Something True (13 page)

T
ate was not surprised to return to Out Coffee and find that Krystal had not locked the front door at ten on the dot. She
was
surprised to look around and find Krystal and Laura sitting together, Krystal talking quickly and Laura looking like she wanted to bolt.

“Tate?” Laura raised one hand tentatively.

Tate hurriedly wiped her hands on her jeans. She felt grimy from the day's work in the hot coffee shop. Laura looked as cool and pale as the moonlight.

“Hi.” Tate stopped, wiped her hands again, ran a hand across her hair.

Laura stood up. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“You didn't hear,” Krystal said. “After you left, Tate got in a fight.”

“Oh!” Laura's concern seemed genuine. For a second, Tate thought she was going to reach out and touch her, but then Laura clasped her hands in front of her.

“You should have seen her,” Krystal said. “Tate was awesome. Duke came after her and threw her on the car. Then Tate was, like, POW!” Krystal kicked her foot out. “Duke went flying, and then Tate went after her like a quarterback or a linebacker or whatever. She slammed into Duke.” Krystal bumped Tate with her shoulder to illustrate. “Tate was, like, ‘I'm gonna kill you, you motherfucker.' Duke was crying and begging her to get off. Then the police rolled up with their guns and everything.”

“Oh, no,” Laura said. “Did you get in trouble?”

Krystal snorted. “The police weren't gonna mess with Tate. No way!”

Tate put an arm around Krystal's shoulders.

“Krystal makes me look good.” She squeezed Krystal and ruffled her pink hair. “The police saved my ass. I was about to get the shit beat out of me when the cops showed up.”

“Are you okay?” Laura pressed. “I…I'm sorry I left.”

Laura
had
left; Tate reminded herself. She had told Laura to go, but Laura
could
have stayed. She had practically run back to her Sebring. And yet, there was something in the way Laura stood now, tentatively leaning forward, while clasping her hands in front of her, staring at Tate intently. If it was not love in her eyes, at least it was awe.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Laura asked again.

Tate felt Laura's eyes slide down her neck, down the labrys tattoo, and lower.

“Of course she's okay,” Krystal interjected. “She's probably gonna go find Duke tonight and fuck her up. I mean, people don't mess with Tate and get away with it.”

“No!” Laura reached out. This time she touched Tate's hand.

Tate was about to say,
Good God, no! She'd kill me.
Then she reconsidered.

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll go find her.”

She gave a casual shrug that she hoped said,
I beat up 250-pound drag kings every day. It's just no big deal for a tough woman like me
.

“Please,” Laura said, still touching her hand. “Don't.”

Tate turned Laura's hand over and stroked the center of her palm.

“I have to go help Maggie with the inventory,” Krystal said, as if on cue.

“I guess I could let Duke go if something else came up,” Tate said when Krystal was gone. “What are you doing tonight?”

Laura drew in a sharp breath.

“Nothing.”

B
ack at her hotel, Laura pulled on her body shaper, then jeans, a low-cut blouse, and a dark blazer. She turned in front of the bathroom mirror. The jacket was a perfect fit and the Spanx corset squeezed her curves into a more perfect version of themselves. But that was a problem. What about the awkward moment when Tate released the buttons of Laura's jeans only to find her body encased in an armature of spandex? It would take a good three minutes to wriggle out of the body shaper, and that was not an image one wanted to share with a new lover. It was like being swallowed by a python, only in reverse.

Laura stopped. Tate would not be unbuttoning anything. She had promised herself. She could not do that. Not to herself. Not to Tate. This late-night rendezvous was not a business meeting, but it was not a date either. It was…She paused as she searched for the right words…It was a chance to say good-bye and maybe spend a little bit of time together before the end.
Now
, she thought. That was all she could ask for. She glanced at her watch: eleven thirty. Tate would be there in a few minutes.

She slid a credit card into the pocket of her jeans and headed for the elevator. When she arrived in the lobby, she was so busy looking for Tate, she did not immediately hear the familiar voice call out to her.

“Hey boss, over here. Over here!”

It was Craig.

Shit
, she swore under her breath.

Craig and Dayton had taken their usual place at the bar. By the empty beers in front of them, she guessed they had been there for a while.

“Come join us!” Craig said.

Laura glanced around. There was no way to pretend she had not heard him. Reluctantly, she walked over.

“A beer for our boss. No, make that a whiskey,” Craig called to the bartender.

“Where are you off to?” Craig asked. “You look good.” He was drunk.

She felt his eyes slide down her neck. She pulled her blazer tighter around her.

“I'm just going out for a walk.”

“Lookin' like that. Dang!” Dayton said, although Laura was pretty sure he didn't mean it.

Craig chuckled as though Dayton's insubordination was a clever joke only he got.

The whiskey arrived.

“It's almost midnight,” Craig said, pushing it toward her. “Lighten up.”

Laura glanced around. Tate was not in the bar. She was not in the foyer either. Laura prayed she was late, that she had forgotten, that she had been hung up at work. She patted her pocket, looking for her cell phone, but she had left it in the room. She had wanted to be unburdened. Free. Now she saw the lobby doors swing open. She closed her eyes.
Please, no
, she thought. And Tate stepped into the lobby in full leather chaps, leather jacket, her black motorcycle helmet under one arm. She could not have looked gayer if she had worn a flak jacket with
DYKE
emblazoned across the front like part of a lesbian SWAT team.

“You meeting someone?” Craig pressed.

“No one,” Laura said. “I'm just walking.”

From where she stood in the lounge she could see Tate clearly, but she guessed Tate could not spot her through the maze of booths, mirrored columns, and keno machines in the bar.

“You okay?” Craig asked, his concern still tinged with lechery. He might as well have tacked on
hot little lady
to everything he said.

Laura glared at him. “Of course.”

She took a sip of the whiskey. Thirty yards away, Tate leaned against the wall, watching the elevator. Five minutes passed and then ten. Craig and Dayton had turned their attention to a boxing match on the TV.
Just go
, Laura thought, her heart squeezing into a fist inside her chest. She had been wrong to visit Out Coffee that evening, wrong to accept Tate's invitation. It was too late, too intimate. And Craig and Dayton were right there, despising her, looking for any reason to discredit her with their superiors at Clark-Vester.

“What are you looking at?” Craig asked.

“Hey, isn't that that dyke from the City Ridge Commercial Plaza?” Dayton added.

Blessedly, Tate turned away from them at exactly that moment. Laura watched her back as she walked over to the front desk. Behind the counter, the pretty twentysomething who worked the swing shift beamed, tossed her blond curls from side to side, and then frowned with mock sincerity. Laura guessed that the girl was explaining the hotel privacy policy. Did Tate have a room number? No? She was very sorry. She could not give out room numbers.

Laura saw Tate glance up at the ceiling as if taking a guess at which of the three hundred rooms Laura occupied. Then she stepped away from the counter with an apologetic shake of her head. She was not the type to badger the hotel staff or push the issue after the clerk had said no.

Good-bye, Tate
, Laura thought.

Then, as she watched, the girl called after Tate and Tate turned back around. The girl slid a piece of paper across the counter. Tate held up her hand in protest, but the girl cocked her head and said something else. Tate nodded, smiled, took the paper, and headed for the door. And Laura wondered why the girl had broken the hotel policy for her. Did she know? Could she feel Laura's longing from across the room? Was it just an intuition? A sign? An angel?

Laura took a sip of whiskey. Then her thoughts stopped short. She knew that coquettish turn of the head. She recognized Tate's flattered refusal and then her polite acceptance. She saw Tate slide the paper into an inner pocket of her leather jacket. The acrid whiskey hit the back of her windpipe and she choked, waving away Craig's “Easy now, boss.”

Back home in Alabama, a woman like Tate would have been unfathomably plain. In her full leather gear, with her head shaved, and her brow furrowed, she looked like a heroine from a sci-fi movie, some kind of post-apocalyptic ninja. Without thinking it all the way through, Laura had assumed that Tate's beauty was a secret only she knew. But suddenly it was clear. In this topsy-turvy city where people grew lawns on their roofs and vegetables in their lawns, Tate Grafton was gorgeous.

That girl—that insipid twenty-year-old—had not given her Laura's room number, she had given Tate her own number. And Tate had said no, but she had pocketed the number. And why not? That girl had not called her across town only to stand her up. That girl had not made love to her and then fled. That girl was not trying to buy the coffee shop where she made her living.

The jealousy that washed over Laura felt like a physical illness, as though her body temperature had risen and her blood pressure had dropped. She felt her cheeks flush and her mouth go dry.

“I've got to go.” She pushed the whiskey away.

Tate was almost a block away when Laura emerged from the hotel.

“Tate,” she called out.

Tate turned.

She ran toward Tate, coming up short a few inches away from her. Breathless. Too close.

“I'm sorry. I got hung up with work,” she lied. “I got away as fast as I could.” She reached out and touched the heavy leather of Tate's jacket, her fingertips over Tate's heart. “Am I too late?”

A
t Vita's urging, Tate had put on her chaps and her leather jacket. On the ride across town, Tate had wondered why she had taken fashion advice from a woman who wore only animal print. Still the outfit seemed to have the right effect on Laura, who hurried to greet her and then stood so close Tate could smell her citrus-blossom perfume.

Laura raised her eyes and met Tate's. She held a suit jacket draped over one arm, and she wore the kind of garment Vita had names for—bustier, camisole, slip—but which were as mysterious to Tate as the women who wore them. It revealed Laura's arms, her long neck, the swell of her breasts as she breathed. It showcased the sharp, nervous flutter of her pulse in her long neck. And then Tate realized she had looked for too long. Laura had asked her a question, and she had almost forgotten to answer.

“Where are we going?” Laura asked again.

“You almost missed it,” Tate said, touching Laura's elbow and guiding her toward the crosswalk. “Down the block. There is something I want to show you.”

This had also been Vita's idea, which made Tate nervous. Taking dating advice from Vita was like taking it from a spider that ate their lover post-coitus. But it was too late to change her mind. Now she could only hope.

“Just around the corner,” she said.

Tate led Laura down Naito Parkway. To their right, Waterfront Park was dark. Beyond that, the river reflected Portland's skyline and the Hawthorne Bridge to the north, the Marquam Bridge to the south. A few homeless men stirred in the depths of the park, their cigarette tips glowing. Tate felt Laura edge closer to her.

A few blocks down, Tate had scoped out a park bench on the sidewalk.

“Let's sit here.”

Across the street two police officers passed a cup of coffee back and forth. There was no traffic on the road.

Tate put her hand on Laura's knee and was surprised when Laura did not flinch.

“Listen,” Tate said.

The night was warm and still and the sounds of the city carried. A truck beeped as it backed up. A door rattled. A dog barked. Someone yelled, “Hold that door.” Then they heard a distant cheer, a kind of traveling hoot, a great collective cry of glee as though a hundred people had all opened their mailboxes simultaneously to find that they had won the sweepstakes.

Laura squinted down the wide road.

“Is it a parade?” she asked.

“Kind of.”

“A road race?”

“A bike race.”

“At midnight?”

“It's always at midnight.”

“Why would you have a bike race at midnight?”

The hooting grew louder. Now they could hear the whoops of the bikers along with the cheers of passersby. The bikers drew closer, their feet whirling together, their backs arched.

“They're naked!” Laura covered her mouth.

The bikers had reached them now. The first was a gray-haired man so lean every striation of muscle showed on his legs. Then there were two young men in neon-green sneakers and glowing green bracelets and nothing else. Then it was all bodies: fat, round bodies and skinny bicycler bodies. Men with their parts flapping over their seats. Women with flowers in their loose hair and big pendulous breasts. Old, gray bodies. Lithe, young bodies. One man with cerebral palsy on a motor-assisted bike. There was even a man on a skateboard being pulled by a black Lab. And everyone was cheering and waving.

Laura's eyes were wide above the hand that she had clamped to her mouth. Then she dropped her hand and added her cheer to the rest, and Tate added hers. And as the race passed, and all they saw were a myriad of pale Oregonian rumps in the moonlight, they sat back and laughed.

“The cops are just standing there,” Laura said when she caught her breath. “Aren't they going to arrest them?”

“No. It's Portland.”

After the race, they sat for a while, talking easily. Tate filled Laura in on the drama at Out Coffee. Laura described an officious boss who kept track of her every move by credit card receipt. Finally, Laura said, “I suppose I should get back.”

They stood and strolled toward the hotel. It seemed to Tate that Laura took a very long time walking the few blocks back. Still, the moment of parting was drawing near. Her bike was parked across from the hotel, and there was no reason to follow Laura across the street without an invitation.

“You know…” Tate paused in front of her Harley.

Laura stopped too.

“You really haven't seen Portland until you've been over the bridges on a bike.”

“I've never been on a motorcycle.”

“I have an extra helmet.”

Laura hesitated. “I wouldn't know what I was doing.”

“I've been riding these roads since I was eighteen. All you have to do is hold on.”

Laura glanced in the direction of the bicycles as though summoning up some vicarious courage.

Say yes
, Tate thought.

“Okay,” Laura said.

Tate's heart soared.

She slipped her leather jacket on Laura's shoulders and a helmet over her head, stroking her hair into place between Laura's face and the thick foam cushioning of the helmet. They were so close.

“It's this easy,” Tate said. “All you have to do is climb on behind me. Put your feet here.”

It was awkward riding the first blocks with Laura. She teetered on the back of the seat and held Tate's waist the way she would shake a stranger's hand. But every time Tate accelerated she clutched the hem of Tate's T-shirt. Every time they turned, Laura would lean away from the turn. Finally, Tate pulled over.

For a second, Laura thought Tate was going to ask her to get off.

“It's not working, is it?” she asked. “I know. I told you, I've never done this before.”

Tate flipped up her visor and looked over her shoulder.

“Just relax.”

Tate reached behind her and touched Laura's leg.

“Slide forward,” she said. “You have to touch me. Put your arms here.” She drew Laura's arms around her waist. “Can you feel my body?”

Laura nodded. She could feel Tate's back against her chest, Tate's hard, flat stomach beneath her hands.

“Now when I move, you move with me,” Tate said. “Can you feel it?” Tate said so softly Laura was not sure she had heard.

All she knew was a second later, Tate squeezed some lever and the motorcycle roared to life. She could feel its vibrations through her whole body, and she became exquisitely aware of the spread of her legs, of Tate's ass between her thighs, of the slope of the seat drawing their bodies together. But as they set off over the Broadway Bridge, she forgot even that longing. She felt only the speed, the rush of lights, the roar of the engine, and the height of the bridges—each one higher than the next until the city sat so far below them, she felt like they were about to lift off into the sky.