Clearcut

by Nina Shengold

  He felt an arm slide over his back. Reed was hugging them both. Earley felt Zan’s body stiffen, but Reed didn’t let go. He just stood there in silence, his arms around both of them. Earley looked down at the top of his head, which was only an inch or two higher than Zan’s. It made him feel strange, being hugged by a man, even though Reed was now pressing his lips into Zan’s hair and drawing her closer.

  “I’m so sorry,” Reed said. “I’m an asshole.”

  “I want to go home.” Zan’s voice sounded shaky.

  “Let’s have that drink first. I could use one.”

  “How’s your jaw?”

  “It hurts.”

  Earley was starting to feel uncomfortable, standing right there on the street with the two of them clinging to him like a mast. He took a step back, extricating himself. “Let’s look for a bar on Bainbridge, or better yet stop at the Cedar,” he said. “I want to get out of this city.”

  “Me too,” said Zan.

  “We have to pick up my mattress,” Reed said, looking at Earley.

  “Fuck,” Earley said. “Then let’s get it and split on the next ferry out. I’ve had it.”

  Reed reached down and picked up the shopping bag that he had left on the pavement. So he did buy that crap, Earley thought, and he had such an urge to break Reed’s jaw the rest of the way that his fingers curled into a fist. The thought of Reed buying that ivory knife, dropping three hundred dollars to prove a point, pissed him off big time. They could have lived off that money for weeks.

  Earley stormed off towards the store, and the other two followed in silence. No two against one happening now, Earley thought. They each kept their distance so fully that somebody driving past might have assumed that they were three strangers.

  No one spoke until they reached the department store. “It’s back at the loading dock,” Reed said. He reached inside his jacket and took out the yellow receipt. They went around to a wedge-shaped parking lot behind the store and went in through a swinging glass door. Reed gave his receipt to a clerk, then spotted a plastic-wrapped mattress leaning against the wall. “There it is.”

  “That’s a twin,” said Zan.

  “That’s what I paid for.”

  Earley looked at him, puzzled. Zan shook her head angrily. “Jesus, Reed! You can’t even give yourself what you want.”

  “Earley was right. A double won’t fit with the couch.”

  “Earley’s always right, isn’t he, Reed? He’s a god.” Zan’s voice was pointed, accusing. Reed took a deep breath. He seemed to feel both their eyes on him.

  “What are you talking about? He’s a natural born fool. Aren’t you, big man?”

  “Uh-huh, and with shit taste in music,” said Earley, relieved Reed was kidding around again. Maybe things would go back to normal when they left Seattle.

  Apparently Zan didn’t think so. “Babies,” she said. “Little boys playing games.” She glared at them both with what looked like contempt, though Earley had the peculiar, split-second sensation that she was about to start crying again. What was the matter with her?

  He picked up the mattress and swung it up onto his shoulder. “Let’s get this damn thing on the ferry,” he said.

  But that didn’t go smoothly either. Earley carried it up the raised ramp, with its tin-roofed corner housings like prison guard towers. The man who stood next to the gate taking tickets said, “You can’t bring that mattress on board.”

  “Why not?” said Reed. “The boat is half empty. It leaves in five minutes and you’ve got, what? Six people on board?”

  “A hundred and thirty-nine,” said the man, pursing his lips.

  “And what’s the capacity?”

  “You can’t carry on furniture.”

  “Want me to buy it a ticket?” asked Reed. “Or charge us as if it’s a car and we’ll drive it on board.”

  Earley let go of the mattress and stomped up the boat ramp. “Hey!” said the man. “You can’t leave that there!”

  “Would you like it?” said Earley. “We can’t take it onto the ferry. Store’s closed, so we can’t take it back. What do you want us to do with it? Maybe you’ve got a back room in your office, and some Mrs. Asswipe who wants to shack up with you.”

  Reed burst out laughing. The man was dyspeptic. “You hippies think you own the planet. You think you can just break the rules, make a mess for the rest of the world to clean up. Well, you can’t. You’re no different from anyone else.”

  “I’m aware, sir,” said Earley. “May we take our mattress?”

  “Get out of my sight.” The man turned his back on them, punching tickets for a small gaggle of Japanese tourists. Earley picked up one end of the mattress and Reed and Zan shouldered the other. They walked up the ramp.

  “That was classic,” said Reed. “I’m aware, sir!”

  Earley shrugged. “It worked.” The ferry let out two long, low, mournful hoots. They carried the mattress onto the upper deck, set it down under the wall-mounted canvas firehose and lifeboat instructions and went to the rail, looking out at the Sound as the boat churned away from the city. Good riddance, thought Earley. He looked south towards the vivid green whaleback of Vashon Island and the broad cone of Mount Rainier, its snowy flanks starting to tinge with sunset pastels. The Japanese tourists leaned on the rail, snapping pictures.

  A triple-decked cruise ship steamed past them, her navy blue smokestack adorned with the North Star and Big Dipper of the Alaska State Ferry. Zan slipped her arms around Reed. “Look at that, Reeder. You were about to ship out on that thing.”

  “And look how much I would have missed.” Reed brought Zan’s palm up to his swollen jaw, then pulled her into an open-mouthed kiss. The wind twined their long hair together, Zan’s dark and Reed’s blond. Earley envied Reed being able to kiss Zan without having to bend his knees and crane his neck downwards; he’d never been face to face with a woman unless he was lying on top of her. He stared down at the wake that churned under the boat, roiling and gray as the Hoh in spring melt.

  Zan let go of Reed and went to the mattress they’d left on the deck. She lay down on her back, with her head in its center, and patted both ends. Reed trotted over at once, like a puppy. Earley paused. If I don’t stay in this, I’ll lose her, he thought. He remembered the way Zan had sobbed in his arms, how he’d wanted to tell her right then and there that he loved her. Just let it play out, he told himself. Stay on the ride.

  He glanced back at the tourists, popping their flashbulbs and chattering in Japanese as they posed in trios and pairs against pink Mount Rainier. Souvenir this, he thought, stretching across the mattress beside Zan and Reed. The three of them lay side by side on the tiny striped rectangle, watching the sunset set fire to the sky.

  EIGHTEEN

  The Cedar was hopping. Earley was used to the Friday night, blow-off-your-paycheck crowd, but Saturday was even busier. There were a lot more couples, and some of the wives were gotten up fancy in skirts and stiff hairspray, forcing their husbands to two-step in front of their bar buddies. Scoter Gillies was down at the end of the bar, getting plowed with a couple of Quileute mill rats and Clay Johannsen, a hollow-cheeked Vietnam vet who still wore his dogtags and shaved his head, even though now he flew choppers around the Olympics instead of the Mekong. Clay’s black T-shirt had faded to khaki. He hunched at the end of the Cedar’s long bar like a vulture guarding a carcass instead of a bottle of Colt 45 and a double shot of tequila.

  The men’s heads swiveled towards Zan as she passed. Earley couldn’t resist laying his hands on her shoulders as he steered her back to the pool room. All the tables were full, so they leaned by the cue rack while Reed went up front for a pitcher.

  “Glad you’re here?” Zan asked, twining her fingers through Earley’s.

  He nodded. “I’ll be even gladder when we get back home. I’m not a city guy.”

  “You know exactly where you belong,” said Zan. “Most people don’t.”

  “Where do you belong?” Earley asked
. He liked holding her hand like this. It felt so old-fashioned and innocent, like a couple of teenagers on a first date.

  “There.” Zan jerked her head towards a booth, where a couple of loggers were standing up, pulling on raingear. “Let’s grab it before someone else does.”

  Earley stepped towards the two men. “Y’all done here?”

  “All yours,” said the first man, eyeballing Zan with such obvious envy that Earley gave him a spontaneous pat on the back.

  “Thanks, man,” he said, folding his big frame to fit onto the leatherette bench. Zan sat down across from him. “You didn’t answer,” he said.

  “Answer what?”

  “Where you belong.”

  “Yes I did.” Zan laid both her hands on the knotty pine table. Earley noticed how battered her knuckles were, a darkening crack across one of her nails. “Here,” she said. “This is where I belong right this moment. I don’t stay anyplace long, Earley. I don’t know how.”

  I could show you, he thought, gazing into her eyes. Stay with me. Live with me. Love me forever. But all he could manage to ask her was, “Why’d you leave Berkeley and move up here?”

  Zan’s eyes went wary. “What did Reed tell you?”

  “He didn’t.” Earley remembered the stricken look on Reed’s face when he’d asked the same question. He’d assumed Reed was pained by the way Zan had ditched him, but the sudden, raw edge in her voice made him wonder if there was more to it. He remembered how anxious she’d looked in Seattle. “Was there some other guy?”

  Zan sat back. “Not until you,” she said quietly.

  Earley’s heart lurched. Was she trying to mess with his head, change the subject, or was she about to confess how she felt?

  Zan picked up a salt shaker, twisting the cap. “I wasn’t expecting this either.” She looked right at Earley, unguarded, her eyes searching his. “I was so glad to get hooked up with Reed again. Falling for you was the last thing I had in mind.”

  Earley drank in her words. Zan had told him she’d fallen for him, out loud in a public place. That was almost as good as “I love you” in bed. He had a mad urge to propose to her on the spot. He didn’t care who she was or what she had done. If she was in love with him, nothing else mattered.

  “Zan,” he breathed, reaching to take her hand. She looked over his shoulder and smiled. Reed had come back with their pitcher. He set it between Zan and Earley and plunked down three mugs, still wet from the dishwasher. Earley slammed his back into the bench. Would he ever get more than five minutes alone with her?

  “Oly,” said Reed. “It was that or Coors pisswater. This town could do with a shipment of Heineken.” He slid onto the bench next to Zan and started to pour, angling the pitcher and glass so the head wouldn’t foam. He handed the first mug to Zan, then poured one for Earley and one for himself, lifting it up in a toast.

  “To Bigfoot,” he said. “Long may he wave.”

  “To us,” said Zan, touching her mug to Reed’s. Earley raised his arm, banging his mug against one, then the other.

  “Us,” he said, looking directly at Zan.

  They were most of the way through the pitcher when Earley saw Zan look behind him. The next thing he knew, there were hands sliding over his eyes. He caught a quick glimpse of magenta nails, but even without that he would have recognized the cushiony warmth of her breasts on the back of his neck.

  “Margie,” he answered, before she could finish “Guess who?”

  “Quick on the draw,” Margie smirked. “Can I sit?”

  Earley was taken aback. Margie was always so careful, especially here at the Cedar, where Harlan’s logging crew cronies hung out. “Yeah, sure,” he said, wishing she wouldn’t. But Margie had already plopped herself down on the bench. Earley slid down to make room for her, bumping his knees into Zan’s underneath the booth.

  “’Scuse me,” he muttered.

  “For what?” Zan asked, acid.

  “Introduce me to your friends,” Margie said, giving Earley a mock-playful swat.

  Earley looked at Reed first. It was easier. “This here is Margie Walkonis. And this is—”

  “Oh yeah, you’re the guy with the weird pants. We met at the laundromat.”

  Reed’s face was as stony as Zan’s. Earley finished up quickly. “Reed Alton, my splitter. And this here is Zan.”

  “Anne?”

  There was glacier ice frosting her eyes. “Alexandra. I go by Zan.”

  “Okay.” Margie’s tone had a fuck-you-bitch shrug. It was clear as a bell what was going on. Margie had seen Earley sitting on one side of the booth and Zan and Reed on the other, and jumped to the likely conclusion that they were some couple he knew. What would she think if she knew the truth? Earley tried to imagine the look on her face. Shocked disbelief with a little contempt mingled in there, he reckoned. More or less the way Earley himself would feel if he heard that, say, Clay Johannsen was having a three-way. He tried to imagine sharing a mattress with Margie and Harlan, and practically shuddered. Why was it any different to shack up with Zan and Reed?

  The conversation had screeched to a halt. A couple was fighting behind them, and some duo moaned on the jukebox. Earley stepped in. “So is Harlan away?”

  “Harlan who?” Margie said, reaching for Earley’s beer. “He finally ran off with that truck slut. Nineteen years and not even a goddamn note. Oh, and Amber moved in with her boyfriend. So you can come in through the front door tonight.” She tipped back his beer mug and drained it.

  Earley winced inwardly, darting a look at Zan. Her eyebrows were knit into a straight line. Margie plunked down the beer mug, so hard it rattled. It wasn’t her first. “I’m a free fucking woman,” she said, then corrected herself. “A fucking free woman.”

  “A free fuck?” Zan suggested.

  Margie looked her in the eye. “That’s right, Anne. You got it.”

  Earley didn’t know whether to flee to the men’s room or sell ringside seats. He couldn’t believe Zan and Margie were having a fight over him , but what else could it be? They’d known each other exactly two minutes. Earley turned towards Reed for a reality check and noticed that Reed’s smile looked pasted on, hostile. The side of his jaw was a little bit puffy where Zan had socked him. Dangerous woman, thought Earley. It turned him on. So did the knowledge that Zan cared enough to get jealous. But what was he going to do about Margie?

  “Harlan’s a scumbag,” he said in an effort at gallantry. “Always was.”

  “Nineteen years,” Margie said. “We eloped from the prom.” She sloshed beer from the pitcher so fast it foamed over the top of the mug and spilled into her lap.

  “Damn,” she said, squirming. “My new pantsuit.” Her voice sounded broken, forlorn. Earley knew he should do something, get paper towels or offer to drive her home, but he just sat there. I guess I’m a bit of a scumbag myself, he thought, watching her blot the peach fabric.

  “Go powder your nose,” said Zan.

  Margie stopped dabbing and turned to her. “What the hell is your problem? My husband runs off with some slut and you’re dumping on me? What kind of a woman are you? If you think this won’t ever happen to you, you’re dead wrong. There’ll always be somebody younger, ready to grab your man. See how you like it when you get ditched.” Margie stood up unsteadily. Her breasts were exactly at Earley’s eye level. “You know where to find me,” she said, and walked off without saying good-bye.

  Zan leaned across the table towards Earley. Her eyes were intense. “If you ever go through that chick’s front door, I’m gonna mince you for chowder.”

  Earley didn’t like her tone. “You get two lovers, but I don’t?”

  “Not if one of them’s her.”

  Earley sat back and folded his arms. He had half a mind to get up and go after Margie, leave Zan stranded right there at the Cedar Bar Lounge, where she said she belonged. But then she’d be with Reed, who could easily charge a motel room and treat her like royalty. Earley would lose the round. “I’m a big bo
y,” he said, meeting Zan’s eye. “I can decide what to do with myself.”

  “Let’s go home,” said Reed, standing. “It’s been a long day.”

  Zan’s gaze did not stray from Earley’s. “Sure,” she said, “let’s.”

  Reed’s new mattress got stuck in the doorway. He and Earley bent it nearly double and wedged it through, cursing and knocking a few Mason jars to the floor as they wrestled it in through the kitchen. They dropped it behind the couch, panting. The clear plastic wrapping was shredded and wet. “Let’s take that off,” said Zan, dropping down onto all fours and ripping at it with her hands.

  “It can wait,” said Reed. He knelt down behind her, pressing his groin to her buttocks. “I can’t.” Earley was shocked to see Reed so aggressive. His own dick got stiffer, as if for a duel.

  “Neither can I,” he said, reaching to unzip, “and I won that bet.”

  Zan turned towards him with a wicked grin. “Damn straight,” she said. “You get a one on one.” She got up and went into the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” said Earley.

  “Massage oil,” she called back. “Go light up a candle and take off your clothes.”

  “Shit,” said Reed. “Just because I didn’t whip it out on the street.”

  “It’s a man’s world,” said Earley. “Excuse me while I get massaged.” He stepped into his bedroom, closing the Indian curtains behind him. He went to the nightstand and lit a thick candle, then peeled off his clothes and arranged himself on the futon. Face up, he decided, let her get the full effect. He settled himself on the cushions, resting his head on his hands so his elbows fanned out and his biceps looked bulky. His penis stood up like a spar tree. He lay back and listened for footsteps. Why was she taking so long? Had she stayed in the kitchen to make out with Reed? This whole thing was driving him crazy.