Chapter 27

Focus Man arrived at the trailhead twenty minutes early.

This surprised no one, least of all Focus Man.

The ride wasn't scheduled to leave until nine, and there was no particular reason for him to be there before eight-forty. The route had already been decided. The weather forecast was favorable. Everyone had been sent the mileage and meeting place. There was nothing left to organize.

He arrived early anyway.

Only a few cars occupied the parking lot. Two cyclists were unloading their bikes, and another was sitting on the open tailgate of a pickup putting on his shoes. The morning still held some of the night's coolness, and sunlight had reached only the upper branches of the trees.

Focus Man leaned his bicycle against the car and began getting ready.

Helmet. Gloves. Water bottles.

He checked the rear tire with his thumb, although he had checked it before leaving home. Then he looked at his watch.

Still early.

He knew the route. He knew the distance and where they intended to regroup. He knew approximately when they would reach the coffee stop and which roads offered reasonable shortcuts if someone decided forty miles was a better idea than fifty.

There was nothing left to plan.

So he reviewed the plan.

This was not anxiety, at least not as he understood anxiety. He wasn't worried that something would go wrong. Something probably would. Group bicycle rides were dependable that way.

He simply liked knowing where they intended to go before they started.

By quarter to nine, the nearly empty parking lot had become a collection of cars, bicycles, helmets, and people carrying on several conversations at once. Someone needed a pump. Someone else was trying to decide whether the morning would remain cool enough for arm warmers. Two riders were discussing grandchildren. Another conversation had somehow moved from bicycles to local politics, which Focus Man considered an unnecessary risk before nine in the morning.

A friend rolled his bicycle over and stopped beside him.

"You always get here first."

"Not always."

"Close enough."

Focus Man smiled.

His friend looked around the parking lot. "You're probably the only one here who had the ride figured out before the rest of us finished our coffee."

That wasn't quite true.

Focus Man had also finished his coffee.

Before he could defend himself, another rider arrived and began unloading his bicycle.

"How far are we going?"

Several people answered at once, giving three different mileages.

The late arrival looked around. "Which one is it?"

Someone pointed toward Focus Man.

"Ask him. He knows."

Focus Man told him the distance.

"Where's the first regroup?"

He told him that too.

"Coffee?"

"About halfway."

The rider nodded, apparently satisfied that someone had taken responsibility for these matters, and went back to assembling his bicycle.

Focus Man's friend was still standing there.

"See?"

Focus Man shrugged. "Somebody should know where we're going."

"Why?"

That stopped him for a moment.

"Because we're going there."

His friend laughed. "Good point."

A few minutes after nine, they rolled out.

For the first several miles the ride behaved remarkably well. The group stayed together, everyone made the turns, and the pace was close to what they had discussed in the parking lot. Focus Man rode near the middle, talking with whoever happened to be beside him.

Then one rider stopped to take a photograph.

Another rode past the regroup point because he was talking and didn't notice it.

Someone farther back decided he didn't want to do the full distance and announced that he knew a shortcut. This immediately produced a discussion about whether the shortcut was actually shorter.

Focus Man knew that it was.

He considered saying so.

Then somebody else did.

The ride continued.

The group stretched apart on a climb and came together again at the top. The faster riders waited. Someone ate an energy bar. Someone complained about the hill despite having been told about the hill several days earlier.

"You put that hill in the route, didn't you?" a rider asked Focus Man.

"The road was already there."

"You know what I mean."

Focus Man did, but he preferred his answer.

They started again.

By then the route that had looked so orderly on a map had become what group rides always became once actual people were placed on bicycles.

Someone wanted to go faster.

Someone needed to go slower.

One rider wanted a photograph of the mountains. Another had discovered an unexpected noise coming from somewhere near his rear wheel and wanted three other people to listen to it.

At an intersection the front riders turned left while several riders farther back continued straight.

There was shouting.

Brakes squealed.

Someone waved both arms.

Eventually everyone was collected on the same road again.

Focus Man looked at his friend.

"Good thing we have a plan."

His friend laughed.

It occurred to Focus Man that this was probably the best argument against planning that anyone had offered him all morning.

They rode out into open country.

The morning had warmed, and the mountains that had been pale shapes earlier were now clearly visible beyond the fields. For a while the group settled into pairs. Focus Man rode beside one friend, then another. Conversations began and ended as riders changed positions.

That was another thing about bicycle rides he liked. Nobody had to decide when a conversation was finished. A hill could end it. A passing car could interrupt it. Someone could simply ride ahead.

People came alongside for a while and then moved on.

The group itself was like that.

They had agreed on a route, but agreement did not make them identical. Some wanted exercise. Some wanted companionship. Some cared about their average speed. Others would gladly sacrifice half a mile per hour for another cup of coffee.

Focus Man had drawn lines on a map and called it a ride.

The people made it one.

Somewhere along a long, quiet stretch of road, he remembered what his friend had said in the parking lot.

You always have a plan.

He supposed that was true.

He had been planning things for most of his adult life. Projects. Meetings. Vacations. Moves. Careers. Even dinners with friends could occasionally acquire more structure than Claire considered strictly necessary.

Planning came naturally to him because the future did not.

The future had never shown much interest in cooperating.

He had learned that young, although he rarely thought of it that way. There had been a time when he assumed the people around him would continue being there because children have little reason to imagine otherwise. Then his father died, and the ordinary world demonstrated that tomorrow was under no obligation to resemble today.

Other changes followed over the years. A new family. School. Jobs. The corporation. The startup. Claire.

Some changes had been chosen.

Others had simply arrived.

A plan had never prevented any of them.

Focus Man understood that. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that if he anticipated enough possibilities he could force life to follow the route he had selected.

Still, he liked having a route.

Ahead of him, two riders were arguing amiably about where they should stop for coffee.

"The place on the route is another eight miles," Focus Man called.

One of them turned around.

"There's one in three."

"That's not the one we planned."

"Does it have coffee?"

"Probably."

"Then we're stopping there."

Focus Man shook his head and smiled.

There was the difficulty with planning anything involving other people.

They had plans too.

He thought about Claire.

They had made plans together over the years, although many of the most important things in their life had never begun as plans at all. Night school had started with a conversation over dinner. The house overlooking the Bay had begun with a Saturday afternoon and a rental someone happened to mention. Careers had moved in directions neither could have seen from where they started.

Even the life they had built together had required a continuing negotiation between two people who did not always want the same thing at the same time.

Perhaps that was what made a shared future different from an individual one.

You could decide where you wanted to go.

You could study the route.

You could even know where the hills were.

But you could not plan for another person as though they were simply going to follow your wheel.

They reached the unplanned coffee shop.

Bicycles accumulated against the outside wall while riders went inside. Someone ordered something that required considerably more explanation than coffee. Someone else announced that the pastries looked good and thereby extended the stop another fifteen minutes.

Focus Man sat outside with several friends.

Nobody appeared concerned about the schedule.

He looked at his watch.

Then, mostly out of habit, he calculated what the longer stop would do to their expected return time.

He put his watch down.

One of the riders noticed.

"Are we behind schedule?"

"We don't have a schedule."

"You know what I mean."

Focus Man smiled. "We're fine."

And they were.

Eventually they climbed back onto their bicycles and continued.

The second half of the ride bore even less resemblance to the original plan than the first. One rider turned back early. Another suggested an extra loop. They missed another turn and decided that the road they were on would probably get them where they needed to go.

It did.

Late in the ride, Focus Man found himself near the back of the group. Ahead of him his friends moved along the road in twos and threes, separating on the hills and collecting again at intersections.

He thought about how much effort people spent trying to know what came next.

Where they would live.

What work they would do.

Who would remain beside them.

Which friendships would last.

What life would look like five years from now, or ten.

Some planning was necessary. He still believed that. He would probably always believe it.

But perhaps a plan was less like a contract with the future than a route drawn for a Saturday bicycle ride.

It gave you somewhere to begin.

After that, there were other people.

There were wrong turns.

There were hills that looked easier on the map.

There were unexpected stops worth making and companions who rode beside you for only part of the way.

And sometimes the route changed because somebody saw a road you hadn't considered.

Focus Man looked ahead.

At the next intersection, several riders had stopped. One was pointing left. Another was pointing right. A third appeared to have no opinion whatsoever.

Focus Man rolled up beside them.

"Which way?" someone asked.

For once, everyone looked at him.

He knew which way the plan said to go.

He also knew both roads would eventually get them home.

Focus Man looked from one road to the other.

"Either one," he said.