Short Story Writing: Create Fiction from Personal Experience - "Cream Soda, Stephen, Phoebe, and that Girl with the Freckles"

I grabbed a rag, an old one my mom said I could use, and I polished up my bike. It was a pink cruiser bike from Canadian Tire that, for whatever reason, had a sticker that said ‘Cream Soda’ in iridescent white cursive on it. (I would go on to refer to her as Cream Soda to the neighborhood kids, and my parents. If they didn’t know ‘who’ I was referring to, I shot them a look and explained with exasperation that I was referring to my bike, obviously. This was the lingo of a true biker, or so I thought. I’ve named every bike I’ve had since.)
There was really no need to polish my bike; I only rode it up and down our street. I did it more for the feeling of pride over this thing only I used. Cream Soda was adorned with a white wicker basket, and sparkly pink and purple streamers attached to the rubber handlebars. Needless to say, my brothers were not in the least bit interested in riding her. This small pink thing would hardly be considered a bike by the standards of any actual cyclist, but when I rode it, you could not tell me that I wasn’t in the Tour De France.
We lived at the base of a small hill. Riding up it would make me sweat and pant –Cream Soda didn’t have any gears. But riding down was worth all the strain of the uphill part of the journey. The wind whipped through my pixie cut (I had chopped my hair myself the year prior, and was now growing out what I thought –and still think– was a rather chic hairdo), and I would stand up on the pedals like my brothers had taught me, feeling much older than five. My hands and cheeks would be a pleasant brand of cold, with my heart racing. I really liked the band Queen at the time, and would sing ‘Bicycle’ loudly as I rode up and down the streets. As far as I know, the neighbors never complained.
I begged my parents to let me park her in the front of the house, so the other kids would know who they were dealing with. They wouldn’t let me, citing that theft of the bike would be a nasty outcome that I would regret severely, so I relented, but not without some pouting first.
As I aged through to my adolescence, and eventually grew too big for Cream Soda, there was a small, steady parade of different sized bikes I would proudly whip around the neighborhood in. My best friend lived at the top of the hill, so I got a cool tricked out bike with gears and high-tech brakes so I could ride to her house. It was the kind of bike a sporty girl would ride, I thought. The kind of girl who didn’t wear makeup, who had long hair and freckles (I did have those!), who ran with the boys at school and could play-fight with them and not lose, and wouldn’t cringe when they played in the dirt and found worms. I’m not really sure who this idyllic girl I pictured was, and I don’t think I ever attained this obscure ideal, but I had my bike. That was all that mattered.
When my parents divorced, and my mom and I moved to a smaller house with no garage, I was left without a bike for some years. Again, I pleaded to park it in front of the house (I would even get a really good lock for it!), but my mom said that she didn’t like the look of a bike parked on our front porch, and if someone wanted to steal it, they would. It was frustrating to me how she was unable to see how much I wanted –needed– a bike. Without it, I walked to my high school like some idiot. There was a delightful set of hills in our new neighborhood that I would day-dream riding down, wind whipping my hair, and standing on the pedals of my bike.
When I was in the tenth grade, my mom found a larger, better house for us to live in. The house was in an older part of the city, sandwiched between the university and the river. Huge mature trees lined the streets, and the lush greenery near the river made me question if we had moved to another continent entirely. Leaving the cookie-cutter two-storeys of the suburbs behind was startlingly inspiring. The homes here had character, stories baked into the drywall. Our move was serendipitously timed with the pandemic. I couldn’t care less that I wasn’t allowed to go to school, or see my friends. I had some major exploring to do. Anyways, we now had a garage, so I asked my mother for my sixteenth birthday for a bike. And a bike I received.
It was an overcast day in late April when I got my bike, Stephen (named after Stephen Malkmus from Pavement). We went to the Canadian Tire about two kilometers away. I rode my bike home, and even though it had started to rain on the way back, I didn’t care. I could feel the wind pulling at my hair, and I stood up on the pedals of the bike. I was vibrating with excitement at the thought of the potential of all the unexplored pavement near our new home that I could trace my tires over again and again. I would loop through our streets, carve down the hill, glide beside the river, birds singing in the ancient tree canopies overhead.
It was also around this time I had my first boyfriend. Tall, thin, and Russian, he loved to cycle around the city. One blazing hot day that summer, he suggested we ride from my house, down to the river, through downtown, and then finish at the zoo. This whole journey would be about 28 kilometers both ways, and would take us around 4 hours. I was not prepared for the unrelenting heat of the day, nor was I prepared for the speed at which my boyfriend could cycle. Looking at him, honestly, I did not suspect such strength. To make myself feel better, I chalked his speed up to the fact that he had a lighter bike, and an overall lighter body mass. Gravity was helping him, and slowing my newly widened hips and thighs down. Another loss for feminism, I guess.
The ride was mostly flat, and quite honestly, very enjoyable. Once I had admitted to my cycling amateurism, my boyfriend slowed down, and we were able to chat as we pedaled along. The sun, however, had other plans. It beat down on us mercilessly. As we reached the park at the base of the monstrous hill that would lead us to the plateau where my house was, I felt faint. We stopped at a cafe, and I gulped the rest of my water. I didn’t have a face mask on me, so I couldn’t go into the cafe to fill my water. Mounting this hill would be a breeze for my boyfriend, but would spell almost certain unconsciousness for me and Stephen. I phoned my mother to come get us.
She arrived shortly, and we loaded my boyfriend’s road bike into the back of her SUV. It fit neatly. Next was Stephen. Stephen was a large, navy blue cruiser bike. I felt a creeping sense of dread that Stephen would not fit. The three of us tried to cram him in there several different ways, but none fit. I had a lock for Stephen, so we left him chained to the bike rack at the cafe where I would come get him the next day. It did break my heart a little to leave him there, this bike I waited so long to get. We’re coming back for you, I told him telepathically.
That was the last time I saw Stephen. Someone had cut the chain on the lock, and stole him. I tried reporting it to the police, but this was an insignificant matter not worth their time. Stephen was replaced the next spring with Phoebe, a more expensive, lighter dark purple cruiser bike. I still have Phoebe (and the expensive, thick lock we bought along with her). Yet, I think of Stephen from time to time. I don’t consider it a betrayal of Phoebe.
I think he misses me, too.