A Field Guide to Deception (17 page)

“The fuck you are,” she said. She glared at Liv. “The fuck you are.”

Bailey had started over, but Liv shook her head. Beside the pool table, the meathead tensed, crouched, her gaze darting between Liv and Bailey and the girl. Liv slid off the stool sideways, but the meathead caught Liv's shoulder with her left fist, and Liv, turned slightly by the punch and the table behind her, launched the beer glass into the side of the chick's head. The glass cracked, the base still in Liv's
hand. Liv dropped it, bounced on the balls of her feet, threw herself forward, and knocked the meathead into another table. Kicked her hard in the belly, as she slumped to the ground.

Before the girl, who'd grabbed a cue stick, could nail Liv with it, Bailey had thrown two punches that sent the girl sprawling. Legs apart, elbows tucked, Liv stood a moment, reckoning: the tab settled earlier with cash, but the bartender knew them, as did some of the patrons, including the girl, in all probability. All night, they'd drawn attention. Too late, she thought. No help for it. And Bailey, yanking Liv's arm, dragged her through the room, past the boys who'd looked up but kept sitting, and out that same goddamn side door.

In the truck, driving across the Monroe Street Bridge, Bailey had the giggles. “Jesus,” she said, breathless, flexing her fingers. “That girl's head was hard. Are you OK? I can't believe you hit that woman with your glass. She was freaking huge. Was she bleeding? I couldn't tell.”

Adrenaline had left Liv feeling nauseous, trembling. She did have blood on her hand, but it might have been her own. Her mind pinged around: had the meathead been conscious? Would someone call the police? And Claire, what would she say?

“I've never punched anyone before,” Bailey said. “I mean, someone I wasn't related to. Her head was really fucking hard.” She started giggling again. Liv slowed down, thought about pulling the truck over, throwing up. Focused instead on the road ahead of them, and Bailey's voice. In her hand, the weight of the glass, thrusting forward into the meathead, the sound of the impact and glass breaking, and Liv's own body rushing forward. Her breath in bursts, her body bouncing—back once, forward once, and charge.

“Seriously, that chick you hit was huge. Scary and huge, and she really didn't like you hitting on her girlfriend.”

“I didn't hit on her girlfriend.”

“Then imagine how pissed she might have been.”

“Bailey, I didn't hit on her fucking girlfriend.”

“Oh, I know. You're reformed. Love has changed you. God, I don't feel good. Really, I want to retch. Seriously. Liv, you should pull over.” Bailey opened the passenger door before Liv could stop, and retched
bile on her shoes and the running board. “Fuck. Oh god. That was awful and wild and scary. I was so scared. I thought that chick would murder you.”

“Bailey,” Liv said. “Bailey, stop talking.” She killed the engine.

Bailey started crying. “She really could have killed you. She was fucking giant. You broke a glass on her head. Horrible.”

“Bailey, be quiet.”

Bailey moaned, wiped at her face.

“I didn't hit on that girl. She hit on me. It's important, Bailey. It's important. Focus. Listen to me. I didn't hit on that girl. She propositioned me.”

Bailey, mucus in her hair, mascara smeared on her face, stared at Liv. “You think it'll make any difference? You think when you explain how this one time you were the mark—you, just sitting there, minding your own business, weren't the aggressive one—everything'll be fine.” Bailey started giggling, then stopped just as abruptly. “You broke a glass on that woman's head and kicked her in the fucking gut. You think you can change anything about that now? You think somehow this hasn't been coming all fucking summer? You think because this girl wasn't bent over the sink in the bathroom, or tied up in your truck, then everything's square? What the fuck's the matter with you? This is fucking serious. Jesus.” Sniveling, rubbing hard at her eyes with the heel of her hand, Bailey rocked forward and sobbed in earnest.

Liv watched her and then shouted suddenly, startling both of them: “You think I deserved a beating? Is that what you're telling me?”

Tears down her face, her nose swollen and wet, Bailey shook her head. “I'm saying you earned it. You're lucky there weren't four of them with boots. Lucky you weren't dragged outside. I told you weeks ago: this is a small town, and you've been pissing people off.”

Liv turned the engine over and rammed the accelerator down. They squealed through a yellow light, then a red. The streets dark and empty, the night humid and oppressive as though before a storm, and the truck racing Liv's own heart.

Several blocks from Bailey's house, the truck slowed, Liv's mind had conjured Simon, and the panic and fear and anger that had been
driving Liv, as much as the truck, subdued; she could feel it quiet inside her. Mothers didn't get into bar fights, not mothers like Claire anyway. Not mothers of boys like Simon. Her mouth opened, and she leaned over the steering wheel, and no sound came.

Twenty

Of girls and gifts

Claire drove into Spokane late on Thursday evening. She'd been gone for two weeks. In his car seat, Simon slept with his head cocked, Henry in his fist. They'd driven to Canada that first day, two weeks previously, and spent a week in Nelson before driving to Glacier National Park to camp. Simon had been the ideal companion, perfect at traveling, and camping, and silence. She had decided, on a hike through Glacier, that she was over Liv. In the forest, Claire had spotted numerous varieties of lactarius and boletes and chanterelles, and had been embarrassed by her own excitement, the thrill of spotting them almost instantly spoiled by her aunt's absence, and by the end of her work in the field. Mushrooms had become meaningless unless they were in a dish to be eaten.

On the drive home, Simon had sung along to tapes, and listened to stories from A.A. Milne and Sesame Street, and finally fallen asleep outside Coeur d'Alene. The National's
Boxer
playing on low, Claire reminded herself that she was over Liv. Remembered how serene these weeks without her had been. No drama. And the house, after hotels and campgrounds, would be a respite. Its loneliness familiar, of course, but her own, tempered as it was by her abstentions.

While in Nelson, her editor had e-mailed her three pages of notes. Congratulated her on the expert way she had captured her aunt's tone. He was pleased, clearly, with the work, and his notes had been grammatical issues rather than technical ones, and easily dealt with. After the copy edit, the project would officially be completed, and then Claire might do anything. Anything at all.

Bailey would be amazed, by the anything that seemed to be taking shape in Claire's mind. A bakery: intimate, open until early afternoon six days a week, minimally staffed, and experimental with its delicacies. Claire would be the silent partner, responsible for financials; Bailey would handle management and daily operations. And prior to her decision on Glacier, Claire had given Liv the job of design and upkeep. She had seen all three of them in the business, working from their strengths, marvelously successful.

These final miles before home, she conjured both of them: Bailey and Liv. Bailey increasingly hard to figure, when she had seemed transparent at first: romantic, whimsical, stuck on Liv. It had been the night of the party; Claire saw now how the shift had occurred: Bailey's remarkable food, the pathways opened in Claire's mind by the smells and flavors. And Liv, that night she, too, had been different, firmer, stronger. The sex hadn't changed Claire's relationship with Bailey, but the food had. The food had earned Claire's admiration, and inspired, for the first time since her aunt's death, the possibility—the option—of another direction.

She drove through downtown Spokane, and felt her back muscles ease even as the tension in her jaw and belly increased. They turned at the fir trees, and slowed on the gravel road. Liv's truck parked beside her camper. Light from inside the house spilled onto the grass, and Claire parked, exhausted suddenly, the thought of carrying Simon indoors almost painful.

“Welcome home,” Liv said, at the window of the car.

Claire sat still, took in Liv's damp hair, the white t-shirt clinging to her breasts, the smile brilliant against her dark face. She could not name the thing that drew her from the car, only that it was powerful, rending her will—fortified so particularly over a fortnight. Entwined in Liv's arms, she rested her head a moment and remembered no more.

Simon woke himself laughing. He'd dreamed of Liv, the two of them
riding on a llama through the snow. Coming back to himself, and his room, he hopped up and ran to his table, the tracks intricately designed to maximize curves and bridges and tunnels. Found there a large box wrapped in paper with an orange bow.

“Oh, a present,” he whispered. He looked about him, stepped closer, touched the present, glanced at the door to his mother's room, and then hauled the present back to his bed. He touched the paper, and the bow, and turned the box. It was heavy, and he tore the paper, dropping the package onto his bed. Carefully, he pulled the remaining paper off, working loose each fold and the bow until he exposed the box beneath: Thomas' Engine Shed and turntable. “Oh,” he said. And then, “I like this present.” Since the box was taped, it wouldn't come open and he hopped up again and sprinted into his mother's room. He slowed when he saw Liv, and then threw himself onto the bed.

“Help, this present. Help Simon open this, please. I like it. Open this present now.” He jumped off the bed and ran into his room, then rushed back with the box, nearly toppling both of them.

Grinning, Liv scooped them both—boy and box—onto the bed. “So you like this present, Simon?”

“Oh, yes. I like it.”

She tore the tape away, and let him open the box. He squealed and clapped his hands. On the other side of the bed, his mother stirred.

“I think,” Liv said, “with a big shed like this, you might need more trains.”

“Oh god,” his mother groaned.

“Do you think,” Liv went on, “that you need more trains? Maybe Neville, or Duncan, or Spencer?”

He jumped from the bed, exuberance radiating through him. “Go check your closet,” Liv said.

He hurled into his room, and flung the closet door opened: inside each of his shoes was a new engine. Dropping to his knees, he pulled one out as though it were a gold piece.

From the room next door, Liv called, “Do you like them, Simon?”

“Oh yes,” he whispered, mid-extraction. “I like it. I like this present.”

Liv helped him incorporate the shed into the tracks on his table. Over and over he showed her his new trains, telling her their names, recounting their adventures. He stood close to her, their arms or shoulders touching like grounds. As she reconfigured the track, she reached out to him—his presence a balm, a joy—and tousled his hair.

“I missed you,” she said. “I missed your wild little self.”

Once the track was laid, he circled around the table, trying out different engines and combinations of trains. Giving her assignments, trading out their freight cars.

From the doorway behind them, Claire laughed. “Because he didn't have enough?”

“Clearly.”

“I'll make breakfast while you two build.”

Liv debated leaving him then, to see Claire's face once Claire saw the kitchen, but knew she'd only be trading one joy for another, and so stayed, with the first, and purest.

When they heard Claire scream, Simon's head snapped up and he listened. She screamed again, and Liv asked if he wanted to go and see too. He grabbed four trains, their tenders unwieldy, and hurried from the room ahead of Liv.