BEE STUNG

Bee had always wanted to cycle from Sioux Lookout to Dryden and back—a round trip in a single day. But if she wanted to undertake a marathon so badly, why hadn’t she simply done it already? Steph demanded.

As Steph drove her new Jeep, Bee noticed she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. Bee, concerned about safety, reminded her to buckle up, but Steph waved her off, hoping she’d notice her freshly buffed and painted nails. Instead of fastening the belt, Steph disabled the warning indicator with its annoying bleeps, overriding the master control so the dashboard no longer displayed seat belt alerts. Steph even deactivated the airbags, complaining their sensors were too sensitive.

Once, while driving on Highway 72, Steph braked abruptly for a cow moose and her calf, and the airbag inflated on impact—even though she hadn’t crashed. She was driving on Highway 72 to pick up a newly recruited student nurse from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay at the bus stop in the A&W parking lot in Dryden. Doing it out of the goodness of her heart, Steph emphasized. But the airbag mishap cost her a fortune in repairs. The service station in town had refused to cover the fees and invoice under warranty, forcing her to make another expensive trip to Dryden for servicing.

They started their caffeinated quarreling on the highway as they sipped their takeout coffee before they reached the big box stores in Dryden. Steph dreamed of a large lavish white wedding; Bee wanted a quiet civil ceremony with a justice of the peace at town hall. More than once, Bee admitted she didn’t want to get formally and legally married at all—it seemed so performative, a public exhibition—for what? If Bee did get married, she wanted an intimate, personal affair. She worried her large, extended Catholic family wouldn’t understand. Moreover, after her mother’s death, Bee came to think of herself as alone, a lone wolf, but some conservative, religious relatives might still judge her.

“You’re still worried what they’ll think now that you’re finally getting hitched?” Steph teased. “Don’t you think they’d be delighted? Maybe some of them will stop worrying that you’re single, alone—a virgin.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Bee replied.

“Then what were you worried about? That they’ll find out you’re marrying someone disreputable—an experienced, wayward woman who’s been around the block?”

“Forget it,” Bee muttered. Bee didn’t want to become estranged from her extended family, many of whom held and espoused traditional values. Steph didn’t understand Bee’s concern. Steph had always been open about her romantic history—she had had countless lovers, both men and women and had even been engaged before.

“I’ve always had boy friends and girl friends,” Steph reminded Bee. “As well as girlfriends and boyfriends. I don’t do loneliness.”

Then Steph brought up another grievance. She claimed Bee accused her of stealing some of Bee’s personal belongings. Bee pushed back—she had never made such accusations. But she was tired of her lending out her things, passing them along to her closeknit network of friends, coworkers, and subordinates, including nurses fresh out of college, newly arrived in town.

When the pilot was flying to a community up north, Steph usually dropped by Bee’s house, bringing along her young nurse friends—newcomers to town, freshly recruited to serve at the healthcare hub for northern First Nations. Bee was surprised Steph hadn’t followed the pattern of so many nurses before her—nurses who completed their rural medicine practicums at the regional hospital and then moved on—pursuing their ambitions, dreams, and careers elsewhere. Meanwhile, Steph never bothered to ask whether she could share Bee’s household things, including her groceries, with her friends. Steph just helped herself and wasn’t shy about demanding more, either. Couldn’t she share one of her leggings or crop tops with a nurse only allowed one bag of luggage on the flight in the bush plane?

Bee explained to her she didn’t mind sharing occasionally. She was concerned about snafus like what happened to her brand-new spring coat, which doubled as rain gear, which felt warm and snug, and which she was looking forward to wearing. The coat would have been perfect in the cockpit when she landed her plane in Fort Severn, on the shores of Hudson Bay, on a chilly, rainy morning. The coat vanished, a mystery to Bee.

“I don’t know what happened to it,” Steph said, smiling.

“It was hanging in the basement.”

Steph shrugged. “Maybe you should lock the doors when you head to the gym. I tried to warn you—acting like small-town life is so safe.”

“I know. But then my brand-new Victoria’s Secret bras disappeared, too. I hadn’t even worn them yet.”

“Don’t ask me. Don’t accuse me. I don’t even understand why you’d wear designer lingerie in a town like this. Talk about all dressed up with nowhere to go. Do you think my friends took them?”

Bee, who was of tall height and slender build, didn’t mind helping Steph’s new nurse friends, especially if they were buried under student loans, still struggling through nursing or graduate school. But Steph also accused Bee of hitting on these coworkers, although the nursing students who intrigued her the most were the male nurses she introduced to her. Bee also became engaged in these long-drawn conversations with Steph’s mature student friends and coworkers, the realtor who had a mid-life crisis and went to nursing school, the factory worker who enrolled in medical school after he was laid off from his factory shift work that paid a high hourly wage.

“Anyway, you’re an airline pilot,” Steph said. “You can afford it.”

“I’m a bush pilot,” Bee corrected, “and I’m not even getting a paycheck right now. I’m grounded.”

That was another point of contention—Bee wasn’t working. Her commercial pilot’s license had been suspended after a crash landing. Aviation authorities and crash investigators ruled out pilot error, agreeing she wasn’t to blame, or at fault. But they noted in the final formal report she could have exercised better judgment given the weather and flying conditions. They didn’t understand the pressure she was under—flying commuter airline planes, bush planes, cargo planes—no matter the weather, no matter the condition of the aircraft, no matter how severe the flying conditions.

“So why aren’t you flying a big Boeing or Airbus passenger jet for Air Canada or WestJet?” Steph demanded testily.

Steph couldn’t comprehend Bee’s attachment to her hometown, especially since her parents were dead, and many of her childhood and school friends had moved away--pursuing opportunities, jobs, and education elsewhere. Her friends and peers had scattered—to large cities, to the Prairies, the West Coast, Southern Ontario, Quebec. Steph supposed it didn’t help she owned property locally through inheritance from her parents, hard working immigrants who loved to garden and who had become lifers, townies.

“I think it’s because you’re a Daddy’s Girl—or maybe, more accurately, a Mama’s Boy. That’s what you are, a Mama’s Boy—a Mama’s Boy, girlfriend. And that house you live in—”

“Please stop. I’ve heard it all before,” Bee said.

“That house you live in—”

“And that you plunder,” Bee interjected.

“The house you inherited from your mother, Mama’s Boy, needs renovation. Fresh paint. Siding. Roofing.”

“I told you—I’m thinking of moving, buying a new place,” Bee said, defensively.

“That’s BS, that’s just an excuse.”

“Anyway, I don’t have the money to hire carpenters and handymen,” Bee replied.

“That’s not true, either,” Steph countered. “That’s just another excuse. You just said you were thinking of buying a new house. You just need to get your priorities straight,” Steph shot back. The reason Steph refused to move into Bee’s house was because the building was in a state of disrepair and she didn’t have a dishwasher. Actually, she owned a brand-new dishwasher, but it didn’t work, and her shower didn’t have a high-pressure handheld showerhead. Oddly enough, Steph became convinced these living arrangements worked in favour of keeping their relationship alive, until they didn’t. Steph believed they both felt relieved they lived apart.

Then Steph complained she wasn’t impressed she had bought a brand-new Jeep Wrangler with savings from her nursing job. Bee wondered where she found the money for such a pricey vehicle, especially after Steph mentioned she was estranged from her wealthy parents, one a corporate lawyer, one a high-powered real estate agent, who sold mainly luxury homes—and she complained Steph burned through every dollar she earned.

Then Steph griped about Bee’s mountain bike cluttering the back of her Jeep. Bee reminded Steph she had borrowed her bicycle for a biking trip with her nurse friends. Afterwards, Bee thought she probably shouldn’t have pointed out that Steph was willing to spend a small fortune on a vehicle but wouldn’t bother buying herself a bicycle. Not that she could drive legally anyway. She didn’t even have a full Class G Ontario driver’s license. Steph only had a beginner’s permit after having her original driver’s suspended—for speeding and reckless driving. Yes, given her driving habits, Bee wasn’t sure she had ever possessed a proper license to drive.

“You’re driving way too fast,” Bee said, gripping the handles around the inside of the passenger door as she gazed through the landscape whizzing by in a blur through the windshield. “You feel and see it on the highway—you’re barely making some of these sharp, tricky turns.”

Steph kept driving, focused on speed, frenetic, as Bee struggled to comprehend her rush. They started early that morning for their drive to Dryden. They had all day for their day trip and shopping expedition.

“You don’t understand the concept of G-forces and their implications for driving.”

“So maybe you should moonlight as a driving instructor,” Steph muttered, absently, behind her sunglasses and Winnipeg Jets baseball cap.

“You’re driving too fast,” Bee repeated, watching as the bush, lakes, and rivers blurred past the window.

“So, you’ve always wanted to cycle to Dryden and back,” Steph observed.

“Yeah,” Bee said.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because it’s nearly a 250-kilometer round trip.”

“It’s the middle of summer. You’re not working. You have the time, the energy. Just do it—like the sports motto says. It’ll give you time to think.”

“I think it might help to train first,” Bee replied. “Would you join me?”

“Absolutely not,” Steph said.

In Dryden, their first stop was Walmart for groceries. Bee preferred shopping at her hometown supermarket, supporting local businesses and workers, but Steph insisted. Bee had to admit, though: she saved plenty of money buying staples in this neighbouring town, which labelled itself a city, dominated by a massive pulp mill, which beckoned to a past era of industrial glory and affluence for the community, and occasionally filled the air with the stench of rotten eggs.

After shopping, having skipped breakfast and lunch, they grabbed a meal at McDonald's—a Big Mac and fries each. Bee wondered aloud how Steph could eat so much junk food and still maintain her slender figure. Then Stef snapped, launching into a rant about Bee’s unrealistic expectations. By the time they were ready to drive home—having stopped for coffee and muffins at a café in the business district—the tension boiled over.

Steph turned to Bee and said, “Get the fuck out of my Jeep. And take your bike with you.” Stunned, Bee glared at her. “I need you to get the fuck out of my Jeep,” Stef shouted. “You’ve really pissed me off—accusing me—”

“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

“Questioning my judgment, my driving ability—when you’re the pilot who crashed her plane—”

“No casualties, no injuries—just damaged landing gear.”

“Who’s out of work, living in a shithole house.”

“Will you just calm down?” Bee asked.

“You need to think about your relationships—whether you want to stay together, never mind get married,” Steph said.

“Please don’t get upset,” Bee said.

“Don’t tell me what to do—you’re in no position,” Steph shot back. “Take your bike. Get the fuck out of my car. You can bicycle home, like you always wanted. Or hitchhike. Or stay in a motel. Or take a taxi—but I doubt that, because you’re too cheap.” She sneered. “A nice, long bike ride home would give you time to think about all those things that seem to be bothering you. And maybe one of my coworkers—the ones you complain about for living in Dryden, for driving gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs to the hospital in your town—will stop and give you a ride when you’ve given up.”

Bee tried to encourage Steph to calm down and drive back safely.

“There you go again,” Stef muttered. She accused Bee, always complaining, of hypocrisy, and then sped away.

Bee stood in the parking lot of a motel, diner, and nightclub—an establishment she had visited during past long hot summer night summers with pilot friends and airline coworkers. She had never cared for beer or liquor, except maybe some spiced rum mixed with a sugar free cola, but she appreciated watching the exotic dancers. Stef accelerated hard, driving her Jeep a block away, tearing through amber traffic lights, tailgating a school bus, speeding past another hotel, a bar and grill, a fast-food restaurant—just before the street curved into a four-lane highway. Then she braked suddenly, jerking the Jeep around—reversing direction.

Bee stiffened, as Stef sped directly towards her and her bicycle, her engine roaring. For a moment, she feared Stef might run her down. Then, at the last possible second, Stef slammed on the brakes, her tires kicking up clouds of dirt, dust billowing up from the pavement. Steph stepped out of the Jeep, walked over, and tossed Bee’s bicycle helmet and head light onto the ground.

“You might need your bike accessories. I’ll leave your groceries on your doorstep,” Stef said.

“The garden shed would be better,” Bee replied. “Its doors should be unlocked.”

“Bye,” Stef said, with an air of finality.

Bee had this strange sensation and feeling this might be their last conversation. She tried to call out for Steph to drive safely, but she sped away before Bee could implore her, warn her. The Jeep roared to life, tires spinning against the gravel shoulder and pavement as Steph shot down this main thoroughfare, disappearing onto the Trans-Canada Highway. Where had Steph the nurse learned to spin her tires like a street racer? Bee also couldn’t help but wonder if Steph would ever speak to her again. Maybe this schism was a necessary one. Maybe the break was the catalyst for something bigger—some kind of radical personal change. Maybe, in the long run, it would be the best thing for the couple.

“Drive safely,” Bee muttered.

Then, Bee made her decision. She would cycle the 120 kilometers home. She needed the time to think. First, she considered her travel plan and itinerary, then doubled back on her bicycle to McDonald’s for a milkshake—fuel for the road ahead. She stretched, warmed up in the parking lot beside her bicycle, then finally set out—methodically pedaling east along the Trans-Canada Highway. She still had daylight on her side, but sunset provided her deadline and the day was waning. They had started their trip early that morning, on a long summer day close to the solstice. If Bee kept her pace steady—roughly 20 kilometers per hour—she could bicycle home before dusk, and she wouldn’t be caught cycling on the dark highway with no streetlights. Driving at night along Highway 72 could be surreal; the blackness was all encompassing. Yes, her voyage wouldn’t be easy, not with hills and inclines, not in her current shape. She hadn’t trained properly. She hadn’t returned to the gym consistently since the pandemic closures. Still, it felt good—moving, exerting, pushing forward.

Bee cycled past the odd motel, filling stations, the occasional house, transmission towers. It wasn’t until now—until she was finally making this marathon bicycle ride—that she felt certain illusions dissolving. Her thoughts turned back to Steph. Would she get stopped for speeding? Bee had never ridden as a passenger in a car with anyone who drove so fast before. On these highways through the Canadian Shield, the driving conditions could be challenging—especially on Highway 72. It was narrower, more winding, with sharp turns in the road. Finally, Bee reached the tiny village of Dinorwic, that was where she eventually turned—after pedaling nearly forty kilometers along the Trans-Canada.

Fatigue hit Bee. She felt dry, thirsty, drenched in sweat from exertion and heat. She wished she had saved some of the energy drinks she had purchased for redeye flights earlier that day.

The weather was on her side. Clear skies stretched overhead, and the afternoon cooled as evening neared. A light breeze brushed against her skin—refreshing, but not enough to slow her down. Still, the strain was building. Her muscles ached, fatigue creeping in after the distance she had already covered. Her mountain bike, recently purchased from Canadian Tire in early spring, had been kept in near-perfect condition—tires properly inflated, brakes adjusted, gears running smoothly. One of Steph’s nurse friends, a cycling enthusiast and amateur bike mechanic, had fine-tuned the gears and brakes to perfection and inflated the tires to an ideal pressure.

Bee had pedaled another few miles when she heard sirens. A police cruiser and an ambulance sped past, lights flashing, engines howling against the quiet stretch of highway. She frowned. An ambulance from Dryden responding near Sioux Lookout? Unless this was an emergency requiring backup, the incident seemed unusual. Then again, maybe it had happened somewhere between the two towns—somewhere near the midpoint.

Bee stopped briefly at a water spring along Highway 72, where motorists often filled bottles and containers. She leaned over the spraying spout at the end of the metal pipe, drinking deeply, cold spring water cutting through her dryness, cooling her body from the inside out. Minutes later, the ambulance and police motor vehicles passed her on the highway again—this time at a slower speed, returning to Dryden.

Then a pickup truck shot past. Bee instinctively steered onto the shoulder to avoid it. The driver honked and waved, but he was moving too fast for her to recognize him. She kept cycling.

Kilometers stretched on, and the air grew cooler. He pace slowed as exhaustion tightened around her—hunger, dehydration, the weight of the road. She passed a deer carcass. A few kilometers later, a skeletal outline above the embankment on the roadside—picked clean.

No one had stopped to offer her a ride. Bee wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Maybe she looked too ragged—distressed jeans, worn sneakers, a t-shirt and a denim shirt, baseball cap, tangled, unruly hair. No makeup. No lipstick. Polarized aviation sunglasses shielding her eyes. She wondered if passersby mistook her for one of the stragglers—newly released from the Kenora jail, hitchhiking home. It wasn’t a common sight, but it occurred often enough. Except Bee was a woman—taller than most, with a figure they couldn’t quite reconcile with the image of a prisoner fresh from detention.

Hours passed as Bee continued to cycle steadily and painfully. Finally, she reached the entrance to Ojibway Provincial Park. She had another twenty miles—roughly forty kilometers—to go. Her muscles throbbed, her joints ached. She was exhausted. Increasingly, she found herself stopping at steep inclines, walking beside her bike, pushing forward with heavy legs. Then she would coast downhill, wind rushing past her, gathering speed before the next climb.

Bee rounded a sharp corner, the highway stretching forward before it curved sharply, and then she saw the Jeep overturned. The four-wheel drive had missed the hairpin curve, rolling down the embankment. The Jeep had tumbled multiple times before coming to rest—a crumpled wreck, the roof caved in, the sides crushed, even the chassis twisted out of shape. Shattered glass littered the ground—fragments, shards, slivers catching the fading light.

Bee parked her bicycle on the slope, beside the wreckage. Amazed, she walked around the wrecked Jeep, inspecting the damage. It was astonishing, really—how a rugged machine, built for power and endurance, could be so thoroughly destroyed. She reached inside the smashed passenger window. Amid the wreckage—groceries strewn across what was left of the rear—she spotted a few cans of Red Bull and her trail mix. The groceries were intact, albeit scrambled, untouched even as everything else had shattered. But then she saw the signs. Blood. Hair. Fragments of bone, possibly skull. Smeared across the steering wheel. Spattered on the dash. Streaked across the collapsed windshield.

Bee took a breath. The air bags hadn’t deployed. Of course not. Bee had warned Steph, but she had implemented her countermeasures—she had overridden the safety features, found a way to turn them off. Yes, Bee had seen her leave Dryden without her wearing her seatbelt. Had watched her, had tried to warn her. Now, the straps remained intact, unstained, untouched—never used. Had first responders cut her and her clothes away? Had they peeled her out of the wreckage, trying to save her? Had she become—by the force of impact—part of the wreck itself? Bee wondered why there was no yellow police tape. Then again, this was remote northwestern Ontario. Maybe the priority had been saving Steph’s life, not conducting an investigation.

Bee stepped away from the totaled Jeep. She drank the Red Bull, ate the trail mix further down the highway—beside a creek, where bald eagles watched suckers drifting through shallow, rocky water. A raptor swooped from the branches of a towering pine. She watched—awestruck, overwhelmed—as its talons plunged into the stream, lifting a coarse-skinned fish from the current, carrying it skyward. The weight of the moment settled on her.

Then, Bee resumed her journey. The road stretched ahead. Her legs ached. Her muscles burned. Her body protested, but still, she moved forward. At the next steep hill, she tried to cycle—but exhaustion overtook her. So, she walked alongside her bicycle, which she pushed with a sense of defeat and purpose.

Then she heard the rumble of a truck behind her. The pickup slowed. A horn honked, the sound cutting through the quiet dusk. The driver—a man in a Canadian National Railways baseball cap, stained with drywall and paint—stopped and offered her a ride. She thought he looked familiar—maybe a friend of a friend, or more likely an acquaintance of a friend. Then again, in small towns, the lines blurred. Everyone knew someone. Bee hesitated for only a moment. Then, exhausted, she exhaled. How can I refuse?

“There’s plenty of room in the back for your bike,” he said.

They drove in silence at first. Bee did indeed recognize the man, a freight train engineer, a local resident. She remembered him because he had such fine grooming and dress—he was a conspicuous hometown man, she thought, albeit one with whom she wasn’t acquainted because he was of a different generation. Even though he was considerably older, he reminded her of a few male flight attendants for Air Canada she had known, with their fashion sense and natty dress. But today he was wearing coveralls stained with paint and drywall mortar, as if he was doing home renovations. Indeed, the back of his truck was filled with building and carpentry supplies.

Bee couldn’t resist mentioning the accident—the wrecked Jeep, the rollover.

“The driver died,” the man said.

Although she shouldn’t have been, she felt stunned. “For real?”

“Yes. My wife told me. She’s a nurse—she’ll retire in a few years. She’s seen everything, but she called me on my cell.” He held up his flip phone. “She told me she’s never seen so many nurses sobbing at work. The driver wasn’t a townie, but she had really grown at the hospital—a popular supervisor, a mentor to student nurses. A lot of these young RNs pass through town, stay for a few weeks or months, then move on to bigger cities. I guess she was just driving too fast.” He sighed. “People don’t realize the risks on these roads. They take safety for granted.”

Then, casually—almost as an afterthought—he added, “Funny thing, too. Apparently, she was about to break up with her pilot boyfriend, call off their wedding. She had confided in my wife. Said she thought highly of the guy at first, but then she started thinking he was a loser. By then, she was having an affair with a doctor. Decided she’d go steady with him instead.”

Bee’s eyes widened and she blinked. “Him?” Bee muttered to herself, and the man asked loudly, What?” and Bee practically shouted, “Him?”

“Yeah, of course. Who else do you think?”

He looked at Bee and laughed. Then his hilarity ceased when he saw her expression—her grimace, the stiffness in her shoulders. He pulled his hand back from the gear shift, patted her knee, as he muttered a few unintelligible words of reassurance.

Bee sat back in the passenger seat, exhausted, forcing a flat laugh—hoping, somehow, to steer the conversation away from places she didn’t have the heart to explore.

“Hey, if it was me, I’d choose the doctor over the other guy—any day,” the man chuckled.

Bee muttered absently, “I wonder what she thinks.”

“She?” He took a sip of his beer, kept his eyes on the road. “There you go again. Who do you mean? The doctor or her fiancé? Or her former fiancé?”

“Sorry, I misspoke again. I’m still tired. I meant both, I guess.”

“Some things are better left unsaid,” the man said. “Especially in a small town. Word gets around.”

Bee forced another light chuckle. Then she noticed—finally—the tall can of beer clutched between his knees as he drove. He caught her looking. Grinning, he reached into his cooler behind the seats.

“Have a beer. Celebrate. Life is short. You’re still alive. Holy Moses. So am I.”

Bee still felt exhausted, hungry, dry, and thirsty from her cycling marathon. She agreed a beer would be nice, even though she didn’t enjoy drinking beer, didn’t savor the taste. Still, Bee popped the tab on the tall can, and the beer fizzed and foamed in her hand. She sipped the suds, and she had to admit beer never tasted better, as the truck rolled over a bridge that spanned the narrows and rapids between two Canadian Shield lakes.

Across the highway bridge, the older man kept glancing at Bee, looking at an expression that appeared lusty. She returned his hungry look, as she unbuttoned the steel buttons on her denim shirt from the collar to the hem. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath her shirt. He saw her pale untanned skin and noticed her bare breasts as he drove along the highway and turned at the dirt and gravel road to the beach sheltered by tall and majestic red and white pines.

Bee could see his face grow crimson and beads of sweat dripping down his brow and forming on his rugged face. “Yes,” Bee whispered, “let’s….”

He continued to drive the pickup truck along a dirt roadway, which led to a gate, beyond which stood the forest fire base, the helicopters, the landing pads, and the lodgings for the seasonal forest fire fighters. He inched the pickup truck along the rocky lane above the sandy beach, where she skinny dipped at night during heatwaves, for a picturesque view through the towering pine trees of the surrounding lake.

Bee embraced him, and he kissed above her breasts and unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and reached behind her and caressed her legs and inner thighs.

Born and raised in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, John Tavares is the son of Portuguese immigrants from São Miguel, Azores. He graduated from arts and science at Humber College, journalism at Centennial College, and more recently earned a Specialized Honors BA in English Literature from York University. His short fiction has appeared in various print and online journals, magazines, and anthologies in the US, Canada, and internationally. His interests and passions include journalism, literature, economics, photography, writing, and coffee, and he enjoys hiking and cycling.