It's a Crime

by Jacqueline Carey

  The lawyer at first assumed that Virginia wanted to hear about his Christmas tree farm. What else was there to come to the area for, other than nature? But Virginia preferred to hear about his engagingly raffish practice. Although it may not have been particularly successful, he seemed to have made something vital and real out of it.

  Problems arose when he expected her to join him in grilling a piece of meat or watching a movie. He appeared quite natural in the midst of these activities, but Virginia always felt as if she were pretending to be someone else. It was nearly impossible to agree on what film to watch. Virginia saw sinister overtones to most comedies, which she wouldn’t have minded, except that the makers themselves didn’t seem to recognize them. Dramas, on the whole, were worse. Visual media by their very nature lied about death, she claimed after sitting through a John Woo movie.

  “I guess it was pretty violent,” said the Christmas tree farmer.

  “I don’t care about that,” said Virginia. “What I care about is the pretense that death isn’t real. Look at it this way. Say you’re supposed to identify with one of the characters. Not the main character, generally. But still, a key person. At least some of the shots are from his point of view, and the emotional truth in a couple of the scenes is his. In a sense, you become him. Briefly. Now say this character dies. What you’re essentially getting as a viewer is the chance to see yourself after you’re dead. The movie implies that once you’re dead you can become someone else, at least insofar as you can come out of your body to look back at it. I’m not saying it’s not a great fantasy. I wish it were true. But it’s not. And it can make death seem all too attractive.”

  The Christmas tree farmer looked at her warily, as if he’d suddenly realized she was too crazy to talk to.

  Did he think her theory was the result of an unhealthy obsession with death? Or did he think she thought he thought it did? A Möbius strip like this could wear you out in no time. It was the beginning of the end.

  She still didn’t like to think of the last time she saw him. It gave her the creeps. Afterward she became the true loner she was probably always supposed to be. Her unvarying black jeans, black zip-up sweatshirt, and black cowboy boots (now split) prompted a new checkout girl at the supermarket to ask once if she were in mourning. Virginia was tempted to say “yes”—and mean it—because she was mourning her own self but of course she said nothing.

  Even before her ruin, her strict economies meant that she bought family-size packages for the savings and doggedly ate the same cut of chicken for a week. She knew that the discounted old vegetables were put out on Mondays at Hannaford and Thursdays at the health food store. She saved the juice from canned peas to make rice with. Oh, she managed to find further cuts she could make. She switched to lentils. She gave up coffee. She wrote down every penny she spent, even a quarter for a newspaper. Then she gave up the paper. Maybe she could move to a place without a kitchen? Raw food was supposed to be very good for you.

  Her mind was spinning. Her thoughts were like paisley. It was as if she’d been hit on the head, and now she was seeing the stars. After all these years of struggle, it was over. She’d lost. In order to go out and grab life and throttle it and turn it upside down so that what she wanted would clatter free, she would have to transform the debacle itself, and she could not. She wrote about crime. She finally was the victim of a huge, headline-grabbing one. You’d think that at least on paper she could find some alternate universe in which to fit it. But no, this billion-dollar accounting crime was too big to flip over, too dull to dress up, too obvious to hide. Ruin had turned out to be completely colorless, tedious, dull beyond compare.

  She walked faster and faster as she crossed the bridge. The cold was creeping into her foot from the crack in her boot and it was blowing straight into her head through her black watch cap. She was surprised to see the youngest of the waitresses, Molly, standing coatless on the dock that gave the restaurant its name. She was a plump, pleasant girl who was as tough as fungus. Beside her a tourist was leaning over the railing and pointing to the oyster “nursery” maintained there. The tourist wore a large L.L. Bean down parka, a fur cap, expensive jeans, and, despite the gray day, very dark narrow sunglasses. Her hair stuck out in stylish tousled wedges from either side of her hat. Her words wafted across the lazy silver meanders of the river: “It looks a little chilly to me, but then I’m not an oyster. I think it’s really hard to identify with one, very different from identifying with a cat or a dog or even a fiercer mammal, but you probably wouldn’t want to start identifying too much with an oyster, anyway, because how would you ever let one slip down your throat again? Empathy is all very well, but you can start out a vegetarian and end up afraid to walk outside for fear of stepping on an ant. And I do so love the tang of an oyster. Pemaquid, did you say yours was called?”

  It was Pat Guiney, now Foy, Virginia’s best friend from high school. Virginia stopped and stared. Her ex-husband had come to town a few years before, on his way up to Nova Scotia, and Virginia hadn’t recognized him, despite the fact that he’d called and arranged to meet her in a café down the street, so she’d known he was going to be there when she walked in. The Boston Red Sox cap, coupled with the gray hair, had been a very good disguise. But Pat looked the same, only more vivid, as if she’d been styled for a magazine shoot rather than stuck in real life. Certainly no one in real life still talked at the high pitch she did, eagerly dancing from foot to foot. Virginia hadn’t been back to New Jersey for years, since her father died and her stepmother moved up to the Berkshires. She hadn’t seen Pat for longer. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen a picture of her. Yet here was Pat herself, resettling her fur hat on her head and calling, “Look at that! Do my eyes deceive me? No! It’s Ginny, appearing like something out of a dream! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m a waitress,” said Virginia matter-of-factly.

  CHAPTER

  13

  You never could fluster Pat—or maybe she was always as flustered as she ever got. “Well it certainly agrees with you!” she cried as Virginia found herself going into the restaurant with her. “What a wonderful place to work! And you’re so thin! I’d never have the willpower if I were around food all day. Imagine being able to pick oysters whenever you wanted! I thought I was lucky because I have fresh herbs on my kitchen windowsill.”

  Virginia left to put her jacket in the back room, intending to explain to Molly that she would sit for only a few minutes, but Pat detained the younger waitress to compliment her gold hoop earrings, which were in no way unusual except that they were a bit bent: “I love them! Where did you get them? I must have a pair.” And when Virginia returned, fresh-faced Molly was actually in a conversation with her.

  “How about I order lots and lots of things,” said Pat. “To make stealing your colleague here worth your while.”

  “Oh, it’s not that busy,” said Molly, waving her hand magnanimously. “Steal away.”

  Certainly an unfortunate choice of words.

  Virginia was still standing, in her waitress position, order pad out. She felt slightly dizzy.

  “Well!” said Pat brightly. “How are you?”

  Virginia was stymied for a moment.

  “That’s a complicated question right now, isn’t it?” said Pat. “For me, too. Do you recommend anything here? Each item looks better than the last.”

  It was all pretty ordinary. Pat was bound to be disappointed, used as she was to much more sophisticated places. “It’s just regular food,” said Virginia.

  “Oysters! Regular!” said Pat happily. “Well, I know what I want. Scrambled eggs and oysters. Don’t you see—it’s breakfast and lunch at the same time. And I haven’t had either.”

  When Molly rejoined them, she was wearing a black cardigan, maybe because she’d gotten chilled outside, or maybe not, because she had grown up in Maine, after all, where T-shirts came out at the first glimpse of snowmelt. Besides, she certainly didn’t seem annoyed w
ith Pat. Virginia had seen Molly freeze out tourists with politeness, and this was the opposite.

  “I need coffee, too,” said Pat. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go on without coffee. Is it good?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty good,” said Molly. “You think?” she said to Virginia, who frowned, but nodded.

  “Wonderful! I can’t wait! Ginny, you must have some, too. I can’t be the only caffeinated person in this conversation.”

  Virginia, still standing, said that she wasn’t hungry. It was the first thing that came into her head because it was such a total lie. Normally she would eat something for free in the kitchen, but she couldn’t expect to do that out here, and she had no capacity for the kind of calculations required before she ordered food. Pat would probably pay, but right now Virginia could not think out the implications of letting her do so. And Pat could conceivably be ruined as well. Probably you should try to treat a woman whose husband was sent to jail, anyway, although in this case that was out of the question. Virginia had about seven dollars in her pocket, enough to cover the coffee Pat was ordering for her, but not a whole lot more.

  “I’m sure you’ll be hungry by the time I finish talking,” said Pat. (Making Molly laugh! She couldn’t have spent all her life in Maine.)

  When Virginia demurred again, Pat said, “I think we need several appetizers then, to tide us over.”

  A couple whom Virginia knew vaguely came in, crossed in front of them, and sat on the other side of the room, closer to the pearly gray window. Pat had instinctively sat where it was warmer, but this couple, if they were going to live in Damariscotta, had to wring every last bit of scenic pleasure from it. They were fit, trim, dressed quietly in navy blue and beige, almost holding hands next to the nest formed by the salt and pepper shakers, sugar packet dispenser, and pimpled red candle holder. Virginia had seen them in here before, eating with the “à la mode” couple. They were the sort responsible for the success of the Dock and for the hipness of the new tourist shops beyond it. (The art gallery still closed for the winter, but the fancy children’s clothing store remained open.) Their paper towels were recycled and their eggs came from cage-free hens and their clothes wicked away moisture from the skin. They would be wondering who Pat was. Pat percolated as she sat there, everyone’s eyes were drawn to her, and she did look absurdly well off. Even Virginia could tell that the purse shaped like a doctor’s bag had cost a fortune.

  Handing Pat’s order over to Molly, Virginia sat down at the table. “Are you on your way somewhere?” she asked.

  “I’m on my way here,” said Pat. “Ruby went on a school trip to Washington yesterday, and after dinner I fell straight to sleep. When I woke up, it was two-thirty. Eventually I just jumped in the car. Neil always claimed he could get to Maine in six hours, and I think I beat him.”

  An icy finger touched Virginia’s heart. One of the most notorious of LinkAge’s officers was named Neil. “Neil,” she repeated, too disheartened to ask if this was the Neil that Pat was referring to. Absurdly, Virginia looked over at the telecommuters, to see if they’d heard.

  “Someone Frank worked for,” said Pat. “Neil Culp.”

  “You know Neil Culp.”

  Culp’s appearance before a House investigating committee had been on CNN. Virginia would never forget his smug, meaty face. A congressman tried to ask him about a note he’d written to Riley Gibbs, which started, “I think they’re onto us” and ended, “It’s a crime.” Culp refused to answer on the grounds that he might incriminate himself. Then he read a statement saying he’d testify and clear his good name as soon as his lawyers let him. In other words he had it both ways: He didn’t have to answer questions, but he was allowed to speak to defend himself. She was astonished that Pat and her husband could have talked to him as if he were human.

  Pat cocked and swiveled her head as she always had when she was upset, when she suspected criticism. Back in high school these bird-like movements of self-doubt would have been prompted by one of the popular girls policing Pat’s behavior or maybe one of the wiseacre boys crashing heedlessly about. It would never have been caused by Virginia.

  Pat pressed forward as valiantly as she always had, no matter what the company. In high school, she would have been claiming that Lemuel Samuel’s books were better than any rock ’n’ roll song ever written. Here at the Dock she was saying that Neil Culp used to be a neighbor in Hart Ridge.

  Virginia’s basement apartment was in a house owned by the local army recruiter who still found time to hunt most weekends despite the possibility of war in Iraq. He drove a jeep and had a rough, incurious hello for Virginia whenever he saw her. His wife told her where she could buy Christmas cards or winter gloves or rubber sandals off season at incredible discounts. Their two children stopped playing and parted silently whenever they saw Virginia approach or leave her separate entrance. These were the sort of neighbors that Virginia had—the sort you were supposed to protect. You could never allow them to discover some horror in their basement.

  “Do you know Riley Gibbs, too?” she asked.

  “Not really,” said Pat. “I saw him across the room a couple of times.”

  There was a silence. In an earlier life Virginia could have at least imagined carrying on this conversation with aplomb. Now she did not even wish to do so.

  “So, anyway,” said Pat. “I left about three or so, and here I am.” She opened her hands as if to show she was carrying no weapon.

  “I see,” said Virginia, eyeing the outstretched arms.

  “I don’t sleep a whole lot right now. I usually wake every hour or two. You know I always was sort of wakeful.”

  It was certainly true that Pat’s eyes were as wide as empty plates.

  “That’s how I ended up memorizing all those plant lists,” said Pat. “Very, very useful for a landscape designer. But it’s harder for me to sit still now. I have a tendency to prowl. That’s when I jumped in the car. I decided I simply had to talk to you.”

  “I was up at three,” said Virginia suddenly. She’d been worrying about money, of course. It was odd that in the black hole of the night, for maybe an hour or two, she and Pat had been on parallel courses.

  “I heard from Pamela that you owned some LinkAge stock,” said Pat with a spacy smile. “I want to reimburse you for it.”

  Despair struck Virginia dumb.

  “I can, really,” said Pat. “We live on Douglas Point now, didn’t you hear? Frank may not have made as much money as Neil, but he still made a lot.” She was sitting up as bright as a squirrel.

  Virginia shook her head.

  “Frank feels uncomfortable having all this money, when his friends have been hurt,” said Pat.

  This notion of “being hurt” almost made Virginia cry. She tried to compose herself. “How is Frank?” she said.

  “He’s in jail,” said Pat. “I visit him every two weeks.”

  Another silence. “Are you going to eat this roll?” asked Virginia at last.

  Pat shook her head, shuddering slightly.

  “It’s pretty good.” It had been supplied by the hippie bakery one town over. The top was floury, the inside was rich and heavy, and a hint of sugar syrup coated the bottom and sides. “I’ll save that one for you, and have this other, if you don’t mind,” said Virginia, selecting a less tasty wheat roll, which at least had the virtue of biting back when you bit into it.

  “It doesn’t bother me that Frank is in jail,” declared Pat. “Not one bit.”

  She really was a lunatic.

  “Don’t you need the money?” asked Pat.

  Virginia frowned, her mind shutting with a snap. She couldn’t take a handout, even from Pat.

  “How much did you lose?” asked Pat.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” said Virginia.

  Molly arrived with four plates of appetizers.

  “My! How beautiful!” cried Pat. Then, right in front of Molly, she continued, “The judge told Frank he wouldn’t ask for restitu
tion because it was impossible to determine the victims. But it’s not like you’re the only person I’m reimbursing.”

  “Why don’t you leave me alone?” cried Virginia, afraid that her face had crumpled. First she was ruined, and then her inability to deal with her ruin was revealed for all to see.

  Pat looked stricken. “I’ve known Ginny for more than twenty-five years,” she said to Molly. “And she is the only person who has always known exactly what I was talking about.”

  “Oh, Pat,” said Virginia faintly. There were stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, endive salad, and a square foot of nachos.

  “No, really,” said Pat. “I mean it.”

  “She’s a smart one,” said Molly. An exit line.

  “The food’s great,” said Pat.

  Virginia nodded.

  “Just as I expected.”

  Silence.

  “Frank always insisted on leaving the shells on the tails of his shrimp to use as handles. He wouldn’t eat them otherwise.”