Her other hand comes up fast. Takes a jabbing snatch at me.
Her rough, knobby fingers around the four of mine.
The top of my head does that scared thing where it feels like someone’s cracked a raw egg up there. I hang my mouth open but my brain forgets what screaming’s for, and then she lets go. And now we’re walking away, Kit glancing back. That touch still on my fingers. The way the squirm hangs around in your stomach after the scare’s over.
Rhonda’s good enough to wait until we’re one step away from being out of earshot. “My friend,” she says, “you are such a sap.”
Nine o’clock
After a couple hours walking through the dungeons and opium dens below the streets of Portland you need a drink. It was thick hot down there, and dark. They gave us flashlights and said, Now, direct your attention to this corner where, in eighteen-hundred- and-I-can’t-remember, men were held captive in foul prison cells.
Rhonda had the reaction I thought she’d have: “Shanghai Tunnels? Shit, that was more like the Shanghai Basement.”
But if you enjoy good lore and don’t mind close, dark spaces where the air is like breathing dirt and it’s so hot you could keel over but for being constantly revived by the exquisite reek of body odor coming off the tourist next to you, it’s quite a hoot.
Me, I love good lore. Lore is my favorite kind of story. Because it’s not only historical, it’s a lie everyone knows is a lie but tells anyway. I love that. Of course every story I tell is true. Completely true. Completely and utterly at least five-eighths of the way to being true, which is truer than any piece of lore and truer than most truths you’ll hear, including the one about George Washington and the cherry tree. Look it up.
But after the tunnels and then the old woman grabbing my hand, we had to get out of Old Town. I said we could walk to the Pearl District, but Rhonda always has to call a cab. She couldn’t have gotten very far anyway on those shoes of hers that are somewhere between fuck-me pumps and fuck-you pumps. She sat in the middle so she could lean in between the front seats and show her boobs to the cab driver.
And now we’re at the Everett Street Bistro, Rhonda’s favorite place-sitting at her favorite sidewalk table. I wanted to sit inside, and I’m trying to drown my frustrations in some sort of sugar-on-the-rim, house-infused, fruit-muddled, herb-atomized cocktail, and pommes frites with a side of béarnaise sauce.
Kit is big blue eyes over an even bluer drink. “No, seriously, Rhonda, there are tunnels running all under this city. From Old Town all the way to the Willamette River.”
Kit’s reciting word for word what the tour guide said. She smiles like the tour guide did. Her large, goaty teeth are a shade of blue.
“You want to know what I think?” Rhonda says, pointing a pomme frite at us. “I think they heard some old legend, found a basement, threw some old, broken shit down there, and started charging admission.”
“No, seriously,” says Kit and her blue teeth. “Back in the day, the bars were full of trap doors, and if you were an able-bodied man and you got yourself drunk, bang, down you’d go, to be chained up and shanghaied away on some pirate boat.”
Again: tour guide. Except that her two drinks-closing in on three-are making Kit both more emphatic and less articulate. And I’m pretty sure the tour guide didn’t say anything about pirates.
Rhonda rolls her eyes. It’s ticking me off. She’s rolling her eyes at the lore of our city. Which in my book is like you’re dissing my story. I mean, this evening’s entertainment was my idea. And first she’s making cracks under her breath the whole tour, then she’s acting like me giving some change to a woman on the street is the most obvious act of chumpdom she’s ever seen. I’m going inside to find a waiter and ask if this place has a trap door I can shove her down.
Dusk is dying, and the city’s washed blue to match Kit’s teeth. A car drags a curtain of bright white down the street in front of us.
“You want to know what I think?” Rhonda says, but then she glances out across the road. “Hey, look who’s come back for more.”
Right there on the far corner. Faded dress, velvet hat, hand out at people walking by.
“I’ll bet she works a circuit,” Rhonda says. “I’ll bet she knows exactly where to go at what time to milk the public of the most money.”
I push out a laugh and try not to sound pissy defensive. “There are people in need in this world, you know.”
“Her name’s Dorothy,” Rhonda says in that way she has when it’s less about her knowing more than it is about you knowing less. “As in, we’re not in Kansas anymore? I heard she lives at the Biltmore Apartments in Northwest.” Points her chin down so she can give us the just-under-the-eyebrows look. “I also heard from an equally reliable source that she lives in a loft here in the Pearl. And owns a car.”
Kit downs her drink. Her voice is just a step past not-quite-too-loud. “Well, I heard she lives in the Shanghai Tunnels.”
Which is all lore-of some lame sort-and normally this would at least somewhat intrigue me, but now I look down at my hand all naked on the white tablecloth, and what the hell?
My ring.
The garnet and the amethyst are on my left hand, but the right hand, the hand she grabbed-
All right, hold on, maybe I didn’t put it back on after I showered this morning. I try to remember having it on in the tunnels.
Rhonda’s still going at it: “I heard she has this son who lets her beg and then takes the money and buys collectible baseball cards.”
And Kit: “Well, I heard she has this son who corners people in alleys and clubs them to death with a baseball bat.”
Worms in my stomach.
My favorite ring.
My grandmother’s ring.
Rhonda sneering: “I heard those crooked eyes of hers can put you in a trance.”
Kit slurring: “Well, I heard in reality she’s the Pied Piper!”
I’m frantic eyes at the ground under my chair, at cracks in the sidewalk. The conversation moves on to how much Rhonda hates her mother, but I can’t listen, and I can’t stop watching that woman.
“Mother is always trying to control me,” Rhonda says. “All her fucking little guilt trips. You want to know what I think? It comes down to control. Everything we do, everything we feel. What’s marriage? Control. Rape? Control. A mother’s love? Control. Charity?” Rhonda looks at me. “Dorothy over there? What a fraud. She knows how to use guilt better than anyone I know. Yeah, the minute you locked eyes with her, you surrendered control to that old woman.”
I don’t answer. I’ve got my hand in my purse in some pathetic search all through the slink of coins at the bottom.
Dorothy swivels and sets her crooked eyes at me.
Nine-thirty
We toss crumpled-up bills out to settle the check. In my body is that perfect drone that says I’ve had just the right amount of too much to drink. The sun’s gone down past that place where it does any good in the sky, so now everything’s blue-going-to-black. It’s time to hug and say, Wow, is it really that late? We’ve got to do this more often. Rhonda and Kit set off down the sidewalk. Kit big, flappy waves and blue smiles, while I’m stalling by the table. Hand in my bag like looking for keys or lipstick. Wait until they’ve turned the corner. Sit back down. Old, dead drink glasses and the empty pommes frites paper cone all brown and greasy.
I sit and watch the old woman.
“I hear she lives in this big Craftsman off Belmont and breeds award-winning pugs.”
It’s the waiter with the shaved head and the tiny braid beard. He nods big at me as if now we share a special secret. Turns. Goes off, back inside.
And the corner is empty.