Part 20 (1/2)
”Where's Janka?” Alison asked, not because she really wanted to know, but because Mich.e.l.le obviously wanted to talk. If it had been anyone else she would have grunted rudely until they left her to think her crabby thoughts alone, but Mich.e.l.le had rights that others did not.
”She's dancing. She said she was going to have a good time whether I was or not.” Mich.e.l.le ran a hand through her hair, which she had even consented to have moussed up in front. A silver earcuff dangled a blue stone from her ear. She sighed. ”I can't stand myself when I get jealous.”
”Neither can anyone else. Why are you being such a b.u.t.thead? You know she's not going to run off with that woman. Even if she was going to leave you it wouldn't be to go live in someone's van or a collective house made out of cardboard. All she wants to do with Seven Yellow Moons is talk weaving.”
”I know.” Mich.e.l.le sighed deeply again. A single woman entering gave her such a long look that, misinterpreting, she frowned and looked down, examining her s.h.i.+rt for a spot. ”I really know that in my heart of hearts. But sometimes I feel like...I mean, don't you?...like there is this other woman who lives inside me, and sometimes she gets out and does all these horrid things while I'm standing politely in the background saying, Ah, excuse me. Pardon me, but do you think...?' However, she never stays around to deal with any of the fights she causes.”
Alison laughed. ”I know her. Her sister is visiting my house tonight.”
”Have you seen Lydia's booth?”
”I built the d.a.m.n thing.”
”I can't believe Seven Yellow Moons displays with her.”
”She's a tolerant woman. More tolerant than you or I.”
”I guess. They were driving me crazy talking this afternoon.”
”About what?”
”Well, that was part of it. I didn't know quite what they were talking about so I couldn't quite follow. I didn't want to ask because I knew it would be something weird. But Seven Yellow Moons would say, 'I'm really worried about him,' and then Lydia would say, ”Why do you suppose you want to feel worried?' and Seven Yellow Moons would say, 'She's not going out, or seeing anyone. It's just like it was when he was a kid,' and Lydia would say, 'Well, what was her aura like?' and Seven Yellow Moons would say, 'I know he feels like I deserted him when he was in the hospital, but I wasn't going to play into him acting like that,' just like Lydia was listening or saying something that made sense. It went on like that for hours, and Lydia never asked her one single question or indicated she was paying attention in any way, and Seven Yellow Moons never acknowledged it. It was like listening to two five year olds. You know, how they have two monologues that are interspersed but think they're having a conversation?”
Alison laughed again, this time at Mich.e.l.le's interpretation of Lydia, played with big round eyes, staring up at the sky. ”Who were they talking about?”
”Who the f.u.c.k knows? The only reason that I was even listening was because Janka invited you-know-who up to talk weaving on her break and Lydia followed. And then they just never f.u.c.king left. I guess that Seven Yellow Moons had spent the day visiting old friends, and of course each of them had their own little soap opera going and she was all concerned. This one was about a mother and kid, but I never did get the characters right.”
”Hmm.” Alison spent a long moment thinking how delightful it would be to have her house back. The first thing she was going to do was change the locks. ”Well, we can stand out here all night and whine and get cold, or we can go inside and delight hundreds of women.”
”Let's stand outside and whine,” said Mich.e.l.le. ”I want to torment myself a little longer by thinking of Janka dancing with women more beautiful and interesting than me.”
Alison nodded agreeably and they stood in companionable silence for several minutes watching the fas.h.i.+on show parading before them.
”Could we whine inside?” Alison asked finally. ”I really am getting cold.”
”Sure. I'm almost done, anyway. I think after a beer I may be ready to go apologize for acting like a jerk. Of course, if she's dancing with Seven Yellow Moons I may do something that will raise the state of being a jerk to heights that have remained unreached before this.”
”Let's hope she's not. I don't want to ride in a car that full of hostility again. I'd rather have you making out in the back, nauseating as I usually find it.” They climbed off the rail and were swept up into a crowd of older women, all of whom were wearing tuxes with glittering red c.u.mberbunds.
”Do you want a beer? Hey, what did your boss have to say to you this morning?”
”No, but do they have anything to eat? He told me to mind my own business and hinted that there were going to be job ha.s.sles if I didn't.” Again Alison felt that tinge of guilt about the check. Well, Obtachta had made it very clear that it wasn't her job anymore.
”So that's that?” The line for beer and food stretched past the merchant's booths. Lydia and Seven Yellow Moons were on the very end, closest to the concessions. ”I think they're selling some kind of veggie plate.”
”That's that.” Alison rummaged in her purse, trying to get her wallet out without advertising to everyone around them that she was toting a piece.
”I didn't think you'd give up so easy.”
”G.o.ddammit, don't say that! Why is it my job to find this out, any more than it's yours or Janka's? You've got the same information I have. Don't make me responsible for these deaths!”
Mich.e.l.le did not reply, but tightened her lips and looked out in the crowd. Alison knew that Mich.e.l.le was still thinking that she had given up, and she could not blame her, because secretly, no matter how much she tried to justify it, she was thinking the same thing. But she had been ordered to keep out. It had nothing at all to do with not liking which way the information was pointing.
To distract herself she stared into the booth directly across from them which displayed vibrant silk screened T-s.h.i.+rts. A number of women who were holding them against tuxes or slipping them on over strapless gowns.
”Have you seen this show?” Mich.e.l.le nudged her and pointed with her chin at a booth across the way.
”Not this year's. I love it.” Alix Dobkin sang If It Wasn't For The Women as slides flashed onto the screen at the back of the booth. She did love the medley of local d.y.k.e photos and music. It was put together by a woman from Boulder and aired often. It combined an air of professionalism and home movies, showing marches, soccer games, concerts, the local bookstore. She saw events that she had attended herself and even thought she spotted her foot in a photo of a Memorial Day Picnic.
”Hey, look.” Mich.e.l.le jostled her arm. ”There you are.”
There she was, standing with her back to the camera, leaning against the bar at the Rubyfruit. Only there was something wrong.
”That's not me.” She knew it couldn't be, though the photo certainly looked like her. But she didn't have a s.h.i.+rt like that and before this week, she hadn't been to the Rubyfruit for years.
”Oh, come on, you can tell me. I'll respect you even if you are a barfly.”
”That's mighty big of you, but I still don't think it's me.”
”Well, it looks just like....”
The carousel turned and the bar was replaced by a picture of three women sitting on the lawn with three huge dogs. They could not argue about the picture now that they could not see it. Both began to turn, then once again the projector clicked and they found themselves back at the bar. This photo was almost exactly the same as the first, except that the woman in the foreground, the one whom Mich.e.l.le had mistaken for Alison, had turned so that she was facing the camera.
”Oh,” said Alison. She felt as if she were rooted to the spot.
”Hey, are you guys in line or are you just standing there?”
As if in a daze she moved up and paid for a plate of vegetables and dip. Mich.e.l.le was paying for a beer in the same distracted way, and she knew it was because they had shared the same flash of illumination.
There was nowhere to sit but Mich.e.l.le took her hand and ducked beneath the rope that sectioned off Lydia and Seven Yellow Moon's booth. Lydia gave them a dirty look as they settled down on a box in the back, which jolted Alison out of her daze just long enough so that she was able to appreciate the moment of being an unwanted guest rather than a reluctant hostess. ”That woman in the picture,” said Mich.e.l.le. She took a long pull on her beer bottle.
”Yes.”
”It wasn't you.”
”No.” Alison stuffed a piece of broccoli in her mouth. She was eating automatically now, a growing horror eclipsing her hunger and crabbiness. Neither said a word as she chewed the vegetable and swallowed it as if it were a piece of pasteboard.
”That was Carla in that picture.”
”Yes.”
Mich.e.l.le was talking as if to a first grader, and Alison was not impatient, for though her mind had already made the leap, it was as if it had arrived there alone, and all the steps on the way had been forgotten. Mich.e.l.le was filling in those steps. ”Carla looks just like you from behind.”
”Yes.” From behind, or in the dark, or particularly if they had changed clothes and she was wearing Alison's one-of-a-kind red sweater as she came up the stairs with a big box held in front of her. That could only mean that the killer had been quite aware of her going into the Rubyfruit, had already identified her.
And why had no one noticed the resemblance before? Because the very first night when she had brought Carla home and introduced her, Carla's head had been shaved like a demented punker.