out of my consciousness.
I push with my foot, pressing down on the pedal, and with shaky legs I start going forward. I know Eli’s holding me upright. I know if he lets go, I’ll almost certainly fall. But we’re really moving. I’m pedaling slowly, and he’s going alongside me. I’m (sort of) riding a bike.
Well, I’m riding a bike until he lets go, clearly as an attempt to let me continue on my own effectively, but it has the opposite effect.
Without him holding me steady, I careen off to the side and land on a patch of weeds and wildflowers, sharp and solid and unforgiving.
“Oh my god, Nora, are you okay?” he says, running up to stand over me, assessing my injuries. I wish I could say it’s just embarrassment, but I look down at my leg and see I’m all scratched up.
“I fell,” I mumble, and I can see from the look he’s giving me that not only isthatobvious but I’m also really straddling the line between tragic, pathetic mess and deeply hilarious sideshow.
He’s trying so hard not to laugh, but his face looks like he’s holding in a sneeze—it’s a contortion of attempting to look concerned while being extremely close to laughter. It reminds me of cast members onSNLwhen they know theyshouldn’tbreak, but the more they think about it, the harder it becomes.
And the effort he’s making to not laugh in my face makesmelaugh. I’m on the ground with the bike still on top of me, splayed out, my legs a tapestry of cuts. But now that the laughter has been unleashed, I’m doubled over, tears forming, my gut straining from the force of it. And when I start, there’s no stopping Eli from joining in. His laughter is a dam exploding, everything he was holding in bursting out until we’re both left gasping and giggling.
“I’m sorry,” he says, trying to breathe through it. “But you just look so ...”
I wave him off, still laughing and trying to not let it turn into hiccups. “I know I look pathetic,” I admit. “I don’t think anyone could’ve expected I’d have flamed out that dramatically on my first attempt.”
He wipes tears out of his eyes. “Listen, when you go for something, at least you go all the way. You gave it your all.”
I move to stand up, and he holds out his hand. He pulls me up and surreptitiously looks me over, probably to ensure I’m notactuallyinjured.
“I think we can agree we gave it a good try and I should call it a day, yeah?”
He winces, the dirt and angry scratches across my legs more apparent now that I’m standing up. “I think that would be fair,” he says, pulling up the bike now. We walk off the bike path and onto the promenade that goes along the river. We walk in silence for a minute until he finds a dock for the bike and returns it, ready for a rider that might actually know what they’re doing.
“I’m sorry I let go,” he finally says, now that our absurdist laughter has regressed back into normalcy and we’ve both caught our breath.
“Oh please,” I say, waving him off. “It was the right technique, just the wrong student.”
“We can try again some other day?” he asks, but I know from the question in his voice that even he realizes I’m probably a lost cause, or at least a lost cause to learning while balancing the city around me.
I dramatically indicate my legs. “I think we can let this one go for now,” I admit. I try to brush off some of the dirt, but it doesn’t really do much. I go to straighten my shirt and realize something. “Oh shit, I think one of the buttons came off.”
I pull it out further so I can see. It’s a vintage shirt I got at one of my favorite stores in Alphabet City. It’s meant to button down and then tie into a bow at the bottom, but the tie has come undone and the button above it has popped off from the force of my fall.
I frown. It’s annoying because I can’t replace it—the buttons are a specific pearled tint and too large to not notice when one is different from the others.
“Let’s go and search for it,” he says without hesitation.
We walk back toward the area where we were, but it’s hard now to tell where exactly I fell. Every part of the path is the same—paved, with a thicket of bramble on either side to separate it from the otherareas. We halfheartedly search through for a few minutes, but it’s clear the button is lost. And my leg is kind of hurting now, and I want to go home. So much for the outfit making me more of a serious bike rider. Everything’s backfired today.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to be breezier externally than I feel inside. “Come on, let’s get some ice cream and congratulate ourselves on the attempt.”
He nods, clearly not going to argue with me when I’m so banged up. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”
