Car Pool (24 page)

get some fresh clothes for Shay, and then, well, things had gotten a little urgent. They’d tried to be quiet.

“Don’t tease, Sophie,” Mrs. Kroeger said. “Though I must say I’d enjoy a wedding.”

“That’s it!” Anthea swept the rest of the chopped carrot into the soup stock and reduced the heat. “All done. Time to go.” Shay held the door for her and closed it behind them.

Mrs. Giordano was saying, “At the rate those two are going, it’ll be Christmas at least.”

Anthea didn’t quite know what to say when they went into Shay’s apartment. For heaven’s sake, they’d acted just like she and Shay were a courting couple, headed for matrimony, which was something they just couldn’t have. “So that’s what it feels like.”

“What feels like?” Shay’s voice sounded a little higher pitched than usual.

Anthea turned to her. “To be treated like everyone else. To not have to make excuses and feel limited and restricted just because of who you love. To have all the options open to you —”

“But they aren’t,” Shay said. “We can’t get married.”

Anthea drew her breath, pressing her lips together. She glanced away. “Why not? I mean, just hypothetically.”

“Because we can’t get a marriage license. Literally.”

“But isn’t it time, I mean, shouldn’t we … I’ve thought a lot about what you said about pushing the envelope. So what if the government doesn’t recognize it. It wouldn’t be any less real.” It came to

her like a thunderclap that she’d just realized what it felt like to want something she couldn’t have because of stupid laws based on bigotry and fear. Thirty-six years old, she thought contemptuously, and you’ve just realized what it feels like to be oppressed. Welcome to the real world.

“Andy, it’s not that I don’t—”

“Churches do gay marriages now. And the government doesn’t recognize that your family was wronged, but they were.” Anthea felt as if all her nerves had risen to the surface of her skin. She felt naked and exposed and too vulnerable. Way too vulnerable.

After a short silence, Shay nodded. “My uncles would give their dying breath to have the wrong recognized, but that’s looking at the past. I don’t want to do that.”

“I’m not talking about the past,” Anthea said softly. “I’m talking about our future. A possible future.” I’ve just realized what I want that I can’t have because I’m gay, she wanted to say. I want to have a relationship with you that no one can question or take away. She had thought this was how Shay felt, too, but apparently not. Shay was being evasive.

“I guess it could happen.” She smiled slightly. “Hypothetically.”

She turned away to gather some books from the floor. “I don’t suppose we could dash over to the library, could we?”

“Sure,” Anthea said. Okay, they’d change the subject. It had gotten very warm in here, she decided. “Let me carry some.” She was glad to have

something to busy her hands so she could ignore the extra moisture in her eyes. Her emotions were jumping all over the place lately.

“You sure have Mrs. Giordano wrapped around your little finger,” Shay continued. “How does it feel to be Our Lady of Largesse?”

Anthea stopped dead in her tracks. She couldn’t have been more stunned than if Shay had slapped her. “Is that why you think I did it? Play the grand lady?” Her breath came in short gasps. “Noblesse oblige? Out of some … self-serving, philanthropic, do-gooder impulse?” She realized she was angry. Not just angry. Enraged. “Is that really what you think of me?”

“No, I… that’s not what I meant,” Shay said. “Maybe I’m envious. Maybe I wish I could have done something to help her so much. You don’t have to be so touchy about it!”

“Touchy? Has it occurred to you that I might care? And that I might not appreciate you making out that just because it’s easy for me to do it doesn’t count?” That’s what Lois had said. And that giving away money was all Anthea was good for.

“Count for what?” Shay stood with one hand on her hip.

“Toward my keep on this planet.”

“I don’t want to fight about it.”

“Obviously you have something you want to say,” Anthea said. “Or you wouldn’t have started it with that nasty crack.”

“I didn’t mean it that way —”

“It sounded like you did—”

“You’re being unreasonable —”

“I’m being unreasonable?” Anthea was so angry

she was shaking. She never let herself lose control like this. She hadn’t with Lois, but then again Lois had said she didn’t care enough to get angry. “I don’t feel like going to the library,” she said. She held out the armload of library books and let them fall with a resounding thud to the floor. “Call me when you can stand the sight of me and all my belongings.”

“Andy, for Christ’s sake—”

She stalked past Shay and out to the VW. She drove home sedately, then went through the house to the deck. She sat down on a bench and stared out at the shimmering vista. Shimmering, she realized, because her eyes were full of tears, and the tears were spilling over. She drew in a breath only to sob it out again, crying so hard she couldn’t breathe.

Hot tears poured into her hands. She cried because she knew she’d been petty. She cried because no matter what, she’d never love her parents. The house had burnt down. Lois had cheated on her. She cried because her mother had been so out of it at her graduation that she’d forgotten Anthea had graduated at all. Then she cried because she hadn’t put it all behind her no matter how hard she tried. And it still hurt. She cried because she didn’t know if Shay didn’t want to commit because of the money or because she didn’t have any feelings for her beyond wanting to have sex.

The sex was great, but it wasn’t enough. Not when Anthea felt the way she did. As if she’d just reclaimed her life only to find it full of Shay.

The flood abated somewhat — it had to. Her head throbbed and her shoulders were cramped, her face

and hands were a mess. She went into the bath to wash and found herself crying because she wanted a cigarette. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was a mass of blotches and her nose shone like a cherry tomato.

The doorbell rang. She knew who it was, so she wiped her eyes and went to let Shay in.

Shay’s face looked a lot like her own. Even though her nose was tiny, it was still red. And for some reason, it made Anthea smile around the edges. She sniffed and gazed at Shay.

Shay sniffed back, and her lips curved slightly in an echo of a smile.

They sniffed at each other for a few moments, then Shay wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Anthea finally managed to work a few words around the boulder in her throat. “I’m sorry I went off the deep end.”

“I love you.” Shay bit her lower lip and looked like a scared, bedraggled kitten.

Anthea shook her head, making sure she was hearing clearly. She was. She sniffed again. “I love you, too.”

They sat down in the entryway with a box of Kleenex between them.

“I’m scared,” Shay said. “I’ve never been in love before.”

Anthea stopped short in the midst of blowing her nose. “Never?”

“Never. I’ve had my share of lovers, but both of us knew it was always temporary. It was easier than this.”

“Do you feel like you’re walking on a razor blade? The sharp edge?”

Shay was nodding. “I feel like if I make a wrong move —”

“111 start being unreasonable —”

“No, that I’ll hurt you. You’ve been hurt so much, I don’t want to add to it.”

Anthea felt tears leak down her cheeks. She hadn’t cried since she was seven. Now she couldn’t stop. “I just want to be able to give. Whatever, just give to you because I love you.”

“You gotta learn to take more.”

“So do you.” Anthea wiped her eyes. “Any minute we’re going to start talking about our inner child.”

Shay laughed and took a fresh tissue. “I’ll certainly stop taking your sweet nature for granted. I didn’t know you had a temper.”

“I don’t let it out very often,” Anthea said. “Usually only at other drivers.”

“You know, I would have said my father raised me to know what I wanted and set out to get it. That’s how I approach working. That’s how I’m thinking about this thing with NOC-U. I want them to get nailed and I’ll see that it happens. But, well, you’re different.”

“I’m glad I’m not a remediation project,” Anthea said. She actually felt like laughing.

Shay looked at her with a genuine smile in her red-rimmed eyes. “You’ve been hanging around me too much. You’re starting to pick up the lingo.”

“You’ve let the genie out of the bottle,” Anthea said.

“Do I get three wishes?”

“Anything,” Anthea said.

“My first wish is to get up off this remarkably clean but very hard floor.”

Anthea scrambled to her feet and pulled Shay up after her. She swayed as the blood left her head. Shay looked kind of shaky, too. “Next wish?”

“I wish we would kiss and make up.”

“Easy enough,” Anthea said. She took Shay’s face between her hands and kissed her tenderly. Her fingertips felt the heat of Shay’s skin as she brushed at the fringe of hair over her ears. She started to draw back, but Shay held her tight.

“My last wish,” she whispered.

“Anything,” Anthea said.

“I wish for three more wishes.”

Anthea laughed. “Okay, but the first one has to be for another—”

Shay kissed her before she could finish.

“Is that your final decision?” Shay stood up so she could stare down at Scott. She felt about ten feet tall.

“The report’s going in the way I write it. You’re not here to decide our reporting policy.” Scott sat back in his chair and tapped his pencil on the desk.

“Then I’ll go to MacNamara over your head. And if he won’t listen, I’ll go to Billings. I’ll go to Rosen if I have to.” Rosen was the head of the project.

“And I’ll remind you that your six-month probation isn’t quite up, Sumoto. I don’t like insubordination.”

“I don’t like false reporting,” Shay said firmly. “I’ll go to the Water Board.”

“That’s it,” Scott said. “It’s obvious that this employment relationship isn’t working out, so I think

it’s best if we terminate it right now. I’ll have a guard escort you off the premises. And only take what’s yours from your desk. All files and diskettes stay here.”

Shay stared at him for a long minute. Then she turned on her heel and marched out of his office before he saw her smile.

An uncomfortable guard watched her pack up her desk. A few feet behind him, Scott lingered, watching what she packed. Rehind Scott the other occupants of their cubicle area watched with interest. Except Harold, who watched in glum acceptance. A couple of the other men had “I knew it was bound to happen” looks on their faces. Jerks, Shay thought. They’d never said a kind word to her. Shay gathered up her things and then gave Harold a grim smile.

“Viva la guerre,” she said.

As she left their work area she heard a voice whisper just loud enough for her to hear, “How come the Chink got axed?”

In the blink of an eye, Harold whirled to face the direction of the voice and he looked huge. Several of the other men stepped backward.

“For your information,” Shay said in a tight voice, “that’s Nip, not Chink. The least you could do is get the insult right, asshole.”

“There’s no call for that kind of language,” Scott said.

“It’s a side effect of a hostile work environment,” Shay said. He’d know all about that by the time she was through with him and NOC-U, she thought.

When she walked out of the trailer, her only regret was leaving Harold behind. He deserved better. She said nothing as the guard drove her to

Anthea’s car in his little security truck. She’d kept Anthea’s key this morning because they’d both known she was going to get fired. Anthea was going to meet her at the main gate when she got off work.

The guard followed her to the parking gate and watched her turn in her badge and trailer key.

When she drove through the gate she felt like a free woman. Stress poured out of her like sweat after a long run, and it felt wonderful. She had nearly two hours to kill until Anthea would get off work, so she took the Legend for a spin with the speakers cranked up to maximum.

When she saw Anthea, she cruised up to the gate. “Let’s go celebrate. My treat. Anywhere you want.”

Anthea settled in and said, “You know, I have this tickle in my throat. I think my glands are swollen.”

Shay glanced over at her. “Oh, no, I hope it’s not too serious.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Anthea said. “Probably just until the weekend. Long enough to help you configure a computer and start working on your report.”

“Oh, I get it. You don’t have to do that.”

“The old Anthea wouldn’t have done it.”

“I like the new Anthea,” Shay said.

Anthea grinned. “Who’d have thought we’d be so happy for you to be unemployed?”

“Hey, I’m not unemployed. I still have my lucrative waitressing career.”

“Sorry. I know,” Anthea said.

“Getting fired makes me hungry. Where am I taking you to dinner?”

“I have a confession to make,” Anthea said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’ve been together so much that I haven’t been able to get my fix.”

Shay gave Anthea a sidelong glance. What on earth was she talking about? “What fix?”

“I’d kill for a burger. From anywhere. Sometimes haute cuisine just doesn’t cut the mustard.”

Shay giggled. “I can live with that. And right in the pocketbook range for a part-time waitress.”

Anthea walked two fingers across the top of Shay’s hand as it rested on the gear shift knob. “I’ll have to think of some way to thank you.”

Shay exhaled with a smile. “I really, really like the new Anthea.”

Anthea said, “I like her, too.”

“Jesus Christ, Shay, this looks like something your dad did.”

“What can I say?” Shay looked across Joan Lewis’s cluttered desk and noticed that Joan had no better success keeping her salt-and-pepper hair in a ponytail now than she had four years ago. “He rubbed off on me.”

“How did you get all this shit?”

“I’ll never tell. Do you think you’ve got a case?”

“I’ll have to read all the way through it, but I don’t see where’d you’d make a mistake this big. Where there’s smoke, you know.”