How to Start a Fire (3 page)

Anna insisted on buying Charlie Ames and Greg Wilkes, Humboldt County loggers and longtime residents, dinner for their trouble. At least that’s what she said, but really it was to prolong Kate’s impersonation of an Eastern European exchange student. Charlie and Greg had never met anyone from a country that no longer existed. They were intrigued. They also wanted to present their country in a flattering light, and they tried to include Kate in all conversation.

“So, Katia, how are you liking your visit so far?” Charlie asked, enunciating each syllable with careful precision.

“Oh, America iz very nice,” said Kate in a perfect Czech accent. That was the only accent Kate could do; she figured the men wouldn’t know the difference.

“And where were you headed before your tire blew?”

“Avenue of the Giants,” Anna said. “That’s all we came for. Katia and I have been pen pals for almost ten years now. She read about the giant redwoods in school. Heard there was a tree you could drive your car through and just had to see it. Isn’t that true, Katia?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “I have grrret luf fur de big trees.”

George dropped her napkin under the table and searched for it until she could get her laughter under control. This took a long time and made Charlie and Greg either suspicious or uncomfortable, which broke up Kate, who covered for her sudden, inexplicable laughter by picking up a saltshaker and saying, “Look, iz so funny. We don’ haf in my country.”

Anna, however, was the master of her invented game. She never cracked, not during the meal or the ten-mile drive to the Redwood Lodge or even when she retold her invented tale to the motel clerk.

“I just feel terrible. This is her first time in America and we get a flat tire.”

In room 15 of the Redwood Lodge—which looked about as rustic as a Motel 6, with the exception of the faux-pine finish on the dresser—George and Anna passed a bottle of cheap whiskey back and forth, repeating their favorite Katia quotes of the night.

“My home is no more der and dat make me sad.”

“Who doesn’t vant to dance on Stalin’s grafe?”

“In my country, lipstick is fur whores and men who vant to be vomen.”

“Television is de best ting about your country. And Pop-Tarts.”

“Americans are wasteful. Ve can feed a family fur a week on a pot of borscht.”

George was awed by Kate’s ability to play Anna’s game. What George didn’t know was that Kate was always playing Anna’s games. Maybe that was why she wasn’t laughing.

The rain never relented. The tent was never pitched. The following morning, Anna had her car towed to a gas station, where the tire was replaced. Kate insisted that Anna also purchase a spare, knowing that money was not an object. A stranger wouldn’t have guessed that Anna was a rich girl, mostly because Anna was hell-bent on avoiding that label.

After taking a vote, the women decided to continue their rain-soaked adventure. They drove through the Avenue of the Giants, the massive trees looming above. George had never seen anything more beautiful. Kate studied her map, trying to pinpoint the location of the Stratosphere Giant, currently the tallest tree in the world—although that statistic was debatable, since not all trees had been measured.

Despite the weather, Kate demanded they go on a hike. It was then she and Anna learned that George was on the track team as well as the basketball team. Her pace was brutal. George was so awestruck that she barely noticed her companions huffing and puffing in her wake. Kate struggled to match George’s speed while offering morsels of information she had gathered over the past few months.

“The oldest coastal redwood is over two thousand years old. Can you imagine that?”

“Which one is it?” George asked.

Kate looked around. “Don’t know,” she said. “But many are at least six hundred years old. Take your pick.”

George stopped in her tracks and craned her neck to try to see the top of a tree. As she continued along the trail, she found a white anomaly among the green brush.

“What is this?” George asked.

“It’s an albino redwood. A mutant,” Kate said. “They can’t manufacture chlorophyll, so they’re white. They survive as parasites, linking their root system with normal trees and getting nutrients from them. They can grow to only about sixty feet. But aren’t they cool?”

“They’re amazing,” George said.

Kate’s obsession had been sated. She had seen in real life what she had only read about in books. But it seemed she’d passed her obsession on to George, as if it were a physical object that could be handed off.

Anna liked the trees and all. She didn’t mind the hike, but her internal experience was far milder than the other girls’. Anna slowly caught up with George and Kate, pulled out a joint, and lit up, smoking among the greenery.

“How can you smoke in a place so beautiful?” George asked.

“It makes it
more
beautiful,” Anna said.

They stayed in the Redwood Lodge one more night and made s’mores on their camping stove in their room, which meant flattening them on a skillet. Kate shook her head in disappointment; this was not how it was done. She missed the smell of burned marshmallow and wanted the musty, used odor of the motel room to disappear. Anna lit a joint, even though George pointed at the No Smoking sign.

“That only refers to cigarettes,” Anna said.

The scent of marijuana overpowered the various odors of past occupants that seemed layered in the room. Anna passed the joint to Kate, who lately, after months of rejecting the offer, had found herself giving in now and again. She took a drag and suffered a brutal coughing fit.

George shook her head in the manner of people who don’t partake.

Kate said, when she could speak again, “It will make the s’mores taste better.”

George, being the guest, was served first. The chocolate and marshmallow dripped onto her fingers, stinging them with their heat. She took a bite and thought,
Why does it need to taste better?

The next day, Anna drove thirty minutes north on the 101 and crossed the Oregon border.

“Welcome to Oregon,” Anna said, as if she were a representative of the state. “You have now officially been to two states,” she said to Kate. “How do you feel?”

“I think I like Oregon. It’s definitely my second-favorite state,” Kate said.

“Excellent,” said Anna as she began looking for an exit so that they could start their journey home.

After forty-eight hours of constant chatter, the trio drifted into silence. It wasn’t the tense silence of those who’d had their fill of one another, just an unspoken sparing of words. They knew when to speak and when to stop.

“I’m hungry,” George announced as the mileage signs to Santa Cruz dipped into double digits.

“I know a place,” Kate said.

An hour later, they were sitting in Smirnoff’s Diner on Church Street, devouring an assortment of pies and French fries. Ivan, Kate’s grandfather, guardian, and the owner of the establishment, approached the table and scoffed dramatically at the victuals selected from his very own menu. Had he taken their order instead of Louise, he would have insisted on the turkey dinner or meatloaf or something that had been a square meal back in his day.

He kissed his granddaughter on the cheek and then turned to Anna.

“Are you behayfing yussef?” he said as he bent down to kiss her forehead.

“Always,” Anna said, insincerely.

“Meet George,” said Kate. “She’s our new friend.”

“Is gut to make new frens,” Ivan said.

George noted that Ivan’s accent was an exact replica of the one Kate used with the loggers.

He shook George’s hand. “George, you say?”

“Short for Georgianna,” she said.

“I call you Georgianna,” Ivan said.

“Okay,” George said.

“Why did you order dis junk?” Ivan asked.

“We were hungry,” Anna said, not exactly answering the question.

“I bring you someting with protein,” Ivan said, still staring at the table and the young women around it.

“I’m a vegetarian now,” Anna said.

“You ate hamburger here last veek,” Ivan said.

“That was last week,” Anna said. “Things change.”

Ivan turned to George and gestured in the direction of Anna. “Watch out for dis one. She’s got the devil in her.”

Ivan winked at Anna, but he wasn’t joking. Not exactly. He patted his granddaughter on the head and said, “I get back to the bookkeepings. I see you Monday.”

Anna explained more of Kate’s story to George: Kate had been raised by her grandfather from the age of eight. She’d lived with him until she was eighteen, when he insisted that she move into the dormitory, even though she was going to college only a few miles from his residence. She still worked at the diner three days a week for pocket money.

What Anna didn’t mention to George was that Kate planned on taking over the diner. Anna didn’t mention it because she couldn’t fathom anyone wanting something so ordinary out of life. Kate had tried to explain it to her. It wasn’t just about the familiarity of the diner and how it tied her to her family. She wanted something that was hers completely. A tiny kingdom to rule as a benevolent dictator. She didn’t have Anna’s gift for becoming a dictator in any situation.

Anna pulled up in front of Stevenson College. As George slipped out into the soft, drizzly air, Anna said, “Let’s do this again sometime. And when I say
this
, I mean something completely different.”

Not knowing what that something might be, George said, “That sounds fun.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” Kate said.

San Francisco, California

“Who are you, Anna Fury?”

“I have no idea,” Anna said.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Jeff Fisher said, squinting earnestly. Jeff had various go-to expressions for a set list of situations. He reserved the squint for probing for personal details. The squint came in handy on dates. At least, dates with women who couldn’t see the squint for what it was—a schooled expression, formed with intent.

“What do you want to know?” Anna said.

“What makes you tick? That’s what I want to know.”

“I think it might be my watch.”

It had been six months since Anna was hired as a paralegal for Jeff Fisher, an intellectual property litigator. Jeff was the golden-haired boy of the office, an ex–fraternity president with plastic good looks and a suspiciously even tan. Jeff was accustomed to women responding to him—a quick laugh at one of his playground jokes, a smile in reaction to his Crest-white grin. Anna hid her growing distaste for him behind a veil of professionalism. She was respectful and prompt, giving Jeff no cause for complaint. But the smile he would demand on occasion—with the not-so-subtle “How about a smile today, Anna?”—would be answered with a broad, fake grin that she would drop the moment she turned away.

Matthew Bloom, Jeff’s colleague, had more of a detective’s eye and saw something else. Everything about Anna spoke of extreme discipline. Her collars were always starched, her skirts neatly pressed and appropriately conservative, and yet Matthew was convinced it was a disguise. She arrived exactly fifteen minutes early for work every single day, her face flushed—he suspected from an early-morning run. She participated in minimal chitchat, made almost no personal calls, typed well below average with hands that, he’d noted, were ringless. She left work at exactly 6:00. She made it clear that overtime didn’t interest her and would agree to it only under extreme duress.

Matthew and Jeff were sitting in Jeff’s office consuming deli sandwiches and reviewing a shared case when Anna entered and placed a piece of letterhead on Jeff’s desk.

“Sign,” she said, adding “please” at the last second, aware that her directive would offend Jeff’s notion of the chain of command.

Jeff reviewed and signed the letter. “I’d like that to go out today,” he said.

“That’s why it has today’s date,” Anna said.

“Thank you,” Jeff responded in an elevated tone. “That will be all.”

Anna departed even before his “thank you” was complete.

Ever since Anna began working at Blackman and Blackman LLP, rumors had bubbled, as they usually did in the absence of hard facts. Some of her coworkers said she had lived on a commune for five years. Others claimed she came from money and had suddenly been cut off. Because of her age, the precise figure unknown, marriage theories were followed by bitter-divorce theories. But Matthew never believed anything unless it was substantiated by solid evidence.

“So, how’s it working out?” Matthew asked Jeff when Anna was out of earshot.

“She’s not really my type,” Jeff said.

“She doesn’t have to be. She’s your colleague,” said Matthew.

“Employee,” Jeff corrected. “Something is wrong with her, you know? She’s incapable of having a normal conversation. I asked if she had any brothers and sisters. She said, ‘Yes.’ That’s all. I asked her what she did for fun. She said, ‘Not work.’ I asked her what she’d done before coming to Blackman and Blackman, and she said, ‘Something completely different.’ I even made the mistake of inquiring about the scar on her forehead. It’s not like she tries to hide it or anything. Told me she got it in a prison knife fight. Sometimes her only response to a question is ‘I don’t plan to answer that.’”

“Do you want to swap?” Matthew asked before he could seriously contemplate the offer. Carla Gomez had begun working for him a year ago, after Grace Henderson retired. Matthew had adored Grace, a career legal assistant who’d memorized both volumes of
Civil Procedure Before Trial.
Plainspoken and good at her job, she ordered Matthew around with an authoritarian air. Grace was a bit maternal in her bossiness, but it suited him. There was nothing wrong with Carla other than the fact that she wasn’t Grace.

Once the idea was mentioned, plans to make it happen were immediately set in motion. The only hitch was convincing Anna Fury.

Anna gazed at Matthew without comment for an uncomfortably long time before she responded to his offer.