When Joan finished, however, when the bird woman finally stopped even her subliminal whispers, and Joan tried to start on me—I discovered I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want her hands in me, or her lips against my breasts, or any part of what she wanted to give me. I pushed her away as gently as I could, saying something like, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I really liked making love to you, but it’s kind of drained me.” She tried to joke about restoring me to life with her magic kiss, but I only turned away as she moved towards my mouth. “Look,” I said, sitting up. “I think I’m just worried about my work. It’s not you. It’s just really hard for me to let go when I’m stuck with a deadline.”
I did get some work done when Joan went home, as if to save my honour. But I really didn’t care any more for work than I did for having Joan use me as a sounding device for bird-headed women. I kept thinking I should call Harry and ask him what I should do about Joan. Only, then I would have to tell him why I couldn’t focus on her and that meant telling him about Alison, and worse, about Timmerman. So for the rest of the evening I found ways to procrastinate until it became time to go to sleep.
The next morning I was sitting on my black swivel chair in front of my drawing board, drinking green tea and feeling like now I really did need to get something done, when the doorbell rang. I thought, “Shit, she’s come back to tell me of some dream she’s had and how NORA wants to invite us to Founders’ City to meet the president.” But I knew it wasn’t Joan. I could feel the other side of that door the way the bird lady could feel her fish sister’s ecstasy. “Hello, Alison,” I said as I opened the door.
She was wearing jeans and running shoes and a black warm-up jacket over a purple T-shirt. Her hair looked wild, as if she’d been running and hadn’t had a chance to comb it, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup or earrings. I realized I’d always seen her with earrings. Around her neck she wore a brass cylinder on a black silken cord. I guessed that the hollow cylinder contained a statement of spiritual intent along with tiny ceremonial relics of key points in her life and any blessed objects from her own visions and enactments. In other words, protection. “May I come in?” she said. I nodded and stepped away from the door.
Alison stood facing me. I expected her to look around, perhaps to comment about how the room reflected who I was, or maybe concealed it. Instead, she just looked at me. I was about to remind her that she was the one who’d come to see me and maybe she could indicate why, when she said, “It’s her.”
My hand flattened against my own protection, still worn around my neck. “I don’t understand,” I said, though of course I did, I’d known all along, from the first moment seeing her standing there, behind Timmerman, watching the crowd while the Happy Twins blessed them into a frenzy. There was a power in this. Bringing us all together.
“Margaret Tunnel Light,” Alison said. “She’s Lisa Black Dust 7!”
I think I started making some kind of noises, because Alison came towards me with her hands out, as if to comfort me. I jerked a hand up, like a traffic cop and she stopped immediately. With my other hand still pressed against my chest, I sat down on the chair by the drawing board. My breath wasn’t working right, the in and out didn’t seem in the normal order, but I managed to ask her, “How did you find out?”
She pointed vaguely at the walls and I realized she couldn’t say, it was illegal. More tampering. “Sources,” she just said. “I approached it from a different angle. The Tellers instead of the SDA.”
I nodded. Bending over, I did my best to take in a deep breath. When I straightened up, I said, “They told us they would banish her. Send her back to the Living World. Goddamn bastards.”
Alison sat down on a wooden chair a few inches away from me. The closeness sent a kind of shock through me. She said, “Technically, they did banish her. Reconfiguration requires that they break her down first. Technically, she’s not the same.”
“Shit,” I said. “Didn’t I tell you Maggie was a goddamn Malignant One? Didn’t I fucking say that?”
Alison sighed. “I don’t think so. I think they reconfigured her into a Benign One. I think that was the deal that allowed her to stay here in our world. That she break herself down and transform into benevolence.”
I shouted, “Benevolence? Then what the hell is she doing there in Timmerman’s organization? You know she’s a plant.”
“Yes, I know,” Alison said. “I still don’t understand it.”
“Shit,” I said. I jerked the medallion from my neck and threw it across the room. “Shit! They’re going to get Timmerman the way they got Paul. They’re going to kill him, and it will all be for nothing, for some stupid fucking cover-up. And they’ll give him some stupid pathetic appointment, guardian of bumper stickers or something. Oh, goddamnit.” I was crying. I couldn’t decide if I should stop.
Alison leaned forward and put her arms around me. I nearly screamed at her, that it was all her fault, why couldn’t she leave us all alone. But I didn’t. Rolling my chair closer, I let her hold me, feeling safer than I’d ever felt with the SDA, while I cried into her neck. Later, I told Alison that the smartest thing she ever did was not to say anything at that moment. When I told her that, she grinned at me and said, “I know.”
I cried for about thirty seconds and then started to pull away, but when Alison didn’t let go I started to cry again. I thought of the last time she’d hugged me, after Paul’s death. But I knew this was different.
Stopping finally, I dug a tissue from my pants and blew my nose. This time Alison loosened her hold and I sat up. I sat facing her, with my arms still draped around her back. I just kept looking at her, looking at the shape of her face, the placement of her eyes, her nose, her mouth like they were some sort of constellation, the texture of her face some kind of map. Then I bent forward, pulling her close again, and kissed her.
It didn’t last long, but it had almost twenty years behind it. We separated, then hugged again, not at all like thirteen years ago, and then I took a chance and looked at her. It felt like a chance, as if she might look at me in some wrong way and ruin everything and I would have to hate her again. But she only sat very still, her arms around me, her face solemn, the eyes glistening as if she too might start to cry. I had the awful thought that she might apologize again, or tell me she didn’t want to take advantage of me. When she spoke, however, it was only after her face changed to a smile. “You took your glasses off,” she said.
I shrugged. “They got all dirty from crying.”
She nodded. “Can we go sit on the couch?” she said.
Holding her hand, I led her the few feet across the room. I kissed her again, without holding on too tightly, so that I could feel the gentle pressure of her breasts against mine. We kissed longer this time, still gently, not even using our tongues, and I thought it might be possible to melt into orgasm just from kissing.
But there was something else I had to take care of. I pulled away again and when I looked at her she was waiting for me, so that I knew I could say what had to be said. “I want to go after them.”
She nodded. “Yes. I know. You realize we might not get them? This is the government, after all.”
“I understand that. I just want to try. At least that.”
Alison said, “This is hard for me, Ellen. I have to let go of feeling responsible for you. Feeling…feeling that I lured you into a trap.”
“Using yourself as bait?”
She ran her fingertips down the side of my face. “I suppose so,” she said. “Or maybe I used you as bait for yourself. And for me.”