Something True

by Karelia Stetz-Waters

  Tate tried to listen. She gathered, at least, that Laura’s plan was a blend of fund-raising and accounting fraud. Out Coffee would report its projected earnings as real earnings. They would base the projected earnings not on past history, but on a supreme optimist’s version of what a coffee shop might make in Portland if God loved them more than He loved Jesus and starving children. Then they would raise prices, switch to nonorganic, non–fair trade products, and buy from a corporate wholesaler. This would ensure the shop looked profitable to Laura’s business partners. At the same time, they would raise the four months’ rent required to continue their lease, provided it was approved by some group of tycoons Laura referred to only as “the board.”

  “That’s $8,000,” Tate said, when Laura finished. “Maggie can’t raise that kind of money.”

  “It’s sixteen, actually. The Clark-Vester Group will double the rent.”

  “We don’t have $16,000.”

  “You’ve got two kidneys,” Vita said helpfully.

  “Maggie’s already mortgaged her whole life.”

  “It’s not that much money.” Laura reached out as though she was going to touch Tate’s hand, then glanced at Vita and withdrew. “I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s not really. You’ll find a way. There is a window open. I got the board to reconsider your eviction, but you have to revise your books, and you have to have the cash in hand.”

  Tate’s mind was still reeling as she sat down at the table in the back room at Out Coffee. Laura sat beside her. Maggie and Lill sat on the other side. And Krystal, who was supposed to be working the counter, leaned in the doorway. Tate wished she was still in bed with Laura. Barring that, she wished she had an hour in her garden to think about everything that had happened in the last few days—from Laura’s arrival at her house the night before, to Laura’s insistence that they had only a week to secure Out Coffee’s future, and that they had to talk about it immediately because Laura was leaving Portland the next day.

  As it was, Tate found herself saying, “You remember Laura Enfield,” as if everyone’s attention was not fixed on Laura.

  “Of course I do,” Maggie said.

  She looked angry, her mouth set in a down-turned fissure. The words KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY draped across her T-shirt.

  “Laura has a plan that could get us a lease in the new building,” Tate said.

  “It’s not a new building,” Maggie grumbled. “It’s the same building. We’re just getting kicked out.”

  “The Clark-Vester Group plans to do extensive remodeling. It’s going to be a beautiful space,” Laura said. “State-of-the-art, LEED certified. I’d like to see you in that building.”

  “Will you be doing gray-water reclamation from the roof?” Lill asked, stirring a piece of lemongrass in her green tea.

  “Laura wants to help us,” Tate said. “She thinks we can stay, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”

  “Why?” Maggie asked. “Why help us? A week ago you wanted to close us down.”

  Tate offered a vague explanation about Clark-Vester supporting emerging businesses; she had no idea if it was true. Lill said Maggie had to be open to the “possibilities of the universe.” Laura said that small-business leases could offer Clark-Vester a significant tax break, especially given Portland’s small-business incentive packages. Maggie crossed her arms and replied with a stubborn string of “but whys.” The conversation circled around and around like the fan above their heads.

  Finally, Krystal sighed from her post in the doorway.

  “Duh!” she said.

  Tate shot her a look.

  Krystal bugged her eyes out at Tate.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You guys are so dense. She has a crush on Tate.”

  “Krystal!” Tate hissed.

  “I doubt that very much,” Maggie said.

  “Sexuality can be very fluid,” Lill said, tasting her lemongrass.

  “You guys are so out of it.” Krystal leaned her head against the doorframe. A customer rang the bell at the front counter, and she sighed again. “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. I’ll just go make more coffee while you sit around and talk about everything except the stuff that matters.”

  “Tate and Ms. Enfield have nothing in common,” Maggie said to Krystal’s retreating back. “That is a ridiculous fantasy.”

  Tate opened her mouth to protest—although what exactly she planned on saying she did not know. Then she glanced at Laura, whose posture had gone even more upright than usual. Her face was pale, her hands tightly laced together. She’s scared, Tate thought.

  “Just listen,” Tate said.

  Laura outlined her plan: the creative bookkeeping, the cheap supplies, the $16,000.

  “It all sounds like a bunch of lies to me,” Maggie said, when Laura finished. “We lie to ourselves. We lie to our customers. We lie to the bookkeeper.”

  “No, technically, your bookkeeper lies for you,” Laura said.

  Maggie snorted. “We lie, and we lie, and we lie. Then we buy cheap junk from Walmart, and we lie to the customers who trust us and what we stand for. And who’s to say you don’t come around a month later and tell the IRS to check our books? Wouldn’t that be convenient? You get your $16,000 and then, oops, we’re all in jail for tax fraud.”

  “This has nothing to do with taxes. You’ll report earnings and expenditures to the IRS just like you always do. This is just a different way of interpreting the numbers you share with the board.”

  Exasperation entered Laura’s voice, concealed behind the smooth flow of words, and Tate glimpsed the woman Laura was in the rest of her life. Formidable. Unyielding. It made her gentleness, her fear, more poignant. Tate felt her breath go shallow and her heart sink in her chest. Laura was leaving tomorrow.

  “If we need to lie to corporate America to keep Out Coffee open, why not?” Tate said.

  “You’re not doing anything illegal,” Laura added.

  Lill placed her palms together as if in prayer. She took a deep breath.

  “I feel…at peace with this.”

  “Good?” Laura looked at Tate.

  “I mean, I know an accountant who can rework our books,” Lill added. “I did Reiki on her.”

  Laura shrugged. “Get me her number, and we’ll talk about what you need to do. Two years’ worth of records should be enough. This isn’t a big line item for the board.”

  Maggie slapped both hands on the table. “We’re not doing this. I don’t trust her. If we’re going to save Out Coffee, we’re going to do it the right way. We’ll have a rally. We’ll do a zine. We’ll get people involved. This is their coffee shop, their community, our community. We’ll sign a petition. I don’t think Clark-Vester is going to look at two thousand signatures and tell us we’re not viable.”

  “You’re not being practical,” Lill said.

  “If you think you can run this shop, then come back and run it,” Maggie said.

  “As I recall, I’m the only one who ever did run it,” Lill snapped back. “At least until you indentured Tatum.”

  “Then why did you leave?” Maggie demanded.

  “Because you closed me out.”

  “Because you left me!” Maggie folded her arms more tightly across her chest.

  “I embraced my heterosexuality,” Lill said. “You, of all people, should understand that. I was given a gift of insight into my sexual orientation. I was a kid when we got together. I didn’t know. I thought I was a woman-oriented woman, and I am, spiritually, but not physically. And now you’re supposed to be my best friend, and you still hate me because I’m straight.”

  “You left me when I needed you. That has nothing to do with sexual orientation. And you.” She pointed at Laura. “You need to think about the women who worked and sacrificed to break the glass ceiling and get you where you are today.” Maggie glanced back and forth between them as though they were two sides of the same unfortunate coin.

  Laura said nothing.

  Lill
pleaded, “I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you. I left because it’s not who I am. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s my life. That’s what you always taught me. It’s my body, and it’s my life.”

  Maggie slumped in her chair and rested her chin in her rugged hands.

  “I lost you, Lill, and now I’m losing Out in Portland,” she said.

  Laura turned to Tate. “I should go.”

  “No,” Tate said quietly. To Lill and Maggie, she added, “Please stop. Please listen.”

  They both looked up.

  “I trust Laura. Now, trust me. We can save Out Coffee. Laura’s not asking us to break any laws, just to bend them a little. You chained yourself to the building. You know: We can’t start a revolution if we follow all the fine print. Think about Stonewall. What if those drag queens had said, ‘No, we’re going to play by the rules’?”

  “We’re not revolting,” Maggie said sorrowfully. “We’re just trying to run a coffee shop.”

  “Out Coffee is more than a coffee shop, and you know it.” Tate leaned forward. “This is our revolution. It’s an economic revolution. It’s not about race or gender or orientation. It’s about money—who has it and how they keep it and what that does to the people who can’t get into the system. Big business closes doors for people. They say what we can buy, when we can opt out, who gets health insurance, what chemicals go in our food. They tell us what we have to say to every customer who walks in the door and how many seconds we have to say it. We have to create an alternative.”

  Tate glanced at Laura expecting to see her rolling her eyes or at least wearing the strained expression of someone who was trying not to roll her eyes. But her face was solemn.

  “I live my whole life in a hotel,” Laura said. “And every room, in every city, is exactly the same. Out Coffee is different. Those hotel rooms aren’t ever home. But there is a little bit of home here. For everyone.”

  Tate held her breath, waiting for Laura to continue, but she said nothing more. Her words hung in the air, and everyone looked at Maggie.

  Finally Maggie sighed. “Go back to your hotel,” she said quietly. “You can’t be part of them and help us. You can’t live in a hotel and build a community.”

  “But…” Laura said.

  “Just go.” The anger had drained out of Maggie’s voice. “You won’t ever understand.”

  Tate walked Laura out. On the sidewalk outside Out Coffee, they stood awkwardly like teenagers after a first kiss.

  “I’m sorry,” Laura said.

  “It’s her decision. You tried.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Tate stared down the street to the distant point where the Portland skyline appeared between buildings. She didn’t know.

  “Maybe go down to the port and load trucks. The longshoremen are striking. I could probably pick up a couple weeks as a scab. I hate it, but the strike is over some territory squabble between the longshoremen and the electricians’ union. It’s not a real labor issue. Then…” She stuck her hands in her pockets and exhaled into the clear, blue sky. “Who knows? I’ve been at Out Coffee my whole life.”

  “Oh, Tate.”

  “I’m sorry about what Krystal said,” Tate said quickly, because something in Laura’s “Oh, Tate” made her want to cry. “She’s twenty, but I swear, sometimes, she acts like she’s ten. She doesn’t have a filter.”

  “Whatever she thinks is true,” Laura said.

  When Tate turned back to Laura, Laura wore a sad, thoughtful smile.

  “Are you really leaving tomorrow?” Tate asked.

  “Yes,” Laura said. “Of course.”

  It was so unfair, Tate thought, to meet Laura in such a strange, magical way and then to lose her so quickly.

  “I’ll miss you,” Laura added quietly. “I’ll miss all of this. But I have to be in Palm Springs tomorrow.”

  Tate looked away and pulled a flower off the honeysuckle that curled up the power pole outside Out Coffee and crushed it between her fingers, releasing the sweet scent.

  “Tomorrow,” Tate repeated.

  It was still summer. The nights were getting shorter, but they were still suffused with the same watery-blue brightness that had lured Tate from reason the night Laura had first walked into Out Coffee. In that light, a woman newly and foolishly in love could still shave a few minutes off eternity. That was the beauty of a Portland summer. You lived longer on those blue days when the sun lit the sky until ten at night, and the ground never lost its warmth.

  “Vita is having a party tonight. You haven’t really seen Portland until you’ve been to one of Vita’s parties,” Tate said.

  “I don’t know.” Laura turned to go. “I’ve got a lot to do.” But then, in a gesture so fleeting it barely existed, she brushed a soft kiss across Tate’s lips. “What time?”

  Chapter 20

  Back at the Marriott, Laura plugged in her cell, which had been lying dead at the bottom of her purse. It buzzed immediately, announcing a message. Four messages, actually. All of them from Brenda.

  “Craig said he saw you leaving the hotel with one of the women from the City Ridge Commercial Plaza project. Laura, what’s going on? You’re supposed to be in Palm Springs. Craig and Dayton can handle everything in Portland. We don’t need you there.”

  The remaining voice mails carried the same message but in curter tones. Laura felt her heart race. He saw you leaving the hotel with one of the women from the City Ridge Commercial Plaza project. She wondered if Craig had guessed the truth. Had he intimated that there was more going on than just business? She had met Tate around midnight. She was dressed up. They had stayed out late. What part of that suggested a real estate transaction?

  She called the front desk.

  “I’d like to change the credit card on my reservation. Yes, I’d like to put the room on my personal card.”

  She would have to send Craig and Dayton to Seattle—anywhere but here, and that was the nearest project. They weren’t needed there, but they weren’t needed in Portland either. Although she could arguably use them in Palm Springs, the project was definitely something she could handle alone.

  Once she hung up with the front desk, she called Craig to tell him the plan.

  “Thank God,” he said. “Finally. And where are you off to?”

  “Palm Springs.”

  “Ah. The little black dress of investing.”

  “Exactly.”

  That was easy, Laura thought. But nothing was easy—not Portland, not Tate, not Brenda, not the work she had to do for her father. She sat in front of her open laptop for several minutes before she placed the last call.

  “Fidel’s Pizza, Palm Springs. Pickup or delivery?” the voice on the other end asked.

  She almost hung up.

  “Pickup,” she said finally.

  She used her Clark-Vester credit card.

  There you go, Brenda, she thought bitterly. I’m in Palm Springs.

  Chapter 21

  A little before ten that evening, Laura appeared in Tate’s doorway, in a sky-blue dress, her hair loose around her shoulders, and a great confetti of peony blooms in her arms. Together they strolled through the quiet streets to Vita’s apartment, known by locals as the Church, since it was, in fact, the sanctuary, Sunday school rooms, and pastoral office of a converted Methodist church. It was also, despite an ever-changing cast of tenants, the best party spot in Portland. Vita and her roommates—a dancer from the Portland ballet and an acupuncture student—preferred theme parties. That night’s theme was Gold Lamé Yacht. In honor of the Gold Lamé Yacht, Vita’s roommates had spray-painted dozens of toy ships gold. These hung from the rafters of the sanctuary from invisible fishing line. The Beach Boys played softly on a stereo. A buffet table was laden with wine and slabs of blue cheese.

  Tate could see Laura’s eyes widen as they stepped into the Alice in Wonderland splendor of the church sanctuary converted into a living room converted into the deck of a golden sailb
oat. Tate considered a quip about Laura’s anchor-patterned ascot, but resisted, feeling Laura’s hand clasp hers.

  Vita greeted Tate and Laura with a hug each.

  “Come in. Join the usual suspects,” she sang out, then slipped back into the mix of people.

  In the center of the room, Cairo was dancing languidly, scarves whirling around her like a kaleidoscope. Tate recognized several regulars from Out Coffee and many more from the Mirage, including Abigail, whom Tate made a special point to ignore. Even Krystal had been invited. She sat at the kitchen table looking awkward but pleased to be part of the grown-ups’ party. Tate did not even stop to worry what Krystal would tell Maggie about her and Laura, their arms around each other, Laura’s cheek on her shoulder. There was only tonight.

  The music turned up. The guests kept arriving. Tate installed herself deep in a papasan chair. Laura sat down beside her, the slope of the papasan sliding their bodies together. They watched as the room filled. Vita’s roommate, the acupuncturist, pulled out a set of stilts and tiptoed around the sanctuary. Someone brought in an enormous pumpkin filled with soup. A man in a gold tutu tried to show two women how to tango.

  “He’s a real dancer,” Krystal said, plopping down on the floor by Tate’s feet. “He’s in the ballet.”

  “I know,” Tate said. “You’re not drinking, right?”

  “My dad would get me a drink.”

  With a roofie and a shot of bad heroin, Tate thought. But she just ruffled Krystal’s hair with one hand and said, “Think of me as your evil stepmom.”

  “You’re more like my big sister,” Krystal said, pensively. “Because we’re so alike.”