Something True (4 page)

T
he early light coming through the open curtains of Laura Enfield's hotel room illuminated the mess. A $200 Burberry bra lay crumpled on top of the television. Yesterday's suit lay on the untouched bed like a vaporized business associate. She counted four stray coffee mugs. She unbuttoned her blouse and dropped it on the floor. It didn't matter. No one saw the room except the cleaning staff, who reordered as much as they could while maintaining the illusion that they saw nothing and touched nothing.

She walked over to the window. Below her, the push-pull of rush hour traffic had not yet begun on Naito Parkway. Beyond the four-lane road, Waterfront Park woke slowly in the early-morning light. A girl on an old-fashioned bicycle glided by, taking advantage of the wide sidewalk to avoid two homeless men who reclined on a bench watching the river. A man with a wicker basket filled with flowers paused at the intersection, then crossed against the light. Two Vespa riders waved at each other and then shuttled off in different directions.

Portland. She did not even know why her company had assigned her the small development project in east Portland. She did not do single-lot purchases. It was probably because she had told them she was taking a sabbatical to work on her father's campaign. The City Ridge Commercial Plaza project was small enough to wrap up before the Palm Springs project and then her leave. Paid leave, of course. A nice, untraceable campaign donation to the past and future Senator Enfield. Nothing flashy, just a way for the CEOs of the Clark-Vester Commercial Realty Development Group to show that they valued the American family as much as Stan Enfield did.

At her elbow, the hotel phone rang. She jumped, then touched the speaker button.

“You're up early.” It was Brenda Phillips, the associate director of Clark-Vester.

“Always,” Laura said wryly, although this morning she felt wide-awake in a way she could not remember feeling before: anxious, nauseated, and yet full of something bright and restless.

“Jen did your travel expenses. Apparently you're homeless.” Brenda went on to inform her that she had spent 241 of the last 365 nights in one of seventy-three different hotels. “I'm sending you an itemized expense sheet. It's just FYI. I thought you might be curious now that you're going home for a while.”

Homeless.
That was just Brenda's sense of humor, but the word struck a chord.

“Brenda, I have a question.” The words came out too fast.

“What's up?” It sounded like Brenda was typing on the other end of the line.

“Tomorrow I have a purchase convocation with the City Ridge Commercial Plaza property,” Laura said.

The term always grated on her. A
purchase convocation
was the twenty-minute meeting she had with the small-business owner the Clark-Vester Group was about to destroy, a twenty-minute meeting so that she and Brenda could check the box labeled “fostered positive relationships with all development stakeholders.” But this was different, and Laura felt her stomach contract.

This was something Laura did not do: make mistakes. She often wondered about other people's mistakes. The secretary who got abducted on a bargain-basement cruise to Cambodia. The coworker who left Clark-Vester to start a restaurant that served only macaroni and cheese. What possessed these people? she wondered. Wasn't there a moment before they set forth when they stopped and thought,
This is the worst idea I've ever had
? But apparently they didn't have that moment, or if they did, it didn't stick, because they ordered the macaroni and boarded the ship. And she had too.

“Do we really need to meet with them?” Laura asked, trying to affect the blasé tone she and Brenda always used with each other, as though their jobs were a minor inconvenience they shared the pleasure of disliking.

“Clark-Vester fosters…” Brenda began.

“I know. Positive relationships.”

She and Brenda both saw through the rhetoric.

“We're putting this coffee shop out of business,” Laura said. “Immediately. A week ago, it was business as usual. In a month, they won't even recognize their street corner. Is an informational session going to make them feel better?”

“If you don't want to go, send Dayton or Craig,” Brenda said. “They're there to do your dirty work for you. That's their job.”

“Dayton and Craig have the emotional intelligence of sponges.”

“Then do it yourself.” Brenda paused. Laura could almost hear her remembering Senator Stan Enfield, Laura's father, Laura's shield and armor. Brenda's tone softened. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course.”

“How's the campaign?”

It was the only thing that could trouble an Enfield in June of an election year.

“To hear my family talk about it, all is lost.” Laura laughed without any real humor. “Dad's got a strong majority with registered Republicans. More Democrats on board than any other republican senator in Alabama history. Independents up a bit.” It was an easy recitation, the native language of the Enfield family. Although, at her parents' huge mahogany dinner table the statistics were more precise. Fractions of a point. Incremental rates of increase. Statistical abnormalities examined and reexamined. “They'll still manage to act surprised when he wins. And it's still early,” Laura added, more realistically.

“Still time for a major scandal?” Brenda chuckled. “This will be his sixth term?”

“Yes.”

“Your father is a good man.”

Everyone said that.

“He is,” Laura said reflexively, still gazing out at the street, winding the phone cord around her fingers. She paused, then said, “Brenda. One more thing. Who is going to the purchase convocation? Do we have names?”

She pressed the phone to her ear, holding her breath.

“One woman. Margaret Davidson, store manager. She holds the business license. There used to be a Lillian Whitaker, listed as co-owner. She used to hold some sort of majority share in the place, but she dumped that about nine years ago. Why do you ask? Do you expect trouble?”

At the woman's apartment, the night before, Laura had glanced at a stack of mail on the kitchen table. She had broken her own rule. She had read the name: Tatum Grafton. Laura exhaled. The convocation attendee was not the tall, masculine-looking woman who had held her so gently the night before.

“You still there?” Brenda asked.

“I'm here, and I'll be at the convocation.”

Laura put the phone down and dropped into a chair. That was it. She would meet with the coffee shop manager, share the bad news using a tone that conveyed sympathy but left no room for argument. Then she would pack her bags, fly to Palm Springs, and then back to the house she owned in Alabama to remedy her absence from the Enfield campaign.

The woman from the bar would become a distant memory, an untraceable one—as Laura had intended. Tatum Grafton with the jutting nose, high cheekbones, and deep eyes that combined gave her a face that was not beautiful but was more than beautiful. It was that face, and her look of patience tinged with sadness, that had drawn Laura to her when every other woman in the bar would have been a safer choice. But now it was over. She would never see the woman again.

It should have felt like a relief. Disaster averted. She had learned her lesson. But as she opened her laptop to check on the Palm Springs project, she felt a weight settle on her shoulders. It was the weight of knowing there was not one person in the whole world she could call and ask,
Guess what I did last night?
Not one person to whom she could explain how she felt, the mix of shock at what she had done and sadness at everything it could not mean. That beautiful night. The perfect tomato. The woman's strong hands trembling slightly as she touched Laura's face. The woman's confession: “It's been a long time.” And Laura's mind reeling,
I can't!

“Tatum Grafton,” Laura said to the empty hotel room. It took her a moment to figure out why she felt like she had been punched in the stomach. She touched her face.
Oh
, she thought, surprised. This was something else she never did: cry.

I
n the back room, Lill and Maggie were sitting at the card table, on which were spread an ominous quantity of legal-looking documents.

“Maggie, is this true? They're selling the building?”

Tate pulled up a chair without waiting for an invitation.

“They're selling, and the new owner doesn't have to honor our lease. We could be out on the streets in a month if they want.” Maggie took a breath. “I can't start over. I'm sixty-five. And that's what these people don't get. This isn't just a business. This is a piece of history.”

Lill patted Maggie's hand.

“Sixty is the new fifty.”

Lill was fifty-four, with two beautiful children, a wealthy and conveniently emasculated husband, and a top management position at Namaste Yoga in the Pearl District. It didn't seem fair. When Lill was in her twenties Maggie had been the cool, older woman. A real dyke. An original. With broad shoulders, a crew cut, and a pink triangle ring, large enough to break a man's jaw. Tate had seen pictures. Maggie had looked like a woman who could change the world, and Lill had looked like a little girl. A couple of decades later, Lill had a new life, and Maggie had Out Coffee, a bunch of T-shirts that said
WE CAN SAVE THE WORLD
, and a world that still needed saving.

“When the goddess closes a door, she opens a window,” Lill said. “Maybe we can sue for breach of contract. Where's the lease?”

Tate thought for a moment.

“We can move,” she suggested. “We could find another shop, maybe on a busier street.”

Lill pulled a small stick out of a pocket in her shirt and offered it to Maggie. “Lemongrass. It's an antioxidant.”

Maggie shook her head.

“Tate, do you want one?” she asked.

“No.”

Lill held the twig of lemongrass under her nose, inhaled deeply, then set it on the table.

“The eviction process itself could take several months. By then, Tate's right, you could have a new space.”

“We rent all the fixtures,” Maggie said glumly. “They came with the building.”

“You could buy them off the landlord or buy new,” Tate suggested.

Maggie rested her chin on her knuckles. Her hands were big, competent, but Tate could see the arthritis starting to swell her joints. She was like the old bull elk police found wandering the Northwest Industrial District: graceful and powerful and lost.

“It will be okay,” Tate said. “The store has assets, right? We'll pull through.”

Maggie had been resting her elbows on a ledger book, which she now turned toward Tate. Tate flipped through the spreadsheets. The numbers were all in the negative.

Lill pulled the book away from Tate.

“Maggie!” she exclaimed.

“For how long?” Tate asked.

“A year at least.”

“How is that possible?” Lill asked. “You can't run a business like this. How did you pay for inventory?”

“The bank said…with interest rates where they were…I put a second mortgage on my house,” Maggie said.

“Oh, Maggie,” Tate said. “And you've been using the money to float the shop?”

Maggie nodded.

“Why?” Tate asked.

But she knew why. She had known why since she was fifteen, when the only place she felt safe in the world was nestled in an easy chair underneath the mural of Gertrude Stein, even if the artist's rendition had left Gertrude looking cross-eyed and a bit psychotic. There had been a dog-eared copy of
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
floating around the shop, and it was possible, Tate thought, that it had saved her life.

“You can't run a business like this, Mags. It's not a charity,” Lill said.

Maggie's lips tightened.

“I am not going to run some profit-driven factory farm.”

“Who's farming, Maggie?” Lill asked.

Tate shot Lill a warning look.

“I'll figure something out,” Tate said.

“I know you will.” Maggie clasped Tate's hand. “You're so good, Tate. You're such a good person. I don't know what I'd do without you. The buyer wants to meet with us tomorrow,” Maggie added. “They said they'd send a ‘commercial real estate development consultant,' whatever that is, to explain the sale to us. Laura something. She wants me to meet her in Beaverton. Say you'll come.” She looked back and forth between Lill and Tate. “Will you come?”

“Of course,” they answered together.

“You won't be late?” Maggie looked at Tate.

“Late?” A voice chimed in from the doorway behind them. It was Vita, in for her morning coffee. “Was Tate Grafton actually late to work?”

Vita ambled behind the counter like a coworker. But not so much like a coworker that she felt inclined to wait on the three people lined up for coffee. Krystal followed her.

“Krystal,” Tate said. “There are customers.”

“But I need to know what's happening,” Krystal said plaintively. “Maggie, they're not going to close down Out Coffee, are they?”

Vita threw an arm around Krystal's shoulder, her massive faux-gold bracelets clanging.

“One more year and you can work for me, kiddo,” she said.

“But I work
here
,” Krystal complained.

“Yes you do,” Tate said. “And there are customers out there right now. Vita, you too. No one behind the counter except staff. Krystal, I promise I'll tell you everything, just get back to work,” Tate pleaded, heading to the register to help the neglected patrons herself.

“It was that girl!” Vita exclaimed, following Tate to the counter. “That's why you were late. You spent the night with that girl, didn't you?”

“The girl who looked like Hillary Clinton?” Krystal asked, following behind them. “Did you talk to her?” To Vita she added, “I told Tate that woman liked her.”

“Good eye, kid.” Vita pretended to punch Krystal on the shoulder.

“Did you meet a nice woman?” Maggie followed after them. A look of hope crossed her face. It was a kind of your-lesbian-love-will-save-the-capitalist-world-from-ruin look, and it made Tate angry at the woman from the bar.
See
, she wanted to say,
you ruined Maggie's day too.
But she did not have time to rue her recent disappointment or fume about the present crisis. She had to get Lill's children out of the sugar cubes, Krystal back at the counter, and Lill out of the shop before she did something to remind Maggie of their breakup, which was many years past but came quickly to Maggie's mind anytime something went wrong in her life.

Tate shot Vita a look that said,
If you want to spend another minute as my best friend, you will drop it.

For once, Vita complied.

At home after her shift, Tate dropped wearily onto her bed. She was so disappointed. She couldn't help it; she had spent the whole day hoping the woman would appear in the coffee shop doorway. She had forgone her breaks so that she would not miss the appearance. But the woman had not shown up. Now Tate felt foolish for wishing. The woman had not been willing to reveal her first name. That heralded a second date about as much as a card reading
SHOVE OFF
.

Tate wandered into the bathroom and stared in the mirror. There were circles under her eyes, and the hook in her nose was getting more pronounced. An aggressive nose. A square jaw. A little bit too much muscle where her neck joined her shoulders. Not a lot of anything for her sports bra to contain. Maybe it all worked in Portland where skinny boys in glasses were the Brad Pitts of the city, and even the straight girls grew their leg hair. But the woman, if she was a lesbian at all, was probably some slick LA dyke with a pool and a closet full of Prada.

Tate sighed. And then she looked down at the bathroom counter. She had not noticed it before: a necklace, made of such a fine silver thread it looked like a crack in the porcelain. At the end of the chain was a white jewel. A diamond or, guessing by its size, a cubic zirconium grown in a lab by chemists. The whole thing was arranged in the shape of a heart. For a moment she wondered if the woman had snuck back into her apartment. Then she remembered how bleary-eyed and rushed she had been in the morning. She had simply missed it. A little good-bye present. A token to soften the blow.

She called Vita.

An hour later they were sitting at Tate's kitchen table, and Tate was finishing the story of her brief encounter with the woman at the bar.

“And she just left. No good-bye. Not a note. No number,” Tate finished.

Outside, the twilight had finally given way to night, and a cool breeze blew through the open window.

“Just this.” Tate pulled the necklace out of a bowl on the table. “She left it in the shape of a heart on the bathroom sink.”

“That's quite a rock.”

“It's not real,” Tate said.

Vita took the necklace and held it up to the lamp above the table. It moved in the breeze. Tate caught specks of light reflected in its center.

“You sure?” Vita asked.

“It's huge,” Tate said.

“I don't know.” Vita examined the necklace. “Remember when I was seeing Susan? She was all into the rocks. After six months with her, I knew my diamonds.”

Vita picked up the beer she had been drinking. She pinched the rock between her fingers and dragged it along the glass bottle.

“See?” She held the bottle out to Tate. “It scratched.”

“So?”

“Diamonds scratch glass. The fakes don't.”

Vita leaned back in her chair and swigged her beer with a satisfied smile, the hardworking detective finishing a difficult case. But she hadn't solved anything for Tate.

“She wouldn't even give me her name,” Tate said.

“Did you check her wallet?”

“Of course not. I wouldn't!”

“I would,” Vita said.

Tate could tell Vita was honing in on one of her favorite subjects: Tate the Boy Scout, Tate the upstanding. Vita had a lot of theories about how much better Tate's life would be if she just compromised all her principles all the time.

“You're awful,” Tate said.

“Look, Tatum. I always check IDs.”

“You work at a bar. You check everyone's ID.”

“I mean before I sleep with someone.” Vita rolled her eyes. “I know it's a violation of privacy or whatever, but what if some girl says she's twenty-one and she's really seventeen?”

“I'm not going to sleep with any girl who looks like she is twenty-one
or
seventeen.”

“But what if she's a man!” Vita clinked her beer bottle down on the table as though this settled the matter. “You just can't tell these days.”

Tate stared out the kitchen window at the weedy lot next door. It would make a wonderful garden, she thought, but the landowner was forever threatening to build an apartment building on the lot.

“You just wait until she goes to the bathroom,” Vita went on. “Then take a quick look at the card. Name. Age. If you get her driver's license number, I know a girl who works at the police department. She could run it for you. See if she has any convictions.”

“Anyway, she's gone now,” Tate said.

Vita grinned. “If you love her, you got to do what you got to do.”

“I hardly know her.”

The breeze carried a whiff of honeysuckle through the window. Downstairs, Rose and Pawel, the old Hungarian couple, turned on their television and Lawrence Welk called out his greeting from beyond the grave.

Vita pushed her beer aside and folded her hands on the table, her face suddenly serious.

“I've been studying you for a long time,” she said. “Since I was fifteen and crazy in love with you. And don't look nervous. That ship sailed a long time ago, and, sadly for you, you missed it. But what I'm saying is, I
know
you. You don't take every girl home with you. God knows why not. The whole Mirage is hot for you. If I had that butch appeal…”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Tate asked.

“See? You don't even know it. That's half the appeal. And you don't take girls home. You're a romantic. But you like this woman. I can see that. And that's worth fighting for.”

“How? I don't know anything about her. She doesn't even live here.”

“Start by putting this on.” Vita held up the necklace.

“That?” Tate took it and dangled the impossibly delicate chain across her T-shirt. “On me?”

“That way, when she sees you again…”

“If she sees me again.”

“…she'll know you care.”

The meeting with the “commercial real estate development consultant” took place the following day. Tate tapped the address into her GPS, secured it between the handlebars of her Harley, and headed toward Beaverton on the Sunset Highway. As soon as she got out of Portland and into the suburbs, she regretted not riding with Lill and Maggie. Beaverton was, as far as she could tell, one giant strip-mall parking lot fed on all sides by freeway arteries. Traffic wasn't fast, but it was congested and erratic, and there was no room for motorcycles.

When Tate's GPS finally signaled her destination, she found it looked exactly like every other corner she had passed: a large parking lot in front of an office park.
CORPORATE SOLUTIONS
, the sign on the building read. Inside, she was greeted by a receptionist who looked about twelve but dressed like a CEO on a soap opera.

“Your party has arrived,” the girl said before Tate had a chance to speak.

She stood and led Tate down a windowless hall to a small conference room. Maggie and Lill were already seated at the long table. “Your other associates will be here shortly.”

“They are not our associates,” Maggie said. “They are the corporate…monsters who are trying to take over our business.”