Aggie and the Woman, Part 5

Are you on the train yet?

Just stepped on. No seats available so I have to stand. Sigh.

Too bad. Do you see Marième?

Let me look. By the way, if we lose Wi-Fi, I’ll text you when we get above ground.

Okay. 

That Friday afternoon, Aggie looked up from her text conversation with Daniel and peered around the packed train car. As usual, there was no sign of Marième, which had been the case for the past several weeks. Interestingly enough, there was another woman sitting where Marième would normally sit, similarly typing away at her phone’s keyboard and wearing a chic pantsuit. Despite her disappointment that it wasn’t Marième, this woman quickly held Aggie’s attention. She was Black, fair skinned, and wore a long blonde wig. Yet, Aggie noticed that she was fair-skinned in an inexplicably unnatural way, as if she had packed on her makeup without realizing that she was overdoing it. But it didn’t seem like makeup, did it? It seemed like it was her natural skin, yet bizarrely not at all. Shuddering inwardly, her senses prickling at the sudden understanding of what she was looking at, Aggie’s eyes then drifted toward the woman’s hands. The hands always tell the truth, her mother used to say when they would see women like this back home. The woman’s hands were also fair…except for the dark spots Aggie saw near her wrists and in between her fingers, the areas that had been missed. The truth was clear.

Maybe she’s a burn victim or it’s a skin issue, Aggie then mechanically told herself, the same things she often whispered to her mother back then. However, she wasn’t naïve to the fact that the excuse no longer provided the same adolescent comfort it once did. It just seemed impossible to her that anyone would voluntarily cover the beauty of their skin, to bleach it like it was a stain. But the fact that skin lightening was a billion-dollar industry in Asia, the Middle East, and in her own continent of birth was enough to remind Aggie just how real it was. 

The train then lurched to a stop. As numerous riders exited the train, the seat across from the woman became free. Reluctantly, Aggie decided to take the seat. Remembering her conversation with Daniel, she glanced down at her phone and saw that her service was temporarily down anyway. Not wanting to focus on the woman, Aggie pulled a book out of her handbag.

“Agnes?”

She looked up and around her. Who knew her on the train?

“Over here.”

It was the woman across from her.

“Yes?” Aggie asked, thoroughly confused. 

The woman smiled at her. “It’s me, Marième.”