For Good (13 page)

Marydale rose and dressed quietly. Dawn was turning the hotel window into a square of deep blue. In the bed before her, Kristen slept, looking vulnerable, her glasses on the bedside table, a length of blanket clutched in her arms. But even the women at Holten Penitentiary had looked vulnerable when they slept, and when Kristen woke, she wouldn't be the girl Marydale had kissed in the old farmhouse in Tristess. Gone was the girlish lawyer in her cheap, unlined suits. Gone was the baby fat. Gone was Kristen's hesitation, her uncertainty.
I've never done this with a girl before.
She was all sinew now, her body an accomplishment. It was a sign to other women: I've won.

Marydale felt a pang of sadness at the fact that she would never know which sport had turned Kristen's calves into hard muscle, would never watch Kristen cross a finish line, but she
wouldn't
. She had promised herself that as she waved goodbye to Aldean.
Be careful
, he had called after her.
I'm just curious.
She had saluted Aldean casually.
Hey, it's New Year's Eve.

But it was more than New Year's Eve, and she wished she had something to leave Kristen, a little poem scrawled on one of the Deerfield postcards, something to say,
I remember.
She had a case of the Solstice Vanilla still left in her truck, but this new incarnation of Kristen Brock was no poet and no drinker. Even if it was true that the Solstice chilled with a large cube of ice had an aftertaste of tears, Kristen wouldn't know how many Marydale had shed for her. Even if she did, it didn't matter. Kristen had left, and she had not looked back, and maybe she had been right to leave all along.

Marydale's mournful thoughts were interrupted by the unnervingly unexpected presence of a bulldog sitting on an easy chair by the window, looking like an imperial toad or like one of the bizarre Deerfield Hotel paintings come to life.
I watched you
, it seemed to say. She couldn't imagine that she had entered the room, made love to Kristen, and slept through the night and not noticed the dog, but the thought that someone had snuck it into the room while they were sleeping, like some weird hipster room service, was equally implausible.

Tentatively she ran her hand over the dog's stony skull. It displayed a wide, pink smile. Marydale shook her head. She knew dogs, and it was certainly harmless.
Take care of her
, she mouthed, glancing at Kristen one last time. Then she slipped out the door, blinking back tears as she strode down the hall toward the snow and the blue dawn.

Outside, the early light was thin as skim milk and the roads were packed with ice. Stranded cars littered the highway, and it was almost ten by the time Marydale reached her houseboat, the
Tristess
, on the river beneath the St. John's Bridge. Next door, on the deck of the
Beautiful Wreck
, Aldean stood smoking a cigarette, shirtless in jeans and an old hunting jacket. With a shade of stubble on his cheeks, he looked like something out of an L.L.Bean catalog, what
country
was supposed to look like—minus the cigarette, of course.

Marydale made her way down the metal gangplank that led to their shared pier. “Happy New Year,” she called out, trying for a cheer she did not feel.

“You're home early,” Aldean said. “No breakfast after?”

“I'm going to make eggs,” Marydale said. “That's breakfast.” She threw one leg over the side of her boat. “You coming?”

A moment later, Aldean let himself into her kitchen, a cigarette still lit in one hand.

“Did you at least leave a note?” he asked.

Marydale handed Aldean a mug for the ashes. “Aren't you worried you'll get hooked again?” she asked. “It took you forever to quit.”

Aldean sat down at the small counter that doubled as a dining table. Marydale cleared away a stack of sketches she'd done of a new still.

“That's why I only smoke on New Year's Day, and that's the point. People think the goal is to eliminate temptation, sin, vice, pleasure.” Aldean inhaled. “Where would we be then? We run a distillery.” He tapped his cigarette against the rim of the mug. “Temptation is where the human and the animal meet. Give up the craving for salt, and you give up the craving for blood.”

“You're a fucking philosopher.” Marydale reached into the micro-fridge for a carton of eggs. “How are Marlboro Lights part of our animal nature?”

“They are.” He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another with a lighter from his pocket.

Marydale cracked four eggs into a skillet on the one-burner stove.

“So, Kristen Brock.” Aldean crossed his ankle over his knee and leaned his chair back until the front legs lifted off the floor. “I'm guessing you didn't just talk about old times.”

Marydale watched the eggs solidify. “No.”

“And?”

“Portland's a small city. We were bound to meet.”

“Women that age have a certain something,” Aldean said, nodding to himself. “Not as…” He squeezed the air. “But they're into it. You know? They've gotten over that thing where they don't want you to look at their ass. Cougars. It's not a bad word.”

“Kristen is not a cougar.”

“Hmm. You'd have to be younger to make her a cougar.”

“I'm the same age as you.”

“Women age faster.”

“You're a dirty old man.”

Marydale flipped the eggs one by one and slid all four onto a plate. She handed Aldean a fork.

 “The legs are still nice at that age.” Aldean dropped his cigarette into the mug and took a bite of egg. “It's the last thing to go.”

“She's probably thirty-five! You're such a sexist.”

Marydale sat down, digging her fork into the eggs on the other side of the plate.

“Are you going to see her again?” Aldean asked.

“I left.”

“Ninja-like?”

“Stealth.”

“You dog,” Aldean said appreciatively. “No note? No
call me later
?”

Marydale stared out the window at the river. The Willamette was dishwater gray, the surface deceptively slow. She didn't know which felt worse, the thought that Kristen might have searched for her, hoping she had just stepped out for a coffee, or the thought that Kristen had rolled over and silently thanked her for saving them both the awkward morning light.

“I feel like shit,” Marydale said.

“You and everyone else who went out last night.”

“Not like that.”

“So find her.” Aldean skewered another slice of egg.

“I know where she works,” Marydale said.

“Call her.”

“I don't want to see her.”

Aldean leaned back again.

“She could have found me,” Marydale said. “Hell, she could have just stopped in for a bottle of whiskey and said hi.”

“She stopped
in
last night.”

Marydale ignored the insinuation in Aldean's voice.

“What am I doing, Aldean?”

“You had a couple drinks and fucked your ex. I'd say you're doing what the holiday requires. That's pretty much like getting a tree for Christmas.”

“I didn't mean to fuck her,” Marydale said.

“You just tripped on the carpet and bam?”

Marydale gave a little laugh.

“I didn't…”

She had meant for it be tender, a benediction, a way to give Kristen up for good. But as soon as the hotel door had closed behind them, Kristen had clutched her, moaning with each exhale, and Marydale had found herself rushing to relieve Kristen and to increase her torment. Then, when Kristen came, Marydale didn't know what to do with the longing in her own body, and she had fallen asleep frustrated and sad.

“I can't do this again,” she said.

Aldean pushed the plate aside and took Marydale's hands in his. “What
are
you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing. I'm not going to see her. I'm not going to call her. I'm not going to put myself through that again.”

“I've never had a Kristen Brock,” Aldean said.

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever this is.” He squeezed her hands. “Whatever you two have. Unrequited love. Tragedy.”

“Men are too smart for that.”

Aldean shook his head. “Some people just have the
capacity
for it. Others don't.”

“Don't tell me it's a gift and everything happens for a reason.”

“That's not it. You and Kristen Brock, it's epic.” He shook his head. “You love her in your blood.”

“I haven't thought about her in years.”

“You haven't
talked
about her in years.”

Wasn't that what the last five years had been all about:
not
Kristen Brock? Not looking for her. Not thinking about her. Not remembering. A half a dozen lovers who were not her. What had she expected? That Kristen would run into her arms crying,
I love you, Marydale?
Even if she did, it didn't erase five years of silence, five years of knowing that Kristen could have found her and didn't.

“If she'd been kidnapped and held in a basement with no phone…” Marydale said.

“Then you'd forgive her?” Aldean asked.

Outside a cormorant swooped down from the white sky, dove under the water, and resurfaced.

“She's changed.”

“You've changed.”

“She could have found me.”

“So you said. And you could've found her. She may be an asshole, but she's still hot”—Aldean released her hands, cocked his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a pistol, and pointed it at Marydale's chest—”for an old woman. And you're going to go for it eventually, so skip the angst and just call her. But wait a few days. Girls like that. It makes them think you don't care.”

Marydale shook her head. “You don't get it, Aldean. She doesn't care. That's the whole point.”

Kristen sat at the end of the table with Rutger, Donna, and some of the other partners.

“Tell us about DataBlast,” Donna said.

Kristen had found the unicorn. One of the people she had called on New Year's Eve called back two days later. His name was Jason. A hardworking accounting student, the company had given him just a little too much responsibility, and he'd been smart enough to understand what he saw in their records. Kristen had met him at a coffee shop on the Park Blocks. He had a pleasant face and a neatly trimmed beard that made him look older than his twenty-two years.
How do you feel about your former employer?
she had asked. He said they were a bunch of corporate scumbags.
In that case…
Kristen had placed her recorder on the table between them.

She had also left a message on the Sadfire Distillery voice mail. She had called after hours, like a shy teenager. Marydale had not called her back.

“Our key witness, Jason Miter, was an accountant for DataBlast between…” Kristen rattled off a list of dates and responsibilities. “He also has a background in computer programming, so he had a basic understanding of the code they were using to cheat thousands of customers out of the pay-per-click advertising they were purchasing.”

No one had really suffered. Thousands of individuals and companies had paid DataBlast to advertise their products—mostly self-published books and weight-loss creams—on the flashing sides of cheap websites and in off-brand search engines. For every ten advertisements they paid for, one or two were actually posted, while a well-designed cookie, downloaded without the customers' knowledge, projected their own advertisements wherever they looked. When the customer searched the Web, their product was omnipresent. When their customers searched, there was nothing.

“Hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars were lost,” Kristen said, clicking to the next slide in her PowerPoint. A pie chart showed a swath of blue, representing dollars spent without service in return. “Moreover, if we can show that DataBlast customers forwent other advertising opportunities, believing their message was reaching targeted buyers, we can argue that they lost millions in potential revenue.” She adjusted her glasses and regarded the partners.

 “The Falcon Law Group hasn't attempted a class action of this kind for a long time,” Donna added.

“It's no secret that we're considering you for partner,” Falcon said. “Usually we'd have several people on a case this size, but Donna suggested you could handle it alone, with her standing in as cocounsel, purely for our clients' peace of mind.”

“Right,” Kristen said, but she was thinking about Marydale. The morning of New Year's Day, she had felt Marydale rise and assumed she was going to the bathroom. She had drifted off, but when she woke, the bed was cold.

“We want to try this case by May,” Falcon added.

Outside, the rain had resumed, turning the magical snow into a gray slurry.

“But that is going to require your complete dedication. There is no time for distractions, Ms. Brock. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes.”

“Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes.”

One of the younger partners, an attorney from the East Coast who handled their contracts division, added, “Are you excited?”

He was handsome. Donna had always thought so, and occasionally they talked about him over drinks. Kristen couldn't see it now, and she couldn't formulate the right answer. Was she excited for a chance at partner? To invest in the Falcon Law Group and, in return, earn a percentage of their sizable profits? To buy a larger condo? A better car?

“It's my job,” she said.

Falcon laughed. “That's the spirit. Cool as a cucumber.”

The men left the room, talking over each other and checking their phones. Donna came by her office later and closed the door behind her.

“Rutger is salivating over this settlement.”

“It's not going to be that much after we settle between all the claimants.”

Kristen tried to focus on Donna and not the streams of rain sliding down the window.

“You're so cute,” Donna said. “He doesn't want the settlement. He wants Tri-State Global Advertising.”

Kristen shook her head.

“DataBlast's competitor!” Donna exclaimed. “Kristen, where are you? He's wanted them for years. You know that. If the court hits DataBlast with a couple millions dollars, DataBlast is out of business, and Tri-State Global signs on with the Falcon Law Group.
That account
will make millions.”