Page 34 of Life Out of Order

“Well,” he replies, “if we use a decoy biker . . .”

Saturday, July 8, 2023–Monday, July 10, 2023 (Alba is 21 and 22)

Alba: A week later Zach and I are in a rental car headed for Max and Joe Gomolinski’s apartment in Wicker Park. They live just around the corner from one of my parents’ favorite bars, the Violet Hour, and they’ve been storing a bike and other gear at their place all week. We’ve been doing practice runs—I ride around the neighborhood, Zach and Caralora follow me in a different rental car every day. There are patterns to these hit and runs: all the cyclists were young women wearing headphones; the killings all happened in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday; all of them were killed here in Wicker Park, on quieter residential streets, not main roads. This is day seven, and by yesterday I was a little bored, but today I’m nervous because Zach is nervous. He hasn’t spoken much since we got in the car.

“Hey, Zach?”

“Yeah, Alba?”

“If you ever wanted to actually kill me you could just tell me some crazy-dangerous thing was a causal loop and I’d do it and get annihilated and no one would ever know you’d set me up.”

Zach grins. “I don’t like this, either. Shall we go to the movies instead? There’s a Hitchcock festival at the Music Box this weekend.”

“Is there, really?”

“Yeah, there is.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe later, if I’m not dead. I wish my other self had given you more specifics.”

“She did. But she was also specific about what I should pass along to you. What do you want to know?”

“The exact place he’s going to hit me.”

“Other Alba said you don’t get to know that.”

“I don’t see why not. But you know, right?”

“Yes. Max and Joe are going to be right there, waiting.”

“What kind of car is it?”

He pauses. “A black Camry.”

“Will it happen today?”

“Yes.”

We park and walk to Joe and Max’s in silence. It’s an overcast, heavy morning, and we’ve all been exchanging worried texts about rain. Caralora and Rosa are here already. I change into a pink skirt and a neon-yellow hoodie, not clothes I would normally ever wear, but extremely visible from afar. I feel like a tennis ball.

Downstairs in the garage, Max unlocks the bike, an old Trek ladies’ hybrid that Caralora has donated to the cause. The frame is a little too big for me, but C-lora has adjusted everything adjustable. I put on the wireless phone earpiece, put on knee and elbow pads, pull on cycling gloves, strap on my helmet. Caralora’s voice is in my ear: “Hello, my little kamikaze biker, can you hear me?” She’s standing ten feet away, so I hear her voice doubled.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go.” Zach embraces me, we kiss, and before I’m ready the kiss is over and they all head out. I wheel the bike up to the garage door and wait while everyone else takes their places. Zach is driving our rental car, a red BMW, with Caralora, our fastest runner, in the passenger seat. Max and Joe will be hiding as close to the accident as possible. Rosa will be parked up the block, facing the wrong way on the one-way street; her job is to block off the street with her car, so that the killer will be trapped between her car and Zach’s. I don’t like this part of the plan; I can imagine someone plowing right into her if they are serious enough about leaving the scene.

After a longish time Caralora’s voice says, “Go ahead, Alba,” in my earpiece. I walk the bike through the door and to the corner, climb on and check over my shoulder to find the red BMW pulling up behind me. I push off, wobble and ride.

For the next hour I cruise around Wicker Park, careful to keep my tail. I stay south of North Avenue and west of Damen, as instructed by Zach. I’m starting to think about stopping for coffee and a restroom when I notice the black Camry waiting at a stop sign on Hirsch as I sail past it, traveling north on Bell. Caralora’s voice in my ear says, “On your right, Alba.” Not here, I think as it turns to follow me, not in front of the school—I speed up—it’s too open and we can’t trap him—I hear the car accelerate, feel the impact and I am flung off the bike into the air, I am turning and flipping, sudden pain surges through me, the world rotates with sickening abruptness—

Zach: Even though I know when, where and exactly how the car is going to hit Alba, it is still shocking when it happens. Alba is thrown high and seems to hang in the air like a free throw—and then she’s gone. I can’t see if she vanished or just fell. Caralora shouts, “Drive, dammit,” and the Camry quickly backs up. Rosa is driving fast toward us. I floor it and almost rear-end the Camry, which tries to drive onto the sidewalk to get around Rosa; she solves that problem by simply veering into it. She hits it from the side, near the rear wheel, spinning it around into a tree. I drive right through the spot where Rosa was a second before, manage to stop—Rosa stops, Max and Joe are running toward us from across the street, C-lora is out of the car, running. They converge on the driver of the Camry (a balding, youngish white guy), who is still at the wheel; he has a blank expression, as though he’s in shock. I look for Alba. The bike is demolished, pieces scattered on the street, but Alba is nowhere. I can’t find her, and that is reassuring—then I see her clothes, strewn all over the sidewalk—my heart is pounding, where is she where—and there she is, curled on her side, naked. I run to her. She’s unconscious. An egg-sized bump is rising on her forehead, at her hairline. I check her eyes: her pupils are black, huge, but she’s breathing all right. Max is calling the ambulance before he even sees Alba. He says, “Oh, no,” and runs to check on Rosa. I turn and see that Rosa is still in her car, surrounded by deployed airbags. A minute later, Max brings a blanket, and we cover Alba gently. She mutters something none of us understand; her words are soft and slurred. I hear sirens. Caralora and Joe have dragged the Camry driver out of his car and are taking turns kicking him. They stop when the ambulances arrive. The EMTs load up Alba and Rosa and I follow them to the hospital, leaving Caralora, Max and Joe to deal with the police.

Alba: I wake up whimpering to light so sharp it cuts my brain. I shut my eyes until someone turns it off. I have an awful headache and I don’t want to cry but I can feel cold streaks of tears on my cheeks. My mother says my name. I say, “Mama? Did they get him?” Or at least, that is what I mean to say. The sounds I make are like half-chewed food in my mouth.

Mama turns her head away and says something I don’t hear. Dr. Kendrick looms into view. “You have a concussion, Alba. The good news is, you didn’t break any bones and you don’t have a brain bleed. But it’s hard to understand what you’re saying.”

Mama says, “What the hell were you people doing, anyway?” I flinch and close my eyes. “Why were the police here?”

From the other side of the room, Beck’s voice, softly: “Hush, Clare. Let’s not yell, now.”

Zach, sounding far away, “It was an older Alba’s show, we ran it according to her instructions.”