by Karis Walsh
“Stacy is my landlord,” Berit said. She didn’t deny Kim’s assessment of Tace’s beauty, but she couldn’t claim to have attracted her. Tace seemed to tolerate her and to need her as a tenant, but little more. “I found her by chance, not by any chick-magnetizing skill. She’s been helping me get around while I get familiar with the town and with this thing.” Berit patted the arms of her chair.
“Well, you should probably save her from Theodore.” Kim drew his name out with a snobby-sounding accent. “He’s most likely regaling her with stories about his glory days at Cambridge or trying to engage her in a heated philosophic debate about Kierkegaard’s theories on personal choice. She’ll need a caffeine transfusion to stay awake.”
Berit frowned. She didn’t think either lecture topic sounded like one Tace would find pleasant. She turned around again, but Tace wasn’t where she had been just a moment ago.
“…and I’ve submitted your name. I know you weren’t planning on staying long-term, but I think you might fall in love with teaching and want to stay. Whitman has a lot to offer someone with your prestige.”
Berit looked at Kim, trying to catch up with the words she’d missed while looking for Tace. “What? I’m only here until my back gets better. No way am I staying any longer than that.”
Kim patted her shoulder. “I know. You told me. But at least consider staying here after the year is out. You can’t keep up this globetrotting lifestyle forever.” She gestured at Berit’s chair. “It’s dangerous on those remote digs, and it has to be exhausting. Someday you’ll need to settle down, so why not here?”
Suddenly the garden seemed to close in around Berit, paralyzing her in place. Kim’s settled, reasonable, pregnant presence. A group of students pointing toward them and whispering before they started across the lawn toward her, probably to say how excited they were to take her boring Greek 101 class. And Tace, out of sight and possibly on her way back to her car without Berit, after being grilled by Theodore the Annoying Philosopher. None of this was what Berit wanted, and she felt trapped not just by her injury and her awkward wheelchair, but by the expectations of all these people. She was good at archaeology, not at personal relationships. She’d spent her career following her strengths, and now her weaknesses were about to be exposed.
“I have no desire to stay in this pathetic town any longer than I have to,” she whispered in what sounded more like a hiss than she meant it to. “I’ve already been here one day too long. You’ve made the choice to be here, Kim, and I’m glad you’re happy with this life, but it has nothing to offer me. As soon as I can handle a shovel again, I’ll be heading to my next dig. I need to travel and see the world, not just teach students about it. I’m not the kind of person who can stay in one place forever, especially not a place like Walla Walla.”
Her energetic emphasis on some of the words made her little speech sound rude and disparaging. She hadn’t been trying to insult Kim or her choices, but she had to make it clear she wasn’t staying at the college or at this damned reception. She was about to apologize, find Tace, and make her less-than-graceful exit when Kim shifted her attention. She had been listening to Berit’s outburst with an understanding and indulgent smile—Berit knew Kim was familiar enough with her passionate and often rash outbursts, although she had no excuse for being rude—but then Kim looked over Berit’s shoulder.
“You must be Stacy,” she said. “Nice to meet you. I see you survived your encounter with Theodore.”
Berit backed up a few paces as Tace came forward and shook Kim’s hand. “I suppose I did,” she said with a smile that looked strained to Berit. “Nice to meet you, too. Berit, I have to get home.”
Berit tried to make eye contact, but Tace wouldn’t look directly at her. How much of Berit’s speech had she heard? Most likely enough to be insulted by the comments about Walla Walla and anyone who might choose to live here. “I’m getting tired,” she said. “I can come with you.”
“You haven’t even talked to the president yet,” Kim reminded her. “She’s a fan of your writing and has been looking forward to meeting you in person. Don’t worry about Berit, Stacy. I wanted to ask her over for dinner, anyway, so I’ll drive her home after.”
Tace nodded and left with just a quick good-bye in Berit’s direction. The crowds shifted for Tace as she hurried away, and then they closed in around Berit once more. She didn’t have a chance of catching up to Tace before she got in her car. She sighed and forced a tight smile on her face as the approaching students gathered around her chair. Kim backed away with a wink, apparently unaffected by Berit’s little scene.
“Are you Dr. Katsaros?” one of the freshmen asked. “I wanted to take one of your classes, but they’re all full. Do you have a wait list?”
Berit had no idea. She had an office, a schedule, and a box full of textbooks, but she hadn’t looked at any of them yet. She told the student to check with her during office hours next week—whatever they might be—and moved on to the next unanswerable question about her classes. She felt as deflated now as she’d been edgy before. Kim had managed to ensure she’d stay for the entire reception, followed by dinner with her husband and young daughter. A fitting punishment for her insults. She’d have to wait until tonight to apologize to Tace.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tace came downstairs the next morning and found Berit in the kitchen, propped against the stove and pouring an egg mixture into a sauté pan. She hesitated for a moment, tempted to go back upstairs and hide, but Berit turned and saw her.
“Good morning,” Berit said. “I wanted to make you breakfast to apologize for yesterday, but I still haven’t been to the store. You don’t have much in the fridge, so I hope you don’t mind omelette aux fines herbes.”
“It smells good,” Tace said. She hadn’t eaten dinner last night, and the scent of basil and tarragon was too tempting to refuse, even with a pretentious-sounding name. She got plates out of the cupboard and set them on the table. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”
Berit folded the omelet with an expert flip of the pan. “I said mean things about your town. I was just cranky. I hadn’t planned on coming here to teach until I got hurt, and Kim was pressuring me to take a more permanent job here. I lashed out, and I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Tace said, mostly to get past the conversation about yesterday. She hadn’t been hurt or angered by Berit’s words because she believed them herself. Who would want to spend their life in Walla Walla if they had other options? She had already been feeling inadequate and like a child again after her conversation with the philosophy professor, and she’d needed to get out of the collegiate atmosphere and back to the safety of her own home. She had moved more of her clothes into the attic rooms and had stayed up there to avoid talking to Berit. She’d heard her come home and had shut her bedroom door in a cowardly way when Berit had called to her from the bottom of the staircase. Ridiculous, but she’d needed to be alone. Still, she hadn’t been able to—nor had she wanted to—escape Berit completely. She had sat on her bed long into the night, reading Berit’s book about digging in Lebanon.
Berit put the first omelet in the oven to stay warm and poured more of the egg mixture into the pan. “Was Theodore awful? Kim said he has a reputation for grilling people and trying to pick academic fights.”
“I wouldn’t say awful,” Tace said. She’d pick something much worse. “He asked about my education and seemed horrified by my lack of a college degree.”
She tried to pass it off as a joke, but the experience had been humiliating. She’d been forced back in time—not to high school when being a townie had been stigma enough, but to the years after high school. Then she’d not only been aware of the social rift between her and the elite collegians, but she’d had to accept that she’d never be able to change her own fate. Tace had never even bothered to fill out college applications. She had been working since she was old enough to hold a job, and she’d added more hours as soon as she graduated fro
m high school. She’d managed to keep her grades respectable, but she’d nearly come up short with credits. A few of her teachers had been kind enough to help, and they’d encouraged her to at least apply for scholarships, but Tace had turned her dreams and hopes toward Chris. She couldn’t remember having many of her own.
“A degree isn’t the only way to measure success,” Berit said.
She was being kind, but Tace waited for the expected shift in their relationship. She’d experienced it often enough, the few times she’d met professors or other educated women in the local bars and had tried to have more of a conversation than your place or mine. Once she admitted to only having a high school diploma—barely—she’d seen the changes in their expressions. Berit would be the same. She’d feel sorry for Tace. Maybe suggest she enroll in some night classes or get a degree online. No one ever thought she was good enough as she was, least of all herself.
Berit got an oven mitt and retrieved the omelet from the warm oven. She clicked off the stove. “It’s interesting. The institution of higher education is a very recent development, as far as human history goes. Throughout most of our development as a species, knowledge has been obtained by experience, through the community or tribal legends, or through apprenticeships. Not through a structured schooling program. I’ve uncovered amazing art and artifacts created by people with no degrees. And I’ve seen a lot of crap created by people with a string of them.”
Tace took the platter of food from Berit and carried it to the table while Berit lowered herself into her wheelchair and joined her. Berit’s voice and demeanor hadn’t changed at all, at least not in any way noticeable to Tace—and she was looking for the familiar signs. Berit actually did seem interested in the topic in a detached, nonjudgmental way. Still, her argument had a serious flaw.
“You can say how great these finds are, but you needed your advanced degree for your career in the first place. Without it, you wouldn’t even be an archaeologist.”
Berit laughed. “Good point. My career used to be in the realm of laypeople who either were fascinated by history or who craved its treasures. Now it belongs to academia, too. But anyone can be involved in archaeology, or any of the field sciences like paleontology, if they really have the desire. You don’t need any degree to volunteer on a dig, and plenty of them welcome any warm body who can wield a trowel and a brush. You could excavate pottery or dinosaurs or old temples, if you really had the desire to do so.”
Tace turned away and picked up the coffeepot. She’d always felt her limitations magnified when someone found out about her lack of education. Berit had managed to make her feel limitless, for just a moment. The thought of having choices, of being responsible for making them and not just accepting a life without them, was oddly uncomfortable to her, and she was about to change the subject when Berit spoke again.
“Theodore aside, I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me,” Berit said, apparently still needing to talk about yesterday. “I hate being in crowds. I was raised in Las Vegas and I spent too much time in casinos.”
“When you were young?” Tace paused as she was filling their mugs with coffee and frowned at Berit. What kind of a childhood was that? “I didn’t think kids were allowed in them.”
“My mom worked in a casino. Not a fancy touristy one, but way, way off the Strip. First as a cocktail waitress and later as a dealer. When school was out and we didn’t have money for a sitter, she’d bring me to work and I’d either wander around the parts where minors could be, or I’d hide in a corner and read.”
Berit hesitated, and Tace waited for her to continue. She seemed to want to tell the story, to explain why she’d needed Tace to stay at the reception yesterday. The woman Tace had read about in Berit’s book seemed far too daring and self-reliant to need anyone.
“Mom has a gambling…well, she calls it a hobby. I call it an addiction. When I was little, it was just plain scary.”
“I had a similar experience, without the casinos,” Tace said, thinking about her own mom, with her penchant for betting on anything that could run, fight, or play ball. She’d also had hobbies like taking drugs and sleeping around. She’d called herself a free spirit and walked out of their lives, leaving ten-year-old Tace to take over her responsibilities. Over the years, Tace had wasted hundreds of wishes, hoping her mother would come back. But even if she had, she’d probably never have changed, and Tace could hear in Berit’s voice and see in her eyes how difficult it had been to grow up with someone with her mom’s weaknesses. “What did your dad do?”
“He tore down casinos for a living,” Berit said with a shake of her head. “I used to think it was a noble profession, that if he destroyed enough of them, my mom would stop chasing cherries on the slot machines and suddenly be normal, whatever normal is. But he gave most of his paychecks to her, telling me she was going to make us rich someday. A sick cycle, but he loved her and he loved his job.” Berit paused while she put a dollop of sour cream on top of her omelet, where it melted over the hot eggs. She continued in a quieter voice. “He took me to see a demolition once. It was a beautiful old art deco style casino, with these graceful arches and pretty colors, and then there was a huge explosion and it was just gone. Destroyed, in seconds. I cried for hours, and once I found out they just rebuilt new, fancier casinos where the old ones had been, I never went to see him work again.”
Berit shook her head as if trying to dispel the memories as thoroughly as dynamite did a building. “I should stop talking and let you eat while it’s still warm,” she said.
Tace had only shared two meals with Berit, but during each she had been captivated—in very different ways—by her stories. Berit’s nomadic lifestyle probably made the act of sitting at a table like some sort of pseudo-family so uncommon for her that now she felt almost compelled to talk more about herself than Tace expected she ever did. She didn’t want to pry further into Berit’s past, so she took a bite of her omelet.
“Oh my God, this is great,” she said, scooping up another bite with her fork. A slender ring around the edge was crisp and buttery, but the rest was fluffy and melted in her mouth. The combination of herbs was surprising and subtle. “Do I taste lavender? I didn’t realize I had any in the house.”
“I…I’ve had lavender on my mind lately. I smell it on your sheets.”
Tace looked up in surprise, her fork halfway to her mouth, but Berit was busily chopping her omelet into tiny pieces. The thought of Berit’s own citrusy scent mixing with hers was more delectable than the food.
“I thought the floral notes would mix well with the basil. I added a little tarragon and just a few drops of fireweed honey, too, to add a little sweetness. I’d never heard of it before.”
“I knew there was another flavor I couldn’t identify. I think fireweed honey is local to the Northwest and Alaska. It’s my favorite.”
Tace ate the rest of her omelet in silence while her mind combined the flavors in different ways. “The IPA,” she said. “These herbs would be perfect for a seasonal ale.”
“I saw the beer in your fridge. Do you homebrew?”
“I sort of own a brewery,” Tace said. She hadn’t told anyone about her new place except for Allie and the people who’d been involved in the paperwork process.
“You’re kidding. Why haven’t you mentioned it before? I thought you worked at Drake’s.”
“I don’t remember mentioning that before, either.”
Berit shrugged. “I snooped around and found your name tag. It’s what I do for a living. Don’t make that face, most of your stuff is upstairs now, so I’ll have to wait until I can walk better before I really start digging around.”
Tace smiled. “Well, the brewery is only temporary, until I can get the business running and sell it for at least what I paid.”
“Why’d you buy it if you didn’t want it?” Berit asked as she piled their empty plates together and put them on her lap. She took them over to the sink and lifted them over the rim.
�
��My brother. Gambling debts.” Tace made a dismissive gesture and Berit nodded.
“In other words, stop digging in that particular trench. What’s the brewery called? The beer in the fridge doesn’t have any labels, so I thought it might be some sort of evil experiment. I was going to try one before yesterday’s reception. I think we both could have used a beer or two before that party. And after.”
“I agree.” Tace got a bottle out of the fridge and set it on the island. She gathered some of the ingredients still on the counter from Berit’s breakfast. Her mind was spinning with the new flavor, as if she could actually taste it on her tongue, and she wanted to share the experience. Get some sort of confirmation about her hunch. “I don’t have a name or logo for the place yet. I need something soon, though, or I won’t be able to market it. A few taverns in town have agreed to try a keg, and I need to give new customers a way to find us and order more.”
Berit laughed. “If you don’t pick something, you’ll end up with different names depending on the bar. One will call it No Name Beer. In another place it’ll be the Third Tap from the Left.”
“The last one is catchy,” Tace said with a grin. She chopped a small leaf of fresh basil with a few petals of dried lavender and added a drop of the honey. She put the mixture on a spoon and handed it to Berit before uncapping the beer and pouring two small glasses. “Here, try this. Put the herbs in your mouth and take a drink of beer, like you’re filtering it through the lavender and basil.”
Tace took a small taste of the herbs with a swallow of beer and let the flavors meld in her mouth. “A little less honey,” she said.
“And a touch more basil,” Berit added. “The lavender overwhelms it.”
Tace agreed. She changed the ratio and gave Berit another spoon.