In Tandem

by Christina C Jones

  “Yeah, sweat and whatever other foot fungus this stranger danger girl who used the boots before me had.”

  He looked up to pin me with a playful glare. “Are you going to put the boots on or not?” he asked, obviously tired of my complaining.

  “I'm going to put the boots on. And talk all my shit while I do it.”

  Raf chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  Just over an hour after we rolled into Sugar Valley, we were headed up “Big Sugar” mountain after securing our bikes at our cabin. It was hella pretty up here, a completely different vibe than what I loved about the Heights. Home was all bricks and historic architecture, and sunlight and warm hues. Sugar Leaf Mountain was green foliage and fresh air and crisp blue sky filtering through the canopy of leaves.

  Raf had commented on how sweet the air smelled here, due to the abundance of maples. When he mentioned it before, while I was still huffing and puffing after the exertion of keeping up with him, I couldn't say I noticed it - my nose and other senses were much too occupied with the function of breathing. Now though, as we casually picked our way up the trail into the mountain, I could easily identify the bittersweet aroma the trees and their leaves infused into the air.

  Mama would have loved this, I mused to myself, but didn't say out loud. The anniversary of her death had passed a few months back. I felt her more than usual - which was really all the time anyway. With her birthday coming up – the event that had my raggedy-ass father feeling so nostalgic - her presence was more potent.

  If I owed my love of biking to anyone, it was Raf. But that never would have come along if my mother hadn't first instilled a love of the outdoors in me. We spent so much time in the tiny little patch of backyard that came with our brownstone, in every season. Any vegetable she could get to grow, she would. Any flower that could survive our changing climate, my mother made it flourish, even in less-than-ideal soil she spent brainpower and money amending to make work.

  Our house was full of plants, from real ones she taught me to dote on in the same way she did, to fake ones that she couldn’t grow, but wanted the feeling of anyway. Down to the magazines that decorated our coffee tables, and the books that lined the shelves.

  Even in her wardrobe, Mama wore a lot of florals and foliage prints, making her love for them shine through. As a child, I couldn't really understand why she went so hard with it.

  But then I got older.

  I grew up, and had my own relationships and experiences, and then I understood. This was her one thing she loved outside of her children, her “thing” that gave her joy. So as much as she could, she was giving her all to it, keeping something for herself.

  Some pleasure to hold on to that didn't remind her of my father. Something that didn't count on him, something that didn't look like him. Something that… kind of annoyed him.

  I realized that later, once I’d fully lost my rose-colored glasses where my father was involved. I remembered thinking if I was my mom, I would have left his ass. Which was easy to think when it wasn’t actually my situation.

  She didn’t leave though.

  Whether it was because she felt like she couldn't, or simply didn't want to.

  She granted herself that one piece of petty though.

  Those damn flowers got on his nerves, which I think made her love them more.

  Looking around this place, I couldn't find it in me to understand why she’d never come here herself. This would have been my mom in her element, surrounded by the natural beauty of outdoors.

  But since she wasn't here, I could enjoy it for her, taking my time with every step and admiring the sounds of the birds, the trickle of water somewhere in the distance, the varying shades of green and brown and gold that all made this place beautiful.

  “I should take a picture of your face,” Raf said, and I looked up to where he was to find him grinning as he waited for me, several feet in the distance. “Like a little kids’ first look at Disneyworld,” he teased.

  “Whatever,” I laughed. “I'm just enjoying myself and taking it all in. Sorry if I'm not moving fast enough.”

  “Not that at all,” he assured me. “It's quiet, and peaceful out here. We can stay as long as you want.”

  So we did.

  Sometime later, we came upon a pretty little inlet with this magnificent, breathtaking waterfall. It took us time to pick our way up the trail to get to it, but once we did, all I could do was stand there in awe.

  At least, until I heard the familiar whining of a child.

  “Mama,” I heard and immediately stiffened.

  Of course I didn't know what it was actually about, but my own vanity and insecurity immediately assumed that fearful sound and cry was because of me.

  I peeked around at the other people who had taken the hike up the mountain today and stopped at the waterfall, scanning for eyes pointed in my direction. I hoped that it was just my paranoia kicking in.

  It wasn't.

  I did find eyes on me, only it wasn't from as small of a child as I thought. The little girl had to be twelve or thirteen years old, and she couldn't take her eyes off me as she tugged for her mother's attention. When her mother finally did turn in my direction, I turned away.

  “Let’s go ahead and move on,” I said to Raf, who had his phone out and was too busy taking snapshots of the falls to see any of this. At the sound of my voice, he lowered his cell, turning to me with concern in his eyes.

  “You all right?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “Yeah. I'm good, just ready to see something else.”

  “Okay…,” he agreed, though I could tell he wasn’t really convinced.

  Before we could get away though, I heard “Excuse me.”

  My shoulders went stiff again as I turned to find the woman and her daughter had actually approached us. I didn't say anything. I just looked, not knowing what was about to come out of her mouth, as nervous as she and the girl both seemed.

  “I'm sorry to bother you on your hike, but… my daughter…” she trailed off like she was having trouble finding the right words. “Um…your skin...”

  I tipped my head to the side, nostrils flared. “Yeah? What about it?” I asked, admittedly defensive.

  Her mouth gaped open. “It's just...”

  She looked down at her daughter, so I did too. My eyes went wide as the little girl tugged at the long-sleeved tee she was wearing, pulling it up to reveal familiar white patches of skin interrupting the expanse of brown on her arm.

  “I'm sorry for staring at you,” the little girl said. “I've just… I’ve never seen anybody as pretty as you, and your skin… it's like mine.”

  First, my heart leapt into my throat.

  Then it dropped somewhere around my feet.

  She was… me.

  This little girl was me ten or fifteen years ago, when I first noticed missing patches of melanin on my feet. I’d run screaming to my mother to ask her what was going on. Of course she hadn't known, thinking it was some sort of rash, or allergic reaction, or that I had gotten into some kind of chemicals. When the dermatologist gave us the diagnosis, we were both in denial for a while.

  It was just a few white spots on my toes.

  Maybe from being out in the sun too much.

  The years had certainly proven that wrong as my vitiligo spread, taking over every part of my body. There was no square foot of skin anywhere on me that wasn’t affected, but this little girl was just at the beginnings of it - probably the most terrifying part, when she and her parents probably were still confused about what was happening.

  She had to already be dealing with preteen hormones and all of that. It was hard enough as a little black girl in this world with everyone judging every part of you. Ready to pick you apart for not being smart enough, pretty enough, tall enough, short enough, athletic enough.

  Nothing enough.

  Never enough.

  And then she had to contend with this too.

  “Oh,” I said, a lame-ass first thing to say
in response to something like this, with so many thoughts and emotions swirling in my head. But I really didn't know what to say, what comfort or support I could reasonably give.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her, and she glanced at her mother first, getting permission before she looked back at me.

  “Tiffany.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I'll be thirteen soon.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that's about how old I was when I first saw it too,” I told her. “Kind of scary, huh?”

  Tiffany gave me a sheepish grin. “It's really scary,” she said. “My mom doesn't like it, but… I always cover up when I go out. Cause I don't want anybody staring at me, or treating me like I'm contagious or something. But…” her eyes got wide and starry. “But you’re out here in shorts, and a tee-shirt. With your fine boyfriend,” she said, with a lowered voice and a shy glance at Raf, who had enough sense to look away and pretend he wasn't paying attention to any of it. “It… makes me not feel so bad. I’m sorry for interrupting your day, I just wanted to talk to you.”

  I wanted to tell her it would be okay.

  I wanted to tell her all sorts of platitudes about not caring what people thought, or being comfortable in her own skin, but the truth was that her almost-thirteen-year-old fears were the exact same as mine, and I was realizing now that I’d never grown out of them.

  I was still living with those very same fears and anxieties, those same insecurities, and had just been brave enough to take my first steps a few days ago. And only because Raf had agreed to come along. She was looking at me like I was some sort of knight in dappled armor, but the truth was… I was a coward.

  “Tiffany... I'm not going to lie to you and say that it's not scary anymore, because it is. I'm scared all the time,” I told her, ignoring the side-eye her mother shot in my direction. “It’s going to spread, and you're going to hate it, and you're going to wish there was something, anything you could do about it. But there isn’t, and you have to come to terms with that. Come to terms with it early, so when you're my age you’re not a scaredy-cat like me.” I smiled at her. “I never would have been brave enough to walk up and start this conversation. So you’re already on a better track than me. Get used to people looking at you - it'll never stop. But you know what else will never change?” I asked as she stared at me, absorbing every word.

  “What?”

  “You’re brave,” I told her. “You’re a brave ass, pretty ass Black girl, and this skin condition? It can’t ever take that part away.”

  It wasn't enough.

  It didn’t feel like enough.

  And it wasn’t nearly everything I wanted to say.

  But at the moment, I was too overwhelmed, too caught off guard to give her something more substantive, something that she could really take with her and use.

  But she smiled at me like I’d just told her the secret to life.

  “Will you take a selfie with me?” she asked, and I immediately nodded.

  “Yes, of course.”

  She took a picture with her phone, and I took one with mine. As much of a moment as this was for her, it was one for me too - an unexpected one, that had gone the complete opposite of what I thought when that girl's mother got my attention.

  I wanted a visual reminder.

  Once we were separated, and they’d gone on to tackle the rest of the trail, I turned to Raf. I couldn’t keep the huge grin off my face. “Did you see that?” I asked, though obviously I knew he had. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did,” he nodded, returning my smile. “B…you just did so much for that little girl,” he said. “Just by… being here. Something that never would have happened if you were still somewhere hiding away. If you hadn’t finally come on this trip.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So what, are you saying it was fate or something?” I asked. “It was just a cool coincidence, don't make it deeper than that.”

  He scoffed. “Come on. I happened to ask you to come on this hike with me. We wouldn't have been here, at this time, if Regina hadn’t stopped us to eat. We wouldn't have been here in time for lunch if we hadn't gotten on the road when we did this morning, and we may have been too early if it wasn’t for the accident. And I could go on. But you happened to be on this mountain, at this specific rest stop, at the same time as that little girl. Coincidence?”

  “Okay fine,” I admitted, shaking my head. “Maybe it was fate or something. I just…she looks like me, Raf! Her skin tone, that pretty ass face…”

  He agreed. “She does. And what would it have done for you as a little girl if you’d been able to see, right in front of your face, not an abstract… that your vitiligo doesn't make you not beautiful?”

  “It would have done a whole lot,” I acknowledged. “I would have cherished that.”

  “Yeah. And that's exactly what she's going to do with this.”

  Just the thought of that put me in the very best mood.

  It stayed with me through the rest of the hike, and all the way back to the main lodge. Inside, we changed back into the regular clothes that we’d stored in the lockers, and then took our rented gear back to the front desk. It was manned by a different person this time – another, younger black woman - whose face broke into a grin as soon as she saw us approaching.

  “Well I'll be damned,” she said, laughing. “Regina said the Rafael De Luca was here, and I didn't believe her.” She propped her elbows on the counter and leaned in. “Your recovery has been nothing short of amazing. I mean, I read this article in a medical journal, that used you an example – talked all about your injuries and how freaking nuts it was that you did that charity ride like seven months after your accident. And you’re here hiking too!”

  All of those words came tumbling out of her too fast for me to try to intervene, or play it off like Raf was just some look alike. I glanced back at him, knowing it was likely the last thing he wanted to talk about.

  He never really talked about it with me.

  However, he put on a pleasant face, like he always did to interact with people who were excited about him and his sport.

  “You said you read an article about it in a medical journal?” He deflected, focusing on that instead of anything else she’d said.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I'm a doctor, so I read a lot of those. The doctor for the town actually, but because I’m seeing her son, Regina seems to think that she can make me work the front desk at the lodge when I’m supposed to be off,” she complained. “Which… obviously she can, I guess, based on the fact that I'm here.” She laughed. “I'm Kyle by the way. And that son I mentioned, Ben? He’s been milking a broken ankle around here for damn near a year now. I’m going to have to tell him about you.”

  “Good to meet you Kyle,” Raf said, laughing at her fussing. “We’ve got some gear to turn in. And thank you for your support too.”

  “Oh please,” she waved him off. “Watching you race and posting a few tweets is the very least we can do for the entertainment value athletes provide. Y'all are the ones quite literally putting your bodies on the line for this. After an accident like that, I wouldn’t have expected to see you on a bike for at least a year or two, and definitely not doing any major racing. What kind of physical therapy program were you on?” She asked, pulling out the extremely low-tech paper list we’d used to check out our gear.

  Raf shook his head, still smiling though his expression didn't reach his eyes. “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

  “Can't say I blame you. Whatever your training team had you doing, they need to bottle and sell that.”

  Kyle took our gear from us, and the conversation ended as we headed out, to get back to our cabin. Still, as we got further down the road, Raf’s mood still seemed a lot lower than it had been right after we first finished our hike.

  I could be wrong, but it didn't seem like just a simple interaction like that with a fan, even with the reminder of the accident, should have pulled him down like that.

&n
bsp; “Hey,” I said, as we stepped through the front door of our two-bedroom cabin. “So… I've had my scared to do it but what the fuck, let's do it anyway moment here already.” I propped my hands on my hips. “So…your turn. Tell me what's going on with you.”

  “Nothing, B,” he immediately lied, which rankled my nerves. It was so clear that something was wrong with him. That something had been wrong with him. I was tired of dodging the obvious.

  “So this is what we're going to do now?” I asked. “This is our friendship, after being apart for so long? We lie to each other's faces?”

  “Just let it go,” he kind of snapped at me, walking away.

  But really, I didn't give a shit about his attitude.

  “No,” I countered, blocking his path. “I'm not going to just let it go. Because if the situation were reversed, you wouldn't just let it go either. Tell me what's going on. What are you doing here? And why are you so cagey about your recovery? You’re back on your feet, and it’s great! Shouldn’t you be glad about that?”

  “I'm retiring, okay?” Raf growled, throwing his hands up in defeat. When I met his eyes, they were so aimless and exhausted that I felt terrible just that quickly for pushing it.

  For pushing him.

  “Everybody wants to know why I won't get back on the bike, when I’ll race again. Well the answer is never, because the truth behind this “miraculous” recovery that everybody is so pressed about is that I fucking cheated, and I hate myself for it. There you go. That's the truth. You happy now?”

  Frowning, I shook my head. “No, I'm not happy. What the fuck? What do you mean you cheated? You can't cheat your way out of injuries like that, Raf. What does that even mean?”

  “It means that I was done. It means that my training sessions were horrible. I’d lost all my stamina from laying around in the hospital, my muscle tone was fucked. And so… something was done about it. Not something that was supposed to get done, but… it's done now. And I can't undo it.”

  My eyes narrowed for a moment as I tried to put together the pieces of what he was saying without actually saying anything.

  “Steroids,” I breathed, catching on to what he was speaking about. How could I not, after the way one of the most prominent riders in the world had rocked the entire sport for the same thing. “I… How could you, Raf?” I asked, barely believing what I knew he was telling me.