CHAPTER SEVENTEEN AFTER MANY A SUMMER DIES THE SWAN: PART III

The following day, Liliana and Malarkey ride bikes along the Dana Point PCH Cycle Route. The naked bicycle poster in Malarkey’s office isn’t there just because Malarkey likes to gaze at naked women on or off bikes. No, Malarkey likes cycling and he rides often. As Dickensian fiction might have it, Liliana likes riding bikes as well and their riding habits are more in line with their relative incomes. For Liliana, it’s a Stradalli Carbon Aero Road Bike Campagnolo Super Record ($7,950) and a Campagnolo cycling outfit. On the other hand, Malarkey rides a used Raleigh Cadent i8 ($475) and wears a Dublin Wheelers Cycling Club outfit he bought on Craigslist. In case the Reader doesn’t know the route they like to take, here it is:

Before returning home, Malarkey and Liliana stop at the Zinc Café in Laguna Beach for breakfast. She prefers muesli with fresh berries, almonds, orange, apple and cream-soaked raw oats, while Malarkey always orders French toast with orange butter and maple syrup. Yummy. After breakfast, they hook their bikes on her Beemer bicycle rack and drive back to Citrus City.

On this particular day, Liliana has some domestic issues to deal with (specifically with her mother, a character the Reader will meet anon), so Malarkey returns home and wheels his bike into a garage that’s packed floor to ceiling with shelves and shelves of books and more books and boxes of books⁵ and boxes with Andrea’s baby clothes as well as family photographs when, in fact, Malarkey had a family. Malarkey starts to hang his bike on the bike hooks on one side of the garage when he notices a particular box on a shelf that’s labelled: ANDREA’S SCHOOLWORK. Malarkey ponders that. He has an idea of what’s in the box and by opening the box he invites Pandora’s escape even though Pandora opened a jar and not a box. Unlike releasing all sorts of mythic agonistes and every trouble known to humanity, Malarkey would only release a few. Garnering his Pandoric courage, Malarkey takes down the box, removes his helmet and gloves, sits on a stepladder, and opens the box. He sifts through the papers before coming upon one in particular, a piece of Andrea’s original artwork done in original crayon on Arches paper, hand-signed and dated by the artist in the lower right-hand corner:

F is for firm; A is for adorable; T is for terrific; H is for handsome; E is for exuberant; R is for reliable.

Malarkey thinks back a decade earlier to that particular day. You see, as Malarkey ages, the word “nostalgia” is more aligned with its original meaning of νóστoς a “return home” rather than something merely sentimental. And so, Malarkey thinks back to that specific day and recalls a banner outside her Citrus City Montessori school that reads: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. And he also sees Andrea running out of the school with her pink Sailor Moon backpack on, waving the artwork she’s created. She rushes up to Malarkey who lifts her in his arms and kisses her as she shows him what she’s done. He kisses her again and then as quickly as he was in the year 2010 Malarkey is back in his garage in 2022, sitting on a step ladder, trying with difficulty to control his emotions, as he gingerly replaces the artwork in the box, shelves it and nostalgically leaves the garage thinking to himself once again that after many a summer dies the swan.

1. ⁵ At last count, Malarkey has about 6,000 books not including the signed first editions he keeps safely secured under his bed. When often asked if he’s read all those books, he answers, “Anatole France was asked the same question and he answered by saying, ‘Do you use your best china every day?’”