And yet she had a little money now and liked it. She owned one hundred shares of Veritech, the hottest stock ever. Jess often checked Veritech’s progress on her computer, where she loved to watch the stock price bob and float on the buoyant market. At first, watching made her feel guilty, but she quickly rationalized. The windfall wasn’t for herself, or her paltry bank account, or paying bills. She would give her stock to a great cause, or perhaps, if its value rose even higher, to severaclass="underline" the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Greenpeace, as well as Save the Trees.
“Three months,” George said as he was locking up. “I didn’t realize Save the Trees had been around that long.”
“Are you, like, a neo-con?” Jess asked him.
“No!” George shot back, surprised.
“You’re so cynical,” said Jess.
George considered this as they stood outside the door. “I’ve been around the block.”
“You’re very disapproving,” she chided gently. “It’s not like I’ve done anything to you. It’s not like I’ve done anything you mentioned on your questionnaire.”
“Not yet.”
Six o’clock. A light rain fell, and a pile of blankets stirred in the doorway across the street. As the shops began to close, new salespeople emerged.
Jess didn’t seem to notice. “Good night,” she said, and tugged the bottom of her jacket.
George wanted to zip her up himself. “Where’s your bike?”
“It’s in the shop,” Jess said. “I’m getting a tune-up.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” he offered.
“No, that’s okay, I’m just going to catch the bus …”
“The bus?”
“It’s hardly even dark,” she protested as George took her arm and steered her across the street to the garage where he parked his Mercedes.
“You drive this big car all by yourself?” Jess asked, as he unlocked the door for her.
“Yes,” George said. “I drive unassisted. Where are we going?”
“Derby Street,” she said.
That surprised him. He hadn’t pictured her there. Then he realized that she was going to Noah’s place.
“A bunch of people live there.”
Ah, the Save the Trees Co-op. George glanced at her quickly. He wanted to ask, Do you have any idea who owns this property? Have you checked the nonprofit status of this organization? Have you considered that Save the Trees could be a shell for something else? But she was a grown woman, apparently.
He drove to Derby Street with its big old houses and tall fences and brambly gardens. “Thanks for the ride.” Jess dragged her backpack after her. “See you later.”
George considered the brown shingled co-op on the corner. A great shambling Californian manse, probably as old as his, maybe even a Maybeck with its picturesque peaked roof and diamond-paned windows. There was a garden too, possibly a double lot. Now he was a little jealous. He saw a cottage peeking out above the slatted fence. Jess turned and waved. She seemed to be waving him away, but he stayed until the door opened.
Jess had never been invited to a party at the Tree House before. Quickly she closed the door behind her. She didn’t want to introduce herself with a Mercedes idling in the background.
“Hi. I’m early,” Jess apologized to the tiny woman who stood before her.
“Hi. I’m Daisy.” The woman wore overalls and she had a buzz cut. She seemed both delicate and fierce and wore a T-shirt with HERE I STAND printed on it.
Jess wondered if Daisy was the woman’s real name, or one of those forest names old-timers took in the interest of anonymity and protection. Names like Butterfly or Gypsy or Shakespeare, evoking expeditions, dangers that had passed, inside jokes from long ago. “Is Noah here?” Jess received no answer as Daisy led her down some stairs and up others, through open fire doors and finally into the depths of the house, where Daisy disappeared to answer her phone.
She had never seen the Tree House at night. Vast and dark, lit with candles for the occasion, the rooms looked magical, the staircase a citadel, with its own strange inglenooks and deep dusty treads. In the fireplace, instead of wood, a great gong and mallet hung from a stand. The rooms were filled with couches and mismatched armchairs, and floor cushions, some with cats, and some without. Living ivy climbed to the ceiling and outlined every aperture. In the candlelight the ivy-framed bay window became a bower, the leafy doorways passages to secret gardens.
“Didn’t anyone give you a drink?”
Startled, Jess recognized the founder of Save the Trees. Leon was famous in his world, and famous for his look as well. He was over thirty, wire-thin, with black unruly hair, dark skin, and eyes startlingly blue. His jeans and faded T-shirt hung on his gaunt frame. She saw him on occasion leafleting, but she knew him from Brandeis, where he had been a graduate student briefly, her freshman year. Knew was probably too strong a word. She’d had a serious crush on him, but he had never spoken two words to her then, and he didn’t seem to recognize her now. She had heard the others talk about him, of course. He was a brilliant organizer, a heartbreaker, supposedly, and also somehow rich. He owned the house and rented it for nothing, a dollar a year, to Save the Trees, as headquarters and training camp and experiment in communal living.
“I’m sorry I’m so early,” Jess said, as Leon got her a rum and Coke. “I’m Jess. Noah’s friend.”
“Oh, good, I’m Noah’s friend too,” said Leon coolly. “Did he give you the tour?”
“I’m not sure where he is.”
“Come take a look.”
“This woodwork is incredible,” she said as she followed him up the stairs.
“This is all old growth,” said Leon. “A lot of trees gave their lives in 1905.”
“How did you find this place?”
“Real estate agent,” Leon said.
“You just asked for listings of fairy-tale houses?”
Leon smiled.
The second floor had a sweet musty smell of old wood and dust. The air was heavy, almost felted with smoke and dust motes. Hushed.
“This landing here is so big we made it into another room with curtains. It doesn’t have a door, but it’s got a great view of the garden.” Leon pulled open a heavy drape spread over a brass rod and revealed a little room with a window seat the size of a twin bed. Noah and a couple of other guys sat there passing a joint.
“Oh, there you are,” said Jess, and everybody laughed except for Leon, who watched her quietly. Forgive me, but he wasn’t worth it, Leon seemed to tell her with his eyes. Or was she imagining his response?
Noah stood to greet her, but instinctively Jess stepped back. “I’ll be downstairs,” she said lightly.
“Don’t go.” Noah followed her.
The living room was louder on reentry, pulsing with music.
“Let me get you a drink,” shouted Noah.
“I have one.” Jess raised her glass to show him.
“Okay.” He looked slightly nervous standing there, as though unsure if she was really angry. Something was dawning on him, the very thought she’d had upstairs: that they’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks; that their friendship was rather tenuous; that they hadn’t spent much time together.
“Do I even know you?” Jess asked suddenly. The question might have been devastating in a quieter room, but Noah couldn’t hear.
Comically, he cupped his hand behind his ear.
“You look like an old man asking ‘What’s that, dear?’” Jess told him.
He couldn’t hear that either.
“I’m leaving,” Jess mouthed at him.
He tried to take her hand, but she was tired of him and slipped away, escaping to the back of the house, wandering into an old-fashioned kitchen crowded with cooks and hangers-on drinking beer.
“He’s got this humanist, class-warfare streak,” one of the guys was saying. “It always comes down to ‘other species are lesser.’”