Car Pool

by Karin Kallmaker

  The question was so unexpected that Shay didn’t know what to say. She knew how she felt, but was completely in the dark about Anthea’s feelings. Except for the sex. It was clear Anthea enjoyed the sex a lot.

  Anthea dropped her knife and whirled around. “I’m sorry. I… I’m not putting any pressure on you or asking you to live with me or anything like that. It’s only been a couple of weeks. We should probably date for a while. …”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it dating. That sounds so… civilized,” Shay said. You don’t make me feel civilized in the least, she thought.

  “I feel like I’ve known you for ages, but really, I don’t want to pressure you.”

  Shay looked anxiously up into Anthea’s face. “I’m … I’d like… Can we not ask that yet? I feel so up in the air. I’ll be looking for another job soon and… I’m so unsettled I can’t think about settling.”

  “But you might consider it?” The tiny freckles dusting Anthea’s cheeks were plainly visible for once.

  “I’ve already considered it.” Parts of her mind were telling her it would never work. Anthea was too closeted. Too rich. Too white. Too Yuppified. But she couldn’t possibly say anything but yes. Whenever Anthea asked her. If Anthea asked her.

  Which meant she was in love.

  It felt really, really good.

  It scared her to death.

  Anthea opened her mouth, then closed it again. There was an uncomfortable silence, then Anthea finally said, “Do you want to make something for dessert?”

  Shay smiled, though the feeling of anticlimax was overwhelming. “I thought I could just have you.”

  “Want to go over to the Cafe Ptomaine with me?”

  Adrian looked up at Anthea suspiciously. “Usually you just demand my presence. Why the soft gloves?”

  “Oh, no particular reason.” Anthea felt a blush start at her neck.

  “Are you getting married or something?”

  Anthea smiled. “Well, as a matter of fact, I might be getting or-somethinged. But that’s not the reason for the lunch invite.”

  “Just my charming personality, I suppose.” Adrian twisted his lips to one side. “Against my better judgment I’ll have lunch with you. Are you buying?”

  Anthea raised one eyebrow. “Are you kidding? This is the woman who made it possible for you to have dinner with a certain athlete, remember?”

  Anthea waited until Adrian was halfway through his plate of cafeteria beef stew — they had the audacity to call it beef bourguignon — before she led the conversation around to the topic of ex-lovers. More explicitly, Adrian’s ex-lovers.

  “You know the guy I mean. The one who does graphics for engineering—”

  “Oh, yeah, Erik. What about him?”

  “Do you still keep in touch? I don’t know how much people keep in touch with their ex-lovers.”

  “You haven’t kept in touch with any of yours. You probably will never say two words to Lois whereas I talk to Erik all the time.”

  “Why is that?”

  Adrian shrugged. “We made something together. We did some things together for the first time. Don’t get that prudish look on your face,” he said. “You have a one track mind. Erik and I learned to scuba dive together. We still have it in common.”

  Anthea munched on a crouton. Had she and Lois made anything together? Or did they just happen to be doing the same things at the same time? She shook the thought away and remembered what she wanted to find out. “So you still talk?”

  “Once a month or so,” Adrian said. He suddenly

  snapped to, a hint of suspicion in his eyes. “What do you want with Erik?”

  “Well…”

  “Oh, God,” Adrian said. “You and what’s-her-name want to have a baby together and you need a stud.”

  Anthea clapped a hand over her mouth. She could feel herself blushing. She swallowed and said, “We do not!”

  “I don’t know why you’d want Erik’s genes, anyway. He’s got bad knees.”

  “I need something he may have.”

  Adrian waited for a second, then said, “Is this twenty questions? Do I have to drag it out of you?”

  “I need some maps of the refinery that have grid locators on them.”

  “You can order a set…” Adrian’s voice trailed away as Anthea shook her head vehemently.

  “No one can know where I got them.”

  Adrian put down his fork. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Anthea dropped her voice. “Shay needs them for a … project.”

  “Some consulting work? But why NOC-U’s maps?”

  “It’s not consulting. There’s something going on, something illegal,” she whispered. “The maps will help build a case.”

  Adrian looked skeptical. “A case for what?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Anthea hissed. “They’ve been moving soil around that may not be clean.”

  Adrian leaned toward her. “Why do we care about dirty dirt?”

  “Because on an oil refinery, dirty dirt means toxic.”

  Adrian’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “Are you sure?” His voice ended with a squeak.

  Anthea nodded. After sorting the invoices, they had found a handful that were decidedly suspicious — charged to GPG, approval from one senior vice president, work done at night, and involving several cubic tons of soil each. Shay had written down the grid markings and sneaked a quick look at the map book this morning. She’d called to say, cryptically, that the tracks were pretty plain.

  “So you think Erik’s graphic files will give you the info you need?”

  “We need grid markers and general landmarks — just what they use for permit applications. I remembered Erik and—”

  “Decided to bribe me with a piece of cafeteria chocolate cake,” Adrian said.

  Anthea frowned. “What cake?”

  Adrian fluttered his eyelashes at her. “Better yet, I’ve heard for ages about your gourmet kitchen, and there’s this athletic-type guy I want to impress, but I can’t afford Chez Panisse. …”

  Anthea tried not to smile. In as severe a tone as she could manage, she said, “Saturday night. At six. Bring the goods and don’t be late.”

  10 Thru Traffic

  “You’re fussing too much,” Shay said.

  Anthea looked up as she sliced the last strawberry into the mixed fruit. “It’s not fussing. I love to cook. My second favorite way to spend a Saturday.” Anthea watched Shay’s gaze travel over the various bowls and platters on the kitchen island. She playfully slapped Shay’s hand away from the bowl of natillas sauce.

  “What’s the first way?” Shay sampled some of the diable mushroom filling instead.

  Anthea smirked an answer as she stirred the natillas sauce into the fruit. Then she smiled innocently as Shay hurriedly gulped from her glass of iced tea. Diable mushrooms were a specialty.

  After clearing her throat, Shay said, “Oh, yes, well, there is that and I must say it was rather fun.” Anthea thought she saw the skin on Shay’s throat turn a slightly tawnier shade. It had been a memorable send-off before Shay had left for her stint at the pizzeria. Shay cleared her throat again. “That stuff is hot as hell.”

  “Why, thank you,” Anthea said.

  “I meant the mushrooms.” Shay peered into the other bowls. “And what is this for,” she asked, prodding a bowl of soft meringue.

  “The fruit sauce and hollandaise only took egg yolks, so I made a meringue from the whites.”

  “Oh, I see. You were just using up spare ingredients.” One cheek dimpled as Shay looked back at Anthea.

  “Well, yes. Hollandaise for the salmon, natillas for the fruit, which means a meringue for the gateau ganache. Adrian said that Harold loves chocolate.”

  Shay smiled fondly at her. “What I see is a salad, fish, some potatoes smothered in cream and cheese, and two desserts. And fried bread.”

  “That’s polenta, not fried bread.” Anthea glanced down at her hips. She sigh
ed. “Maybe I should start on an exercise routine.”

  Shay’s expression changed completely — her eyebrows flew up and her mouth opened slightly.

  “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. I mean I love watching you enjoy cooking and eating. You obsess about cholesterol and fiber during the week, it’s kind of funny that you go so whole hog the other way on the weekend. That’s why I trimmed my Saturday shift to five hours — so I could eat you for dinner —” Anthea hooted “—I mean eat with you for dinner.”

  Anthea poured the fruit mix into her glass-lined copper bowl. She twisted open a few slices of orange for garnish, then stood back to study the effect. “I’ve been thinking I should take up running or something. I gained ten pounds since I quit smoking.” After a minor adjustment, she carried the bowl to the refrigerator. The urge for a cigarette came about once a day now. She began snicking small flakes of orange peel onto the salmon.

  Shay made a yum-yum noise as she watched the salmon preparations. “That’s not a crime. We all can’t have Martina’s stomach. The washboard stomach is a recent fad, you know. You have a stomach that would have put most painters into a dead faint. It does me.”

  “You’re just saying that.” Anthea felt inordinately pleased. She had been certain Shay thought she was fat.

  “I didn’t fall for an American Gladiator. I suppose if you wanted to turn into She-Ra, Princess of Large Boobs and No Hips, I would support you… .” Now Shay was wrinkling her nose.

  Anthea laughed and said, “Would you shave the chocolate for me?”

  Shay opened the door to Adrian and Harold. At first glance, they were casually attired, but she noted the extra touches that said Serious Male Dressing. Adrian’s boots had a blinding shine and Shay could have cut herself on the crease in his black jeans. Harold looked as if he’d been poured into his 501s and black pullover. Something about gay men in San Francisco, she thought. Fashion divas even when they probably aren’t trying. Of course, this would be their second date, which might account for the extra care they’d obviously both taken.

  Adrian whistled as they crossed the living room. “I work with Andy six years and don’t know about this view.”

  Harold seemed speechless. He silently handed over a bottle of wine.

  “Thanks,” Shay said.

  Harold seemed to find his voice. “Is that a ganache?” he asked Anthea.

  “With caramel pecan filling.”

  “What’s a ganache?” Adrian stooped to inspect the chocolate-covered confection.

  Harold gave him a pitying look. “It’ll be another first for our relationship.”

  “I had no idea I was dating a gourmet cook.”

  “I’m simply a gourmet,” Harold said. “I don’t have much success cooking it, but I do love to eat it.”

  Adrian made an appreciative noise.

  Shay groaned loudly and said, “Let’s not start that conversation again. We’ve already done all the food and eating puns, guys.”

  “Darn.” Adrian leaned on the counter and watched Anthea finish the last touches on the salmon.

  Anthea looked up at him. “You brought the maps this meal is buying?”

  As Shay took the envelope, Adrian said, “Erik didn’t ask what I wanted them for, not after I said he really didn’t want to know. These are copies of his printouts as well as diskettes to print more.”

  Shay started to open the envelope, but Anthea said rather sharply, “After dinner, please. The salmon is not going to share the table with refinery maps.”

  Shay conceded with a smile and set the envelope aside. “Is it time for those mushroom thingies to come out of the oven?”

  Anthea glanced at the clock. Shay had the sudden urge to kiss her all over, she was so adorable when she took charge. “Just about. Why don’t you get the pitcher of fire extinguisher out of the lower fridge.”

  “Fire extinguisher?” Adrian and Harold spoke simultaneously, then looked at each other.

  Anthea laughed with an evil touch. “You’ll need it with the mushrooms.”

  Shay didn’t know if it was the tingle of the wine or the sparkle of Anthea’s best china and crystal, or the soft light dancing off the small chandeliers in the dining room, but she couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun at a meal. It was an odd but pleasant feeling. She thought of her father suddenly,

  and how for most of her adult life they’d shared almost every meal, sometimes in appalling conditions. It had been just the two of them. Until recently, she’d have given almost anything to go back to that life. But not anymore. The landscape of her world had changed, and with it her perspective on herself. She felt maudlin all of a sudden, as if she should make a note of the time as something slipped away, but she couldn’t really say what was disappearing.

  “You’re all going on so much, but I just love to cook,” Anthea was saying. “I just love to and it’s nice to have people to cook for.” She glanced at Shay with a smile as she brought the fruit bowl to the table, with four crystal bowls.

  Shay made a moaning, appreciative sound when she tasted the sauce she’d said was fussing. She’d grown so used to the way food was served in the pizza parlor — plain everything on plain tables. And the special touch of a creamy, sweet sauce on chilled pineapple, strawberries and melon was fussing — and it was worth it.

  Anthea said, slowly, “This is going to sound very strange, but this is the first time in my life that I’ve felt this comfortable in my own home. Until tonight, I felt like I was… keeping it nice until the real owner came home.”

  “Maybe that’s the fire,” Adrian said.

  “The fire or the shadow of my parents.” Anthea shrugged.

  “Oh, no wonder,” Harold said. “I kept thinking everything seemed new. I thought you had redecorated, but you rebuilt, didn’t you?”

  Anthea nodded. “It’s roughly the same floor plan, but I did make some improvements. I miss the trees.

  We had these big eucalyptus trees — four of them just along the property line. They went up like torches. I watched them explode on the news.”

  There was a little silence, then Shay said, “Well, on that mortal thought, let’s get to work.”

  Harold said, “What happened to the ganache?” Anthea smiled wickedly. • “I plan ahead. After a couple of hours of playing with our maps we’re going to want chocolate.”

  Anthea felt decidedly unscientific as Shay and Harold punched away at their HP calculators and spoke in a foreign language about velocity heads and permeability boundaries. She and Adrian waded through the invoices and devised a cataloging system to mark the soil movement on the grid as well as the more esoteric symbols for mineral content and groundwater movement. Though they were careful with the maps, they were soon wearing thin from erasing and remarking.

  “We’re going to need to print out more,” Adrian said as his eraser went through the corner of the map that contained well B-B-146.

  “What software do we need?”

  Adrian dug in the envelope for a diskette. “Never heard of it.” He handed it to Anthea.

  She grimaced. “It’s an illustration program. My computer at work doesn’t have the operating system for it, not that I want to be caught dead printing out these maps at work.” She thought for a moment, considering the alternatives. “I’ve always wanted a computer at home,” she said. She could lease

  something, maybe, or just buy it. Something she could make use of after the current project. Something Shay could use, too.

  Shay glanced up from the worksheet she and Harold were hunched over. “What computer?”

  “We need one that’ll run Windows and has a high-resolution video card.”

  Harold snorted. “Don’t look at me. Our dinosaurs at the trailers are two-eighty-sixes.”

  Adrian made his very-Adrian sound of disgust. “That’s cheap. Of course, we’re still waiting for requisition approval for our upgrades for last year’s releases.”

  “Andy, I can’t let you buy—” Shay began.

/>   “If I were a client, I’d provide you with the equipment, wouldn’t I?”

  “No, we’d buy the equipment and bill you for the use of it while we worked on your project.”

  Anthea shrugged. “Same difference. So consider me a client for the purpose of this project. Besides, you’re going to need a word processor at a minimum.”

  Shay was frowning. “I don’t like it.”

  Harold said, “What’s not to like? This work needs to be done and there’s someone who’s willing to pay for it.”

  Shay’s frown intensified. “But I’m sleeping with that someone.”

  Adrian laughed and said, “So where’s the problem?”

  Anthea met Shay’s gaze. “Let me do this. It matters to me as much as to you.”

  Anthea could sense Shay’s reluctance and confusion as she sighed. “Okay, okay,” Shay said.

  Anthea smiled brilliantly. Maybe she was finally

  smoothing down Shay’s rough edges about money.

  “And after that, maybe you could tell me when Mrs.

  Giordano’s birthday is. There’s a stove I want to get

  her.”

  Shay winced. “I’m losing this battle, aren’t 1?” Adrian glanced at them. “Is there a war?”

  Harold stretched. Anthea thought his shirt would burst as the muscles rippled along his shoulders. “So where are we,” he said around a half-concealed yawn.

  “Time for cappuccino and ganache,” Anthea said. She listened to Shay’s summary as she set up the machine.

  Adrian moaned and said, “I’ve died and gone to Yuppie heaven.”

  “Our data is only for the last six months, and the invoices only go back slightly further than that. So the pattern we have is compressed in time. It’s hard to show any kind of constituent movement in such a short period, but here’s what we have.” Anthea glanced up to watch Shay gesture from grid map to grid map. “We start with three wells showing xylene here, here, and here six months ago, at levels approaching the hazardous line. Then, a one-third reduction of xylene in all three wells four months later. Then we use the NEM data to show spikes of xylene suddenly appearing here, here and here. Two of those wells weren’t showing xylene before and the xylene that’s there isn’t at a hazardous level. But our well, good ol’ B-B-one-forty-six, already had a xylene content. Perhaps from prior dumping, but that’s just speculation.”