Can’t rub too hard or I might scratch the finish.
There.
He felt triumphant, idling at the first traffic signal in town. A guy in the crosswalk looked at the MPP and Wylie nodded coolly. He made the turn onto Old Mammoth Road, drove slowly through town, and pulled into one of the Mammoth Cycle parking spaces in the crowded Von’s shopping center. Wylie was dying to show off the MPP, and his high-school buddy Chris, the bike maniac, was the nearest pal he could think of. Wylie found him in the service area with a bike up on the stand. Chris followed him out to the parking lot, flipping a box wrench end by end in one grease-blackened hand.
“Holy crap, dude.”
“Don’t touch it with greasy hands.”
“Jesse Little Chief made this?”
“Every inch of it.”
“I want one.”
“Everyone will.”
“How much?”
“Well, he’d have to run some numbers. Look at the way it just... sits there.”
Wylie kept staring at his trailer, not quite able to believe it was his. He was aware of someone coming across the parking lot behind him, more than one person, by the sound of things, although he was paying little attention. He turned and saw April Holly and a woman who had to be her mother, and a very large man, even larger than the bouncer Croft. They carried shopping bags from the market. April, in the lead, stopped at the trailer, set her bags on the asphalt, and studied it. There was a long moment of silence.
“Does it have a name?” April asked.
Wylie turned to her. “Module, personal, portable.”
“So it’s, like, military?”
“There could be a military application, someday,” he said.
“You’re Wylie Welborn.”
“Welcome to Mammoth Lakes, April.”
April introduced him to her mother, Helene, and her bodyguard, Logan. They set down their bags and shook his hand. Helene had a deeply tanned, dour face. Her handshake was strong and brief, Logan’s lingering softly with either gentleness or threat. The big man had a wide downward mouth and ears that tapered sharply. April’s voice was soft and whispery, like a breeze in leaves, which made Wylie lean in closer to hear.
“I heard you joined the army,” she said.
“I’m a United States Marine.”
“And now you’re back into ski-cross racing?”
“It will keep me out of trouble.”
“Of what kind?”
“Those days are gone.”
She looked at him frankly. She had a round, pretty face and looked smaller and older in person than on TV or magazine covers. Blue eyes and a sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks. Button nose, more freckles. Her hair was blond and curly and difficult to manage, according to shampoo commercials that Wylie had seen, and it now sprung up unmanaged from a pink bandanna.
He watched April considering the MPP. Helene checked her cell phone and Logan stared off toward the cop station. “I get claustrophobic,” April said.
“Me, too. But check this out.” Wylie swung out the elegant double doors, stepped inside, opened the portholes, and stepped back out. He fastened each door open against the MPP with the latches that Jesse had built in. He gestured at the trailer with both hands, like a salesman, to point out the surprisingly spacious interior of the module: the small table that would fold out to fit with the padded benches to form a bed, the two-burner stove, the yacht-size sink and john behind the sliding shoji screen. Jesse’s birch caught the sunlight as if to banish claustrophobia.
April stepped in. “It’s bigger than I thought.”
She stood framed in the doorway, looking down at Jolene’s box of presents on the table, then turned back at Wylie. “Hard liquor and poetry?”
“In moderation.”
She looked down on him from her elevation just inside the trailer. “My people have prohibitions on almost everything, even moderation. Probably poetry, too, though I haven’t been tempted by that yet. I don’t think I’m smart enough to understand a whole poem. But can you recommend one poetic, dangerous, life-changing word that I should know?”
“Module.”
She gave him a half smile. “You love this thing, don’t you?”
“You can sit.”
“No, thank you,” she said, stepping back out. “But it sure smells good. Is it new?”
“Brand-new. A friend made it.”
“It looks too shiny and perfect to leave outside.”
“I agree, but it’s made to be used. Very strong. There’s insulation between the inside and outside walls. And real salvage portholes.”
“For stargazing.”
“And ventilation in summer.”
She looked at him skeptically. “But no place for your skis and gear.”
“This was my idea!” Wylie hustled around to the stern and unfastened two heavy stainless-steel latches. He pulled a substantial brass handle then stepped aside to let a long, heavy drawer roll out to its full length of eight feet. It glided with audible heft upon its bearings, burped a waft of redwood-scented air, then stopped. When he looked at her, April Holly had one hand over her mouth but couldn’t staunch her laughter.
“Oh, that’s just so funny!”
“How can a drawer be funny?”
“You are!”
“I...”
“Done yet, honey?” asked Helene.
“Oh, that made my day,” said April. She gathered her bags, still laughing. “So nice to meet you, Wylie.”
Wylie nodded compliantly. “Same here.”
“Love the module! See ya on the mountain.”
Wylie and Chris watched them cross the lot toward a black Escalade with her image on the side. While Logan held open the front passenger door for Helene, April glanced back at Wylie and Chris, waved, then climbed in the back.
“She’s hard to figure,” said Chris. “She seems halfway with it, then pretty random. And then cool and then only about herself. Did you know she gets two million a year for her headgear sponsor? The shampoo? Just that one little space on her helmet?”
“She liked the MPP.”
“She didn’t stay long.”
“Not with her mom standing there.”
“She’s engaged. Did you see that ring?”
Wylie said nothing, rubbed his thumb over a tiny bubble in the finish.
“I sold her ten bikes yesterday. One-fifth of my stock. There’re six people total on her racing team, counting the mom and her. But that Logan guy is too big for a bike. So April bought herself and the rest of them road bikes for asphalt and hard-tail twenty-nines for the bike paths. Pretty good ones. Thirteen thousand bucks. And another thousand for helmets and shoes and bibs and oh, man, every bike gadget you can think of. Most money I ever made in a day, by far. Maybe enough to buy one of these trailers from Jesse.”
Wylie was again lost in meditation on the module. He heard the Escalade pulling away but couldn’t look.
“April rented one of those big houses in Starwood,” said Chris. “Six flat-screens and three hot tubs is what I heard.”
“How many miles you think these tires will go?”
Later that night, Wylie retired from the Welborn-Mikkelsen house and got everything set up for his first night in the MPP. Beatrice and Belle helped him convert the benches and table into the bed, the thick pads making a firm mattress for his summer-weight sleeping bag. The battery-powered lantern gave off a good clean light. He read and made notes and sipped a short bourbon.