Anyone But You

by K. G. MacGregor

  “Who’s here? How many are coming? Tell me everything,” she said as he grabbed her canvas duffel and sleeping bag from the backseat.

  “Jenn’s driving overnight from Denver. Ought to be here by lunchtime tomorrow. She put out the call last night and by this morning had gotten ten solid commitments, all from the upper Midwest. And I picked up three more already from the local university this afternoon. They’re inside.”

  “Great, we’ll put them through the training seminar tomorrow night and send them out to recruit their friends.”

  “Faye should be good at that and Ethan can help with messaging. I’m going to try to hide out here at the lake and I want Ricky with me. You’ll see why.”

  The cozy cabin had a kitchen, living space and bathroom on the ground floor with a ladder leading to the sleeping loft. To Stacie’s delight, Faye and Ethan were neatly dressed and rather ordinary looking, just the type of people CLEAN needed to interact with the general public and convey seriousness and maturity. She didn’t personally care how people looked or what they wore, but it was a fact that the average citizen was turned off by protestors who wore ragged jeans and T-shirts. Clean-cut kids did well going door-to-door or standing outside public buildings with petitions. The third guy, Ricky, was a slightly built young man of Indian descent whose hobby was electronics—remote controlled flying electronics in particular. That could definitely come in handy so close to the spill site.

  “Whose place is this?” Stacie asked.

  “Belongs to Matt Stevenson—his father, actually. Matt’s an attorney here in Duluth. Jenn found him on the donor list and I met with him this morning. He’s also agreed to represent us if we get into trouble.”

  “You mean when we get into trouble.” She looked at the newcomers. “They always find something to hassle us about, so I hope you’re ready for it.”

  Izzy went on, “Turns out Matt’s a Democratic Party honcho in St. Louis County and his dad is letting us use this place so we can keep an eye on the cleanup. He also hooked us up with a farmhouse rental where everybody can stay.”

  Their national network included professionals in every state who could spring into action at a moment’s notice. They needed only a handful of dedicated activists to launch a movement, and when this episode finally ended, they’d be even stronger for the next one.

  Ricky showed off the pantry’s provisions. “We stocked up this afternoon. Izzy figures they’ll evacuate this end of the lake soon but we’ll lay low till they’re gone.”

  Because oil spills were flammable and their vapors highly toxic, it was legitimately necessary to block public access to an incident, and the energy company usually got the FAA to restrict the airspace overhead, arguing that helicopter blades would scatter the surface oil. Conveniently, that also allowed them to manipulate the news narrative since no one was around to dispute it. They typically made each incident sound minor and always professed to have the cleanup well in hand. If Izzy and Ricky were hiding inside the barriers, they could monitor the veracity of those claims. CLEAN’s very own bullshit detector.

  “Any more news about the spill?”

  “About what you’d expect. The pipeline belongs to Nations Oil. They had a press conference at five o’clock and announced the unintended discharge was now under control, the environmental impact minimal and the cleanup already underway.”

  Stacie rolled her eyes and addressed the newcomers. “Unintended discharge…no shit. As usual, we’ve got the foxes guarding the henhouse. They like to make it sound like it’s all robins and butterflies so everybody will just go on about their business and act like it’s no big deal, and then two years later all the fish have three eyes.”

  Ethan spoke up. “They’re calling it a crude spill. Heavy oil.”

  Izzy explained, “Ethan writes for The Statesman. That’s the student newspaper at UM-D, so he went to the press conference.”

  “Outstanding! Jenn has press credentials too. You guys should coordinate your coverage when she gets here tomorrow. Anyone show up from the community to find out what was happening?”

  “Just the guy from the bait shop and a couple of his buddies. They’re the ones who discovered the spill,” Faye replied. “They got interviewed on TV but didn’t seem too upset about how this was going to shut down their business for months.”

  “The lawyers probably got to them already with their usual song and dance about how too much controversy tends to slow down compensation. We’ll need to find some angry locals and get them on the record. Jenn’s good at that.”

  Izzy served up bowls of split pea soup cooked over a portable camp stove. “We’ll be cooking all our meals this way now that the power’s been cut. One little spark in the wrong place and boom!”

  After dinner they exchanged contact information and Faye asked Izzy, “How are you guys going to charge your phones and laptops without electricity?”

  He smiled wryly. “Ricky rigged up a solar panel on the roof that ought to be enough to charge all of our gadgets as long as it doesn’t rain. I doubt they’ll shut down the cell towers since they need them as much as we do.”

  “Plus we have these,” Ricky said, opening a cooler to reveal a stash of Sterno canisters and batteries in all shapes and sizes.

  Stacie was impressed. “I hear the mosquitoes are pretty bad up here in the summertime.”

  Faye chuckled. “Like birds, only bigger.”

  “You forget we’re all from Minnesota,” Izzy said. “Hardy Midwestern stock. We’ve got plenty of supplies to hold out for a couple of weeks. That ought to give us enough time to find a drop zone where we can sneak things in and out. These woods are pretty good cover, but I won’t be surprised if they hire security to patrol them.”

  Security likely meant Karl Depew, a ruthless son of a bitch who did everything he could to make their lives miserable. His contacts in the oil industry and willingness to break the rules pretty much guaranteed his presence at every incident. Oil companies preferred to work in secret and they weren’t shy about making friends who would help them out. Local law enforcement agencies were happy to “partner” with any company willing to pay for overtime and special equipment. And there was always the possibility Depew would involve the Department of Homeland Security, who considered pipeline threats matters of national concern.

  This cabin, Stacie thought, could turn out to be CLEAN’s best perch ever to monitor excavation of a ruptured pipeline and cleanup. Now it was up to her to find ears for their information, like someone in Washington or in the mainstream media. There was no guarantee the local regulators or law enforcement would listen, not if Nations Oil managed to buy them off.

  After sunset, Faye and Ethan took their leave, the latter driving off in Izzy’s rust bucket so the cabin would appear vacant once Stacie left in the morning. According to Izzy, the farmhouse Matt Stevenson arranged for them had four bedrooms and two baths. She always pulled rank and claimed a bedroom for herself and Jenn. Sharing a house with others—some of whom were first-timers on the road and had no idea what to expect—was her least favorite part of every campaign. Privacy was at a premium, and after a few days their time at the house would be rife with petty squabbles over bathroom habits or whose turn it was to do what. It was worth it though. They took pride in knowing they were fighting the good fight, and nothing beat the adrenaline rush from the protests and confrontations.

  Still, it was getting harder every year to cope with the nomadic lifestyle of an activist. It wasn’t just the no-frills accommodations, or even the lack of privacy. What bothered her more after each campaign was returning home and facing the fact that her activism was the only substantive thing in her life. No one wanted a future with someone who ran off at the drop of a hat and poured her whole heart into a quixotic fight against corporate behemoths.

  * * *

  Cathryn offered the last slice of a pepperoni pizza to her administrative assistant, Amy Hornbeck, and then crushed the box so it would fit in the garbage can under the sin
k. Since she was a company director, her per diem was twice as much as both her assistants, but the higher-ups on the corporate jet had a blank check for luxury expenses. While the executives had gone out for steak at a fine dining restaurant and were staying at the North Shore Resort fronting Lake Superior, she and her team were relegated to a residential hotel in Hermantown not far from the spill site. Her envy of their extra perks was mitigated by having a whole apartment, not just a hotel room. Since this was shaping up to be an extended road trip, she was sure to appreciate the extra space and homey feel.

  Woody gobbled up his slice and washed it down with his second beer. An entry-level petroleum engineer and only three years out of Texas A&M, he hadn’t been her first choice for a technical assistant, or even her second or third. He’d made the cut because his father sat on the university’s board of trustees with Hoss, leading Cathryn to think he’d rise quickly in the company—but probably not until he started wearing a big hat like the other men.

  Amy lounged on the sofa with her bare feet on the coffee table, clearly tired from their long day. Originally from Shreveport, she’d joined Nations Oil six years ago right out of LSU, where she’d majored in business administration. Unlike Woody, she was Cathryn’s first choice as assistant communications director, and focused her efforts on the job at hand instead of always plotting her next advancement. White men in big hats notwithstanding, Cathryn expected to make Vice President of Investor Relations when Clifford Blake retired, and Amy would slide easily into the job of spokesperson, especially given that Hoss found her freckles and curly, reddish-brown hair “perky.”

  Suddenly Amy shuddered and groaned. “I just had a mental image of Bryce Tucker trying to stick a twenty-dollar bill in some poor girl’s underwear. That’s going to keep me up all night.”

  Following their press conference, Cathryn had overheard the men making plans to visit a strip club after dinner. “I probably shouldn’t have told you guys about that.”

  “What do you want to bet they write it off on their expense account?” Woody groused.

  “Entertainment expenses are perfectly legal,” she said. And it helped explain why there were so few women at the top levels of Nations Oil. It was a boys’ club through and through, but she was confident she’d break into their circle one of these days.

  Amy shuddered again and smacked Woody on the arm. “But it’s creepy. Why do you guys do that?”

  “What do you mean, ‘you guys’? I’m not at the strip club, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “By the way, Woody—and this goes for you too, Amy—Gregg O’Connor reminded everyone today that we need to be extremely careful about communicating sensitive details concerning the spill, including that email you sent this morning about the pumping station differentials. Bryce’s engineers were low-balling the estimate at ninety thousand and your numbers blew them away.”

  “What’s so sensitive about that? I only told them how many gallons went missing. Math is math.”

  “Yes, but you put it in a document. Now it’s part of the paper trail and subject to subpoena. If we clean up ninety thousand gallons and it looks like it’s all gone, the EPA could make us keep digging.” The fact that he might be correct was not part of the corporate equation. “Gregg wants you to write a corrective memo tomorrow, something about how the alarm failure could have been the result of calibration errors, which would also account for the volume discrepancy. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  He threw up his hands in resignation. “It’s possible aliens came down and scooped it up in their flying saucers.”

  She crossed her arms and eyed him sternly. “Just get the memo out, preferably by eight o’clock in the morning.”

  Though Cathryn occasionally joined Woody and Amy after work for a beer, she did not otherwise socialize much with any of her co-workers. A modicum of camaraderie was good for teamwork as long as no one lost sight of who was boss, like Woody had just now. The way to remind him was to snap him back like a rubber band.

  The rest of her social life was under the radar at work, thanks to a sexual harassment lawsuit against one of the VPs a couple of years ago, after which conversations of a sexual nature were strictly prohibited for everyone. She’d made no secret of being a lesbian and it was common knowledge around the company, but she welcomed the firewall and never talked with her team about personal matters.

  She doubted there would be any opportunities for “personal matters” in Duluth. An Internet search for lesbian dance clubs or bars in the area had come up empty. The lesbian community probably consisted of college students and homesteading couples who got together once a month for potluck. Neither of those segments piqued her interest.

  Woody slapped his knees and stood, stretching as though he’d just gotten out of bed. “Guess I’ll hit the hay. Long day tomorrow.”

  “Long month is more like it,” Amy replied, yawning for exaggerated effect as she followed him to the door.

  They were sleeping together, Cathryn suddenly realized. On the one hand, that pleased her immensely since it meant she’d see less of them after work hours. On the other hand, if they were discovered by any of the higher-ups one of them would be fired—likely Amy, since her father didn’t serve on a board with Hoss. As their immediate supervisor it was Cathryn’s responsibility to remind them of company policy, but that could wait until they got back to Houston. It might run its course by then anyway.

  After dead-bolting the door behind them, she leaned against it and folded her arms, wondering how she’d fill her nights in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. She might as well be at the end of the world.

  The moment she left New Mexico for the University of Texas, she discovered she was always meant for a cosmopolitan life. Austin wasn’t exactly Manhattan, but it was teeming with women who liked women, and also women who liked politics, business and the arts. Her freshman year proved almost too stimulating, and it took the next three years of straight A’s to graduate cum laude. That was enough to get her an internship at Nations Oil, after which the dominoes fell perfectly. Just one more rung on the corporate ladder and she’d have it all—professionally, that is.

  Personally, not so much. She’d been single for four years, ever since Janice left for Maryland after meeting her soulmate in a cooking forum online. Nine years down the drain. There was no good reason to believe long-term relationships would last, so she’d learned to entertain herself with a series of short-term flings.

  Janice had left not long after Cathryn’s fortieth birthday, and one of those two events caused her hormones to explode. She’d gone through half a dozen such flings in the last three years, thinking herself modern rather than promiscuous. Most of them she’d met on SappHere, a mobile app for her phone that located lesbians nearby. It was simple to use. She could log in and check out the profiles of lesbians within whatever geographic range she set. If anyone looked interesting, she could send a private message inviting that woman to meet for a drink.

  Ten years ago, the prospect of online dating was scary but now it was the status quo. SappHere had built-in safeguards, like allowing her to fix her location to a public place instead of her home so strangers wouldn’t know where she lived. She used the name Cate and listed her hometown as Artesia, New Mexico, where she had grown up. Her profile photo showed only part of her face. Rarely did she stay logged in for more than a minute or two, usually just long enough to check out who was around.

  Though she’d dated a handful of locals in Houston, her preference was women from out of town, especially those who visited regularly on business. They were usually looking for fun, not marriage, and tended to be career women like her. Best of all, they had hotel rooms, which reinforced her sense of anonymity.

  Not that any of that mattered here. SappHere was sophisticated and Duluth was not. To prove her theory, she absently tapped her smartphone and was stunned to actually get a hit, a woman who also used the airport as her default location. And not too shabby if the profile pic was less than ten ye
ars old. Short black hair, brown eyes, nice smile, and with a slender neck that suggested an athletic frame. If she’d been any cuter, Cathryn would have written her off immediately. The really gorgeous women on SappHere usually turned out to be men trolling for a threesome.

  This cutie was Marlene from Pittsburgh. In the time it took Cathryn to scan the sketchy profile, Marlene was gone. Too bad.

  Not that it mattered much—tomorrow would be another busy day. She’d scheduled a press update for eleven o’clock with no intention of showing up before a quarter after. It was vital she set the proper tone and establish early that reporters were at her mercy for information.

  After straightening her kitchen, she cleared space in her sitting area for her yoga mat and retreated to the bedroom to change into leggings and a tank top. Yoga was her most important ritual of the day, even if only for fifteen minutes right before bed. It calmed her body and cleared her head for sleep.

  Fifteen minutes became thirty as she visualized herself at the front of the pressroom. Ninety percent of her job was poise under pressure, and in a situation such as this one, the pressure grew exponentially with every gallon spilled. Confidence, knowledge, poise.

  “Namaste.” She exhaled slowly to end her session, ready for rest.

  Chapter Two

  The predawn air was thick with the smell of oil and death, but Stacie was nonetheless surprised when her paddle struck a blackened waterfowl. She collected its corpse in a large specimen bag and stowed it deep within her kayak. It was morbid but also a visceral display of the consequences of the oil company’s recklessness.

  According to Izzy’s rudimentary map she was still a quarter-mile from the spill. That made the growing frequency of floating fish all the more ominous. She didn’t know much about the habits of Lake Bunyan’s native species but these poor creatures should have been out of the kill zone.