by C D Cain
“But you said you were leaving this morning.”
“You asked when I was set to leave, which was this morning, but spending the day with you sounds so much better. You up for it?”
If I could have kept the silly grin from my face, I would have. I felt like a school girl who had just been asked out to the homecoming dance. Yet if I had masked it, I doubt I would have seen her matching one in return.
“Excellent. We need to make a detour first.” Mo cleaned the trash from the table. She lifted my coffee cup. “I’m guessing you’re done with this. You didn’t seem too thrilled with that last swallow.”
I followed her around the corner to a self-storage warehouse. She was grinning the entire time. Not a smile but a grin. I felt it and joined her happily. She stopped in front of a large garage door, pulled a key from her front pocket, and bent down to unlock it.
The metal garage door creaked and shook as she raised it open. Two black tires separated by two long chrome bars came into view as the door rolled upon itself. The smile twitched at her lips. She flipped on the light. The hanging fluorescent lights flickered until they came on to reflect off of the glossy painted gas tank. I would have sworn we had been transported into the middle of a premiere motorcycle shop.
“Well…what do you think?” She walked to the motorcycle and ran her hand along the sloping leather seat. “Isn’t she beautiful? She’s a 2003Harley Davidson Night Train.”
I watched the light dance across the brilliant black paint and let my mind wander back to a simpler day in my life. The day my adult life was starting. On that night, I’d stared out into a parking lot and watched overhead lights shine on my new Jeep and Grant. I shook the thought of him from my head.
Not now—not today.
“She definitely is. So, this is what you wanted to show me?” I walked further into the self-storage transformed into a garage. I pointed to the picture of a string-bikini-clad woman lazily stretched across the seat of a larger style Harley. “Really?”
An impish smile replaced her grin. “Hey, I was young when I did this place.”
I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows.
“Okay…youngish. How’s that?”
“More truthful.”
“Give me just a sec and I’ll be ready.”
“For?”
She reached into the metal drawers I assumed was filled with tools and pulled out jeans and a black T-shirt. “To go for a ride.”
I put my hands up. “Oh no. I’m not getting on that thing.”
“What? Why?”
“For one, I’ve treated I don’t even know how many people in the ER from a spill on one of those damn things. And for two…” I shook my head. “Nah, one is a pretty good enough reason on its own. No thanks.”
She closed the distance between us and stood close enough that I felt the tickle of the clothing she held in her hand as it brushed against my arm. “If I remember right, it’s you who drives a Jeep that hardly sees a top on it. Or so you’ve told me.”
“That’s entirely different.” I felt the nervous strain of my voice.
“Yes, it is. If you think you feel free riding in your Jeep, you can’t imagine what riding on this will feel like. There’s nothing like it. I promise.” She looked down at my chest. It rose and fell quickly. Her lip twitched as she held me again with her eyes. “Besides, it’ll give me a reason to have you hold me tightly in your arms.”
A reason? I swallowed hard and choked on the words I wanted to say. I wanted to be suave. I wanted to have a comeback, something like, “Do you use that line often?” or “Does that line usually work for you?” But nothing came out. I cowered in my shyness to leave the words spoken only in my head. Besides, didn’t I know the answer to both of those questions anyway?
She held me in her stare a moment longer. “Now would you mind rolling that door down so I can change clothes?”
“Here?” Geez, did my voice just crack? I sounded like a nervous teenage boy. I cleared my throat. “I mean, you’re changing here?”
She chuckled. “Ummm…yep, that was the idea.” She grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head.
Oh shit. I turned quickly to roll the door down. A loud boom sounded as it slipped from my hand and slammed hard against the concrete.
“Safe to say the neighborhood is up,” she said as she laughed.
I didn’t turn around.
“You’re good for my ego, Rayne. I don’t know that I’ve ever changed in front of a woman who chose to stare at a metal door instead of looking at me.”
I don’t doubt that. Idiot. Yeah. Idiot sums it up nicely.
“You can turn around now. I’m dressed,” she said as she sat on a black futon and laced up her leather boots.
“Do you stay here? I mean, the futon. Do you sleep here?”
She smiled and shook her head. “No. But I’ll come here sometimes to escape the noise.”
“Noise?”
“Close your eyes and listen.”
I shut the vision of the room out and stood in the darkness of it.
“Do you hear anything?”
“Nothing.”
“With that door shut…in here, just me and my bike…it’s just me. It’s not Mo. It’s me. Sometimes I need to find her to not forget her.”
I opened my eyes quickly to see her watching me. I blinked to the understanding of what she had shared and to the fact she had shared. She seemed to notice too because she stood up, brushed the wrinkles from her jeans, and tucked her T-shirt into the front of her waistband. She pulled her long hair into a ponytail before walking toward me to reopen the door.
She turned her head to look at me as we were nearly face to face. “There. You have a piece of me. A piece no one else has.” She gently shook her head. “Not sure why you have it but there it is anyway.”
The blue streak in her hair was highlighted as she stepped out into the sunlight. “Why don’t you stand out here while I wheel her out?” She disappeared into the shadows of the garage and returned a few moments later behind the brightness of the sun shining off of the chrome bars. Her smile was ear to ear as she steered the large front wheel out into the alley between the buildings.
“When we get on, just follow my movements. If I lean, you lean. The city will be miserable with the stink of exhaust from the cars but when we get this baby out onto the Red Mountain Expressway, you’ll swear we’re flying. Wait until I get her cranked and ready before you get on.” She bent down and turned the key, turned a valve, and then pulled a knob. She straightened again, straddled the bike, and freed the kickstand. She gripped the bar with her left hand as she pushed a button on the right handlebar. The engine roared and rumbled below her. Her body vibrated with the hum of the engine. A few times, she reached down to slowly push the knob back in. The engine grew louder and louder as it warmed. I felt the excitement in my chest as she twisted the throttle. The roar was exhilarating and brought about a grin of anticipation. With my fear washing away, I was eager to climb on the seat behind her.
She handed me a helmet after she pushed the knob fully in. “We’re ready.” She extended her hand to me as her smile filled her face. “Let’s do this,” she said loudly over the roar of the engine.
I grabbed her hand without an ounce of hesitation. The bike’s balance shifted but quickly returned when she steadied the weight of us. I realized I really didn’t know what to do from here. I sat against the back rest and placed my feet on the bars off to the side of the bike. I looked around to see a grip or anything to hold onto but couldn’t figure out where my hands went.
“You’re going to have to sit a little closer if you want to stay on,” Mo yelled.
I scooted on the seat to get closer to her. I tried to move easily so as not to shift the balance of the bike again. Gently, I let my hands rest against the material at her sides. I dar
ed not place pressure there for fear of feeling the warmth of her skin burn through the clothing.
Idiot coward. Better summation.
We left the city behind us as we cruised along the Red Mountain Expressway. The Ridge-and-Valley region of the Appalachian Mountains had always been beautiful to me. Many days, I purposely drove down Twentieth Street past the Vulcan Statue just to admire the beauty of its rust-stained rock seamed with hematite iron ore. But those views couldn’t hold a candle to this. Nothing like the ones unobstructed by a door frame or window. Out in the open with nothing between us and the rock, I could fully appreciate the red sparkle of the ore. I’m not sure what sparkled more, the ore or the green of the eyes I caught in the reflection of the rearview mirrors. She seemed to be looking for my reflection as many times as I sought hers. At times, she looked at me which such intensity that I would pretend to notice some distraction and break our stare.
She pulled off the highway onto a small dirt road before turning the bike off and motioning for me to dismount.
“There’s something I want to show you. We walk from here.”
The sun filtered through the narrowed trunks of the forest to give the road a striped appearance. Some of the smaller trees leaned into the hill cut for the dirt path. Their tops joined those of the opposite side as they stretched across the dirt to create a canopy above us. As we walked, the shade cooled the gentle wind and chilled the moistened skin at my neck. We had left most of the traffic behind us when we turned off of the main road so there was little noise to pollute the nature around us.
“What are you smiling about?”
I blinked at her. She had stopped walking and was gazing back at me.
“I guess this.” I held my arms out by my side and turned in a circle. “All of this. The sounds. The smell. All of it.” I brought my foot up and down to crunch the gravel under my feet. “This. I love the sound of this. It reminds me of a place back home.” I took in a deep breath. “And that. Do you smell that? It’s nature. It’s the dirt, the grass, and the trees. If there was some water around, I’d be one happy girl.”
“If only.” She smiled. “So, you’re a big hiker?”
“No, not really. I wouldn’t say it was hiking that I am enjoying so much. It’s being out here. Being outdoors away from the city and its congestion. I feel like sometimes I’m being suffocated. But here, out in the open, I feel alive,” I said as I bent down to pick up a handful of dirt. I let it slowly slip from my hand to fall back onto the ground. The finer granules floated in the breeze and came to fall further down the path. I loved the way the leftover dirt stuck to the palm of my hand until I brushed it off on my jeans. “Out here I can breathe again. It’s my oxygen.”
“It’s nice to see something besides sadness in those beautiful green eyes of yours.”
The warmth previously at my neck jumped to my cheeks. I didn’t know how to take her flirting. Generally, I found it to be playful banter and considered it part of her personality. Out here, alone in the woods, I questioned if her flirtations were real. If in fact, Mo of the lesbian deejay world…all women want to be with Mo…was seriously flirting with me. No, it was most likely a good friend who was trying to make me feel better by being complimentary. That was more like it.
“But, yes, I know exactly what you mean.” She studied the rocks beneath her feet for a moment and then bent over to pick up a light brown stone.
“You do?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Yeah, I guess I am. I wouldn’t have figured you would’ve felt like that. You seem like a city kinda girl to me.”
She laughed and let the smile stay upon her lips. “I get you would think that way. It’s the only venue you’ve seen me in.” She rolled the pebble in her hands and started walking back down the path.
“It’s not just seeing you there, in that setting; it’s watching you in the setting.” I quickened my pace to try to catch up to her. “It’s watching how you affect the women around you. You take them to another world. It’s a world you create for them. The music and the lights. It’s sort of amazing really.”
She stopped and looked over her shoulder. I didn’t understand the expression on her face. She wasn’t really smiling. I felt my mouth go dry the longer she held her words.
“What?” I asked.
She gave her head a single side nod. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, painfully aware I had great difficulty reading her thoughts.
She stretched her hand out for me to take it as she stepped up onto the first step of a set of stairs made from flat rocks dug into the dirt hill. “No, truly, thank you for saying that.”
She wrapped her fingers around my hand the moment our skin touched. The callouses of her palm scratched against my hand. Surely, they had been freshly roughened from the grips of the motorcycle ride.
“Here, I want to take you to a place over this hill.”
She carefully led me up the crooked staircase. I followed along the path of her footsteps to avoid stumbling on the rounded-rock border. She kept my hand firmly within hers as we walked single file. Even in her strong grasp, I slipped on one of the rocks covered in a mossy mold. The shade above the staircase provided a perfect environment for the slippery green coating.
She stopped to look back at me as I regained my footing.
“Sorry. I’m not one for grace.”
“I see that. Are you okay?”
I nodded.
She laughed. “It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that before you climbed on the back of my bike.”
She smiled playfully and leaned against a birch tree. The trunk was split low to the ground so her body was hugged between the divisions of the tree. The paper-like bark rolled out over her shoulder. This type of tree would always be a mocking reminder of the night Grant proposed. The night I watched the tears of my doing fall from Sam’s eyes. The pain of it threatened to squeeze at my heart until I shook it forcefully from my head. I studied the tree for what it would be for me today and not of what it was of old. Today, it would be shedding its old skin for the hopeful promise of new…just like me.
“Anything else you wish to share before we keep walking?”
“What?”
“Anything else. Like for instance, what’s with the look you have right at this moment?” She lifted her arm away from her side and pointed it at my face.
“What look?”
“Um, the look that would be the result of whatever you just felt. It washed over you like a cloak. What were you thinking? Care to share the thoughts you just had?”
“Do we have to talk about it?” I couldn’t. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to escape into Mo’s world she was creating for me. The past pain didn’t belong here today. At least not right now it didn’t.
“Nope. We don’t.” She started to head back up the hill but turned before taking a full step. She wound her finger in the belt loop of my jeans and gave them a pull. “But if you keep losing weight, these things are going to fall off of you and then we probably will have something to talk about.” Her smile showed me her gloriously white teeth. “Or, well, in the very least something to do.”
What was it with women causing a rush of blood to my cheeks?
I noticed the changing of the leaves as we climbed further up the hill. Crimson and honey-colored leaves sprinkled the hillside of our hike. Our footsteps were announced to the woods as we crunched on the already fallen leaves. Over the sounds of leaves beneath our feet and the rustle of foliage blown in the light breeze, I heard the stirrings of flowing water.
“If only.” Mo pushed through the thickened brush and pulled at the vines to loosen them as she made a clearing for us. “We’re here.”
She set her backpack on the ground and took in a deep breath. She turned quickly to look back at me and her foot slipped off the edge of
the embankment. She grabbed onto an oak sapling to steady herself.
The water’s edge was filled with tiny trees of all kinds. They hovered close to the ground while the larger ones took up the sky. Their brilliant green leafage formed an arbor for the running brook. I was thankful she had encouraged me to grab a couple of bottles of water when we stopped for gas. I took a long swig.
She dug in her backpack and pulled out a wad of material. “I warn you. I’ve never had company in this thing before. It may be tricky.” She looked up at me. “Especially since we have admitted to your lack of grace.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who slipped on the rocks a second ago.”
“Caught that, did ya?”
I smiled. “Yep.”
She wrapped a rope around two trees standing close to each other and stretched out a purple hammock. The brook flowed below it. Some of the moss which had grown over the rock bed was lifted free into the water of the gentle current.
She stretched the material out and shook her head. “Sure, hope this thing will fit two. We may have to snuggle in.” She cocked her head to the side to look at me. “Wouldn’t that be terrible?”
A deep breath filled my lungs as I studied the hammock and her reaction to it. It was very narrow. There was no way we would manage without a snug fit.
She played with the hammock a little more, getting in and out of it to find the best position. She sat in it like a lounger with the material riding high against her back before changing position to sit with her legs hanging off of the side.
“I think this will work best. Come on in.” She patted the small open space beside her.
The hammock dangled uneasily as I tried to sit without tipping us over. I found myself enjoying the sound of her laughter as we nearly tumbled to the ground. Or in this case, water since the stream was below us. She wasn’t Mo of the lesbian bar scene when she laughed like this. She was just a woman being tickled. I liked it. I may even have liked it too much as it made me happy the hammock kept me close to her body. I relaxed in the comfort of my arm and side lying against hers. The babbling brook carried my stresses away on its current. I let them wash over the rock to become cleansed as they fell and dispersed in the stream. Slender streaks of sunlight danced off the rippling water. I felt the warmth of it on my ankle as my feet dangled from the hammock.
