by Jill Malone
Bailey sat on a stool in the kitchen, her clogs on the floor, and flexed her feet. In the corner, Claire entered receipts on her laptop. The café hadn’t been opened two months and the numbers were phenomenal. Ten days after they’d opened, a local magazine, a weekly paper, and the daily for the Inland Northwest had reviewed them. The reviewers gushed about the food.
Janet Nadeau, the food critic for the daily, had come back for lunch on successive days, and written a comparative review that likened the pleasure of eating Bailey’s crepes to exotic travel. Dining in Spokane has just been transformed. The Fresh Baked Bistro will set you on a journey through taste and memory that will seem improbable, until that second bite convinces you. You will delight in the use of basil and spinach and cheese. You will marvel at the berries and Greek yogurt, and the incomparable brioche. You will feel that you have never eaten with so much attention, your senses heightened, every bite bolder and more satisfying.
And business showed no signs of slowing. Since then, a Seattle paper, and a regional magazine had interviewed them, and taken photographs of food presentations, and Bailey at her station. Hectic, maddening, the pace they’d set couldn’t be run indefinitely, but for now, Claire and Bailey could manage the sixteen-hour days, the riot of customers, as the endeavor’s urgency and newness sustained them through their exhaustion. In the evenings, it gave Claire a rush, booking their numbers—cost of goods sold, equity accounts, expense categories, receivables, payables—the strange language of business. She did the bookkeeping for the café, and had, that morning, secured a CPA to handle quarterly taxes, and all the year-end formalities for them.
“How do you know this guy again?” Bailey asked. She’d taken to asking questions multiple times like a child. Claire tried not to let the interruption, or the repetition, irritate her.
“He was my aunt’s CPA. I ran into him this summer. He’s a nice guy.”
“And a good CPA?”
“She always got money back on her returns.”
“A restaurant is a little different, though, isn’t it?” Bailey exhaled, stared at her socks. “Look, Claire, we’re partners, right? I really want to be in on meetings like this. I want to meet this guy, and weigh in about whether or not I can work with him.”
Claire stared at her computer screen. How was this already so complicated? Did every little decision require a committee meeting? “Are you handling the bookkeeping, or am I?”
“We’re partners, Claire. We share the responsibilities. I don’t know this guy, and I want to know anyone who has anything to do with the money. I don’t want some ass stealing from us. I don’t know anything about him, or his business, or his reputation.”
“Fine, I’ll arrange a meeting for the three of us.”
“This week?”
“This week.”
“Good,” Bailey said. “That’s all sorted.” She slid her clogs back on and stretched. “How’s Simon doing? Is he liking the place any better?”
Simon in daycare, three days a week for six hours, and it felt like lifetimes. “He didn’t cry this morning.”
“That’s progress, right?”
“Sure,” Claire said. Playing with other kids, trips to the playground, structured activities, these things had to be better for the kid than spending all day cooped up in an industrial kitchen.
“We’re all adjusting,” Bailey said. “I’m done for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Hey to Liv and Simon.”
Claire rubbed her neck, stared at the ceiling, let it all go. As she booked the deposit, she double-checked the line item amounts, and felt a thrill as the entry total matched the bank deposit amount. Checks and balances, tidy and analytical, all the names for money, the trails of success itemized before her.
Twenty-three
Drake pulls a latte
Drake, wearing striped pajama pants and a t-shirt, climbed the stairs to the attic at ten in the morning. Bags of insulation piled on the floor around her, Liv had been stapling insulation to the rafters, and dreaming about an achingly cold beer.
“Tell me you haven’t had coffee,” Drake said.
“Not for hours.”
“Would you drink a latte—with soy, naturally?”
“I’d love a latte.”
“Good, take a break.”
Liv wanted to strip, and did, tore off her overshirt, left her boots on the stairs with her gloves, and scrubbed her face, hair, and hands in the bathroom sink before venturing into the kitchen.
On the kitchen counter sat a shiny silver Rancilio Silvia espresso machine. As Liv entered, Drake steamed the soymilk.
“I’ve practiced all weekend—I had brunches Saturday and Sunday for my guinea-pig students—and so far, each cup is better than the last.”
The foam, a light, creamy froth, on which Drake used a straw to draw a leaf, before handing Liv her cup, looked perfect. Apprehensive, yes, about that first sip, Liv held the cup to her nose and breathed in. She sipped her drink, the taste exactly right—the soy distinct and rich, the coffee strong and easily consumed.
“It’s good. I’m impressed.”
Leaned against the counter with her own drink, Drake grinned. “Thanks. As soon as I said I should buy one, I decided I would. Now I feel like a Northwester.”
“Isn’t that a wind?”
“Yes,” Drake said, “a strong one.”
“So you’re being clever.”
“Evidently not.”
“No, you are,” Liv said. “You’re clever. You’re one of those girls who walked around reading nonfiction in grade school while the rest of us played kick ball.”
“Actually, I’m rather good at kick ball.”
“Are you? So what were you like then, as a kid?”
“I was the one reading a book about mythology in the queue to kick the ball.”
Liv nodded. Outside, the wind shook the leaves and the branches and rustled against the house. She visualized this woman on a field with a book, her hair in a ponytail, her body scrawny and overlong. Later she’d have braces and glasses and if Liv had known her then, she’d never have expected the woman before her: confident, classical, seductive.
“I don’t teach this evening,” Drake said. “How would you feel about getting a drink?”
“I’d like that,” Liv said. “I need to call my partner, make sure we don’t have anything going on.”
“Of course.”
In the attic, Liv felt the coffee in her mouth, that distinctive bitterness. She approached the insulation now, reinvigorated.
Claire took Simon to Mobius, the scientific play center for kids. Their exhibit this month involved soil erosion: large bins of dirt with trowels and spray hoses; winding 3-D waterways navigated by pinballs to illustrate water flow through a city. And secondary exhibits about red-blood cells—a dome with red balls the kids could jump in—and a series on wind tunnels and magnets. Simon played in the plastic kitchen with the mismatched pots, cooking corn and zucchini. He drummed for a while on stage, and then settled in with a boat on the water-current table.
Afterward, they’d have lunch and see a movie, and probably buy a train at the toy store. Claire couldn’t remember the last time they’d been out like this, just the two of them, having an adventure. Simon had grown again, his face more angular, his eyes larger, more haunting. He was beautiful. Long-lashed, delicately featured, pale, blond, tall, a striking child—empirically; she’d have thought so even if she weren’t his mother.
“I’m hungry,” he told her, his shirt damp at the sleeves from the water.
“Hamburger and fries?”
They left, walking side by side, and Claire put her hands in her pockets to avoid reaching out for him. It was a connection she ached for now; bound to him as she had been all these years. Still a silent, reflective child, and clearly deferential. Claire yearned for the toddler, missed being his jungle gym, the way he had buried against her, the comfort he had found in her b
ody. It was a gradual breaking away—years of it—the tether coming haltingly undone.
Drake drove a sleek red Saab. Too fast, and too hard, barreling through turns and stop signs and side streets, butting up against the car in front of her as though she intended to crush it and keep going.
Before they’d left the house, she’d offered to spare Liv a drive home, and have her shower there. So Liv showered at Drake’s, in one of the guest bathrooms: scented soaps and plush towels in a sage-and-citrus theme. Liv changed into jeans and a blue crew-necked shirt. She didn’t have another pair of shoes in the truck, and had to wear her boots. Hair damp, and long enough that it had begun to curl, she returned to the kitchen, where Drake sat at the table, grading papers, also in jeans with cowboy boots and a sheer, button-down collared shirt.
Claire had said she and Simon were spending the day together and drinks with Liv’s friend were fine. It still felt untoward, despite Claire’s permission, to be going out with this fine, circumspect woman, all hipstered out and cowboy booted, without a chaperone.
“You keep driving like this and we’re going to die in the street like gangsters.”
Drake glanced at her, and then pressed the accelerator a touch harder, before a prompt downshift and the subtlest pause for a stop sign. Liv wanted to close her eyes, but it would be worse not to see it coming, the end, the tree or the other car or the child in the crosswalk. Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon on the stereo, and then Drake darted the car into a loading zone and killed the engine.
“You so fucking owe me a drink,” Liv said.
Seven on Friday night when they walked into Zola, the jazz band covering Ella Fitzgerald, the crowd pushing forty, moneyed and buzzed, Liv followed Drake upstairs to the open loft.
“The food here is superb,” Drake said. Their server arrived promptly, clearly the youngest person in the bar, took their orders for drinks, handed them menus, and then asked them to repeat their orders.
The bar: spacious and modern with exposed brick; the upper loft designed around gondola seats, license plates nailed backward to the walls, helmets of every description—hockey, skating, fire fighter—on stands in the alcoves; wooden floors, a large great room and several anterooms, and the bar, open on three sides, opposite the short, intimate stage.
“This place is amazing,” Liv said, examining the metal bars of the gondola seat that tucked into the plumbing fixtures above them.
“The whole building really. The owner—of the bar and the building—is a designer. He knows what he’s doing.”
The server brought their drinks and took their starter orders: mini ahi burgers and shrimp spring rolls, crab cakes and Caesar salads.
“What are you drinking?” Liv asked.
“A greyhound,” Drake said, offering Liv her glass.
“What’s a greyhound?” Liv took a tentative sip.
“Vodka and grapefruit juice.”
“That’s a heavy pour.”
“Yeah, the drinks here are superb as well.”
The band segued into Cole Porter. Through the metal bars of the gondola seat, Liv had an uninterrupted view of the band. Three men, middle aged, watching the pianist for cues.
“I’m glad you could come out tonight,” Drake said. “I’ve had the longest week and it’s a relief to be drinking.”
“For me as well. Why the longest week?”
“I’m not sure it’s anything specific. Students are students—some work hard and others don’t. My colleagues are the same way. It’s the familiarity of it all that makes me tired.”
“Then do something unexpected.”
“I am.”
Liv smiled, turned the ice in her drink with her straw. I am too, she thought. Out at last, a drink, a woman, a new bar. She felt jittery, hungry, the night between them limitless.
“How is your mother?” Drake asked.
“She’s OK. Not angry anymore—and that’s something—but she’s confused a lot. She makes mistakes, just dopey really, but unlike her. She keeps calling me when she means to call my sister, or telling me the same story four times in a single conversation. My dad’s just grateful she isn’t yelling.”
“My mother had ovarian cancer,” Drake said. “The only good thing was, she wasn’t sick for long.”
“I’m sorry. When was this?”
“Eight years ago. I was 36, and still, to this day, think of myself as an orphan.”
“It’s comforting to know it never gets easier.”
The server brought their starters. The mini ahi burgers were delicious, and vanished in moments. Liv sipped at her second drink, found it stronger than the first. Drake’s hair was shorn in back, and longish—swept into her face—in front. She’d highlighted the brown with red; recently, Liv thought, and the style suited her.
“I miss being part of a group,” Liv said, watching the band. “I’ve been thinking about joining an association of some kind. I’d like to play league soccer, or Ultimate Frisbee, or take up martial arts. I feel like I never meet anyone anymore. I move in the same small circles day in week out.”
“It must get lonely working by yourself all day.”
“I’ve never minded before,” Liv said. “Honestly, I enjoy being alone. And I work faster by myself than with anyone else. Then this summer I had a little boy with me—quiet and busy—he stayed out of my way, but just having him nearby, even silent, made me feel less—”
“Alone?”
Liv had been going to say miserable, and that surprised her. She nodded at Drake’s interjection.
“What if the feeling is intellectual rather than physical?” Drake asked.
“How do you mean?”
Drake considered Liv a moment, sipped at her drink, then said, “What if it isn’t just the physical presence of someone else that you miss, but the intellectual interaction of peers? Maybe what you miss is that kind of stimulation. Maybe kicking something isn’t going to help.”
Liv thought of the stimulation she had sought for months and almost laughed. She’d never considered asking those girls anything meaningful. Meaningfulness and those girls were strangers.
“Kicking things always helps,” Liv said.
“Contrarian.” Drake said. “I do know what you mean. If I don’t go for a run, my skin gets too tight. I feel like I’m suffocating. I start snapping at people; I get hostile without provocation. Now my colleagues have worked with me long enough that one of them will say, Have a run. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. And they’re right: a run fixes practically everything for me. But for you, I don’t believe it. You’re physical all day. I know exertion is different, but I think it’s the solitariness. I think that’s what’s so difficult in your case.”
“Well, now that you’ve worked out my problems, what do you propose as a fix?”
“Take a class. Go study German or Early American History—”
“—Or Art History,” Liv laughed. “You’re sending me back to school? That’s your cure?”
“Yes, that’s my cure: education.”
“My god, you’re a recruiter, and people worry about lesbians.”
Drake laughed, a coarse throaty sound. “You know, I’m really not kidding.”
“I do,” Liv said. “I get that. There was a time, you know, I intended to get a doctorate and teach English Lit. I went to school for a while back east.”
“I didn’t know that,” Drake said, watching Liv closely. “And then?”
“It all kind of crumbled. I didn’t last a year.”
“What crumbled?”
“Everything. School, me, everything.”
“Liv, you need to work on your storytelling.”
Liv grinned, and then said, “I met a girl my first month there. I was twenty-five and thought I knew everything. Sometimes I miss that—that cockiness, that conviction. I met this girl and she could have done anything, I would have allowed anything. I was mesmerized by this girl—she fucking shook me. You know? I felt sick all the time. I couldn’t study, cut my c
lasses, followed along behind this girl like her shadow.
“It went on like that for ages. Fall semester my grades were abysmal, and it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. And then, over Christmas break, I climbed up to her apartment, walked up five flights, she let me in and her eyes were red and her nose, and she said she couldn’t see me anymore. She said she’d met a guy and she was pregnant and she couldn’t see me anymore.
“I didn’t even argue. I just stood there, not arguing, and then I went away. Down the stairs and outside and walked through the entire fucking city until I came to a bridge and then I tore off my shirt and cut a star into my arm. I cut until I couldn’t see my arm or the knife for all the blood.”
Liv laughed cheerlessly, unable to look at Drake. “I dropped out before spring break. I stayed out east for a while, picked up work with a crew, but I couldn’t focus. I kept having accidents. I got a glove caught in a jigsaw, and shot myself with a nail gun—right in the boot—and fell off a scaffold. Last fall, I came back here.”
“And the girl?”
“I never saw her again. I left her apartment that day, and that was the last time.”
“What about the woman you’re with now—Claire—what about Claire?”
“Hey, if you want to know something, just ask.”
“Am I prying?”
“You know you are.” Liv thought of Claire, and her own grief surprised her. She and Simon at the kitchen table, silent, waiting; Claire had wandered away from them. “Claire’s preoccupied.”
“With the café? That’s not hard to imagine.”
With the café, yes, that too. “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
Drake stretched her legs beneath the table, shook her head. “No one.”
“When was the last time?”
“Oh, I had this coming. I see that now.”
“No avoidance,” Liv chided.
“Never in life. The last time was eight months ago—strictly short term, needs based, nothing more. I miss it, sometimes, the mess of being with someone else. It’s not good for me to have things my own way all the time. Just encourages me to be difficult.”