DOI: 10.3726/9781915734822.003.0027

26: The summer afternoon

Lori and I ride our bikes through the forest beside the Speed River on our way out to Guelph Lake, a human-made reservoir on the edge of town. Dry pine needles make an orange carpet along the trail. Shafts of sunlight beam through the prickly lodgepole pine boughs overhead. The air is humid and the shade of the trees provides some relief from the July sunshine.

Our bike chains click as they shift over metal sprockets. Twigs snap underneath our tires. We glide through occasional wet patches of mud. The Speed River winds alongside the muddy embankment. Two Mallard ducks stand at the edge of the river and quack to one another. Lori and I pedal alongside one another in silence for a few minutes. But, I want to race. I pump my legs faster. My chest heaves as I zoom ahead.

“Hey!” she calls out from behind me. “You said you wanted to do a mellow ride!”

“I lied!” I yell. “C’mon, put those hockey quads to work!” I laugh, looking back. Lori shakes her head and grins.

I swerve around gnarled trees and manoeuvre over twisted roots. I splash through puddles and duck under low-hanging branches. “Wahoo!” I holler as I fly down a short hill. I crank my handlebars around a corner and keep pedalling. The forest opens up. The lake appears between the trees.

Lori’s voice echoes through the forest. “You suck!”

I turn my head sideways to try and catch a glimpse of her. The trail looks empty. I squeeze the brake levers on my handlebars. My bike comes to a stop at the side of the trail. Putting my feet on the ground, I take the small backpack off my shoulders. I reach inside, pull out my water bottle, and unscrew the lid. I take a swig. My breathing slows. A robin warbles in the branches overhead and a few feet away, a squirrel prattles away on a log. A warm breeze drifts over my bare arms.

Tires and pedals rotate closer and closer on the path behind me. I thrust the water bottle out to Lori as she rides towards me. Jutting my hip out, I give her my cutest grin.

“Water break, sweetheart?”

Her feet push hard against the pedals and she picks up speed again. I see the bulge of muscle in her thighs. Man, I love those quads.

“Water’s for losers!” she hollers and speeds past me.

“Dammit!” I jam the lid back on my bottle, stuffing it into my backpack. Slinging the backpack across my shoulders, I jump on my bike, and race to catch up.

When I arrive at our spot overlooking the lake, her bike is leaning against the trunk of a maple tree. She is sprawled on the grass. I park my bike up against hers.

“Water break, sweetheart?” Lori holds out her water bottle. She smirks and raises her eyebrows at me. Why is she always so cute?

“You jerk!” I laugh, flopping down beside her.

I put my head on her stomach. Her shirt feels damp and warm. My head moves up and down as her chest expands and falls. Fishing a bandana out of the pocket of my cutoffs, I wipe sweat off my forehead. Lori tucks her hand into the waistband of my shorts. The wind picks up and floats across our sweaty bodies. Sweeping branches of the maple tree sway above us. Pale blue sky peeks between the fluttering leaves. We inhale together. And exhale.

“What kind of bird is that?” Lori asks, pointing past my head towards the trunk of the maple tree. A tiny bird with bluish-grey wings, a caramel-coloured breast, and a black and white striped cap dances up and down the bark.

“Let me check my app!” I retrieve my phone from my pocket and swipe my finger across the front. I click on the red square that says “Audubon Birds,” scrolling through the list of “tree-clinging birds,” and looking at the tiny photos.

“It’s a nuthatch, right?” I show Lori the image of a little bird on my phone.

“Looks like it. What does it sound like, I wonder?” she reaches over and taps the miniature label on the screen that says “songs.” Up pops a list of different sounds to pick from. “Toots,” “nasal squeaks,” and “chattery outbursts” are some of the choices.

She clicks on “toots.”

“Yak-yak-yak-yak-yak.”

Lori and I look at each other and chuckle. I press it again.

“Yak-yak-yak-yak-yak!”

The nuthatch flits from the trunk over to a branch right above our heads.

“Whoa! Look!” I point.

“I see!” Lori smiles. “Press it again!”

“Yak-yak-yak-yak-yak!”

The nuthatch bobs and skips back and forth along the branch, chirping in response.

“She’s singing back to your phone!”

“I know! It’s so cool!”

I press “chattery outbursts.” A series of trills and tweets erupt from my phone. Another nuthatch darts out from the leaves and lands on another bough above us. And another. And another. And another. They hop and jitter along the tree’s limbs. Then, I press “nasal squeaks.” Another nuthatch shoots past us and lands on the tree’s trunk. He shimmies up and down the bark and cocks his tiny head side to side. He clucks and peeps.

I jab Lori in the hip with my elbow. “There are so many!”

“This is incredible. I’ve never seen this before,” she says.

“Me neither.”

A nuthatch rockets down from above and dive-bombs Lori’s head, just missing her nose.

“Whoa!” She shrieks and clenches her eyes shut.

It swoops back up into the mass of branches above.

“Wow! Awesome!” I burst out. Grabbing her leg, I laugh with delight.

My heart feels like it’s swirling and whirling and filling up with everything. Like it’s filling up with all the little nuthatch songs—their chirrups and trills and cheeps. Like it’s filling up with the warm wind and the golden late-afternoon sunlight. Like it’s filling up with Lori, with us. I get a lump in my throat as I think about how, decades after attending the same high school, our paths crossed again, a few years ago.

I reach over and brush her cheek with my fingertips. She wraps her fingers around mine and brings them to her lips. I roll over and take her body in my arms. We kiss. Her lips feel soft and warm. I rest my cheek on her collarbone. I breathe her in. She smells faintly of men’s soap.

Is this what joy feels like?

The tiny birds twitter and frolic and serenade us from above.

We disentangle and lie flat on our backs again, our shoulders touching. As we look up at the sky and watch clouds sail by, the nuthatches dart away, one by one.

Lori turns to me. “Time for dinner?”

“Yeah,” I say.

She rolls to her feet and reaches her hand down to help me up. She pulls my body to hers and looks at me.

“Can you feel how much I love you?” she asks, shafts of sunlight streaming down around us.

Tears prickle under my eyelids and I hug her tightly.

“Yeah” I say. “I love you, too.”

We hope on our bikes and ride home.