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CHAPTER TEN
Thursday, June 10 (still)
My ass is sore.Like screaming. As in it’s painful. A little numb voice yells at me to get off this damn bicycle.
“Connor,” I whine more than say. “I need a break.”
We started out at the bike rental shop just after breakfast this morning. We’ve ridden what feels like about six thousand miles, but I’ll admit, it’s been a beautiful ride. Swamp Rabbit Trail is exactly what Connor described. Parks, streams, bridges, even a little waterfall. Summer sun and large white clouds make the whole scene around us look like a postcard. I’ve taken dozens of pictures. I plan to post them on my newly created Instagram account #naturephotography, and send a few to Willow. She would love this place. Well, I will if I survive this two-wheeled trek Connor has us on.
“We’re nearly there, are you sure?” He tries to be encouraging. Like he has for the past two miles, but I can’t anymore.
“Hell, yes. I need to walk at least.” At this point, I’m begging him, and I honestly don’t care.
“Ah, your lady bits angry with you?” He smirks at me again.
“No, but my lady ass is. You’re not sore?”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t been able to feel my balls for like the last five miles.” Connor dismounts and walks his bike. It could be my imagination, but I swear he’s limping slightly.
We both break out in laughter and maneuver our bikes into a nearby park. It’s a lovely summer day. Huge white puffy clouds drift slowly in and out of shapes that are reminiscent of everything from dragons to pirate ships. I’m thankful for the quiet din of sound that follows us from markets to food stalls and parks where children play. I can’t talk to Connor on bikes, really. I need the noise.
We walk our bikes to a huge old sycamore tree. Connor peels off his backpack and lifts out two bottles of water. I drink greedily from mine. It’s a sweltering hot day. The southern humidity the area is known for is really showing off, even at ten in the morning.
Connor flops down in a lush green patch of clover and stretches out on his back in the dark shade. He props his head in his hands and lets out an audible yowl of relief. “God, it feels good to straighten my spine for a while. Whose dumbass idea is this, anyway?”
“Yours,” I intone, lying beside him. The clover feels so cool on my scorched back. The tank top and shorts I’ve chosen for today stick to me everywhere. Nearby a bee buzzes. He is probably upset we’ve just crushed his lunch.
“I’m officially firing myself as social events coordinator on this adventure of ours, Lainey. Any nominations from the floor as to my replacement?”
“I vote for Aslan,” I offer, toying with his emotions.
“I second that,” he laughs.
“Hey, you hungry?” I ask, taking a whiff of a delicious aroma permeating the thick humid air.
“I could eat,” he replies, sitting up. His knees are bent, and he’s scanning the various food trucks that have come to the park to attract the lunch hour crowd. The scent of grilled meat and veggies being prepared have my stomach growling. “Oh man, I see what we need,” Connor finally says.
He stands up and pulls me to my feet. We wander to a bright red food truck. Just behind it toward a side entrance near the bumper, an older woman rolls a lump of ivory-colored dough with a rolling pin that looks like a broomstick. Sitting on an overturned plastic bucket, she works happily, her hair pinned back in a kerchief. A dusty black apron covers her plain dark dress.
“Gözeleme,” Connor says with a purr of happiness in his tone.
“What’s gözeleme?” My Inner Foodie desperately hopes it doesn’t contain the entrails of any sort of animal whatsoever.
“I had it when I was in Turkey once. She’s making a type of phyllo dough, then she’ll stuff it with meats or cheeses and cook it on that flat top there.” He gestures to a large disk-shaped flat top griddle. It’s heated by a propane flame under it. Another older woman wearing a black and white striped bandanna over her hair uses a flat wooden paddle to move around what appears to be an envelope of the thin sheets of dough. I can see meat and cheese and some sort of green inside. Dark brown patches of crisp dough start to color as she flips and moves it around the griddle adding generous brushes of olive oil over it as it moves.
“This looks great. Where were you in Turkey?” I ask Connor, filming the woman as she makes our snack.
“Incirlik Air Base, near the Syrian boarder. I was on mission with the Army.” Connor says, leaving out too many details.
“Oh,” I mutter softly and let the subject drop. I don’t want Connor thinking about anything that may make him have another nightmare tonight.
A young girl with long jet-black hair plaited down her back asks us for our order. Connor orders me a gözeleme with spinach and feta and he gets his with ground meat and cheese.
I watch dumbstruck as the older woman creates a sheet of dough so thin you could read a newspaper through it. She then sets to folding it in almost a robotic motion. It’s obvious she has repeated these steps a million or more times in her life. She makes a large rectangle and then scoops generous portions of cheese and fresh spinach into mine and sets to folding the dough over and over until it creates the envelope shape I saw on the griddle earlier.
In only a few minutes, we’re back under our tree with our piping hot snacks, cooling from inside their white butcher paper wrapping. With my first bite, my Inner Foodie falls instantly in love. The exterior dough layers are crisp while the softer interior ones pillow around the freshness of the spinach and tart tang of the feta. I hum in appreciation. I wash it down with the sweet sodas Connor ordered with them and the combination of hot/cold, sweet/savory and crispy/creamy is perfection on my palette.
“Amazing,” Connor says, stuffing a huge bite into his mouth. “I want to hire that woman to come make these at theDay Old Bagel.”
