The Guilty One (18 page)

“Well, he's just going to have to wait a few days.”

“Right,” Deb said slowly, nodding. “Right.”

She was the one who pulled away first. She stood up and took the afghan off the back of the couch. Refolded it and returned it to where she'd found it. It didn't look any different to Ron. She picked up both their glasses and carried them to the kitchen. A moment later, he heard her footfalls on the stairs.

THE SIGN WAS
either original or someone had paid to make it look that way. Old neon, curving letters: The Coal Mine, with a cart mounded with pink “coal” that flickered off and on.

Maris walked next to Norris, her sandals striking the cracked pavement hard. She was conscious of walking with a man, a tall man who carried himself well. She had been conscious of him in the car as well—when was the last time she'd ridden alone in a car with a man other than Jeff? An entire year, possibly, or even more. Norris's car had been scrupulously clean, with a faint scent of mint, or menthol. Maris herself liked to keep her car neat, and took it—well, used to take it, anyway—to a car wash in San Ramon once or twice a month.

He had made small talk, but she could tell it was an effort. The weather, more stilted compliments on her transformation of the apartment. No questions about her personal life, and no details volunteered about his own, which made Maris think, somewhat wistfully, about her mother, who had an old-fashioned sensibility about prying into things that were none of one's business. A midwestern sense, Maris had come to think of it in the decades since leaving Kansas. She wondered if Norris had grown up in Oakland or come from elsewhere, but it was his very reticence that prevented her from asking him.

“Here we go,” he said with what sounded like relief when they reached the bar's open front door. The windows on either side were painted black. People had scratched their initials in the paint, hieroglyphic graffiti, the word
fuck
at least three times. A thick-bodied man sat on a stool just inside the door, his head thrown back, laughing. When he spotted Maris the laugh died on his lips. His gaze traveled leisurely down her shirt, taking in the white shorts, her bare legs. Then he spotted Norris behind her and his eyebrows shot up.

He clattered off the chair and didn't so much hug as slam into Norris from the side, thumping him on the back. Norris endured this with an embarrassed smile.

“Mary,” Norris said, wrenching himself free, “this is George. George, this is Mary, the lady who took the apartment.”

George offered a little half bow, and Maris couldn't tell if he was teasing her or not. “Hello,” she said, more stiffly than she intended. She peered past him into the dim interior, looking for Pet.

“Well, well,” he said, more to Norris than to her. “You've certainly moved up to a better class of tenant, my friend.”

“She's done a heck of a job on the place. Cleaned it up good.”

“So I gathered. What was in those bags, anyway—the guy before you leave his rock collection behind?”

Maris felt herself blushing. She wasn't sure, but she thought he winked at her. Was he flirting? Was that even possible? He was a nice-looking man, his salt-and-pepper beard neatly trimmed, his thick hair a bit on the long side. Strong, masculine features; even teeth and a nice smile. As for herself, Maris knew what she looked like; she looked—cruelly, maybe—like a mom. Mom hips. Mom breasts. Mom haircut. A Target shirt and barely enough makeup to leave the house in.

But still. The attention was nice, even if it made her feel rusty and out of touch. It was the sort of thing she would have once shared with her little network of girlfriends over drinks in one of their kitchens, the impromptu girls' nights that had once been a part of her life. Adrian, Jemma, Heather—the women she'd cut from her life, prying their fingers from her until she could fall freely. Now, only for a second—aware that it wasn't possible, that her long hibernation after Calla's death had caused those friendships to fade to nonexistence—she wished she could joke about all of this over one of Adrian's mojitos.

“Duchess and Tony are here already,” George said. “They got the big table in the back and I think Tony might have gone next door for wings already.”

He led the way inside, and Norris waited for Maris to go ahead of him. A dozen people stood around the bar, a couple more at one of two round tables, with a pitcher between them. The place smelled of stale beer and creosote, but it was cozy, with plaid curtains hanging in the windows and plants hanging from macramé baskets. Maris wondered how they stayed alive in the darkened room, and decided they must be fake. Along the walls, in between neon beer signs and signed sports jerseys, were a series of amateurish oil paintings. Behind the bar, propped up on shelves crowded with liquor bottles and strung with little white Christmas lights, were framed studio portraits from the seventies: men in thick sideburns and aviator glasses; women with stiff updos and brocade dresses, their lips tinted bright red.

Maris spotted Pet, her back to the door, stacking glasses on a shelf. She was wearing a gray tank top with narrow straps, and Maris could make out more of the tattoo that had been hidden by her shirt before: branches, stark dead ones from the look of it, inked in black with none of the bright colors that had become so popular lately. An odd choice for a tattoo, but then, what did she know?

Maris could feel her heart beating rapidly as she followed George, weaving among the tables, excusing herself as she bumped into a woman splayed tipsily in her chair. It felt like people were staring at her, which of course was an illusion, a trick of the mind. No one was the least bit interested in her. Maris remembered something she had told Calla, long ago, when she was nervous about going to junior prom because at the last minute, fussing with the neckline, she decided her dress was too “gappy.” Maris wasn't even sure what that meant—to her, the garnet-colored dress looked lovely, her daughter even more beautiful—but she'd tried every trick she could think of to convince Calla that she looked fine so her daughter could enjoy the evening.

Maris tried to get Pet's attention as they passed the bar. The back room held a pair of pool tables and two long wooden tables. At one, four people sat with a pitcher of beer, taking food out of several large paper sacks. As George led the way, shouting a greeting to someone at the table, Pet glanced over at Maris and then did a double take.

“Mary! You made it!”

Maris flushed with pleasure. It was ridiculous, but she felt a little bit cool—she knew the bartender. She went to stand at the bar, breaking free of the tight orbit of Norris and George for the moment.

Pet leaned across the bar and gave her a squeeze on the arm that approximated a hug. “You survived your first full day on Iris?”

“On . . . what?”

“Iris Street? Oh come on, didn't you know that's the name of our street?” At Maris's blank expression she laughed. “Mary, did you seriously rent a room without knowing the address?”

“I knew it was between thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth.” It was absurd, now that she thought about it—but every other move she'd made since graduating from college had involved calls to PG&E, the cable company, visits to the post office to forward mail. She ordered change-of-address cards from the stationer when they moved into the apartment in San Ramon and again when they moved to the house in Linden Creek.

“Well, you survived, like I said. That's the important thing.”

“And I finished cleaning. You'll have to come visit again. You can actually see what color the floor is now.”

“Then you deserve to get a little hammered. First one's on me. What do you feel like?”

“Um, I don't usually drink mixed drinks,” Maris hedged. And never beer. Just wine and the occasional vodka gimlet. But she already felt too stiff, too old. No sense adding to that impression. “But how about a . . .”

She had been about to say “mojito,” since she'd been thinking about Adrian, but who knew, maybe they were already passé here. “Surprise me?”

Pet grinned. “You sure?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Okay, I'll bring it to you. Go find the guys, they'll introduce you around.” Pet moved off and began pulling bottles. Maris used the time to sneak glances at the other patrons near her. A girl in a strapless top and jeans whose vine tattoos started on the backs of her hands and continued up past her shoulders, grazing her neck. A man with a bushy brown beard that made him look like a Hasidic Jew, laughing at something she was saying. On the other side, two men in their sixties. Escaping their wives, Maris would have assumed, if they were in Linden Creek.

She walked to the back room. George, sitting at one end of the table, was watching her. He gave her a smile that was simply . . . nice. Not lascivious, not assessing. “Hey, Mary, I saved you a seat,” he called.

She slid into the chair between George and Norris, hanging her purse on the back, as conversation came to a temporary halt. “This her?” the man on the end said. He was short, stocky, bald, with a bad sunburn and a Minnesota Twins shirt. There were two women at the table too, a pretty blonde with hair almost to the small of her back and a tentative smile that covered braces, and a very thin African American woman with shimmering green eyeliner and a silky sleeveless blouse with a design of a peacock, its colorful feathers fanning across her back.

Norris cleared his throat. “Everyone, this is Mary. Mary, this is George, who you met, and this is Duchess, Bria, and Tony.”

There was a chorus of hellos. Duchess offered her hand, and Maris shook it carefully, mostly fingertips. The blonde, Bria, fluttered her fingertips and grinned, reaching for the pitcher. “Do you want some beer?”

“Oh, thank you so much, but Pet's making me something,” Mary said. She felt flush with nostalgia and a pleasant, low-level excitement: was this really so different from her grad school days, when she and the other student teachers would meet on Fridays at the Roundup?

“Tony and I work together,” Norris said. He had to raise his voice to be heard, which made him seem less formal. He looked more relaxed now, anyway, leaning back in his chair, his beer already half gone. “And if I didn't already mention it, George and I were in the service together. Afghanistan.”

“Yeah, and lived together too for a spell, after,” George said, leaning in with his elbows on the table. “Worked together, got in trouble together . . .”

“Not much trouble,” Norris said, holding his hands in mock defense and laughing. “Least, not that I had anything to do with.”

“Here you go,” Pet said, putting a glass down in front of her.

“Thank you,” Maris said, shaking the drink gently so the ice bobbed against the glass. It was deep amber and smelled of whiskey. “You really must let me take you to lunch now. You've fed me and bought me a drink. What is it?”

“Just try it.”

Maris sipped: bitter and tart and deliciously potent, not at all sweet.

“Aw, did you push that shit on her? What did she do to you?” Tony said, smirking.

“It's . . . interesting. But good.”

Pet laughed. “It comes with a guarantee—if you don't like it, I'll make you something else.”

“Pet's been trying to get people to drink that shit all week,” Tony said.

“Hey, come on, it's good. Top-shelf single malt in there,” George retorted, but his eyes were on Maris.

“No, it's good, really,” she said. “What's in it?”

“Scotch, bitters, Cointreau,” Pet said, ticking the ingredients off on her fingers. “Lotus is just unrefined, don't listen to him.”

“My name is
George
.” He gave Pet a mock glare. “Some folks can't seem to remember.”

Maris took advantage of their teasing to look at him a little more closely. In the somewhat better light cast by a faux-Tiffany pendant lamp, she could see that his hair was still mostly dark brown, shot through with silver threads. His face was lined, but in a nice way—the skin of someone who'd spent a lot of time in the sun. She could see a glint of gold in his teeth when he smiled. He wasn't so much overweight as he was solid: big shoulders, thick neck, heavy, muscled forearms. The shirt he wore reminded Maris of the ones her uncle Nate wore decades ago, short-sleeved green plaid, a soft collar, tails untucked from his jeans.

“So, Mary,” Duchess said. “Norris tells me you've taken the downstairs apartment?”

“It's just for a couple of weeks,” Maris said hastily.

“She's finding herself.” Pet said it without irony, then headed back to the bar.

“How do the rest of you know each other?” Maris asked, too curious to resist.

It was Tony who answered, with another chuckle. “That one's mine,” he said, hooking a thumb at Bria, “and that one used to be.”

Duchess stuck out her tongue at him.

“He's my dad,” Bria said, rolling her eyes.

“And I'm the ex-girlfriend.” Duchess didn't seem the least embarrassed by that fact.

“And he's the new boyfriend,” Tony said, dumping a pile of wings onto a paper plate and nodding in Norris's direction.

Norris looked stricken. Duchess reached across Bria's lap—”Sorry, honey,” she said, and slapped Tony's hand. A wing skittered across the table and fell to the floor.

“Hey!” Tony exclaimed.

“You need to apologize to the lady,” Norris grumbled.

“Let's eat,” Bria said.

LATER, AFTER MARIS
had had a second cocktail and five chicken wings, and washed the orange sauce from her hands, as well as the hem of her shorts, in the bar's diminutive ladies' room, she came back to find that George had moved their chairs slightly away from the others.

“I hope you don't mind,” he said sheepishly. “I guess I could try to convince you that I just wanted to show you the art.”