Chapter 5

Charley’s turn:

The day after we got engaged, I was invited to breakfast with the Lewis’. While we ate, Claire was fiddling with her ring. Eventually, she looked at me and said, “Don’t panic, but last night I got to thinking about us...”

My breath caught in my chest.

I’m sure I looked stricken, so she smiled and said, “I said don’t panic. Really! I’m still committed. The thing is, I really stopped to think about how much you are putting on the line doing this. If it doesn’t work out, you could be in big trouble, even go to prison. But you’re trusting me to do the right thing. Part of me thinks I should be scared of that type of responsibility, but I’m not. I’m absolutely confident that I made the right choice. I won’t let you down. I won’t let any of you down.”

I just grabbed her and hugged her tight while my breathing returned to normal.

She reached across and stroked my hair while I hugged her. “The fact that you trust me so much, that you don’t see me as some flighty teenager, means more to me than you can imagine. I love you so much!”

The rest of breakfast was much less stressful. Bill and Terri gave their approval to me taking over Claire’s incidental expenses — her therapy, clothes, outdoor gear and the like. I also decided to get her some of the electronic toys that I enjoyed, so after breakfast I ordered her a new iPhone, iPad Pro and MacBook Air. They’d be the same as mine except for the colors and the size of the phone.

After that, we discussed some of the things we could do to spend time together without making it too hard to keep our promises to one another.

Claire had a bike in Tacoma, but it hadn’t made the trip with her. Besides which, it sounded like it was probably too small and a bit of a clunker to boot. Since riding is one of my favorite things to do, the first thing we decided to do to make spending time together easier was to get her a new bike. The following Wednesday, after work, I took her down to my favorite local bike shop.

We were greeted by Dan, the owner of the shop, when we walked in. “Good afternoon, Charley. Good to see you again. What can I do for you today?”

“Hi, Dan,” I said. “This is my fiancée, Claire. She needs a new bike — probably something like mine given the state of some of the roads around here.”

I noticed Claire’s reaction when I introduced her as my fiancée and squeezed her hand. I wasn’t going to hide our relationship, and I wanted her to know it.

Dan shook my hand and said, “Congratulations!” Turning to Claire, he shook her hand as well and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Claire.”

After some small talk about the state of biking in the area, Dan led us over to a rack of bikes and said, “You’ve probably already got a good idea of what’s what. My Kona is a great choice if you’re looking for something new, as is the Trek down the street.”

“Sure, and the Surly is as well,” I said. “Got it. Now, you emphasized new. Have you got something used that’s more interesting?”

“It’s kind of a specialty item, so I don’t have it out front. I have a coupled Bilenky Midlands in on consignment that sounds like just what you’re looking for, and I think it will fit Claire. The woman who owns it moved on to a proper gravel bike since she’s now focusing on off-road riding. She’d like to get $1,500 out of this one.”

“Wow! That sounds like a perfect match. Let’s see it.” I loved my Co-Motion, but the Bilenky would be a great companion and if it was in reasonable shape, $1500 was a steal.

The bike had obviously seen some use, but was still in excellent shape. Actually, I was pretty sure I recognized it. I thought it belonged to an older rider I saw around fairly frequently, so I asked, “Is this Beth Ferguson’s bike?”

Dan nodded, then answered my puzzled frown, “Beth loves the bike, but she knows it could sit around for years if she asked what it’s worth, and she wants it to be used.”

Claire had been looking the bike over and said, “What are those strange silvery things on the tubes?”

Dan took out a small wrench and said, “They’re S&S couplers. With this wrench, you can take the bike apart at those places, then pack it into a suitcase. Some airlines are pretty restrictive about bikes. Others charge an arm and both legs, which means you won’t need the bike much when you get to where you’re going. With couplers, once the bike is put in its case, it’s treated like any other suitcase.”

“Oh, wow! So if we wanted to ride in Germany or France after we get married, I could just pack this away and put it together on the other side?”

“That’s right,” he said. “Plenty of builders can build bikes with couplers, but Bilenky has earned a reputation as experts with them. This frame is also a bit nicer than their run-of-the-mill since they fillet brazed the tubes together rather than welding them. Both ways work fine, but they put more time and effort into cleaning up the joints if they’re brazed. They’re also more likely to survive a wreck, but, seriously, if you hit something hard enough to break a good TIG welded joint, the condition of the bike is likely to be the least of your worries.”

“Brazing is also more expensive, love,” I said. “If you wanted to buy this frame new, it’d probably cost you $4,000 or more. Like Dan said, the fact that she’s willing to sell the bike so cheap tells me that she really loves it and wants it to be back on the road. Let’s see if it’ll fit you. If it does, well, I love my bike, but this one’s nicer.”

After working on the sizing, Dan determined that it needed a slightly shorter stem. After a quick swap, it was a great fit for her long legs and shorter torso. Still, even with as good a deal as the bike was, with clothes, shoes, helmet and the rest, the bill was almost $2,300 before tax. Claire wanted to ride home, so I met her there. The smile on her face told me it was money well spent.

That Saturday, we went to the nearest REI and outfitted Claire for hiking, which she was dying to try. Before her mother was arrested, Tacoma had been the only home she’d ever known. Tahoma — the city’s namesake, though it’s more commonly known as Mt. Rainier — was so close that it dominated the skyline, but she’d never been there. We were going to change that as soon as we could.

On the way home she questioned me about what we’d been spending, saying that with what I’d spent on rings, bike gear and now hiking gear, she was worried about my finances.

“Ah, I haven’t talked to you about money yet, have I?” I said. “First things first, it’s our finances. We’re in this together, okay?”

“But we’re not married...” she started.

I interrupted her. “We will be. That’s what the rings mean. Since we will be, I’m treating it like we are right now. I’m yours forever, sweetheart.”

She gave me a smoldering look before kissing her fingers and touching my lips.

I continued by saying, “I don’t have any long term debt. The house is paid for, so is the car. I pay off my credit cards every month. With me so far?” When she nodded, I went on, “I get paid very well and, now that I’ve finished paying off the house, I don’t spend a lot of it. I do keep myself in toys, though.” She grinned and nodded at that. “But the toys are mostly durable, so I only spend on them occasionally. I only upgrade my toys if there’s a pretty good reason.” She nodded again.

“Steve is also very good about rewarding people. As far as I know, everyone in the company has gotten some sort of bonus every year,” I said. “When someone does something big, the bonus can be pretty substantial. Two years ago, we were very busy with a major new version when one of our developers left for a job at AutoDesk. I had to step in and cover most of his work while still doing my own. The only reason I didn’t have to do all of it was because Jeff pitched in, too. I know Steve bumped his bonus, but my bonus that year bought this car, with money to spare.”

I didn’t tell her that the next time I was in the office, I’d slipped Jeff another $3,000 and suggested he take the family on a vacation. His help kept me from being nearly as stressed, but it meant that Cindy and their kids didn’t get to see him as much for a couple of months. I wanted to make sure they knew I appreciated their sacrifice.

“You’re kidding! Just your bonus bought a BMW SUV?” Claire said. I nodded. “Okay, maybe I don’t need to worry too much.”

“That’s about the size of it, sweetie. We’re not rich, but we’re pretty well-off.”

“Sounds rich to me.”

“That’s a whole different scale,” I said. “Microsoft and Amazon are on the other side of the Sound. There are rich people over there.”

“I suppose you’re right, but I don’t want to feel like some sort of parasite,” she said. “Mom was always very controlling of money. She had one of those little fireproof safes in her room where she kept the money, and she had the only keys. I always felt like I was doing great if I had $10 in my pocket.”

“It sounds like you never got used to managing money,” I said. “We need to work on that, since you’ll have access to all of our money when we get married. Can you grab my purse and dig out my wallet?”

It took her a minute since my purse was in the rear seat, and she needed to twist around to get at it. Once she had it, I said, “Go ahead and grab five $20s. That’s pocket money for you, and I don’t want you to argue about it, okay? Now, for the first little bit I want you to let me know what you spend it on, but only after the fact. This isn’t so I can keep track of it, but because needing to tell me will make you think about it, and really consider whether you want to spend the money. Okay?”

Claire nodded and said, “I love you so much! Thanks for helping me learn how to handle it.”

I was eating breakfast with Bill, Terri and Claire the next day when I asked, “How are your legs doing, sweetie?” We’d gone out for ten miles around town Friday after I got off work, and I wanted to be sure to not overdo it.

“My legs are fine,” she said. “I’m glad we took yesterday off to go to REI, since my butt was a little too tender for riding, but it’s okay now. Do you have another ride you want to do today?”

“I do. We’ll go out on the trail to a natural turn around spot and come back. Call it sixteen miles, round trip.”

While climbing the long hill out of town, I made sure she was keeping her effort under control. She’d already told me that she hadn’t done any serious riding before, so I wanted to coach her on ways to make longer rides easier. Her body in Lycra was a bit distracting, but I managed to keep my mind on how she was doing.

Coming up on a short, steep section, I said, “When you see something like this coming, it’s best to plan a little early. You can either gear down or you can stand up, but if you stand and find you’re not making it, you’ll probably end up stopping. You can try to shift while you’re standing, but it’s a lot dicier than doing it a little early.”

She opted to gear down, I stood and paced her.

“Check out the tunnel coming up. You’ll be going downhill when you get to it on the way back, and if you’re going too fast, you’ll be blind for a good section of it while your eyes adjust. It might not be too big a deal, but see that pothole?”

On a rolling section near the turnaround, I pulled ahead and motioned her to stop. “This is something you need to keep in mind now, and in the future when we’re hiking. This area isn’t completely tame. A cougar was spotted in the field here a couple of years ago.”

“This close to town?” she asked.