After work the following day, Kristen put Marydale’s address in her phone’s GPS, but no directions were necessary. She scanned the map. It might as well have said, Go north until you pass the end of nowhere.
When Gulch Creek Road turned to gravel with no sign of reverting back to pavement, Kristen called Donna.
“Hey, listen. I’m going to give you an address,” Kristen said. “On the off chance that you never hear from me again, this is where my body’s at.”
“What? Where are you?”
The only sign of human habitation—besides the road itself—was a collection of buildings at the end of a long driveway. They looked like litter swept up by a giant broom and deposited at the foot of the Firesteed Mountains.
“I’m looking at a room to rent. I met this waitress at the local diner.”
“Do you really think she’s dangerous?”
“I’m kidding,” Kristen said.
Gravel rumbled under the car as Kristen neared the end of the drive. Marydale’s house looked like a child’s drawing, too narrow to be real, with a peaked roof and four identical windows. A porch circled the house, and Marydale sat on the porch swing, her dog at her feet, a book in her hands. The whole scene looked like the soft-focus shot at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial, the one that played while a compassionate voice-over listed the side effects, like dry mouth and instant death. Only this was the real thing and actually beautiful.
“I’ve got nothing to worry about,” Kristen said in a tone she kind of hoped conveyed I’ve got a lot to worry about, being such an important public figure, but, naturally, I have everything under control.
“Kristen. You came!” Marydale called as Kristen got out of her car.
She smiled, and Kristen could see the dark space where her tooth should have been.
“I’ll show you around. It’s not much, but it’s nicer than the Almost Home.” Marydale pushed the front door open. “How was your day?”
“The public defender keeps referring to me as a female attorney; a female should understand these things.”
“Breeding stock. It’s good for the gene pool,” Marydale said so seriously, it took Kristen a moment to realize she was joking.
“I thought people hated out-of-towners.”
“Love-hate,” Marydale said, looking coquettishly over her shoulder.
Inside, a faded portrait hung by the front door, featuring a girl of about ten and two older women dressed in so many sequins they looked like drag queens.
“Three generations of rodeo queens,” Marydale said, following Kristen’s gaze.
Kristen looked at the child.
“That’s you.”
The girl’s smile was wide and practiced. The mother and grandmother looked like they were separated by no more than fifteen years.
“Three years running,” Marydale said. “My mother always said you could be pretty or you could be lucky.” She touched her fingers to the woman in the center of the photograph. She clicked her tongue. “We were pretty. Come on.”
The tour of the house took five minutes. Downstairs there was a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and a pantry Marydale called the canning cellar. Upstairs there was a bathroom and two bedrooms, both of them furnished but impersonal, one with stacks of library books on the dresser.
“I’ve been using this one, but we can trade if you like.” Marydale tucked a length of hair behind her ear. “I know you’re probably used to something nicer. I mean, before the Almost Home.”
“I don’t have to share a room with my sister. It’s a step up,” Kristen said.
Marydale led her back downstairs and onto the porch.
“Try this.” Marydale retrieved a growler from beneath the porch swing and produced two small canning jars. She poured an inch of cedar-colored liquid into each jar.
Kristen took a sip and coughed. It was awful, but there was a hint of something sweet behind the burn of bottom-shelf alcohol, a kind of smoky-floral taste the philosophy major might just have done the honor of deeming bourgeois.
“It’s not bad. If you know what to expect,” Kristen said.
Marydale laughed. “I’ll take it.”
They discussed the details of the rental. Month to month. Shared utilities. The cord of wood. Marydale said she was happy to have a roommate, and Kristen promised to draw up a contract on paper. They finished their whiskey, and Kristen knew it was time to go, but the idea of one last night reading legal briefs in a stuffy room at the Almost Home wasn’t particularly appealing.
“Do your parents still live around here?” Kristen asked.
“They passed.” Marydale walked to the porch railing and looked out.
“I’m sorry.”
The land around the house was dry and brown, except for a patch of sunflowers. Squash vines and tomatoes tangled around their feet, and their heads turned toward the sun setting behind the house. Kristen watched Marydale’s profile in the golden light.
“I miss my mom.” Marydale pursed her lips in an apologetic smile. “It’s all been such a mess. If I had a dollar for everyone who told me I should feel lucky my folks aren’t around to see what I’ve done with my life…”
“You’d be rich a woman?”
“I’d be something.”
“People are assholes. What’s wrong with being a waitress?”
If Marydale had teared up and started a long-winded rendition of her life story, Kristen would have mumbled something about needing to study the next day’s docket, but Marydale just shook her head.
“You miss her. That’s something,” Kristen added. “I haven’t talked to my mother in more than a year, and I don’t miss her. A year isn’t long enough.”
“But she’s your mom.” It wasn’t an accusation.
“She’s living in Vancouver with some guy she met on an app call Cream Meet.”
“Ooh. Grade A,” Marydale said. “I bet he’s fabulous.”
If Donna had said it, Kristen would have told her to fuck off, but if Donna had said it, it would have been a jibe. My parents might not speak English, but at least they’re not picking up drunks at the Tik Toc Bar. Marydale smiled slightly and looked down, just missing Kristen’s eyes. And Kristen felt like Marydale was holding open a door. Come on in, she seemed to be saying. We’re friends now.
“The last time I talked to her, she wanted me to buy her a whole set of recording equipment from Craigslist,” Kristen said. “She’d been to some seminar that told her she had to manifest the dream in real life.”
“And her dream is to own a recording studio?”
“She thinks she’s a singer. She wants to be a star, but all she does is karaoke bars and guys at karaoke bars. And she sends videos to those reality TV shows. She got called in for an audition once, and they aired it for two seconds along with a bunch of other train wrecks. She thought she was going to be discovered.”
“Did you buy it for her?” Marydale asked, but her face said she knew Kristen wouldn’t do that.
“No.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I was so mad about that fucking equipment.” It felt good to say it out loud. She remembered her mother wheedling on the phone. You always were my girl, Kristi.
“She shouldn’t have asked,” Marydale said.
“When I said no, she tried to get my sister, Sierra, to drop out of high school and manifest the dream with her. They were going to be a duo.” Kristen remembered the tiny apartment she had shared with Sierra, their cramped bedroom with their two twin beds. They were like orphans or spinsters, except that Sierra wanted to go clubbing in Old Town. “I told her Sierra needed to manifest high school. She needed to manifest college. Sierra’s smart. If she’d just focus, she could do anything. I wasn’t going to let my mother ruin that for her. My mom said I was stifling Sierra’s inner light or something ridiculous.”
“You’re a good sister.”
“I wish. We don’t have anything in common. We don’t do anything together.”
“That means a lot.” Marydale shrugged. “If you were best friends, it’d be easy. My mother always said, ‘You don’t get points for easy.’” Marydale looked up at the evening sky. “Hey, can I show you something? It’s behind the house.”
On their way past the little garden, Marydale reached up to one of the sunflowers. It was a foot taller than she was. She pulled it toward her and pressed her face into its dark center.
“They don’t really smell,” she said. “My mother used to say they just give you a kiss.”
She beckoned to Kristen. “Can I give you a kiss?”
Kristen stepped back, startled, but Marydale only wanted to guide the flower to her face.
“I think you can smell the whole earth in a sunflower,” Marydale said, then laughed. “That’s the kind of corny thing people say out here, isn’t it? You don’t go around smelling things in Portland, do you?”
“Oh, sure we do. Patchouli. Essential oil. Weed. Beer. Wine. My friend Donna’s always going on about the afternotes of citrus in Oregon pinots.”
Kristen raised her face to the flower and breathed in a nutty smell like the scent of dry earth and oak. Then they proceeded around the house. The ground was cracked, the fissures so wide, they caught the heel of Kristen’s pumps. She stumbled, and Marydale held out her hand.
“We city folks need a lot of help, don’t we?” Kristen said.
“Nah,” Marydale said.
They stopped a little way beyond the house, facing the mountain. Marydale stood close to Kristen despite the expanse of land around them.
“It’s pretty,” Kristen said.
“Wait.”
Marydale touched her back so lightly, Kristen thought she might have imagined it. Somewhere in the eaves a bird let out a cry, like the first two notes of a wood-flute solo. Then the sun dipped behind the mountain, burning its way down until only a crescent remained visible. Even the dog stood at attention. Then the sun dropped a little lower, and Kristen saw a ravine that cut through the Summit, glowing as the light poured through it like molten lava. She looked at Marydale, her face illuminated like the sunflowers.
“That’s the Firesteed Summit,” Marydale said. “If you get up to the top and look out on the other side, you can see the whole world.”
After court the next day, the public defender, Douglas Grady, ambled over to Kristen’s side of the aisle. His bowed legs suggested that part of him still thought he was on a horse. His cream-colored suit suggested otherwise.
“Bet you did good in law school,” he said. “Remembered every rule, didn’t you?” He returned his enormous white cowboy hat to his bald head. “Want a little advice?”
The last members of the six-person jury hurried past them.
“The jury doesn’t like you. It’s not your fault.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. “You’re from the city. You can’t help it. But I hear you made yourself a new friend. You thinking about moving in with Marydale Rae?”
Kristen had spent her last night at the Almost Home imagining a kind of Lifetime Television movie friendship with Marydale. Of course, that meant one of them would eventually have to get cancer, but in the meantime they would sit at the kitchen table taking shots of whiskey and telling stories. Eventually, they’d end up at a bar in Burnville, hooking up with cowboys. Kristen didn’t really think it would happen that way, but it was better than the alternative: she was moving even farther into the middle of nowhere with a waitress who was Kristen’s best friend in Tristess by virtue of the fact she didn’t hate Kristen for coming from the city. Kristen folded her arms across her chest.
“Yes,” she said. “Not that it’s really any of your business.”
“I know. I know,” Grady said. “Small towns.”
He set his briefcase on the edge of Kristen’s table, fingering the handle. He glanced around the empty courtroom.
“So it’s purely social?” he asked.
“I’m renting a room in her house.”
“Marydale’s a nice girl. I don’t know if I should give you this advice or not.”
“Probably not.”
Grady nodded grudgingly.
“Probably not,” he echoed. “But you’ve noticed it’s a small town. What I don’t know is if you’ve noticed is that not everyone in town likes Miss Marydale Rae. Some folks…I’d say they downright dislike her.”
“And?” Kristen glared at Grady.
“Look, I think Marydale could use a friend, even one like you.”
“If you’re trying to insult me, Mr. Grady…”
“Okay. Especially a friend like you,” he amended. “But before you go down that road carrying water, make sure you’re not looking to join the City Council. People ’round here like a little law and order. They trust Boyd. They’ll warm up to you, but there’s ways to make that easier and there’s ways to make it harder. And Marydale is a rocky road to travel.”
“I’m here to do my job. I don’t care what people think about my roommate.”
Grady chuckled deep in his throat. “Come on, Law School. Everybody cares what everybody thinks.”
“Well, I don’t,” Kristen said.
“All right, then. Move in with Marydale.” Grady rose, headed toward the exit, then turned back. “Like I said, she could use a friend. And that big trial in two weeks. The Hersal case.” He waved a hand at her pantsuit. “You might want to soften this up a bit.”