Something True Read online

She stepped toward the woman and kissed her, tenderly at first and then hungrily, enjoying the feel of the woman’s skin beneath her hands, enjoying the woman’s hands beneath her own shirt.

  “I want you,” the woman said, her voice lower than a whisper.

  Tate took her hand and drew her to the bed, which stood in the center of the studio.

  “Lay down,” she said softly.

  Then she pulled off her own shirt and bra and kicked her boots off. She lay down next to the woman.

  “You’re beautiful,” Tate said.

  She cupped the woman’s face in her hand. The woman watched her with wide eyes. Tate let her hand slide down the woman’s body to her perfect breast. She stroked her nipple until the skin hardened, and the woman pushed her chest toward Tate’s hand. Then Tate drew the woman’s nipple into her mouth while her other hand explored the woman’s jeans, loosening the button, and stroking the woman through her lace underwear.

  “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this,” the woman whispered.

  Tate looked up.

  “It has been a long time for me too.”

  “For you?” The woman appraised Tate with a quizzical smile. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  The woman gave a gentle laugh. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  Tate was going to say something else, but she lost her words before she could form them.

  They shed the rest of their clothing in a flurry. When they were both naked, Tate lay on top of the woman, straddling her hips, certain that if she allowed their legs to intertwine, she would come helplessly and instantly. From the way the woman wrapped her legs and arms around Tate’s body, holding her tightly, pressing against her, Tate guessed the woman was on the edge of the same cliff.

  Then the woman slid her hand along Tate’s ass until her fingertips brushed the back of Tate’s naked sex. Tate had been supporting her weight on one arm. Now she felt her arm tremble. The woman gave her a gentle push, indicating that she wanted Tate on her back. Tate rolled over, and the woman leaned over her, her hair falling like a silk curtain around her face. Slowly she slid her hand across Tate’s belly and down her thigh.

  “You’ve been waiting for this?” she said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  The woman’s hand drifted across Tate’s pubic hair, making her whole body shudder in anticipation.

  “What did you miss? What do you want most now?” the woman asked.

  Tate wanted everything. She wanted the woman’s hand on her sex, the woman’s lips on her body, her breath on her face. She wanted the woman on top of her and beneath her. She wanted to go slow, and her body screamed to go fast.

  Tate closed her eyes. The woman’s gaze was too intense.

  “What do you want?” she whispered.

  Abigail had often asked that question. After barking orders to Tate for half an hour, she would roll over, satiated, and frown at Tate. “What do you want?” As though Tate’s desire was an inconvenience Abigail was resigned to deal with.

  Now the woman asked, and Tate felt powerless to speak, prostrate with desire. Seeming to sense her distress, the woman gently dipped one finger into Tate’s body. Tate felt her hips rise of their own accord.

  “I’ll just go slow,” the woman said. “And you tell me if I get it wrong.”

  Very slowly and very gently, the woman slid her fingers inside Tate, then out, and around the opening of Tate’s sex. Around and around until Tate thought she would faint if the woman did not touch her clitoris. But the woman explored each fold of her labia, gently massaging the engorged flesh. Finally her fingers found the hood of Tate’s clit.

  “There,” Tate gasped.

  “There?” the woman echoed. “Or there?” She slid her fingers down a fraction of an inch, massaging Tate’s clit until Tate felt like the whole world had disappeared except for the place where the woman touched her, teasing her and teasing her until suddenly it wasn’t a tease, and Tate felt the orgasm rock her body like an electrical current.

  When she had caught her breath, she pulled the woman to her and kissed her.

  “What do you want?” Tate whispered into their kiss. “Since it’s been such a long time?”

  But the woman seemed as stricken by the question as Tate had been.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m so…I haven’t felt this way.”

  Tate kissed her forehead. Then she rolled the woman onto her side and lay behind her, cradling the woman in the curve of her body. She wrapped her hand over the woman’s leg and slipped her thumb inside the woman’s body so she could press the sensitive flesh behind her clitoris from the inside.

  She was not sure if she should command the woman’s body like this, without instructions. Abigail had always had a list of instructions. It was rather like working at Out Coffee. Double, decaf, soy milk. A little to the left. Harder. Not like that. And two sugars.

  But the woman was wet, and Tate felt the woman’s body contract as she began to massage her clit from the inside and the outside at the same time. The woman sighed. And they lay like this until the woman’s every breath became a moan, and her body moved more frantically against Tate’s hand.

  It was wonderful holding such a beautiful creature in her arms, in her hand. Tate couldn’t help it; she felt a brazen pride at the sound of the woman’s moans. Some part of her animal brain crowed I did that! And another part of her simply longed to make the woman happy.

  Finally Tate whispered, “Is there anything else?”

  “It’s so good.” The woman’s voice was almost a sob. “But I never…You don’t have to keep going. I can’t with other people.”

  But Tate did not believe her. Gently she withdrew her hand. Then she rolled onto her back and drew the woman on top of her so her legs straddled one of Tate’s and their pubic bones met.

  “Don’t think about it,” Tate said, pressing her hips up toward the woman’s body.

  Tate could feel the moisture of the woman’s body on her thigh as the woman worked her clit against Tate’s leg.

  “I can’t.” The woman closed her eyes.

  Tate put her hands on the woman’s hips, urging her toward the rhythm she already knew.

  “Just enjoy it,” she whispered.

  The woman pushed herself hard against Tate’s thigh, holding Tate’s hips in her hands, pulling their bodies together even as she pushed Tate deeper into the bed. She rocked back, then forward again, then her eyes flew open. Her body jerked several times, and with each convulsion she let out a cry. Then she fell back, her head on Tate’s chest, her breath deep and ragged.

  “I didn’t know…” she began, but she did not finish the sentence, only clutched Tate to her, pressing her face into Tate’s breast.

  “Are you all right?” Tate asked after a moment.

  The woman looked up, her face pinched, not so much with worry, Tate thought, but with grief.

  “Talk to me,” Tate said.

  The woman’s lips trembled. “It does matter. All that stuff on your tax return matters. It matters more than you know.” The woman sat up and grabbed her bra off the floor. She fastened it hastily. “Where’s my shirt?” She stood up, casting around for her clothing.

  “Okay. It matters,” Tate said, rising up on her elbow. “Come back to bed.”

  The woman fumbled with her jeans.

  “Stay the night,” Tate said. She was not sure if she was pleading for herself or pleading because it seemed the woman wanted to stay. It was as though some unseen hand was pulling her away. “What is it? Is someone waiting for you? Are you cheating?”

  The woman shook her head vehemently.

  “Do you have to be somewhere?”

  Again, no.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  At this the woman shook her head even more vigorously.

  “Then stay the night,” Tate said.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” the woman said, almost to herself, searching the floor for her shoes. “What do you
do when you ‘stay the night’? You can’t ‘stay’ anything.”

  It occurred to Tate the whole scene would be terribly awkward—like one of Vita’s one-night stand debacles—if it wasn’t for the wave of tenderness she felt for the woman. She held out her hand. Slowly the woman took it. Tate gently pulled her to the bed and made room for her to lie down.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said.

  “Shh.”

  Tate wrapped one arm beneath the woman’s neck, one over her waist, so she was encircled in Tate’s arms. She pulled her close, feeling the woman’s breathing return to normal.

  “This is how you stay the night.”

  “But what happens in the morning?” the woman asked.

  Tate pulled her closer.

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  Chapter 3

  But in the morning, the woman was gone. It took Tate an agonizing moment to realize she was not in the bathroom, not on the small porch overlooking the vacant lot next door. It took her another minute to search the apartment for a note, but there was none. After that, the pain of picking up her cell phone—silenced in the kitchen drawer—and seeing eight missed calls from Maggie barely registered. She was three and a half hours late to work, but it was the first time she had been late in nine years, a fact that was both reassuring and deeply depressing.

  While the night before had been clear and warm, the morning was gray. Portland in the summer was like a tearful bride, radiant but given to the occasional, unexpected burst of rain. The rain lasted just long enough to soak Tate as she rode her Harley to work.

  She walked through the door, feeling tired, cold, damp, and unloved—not that she had a right to expect love from a woman who would not even reveal her name. Nonetheless, she had felt loved, had at least felt the possibility of love, as she drifted off to sleep with the woman in her arms.

  “You’re a good person,” the woman had said, just before Tate closed her eyes for the night. A good person.

  It was a sentiment Maggie had often expressed, but not the one she shared as Tate walked into Out in Portland Coffee, pulling off her helmet and rubbing the rainwater out of her eyes.

  “Where have you been?” Maggie asked. “You are three hours late! You’re three hours and forty-two minutes late.”

  Maggie wore baggy elastic-waisted pants printed with Keith Haring figures. On top of the Haring pants, she wore a faded purple T-shirt with a cartoon mouth screaming WHAT PART OF “OFF MY BODY” DON’T YOU GET? It struck Tate that the whole outfit hung off her. Maggie was getting older. She was shrinking. She still had the same narrow, flinty eyes, the same practical chopped-off ginger hair, but it was graying, and her outspoken clothes looked deflated.

  Tate rubbed her eyes.

  “The cup order just came in,” Maggie exclaimed. “We ran out of scones. The cash deposit has to go out. Krystal can’t stock the back room. Bella Starr and the Forrest Voices are playing tonight, and we never got the microphone back from the shop.”

  On the counter, in flagrant violation of health code regulations, Krystal sat, swinging her legs and popping pink gum that perfectly matched her hair, lipstick, and pink Hello Kitty purse.

  “I called, and you didn’t answer,” Maggie went on. “I want to respect your privacy and the equality of our workplace. There is no boss; you are not the proletariat. But you could have been killed on that motorcycle of yours, and we need someone to fix the computer. I only clicked one link. It was to save the Bolivian sea snail. They are an important part of the ecosystem of…”

  Tate put her hands on Maggie’s shoulders.

  “Maggie, I love you, but Bolivia is landlocked. I told you; don’t click anything, just…don’t even look at the computer. Okay?”

  Maggie straightened her shoulders. “We have to be engaged in the world,” she said.

  “You be engaged with the counter,” Tate said. “Krystal can do the bank run. I’ll get the back stocked.”

  At that moment, the door opened and a slender woman with two braids, one jutting out over each ear, walked in, her braids swinging energetically. It was a hairstyle Tate could not understand on a grown woman. The woman was Lill, Maggie’s ex-partner and current best friend. Lill had her two adopted children in tow. She waved, releasing the hand of Sobia, the little one, who immediately ran to Krystal for a hug. Bartholomew, the eleven-year-old, headed to the sugar bar and began to glut himself on raw sugar cubes.

  “Maggie!” Lill cried, opening her arms to embrace her distraught friend. “What happened?”

  Little Sobia sneezed loudly behind the counter.

  “Krystal!” Tate hissed, pointing at the child and at the health-code-appropriate side of the counter.

  “Come on, Tate,” Krystal said, picking Sobia up. “Sobia’s not dirty. Are you, sweetie?”

  “Let’s go in the back,” Lill said, steering Maggie toward the storeroom.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to survive this onslaught,” Maggie said. “I really don’t. This kind of blatant disregard for the businesses that make this a community!”

  After they disappeared into the back, Tate turned to Krystal.

  “Is this all because I was late?”

  “Yeah. Five minutes after your shift started, Maggie just broke down and cried,” Krystal said.

  “Shit!”

  “I’m kidding, Tate,” Krystal said, carrying Sobia around to the front of the counter. “It’s the lease. So where were you? You’re never late.”

  “What about the lease?”

  Krystal swung Sobia around in a circle, threatening to crash into the cream and sugar station.

  “They’re selling the building.” She put Sobia down.

  “This building?”

  “Yeah.” Krystal knelt down and put her arms around the child. “Maggie thinks it’s the end of the world. We’re going to be out on the streets. It’s not going to happen though, right?” Sobia squirmed and Krystal released her. “I mean, there’ll be a protest and lawyers and stuff, like in the movies, right?”

  “Like in the movies,” Tate echoed. “I’ve got to talk to Maggie.”

  Chapter 4

  The 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 remem
ber 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?”