Chapter 7: Things to Do in Denver When, Well, Yanno

Mike

The highway sign through the windshield said 8km to the Fort Collins exit. I groaned and shifted in my seat. Another hour to Denver.

Helen looked back at me from the passenger seat, face concerned. “Are you okay, Mike?”

Dad chuckled. “Mike hates road trips. He just wants to get there already.” He sighed dramatically. “No appreciation for the beautiful landscape as it slowly changes around us.”

“Not helping, ” I informed him. I had, in fact, been watching the Rockies pass outside the right-side windows, but I was bored bored bored by them. There was nothing else to do, though—I get carsick when I read.

Helen peered at me. “You look uncomfortable, though.”

“I am, ” I admitted. “Sitting still for hours.”

Helen turned a little further around in her seat, finger resting on her pursed lips—just like Dana, that habit. Then a soft, “Oh—in a wheelchair, you’re not still.”

I nodded—rolling myself, I’m moving my body and even my legs, as well as my arms.

“Rest area in 2 kilometers, ” Dad called out.

“No!” I said. “Let’s just get there.”

“Some of us, ” he said significantly, “need to pee.”

Helen nodded. I grumbled, but nodded my acceptance.

It’s not like I dislike my Dad’s girlfriend. Who is also my girlfriend’s Mom. Who maybe might-be about to drive a wedge between me and my other girlfriend. And we wouldn’t even know when or what or how for a while.

So, yeah, don’t dislike her, but right now feeling awkward around her.

Plus I hate road trips. And waiting for decisions.

We weren’t the only ones checking into the hotel two days early. Most out-of-town runners will arrive tomorrow, but some of us want the extra rest beforehand. Plus meeting like-minded racers is fun. I don’t know anyone back home doing para-sports, aside from two middle-aged guys into wheelchair basketball.

So while Dad checked us in, I texted Rashaun. Who, no, wasn’t staying at the hotel—he’s local to Denver. He sent back a string of smilies and said he’d come over tomorrow, mid-morning. As expected, given his summer job schedule, but disappointing. It was either meet someone new or be lonely this evening. Or rather, without my girlfriends, even more lonely.

Then Rashaun sent a picture: a highway sign with palm trees behind them. What the—? No, wait—the sign said San Diego. It was from Dana—hadn’t noticed the banner. She must have just arrived. Real palm trees—sheesh. I sent a palm-tree emoji as a reply. Teri added a string of hearts—not her usual response. Giddy at arriving at the con?

“Mike!” Dad called. “Rooms are this way!”

I locked my phone and rolled after him. Or rather, him and Helen.

We had two rooms on the first floor this year—one for me, one for Dad and Helen. It took him almost five minutes to get the connecting door open.

I was staring at the king bed when Helen walked in.

“What is it? Did we get the reservation wrong?”

I shook my head. “No, this is better than two queens—more space for my wheelbase.” A single queen bed being not an option—the more accessible-for-wheelchair rooms had already been snatched up by the time Dad made our reservations.

“Then...?”

I looked her in the eyes. “It’ll be lonely, all that space.” Space that, back home, I’d be ecstatic to share—even a queen is tight for three people, especially if one’s Teri.

I was, yes, trying to make Helen uncomfortable, hinting at sleeping with Dana—hey, I am one of those hotbeds of reflexive rebellion called a ‘teenager.’ But she was not a mother easily embarrassed by her daughter’s sexuality.

Instead, she nodded sympathetically. Radical empathy in action, just like Dana. No surprise, or shouldn’t be, given Helen’s the one who raised her, but it made it harder to teenage in a satisfying way. Have to try a different tack.

“We’ll be ready for dinner in half an hour, ” she said. “Matt said there’s a steakhouse just down the road that has good protein for you and decent vegetarian options for me.”

The one we found last year. I nodded. “I’ll be networking in the lobby.”

Helen snorted. “It’s okay to sound like a kid, you know.”

I grinned. Gotta get my kicks how I can.

Three other wheelchairs in the lobby all under forty—it was an easy guess they were also here early for the race. And hello, one a girl about my age. She seemed worth introducing myself to—yanno, trade advice, support. Network.

Okay, yeah, she was cute. Your point?

Well, more than cute—her hair was this amazing golden shade I’d never seen in person, what Dana calls apricot-blonde. I was betting there was a nice smile in there somewhere too, hidden below her pensive eyebrows. She wore a western shirt, jeans, and boots like a horse-riding girl, and was waiting against the wall near the elevators.

Just as well there were enough people I couldn’t zoom straight over. Looking desperate is not attractive, as no teenage boy ever instinctively knows.

“Hey, ” I greeted her.

“Oh. Hey, ” she agreed.

“Racing too?”

Her face brightened a bit. “Yeah. What division?”

“U18 T54 marathon.” People under 18 with spinal cord injuries that paralyzed or limited leg movement but who retain complete control of their trunk, doing the full race.

Full-out grin. I was right about it being nice. “Me too.”

“Awesome, ” I said, holding out a fist to bump. She bumped it—even did the spread-fingers of the fireworks.

She hesitated. “Accident?” with a nod to my lap—or rather my spine.

I swallowed at the reminder, then nodded. “Car—five years ago.” Same goddamn day as my mother’s death, in a second accident as she raced through icy streets to the hospital where I’d been taken. Yes, I am still bitter. “You?”

She nodded. “Rock-climbing, two years ago.”

Oh man. I winced silently. “Any pain?”

She shook her head. “Not any more—race training helped a lot.”

“Oh yeah—it’s all-over conditioning.” Then, “So this is your first?”

She nodded, then shook her head. “Well, kinda. I entered Provo but didn’t finish. I’m in better shape now.”

“Awesome. I’m rooting for ya. I did finish last year here, my first full race, but only barely.” Then, “Oh, and I’m Mike.”

She shook my offered hand. “Amber.”

Seriously? “Which means you get all kinds of jokes about your hair.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah.”

Good call on not making one myself. “Any jokes about waving at the grain?”

A snort escaped her. “The line is amber waves of grain. And yeah.”

“Lessee—trapped in you is right out, of course. Ditto flies in you.”

She actually laughed. I was wrong—she had an awesome smile. “Don’t put yourself out on my account, trying to find a new one.”

“Do you drop from every thorn?”

She blinked. “Okay, that’s new.”

“A line from Alexander Pope.” Reading gobs of poetry to try improving my own could actually pay off in other ways—who knew?

“Doofball, ” she muttered—but still smiling.

“Your Honor, I plead guilty as charged.”

A middle-aged man and two women, both somewhat younger than him wearing modest dresses, stepped out of the elevator. Amber’s face quickly sobered. I twitched my chair around to face her parentals. “Amber, ” the man said, a little severely, “where are your brothers?”

“Over there, sir.” She nodded across the open lobby at a circle of couches, where a handful of tween boys were horsing around.

“And you are?” he said to me. I’ve trained on some of Teri’s frigidest looks and could handle this, but he still managed frosty.

I held out my hand to shake. “Mike Smith, sir. I’m racing in the same division.”

His face didn’t soften, but he nodded and shook my hand with marginal warmth. “Good luck, then.” To Amber, he said, “Time for dinner.” With an implied, Come along, now.

The four headed across the lobby without giving me any further acknowledgement—Amber didn’t even glance at me. I watched them collect two of the boys and herd them into the hotel restaurant.

Oooo-kaythen. I knew better than to take their reaction personally, but it still stung. I was hoping to catch up with her before the race, but if her family were the conservative Mormons they appeared to be, it wasn’t looking likely with a gentile like me.