Bringing Back the Past

Drip, drip, drip. That familiar sound of rain drumming on the roof, the one Anna awoke to often. Wait, was it really rain? She quickly remembered watching the weather channel with Mom the night before, recalled Carolina Vespucci, the local weather lady, saying there might be a small chance of a snow day if the snow didn’t switch over to rain by morning. So maybe...? Anna crossed over to the window at the other side of the room, briefly leaving her mountain of blankets. Drawing back the curtains, she was disappointed. The dripping noise on the roof was indeed rain. And that meant, yes, school.

She checked the digital clock on her desk, the red neon numbers displaying the time. 6:32. Mom would be coming in to wake her up in twenty more minutes. Twenty more minutes more of sleep? Sounded good. Anna climbed back into her pile of covers and drifted back off to sleep, listening to the sound of rain rushing through the gutters...

* * * * *

“Ann? Anna? Are you up yet?”

“No,” she groaned, not loud enough so Mom could hear, but loud enough so that she could credit herself on having given an answer. Anna rolled over to check the time on the digital clock on her bedside table.

“Holy crow!” she sat up in bed. 7:08. Almost twenty minutes later than she should have been getting up. Mom must’ve heard her up at 6:30, decided she didn’t have to wake her. Classes at the high school started right after eight, and worse yet, the bus came at 7:35, giving Anna exactly twenty-seven minutes to get in the shower, get dressed, eat, and make a mad dash to the bus stop. The clock changed. Twenty-six minutes. She desperately tried to untangle herself from the sheets and blankets that had knotted themselves around her ankles.

Thanks to Anna’s unwillingness to get out of bed, the shower was free. She grabbed some clothes out of the drawer and headed for the bathroom. The hot water eased her tension, and she felt so much better as the water ran over her body, but she was still, nevertheless, late for school. She yanked on her clothes and rushed into her room to get her backpack, briefly glancing at the clock. Already 7:23 and counting. Anna was almost out the door before she realized she had forgotten her breakfast. Almost as if she had read Anna’s mind, Mom came out of the kitchen, bagel in hand, wrapped in wax paper so it wouldn’t get soggy during the walk, or today the run, to the bus stop. She was way ahead of Anna, which was almost always the case.

She took the bagel from Mom, allowing a quick “thanks” before I headed out the door again. This time she actually got through the door onto the front porch before Mom stopped her.

“Anna, hey, not so fast,” she said.

Anna turned around, and yes. Her jacket. She knew she had been forgetting something. She took the jacket from Mom, and headed for the bus stop for the last time. Walking at a faster-than-normal pace down the driveway, she checked her watch. It took Anna a couple of seconds before she realized she was looking at her wrist. Her bare wrist. She must’ve left her watch on the night stand.

Realizing she had no way of pacing herself so she could make it two blocks over in time, Anna started to run. There was no way she could miss the bus today. She splashed through puddles, cruising down Sunset Boulevard, her own street, and turning the corner onto Hill. Running down the street, she saw a guy on a bike next to her. Anna didn’t pay any attention to him, just kept running, until he stopped a couple feet ahead of her and straddled the bike. She wasn’t sure whether he had stopped for her or not so she slowed down as she passed him parked in the bike lane.

“Hey,” he said. Not calling out, but not conversational tone. He looked about twenty, give or take a year maybe, and was wearing pretty much the same thing as Anna was - jacket (only his had a hood), jeans, and sneakers. And sunglasses. Anna’s first thought was, “It’s raining, bud, you can see fine without the glasses” but before she could process any more he continued.

“You look kind of wet,” he speculated. Thank you, Captain Obvious. “You in a rush?”

“Yeah, so if you don’t mind, I really got to go...”

“You want a ride?”

“A ride?” You’re riding a bike for Pete’s sake.

“Yeah. On wheels. Like, you get on the handle bars and I’ll give you a ride. Faster than walking.” Anna’s first instinct was not to take the offer. Don’t talk to strangers and all that stuff. But standing there in the rain, she knew she was late, knew she was wasting time talking to him, and knew that if he took her somewhere other than the bus stop, she could just jump off, right? Bikes weren’t similar to cars in that way.

“I guess I could use a ride,” she said giving in. “Thanks.”

“Where to?” he asked me as Anna expertly placed herself on his handle bars. Elise and Anna got around this way a lot. It meant only having to lock up one bike and therefore remembering one combination.

“The bus stop. At the intersection of Emery and State Street.”

“You take bus three?”

“Yeah.” How’d he know that. But then again, he wasn’t too far out of high school based on Anna’s judgment. Maybe he’d taken bus three. She was just about to ask when he started to petal. The rain pelted her face and she squinted into the wall of water. In only two or three minutes, they’d reached the bus stop, although as Anna opened her eyes and hopped off the handle bars, she saw the bus peeling away from the curb.

“Shoot,” she muttered quietly. The guy must’ve heard.

“Get back on,” he told her. “I’ll take you over to the school.” Anna wanted to protest, but she was going to be late regardless, so she got back on and they speed through the rain towards the public high school.