Maternity Leave (39 page)

“You’re a winner. Just deal with it.” Danny said.

“I’m a sixth placer and a stage winner. How the hell did the drawbridge break anyway?”

“No one said, but I’m sure the city is looking into it. They’re very embarrassed.”

“They should be. They pissed off Jenna Rosen.”

“You’re not the victim here. That lady who used to be in first place is the victim.”

“I am still a victim even if I’m not the victim. Everyone is going to hate me. I’ll be the cyclist with the asterisk by her name.”

“Yes, starting today, when people think of Roger Maris, they’ll think of Jenna Rosen.”

“Mother fucker.”

“I’m just kidding, Jenna. You know that.” Danny continued to bore down into a knot on my back as he said this.

“No, ouch. That hurts. Safe word. Stop, Mother Fucker, you’re killing me.”

“Oh. Sorry, got the knot out though.”

“At least tradition dictates that I don’t wear the yellow jersey tomorrow. I’m pretty sure no one knows who I am without it identifying me.”

“Sure they do,” Danny said. “They refer to you as the strong girl who can’t sprint or descend in a pack.”

“Mother fucker.”

“I’m barely touching you.”

“That time I was calling you a mother fucker.”

When I got back to my room, I had a message from Quinton. “Congrats, Jenna, you can take it from here.” That dumbass thinks this is good news, I thought as I hit delete.

Once the lights were out, I slipped into my yellow jersey. Even though I didn’t earn it and wouldn’t race in it tomorrow, I couldn’t resist wearing it at least once while I had it. Instead of sleeping, I petted Sonny and felt sorry for myself all night, something that was happening with disturbing frequency of late.

At the start of Stage 18 the next day, I tried to apologize to the rider who’d been leading the overall race, and tell her that I would sit up before crossing the line and let her take back the lead. However, I couldn’t spot her because she was no longer wearing the distinctive yellow jersey and the pack was too big to weave in and out of everyone trying to spot her. I decided to just sit up at the end of the stage and she’d figure out that I was doing the right thing.

Before the stage, we learned that investigators had determined that the drawbridge had been intentionally sabotaged and that police had a few leads on the perpetrators. It was probably the same stupid group of kids that thought it was funny to throw glass and tacks onto the road during the race. I really hoped they’d catch the douche bags.

The stage was mountainous. As a result, riders were scattered along the course and I finished with a group of three riders. In this stage, bonus seconds were awarded to the top three finishers. There was also prize money on offer, so I decided to sprint for the finish and give my time back on one of the flat stages where I had no shot of winning. I finished second, earned $460 and had ten bonus seconds subtracted from my time. This result would have advanced me into fourth place if I weren’t already in first place by dumb luck. As I’ve done with all of my winnings, I gave it to Danny so I could put a dent in the money I owed him.

There were two more flat stages prior to the final stage, which was also flat. I calculated that I could give back four minutes and sixteen seconds on each stage without being time cut, and thus claim my rightful place; fourth. I was going to finish last on both of the sprint stages anyway, so I liked the idea of making it look intentional rather than the result of incompetent sprinting.

I gave back four minutes and sixteen seconds on Stage 19 and planned to do the same on Stage 20. As I was getting ready for Stage 20, I had a call but the caller had an unfamiliar area code. All of my friends ignore calls from numbers they don’t recognize, but I’m too curious to let it go. In fact, if I miss a call from an unknown number, I call back to find out who called. I answered and, to my surprise, it was Quinton.

“Hey Jenna,” he said. “I need some legal help.”

“Not now, I’m at the start line and I really have to go. Call your mom, she’s ‘like’ an attorney.” I hung up and rolled to the start.

Just prior to firing the start gun, the race commentator announced that the police had apprehended the person who rigged the drawbridge, and that someone by the name of Quinton Smith was in custody.

My blood went cold. I looked down at my power meter and noticed that my heart rate spiked above threshold even though I wasn’t exercising.

Today’s race would take at least five hours, enough time for the police to realize that Quinton Smith, of Tampa, Florida, had placed two calls to the cell phone registered to the race leader, Jenna Rosen of Tampa, Florida; one from his cell phone and one from jail.

After stressing the entire race, I stopped my bike just before the finish line to wait for four minutes before crossing to restore the race to its proper balance. As I waited, a race official approached me and told me that my boyfriend was in custody and it was too late to try and right a wrong. He was about fifty years old, balding, and wearing the light blue polo shirt of USA Cycling. His tone was flat and neutral, merely explaining the situation, but I took it as harsh since he was essentially telling me my race was over.

“This is a huge misunderstanding,” I pleaded. “Quinton is not my boyfriend and I had no idea that he was even in this time zone let alone rigging a drawbridge.”

The race official looked skeptical. “Come with me, the police need to talk with you.”

“I’ll be happy to clear up this situation in two more minutes,” I said, still determined to yield back the time the drawbridge malfunction had bestowed upon me.

“You’re wasting your time,” the official responded. “I’m sure we’ll be disqualifying you once the truth comes out.”

“We have just under two minutes if you’d like me to explain it now,” I offered.

“Save it,” was the curt reply.

“Okay, I probably couldn’t tell the whole story in under two minutes anyway.”

After standing there awkwardly for a minute, the official said, “Can I lift your bike?”

“Sure,” I said, stepping off the bike. “Just don’t let the front wheel cross the finish line.” Picking up another’s bike is to cyclists what sniffing each other’s ass is to dogs.

“Damn, that’s light,” the official said, suddenly friendly and smiling instead of all business.

We talked about bikes until the balance of my four minutes and sixteen seconds were up, where upon I walked two feet forward, crossed the line and said, “Nice talking with you. I have to go for questioning now.”

“Good luck,” he said, having been softened by my charm.

“Thanks. Hopefully, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I went into the police station and explained my story, leaving in the part about Quinton being psychotic but taking out the part about my fraudulent receipt of insurance benefits for a childless maternity leave. The cops were quite entertained by my story, but said they would have to look into it and get back to me.

“Please, tell the race officials that I didn’t do it so I can race tomorrow,” I said to the cops.

“I don’t know for sure that you weren’t an accomplice,” said the cop, who was short, mustached, and overweight. “You just say you didn’t do it.”

“Okay, then please tell them you can’t prove I had anything to do with it. That way they’ll let me race tomorrow. After that, I’m not worried. I know the truth will come out.”

“I’m a police officer ma’am, not a referee. You talk to the race officials.”

* * *

Danny picked me up from the station and the first thing I said was, “Did you know Quinton was here?”

“No. I’m assuming you didn’t either,” he replied.

“Negatory,” I said. “What an idiot.”

“How did he know that you would be in a breakaway?” Danny asked. “Otherwise rigging the bridge wouldn’t have made sense.”

“Who knows,” I said, “he’s obviously more psychotic than I gave him credit for. He must have been spying on us at dinner when I was talking about having nothing to lose and going for it from the gun on that stage.”

“Maybe our salt shakers had microphones,” Danny suggested, only half in jest.

“I know it sounds paranoid, but he’s obviously insane and he figured it out spite of being a fucking idiot.”

“I have no doubt that he is spying on you,” Danny said.

“This is awful. I’m the Tonya Harding of cycling. It’s only a matter of time before I’m fighting Paula Jones in
Celebrity Boxing
.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Danny, always looking for the silver lining. “At least he didn’t break the kneecaps of the three women ahead of you.”

“There is that.”

“Relax,” said Danny. “This is cycling. It will get cleared up before anyone hears about it.”

“This is no longer cycling. It’s drama.”

“True, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. If the news had spread, your parents would have heard it and called you.”

“My parents don’t watch the news. They’ll call when it’s in the paper tomorrow.”

“It’s not going to be in the paper.”

“It’s my parents,” I said as I answered my phone.

“Did you make Danny break a bridge so that you could win a race?” asked Mom.

“Of course not, Mom, and for the record, I don’t ‘make’ Danny do anything. He’s an adult.”

“Barbara just called me and told me she saw you on the news and that you had some guy break a drawbridge so you could win a race.”

“Well, that’s not what happened. First, the guy wasn’t Danny, it was some psycho I went on one date with. Second, I didn’t ask him to do it; he’s like John Hinckley, Jr.”

“Were you arrested?” Mom asked.

“No, just questioned.”

“Jesus, Jenna.” Dad chimed in.

“Hey, sorry. I gotta go. The other line is ringing.”

“Hi, Jenna, it’s Kimberly.”

“Hey, how are things at the office?” I responded dryly.

“Dude, you are all over the news. Someone at work is going to see this.”

“Thanks, my other line is ringing. I have to go.” I turned my phone off.

“Well, bridge rigging has officially hit the news,” I said to Danny. “It’s only a matter of time before a reporter discovers that I’m on maternity leave and starts wondering where my kid went.”

“Yeah, you are definitely not Ferris Bueller. Remember the good ’ol days, yesterday that is, when you were only worried about your broken heart, losing a race and being hated for getting an unfair advantage? Now you’re practically a felon.”

As we pulled up to the host family’s house, we could see at least twenty news vans. Twenty more than would normally cover a women’s cycling race.

“Where’s big sunglasses when you need them?” I asked.

I got out and waved like I was on the red carpet and the questions started coming.

“Jenna, is Quinton your boyfriend?” “Did you tell Quinton to rig the bridge?” “Where’s your baby?” “There’s no record of you giving birth, why is that?” “Why did you give up the race lead?” “Are you disqualified?”

“Listen,” I said, trying to be heard above the din. “This is all a big misunderstanding, I didn’t do anything unsportsmanlike. I’ll explain the rest later. I need to get some sleep. I have a race tomorrow.”

I thought about telling the entire story, but I didn’t want to admit to the pregnancy part on the remote chance I could still get out of this without losing my job, getting disbarred and being arrested for fraud.

As I walked into the host house for the evening, the woman of the house glared at me disapprovingly, before smiling for the cameras. Clearly she considered this her fifteen minutes of fame. Once I was inside, the swarm of reporters was replaced by my teammates, who had a cold beer for me. I’d told each of them the story of my date with Quinton, just because it was funny. They put two and two together and knew I was innocent. I chugged the beer, thanked them, and went to the basement, my sleeping quarters for the evening. Alyssa was there.

She was reading a magazine with Sonny curled up next to her.

Lucky me, we were roommates again. “Stop trying to steal my dog,” I said.

“From the lady who tried to steal the race.”

“Come on,” I said. “You know I didn’t do that.”

“Figured,” Alyssa responded. “Was it the alcoholic that took you to IHOP?”

“Yes. I didn’t even know there was a bridge on the course,” I said as I grabbed Sonny.

“I believe you,” Alyssa said, “but are you ever fucked.”

“Put your wall back up,” I said, “before you ruin my day even more by making me stare at the ceiling wondering if you’re telling me this because you feel sorry for me or because you might like me.”

Alyssa leaned in and kissed me. I was startled and confused but instead of asking questions, I decided to get laid now and ask later.

Afterwards, I said, “Alyssa, how do you sprint?”

She laughed and said, “Now that’s some hot pillow talk.”

“Sorry. It’s just that if I’m allowed to race tomorrow, all eyes will be on me, the girl who threw her life away to race her bike. And because it ends in a tight circuit, I’ll place last in the field sprint after struggling off the back of the pack on every corner.”

“You’ll be fine,” Alyssa assured me.

“No, I’ll suck, as always. My first goal is to not come in last place. My second goal is to place in the top three. If I do that, I’ll get bonus seconds and place third overall.”

“Yeah, but that’s not going to happen,” Alyssa said, a bit too frankly. “You won’t even be in the draft, let alone the front of the pack, let alone the lead.”

“I know,” I said, now hoping to place in the top three just to rub it in Alyssa’s face. I asked again, “Come on Alyssa, how do you sprint?”

“By not being a pussy,” she responded.

“Great, thanks. How do you not be a pussy?”

“Just stop thinking,” she said. “If I see an opening, I go through it. When you see an opening, you tap your brakes. Stop doing that.”

“Okay, don’t tap my brakes while sprinting,” I repeated. “That makes sense. What else?”

“You’re the smart lawyer, you’ll figure it out someday,” she said.

“I won’t, I’m like a gifted idiot. Besides, I don’t want to figure it out someday, I want to figure it out tomorrow.”