Transition

by Henry Charles Mishkoff

  Jillian pushes open the creaky wooden door of the boathouse and steps out into the Texas morning. When she had entered the building some twenty minutes ago, the first traces of light had just begun to appear on the horizon, and a few tenacious stars had still dotted the sky. What a terrible time to go in for a swim, she had thought, pitying the men who were getting ready to run into the water. Even though the marker buoys had been thoughtfully outfitted with flashing lights, the thought of swimming through the murky waters of White Rock Lake in the darkness makes her shudder.

  But now the nighttime is grudgingly giving way to the morning. Although the light is still dim, it will be acceptably strong – Jillian feels, with some relief – by the time the women’s race starts.

  As G.W. and the weatherman had predicted, the air is indeed drier than it has been for a few days. And it doesn’t seem to be as hot as it’s been recently, either – maybe in the low seventies, Jillian guesses. She frowns. Heat and humidity are the scourge of her competitors, which makes them her natural allies. But it’ll be plenty hot by the time we finish up on the bikes, she thinks, with some hope. And it should be pleasantly toasty – sunny and bright and in the mid-nineties, she’s heard – by the time the run is well underway.

  Typical Texas weather. My kind of weather, she thinks.

  And right here in my own backyard.

  Even with this drafting nonsense, how can I lose?

  3.1.3: Dallas

  “There’s Jill Kendal,” she hears someone say, an instant before a sea of microphones and cameras materializes right in front of her face.

  “How are you going to do today, Jill?” someone asks.

  “Wow. Gee. This is kind of overwhelming.” Jillian squints into the rising sun and surveys the throng of reporters. Good, she thinks, Leida Andersen doesn’t seem to be here. But I have a hunch that she’ll turn up before the day is over. “I’ve never seen so many reporters at a triathlon before,” she says.

  “That’s because there’s never been a triathlon as important as this one,” says a man wearing a jacket and tie as he pushes his way through the crowd. He extends his hand. “Jeff Grimsley, ESPN,” he says, flashing a dazzling smile as he shakes her hand.

  “Hi, Jeff. Look, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I’ve…” She peers at him quizzically, he has a faraway look in his eyes and he doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to her. “Hello? Jeff? You there?”

  “Okay, Marty, fifteen seconds,” Jeff says. He puts a hand to his ear and nods quickly several times, and Jillian finally realizes that he’s listening not to her but to an earbud that’s buried in his ear. “Chip,” he says loudly to the cameraman who stands next to him, “swing around here to catch both of us. That’s good.”

  “Look, Jeff,” Jillian says, “I can’t…”

  “I’ll keep it short,” the reporter says, with a conspiratorial wink. “Five seconds,” he adds, as the other reporters jostle to position themselves to record the interview. Reporters reporting on other reporters, Jillian thinks. Weird.

  “Thanks, Marty,” Jeff says in response to an unseen voice. He raises his mic and smiles broadly as a small red light on the camera blinks on. “And you’re right, the weather is remarkably mild when you consider how disagreeable it can be in Texas in June. Perfect weather for the first-ever Olympic long-distance triathlon trials, exclusively here on ESPN. And speaking of ‘perfect’…” – he turns to Jillian – “…I’m standing here with Jill Kendal, who many observers consider to be the ‘perfect’ woman triathlete. She’s certainly the heavy favorite in the race today. How do you feel this morning, Jill?”

  “Real good, Jeff,” she says. This is so lame, she thinks.

  “Good enough to win?”

  “I’m going to give it my best shot, Jeff,” Jillian says. Years ago, she discovered that reporters love it when you use their names in interviews, it gives viewers the impression that they’re so popular that all the athletes know them by name. “As you know, Dallas is my hometown, and I don’t want to disappoint all the people here who have given me so much support over the years.” What bullshit, she thinks, as she smiles gleamingly into the camera. “Gotta go, Jeff,” she says, touching him lightly on the arm. “Thanks for stopping by.” She waves quickly into the camera.

  “Thank you, Jill. And good luck today. Well, there you have it, Marty. As you just heard, a confident Jill Kendal says that she’s…”

  Jillian pushes her way through the pack of reporters that closes in as soon as Jeff turns her loose. Shaking her head firmly, she waves them away – “I’ll answer all of your questions after the race, honest – after the race,” she says, several times. Then she turns and starts to trot toward the transition area.

  3.1.4: Dallas

  “This is your bike?”

  Jillian is stunned. They’re standing in the transition area, which is crawling with triathletes making last-minute adjustments to their bicycles, rearranging the contents of their seat packs, bending and stretching, sizing each other up, making nervous small talk.

  Sunshine nods hesitantly. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “Well, it’s just so… it’s just not what I expected,” Jillian explains. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Schwinn Varsity on the circuit.”

  “I know it doesn’t look like much, compared to yours,” Sunshine admits.

  Jillian grins at the understatement. Her sleek, bright-yellow Falconi GoldenGirl Racer would have set her back more than ten thousand dollars, if she had had to pay for it. While the Varsity probably sold for a couple of hundred bucks at Walmart. If, indeed, Schwinn still actually made such an antiquated ride.

  “You Americans not only want your bicycles to be fast,” Paoli Gennaro, Falconi’s chief designer, had once observed to Jillian. “You want them to make your friends jealous. In Italy, cyclists just want to win. In America, it is okay to lose as long as you look good.”

  “I don’t care if it’s rat’s-ass ugly,” Jillian had responded. “I just want it to win races for me.”

  “And we want it to win races for you too, of course,” Gennaro had assured her. “Your victories will sell millions of Falconi bicycles in Europe alone. But most of your compatriots will not buy it unless it looks like something that they would want to display in their living rooms. Right next to their Danish furniture. Accenting their home entertainment systems. Which they also bought more for looks than for performance.”

  “I don’t give a shit if it looks like something from another planet,” Jillian had said. “If you can’t make me a machine that puts out for me, you can go get yourself another girl to sell your goddamn bikes for you.”

  The result of Falconi’s efforts now stands next to Sunshine’s Schwinn in the bicycle rack. Its handlebars are flattened into an unusual flange shape, designed to act as a kind of airfoil and produce lift instead of drag. Every section of titanium tubing is subtly tapered to minimize wind resistance. Even the small seat pack is sculpted not only with functional considerations in mind, but to contribute to the overall aesthetic impression of the bicycle as a work of art.

  Sunshine’s Schwinn, on the other hand, has no pretensions of being anything other than what it is: a competent, if somewhat uninspiring, off-the-shelf street machine, designed more for kids flashing around their suburban neighborhoods than for serious racers.

  And there’s something else different about the Schwinn, Jillian thinks, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. It looks so… so broken-in, so bare, so…

  And then it hits her.

  “Where’s your seat pack?”

  “My what?”

  “And Jesus, where’s your water bottle?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Jillian is stunned. “You should carry a couple of bananas or at least some energy bars or something. And you have to drink, you’ll get dehydrated.”

  Sunshine shrugs. “I can get food and water at the aid stations. That’s what I did up in
Boston. It seemed to work out okay.”

  “But it slows you down so much. And where do you keep your spare tubes?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Well, that’s just great, Sunshine.” Jillian finds that she’s getting angry – not only is Sunshine totally unprepared, she’s totally unconcerned about the situation. This is an important race, and Sunshine is insulting it by taking it so lightly. “What are you going to do if you get a flat tire?”

  “Don’t be upset with me, Jill,” Sunshine pleads. “I’ve never done this before. Nobody told me what to do. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, for God’s sake. You’re the one who’s going to be in trouble if you get a flat, not me.”

  “The way I look at it,” Sunshine explains, “is that if I’m meant to finish, I’ll finish, and if not, I won’t, no matter how many spares I have. Ultimately, it’s not in my hands.”

  “Your attitude sucks.” Jillian shakes her head slowly in disgust and disbelief. “And I know I shouldn’t do this, Sunshine, but I’m going to let you have one of my spares. You can wrap it around your seat post or something. I may live to regret this, but I can’t stand the thought of you going out there without a spare.”

  “Oh, Jill, that’s so sweet of you,” Sunshine says, wide-eyed with gratitude. “But I can’t take it.”

  “No, go ahead and take it before I change my mind.”

  “But Jill, it won’t make any difference.”

  “It sure as hell will if you have a flat.” This is incredible, Jillian thinks, I’m having to beg her to let me do her a favor. “And please, spare me that ‘meant to be’ shit. You don’t have any excuse for not being prepared, not anymore.”

  “But Jill, don’t you see, a spare’s not going to do me any good at all.”

  “Look, Sunshine, don’t be so goddamn… oh, Jesus,” Jillian groans, as she finally realizes what Sunshine is trying to tell her. “I get it. You don’t a repair kit. Or a can of compressed air. You don’t even have a pump, do you?”

  “Not with me,” Sunshine admits. “I didn’t think to bring it.”

  “God, you’re a mess,” Jillian says, and then she laughs at the absurdity of the situation. She fights a sudden urge to reach out and muss Sunshine’s hair, the way she might do to an appealing but helpless child. “What the hell,” she says. “You better get your butt on over to the boathouse to get your number, or it won’t make any difference if you’ve even got any tires on your bicycle at all.”

  3.1.5: Dallas

  “Five minutes, ladies,” the voice booms over the loudspeakers. “Please finish your warm-ups and get out of the water. You must be completely out of the water before the start of the race. Anyone still in the water when the gun sounds will be disqualified.”

  “Why can’t we do a deep-water start?” Carla Kwan grouses as she walks reluctantly out of the lake. “This getting in and out of the water is going to kill me. And the water is so murky. Is this the best you people could do?”

  Jillian grins. “White Rock is really a boating lake, not a swimming lake. Nobody ever swims in it, really, except for the triathlon every year.”

  “You’re kidding,” Sunshine exclaims. “Gee, if I had a lake this big right in my back yard, I’d swim in it all the time.”

  “You and the snakes, both,” Jill says.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Carla says, after a long, pregnant pause. “What’s this about the snakes?”

  “Didn’t you know?” Jillian asks, all wide-eyed innocence. “The lake is crawling with water moccasins. Big, nasty ones. They live in the trees under the water.”

  “How can there be trees under water?” Sunshine asks.

  “It’s an artificial lake. They left the trees there when they built the dam and flooded it.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Sunshine,” Carla says, reassuringly. “She’s just trying to psych us out.”

  “Okay,” Jillian shrugs. “Don’t believe me.”

  “Okay, smart-ass. If the lake is lousy with snakes, how come you’re swimming in it?”

  “Well, shit, Carla,” Jillian says, without even the ghost of a smile, “I wouldn’t even stick my big toe in this hole if I hadn’t sprayed myself with snake repellant before I left the house!”

  3.1.6: Dallas

  “Miss? I’m sorry, miss, but spectators aren’t allowed in the transition… Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see your press pass.”

  “It sure is deserted over here right now,” Leida says, as she looks over the rows of bicycles gleaming in the early morning sun. “It’s hard to believe that this place is going to be so frantic in just a little while.”

  “I guess everybody’s over watching the start of the women’s race.” Without the armband that identifies him as a race marshal, the lanky youth would have been indistinguishable from the spectators in the boisterous crowd that Leida wandered into the transition area to escape. “It’s going to be maybe half an hour before any of the men get here,” he adds, glancing at his watch. “It’ll be buzzing around here by then, believe me.”

  To Leida, the transition area appears to be remarkably tranquil. A solitary figure is filling paper cups with water and arranging them neatly on a table by the water’s edge. A few reporters and technicians are wandering about, comparing camera angles from various vantage points. Not even one spectator stands behind the elaborate fence that has been constructed to keep the anticipated heavy crowds out of the transition area.

  “Which bicycles are the women’s?” Leida asks, glancing around with casual interest.

  But before her question can be answered, a loud, booming noise – perhaps a cannon shot? – rolls in from a few hundred yards down the lake, followed by a roar reminiscent of a stadium crowd’s reaction to a touchdown by the home team. “Women’s race just started,” the marshal explains. “Listen, I gotta get some shit done before the men get here, so…”

  “The women’s racks?” Leida reminds him, as he begins to walk away. “Which ones?”

  “Over there,” he points. “That’s the women’s changing room, and those are their bike racks. Gotta go.” Leida waves a thank you, but he’s already turned away and trotted off toward the other structure, which Leida realizes must be the men’s changing room.

  As she strolls toward the women’s bicycle racks, Leida can hear the low rumblings of the crowd as it leaves the starting line, en masse, and heads toward the transition area. They’ll all be here real soon, Leida realizes. I’ve only got a few minutes to look around in peace and quiet.

  What incredible machines, she thinks. She leans on one end of a bicycle rack and gazes at the rows of sleek, mechanical marvels. She removes the lens cap from the camera that hangs around her neck and lines up a shot. They look restless, she thinks, like racehorses straining at the starting gate. Or maybe horses in the Old West, tied up in front of a saloon – no, the sheriff’s office, that’s it, tied up in front of the sheriff’s office, patiently waiting for the posse to charge out, mount up, spur them into action, and ride off into the sunset.

  She’s scanning the bicycles through the view screen, looking for the angle that will best capture her impressions, when something catches her eye, and she swings the camera back to try to pick it up again…

  Falconi.

  Halfway down the rack, nearly lost in the maze of frames and handlebars, the name jumps out at her. It’s written in a distinctive, instantly recognizable, ornate black script on a bright yellow background.

  Falconi.

  Slowly lowering the camera, she walks down the length of the rack, her hand brushing idly over tires, seats, and frames. And here it is, Leida thinks. This bright yellow monstrosity belongs to the bitch-goddess herself. It’s so gaudy, just like its owner. Golden Girl. What a laugh.

  I wonder what she carries in her saddlebag. Or seat pack, or whatever they call it. Probably a few bags of her daddy’s money, for good luck. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take a look. But if anybody sees me, it might look like
I’m tampering with the equipment…

  But when she glances up, she’s surprised to discover that nobody is looking at her. She even turns completely around, a full 360 degrees, and is amazed to realize that not a single person is paying any attention to her at all. The spectators haven’t arrived yet – although, judging by the approaching wall of noise, they probably aren’t very far off. And the activity of the few race marshals and other journalists is concentrated at the landing where the first wave of swimmers will be arriving soon.

  She’s alone.

  And, for a minute or two, until the crowd arrives, she’s unobserved.

  Impulsively, she flips open the flap that covers the small leather bag that sits behind the seat post. Leather. How typically ostentatious. But there’s nothing in it but some fruit, she realizes with some disappointment. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it looks like there’s nothing more than a few bananas in here. Maybe there’s some other stuff beneath them, but there’s not really enough room for anything interesting. Definitely not what you’d call a photo opportunity.

  And she’s just about to close the bag when a sly smile creases her face. Well, this probably won’t mess her up too badly – unfortunately – but maybe it’ll shake her up just a little bit, Leida thinks. And she reaches stealthily into the bag, snatches a banana, and begins to peel it.

  God, this tastes good, she thinks, as she chews off the tip. Maybe this is what they mean by sweet revenge. She grins. Reaching into her pocket, she digs out a small folding knife, flips it open, and cuts away a few overripe spots, letting the pieces fall to the ground. If I had gotten here earlier, she thinks, I probably could have done a few more creative things to mess her up. But I’m almost out of time. From the sound of the crowd, this place will be hopping in just a minute or two.

  Too bad, she thinks. It’s just too damn bad. Hopefully, she’ll miss the banana. And maybe – just maybe – it’ll cause her a major problem. But realistically, it probably won’t be any more than a minor inconvenience. If she even notices it at all.