The Raft (19 page)

“But when you thought I was in danger,”
Maggie said, searching for a bright spot, “you came. I can't thank
you enough for that. With every reason on the Earth not to do so,
you still came to help.”

“You didn't need me, though.”

“I needed you – I still need you,” Maggie
said, then regretted the double meaning.

They fell into silence. Rachael choked back a
sob. The waiter, sensing a pause, appeared to take their order.
Maggie ordered pasta and veal. Rachael said nothing.

Chapter 19

They had a silent dinner as the evening sun
streamed in through the window to the west. Maggie ate, Rachael
picked at her share of the noodles. Maggie ordered a third carafe
of wine and they quickly put it to bed. With the pasta and meat
finished, the waiter cleared the plates and Maggie ordered gelato
and coffee. Finally, she got her ice cream.

After dessert, the bill came and Rachael
produced her
Times
Visa. Maggie choked when she caught a
glimpse of the upside-down receipt Rachael was signing: twelve
hundred dollars for dinner. The rapidity of dryfoot inflation
always took her by shock, but the bill was almost triple what she
expected.

“Let me get that,” Maggie said, reaching out
for the receipt.

“No, no, business expense,” Rachael said,
slightly slurring her speech.

“No, the paper shouldn't have to pay for my
wine,” Maggie insisted.

“And you have money?” Rachael looked up from
the bill, raising an eyebrow.

“I have Sum,” Maggie said.

“They don't take that onshore, Maggie.”

“Of course they do,” Maggie corrected.

“No -” Rachael began, but Maggie didn't wait
for her to protest.

She waved down the waiter. Quietly she asked,
“Do you take alternative forms of payment?”

For a moment, the waiter looked suspicious,
then his scowl turned into a smile. “Of course, I'll just be a
moment,” he said, taking the bill away from Rachael.

“See?” Maggie said, self-satisfied.

“You'll get them arrested,” Rachael shook her
head in bewilderment.

“You're just sore because my money is better
than your money.” Maggie laughed. She finished off the last of her
coffee.

The waiter returned with another bill, this
one on shiny printer paper from Gandalf's Exchange. It was for
almost five hours. Maggie coughed. Now she regretted trying to make
a point. She signed the paper with her user ID and tipped the
receipt, folding the copy quietly in half.

“Thank you,” Rachael said honestly. After
all, now she wouldn't have to fight with the paper's accountant,
trying to explain how dinner for two could possibly cost so
much.

Maggie and Rachael climbed from their seats,
moving unsteadily on their legs. They headed for the exit, hanging
on to each other's arms for mutual support.

There was no denying it now that they were up
and about, they were both drunk. There was no excuse. Three carafes
of wine and it was as if their knees were jelly. In front of
DiJulio's,
they tripped and giggled like schoolgirls down
the last step to the sidewalk. They kept their eyes firmly fixed on
their feet, carefully attempting to navigate the uneven sidewalk as
they climbed up the steep slope. After a few yards, Rachael reared
back and gasped, almost tumbling back down the hill.

Maggie reached out and caught her by the
arm.

“Shoes!” Rachael exclaimed drunkenly. She
pointed down at the pavement, at Maggie's feet.

“Yes, like them?” Maggie lifted her left
foot, modeling the loafer on it. Her bare feet were no longer bare.
Until that moment, Rachael hadn't noticed. She'd been so
self-absorbed, angry. But ever since the Senator's Queen Anne
mansion... Maggie had been comfortably walking around town.

The... bitch! Rachael doubled over as a wave
of laughter rocked her body. “You... you stole his shoes!” Rachael
guffawed, howling. “Penny loafers!” Rachael's eyes began to stream
with tears. Between the wine and the shoes, Rachael collapsed into
a heap on the sidewalk. She clung to Maggie's hand for dear life.
The shoes... they were absolutely the funniest thing she'd ever
seen in her life.

Maggie chuckled along. But it wasn't really
that
funny. “Yeah, I saw them there by the doorway, and I
knew I'd need something on my feet, so...”

“You stole Senator Hadian's shoes?” Rachael
howled, pointing down at Maggie's feet. People on the street were
starting to give them looks. Maggie picked Rachael up, bodily
lifting her back to her feet.

She had her arms around her waist, holding
Rachael's weight. Their bodies were close, dangerously touching,
Rachael's cheeks stained with tears.

“You stole that son of a bitch's shoes,
Maggie,” Rachael said, no longer laughing. Then, suddenly she
lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Maggie's neck and hungrily
kissing her.

Their lips intertwined. Maggie stood frozen
to the spot, shocked in wide-eyed panic. Only after Rachael removed
her arms from around her neck did Maggie fully understand what was
going on. Then she moaned and pushed back hard, letting her tongue
dance between Rachael's lips. They kissed for a long, exquisite
minute.

Then Rachael was stumbling away, tripping on
her own feet. She fell and hit the sidewalk, quickly springing back
up. Before Maggie could say a word, Rachael was sprinting away,
back down James towards Pioneer Square, her limbs flying wildly
around her, tripping and stumbling.

“Rachael, wait!” Maggie called out as she
began to give chase. But Rachael had already reached the corner of
James and Yesler. She held up a hand, and a green hybrid taxi
slowed. With a sudden burst of remarkable agility, Rachael threw
herself into the back of the cab. Before Maggie had even reached
the front door of
DiJulio's
, the cab was gone. Maggie
paused, looking up and down the street.

“Shit,” Maggie cursed. She stood on the
sidewalk all alone and shielded her eyes to the setting sun.

Shit was right, indeed.

Now how the hell was she going to get back to
the
Soft Cell
?

After a long, pointless period of indecision,
Maggie remembered the business card in her pocket. She fished it
out and blinked incomprehensibly at Detective Sargent Yi's name and
number on the card. The door of
DiJulio's
was right beside
her, so she stepped back up into the restaurant.

Maybe they had a phone she could use. Maybe
they had a full bar. Maggie was going to need another drink. A
strong one.

Chapter 20

Maggie's phone rang in the gloom, waking
Maggie from a fitful sleep. The black iPhone added its incessant
beep to the rhythmic thumping in Maggie's skull.

Ugh, too much wine and too much drama, Maggie
thought as she collapsed out of her bunk. She was still wrapped in
her heavy quilt as she scooped the phone up out of its charger and
tried to read the screen with blurry eyes. She stabbed at it,
hoping to make it stop its irritating chirp.

“Hello?” a small voice said from the phone.
Maggie had accidentally answered it.

“Hello?” Maggie said, bringing the phone to
her ear. “Rachael?” she asked.

“Yes. Morning. Did I wake you?” Rachael
asked.

“Yes.” Maggie was too groggy to lie. It was
only then that Maggie realized that the rhythmic thumping wasn't in
her skull, but outside her cabin. It was raining. Hard.

“Sorry, but I have the coroner's report in
front of me. I figured you'd rather be woken up than wait.”

“Yes... yes!” Maggie slowly began to
understand what Rachael was talking about. “What does it say?”

“You were right: no signs of pregnancy.”

“There you go. So much for your tell-all on
Senator Hadian.” Maggie unwrapped herself from her quilt and sat
down on the galley bench.

“Well, it was a nice dream while it
lasted.”

“It was.”

“But here's the wrinkle that's really going
to tighten the screws on your hangover: they ran Meerkat's prints
off her body. There was a hit in the FBI database. Meerkat's real
name wasn't Joanna Church, but Rebbecca Oldrich.”

“What?” That woke Maggie up.

“Yes, and there's an outstanding warrant –
well, was an outstanding warrant – in Arizona on two counts of
vehicular homicide. She skipped bail.”

Maggie was still processing. Her brain was
too fuzzy to keep up. “Wait, what? Homicide?”

“Vehicular. Drunk driving. I don't have the
details yet, I'll have Peter pull it up when he wakes up.”

“I don't understand,” Maggie was thinking out
loud. “Meerkat wasn't really Meerkat? She wasn't even Joanna
Church?”

“I guess?”

“Then who's Joanna Church?”

Maggie could almost hear Rachael shrug on the
other end of the phone.

“I said this wasn't going to help your
headache.”

“And you were right,” Maggie said, leaning up
against the table and putting her forehead in her hand. “Do you
feel as bad as me?”

“Worse,” Rachael groaned. “I got home and
drank another bottle. Peter found me passed out on the couch after
midnight with
Casablanca
blaring on the TV. He had to carry
me to bed.”

“About -” Maggie started quickly.

“I'm sorry,” Rachael interrupted.

“No, don't be sorry. I was stupid. We were
drunk.”

There was a pause, then Rachael
unexceptionably snorted with laughter.

“
Stop laughing
,” Maggie scolded.

“No, no. It's just... those damn shoes.”

“I didn't intend it to be a prank.”

“No, but...” Rachael sighed. “Maggie, don't
take this the wrong way, but I love you.”

“How could I take that the wrong way?”

“But...”

“Yes, but...”

“It's just... after you spoke to Hadian...
and then to realize you did something so amazingly childish as
steal his penny loafers... I just remembered how amazing you are. I
saw it all yesterday, the life you've carved out for yourself out
there on the Raft. You are amazing, Maggie, and now I understand
why it is that you had to leave dryland and grow into the person
you've become... But that's on the Raft, Maggie...”

“And your life is onshore,” Maggie
finished.

“Exactly. With Peter and Margaret. They're
amazing, too. Really. You can only imagine.”

“I can.” Maggie cleared her throat, pushing
down hard on her emotions. If she'd ever needed a one-liner,
something witty to break the tension, now was the moment. “How long
did you practice that speech?” she said.

“Since three this morning,” Rachael replied.
“When I woke up in a cold sweat.”

“It was well worth the effort.”

“Maggie -”

Maggie didn't know what was next and she
didn't want to find out. “Let's just promise,” she interrupted,
“that this time, when we part ways, we both say goodbye, okay?”

There was silence on the phone. The rain was
really pounding on the roof of the cabin. “I'd... I'd like
that.”

“Good.” Now it was Maggie's turn to say
nothing.

There was a clicking on the line. Maggie
vaguely recalled the concept of call waiting. “Oh, I've got another
call,” Rachael's voice came back. “It's Galahad. I'll call you
back, okay?”

“Okay.” The line went dead. Maggie returned
the phone to its charger and shuffled off, still wrapped in her
quilt, back to the fore bunk. Whatever the weather was doing
outside, she wanted no part of it. She dropped heavily into her
bunk and pulled the quilt up high over her head.

Less than ten seconds later she was asleep
once again, the rain and the phone call with Rachael forgotten.

Chapter 21

Rachael found a table in the
Salmon Bay
Cafe
and ordered coffee. Black and lots of it. She shook out
her umbrella and stowed it under the table. Looking over the menu
of omelets and fried breakfasts, her stomach did a flip. Just
coffee for now, she told herself, and sipped it hesitantly when it
arrived.

Rachael was no good at drinking and she knew
it. Whatever tolerance to alcohol she'd gained through experience
had been lost since the birth of Margaret. She'd needed neither the
second glass of wine nor the tenth. Or any of the glasses in
between.

But, against all common sense, she felt
great. The emotional roller coaster of the day before was behind
her, and it'd had a horrible dip at the end. But the cathartic
punch of one last kiss with Maggie had knocked a whole head full of
sense back into Rachael. When she'd awoken groggy and lost in
Peter's arms in the middle of the night, she'd hated herself for
her momentary infidelity. But in the cold, hard, vomiting light of
the morning, she'd had time to reflect on the events of the day
before.

From hating Maggie to loving her again, then
back to despising her and again back to loving her, the single day
had been a compressed replay of their relationship. Up and down, up
and down, up and down, it'd always been that way with Maggie. You
never knew what you were going to get.

And then to have her, one day, gone... but
this time, in front of
DiJulio's
, it had been Rachael's
opportunity to do the leaving. That felt good. That was cathartic.
That, perhaps, had always been what she'd needed: to leave Maggie
standing in the night while Rachael ran away – ran towards
something else. Back to Peter and Margaret and her life. She'd
turned tail and run, perhaps a few minutes too late, but she had
done it. She'd stepped up to the line, but not over it.

Of course, any sensible person would have
seen the line a mile before she'd crossed it. But Rachael wasn't
about to beat herself up about that. She'd tested herself and found
herself fit. She was trying very hard to keep this morning a 'glass
is half full' kind of morning. There'd be time to review her
mistakes later. Much later.