by Jill Malone
“Did she go camping?”
“She did.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
“Wasn’t asked.”
Bailey glanced over at her, then away. Her kindness about Claire almost painful to Liv, like thinking about Claire at all. And Simon, she wouldn’t let herself, no, she could not think of Simon. Not his joy playing with two puppies, or his table of trains, or his brochures about trains, or his videos about trains. Not the posters and books and sheets and clothes and toy chest of trains, or the hum of the child around her, or his attempts at conversation. In a matter of weeks, the job would be finished. Touch up still to do, perhaps, but she could recommend someone for Claire.
In the back bar at Hills’ Restaurant—styled in pastels like the waiting room of a doctor’s office—they ordered steaks, rare, of course, with a pitcher of beer, and a mushroom starter. Bailey, who had run into one of their old classmates, told stories of his gremlin-like daughter, and the smug way he’d kept referring to his wife as his light.
“As in he’s heavy and she’s light,” Liv asked, “or light in the darkness kind of thing?”
“Is one less horrible than the other?”
“No,” Liv said. “I’m just trying to understand the nature of the horrible, you know?”
“I couldn’t say for sure. I took it as religious light, but that might be my prejudices showing.”
“That’s a lot of weird.”
“That’s pretty much how my week has been: a caravan of weird. Oh, and my housemate got knocked up. She’s talking about marrying the guy. Kids today are so crazy.”
“She’s like thirty. I think she’s older than we are.”
“What are you saying to me?”
“Nothing. Not a thing.”
“We’re young, Liv. We’re young and full of possibilities. We haven’t begun to live the best years of our lives. All this homesteading kind of shit is for the fearful. You and I are the last wave of rebellion.”
“Um, dude, you’re in management, and you own your own home, and you’re living in Spokane. The rebellion didn’t stop to blow its nose in this town.”
The bartender brought their plates, returned to fill their water glasses. Bailey bit into her steak and hummed with pleasure. “What will you do after you finish this job?” She asked. “Go east again?”
“Fuck that. I hate the east.”
“What happened out there?”
“A whole lot of nothing.”
“Did you meet someone?”
Liv shrugged, looked at her fork, stabbed at another bite of steak. “Same as here.”
“You found a girl like Claire out east?”
Startled, Liv shook her head. “There aren’t women like her—” but the sentiment died in her mouth. She ate her steak, and refused to go on.
Bailey waited her out, let half the steak go, asked quietly: “Why are you so afraid?”
And then, without looking up from her plate, Liv told her. Said more about Claire than she had ever allowed herself to think, let alone articulate: “I’ve never met anyone like Claire. She’s so good. She’s so good about everything. She’s the kind of person who didn’t take candy from those bins in grocery stores when she was a kid. The kind of kid who never shoplifted, or stepped on ants, or swore at her parents. All I do is fuck up with her. I feel like more of a fuck up than I’ve ever felt. And I see that every time I’m with her. We had a race once, on bikes, and she kicked my ass. I couldn’t even beat her at a physical competition. I’m just no match for her, you know. I’m never going to be what she deserves.”
“Isn’t it enough to be what she wants?”
“But I’m not,” Liv said, so low it was almost soundless. In the blush-colored booth, she felt small and innocuous.
“Have you talked, either of you, actually talked to each other about this?”
But Liv was done now; her sharing moment passed. Stretched back in the booth, she finished her beer and exhaled as though the rest of it were just so much air.
“Let’s go for a drive,” Bailey said.
They cruised through the South Hill, ended up on Cliff Drive, parked along a residential road, and got out of the car. Teenagers lounged against boulders and flicked bottle caps at one another. Bailey and Liv walked out to the edge of the cliff and looked down on the city. Sprawled and sparkling, Spokane looked legitimate, almost regal from this vantage. Like a city, some might say. A light wind teased through the pines behind them.
“I swore to god I’d get out of this town and never look back,” Liv said, her cigarette smoldering as she inhaled.
“We both did.”
“Still fucking here.”
“No,” Bailey said. “We’re back.”
Liv laughed. “Isn’t that worse? We couldn’t keep away.”
“No. Never leaving, that’s worse.”
Liv shook her head, thought of that cold stone house in the dark: austere and expectant. “Your housemate—the chick I sat next to at the party—Sophia, right? She’s keeping the baby?”
“If they get married, that’s her plan.”
“She won’t keep it if she’s on her own?”
“Would you? Fucking horrible. Look at Claire, and Simon’s a good kid. They’re exhausting. All those needs all the time, and you can’t leave them on their own for years. Sophia works at Starbucks, for god sake. She can’t afford a kid on her own. She can’t even afford organic meat.”
“Claire’s only been on her own since January.”
“Yeah, the aunt, I keep forgetting about her. Claire’s had a tough year. I think her aunt was more a mother than her mother. And that’s the thing, isn’t it: you can start out with a partner or spouse or whatever, and still end up on your own with a kid. No guarantee about any of it. Don’t think I’ll mention that to Sophia, though. She’s all weeping tantrums just now.”
A patch of clouds blotted out the moon, and the city shimmered harder. Along the road behind them, on the hood of a car, two girls laughed spastically.
“Let’s walk around,” Liv said. “The night’s perfect.”
“Spokane in the summertime.”
Bailey came by the next morning with pastries and coffee. Offered to help run the cabinets to the Waste to Energy Plant, and take the sink, tub, and toilet to the Building Supply. Neither had slept well, the morning bright and hot just after 4 a.m. Liv had kept the camper’s door open, yet even so—restless, and impossibly stifled—she’d ended up dragging her bedroll to the deck and sleeping there.
While they ate berry scones and chocolate-filled croissants in the kitchen (all the foodstuffs unpacked from Claire’s boxes and stowed properly), Bailey admired the cabinets. They were both simpler and more beautiful, and lent the house a refined sensibility.
“It’s almost like a display house or something,” Bailey said, “too posh for living. Once the counters are in, I’ll be afraid to cook in here.”
“I’ve called a subcontractor to handle the tile. I’ll have him do the bathroom too. I hate tile installs.”
“Oh god, cutting all the tile for my bathroom last year just blew. And no matter how careful you are, the rows never seem to line up. I take the fastest showers now so I won’t have to stare at the tile too long.”
They went to the dump and Building Supply together, the loads too heavy for either to manage alone. They had the new tub in before lunch.
“Tile first or after?” Bailey asked, looking at the new sink and toilet they’d hefted into the hallway.
“Are you kidding me? After. He can do the hard fucking work getting the placement just right.”
She had the toilet and pedestal sink installed, and the water back on, in the afternoon. Bailey had fallen asleep outdoors on the recliner, her cap pulled over her face to block the sun. For the first time in years, in her leisure, sitting up on the railing smoking, Liv contemplated Bailey. The long, smooth stretch of her, easier to handle while asleep, and more appealing than previously, though Liv couldn’t
name why. Clothed in dark canvas shorts and a ragged t-shirt, Bailey’s body more angular, less awkward, Liv found herself using the word beautiful. Somehow, without Liv even noticing, Bailey had become beautiful.
Liv rubbed at her neck and dreamed of a swim through frigid water. Some peace had gone from this place. Working on the house now felt like a job, any job, and she had an urge to pack up the camper and leave while Claire was away.
On the recliner, Bailey stirred and took off her cap. “What’s going on? You finished already?”
“The bathroom’s ready to tile. Hungry?”
Bailey stretched, nodded toward Liv’s cigarettes. “Share the wealth?”
Liv tossed her the pack and her lighter. “I could eat,” Bailey said. “What are you thinking?”
“Indian—that place up north.”
“Oh, that sounds perfect. God, I slept for hours. Marvelous. I think I fell into Simon’s afternoon nap. What about you? Did you get any rest?”
Liv shook her head, yawned.
“You, my friend, are looking bedraggled.”
“That’s funny,” Liv said. “I’ve just been thinking you’re looking better than ever.”
Bailey rolled her eyes. “Jesus,” she said. “You’re killing me.”
After Indian, they played miniature golf. Bailey, a wicked and obvious cheater, kept up a running monologue of the finest plays, recapped the moment after they happened. For the second round, they joined a couple of teenaged boys and trash-talked their way into a serious ass-beating.
“I think maybe you’re too old to swing that thing.” One of the boys said to Liv, in the most quoted line of the night.
Ultimately, Liv and Bailey ended up at the Mercury Café, shooting pool. This time, Bailey was approached as often as Liv was, and Liv, nursing her beer, enjoyed Bailey’s dismay.
“It’s because I’m wearing your clothes,” Bailey said. “Must be. I’ve seen most of these chicks in here before, and not one has ever bothered to finish her first look, let alone take a second.”
“It’s your humility. You’ve got the tops swarming.”
Bailey had showered at Claire’s, and thrown on shorts and a tank top of Liv’s. The clothes, tighter and more androgynous, did not account for all the traffic to the pool table. Liv scratched and swore, and watched Bailey head for the dance floor with a chick that had to be forty.
“I’ll play for her if you like,” the girl said. Short, with pink-streaked blond hair, and large breasts, she was tanned right down to her ankle socks.
“Have at it.”
The girl sank every stripe, her posture a pleasure to witness, low and angled, and before she dropped the 8-ball, she butted against Liv, then eased forward and nailed the shot.
“That could have gone better for me,” Liv said.
“It will.”
Liv straddled a stool, her back firmly braced against the table, and finished her beer. Around them, the tables had emptied. At the other end of the room, gathered around a single table, several boys drank shots.
“Come on,” the girl said, smaller now without her cue stick, harmless.
I can’t, Liv thought.
At the moment the girl reached out her hand, Bailey, red-faced and glistening, came back from the dance floor alone. She hesitated, ten feet from where the girl stood like a supplicant before Liv. And Liv, looking at Bailey, missed the meathead chick’s entrance. Decided later, she must have come in the goddamn side door and walked right past the table of boys.
“What the fuck,” the meathead chick said to the girl, “are you doing?”
“Playing pool,” the girl said. “What’s it look like?”
The meathead, brutish and muscled, with a shaved head, blue jeans, and a tight black t-shirt, surveyed the situation: three solids on the pool table, the cue sticks pinned to the wall, Liv on the stool holding her empty beer glass.
“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 deser
ved 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.