Chapter 7: Will Make You Stronger

“There’s someone here to see you, Kyle,” the intercom squawked.

“Okay, Mike, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” I pulled off my surgical gloves and made sure I didn’t look too untidy before I headed out of the shop to the showroom floor. Maybe this was another potential customer.

I stepped into the big, bright room, littered with new models and the odd display, looking around to see who might be asking for me. I saw her, hunched down by the Matchless, examining it. There was no mistaking the single silken blonde braid and the lithe form of her. It was Gabrielle. How long had it been since I’d last seen her. Three years? It didn’t seem possible, but it was.

I walked up behind her while she was still stooped over, examining the old bike in detail.

“Hello, Gabrielle,” I said softly.

She stood and turned to me and I saw the look of surprise immediately. “Kyle? Is that you?”

I nodded and smiled. “Yeah ... it’s me.”

“You look so different. The hair, the beard. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

I shrugged. “It was time for a change, so I started with this,” I said, stroking my trimmed reddish-blonde beard.

“It ... it looks ... good on you. The tan, the beard, the pony tail. You look like a biker guy,” she said, still examining me.

“Naw, I’d never qualify,” I chuckled. “No tattoos, no piercings, no Harley, and no bitch.”

She seemed to be taken aback by the harsh comment despite the fact that I’d said it in good humor.

“How did you find me?” I wondered.

“Uhhm ... Olivia. She said you were working in a motorcycle dealership, so I took a guess and started with Sacramento. I wondered if you might have gone back to your roots, and it seems you have.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, “I guess you could say that. Look, Gabrielle, this isn’t the best place for us to talk. Why don’t we go to lunch? It’s just about time and I know a place where we can talk and not be interrupted.”

She was already smiling. “I’d like that. I want to find out all about you, Kyle. You’ve changed, and from just this little conversation, I can tell it’s for the better.”

“Let me tell Mike what I’m up to and then I’ll meet you at the front door.”

She nodded, again with a smile and I turned and walked to the front desk.

“Someone from your past, Kyle?” Mike said, looking beyond me to the front.

“Yeah ... someone who was very important once. Do you mind? I need to talk to her in private.”

“You know I don’t mind. At least it will be something that isn’t work,” he said. “Good luck,” he offered with a smile.

“Thanks,” I said as I turned and headed for the front door.

“Okay if we take my truck?” I asked. “It’s easier to get in and out of for me.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she agreed immediately. “Still hard to bend the knee?”

“Yeah. It’s as good as it’s going to get, so I figured something big with lots of head and legroom made more sense,” I explained as we walked toward my Ram 2500.

“This is a big truck,” she said as I held the door open for her.

“Yeah, well I needed something to haul my trailer around when I deliver bikes or pick them up. I wanted all-wheel-drive for the winter and Tahoe,” I added.

“You still ski?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah. I use one of those knee braces the football players wear when I ski or go hiking.”

“You go hiking too?” she asked, even more surprised.

“Yup. It was the chosen substitute for running. The brace keeps me from twisting the knee, which is the main way for it to get damaged again. As long as I don’t do something crazy when I’m on skis, or try to climb rock faces, I’m okay.”

“You look very healthy, lean, tanned,” she observed.

I nodded without looking at her. I was driving to a local bistro that would give us a little privacy with our lunch.

“What about you, Gabrielle? Still in QA with Diamond Stream?”

“Yes and no,” she answered cryptically. “I’m actually head of QA and training for Smithton, the parent company. I’m up here to help set up procedures for the new waste processing plant.”

“Oh ... congratulations. I’m sure you’ve earned it. Tell me about it.”

“Well, you’ll remember that we were opening plants in North Dakota and Oklahoma, and I was in charge of implementing SPC and QA. That’s where the training was focused. Then, I was sent to Dublin to set them up with the same procedures and practices. After that, I was involved in some of the preliminary planning for the pilot plant for the new project. We’ve purchased a building off I-80, just east of I-5. It’s near Sacramento Airport, so we made an agreement with them for our initial test material.”

“Test material being a euphemism for aircraft toilet waste,” I grinned.

She laughed and it brought back some very painful memories. “Yes ... exactly that.”

“I don’t envy your new job,” I suggested.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she assured me. “I don’t have to get involved in the actual handling of the waste, just making sure the right procedures are observed. It’s such a huge project that we’ve got a whole slew of new employees on board to make it happen.”

“You’ve risen to the role of upper management very rapidly,” I noted. “Nothing you haven’t earned though.”

“Thank you, Kyle. I have been very fortunate to be on the ground floor at Smithton and Diamond Stream. I’m very happy there.”

“Will you still operate from Union City?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ll be moving here. This is likely where the new company will operate from. No one in the Bay Area wants the new company as a tenant, so this will be home base. I have a person reporting to me from Union City, and he supervises the other three plants. The new project is so big in potential, that I’m devoting almost all my time to it. It looks like I’m going to be a neighbor of yours,” she smiled.

I turned and smiled. “I’m pleased to hear that. You can’t have too many good neighbors.”

“So ... tell me about your journey in the past three years, Kyle,” she said as we settled into a nice booth in the restaurant.

“Oh ... well ... let’s see. There’s more than one part to it. When I left Hayward, I drove up here for some reason. I really didn’t have a destination in mind, I just knew I had to get away. I stopped by my former home in Davis and had a good cry. I missed my parents, especially my dad. He was my anchor when I was younger and now ... with how I’d acted with you and all my friends and supporters, I needed him more than ever. But, he was gone and wasn’t coming back, so I had to deal with that.

“I stopped in to Mike’s Bikes to see Mike again. It had been a good memory from the past and I guess I wanted to see the Matchless again and see Mike too. He greeted me like I’d never been gone and within five minutes he was offering me a job. I wasn’t ready for that and told him a little about what had been going on in my life. He didn’t seem to care and said when the time came, I’d be welcome back there.”

“And you did go back,” Gabrielle said with a smile.

“Yeah, but not right away. I had to shake the anger and frustration of the past before I could do that. So ... I took your advice and saw a psychiatrist. I wasn’t in denial any more. I knew I needed help and it was the only place I thought I could get some. I still had medical coverage from Dow, so I called Midland and asked for a referral from their insurer. They gave me the name of Doctor Aaron Urquhart at UCal Davis. That worked fine for me, so I contacted him and he took me on as a patient.”

“Did he help?” she asked.

“Well, I guess he did, but to be honest, for a while I couldn’t see any real progress. But now, looking back, he made some important points that I kept. First, he claimed that I didn’t like myself very much. I didn’t like who I was. I couldn’t argue with him on that, could I? After all, I’d driven you of all people away. He also said I had to make a clean break and find something that would give me peace and pleasure. Whether that was a job, or volunteer work, or an activity didn’t matter, but I needed something to give me some peace of mind and a sense that I was doing something constructive with my life.”

“So, is that what turned it around for you?” she wondered.

“That and something Olivia had said to me earlier that came back to me. We’d had a big row about my attitude and how she didn’t want to see me at her wedding. That hurt, but it didn’t really register until she was leaving and turned to me and said, ‘What would Dad think if he could see you now?’ That really hit me later on. The one man who meant the world to me and she thought he would be disappointed in me. That haunted me.”

“So what then?” she asked.

“I had to start mending fences,” I said. “I wrote a long letter to Olivia and Shan, telling them that I was getting help and apologizing for my behavior. I must have tried to write you a hundred times but couldn’t find the words that would be even halfway adequate to apologize for how I treated you. You never deserved that and I still haven’t forgiven myself.”

I could see Gabrielle’s eyes glistening, near tears I thought. She remained silent, listening intently.

“It was one kind of healing that I needed to do, but yet I still couldn’t find a way to make amends with you. I pushed my failure to the back of my mind and tried to get on with the rest of my life.”

“And how has that gone,” she asked, still watching me with a fixed gaze, her eyes still glistening.

I sighed. “Better, I guess you could say. I came back here and bought a house.”

That brought about a look of surprise. “A house? Where?”

“Woodland ... just north of where we lived in Davis. I’ve got some acreage and a workshop there.”

“Acreage? How did you afford that?” she asked with a concerned look.

“Well, I wasn’t broke, considering the insurance settlements and inheritance from my parents. But wonder of wonders, the Italian trucking company finally settled our lawsuit. My sisters and I got a nice check from them. Then, after some serious pressure from Darren Hatcher, the courier company settled my lawsuit over my injuries before it went to court. That was another nice windfall, although I wish it hadn’t been necessary.

“So, I was cash rich and looking for ways to hide it from the tax man. I decided that I wanted to live in this area again. It was some of my happiest memories and maybe I was looking to relive them. Whatever the reason, I went back to see Mike Trask and see if there really was a job I could do. I didn’t need the money, I just wanted something to do that I could cope with and enjoy at the same time.

“It turned out that my timing was perfect for a couple of reasons. One, Mike had been turned down for a bank loan after all the years that he had been a responsible customer. He needed to expand, but I guess the bank had new management and the new manager didn’t like the idea of ‘biker’ guys being customers. Mike is the furthest thing I can think of as a ‘biker.’ So, I got Mike together with Conrad Leitner, my financial consultant, and Darren, and we worked up a partnership agreement. I am now a minority partner in Mike’s Bikes,” I grinned. “I have become a venture capitalist,” I chuckled.

The look of astonishment on Gabrielle’s face was unmistakable. “That’s amazing. So ... what was the second reason for joining Mike?”

“Mike was getting inquiries about repairing damaged bikes and even restoring older bikes, just like Dad and I did with the Matchless. You’d be surprised at how often people would drop their bikes on the ground, usually with nasty results to both the bike and themselves. Anyway, Mike’s strength is sales and service. He knew that Dad had taught me well and that my quality standards were high, so he proposed that we try doing repairs and restorations to see how it went. If it was profitable, maybe we could find enough business to make it worthwhile. That’s how this all started,” I concluded.