by Robbi McCoy
“Jen,” Cassie directed, “tell your coming out story.”
Jennifer swished her paintbrush in a glass of water. “Not much to tell. I never had a boyfriend. I always knew I liked girls. Had my first girlfriend when I was fourteen. Been through bunches of them since.” She grinned tauntingly at Cassie, who shoved her playfully.
Jennifer returned to her painting, which was turning into an intricate floral design.
“Cassie?” Faith prompted.
“Yes, all right.” Cassie glanced at Lauren with a comfortable smile. “I struggled with my sexuality as a teenager. I thought I was a lesbian, but wasn’t sure and didn’t really want to be. I liked boys okay, as friends, and at that age, it was hard to tell the difference, so I ended up getting married after high school, like Faith. We had a son, Eric, who’s being raised by his father. He’s fifteen now.”
“Your ex-husband has custody, you mean?” Faith asked.
“Right. With Lucas, Eric’s had a stable home.” For the first time since they’d met, Lauren saw Cassie grow solemn. “When we got divorced, my life was a mess, so it was the best thing for everyone.”
“Do you see him?” Lauren asked, pausing her brush to give her full attention to Cassie.
“Yes. He comes for visits. A very nice boy. Not into sports. Studious type. Lucas and Judy have done a great job with him.”
“He is very nice,” Jennifer said. “They live in San Francisco, so we don’t see him much. We had him for two weeks this summer. He’s interested in cooking, so we let him take over the kitchen while he was there, which was fine with me.” Jennifer and Cassie smiled knowingly at one another. “It was fun. We never knew what we were going to see on our plates.”
“Maybe spiny lobster,” suggested Faith.
Cassie laughed. “Could have been if he’d have seen any around.”
Noticing that Faith had still put nothing on her fan, Lauren pointed threateningly at the paper in front of her.
“Okay,” Faith relented, dipping her brush in a random bottle of paint.
Cassie was drawing birds, white and black birds with long legs, most likely storks or cranes. Jennifer’s design was becoming something unexpectedly attractive. She had gnarled branches of red and pink blossoms nearly covering the space, looking remarkably adept. A few spiky leaves appeared here and there. At the moment she was drawing convincing Chinese characters in a section of open space above her branches. Obviously, Jennifer wasn’t new to watercolors.
Impressive, Lauren thought, then caught Cassie watching her. Indicating Jennifer’s painting with her eyes, Cassie gave a nod of agreement and a close-lipped smile before returning to her own painting.
Cassie’s face was very expressive, hardly ever at rest and often amused. She smiled a lot with her eyes, her lips pressed tightly together like now, but when she laughed, it was a wide-open laugh that showed all her upper teeth.
I like her! Lauren thought, surprising herself.
She painted some green shapes amid her orange shapes, trying for lily pads. She put some black dots on her fish for eyes and decided she was done. Besides, the instructor was now calling for the group to fold their fans and glue them to the sticks.
“How did you two meet?” Cassie asked, applying a thin line of glue to her paper folds.
Faith, who had now managed to paint a single, solid yellow circle on her paper, glanced at Lauren. “Do you want to tell it, honey?”
“Okay.” Lauren tore her gaze from Faith’s stark painting. “I was working for the USDA as a soil conservation technician, an entry-level job. It was my first real job out of college. So, you know, young, no clout. I met Faith when I was called out to an experimental lawn seed farm.”
“Lawn seed?” Cassie asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Like you plant in your yard. Fescue, ryegrass. That sort of thing. It’s a big business in Oregon. Rains all the time, so grass grows like, well, like weeds. The farm itself was powered completely by solar energy. Very progressive at the time. So they were partly funded by a government grant. Anyway, they were just getting started, plowing the land, and they turned up some bones.”
Jennifer looked up with an expression of terror. A bit of an overreaction, Lauren thought.
“Human bones,” Faith added.
Jennifer grimaced, but kept folding her fan with care into thin, even sections.
Lauren continued. “We had our archaeologist go out, verified the bones were human, called a halt to the work. Then we called the university to ask for a specialist. They sent Faith.”
“When I arrived,” Faith said, “I noticed Lauren right away. She was wearing field boots, jeans, flannel work shirt. She looked so cute, but she couldn’t pull off being in command. She started quoting regulations to me about the removal of human remains, as if I wouldn’t have known all about that already.”
“She ignored me,” Lauren said good-naturedly.
Faith shrugged. “Yeah, I did. At least in my official capacity. But I was definitely paying attention. She was such a sweet little thing, shy and flustered, trying desperately to assert some authority. And failing miserably.”
“Faith was just the opposite,” Lauren said. “Came in and took charge. I was actually really glad about that because I didn’t have a clue what to do. I was on the radio the whole time with my supervisor. Once he heard Dr. Sorensen was on site, he said, ‘Just do whatever she says.’”
Faith raised her eyebrows suggestively and said, “And she did, too. She was so obedient.”
Jennifer giggled and Lauren felt herself blushing.
“So you asked her out?” Cassie asked.
“I did, but not that day. As darling as she was, I didn’t immediately consider it because she seemed so young. She looked all of sixteen. I called a week later to tell her I’d arranged for the excavation of the remains. While we were talking, I just felt the impulse and asked her to meet me for coffee.” Faith turned to Lauren with an affectionate smile. “Fifteen years later, here we are.”
Lauren reached over and rested her hand on Faith’s shoulder. “She’s not much of an artist, but she does have her fine points.”
They all looked at Faith’s creation, a piece of flat paper with one large smiley face in the center.
“Jennifer, on the other hand,” Faith observed, “has brought forth a masterpiece.”
Jennifer held her fan in front of her face, just below her eyes, and fluttered her eyelashes. Her fan was gorgeous, so much so that the instructor confiscated it to add to his sample collection. But not before they had taken photos of her waving her fan in several seductive poses. Lauren captured one charming picture of both Jennifer and Cassie holding their fans open below their chins. Such a cute couple, Lauren thought. What a lucky surprise to have run into this pair so far from home.
Chapter Four
Traveling upstream on the Yangtze from Wuhan, the ship entered the Three Gorges area on the first full day of cruising. Most of the time was spent gawking from the top deck of the ship at the deep, dramatic V plunge of the mountains on either side of the river. The color of the water in the Xiling Gorge was reddish brown like mud and the sky was gray and thick, overhung with low, wet clouds. Dark green vegetation was interspersed with buff-colored rock on either shore.
Everybody was crowding the stern, taking pictures. Occasionally, a burst of narration came from the loudspeakers with facts about life on the river, the history of the area and the changes that were expected once the dam was in place. The story of the Yangtze was now meshed inextricably with the progress of the dam.
Lauren hugged her jacket over her sweatshirt as they passed a wall pockmarked by small caves and topped with intricately-shaped pinnacles.
“The cliffs on either side of the gorge,” boomed the heavily-accented voice on the loudspeaker, “are composed of limestone, easily soluble by groundwater. In a landscape like this, which is called karst topography, caves are common features. We are now passing the Three Travelers Cave, named for three f
amous poets from the Tang Dynasty. Inside the cave are numerous inscriptions from visitors throughout the ages. The interior of the cave serves as an impromptu museum of the development of the Chinese alphabet over the centuries.”
Lauren looked around for Faith and located her on the port side of the ship, bundled up with a knit cap and muffler. She hurried across the deck as the narrator continued.
“The Three Travelers arrived at different times in history, discovering the cave by chance. They stayed briefly and left their poems on its walls. They never met one another, but their words live here together for all time.”
Lauren sidled up to Faith, observing her red nose. “I’m going inside for a while. I’ll be back when we get to Wu Gorge.”
“Okay. I’m going to stay up here a little longer.”
Lauren nodded, then made a dash for the stairs, skipping down to the main deck and the galley. Inside, she saw Cassie sitting alone over a steaming mug at one of the tables. She had on a cable-knit sweater and jeans. Her jacket hung on the back of her chair. A camera sat on the table beside her mug.
“Hey,” Lauren said, “what are you drinking?”
“Hot chocolate.”
“That sounds perfect.” She went to the beverage machine and served herself a mug, then returned to Cassie’s table. From where she sat, she could see the legs of people on the deck above through the window.
“I didn’t expect it to be so cold,” Cassie said. “I didn’t even bring gloves. You know how you can’t conceive of cold weather when you’re home packing in the summertime.”
“I know. But I’ve been caught so many times without the right gear that I pack it all now.”
Lauren removed her gloves and wrapped her hands around the mug to warm them.
“Actually,” Cassie said, “I don’t even own a pair of gloves. Even in winter, Albuquerque is usually very mild.”
Lauren gulped down some of the hot chocolate. “Is that where you’re from, originally?”
“No. I was born in Montana. We moved to Nevada when I was in high school, mainly to get out of the cold. That’s where I met Lucas and got married. Then, after the divorce, I moved to Albuquerque because that’s where my girlfriend’s family was. Been there ever since.”
“And Lucas moved to California?”
“Right.”
“Siblings?” Lauren asked.
“I’m an only child like my son Eric. What about you? What’s your family story?”
“Born in Washington, just across the river from Portland. Never moved around much. My parents divorced when I was six and then my mother remarried a couple years later. I’ve got three brothers, but the only one I’m close to is Jim. He’s the youngest.”
“No sisters?” Cassie pushed her empty cup aside.
“No. I always wanted one. I begged my parents for a sister. And then they had another boy. I thought they were extremely unreasonable.”
Cassie smiled, displaying her dimples. “Are your parents living?”
“My mother is. She and Riley, my stepfather, still live in the house I was born in. But we don’t see each other. They aren’t happy about the direction of my life.”
Cassie nodded knowingly. “They’ve got something against the Department of Agriculture, huh?”
Lauren let out a sputtering laugh.
Cassie put her hand on Lauren’s, saying, “Sorry. I couldn’t resist that. And I’m sorry your family is unsympathetic. That’s always tough.”
Lauren glanced at Cassie’s hand covering hers and it was immediately withdrawn.
“That hot chocolate really hit the spot,” Cassie said. “Feeling much warmer now.”
Lauren took another drink. “I meant to tell you Faith got permission for you and Jennifer to come on our hike tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s great news! What time do we leave?”
“As soon as we dock. I think it’s around nine.” Lauren noticed the serious-looking camera on the table between them. “That’s a nice camera.”
“Thanks.” Cassie put a hand on her camera. “I’ve been really happy with it.”
“Are you a photographer?”
“Oh, no! I just dabble, but I enjoy it. It’s a hobby. With the mist and the drizzle we’ve got today, I’m getting some fantastic shots.”
“Neither of us is much of a photographer,” admitted Lauren. “Faith is forever cutting the tops off people’s heads. So much so I don’t ever trust her to take a picture anymore. I’m not a lot better, but with the no-muss, no-fuss camera we’ve got, you can’t go too far wrong. I generally take the pictures when we’re on one of these research trips.”
“I’d be happy to do that tomorrow,” Cassie offered, patting her camera. “Maybe that’d be a way of saying thank you for the adventure.”
“That’s a good idea. Thanks.”
The song playing on the ship’s omnipresent soundtrack, an instrumental version of “Fascination” broke into Lauren’s consciousness. “Do you know this song?”
Cassie narrowed her eyes and tuned in. “Oh, sure. I love it. An old favorite.”
“Me too.”
Cassie hummed along with the song, then smiled warmly at Lauren. “My grandmother had a seventy-eight with that song on it. I think I still know all the words.”
“Was it the Nat King Cole version?”
“No. A woman.” Cassie looked thoughtful. “I think it was Jane Morgan.”
“I don’t know her.”
“She was a big sensation during World War II, but people don’t remember her. We used to listen to those records all the time, me and Grandma. She never did get rid of them. Dinah Shore, Doris Day and Nat King Cole too. I still have some of her seventy-eights, though I have nothing to play them on. Just one of those things that’s hard to get rid of. Such happy memories.”
“It’d be fun to play those again, wouldn’t it?” Lauren suggested.
“Yeah, it would. It’s funny they play this sort of music here, don’t you think?”
“They’re trying not to offend anybody, I’m guessing. Personally, I wouldn’t mind some traditional Chinese music. Same thing in a Chinese restaurant. Give me Chinese music, not Tony Bennett. Or Greek music in a Greek restaurant. I never understand why that isn’t just standard practice. You don’t go to a restaurant just for the food. You go for the atmosphere.”
“I totally agree with you,” Cassie declared. “We were at this Japanese restaurant a few weeks ago and I thought the same thing. Here I am sitting beside a huge Buddha statue in a red throne, amid watercolor murals of blossoming cherry trees and girls in colorful kimonos, eating this soba noodle soup and drinking sake accompanied by ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ Now, I’m a big Rod Stewart fan, but that just wasn’t right, you know?”
Lauren nodded as several pairs of legs walked past the window. “Looks like the sun’s coming out.”
Cassie turned around to look. “Good. Maybe I’ll wander back up on deck.”
“See you in a while, then.”
As Cassie left, Lauren watched her denim-covered legs climb up the stairs outside the galley and onto the top deck. She finished her cocoa slowly, noticing that the song now playing was “I’d Like to Get You on a Slow Boat to China.”
Chapter Five
The ship’s lounge was dimly lit, crowded with square tables, chairs and loveseats, with a small stage at one end. A piano player provided a background of instrumental versions of familiar pop songs which could be easily tuned out. The four women sat at one of the tables, no one else near, with drinks in front of them. It had been Lauren’s suggestion to meet Cassie and Jennifer in the lounge after dinner. Faith was glad because there was no entertainment scheduled tonight.
“I hope the weather’s better tomorrow,” Lauren said, leaning drowsily against Faith. “By better I mean warmer. I thought my nose was going to fall off today up on deck”
“As long as it’s not raining,” Faith said. “Rain would be the worst.”
Cassie reached for h
er glass. Like Lauren, she was drinking scotch. Faith had never liked scotch. To her, it tasted like burnt wood. But she wasn’t much for any type of hard liquor. She preferred wine or fruity mixed drinks like the margarita she’d ordered tonight.
“Will we cancel if it rains?” Jennifer asked.
“No,” said Faith. “You can decide tomorrow morning if it’s worth it to you, once we see the weather forecast. We’re going, regardless. This entire trip was planned for the hanging coffins.”
As the waiter passed near them, Jennifer waved him over and ordered another glass of wine. “I’ll buy this round,” she offered.
“In that case, I’ll have another,” Cassie said. “Lauren? Faith?”
Lauren nodded. Faith waved the offer off, as her first glass was still half full.
When the waiter withdrew, Cassie asked, “Is this research for a book, or what?”
“An article,” Faith said. “Eventually maybe a book.”
“Second book,” Lauren said. “Faith’s already published one.”
“Oh, really.” Cassie looked intrigued and trained her gaze on Faith. “What’s it about?”
“Burial customs,” Faith answered. “The rituals and beliefs surrounding death and life after death. Like mummification. That sort of thing.”
“That’s morbid,” Jennifer said, looking like she’d eaten something nasty.
“You must encounter some grisly scenes in your line of work too,” Faith pointed out, “with considerably more blood and gore than my old bones.”
“Yes, but most of those people are still alive. They’re just people. They aren’t skeletons or mummies or something creepy like that.”
The waiter returned with their second round of drinks, disrupting conversation as he cleared the empty glasses.
Cassie leaned toward Faith and said, “Give an example of some strange burial practice from your book.”
“Here we go,” Lauren warned with a short laugh. “You’re in for a lecture now.” She picked up her glass and tucked her legs into the love seat, getting comfortable.