Alison Kaine: Tell Me What You Like Part 22

There was another sound at the door, and all four of them turned to look, though Mark did not let his guard down for a minute. Alison did not know whom she had expected. Certainly not Pam.

Mich.e.l.le and Seven Yellow Moons were horrified at the carnage, but, although something that might have been horror flitted quickly across Pam's face, it did not stay. Pam looked merely cross.

"Mark," she said, in a tone that reminded Alison of her own mother, "I'm surprised at you." As if, Alison thought, he had skipped school, or dipped into the cookie jar without asking. Then Pam's lips twitched just a little, allowing the mask to drop, and she realized that Pam, too, was playing a game, acting a part. Well, they had no choice but to let her, to hope that she was a better actress than any of the rest of them had been.

The man's mouth dropped open, and he seemed uncertain, saying weakly, "You were going dancing tonight."

"Not if you're here doing something that you shouldn't." Pam responded gently. "Not if you need me."

"No, I...." He licked his lips, suddenly uncertain. "Yes! I do! Get them out of here!" He indicated Mich.e.l.le and Seven Yellow Moons with a flick of his knife, and blood went flying from it.

One drop struck Pam on the cheek and she lifted her hand to wipe it very slowly. "Put Stacy down first, Mark." She said it with authority.

"No! I have to...you know I do...."

"Put her down or you will no longer be welcome at my house." There was a half a minute of silence, then Pam spoke again. "Fine," she said, and turned, "don't come around again." She walked three steps towards the door and then turned again. ."I don't want your presents anymore, Mark." Viciously, with shaking hands, she reached up to strip off her earrings. She threw one down on the floor and raised her hand with the other.

"No!" Stacy fell to the floor with a crash and he stepped over her without a second look. "No, Mama, don't...I...."

"That's my good boy," she said, and her face was wreathed with smiles, as if they were somewhere alone, as if he really was a little boy and there was no blood on his hands. She bent down to retrieve the earring, and that was when she also picked up the little revolver than lay at her feet. He lunged at her, his eyes disbelieving.

"My good boy," she repeated, just before she pulled the trigger, once, twice, four times. Alison could not comprehend, could not will herself to move until he fell to the floor groaning. By the time she had moved forward Seven Yellow Moons had Pam wrapped up in her arms, and Mich.e.l.le was on the phone. The only thing left for her to do was kneel beside Stacy.

Seventeen.

There was one more rally near the end of the game, one final rush when the other team gathered itself together and stormed the Blue Ryders' end zone. The ball was pushed in and then out, in and then out a number of times. Alison danced on her toes in the goal, clapping her gloved hands together, for warmth as well as in antic.i.p.ation.

"Get it out of here," she shouted. "For G.o.d's sake, clear the goal, Trudy!" Though Stacy had been coaching her she was not quite sure if it was the appropriate instruction to be giving. Even if it wasn't, certainly her voice must be expressing the panic she felt whenever the ball got near the backfield. She considered it just this side of a miracle that only four b.a.l.l.s had gotten by her in the two games in which she had played, and she had no desire to press the favor of the fates, which would certainly be what was happening if they kept hammering it into the goal area.

The referee's whistle sounded, long and shrill, and gratefully she ran out of the box. It was considered good manners for the players of both teams to mingle on the field for a few minutes after the game thanking one another and showing that they were good sports, but tonight, with a hint of snow in the air, this civilized procedure was taking place in fast motion. Everyone was much more interested in putting on their extra clothing.

Alison skipped the ritual altogether and jogged over to the side of the field where her father was standing, holding her coat up anxiously as if she were five years old again. She hoped he wouldn't try to zip it up and tie her hood. He turned to say something to Stacy standing beside him, and Alison supposed that he was trying to urge her to go sit in the car, as he had been at half time. She could have told him that he was wasting his breath. Stacy had missed one game while she was in the hospital, and nothing was about to keep her away from this last one, even though Alison could not stop imagining her st.i.tches freezing and then snapping like straw in the cold. The best they had been able to do was to dress her in so many layers of clothing that she looked as if she were wearing a s.p.a.cesuit, moving her arms and legs in that awkward, disa.s.sociated way that divers and astronauts have.

"Good game, honey," her father enthused as he wrapped her coat around her. Her face was too stiff for her to correct him, to tell him that the only d.a.m.n thing she was doing was being a good sport, and that she wouldn't have done it at all unless the Blue Ryders had been absolutely desperate. She was not yet admitting to anyone the secret satisfaction she was getting, and the secret despair she felt when she wondered if she would be capable this time next year.

The team was breaking up without their usual hugs and has.h.i.+ng out of the play, and she supposed that most of them were heading for dinner at the Blue Ryder. Well, she would just have time for a shower and sandwich at home before heading to work. She looked around for Mich.e.l.le and Janka, who had ridden over with them. Liz pa.s.sed, arm in arm with Carla.

"I told you we'd get you!" Liz called, the first thing, as far as Alison knew, that she had said to anyone else in days. She was in love, and it was only relentless hounding from her team members that had gotten her out of bed even long enough for the games. Alison had heard that she had gotten a restraining order placed on the Crusaders, keeping them from coming within 100 feet of Carla, and that she was looking into a lawsuit on behalf of some of their victims.

"I've got to go now, Sister," said her father, and she gave him an absent-minded hug, still looking for Mich.e.l.le over his shoulder. She noticed that he patted Stacy on the arm when he left, which was just one step away from hugging. She was sure that the questions about settling down with a nice girl were going to be increased dramatically the next time she went home for dinner. Luckily, nothing about Stacy's nighttime activities had come out in the paper, though there had been a nice little blurb about her quiltmaking.

Finally she spotted Janka's red jacket down the field. "Look," she said, nudging Stacy in her well-padded side.

"Oh. Seven Yellow Moons must have gotten Pam to come out." They stood for a moment side by side without speaking, watching the four women standing together. It looked as if Janka and Seven Yellow Moons were doing all the talking. "That's good."

Alison took her arm, and they began walking towards the car. "How long is Seven Yellow Moons planning on staying?"

"Till after Pam's trial, I think. It worked out well for her. It's getting cold down on the women's land, and I think she was really glad to have a chance to take a break from Lydia. She's got a lot more room to work at Pam's place, too."

Alison did not reply, and after a moment Stacy resumed. "It's good for Pam. I think she would have totally isolated herself otherwise."

"I can't help thinking," said Alison slowly. "You know, they're going to ask us about it at the trial. They're going to ask us if she really had to shoot him, if it was a life threatening situation."

"I was bleeding to death," said Stacy shortly and Alison knew that she didn't want to talk about it. But it was something that she could not put out of her mind.

"But was that why she did it? She pulled the trigger four times-that's going to be a sticky point. I can't help...was it that, or was it a kind of atonement?"

"What do you mean?"

"She must have known. On some level she must have known, or at least suspected he had murdered Tamara and Melanie, as well as Candy. Was shooting him her way of making up for that?"

"She wanted to stop him!" Stacy said. "And I, for one, will never forget that."

"That makes two of us." Alison fell silent.

Stacy nodded down the field. The foursome had split up and Seven Yellow Moons was leading Pam away by the hand, gently, as if she had been sick. Alison remembered the photograph at Pam's house, the four women and the little boy caught in that magic moment on a picnic.

"Hi there, Tiger." Mich.e.l.le jogged to catch them. "I hear you're going on to the Gay Games."

"And I hear you're going to the doctor finally," said Janka from the other side. "Do you want me to take you?" Alison wondered how much Seven Yellow Moons had told her after their long discussion on holistic healing the week before.

"No," she said, "Stacy's going to go." And then, "Yeah, I do. You too, Mich.e.l.le." Because she was loving dating Stacy, but Janka and Mich.e.l.le were her family.

"Me, too," said Mich.e.l.le, pressing close to her.

She thought then that they would go into one of those long silences that had become so common since that night they had divided between the police station and the hospital. More than the blood splattered on the walls, on the bolts of muslin that had to be thrown away, the silences had come to represent her nightmares. Long periods of time when they stood without talking, each wondering, reproaching herself for clues they had not recognized, things they had not done.

Then Janka, linking her arm through Stacy's, began to sing one of the songs they had heard at Pam's concert the week before. "High on the mountain, my Lord spoke, out of his mouth came fire and smoke." Her high, clear voice drifted across the field and Alison could hear two other soccer players, who also sang in the chorus, answering with the alto part.

"You'll never guess who I saw in the bookstore." Mich.e.l.le leaned across Alison to talk to Stacy.

"Dominique?" Stacy said. "Doing a booksigning! Dominatrix in Prison."

"She does have an article in this month's Out Front," said Alison, "but it's on cat adoption. She and Beth are going to open a kennel."

"Who then?" Stacy pressed Mich.e.l.le.

"That woman whose husband they painted blue and orange."

"Sharon?"

"No, the other one. The one you were lovers with."

"Nina?"

"Yeah. Buying a copy of Lesbian Connection."

"Huh."

"More hara.s.sment?" suggested Alison.

"Maybe. But we can always hope that it's something better."

From all over the field voices had joined in with Janka's, floating thin on the wind. Alison bent to unlock the door of the car.

Kate Allen grew up in Idaho and New Mexico, but had to escape to the big city when she realized she was a d.y.k.e. She currently lives in Denver with five cats all of whom were rescues or throwaways, and is supported by a loving and loyal lesbian extended family. When she is not vacuuming or writing, she makes quilts and goes two-stepping at the Country/Western bar. She is writing another book about Alison-Stacy and Mich.e.l.le just got into a fight at a wake. Tomorrow they'll be going to the flea market to consult with the lesbian phone psychic.

end.