For Good (17 page)

“I love you, Kristen.”

Kristen woke before Marydale and tiptoed into the kitchen. It was seven thirty. The high-rises in her window were turning from gray to blue. She called work.

“I'm not going to be in today.”

The law school intern assigned to the receptionist's desk sounded worried. “Mr. Falcon's here. He wants to talk to you about DataBlast.”

“I'm sure he does,” Kristen said.

“And Donna wants to know if you've invited the partners from Steward-Gore to the corporate law banquet. Last year they didn't go, and Donna wants to make sure they get a personal invitation from the Falcon Law Group. She said to catch you as soon as you came in.”

The banquet. The class action against DataBlast. The partnership that Donna was negotiating for her, perhaps because they were friends, perhaps because Donna needed another ally in the firm.

Above the city, the sun had broken through the clouds, illuminating a single golden shaft of rain. Kristen had bought the condo for the view—the green city, the glass high-rises, the pink Bancorp tower rising up and up above it all—but she had never noticed how beautiful it was or how the photographs of the Firesteed Summit reflected on the glass, as though she were living in a valley that was both the city and the mountains.

“Good morning,” Marydale said behind her.

To the receptionist Kristen said, “I've got to go.”

Kristen turned. Marydale was naked. Kristen's whole body sang,
She's here.
She wrapped her arms around Marydale's waist.

“I called out from work today,” Kristen said. “I know you've probably got stuff to do, but…”

“I'll text Aldean again,” Marydale said.

Later, walking Meatball on the street below, it seemed to Kristen that the sidewalks felt new. The air was sweet. The bare branches of the trees were a miracle. She returned with coffees and pastries from a little bakery she had never visited although it was only blocks from her building. And they ate and talked and made love again.

Afterward, as they relaxed in bed, their hands drifting over each other's bodies, Kristen said, “I want to know everything about you.”

Marydale stretched her arms over her head, lifting her large breasts, flexing the muscles in her shoulders.

“Like what?” she asked, with a smile that said she knew just how beautiful she was.

“Anything. What happened to Lilith? What's it like living on a houseboat. Tell me about all these awful women you've dated. How did you get to Portland?”

“Lilith died,” Marydale said wistfully. “She was old, so it was okay. And the women I dated…they aren't even worth mentioning.”

Kristen snuggled closer, and Marydale rested her cheek on top of Kristen's head.

“I'm still on parole,” Marydale said. “You need to know that. I can't live the same way you do.”

“How long are you on supervision?” Kristen asked.

“Right around the time I…of my conviction…some legislators wanted to get tough on crime, so they passed a lifetime provision.”

“You're on parole for life? No matter what? That doesn't make sense.”

“They changed the law a few years later. It was too expensive, and it didn't really make a difference, but they don't change your sentence when the law changes. You get stuck with whatever was on the books when you offended, but you know that.”

“How did you get to Portland?”

“Aldean moved out to Portland about the same time you left Tristess.”

Kristen wished she could see Marydale's face. She took Marydale's hand and held it to her chest instead.

“It was hard,” Marydale went on. “My parole officer at the time wouldn't let me date women or associate with gays or lesbians. I couldn't leave Tristess County. I started violating my conditions, crossing over the county line just to do it. I made it all the way down to Nevada once. I don't know if I was going to run away, or if I just wanted to prove they couldn't control who I was. I got sanctioned so many times. I lost my house. I couldn't pay the taxes. I had to put most of my stuff in storage in Tristess. I think they sold it all at auction one time when I got locked up. Finally my parole officer, Cody, quit his job. My new PO…she's good. She cares about people. There was no way I could move to Portland with that many sanctions on my record, but eventually she just let me go anyway.”

“And when you got here?” Kristen asked.

“Aldean was waiting for me. Good thing, too. He's great at running a business, but he makes shitty whiskey. He gets all manly about it, and it comes out tasting like somebody's leather shoe.” Marydale grew serious again. “I can't give you the kind of life someone else could. I can't take you to Ireland. I can't leave the state. I can't even go across the river to Vancouver for dinner.”

Kristen stroked Marydale's arm, examining the swirls of her tattoo.

“I think it was malpractice.” Kristen sat up so she could look at Marydale. “You should never have been convicted. We could look into it.” It had been years since she practiced criminal law. “I wonder if we could get your parole changed to probation. We might be able to void the original sentence.”

“Post-conviction relief?”

“I'll have to check the statute of limitations, but if we won a post-conviction relief hearing, you wouldn't just be off parole; they'd erase your record. It would be like getting an innocent verdict. It's a long shot, but you deserve it.”

“I can't,” Marydale said. “My PO bent the rules for me. If someone finds out where I am, they could send me back to prison. At the very least, they'd send me back to Tristess, and I'd have to stay.” She rolled over onto her back. “I know you don't have to live like that.”

Kristen put her arms around Marydale, pulling her close, burying her face in the vanilla scent of Marydale's hair.

“Baby,” Kristen whispered. “It doesn't matter to me. I don't care if we don't go to Ireland or Vancouver.” She drew back so that she could look into Marydale's eyes. “My life stopped when I left Tristess.”

She remembered a commercial that she had seen shortly after she returned to Portland. She had been staying up until three or four every morning, staring at the television. Every few commercial breaks, a genderless cartoon character trudged across the screen while a voice-over asked,
Have you lost interest in things that previously made you happy?

“I ran three marathons and I don't know how many half marathons,” Kristen said. “For a while I was running every road race I could find. I bought the condo. I went out in the evening like it mattered, but it didn't matter. I wasn't happy.”

That night Marydale invited Kristen back to the
Tristess
and lifted the trapdoor in the sofa-bench. Kristen eased her way down the short ladder. The room glowed in the light of the pink salt lamp.

“You can't really convince a girl you brought her down here to play board games,” Marydale said, draping herself across the bed.

Kristen remembered a fantasy she'd had as a teenager, going to school in the day and working the night shift to pay the bills her mother left unopened on the kitchen table.

“When I was a teenager,” Kristen began. “I used to pretend I had this imaginary place I could go. It was a hidden park or a secret room in our apartment, someplace only I knew about. When I went in, time stopped for everyone but me, and I could just…be. That's silly, isn't it?”

She lay down next to Marydale and looked up at the low ceiling.

“What did you want to do in your secret room?” Marydale asked.

“Sleep mostly or do my homework or read. I didn't have time for anything. I was always working or looking after Sierra.”

Marydale rolled over onto her side and looked at her. “That's a shame. Every kid should have time.”

“Your boat reminds me of that room,” Kristen said. “It's like a secret world down here. I didn't even know people lived on the river.” Marydale traced the curve of Kristen's jaw.

“You can come here whenever you like.”

Kristen nestled closer. “You can come to my place whenever you like, too. I'd like to give you a key, if that wouldn't feel weird to you.”

Kristen had been afraid Marydale would demure. It was too soon. She wasn't ready. But Marydale said only, “I'd like that.”

When they made love, Kristen felt her body shrink to a single point of pleasure and concentration, like a first star. And even as she felt herself distilled into that intensity, the room expanded, spreading out over the water, over the city, above the rain into the night sky.

When they were sated, Kristen and Marydale resumed their conversation and talked until the dawn light turned the tiny porthole window gray. At work the next morning, at the ubiquitous partners' meeting, Donna Li's voice washed over Kristen like so much traffic noise. Donna had to ask her three times whether Kristen had invited the Steward-Gore partners to the corporate law banquet.

“That's the Saturday before DataBlast,” Falcon interjected. “You can't bother her with that.”

“It's one phone call. Kristen, did you call them or not?” Donna asked.

“What?” Kristen said dreamily. “No. I didn't call them.”

Meanwhile, north of town, in the distillery, Marydale pulled a ladleful of mash from the fermentation tank, swirled it in her mouth, and spit it into one of the drains in the concrete floor. She couldn't tell if it was ready. Everything tasted good. The stale Little Debbie Snack Cake she had bought at the mini-mart south of Diablo's tasted as fine as any organic raisin brioche from the Pearl Bakery. Even the smells of the city wafting around the little convenience store—diesel and tar and damp cigarette butts—smelled right, because the whole world was right.

Aldean ambled up to Marydale where she stood pondering the fermentation. He clapped a cheerful hand on her shoulder.

“Haven't see you in around…oh…forty-eight hours.” He took the ladle from her and tasted the tank. “Not ready yet, is it?”

Marydale looked down to hide her smile.

“Look at you.” Aldean chuckled.

“I know you're going to tell me to be careful. Hit it and quit it, right?”

Marydale looked up at the tanks and the industrial halogen lights suspended from bars across the ceiling.

“Fuck careful,” Aldean said. “You're in love.”

On the night of the corporate law party, Marydale dressed in the tiny bathroom on board the
Tristess.
It had been a long time since she'd worn a real dress, and the shimmering red fabric felt strange against her skin. The crepe gripped her belly, and the bra pushed her breasts up and forward. She tugged at the edges of the underwire.

She wondered if the red had been a bad choice. The color accented her tattoos, and in the store she had liked the dyke-prom-queen contrast between the ink and the dress. Now it felt too garish for a lawyers party

When Marydale stopped by the Falcon Law Group to take Kristen out to lunch, every woman she saw wore a slim, gray pencil skirt, and even though spring had blossomed in the Pearl District, they all wore long sleeves and nylons. They were all runners. And Marydale loved that leanness on Kristen. She loved how Kristen's body felt as strong as braided wire and yet vulnerable and small at the same time. Marydale clamped her hands over her own breasts in an attempt to rearrange them into a smaller, more discreet version of themselves. It was too late to buy a different dress now, and she had nothing else in her tiny closet that was appropriate for more than a night at the Doug Fir Lounge.

She stepped out into the kitchen to show Aldean.

“Not bad.” Aldean dropped his eyes down to her waist and then back up to her breasts. “They come into a room. That's for sure.”

“God! Aldean!”

“You look great. You're the fucking rodeo queen.” Aldean lifted a flask to his lips and took a sip. “They're rodeo sized.”

Marydale tossed a dish towel at the side of his head.

“Thank you, because that's what
every
girl wants to hear.” She eyed her reflection in the windows. “If I could ride in on Trumpet, it'd be great.”

“What are you stressing about?” Aldean took another sip. “All those corporate women, they've got nothing on you.”

Marydale sat down on the bench next to him.

“You'll do great,” Aldean said.

“Kristen says she doesn't care what I tell them, even if I tell them I was in Holten Penitentiary.”

Marydale took the flask out of Aldean's hand and took a sip.

“What are you going to say?” Aldean asked.

“That I run a distillery.”

“See?” Aldean said, taking back the flask. “They're not going to run your name before they pass the champagne. They're going to think that Kristen Brock got a hot girlfriend, or they're just going to wonder if Kristen is gay, or they're not going to think anything at all, because nobody gives a shit.”

“Do you believe in premonitions?” Marydale asked.

“No.”

“Come on. Everyone does.”

“I don't believe in premonitions about you going to Kristen's company party.” Aldean leaned back a little. “You're hot. You're going to be the prettiest woman there, and Kristen's going to love it. You girls may be lesbians or feminists or whatever, but Kristen likes to win, and when you walk into that room, every man there is gonna know she beat the shit out of them in this competition. Do you know why I never hit on you? You know, back in Tristess, before Aaron Holten?”

“Because I'm a lesbian and your best friend and possibly your cousin.”

“Yeah, sure. You're a lesbian and everyone in Tristess is probably some sort of cousin.” Aldean touched two fingers to the bottom of her chin as though gently readjusting a painting hung ever so slightly off-kilter. “You were out of my league, Mary Rae. That's why. You were always out of my league.”

“No woman has ever been out of your league.”

“I want to say
yes
to that.” He cocked his fingers in the shape of a gun and clicked his tongue. “But a man's gotta know how far he can ride out. Your mom'd be proud of you.”

“Because I can still blow out my hair?”

“Because you're still you.”

Marydale felt an old confidence return to her limbs as she lifted herself into the cab of her pickup, careful not to catch her heel on the running board. The pedals felt familiar as she eased onto Highway 30. The roads were slick with rain, but a girl who'd grown up with a 1980 stick-shift Dodge and no power steering could drive an F-150 in the rain. She glanced in the rearview mirror. The smoky black eye shadow and red lipstick that had looked a little tawdry in the
Tristess
worked in the dark.

Traffic paused as Highway 30 neared the edge of the Northwest Industrial District.

“Come on.” She tapped the steering wheel. “What are you waiting for?”

Suddenly the darkness behind her lit up with a flash of blue and red. She froze, her foot on the brake, her hands gripping the wheel. She felt as though someone had clamped a towel over her mouth, an iron band around her heart. Everything around her came into sharp focus: the dimples on the rubber steering wheel, the raindrops on the windshield, the police lights reflecting in her rearview mirror.

She scanned the road. It couldn't be for her. The traffic was crawling. She put on her blinker and checked her blind spot twice, easing up against the side of the curb, holding her breath, waiting for the police cruiser to pull ahead, waiting for the other cars to move over. As soon as the police passed, she would get off the highway. She would find another route. In the back of her mind, Gulu whispered,
They know once you've been in. Once you've been in, you got a caul on you. They can smell it.

The lights remained in her rearview mirror, alternating red and blue. Marydale's foot trembled on the brake. Her legs shook. She couldn't see the police officer in the car, but she thought she saw the cruiser door open.

No, no, no,
she whispered to herself.

A second later, someone tapped on her window.

“Roll down.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, leaning on the window button. “I'm sorry.” She tried to arrange her face.

“License and registration.”

All she could see was a duty belt and a gun.

The purse in Marydale's hands felt strange. She couldn't undo the clasp. When she finally did, it took her several seconds to pull out her driver's license.

The officer leaned down so he could see in her window.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Your brake light's out. That's all. It's just a warning. We're beefing up security down here. People are moving out into the Industrial District, and they're getting nervous 'cause it's not the Pearl District, you know?”

“Yes, sir.” She looked down.

Act cool
, Gulu whispered, but Marydale couldn't remember what cool felt like. In the back of her mind, she could hear the guards yelling.
Inmates. On the ground. Down!

“And your insurance?” the officer prompted.

She reached for the glove box.

“Have you been drinking?”

Marydale thought of the sip she had taken from Aldean's flask.

“No.”

“Okay. One moment.” The officer excused himself.

She saw the cell block, three tiers high, all the cells looking down on the same cold breezeway.

Marydale stared at the window, the raindrops trickling down the glass like tears. She imagined Kristen standing in the ballroom of whatever elegant hall the Falcon Law Group had rented. Marydale could see Kristen scanning the room for her arrival.
I'm sorry I have to be there so early,
Kristen had said.
I wish we could ride together. I can't wait to show you off.

I love you
, Marydale thought.

“Ma'am.” The officer's voice broke through her thoughts. “Please get out of the truck.”

Her heart seized. She felt the blood in her body stop moving. She was suffocating with the breath still filling her lungs.

“What is it?”

The rain hit her face.

It had been raining the night Aaron had followed her home. She saw him climbing the ladder, his thick hands on the rungs.
I'm going to show you something, you fucking dyke. I'm gonna fucking kill you.
He was grinning.
Help me!
she cried. Then he was falling. She was running for the house, for the phone.
He was trying to kill me. I think I've done something awful.
Two cruisers were moving up the gravel drive in a fierce parade of light.

“You're under arrest.”

“That's not how it happened,” Marydale whispered. “The chief didn't want to, not right away. He said it was self-defense.”

“There's an outstanding warrant. Parole violation. Ma'am, you need to get out of the vehicle and come with me.”

Marydale wanted to run. She wanted to hurl herself back in time to a moment when this had not happened. She stepped out of the truck.

Through the haze of her panic, she heard herself say, “I think there might have been a mistake.”

“Your PO put a warrant in the system. Looks like he thinks you've been on abscond for quite some time.”

“I haven't done anything. She knows where I am,” Marydale said. “I pay my supervision fee. I tell her if I leave the county. You can call her.”

The officer shook his head. “I'm sorry. I don't know the details of your case.”

The damp air felt frigid against her bare arms.

“I have to call my girlfriend.” A new fear swelled in her heart. Kristen knew she was on parole. Kristen said she understood. They couldn't go away on vacation in Ireland. But who could understand this?

“They'll take care of that at the jail,” the officer said, unclasping a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

He reminded Marydale of some of the ranchers in Tristess. His face was kind and craggy at the same time. He was sorry; the thought struck her like a blow. He didn't want to arrest her, and she hadn't done anything, and it didn't matter.