Marydale watched the eggs solidify. “No.”
“And?”
“Portland’s a small city. We were bound to meet.”
“Women that age have a certain something,” Aldean said, nodding to himself. “Not as…” He squeezed the air. “But they’re into it. You know? They’ve gotten over that thing where they don’t want you to look at their ass. Cougars. It’s not a bad word.”
“Kristen is not a cougar.”
“Hmm. You’d have to be younger to make her a cougar.”
“I’m the same age as you.”
“Women age faster.”
“You’re a dirty old man.”
Marydale flipped the eggs one by one and slid all four onto a plate. She handed Aldean a fork.
“The legs are still nice at that age.” Aldean dropped his cigarette into the mug and took a bite of egg. “It’s the last thing to go.”
“She’s probably thirty-five! You’re such a sexist.”
Marydale sat down, digging her fork into the eggs on the other side of the plate.
“Are you going to see her again?” Aldean asked.
“I left.”
“Ninja-like?”
“Stealth.”
“You dog,” Aldean said appreciatively. “No note? No call me later?”
Marydale stared out the window at the river. The Willamette was dishwater gray, the surface deceptively slow. She didn’t know which felt worse, the thought that Kristen might have searched for her, hoping she had just stepped out for a coffee, or the thought that Kristen had rolled over and silently thanked her for saving them both the awkward morning light.
“I feel like shit,” Marydale said.
“You and everyone else who went out last night.”
“Not like that.”
“So find her.” Aldean skewered another slice of egg.
“I know where she works,” Marydale said.
“Call her.”
“I don’t want to see her.”
Aldean leaned back again.
“She could have found me,” Marydale said. “Hell, she could have just stopped in for a bottle of whiskey and said hi.”
“She stopped in last night.”
Marydale ignored the insinuation in Aldean’s voice.
“What am I doing, Aldean?”
“You had a couple drinks and fucked your ex. I’d say you’re doing what the holiday requires. That’s pretty much like getting a tree for Christmas.”
“I didn’t mean to fuck her,” Marydale said.
“You just tripped on the carpet and bam?”
Marydale gave a little laugh.
“I didn’t…”
She had meant for it be tender, a benediction, a way to give Kristen up for good. But as soon as the hotel door had closed behind them, Kristen had clutched her, moaning with each exhale, and Marydale had found herself rushing to relieve Kristen and to increase her torment. Then, when Kristen came, Marydale didn’t know what to do with the longing in her own body, and she had fallen asleep frustrated and sad.
“I can’t do this again,” she said.
Aldean pushed the plate aside and took Marydale’s hands in his. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m not going to see her. I’m not going to call her. I’m not going to put myself through that again.”
“I’ve never had a Kristen Brock,” Aldean said.
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever this is.” He squeezed her hands. “Whatever you two have. Unrequited love. Tragedy.”
“Men are too smart for that.”
Aldean shook his head. “Some people just have the capacity for it. Others don’t.”
“Don’t tell me it’s a gift and everything happens for a reason.”
“That’s not it. You and Kristen Brock, it’s epic.” He shook his head. “You love her in your blood.”
“I haven’t thought about her in years.”
“You haven’t talked about her in years.”
Wasn’t that what the last five years had been all about: not Kristen Brock? Not looking for her. Not thinking about her. Not remembering. A half a dozen lovers who were not her. What had she expected? That Kristen would run into her arms crying, I love you, Marydale? Even if she did, it didn’t erase five years of silence, five years of knowing that Kristen could have found her and didn’t.
“If she’d been kidnapped and held in a basement with no phone…” Marydale said.
“Then you’d forgive her?” Aldean asked.
Outside a cormorant swooped down from the white sky, dove under the water, and resurfaced.
“She’s changed.”
“You’ve changed.”
“She could have found me.”
“So you said. And you could’ve found her. She may be an asshole, but she’s still hot”—Aldean released her hands, cocked his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a pistol, and pointed it at Marydale’s chest—”for an old woman. And you’re going to go for it eventually, so skip the angst and just call her. But wait a few days. Girls like that. It makes them think you don’t care.”
Marydale shook her head. “You don’t get it, Aldean. She doesn’t care. That’s the whole point.”
4
Kristen sat at the end of the table with Rutger, Donna, and some of the other partners.
“Tell us about DataBlast,” Donna said.
Kristen had found the unicorn. One of the people she had called on New Year’s Eve called back two days later. His name was Jason. A hardworking accounting student, the company had given him just a little too much responsibility, and he’d been smart enough to understand what he saw in their records. Kristen had met him at a coffee shop on the Park Blocks. He had a pleasant face and a neatly trimmed beard that made him look older than his twenty-two years. How do you feel about your former employer? she had asked. He said they were a bunch of corporate scumbags. In that case…Kristen had placed her recorder on the table between them.
She had also left a message on the Sadfire Distillery voice mail. She had called after hours, like a shy teenager. Marydale had not called her back.
“Our key witness, Jason Miter, was an accountant for DataBlast between…” Kristen rattled off a list of dates and responsibilities. “He also has a background in computer programming, so he had a basic understanding of the code they were using to cheat thousands of customers out of the pay-per-click advertising they were purchasing.”
No one had really suffered. Thousands of individuals and companies had paid DataBlast to advertise their products—mostly self-published books and weight-loss creams—on the flashing sides of cheap websites and in off-brand search engines. For every ten advertisements they paid for, one or two were actually posted, while a well-designed cookie, downloaded without the customers’ knowledge, projected their own advertisements wherever they looked. When the customer searched the Web, their product was omnipresent. When their customers searched, there was nothing.
“Hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars were lost,” Kristen said, clicking to the next slide in her PowerPoint. A pie chart showed a swath of blue, representing dollars spent without service in return. “Moreover, if we can show that DataBlast customers forwent other advertising opportunities, believing their message was reaching targeted buyers, we can argue that they lost millions in potential revenue.” She adjusted her glasses and regarded the partners.
“The Falcon Law Group hasn’t attempted a class action of this kind for a long time,” Donna added.
“It’s no secret that we’re considering you for partner,” Falcon said. “Usually we’d have several people on a case this size, but Donna suggested you could handle it alone, with her standing in as cocounsel, purely for our clients’ peace of mind.”
“Right,” Kristen said, but she was thinking about Marydale. The morning of New Year’s Day, she had felt Marydale rise and assumed she was going to the bathroom. She had drifted off, but when she woke, the bed was cold.
&nbs
p; “We want to try this case by May,” Falcon added.
Outside, the rain had resumed, turning the magical snow into a gray slurry.
“But that is going to require your complete dedication. There is no time for distractions, Ms. Brock. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“Are you prepared for that?”
“Yes.”
One of the younger partners, an attorney from the East Coast who handled their contracts division, added, “Are you excited?”
He was handsome. Donna had always thought so, and occasionally they talked about him over drinks. Kristen couldn’t see it now, and she couldn’t formulate the right answer. Was she excited for a chance at partner? To invest in the Falcon Law Group and, in return, earn a percentage of their sizable profits? To buy a larger condo? A better car?
“It’s my job,” she said.
Falcon laughed. “That’s the spirit. Cool as a cucumber.”
The men left the room, talking over each other and checking their phones. Donna came by her office later and closed the door behind her.
“Rutger is salivating over this settlement.”
“It’s not going to be that much after we settle between all the claimants.”
Kristen tried to focus on Donna and not the streams of rain sliding down the window.
“You’re so cute,” Donna said. “He doesn’t want the settlement. He wants Tri-State Global Advertising.”
Kristen shook her head.
“DataBlast’s competitor!” Donna exclaimed. “Kristen, where are you? He’s wanted them for years. You know that. If the court hits DataBlast with a couple millions dollars, DataBlast is out of business, and Tri-State Global signs on with the Falcon Law Group. That account will make millions.”
5
Marydale stood in the back of the Sadfire Distillery, trying to show the latest interns from the First House, a halfway house and felon rehabilitation center, how to affix the sepia-toned stickers to the tops of a new batch of Consummation Rye. She put a sticker on a bottle, perfectly centered with the label. The interns, Mike and Ax, regarded her with bored expressions.
“Now, we’ll pay you minimum wage while you’re here,” she said, repeating the stickering process again. “I remember what it was like to be out of prison and have everyone think they can cheat you because you’re so damn grateful to have a job.”
“Do we get a bottle?” Ax asked. He was about twenty-five, with a blurry tattoo of a date and the words RIP Jayden on his neck.
“Yeah, dog!” Mike bumped fists with Ax, although Mike could easily have been Ax’s grandfather.
“Do you really think bringing a bottle of alcohol back to a transition house where a lot of people are recovering from addiction is a good idea?” Marydale asked.
“We could drink it on the way back,” Ax suggested. “On the TriMet.”
Marydale shot him a look. She usually liked working with the parolees from the First House. She liked their banter and their bravado and the boyish humility that lived just below the surface of their prison tattoos and gold-plated jewelry. But today she had no patience.
“If you think this is about drinking whiskey out of a Coke bottle on the train—”
Ax and Mike laughed.
“It’s not!” Marydale picked up a bottle. “Whiskey is about a story. It’s about a place and time and a moment you share with your friends, your God, your land. If you want to pound shots, you might as well just hit your head against that wall there. Because that’s not what we do here.”
She shoved a strip of labels into Mike’s hand.
“Sheesh,” Mike said.
Ax said, “Sorry, ma’am.”
He tried sticking a label across the top of a bottle. It went on crooked, and he tried to peel it off.
“It’s fine,” Marydale said. “Just put one goddamn sticker on every bottle. That’s not hard.”
Aldean hurried in from the front office, where he had been checking purchase orders. He looked worried.
“What?” Marydale asked. “We’re just getting started here.”
Aldean touched her arm. He turned away from Ax and Mike. “Kristen’s here,” he said.
“Tell her to go away.”
Aldean shook his head. “She’s called six or ten times.”
“And you’ve never dodged a girl’s calls.”
“That’s different.” Aldean dropped his voice to a whisper. “You’re miserable, Mary. Just go talk to her. If you don’t, I’m going to send her back here.”
Mike and Ax looked interested.
Marydale hurried to the back bathroom and checked her face in the cloudy mirror. She was wearing an enormous Sadfire sweatshirt, a misorder from an overseas screen printer. She could hear her mother: bone structure, good posture, and bright eyes. She straightened her shoulders and walked into the tasting room, where Kristen was standing by the counter.
“Hello,” she said as Marydale approached.
Marydale leaned on the counter.
“I wanted to see you,” Kristen said.
Aldean appeared in the doorway.
“It’s freezing in here, Mary. You should take her down to the Tristess.”
Marydale didn’t want Kristen sitting in her tiny houseboat with its cheap wood veneer and its peeling Formica counters, but she didn’t want to talk to her in front of Aldean or in the range of Mike’s and Ax’s curious glances.
“I live around the corner,” she said reluctantly.
She didn’t look at Kristen as she exited the building. Together they picked their way down the metal gangplank to the Tristess. Marydale threw her leg over the side of the boat and climbed onto the deck. She didn’t offer Kristen a hand. When they were inside, she gestured for Kristen to sit on one of the benches that lined the living room. She sat across from her, as far away as the tiny space allowed.
“You didn’t call,” Kristen said.
“You’ve never had a one-night stand?” Marydale stretched her arms along the back of the bench.
“Not with you,” Kristen said.
Marydale said nothing.
Kristen sat very upright. Beneath the open front of her overcoat, her suit fit her body perfectly, or perhaps her body fit the suit, like a mannequin designed to wear the smallest size behind glass. Still there was something raw in her voice. Marydale looked away.
“I know sex doesn’t have to mean something,” Kristen added. “People sleep together and don’t get married, but I’d like to see you, just to have coffee or a happy hour drink after work. I want to get to know you again.”
“I run Sadfire. There. You know me.”
“When I saw you at the hotel…” Kristen clamped her hands together with a decisive gesture. Marydale could imagine her negotiating with a lawyer on the other side of a case. She’d never raise her voice, and she’d never lose. I have all day to wait for you to be reasonable, her face seemed to say. “I’m not asking for a commitment, just a possibility.”
Marydale remembered Kristen sitting across from her in the jail five years earlier. I worked hard to go to law school. The five years that had intervened felt like a breath. Kristen had come back. Kristen had found her. But five years had changed everything, and Marydale had rehearsed this moment in her mind. She had practiced, so she would get it right now.
“You look great,” Marydale said, “and if it was just sex, I’d give it one more go, but I don’t think that’s a good idea, and I don’t want to get drinks. New Year’s Eve was fun. Let’s make it a clean break.”
“I—” Kristen began.
“All the reasons why you left…nothing’s changed.”
“I’ve changed,” Kristen said.
“I didn’t think you’d stay in Tristess. I didn’t think we’d get married and run a ranch,” Marydale said. “But I thought you’d at least write. I thought you’d at least be my friend. Maybe it was easy for you to forget—”
“It’s wasn’t easy!” Kristen stood and cro
ssed the room in one stride. She sat next to Marydale. “I never forgot you.”
“And now you want to do happy hour. I had to live in Tristess for two years after you left. I had no one. Aldean was in Portland. They sanctioned me so many times. I was so fucking unhappy, and all I wanted was to know that you remembered me.”
As soon as she uttered the words, she knew her practice was for nothing. She had meant to be cool, a bit flirtatious, and absolutely certain. I’m afraid you missed your chance, Ms. Brock. She hadn’t meant to be honest. Marydale looked down at her hands. Her nails were dirty, and there was a burn on the back of her hand from when she’d been soldering a clamp onto one of the tanks.
“You didn’t look for me either,” Kristen said.
“I couldn’t leave the county. And what would you have done if I’d shown up at your firm? A felon on parole on abscond?” Suddenly Marydale wanted to cry. “How could I feel like I had the right when you left because just rooming with me put your whole life at risk? You had all those dreams.”
“I wasn’t just rooming with you.”
“New Year’s Eve was a mistake.” Marydale pushed up her sleeves, revealing her tattoos. “I’m a con. I’m a felon. I’m never going to get away from that.”
Kristen reached for Marydale’s wrist, running the fingers of her other hand up Marydale’s arm, stroking the delicate skin at the apex of her elbow. Marydale tried to pull away…but not really…and Kristen held her with a gentle grasp.
“You’ve lived through so much,” Kristen said.
“Or not enough.”
Kristen touched Marydale’s cheek and then her ear, rubbing the swirl of Marydale’s ear with her thumb, around and around, until Marydale lowered her head toward Kristen’s caress.
“I don’t think we’re just two people who slept together on accident,” Kristen said.
“It happens all the time,” Marydale said. “It’s what single people do on New Year’s Eve.”
In the back of her mind, Marydale thought of the women she had been with since Kristen left her in the Tristess jail. How many times had she hurried through a kiss or ended an embrace so she could grab her lover’s hand and press it to her crotch. Like this. A little harder. Faster. Getting off: that’s all she’d wanted. Now Marydale longed to sink into Kristen’s arms like a lover, like a child, like a sinner in a country church. But between them was a wealth of cashmere and tailored linen. Kristen was a lawyer from Portland’s most conservative law firm, or so the Willamette Weekly had labeled the Falcon Law Group. A professional. A winner.
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