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Joan Findlay, 24 years old, would have her whole life ahead of her but for the personal demons that keep her anchored to her small-town life. Unsatisfied with ephemeral flickers of happiness, she pins her hopes on an unexpected visitor...

Not a happy story; I've just needed to write it for awhile to get some stuff off my chest. I hope it still works okay. Has some smut in it. Non-triggery smut, don't worry. Anyway, more Star Patrol stuff next week, I think.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"For Pierrot and Columbine"_ _by ** Rob Baird**

---

"Yes, mother," Joan sighed, and closed her phone to end the call. She knew what her mother wanted from the IGA, because she had copied it down meticulously from the grocery list tacked up on the refrigerator. Joan's mother was never sure about these things; didn't trust her, after the Diagnosis, even though it wasn't like Joan forgot important stuff.

Indeed, she glanced over the cart and confirmed nothing was missing. Eggs. Sugar -- raw sugar, because Valerie didn't like the white kind anymore, after she'd seen something on the news about it. Half a dozen peaches, and she'd even checked to make sure they were nice and healthy. Cherry tomatoes. Lightbulbs. Sponges. Just a random assortment of things. Did you remember the milk? Yes, mother. Two percent, right? You know you don't like skim. Yes, mother.

Good god.

She had never liked the smell of the IGA -- like the whole store had gone... off, slightly. And she was happy to be out in the sun again. It was the later part of the afternoon, when the light was finally starting to soften. Friday, though the days all sort of ran together and it didn't really matter much except for what Val was asking her to do.

Joan sat in the car for a couple minutes, sighed, and finally turned the ignition on. For a few years now she'd had the thought that one day, turning onto Highway 101, she'd be killed dead, and she didn't know why she had the thought and she didn't know why it didn't really bother her. She still looked -- carefully. They'd come up around the corner from down closer to the harbor, those log trucks or whatever, and you wouldn't see them until a hundred thousand pounds -- that was how big they could get and still cross the bridges, she'd looked it up one day -- was barreling into you and at that speed, well, you wouldn't even feel it, just --

A horn honked, and she looked in her mirror to see a pickup truck behind her. The Border Collie twitched, jamming her foot down and sending the little Honda squealing out and onto Highway 101, where there were no log trucks for miles to her north or south.

The radio was playing Spanky and Our Gang. "Some day will never be the same." The day they'd gone to see her dad for the last time, it had been playing on the radio. After that it was "Monday, Monday." Joan wondered sometimes why she could remember things like that -- could remember all the words to every Mamas and Papas song she'd ever heard -- and couldn't remember things like what her mom's number was or what her own number was or where her phone was for that matter.

Sometimes it doesn't get diagnosed until later in life, that's what the psychiatrist had said, and on the way back she hadn't listened to music radio, no, it had been KCNS, listening to All Things Considered and they were running a piece on a jazz festival in Austria and she got to thinking that she'd never been to Austria and then to thinking that she never would be in Austria and she had to pull over and get her thoughts together and her throat was still raw when she got home.

And her mother, Valerie, had said well nobody in our family's ever had a head shrinker say anything about them and then god Joan I can't deal with this right now not with Jake gone and, and, and. So she had never gone back, because anyway Newport wasn't exactly close even if it wasn't exactly far and her mother wouldn't stand for it one way or the other, so there.

Somebody was pulled over, hazards on, and Joan almost passed them. But then at the last minute she didn't -- jammed on her brakes without looking in the mirror, thank god nobody was behind her, and swung onto the shoulder with the deceleration tugging her forward against the seatbelt like maybe it would on an airplane, if she'd ever been on an airplane.

She didn't know why she'd stopped, either. For a minute she thought about pulling back onto the highway, but...

The car was an old truck that said Land Cruiser on it; steam oozing languidly from beneath its hood explained why it was clearly not doing so much cruising at the moment. A tall figure, leaning against the passenger side door, had a phone pressed to his ear, and from the way his eyes rolled nothing was happening on it except that his call was important to them.

"Hey?" she asked.

The man looked at the phone, and then at her. He set the phone down on the hood of the car and with the speaker on she could hear tinny hold music. "Hey. I think I got this, actually. Soon as my insurance picks up."

"What happened?"

"You ever try to solve a problem the stupid way rather than the right way?" He was big and grey, like a wolf probably, if you could mix a bear into a wolf somehow because he had a foot on Joan and probably fifty pounds. "This radiator has been trying to tell me the bad news for about five thousand miles. I just stop-leaked it."

"Put more water in?"

The wolf leaned away from his car, and pointed beneath it. Joan bent over and looked to where a great lake of water was spilling from the undercarriage onto the shoulder. It looked like a dam had burst somewhere.

"Oh."

"Just need a new fuckin' -- freakin' -- darned -- radiator, but I'm, uh. Cheap. Unfortunately, so was my insurance..."

"There's only one repair shop in town," she said. "You could maybe get up to Lincoln City, but by the time you get there they'll be closed."

"And here?"

"Uh, Vic's probably closing soon, too, but he'll get a tow truck up here and then you can at least... I don't know, I mean, get a hotel or something. Maybe he'll be able to look at it tonight."

The wolf sighed heavily, and tapped his phone -- fancy smartphone, like maybe you might have in a town with up-to-date cell service. The hold music stopped. Then he lifted the device up, his thumb on the on-screen keyboard. "What's this place called?"

"Gowen's Motors."

She watched him as, teeth gritted, he dialed the phone and waited. "Hello? Yeah, somebody gave me your number. I'm broke down on US 101."

"Just north of Lily Street," Joan added.

"Just north of Lily Street," he repeated. "Radiator problem. Car overheated. I tried putting more coolant in but it's just puking it back out. No way in heck I can keep it filled. Any chance you can give me a tow? Huh? Yeah, it's a 1981 Toyota Land Cruiser. The rest of it works fine. Well... I think. Yeah? Yeah? Ah, man, thanks." He hung up the phone and looked upwards, to the darkening light. "Thanks for the steer."

"Yep," she acknowledged it. "They can help?"

"Ten minutes, he said. Hey, that's not too bad. Shoulda known I was getting myself into trouble. Gunned the engine coming out of town and, man, not half a mile later it was pretty sick. Shit, Harry, the things you do..."

"Harry?"

"Yeah. Uh. Sorry," he said, and held out a big paw. When she grasped it, he shook firmly. "Harold Kinsey. Or -- Harry."

'Like the researcher?' The one they'd made that movie about. He probably heard that every day. Probably he was tired of it. She'd say it and he'd try to smile and make like it wasn't irritating or maybe he'd even say wow, that's original and try to play it off like a joke in a joke. So maybe she shouldn't call any attention to it at all? Or she could say... what could she say? Her paw was still in his. Had the handshake lasted too long? She let go. "Um. Joan. I'm Joan. Yeah."

"Good to meet you." He was looking at her a bit oddly. Yes, she must've let the handshake go on too long. "You live close by?"

"Mm-hmm. I live in the hills east of here a little ways. Just a small house. I'm from here, though. You? You're not from here?"

"Nah. From back east. South Dakota. Hung out a lot in California, like San Francisco and stuff, but never got up this far before. It seems pretty, at least, yeah? Wish I could stick around a little longer..."

She nodded. Watched, as Harry kicked gently at the tire of his truck. "Did you just mean to be passing through, then?"

"That was the idea. It's not really a road trip. Actually I would've sold the car except they told me I needed four-wheel drive for my job..."

"What's that?"

"I work for -- well, will work for -- Alaskan Applied Geomatics, Inc. Most generic name ever, I know," he laughed. "Turns out if you have a master's degree in seismology, you either go to work for an oil company or you go to work for Target. But Target wasn't hiring, so..."

"So you're going to Alaska?" Joan thought of Alaska as something fascinating and remote, although she guessed it was a lot like anywhere else. Nosy neighbors. Fast food hamburgers. Traffic jams. She'd heard that Alaska paid a stipend for people to live there, though. Oil money? Yeah. Except wasn't it that she'd heard on the radio they were running out of funds to cover it, except nobody would vote to repeal the money because it was less in their pocket and everybody had bills to pay, so what was the state going to do? Go bankrupt, just like...

"... what my master's program was in, but I guess it was close enough they'd have me," Harry finished some short story she'd missed the beginning of. "So, yep. Off to the land of the Midnight Sun. At least I'm going at the right time of year, I'm told. Except for the mosquitoes, or something."

Vic Gowen's tow truck pulled up a couple minutes later and Vic and his assistant Dave made short work of the Toyota, which was still leaking. Vic snorted, shook his head, and cinched the wheels down taut. "You gonna give him a ride, Joan?"

She was supposed to be going home. But... "Yeah. Sure, okay."

Joan wasn't certain why she did those things, sometimes. Impulsive things. Sometimes it worked out well; sometimes it didn't. It wasn't like she really chose to do them. It was just suddenly she was doing it, like when she'd bought a kit to learn how to make origami or when she'd climbed the KCNS radio tower on a dare or when she'd gone to see Dr. Kavanagh in Newport once and twice and then he'd told her she had attention deficit disorder but he supposed she'd probably guessed that and no, she hadn't, just that she was always worried something was wrong with her and everyone knew it and she was the last to have cottoned to it.

"Find a hotel, maybe?"

Harry'd been talking, and she'd let her mind wander again. Joan, don't be like that. Not that chiding herself helped. And things like that were always worse, with new people. "What did you say?"

"Just asked if you knew a hotel. I wasn't -- uh. Oh, man. Sorry, no, not -- not like that. I just need a place to crash. For tonight. Until he can look at my car."

"Oh. Sure," she said. Fifteen minutes in and now Harry knew she was a freak, too. Joan pulled in next to Vic Gowen's tow truck, and told him that she was going to find Harry a place to stay and would it be okay if he called in an hour to see what was going on with his truck? Yeah, Vic said, it would be fine. "There's only a couple of places to stay here, anyway," Joan shrugged.

"Any better than the others?"

"Well, there's like... two chains. And then there's the Beachcomb-Inn, which is Clarence Leon's place, and it's pretty good. 'Cept it might be full, on account of it's tourist season, but -- well, it can't hurt, right?"

Zach Leon, Clarence's son, was at the front desk. They had a room free. "Two hundred twenty a night," he said. Harry whistled.

"C'mon, Zach," Joan protested. "That's really spendy."

"Well, it's tourist season." The squirrel was still trying to hold the line when he went on: "Rates are on the board out front."

"He's not a tourist. He just broke down. Come on."

"I can't just be... handing out favors all over. Dad would kill me."

"You want him to sleep outside? You want him to freeze to death? Then Sandy Callaway's gonna come down here and I'm gonna tell her 'well, we tried to get a room, but there weren't any he could afford and even the Goodwill was closed up in Lincoln City so he couldn't buy a coat or nothing, not like he could get there anyway on account of not having a car, so he just froze to death in the parking lot of the Beachcomb-Inn.' Hm. That has a nice ring. 'Zach Leon, front desk clerk at the Beachcomb-Inn, could not be reached for comment on this easily avoidable tragedy. For KCNS-FM Cannon Shoals, I'm' --"

"Really fucking melodramatic," Zach muttered. "Is what you are. I can give you the AARP discount. And the frequent traveler discount. Comes to a hundred, and Joan if you open your black and white little mouth I'm gonna..."

But she didn't. 'Cause they were friends, and Zach and her went way back. If he wasn't seeing someone, she might've... well... but then, Valerie didn't like him because he was kind of wild, and his parents weren't the right sort of folk. So there was that.

"Thanks," Harry said, when they were in his room in the weatherworn hotel. "I really appreciate it. I'm going to give this garage a call and see what's going on with the car. Thanks for everything, again."

"Sure."

"Look, uh. I'll probably still be here tomorrow. If you want to grab coffee or something, I owe you a drink and a brownie, at least. There must be like a Starbucks here."

"No. But... close enough. Ah, thanks for the offer. I'll..."

He tore a page from the notepad on the desk in his room, and handed her a scrap with his number written on it. "Just give me a call if you want, or don't if you don't. No pressure, right?"

But there was always pressure. Always.

"What took you so long? I was worried sick. Did you get lost again?"

"No, mama." Joan shook her head and elbowed past the old dog, carrying the groceries so she could start putting them away. "I didn't get lost. Somebody was broke down on the side of the highway and I stopped to help them."

"You stopped to help some random stranger? What if he'd been an escaped prisoner or something? Joan, you know how people can be!"

That was Val Rogers for you. No, nobody in our family's ever had anything wrong in their head, not even Uncle Cooper who jumped in front of a train. Nobody's ever had anything wrong with them in our family ever, but if you stop for somebody by the side of the highway, well, you're already a police report.

Joan Findlay, 24 years old. Cause of death: stopped to help seismologist call a tow truck.

They didn't have the same name, because Val had gone back to being Rogers after Jake died, and Joan kept Findlay because it was her last link to her father. So Carlos Ortiz or Dan Hayes from the town police would probably be confused, filling out the report at the morgue, but that was okay; she'd always been confusing.

"Peter stopped by looking for you."

"Good for him, mother." Pete was... they were not exactly dating, except that Pete wanted to be. But Pete was a little dull, and a lot overbearing. She'd lost her virginity to him, on a summer when he was back home from school in Corvallis -- that was something Val was never finding out -- and ever since he'd decided that they were destined to be together.

Sometimes she indulged him because it was easier to go along with it than to tell him to shut up and go away. Most of the time she successfully ignored him. But Valerie Rogers liked Pete: he was nonthreatening and sometimes brought in the mail for her and on occasion he trimmed their hedges because it gave him an excuse to talk to Joan.

"You should give him a call. Maybe you two could get dinner sometime."

"We'll see."

She avoided committing to anything, because if she said yes maybe I will then in a few days that would lead to weren't you going to or did you forget and then it would be a discussion about forgetting things all the time, which had never been an issue before Joan had told her mother what Dr. Kavanagh had said, like that had flicked a switch somehow even though logically she was the same person before the Diagnosis as after.

And if she said no, I'd rather not then it would be a long drawn out discussion about what was she going to do with her life and at least Pete has a steady job now. Working at the machine shop. No, neither option was particularly appealing. We'll see was pretty safe.

"Did you remember to get the nice light bulbs? Not the ones that flicker?"

"Yes, mother," Joan said tiredly. "I didn't get the CFLs you hated last time. I remember that."

It was an awkward codependence, because although Valerie seemed to believe that Joan was helpless, she also constantly reminded her daughter of how alone she herself was, now that Jake was dead and there was nobody around to keep her company. Mentions of her friends in town fell on deaf ears.

So: Joan needed constant supervision or else she'd forget to tie her shoes or eat or breathe or God knew what else, but if she wasn't around to help Valerie's house would slowly go dark as, one by one, the lights went out. Unchanged.

Nothing ever changed.

In the morning, Val went out to prowl around the shops in Newport for interesting trinkets to add to her collection and clean up and sell, and Joan went down to Cannon Shoals because she didn't know what else to do. Harry's number was in her pocket, and she took it out once or twice. The area code was foreign. Everybody in Cannon Shoals had the same area code, so they never even bothered to say it when they were exchanging numbers.

She didn't like the town in particular, but there was no way she was going to be allowed out of it so she had become used to its quaint, quiet streets. They didn't change any more than Val's lightbulbs did, and even Joan had been able to commit them to memory. On a Saturday morning, in the early summer, it was warm enough to be pleasant even with the cool Pacific breeze flowing over them.

There were nice parts of it. Not Annie's, the dive bar, or Your Oyster, the expensive tourist restaurant where they flew in the fish from halfway around the world but everyone just assumed it was fresh caught. Not those. But, like, the photography studio, that was nice. Stach's Grounds, that was okay. Pergamon.

Hm.

Pergamon opened at eleven on Saturdays, and it was only 10:30, but Paul was inside already and when he saw Joan he opened the door and waved her in. Acoustic guitar floated out into the morning air, and a woman's clear voice joined it. Lay me down, Carolina, lay me down... "Heya, Joan-dog."

"Morning, Paul." Paul Fisher was a wolf, she thought, except he was awful skinny so maybe he was one of those southern European types from were they didn't need so much fur to survive the winters. "Opening early?"

"Sleeping here," he grinned. "Me and my other half are... at cross-purposes right now, shall we say?"

"A fight?"

The wolf -- might as well go with that, even if he was not as tall nor as well-built as Harry Kinsey, soon-to-be-Alaskan -- rolled his eyes, and laughed ruefully. "Oh, it's a friggin' soap opera, believe me. We'll figure it out, I guess. I hope. How about you? Things okay?"

"Mm-hmm. Still working on the Hammett."

"Good!"

Pergamon was one of two bookstores in town, except that the other one just carried impulse buys for reading on the beach. Pergamon sold used books, which Paul Fisher traded for online, and picked up in the secondhand stores that dotted the coast. It always smelled of old paper, and she loved it in the cozy little space.

It had opened two years before, and she'd come in on the first day. And the second. And the third. Most of the townsfolk didn't really understand the bookstore and that was fine by her; she didn't understand them, either, did she? No. It hurt matters that Paul was from out of town -- worse, from California -- and so really they wanted him gone because he was a reminder that something existed beyond the insular walls of the Neatasknea River valley.

And he was a little out of place, with his glossy new aluminum-framed computer and his fondness for something called kombucha. Pergamon was out of place, too: the old posters on the wall advertised museum exhibitions in Paris, and the music on the expensive and carefully placed speakers was old folk rather than classic rock. She flicked her ears. He sits by his window, in his room on the stairs, and he watches the waves washin' salt from the piers..._ _

"Do you mind... skipping this track?"

"Huh? Don't like Redpath?"

"I love Jean Redpath," Joan said. "I just... this song gets me."

"Sure," Paul didn't ask any questions, just leaned over to tap on his keyboard. The song stopped; another started. For nearly sixty years I've been a cockie... "Just all fades into the background for me, I guess. Boy, though, I loved her voice..."

"She did have a nice voice," Joan agreed. "How's work going?"

"The store, or the project?"

"The project," Joan clarified.

"Oh, pretty good!" Paul was a wolf with a dog's sensibilities: his ears perked up and his tail wagged whenever he talked about his side project, which was the Pergamon Institute as divorced from the Pergamon Bookstore. "You want me to show you the latest prototype?"

"Sure," she nodded, and nodded again when he tilted a bottle of Jones towards her. The soda had a bright, neon color, but she enjoyed the taste and her presence gave Paul a reason to continue ordering it.

He took one for himself and spun his computer around so that she could see it. "Okay, so. You can pick the books you want. The metadata is already filled out behind the scenes. So, we'll take... um... Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. This is the back-end view, okay? See, here's the metadata, and you can pick a few other books that are at the same grade level, and cover related topics. Like, right now it thinks we're talking about science fiction, and adventures, but also colonialism, so we could also pick... hmm hmm hmm." He scrolled idly through the list as book covers popped out at him invitingly.

"The Man Who Would Be King?"

"Yeah, okay. And then we'll pick, uh, a few others -- now we have our lesson plan, and we can see here..." He tapped quickly at his keyboard. "Right! Here are suggested discussion topics and a... well, it's empty, but once the system gets going you'd be able to see other teachers who are also using these, and compare notes and methods and stuff."

"Pretty far along..."

"Yep!" Paul beamed, and took a long drink of his pink soda. "To be honest, the Levar Burton thing really just blew this whole space up. We wound up recoding Pergamon into HTML5 -- but that's okay, to be honest..."

"I don't know what that even is. Is that better than... HTML4? Is that what it was before?"

"Before it was Objective C. And no, it's not better, just... different. We can run it cross-platform, now. I gave a demo at a conference in SLC on an iPad, but you could use any kind of tablet, or your computer, or whatever. Just really, really simple. Now that it's web-enabled you can upload your marked passages and stuff and review from your PC, like here... I mean, this is really cool!"

"It looks like it." The Border Collie smiled, watching as he assembled and disassembled lists of books on the fly. She had no idea how any of the code worked, but she knew reading after all.

"And it's open-source, so... right now we're just using public domain books, but I'm working on a deal with a couple of publishers... hopefully it'll go through. This is a good time -- you know, the summer, lots of people are planning... it won't be ready for this fall, but maybe next fall..."

"So, Salt Lake City was good."

"Yeah. I mean... well. Yeah. It was good until I got back." He shook his head. "Oh well. Conference in Sacramento in August. I'll be on a panel about non-profits in education technology. I'm really hoping to meet some cool people there. You oughta see about trying to come to one of these things! I know you said you want to get into teaching, right?"

If stopping for people on the side of the highway was enough to throw Valerie into conniptions, though, California was out of the question. "Yeah, but I... don't know about that. It's a long way."

"Like two hours, Joan-dog. Just gotta get to Portland, that's all."

"Maybe," she said. Again noncommittal. "Have you ever thought about going back?"

"To San Francisco? Hell no." Paul made a face. "The Valley's so damned cutthroat now... no. No, I couldn't. It's like half those people don't care about a damn thing except making money, and the other half don't care about a damn thing except funding them. There's no concept of social justice or equity or anything, it's a... a... an anarchocapitalist madhouse."

He was probably over-exaggerating, just a little. Paul, whose Saab was covered in bumper stickers, had spent most of his life in Berkeley. The car got him looks. But then, most days he rode his bicycle into work, and that got him looks too. You couldn't win, really.

She stayed for another hour, chatting; by noon a customer or two was starting to filter in, and Joan excused herself. Not that she had anything to do, or any place to go, but it wasn't good to be an imposition. Any more than she usually was.

There was the farmer's market, if that was open, and the library perhaps. Or walking down to the harbor, though she didn't know what she'd do there. Or there was nothing, which seemed more likely. Go back to the house, curl up with Dashiell Hammett. Nothing was what happened on most days that her mother didn't need an errand run or the house fixed.

Which made it as good an idea as any. Her paw was on the handle to the car door when she heard her name being called. She looked up. Harry was waving at her from across Washington Street, and since there was no traffic he jogged across the road. "Thought that was you. Hey."

"Oh. Hi," she said.

"Bad time?"

"No." It hadn't been a bad time. Why hadn't she called him, anyway? It wasn't like she intrinsically disliked or distrusted the wolf -- he seemed like an interesting person, anyway. Had he really wanted her to? She'd kind of assumed that had been a social nicety, not meant genuinely. "I just came into town to run some errands..."

"Busy, then? Nah. Come on, let's get a coffee. There's a place I saw around the corner."

She opened her mouth and wasn't certain why she was protesting, so instead she closed it again and nodded. "Yeah. Stach's. How, um. How's the car?"

The big wolf threw his paws into the air. "Wasn't the radiator. Or if it was, it wasn't just the radiator. Blew the pump. Needs a new one. Shop doesn't have it; it'll have to be ordered. Tuesday earliest. Just my damned luck, huh?"

Stach's Grounds was fairly busy, for the time of day, but they found a table towards the back. Harry explained that the water pump was apparently twenty years old and had finally decided that it was time to, in his words, 'get citizenship or get fucked.' "And I guess it failed the test, because it's hard dead. So says Victor Gowen."

"You can trust him," she reassured the wolf. "He's a good guy."

"Well, I'm not saying I don't trust him. I'm just saying I can't go anywhere until it's fixed, and I was kind of hoping to be on the road again already. Need to find a place, and... get settled in, and try to get up to speed at the office. I called them and they said I can be there next Monday but I really want to get started sooner rather than later."

"I bet." It sounded like a hell of an opportunity, after all -- working in Alaska! -- and who would want to be stuck in a dismal town on the Oregon coast? Nobody. Except Paul, for some reason. "I bet Vic will be able to help, though. If he said Tuesday at the earliest, he meant Tuesday, period. He knows you need to get moving."

"Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'll make the most of it. Not sure what there is to do around here, but I'll see -- hell, listen to me fuckin' bitch about stuff, and it's a beautiful day outside, right? How about you -- what do you do, anyway?"

"Stay at home and help my mom. She's needed company after dad died. He got... well, it was kind of a workplace thing, why he got sick, so the company settled and between that and Social Security she has enough to live on. But... she gets lonely... house needs work..."

"Yeah," Harry nodded, although even in the way he nodded he seemed to understand that he was not having an especially fulfilling existence described to him. "That was... recent?"

"Two years ago. She's getting a little better about not being so... possessive."

"Do you like it here, at least?"

She looked into her coffee. It would be so easy to give an answer one way or the other, but neither was really... truthful. There were people like the old fishermen who had Neatasknea water in their veins and could never leave, could never even think of a world beyond the harbor. And there were people like her classmates, who chafed at the tight harness of the town's tiny streets.

Well, and what was the town anyway? Was it the Fourth of July party with the short little play about the founding of Cannon Shoals that the Scouts had been doing for fifty years? Was it going to school in a building where the power shut off when it rained, and the computers booted into an operating system that had been released when Joan was four years old?

Was it listening to some old lumberjack grumbling in Annie's about how every single problem in Cannon Shoals and Oregon and the Western World could be traced to tree huggers embracing spotted owls? Was it Father Noyes ranting about how the president wanted to destroy the Ten Commandments? Was it the riots up in Oak Valley when Martin-Barlow Western shut down the mill?

Or was it hanging out with Zach, and long golden evenings on the pier? Was it walking into Stach's and having Ian give her a marionberry muffin to take back home to her mother? Was it Father Noyes organizing a charity to help out June Sutton after her husband's boat capsized and he'd been airlifted to Portland? They'd had the medical bills taken care of and meals cooked for a week before the helicopter had even touched down, it seemed.

This musing had lasted long enough that Harry's brow was furrowing, and she found a smile from somewhere and put it on. "I'm sorry," she said. "I get... distracted sometimes. It's not you. Uh... the town is alright. I'd like to leave, eventually. But, well, as long as mom still needs help, that's pretty much my life spoken for. And it has its good parts..."

"Be interested in showing me?"

"I wouldn't want to bore you," she said, reflexively offering a preemptive apology.

"I asked," Harry countered. "Because I'm interested. What do you say? I bet your errands aren't that big a deal."

He'd seen through her excuses, is what that meant. Were they excuses? No, they were just... defensive. A way to let herself be noncommittal. "Well..."

After Stach's, she took him to the Cannon Shoals Historical Society, which was open on Saturday because Lil Vogel was retired and Saturday was when she got to talk to people. Tourists, mostly, and despite what she'd told Zach Leon she supposed Harry was one of those.

"Is this the... the eponymous cannon?" he asked.

"He means, is this one of the cannons from the ship," Joan explained to Lil, who was hard of hearing.

The ewe shook her head. "No, no. It's from the Civil War." Slow on her feet, she got up from her chair, supporting herself on the cool black metal of the cannon that commanded the lobby of the Historical Society. And she pointed to a big picture on the far wall, taken in the late 19th century.

In the 1830s, she explained, control over the Oregon Territory was still disputed, and President Jackson sent the sloop-of-war Kydonia to protect American settlers. But after seeking shelter in Neatasknea Bay, the ship had run aground and the crew had been forced to abandon her to the pounding waves. Thus was born Fort Jackson, and when Fort Jackson became a proper town thirty years later, Cannon Shoals...

"At low tide, like in that picture, you could still see the cannons as late as the 1910s."

"What happened to them?"

The same thing had happened to them as happens to all of history. Lost, forgotten; irrevocably changed. "At the bottom of the shelf, probably. They first dredged the harbor in 1935, and there was no trace of the cannons then. The Blowdown in '21 likely took them, same as they took most of the trees."

Objectively, the artifacts in the Historical Society museum were mostly curios. A shell that somebody claimed had been fired by a Japanese submarine into the harbor. An axe head that somebody attributed to Jim Bridger. Harry at least pretended to be interested, though.

"What next?" he asked, when they were out in the bright afternoon sun again.

He didn't seem like the type to enjoy Pergamon, so she took him to the ice cream shop instead. She ordered a pistachio cone, first feeling strangely awkward about it and then feeling awkward about feeling awkward. Particularly because Harry didn't seem to notice.

The ice cream was homemade, and delicious. "One of the best things about summer." She licked her cone, licked her nose reflexively, and then had to lick a few more times to get the sweet taste from the pad. "That and... hmm. They do a barbecue on the Fourth, but you'll miss that."

"I will."

"Hmm."

"Can we go down to the beach?"

Despite the name of the town's hotel, there was not much beach, and certainly not much beach for beachcombing. Just the pier, and the deafening awp-awp-awp of feral sea lions crowding it. Boats chugged through the bay, headed out to open water or coming back in from a productive day -- she hoped. "Most of them are working. Still a fair amount of fishing that goes on here..."

And not much for tourists to care about. Whale-watching, sometimes, or sport fishing. Joan liked the harbor because it seemed to be the locus of a town that still did something, still meant something. Considering all the boarded-up buildings downtown it was... refreshing.

A circular walk took them to the farmer's market, and a few of the more interesting shops. And finally Harry suggested dinner, and it wasn't until the waitress had brought their drinks that Joan realized she hadn't second-guessed him or suspected he was just trying to humor her. Maybe he still was, but he hid it well.

Back at his hotel room, she paused on the threshold of the door. And Harry smiled, and for a big, tall wolf he had a very fetching smile, indeed. "I had a lot of fun," he said. "Thanks. Sorry for messing up your errands."

"I didn't... really have any," the Border Collie admitted.

"I sorta guessed that."

"Sunday, I... I can think of something, if you want?"

"You do that," he grinned. "See ya tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

She smiled all the way back to her car. Sometimes, at the right times, everything came together for her. Moments of clarity. She didn't forget things then, or worry what people were thinking about her. And in those moments she felt almost content. Like maybe, on occasion, she did deserve to be happy.

Eventually something or someone always set her straight, but she was still drunk on that idea when she woke up the next morning early, and thought to check the tides. Her mother was awake, too, brewing tea. "Remember, service is at 8:15 sharp..."

"Not going today," Joan said.

"What? Why?"

"Gotta do something else. You can manage it by yourself for once, it'll be okay."

"What something else?"

"Personal stuff, mother." Joan shrugged on her jacket, and leaned down to kiss the bridge of Valerie's muzzle. "You'll manage, trust me."

"Joan," her mother said sharply. "Joan Margaret Rogers, what are you --"

The door was already closed behind her.

A grey, foggy morning was thickening above her when she knocked on the door to Harry's hotel room. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing -- except now there was a creeping feeling tugging at the edges of her consciousness. She had been awfully foolish, thinking of doing a thing like this. It was early; Harry would be cursing whoever had roused him. And then he'd discover it was her, and... could she run away? Could she be gone by the time he --

The door opened. "Hello? Who -- oh! Hey."

"Hi," she said softly. Badly wanted to apologize. "I, um. I brought coffee?" She tugged the thermos out of her jacket for him.

"Thanks," he said, and took it. "What brings you out so early?"

"Well." She licked her lips nervously, and hoisted the bucket her other paw clasped. "I thought you might want to go clam digging? It's a good tide for it, and I... I bought permits and..."

"Clam digging?"

He hated it. And now she was the awkward girl who mumbled and forgot stuff and proposed stupid things and it was just past 6 on a Sunday morning so she was inconsiderate on top of all of it and he was just trying to think of the best way to break it to her but he was too nice of a guy to just come out and shove her away so instead there was just that note of incredulity in his voice, like clam digging but really he meant you woke me up at dawn to dig for clams like a ten year old, you stupid bitch? "Yeah." Her ears fell.

"Is that where they come from?"

"Yeah."

Harry unscrewed the thermos and took a big swig. It wasn't great coffee, since it came from the gas station, but it was hot and it did the job. "Huh. Never knew that. When do we need to leave?"

Why was he stringing her along? "Low tide is at 7:15."

"Can I take a shower?"

"Yes. But -- it's cold out, so if you're wet..."

"Good point," he nodded, and set the thermos on a table by the door before slipping back inside his hotel room. A minute later he reappeared in jeans and a warm looking hoodie. "Do we walk?"

"Drive," she said, although she still wasn't certain when the other shoe was going to drop. "My shovels are in the car, too."

The car was still warm, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief once he was strapped in. "Didn't expect it would be so damned cold in June!"

"Well, it's early, and we're right next to the water..."

"And we've got the coats for it," he laughed. "Yes, I know. But still!"

Her nerves settled down a little, and she guided the Honda down roads as worn and beaten as the rest of the town, to the pier. The sight of a beat-up old truck made her smile, briefly; she pulled in next to it. It wasn't an official parking place, but these days there weren't enough fishermen to take up all the space anyhow. Besides, it was Sunday. Respectable people were at church.

Joan opened the trunk and winced as she caught Harry yawning, his long tongue curling with it. She'd gone and woken him up, and it wasn't like he even knew the first thing about razor clams or why you'd go for them. She avoided his eyes to keep from letting him know that she knew how disappointed he was, and looked around for the owner of the pickup.

The stocky, potbellied mongrel was eyeing one of the boats -- his boat, because even in Cannon Shoals some people were successful -- but he caught the sound of footsteps even over the rhythmic sighing of waves on the jetty. "If it ain't Joanie..."

"Don't call me that," she said -- for Harry's benefit, really. The dog was the only person who called her Joanie and sometimes she thought it was affectionate and sometimes she thought he really believed that was her name but either way she'd never corrected him and now it was too late. "Everything good?"

"Everything's fine," the dog grunted. "Waitin' on the boys."

Silence. The waves again. "Uh, I'm Harry." The wolf stuck out his paw, and Joan realized she'd forgotten to introduce the two. Damn it, that's just like you.

"Carl." They shook.

"Carl MacRory's a fisherman. One of the best on the whole Pacific coast! Owns his own boat and everything," she explained. He'd been friends with her uncle Cooper in high school. Came to visit when Cooper'd tossed himself in front of that EMD...

"Yeah, don't tell my wife that," he laughed. "'Cause I sure as hell ain't made much of an impression."

"Well, it's true," she insisted. Whether it was or not. "You goin' out today?"

"Yep."

"Crabs?"

"Yep. Checkin' the pots, anyway."

The collie smiled hopefully. "Think you'll get some?"

"Are you asking me to bring you some crabs, Joanie?"

"Maybe," she admitted. "You know, just if... if one or two fall out somewhere..."

Some people just had nice laughs, Joan thought, and Carl was one of them; his shoulders moved with it, and he chuckled heartily. "You're going to have to make it worth my while, you know..."

She knew. "Your usual?"

"I think you'd better double it, don't you?"

Sometimes she drew this out, but she didn't want to seem like too much of a dork, even if she was one. "Eight? Chocolate okay?" If he wanted anything other than chocolate cupcakes she was going to have to go back to the store. Her fondness for Carl MacRory had limits, and the IGA nudged at them.

"Chocolate's fine. Eight, and maybe I'll see if I can't find a couple for your boyfriend, too."

Joan froze and for the million billionth time the Border Collie wished she could think of clever responses on the spot rather than later, and even then they weren't all that clever -- particularly because Harry was there. Listening. And she knew it was the kind of thing she'd be dwelling on for months, that exchange right there. Why'd he have to go and do a thing like that?

But Harry just quirked an eyebrow. "Did you just say you were going to give me crabs?"

Carl's deep laugh jerked the collie out of her panic. "Don't tell my wife that, either. Now, Jesus, you two get on -- gonna miss the tide if y'ain't careful."

Grabbing the handle of her bucket, she set off, leaving Harry to catch up and trying to figure out how badly she'd screwed things up. He was probably laughing at her. At least a little. That phone of his, he'd be on the Twitter or something, that was what normal people her age did, talking to his friends about this weirdo he'd met on account of she'd stopped for his busted old truck. Mom was right. Shouldn't do that. Shouldn't --

"Seems nice."

"Huh?"

"Carl. Seems nice. Your friend back there."

"Oh... yes," she agreed.

"How'd you meet?"

Well it all started after dad's brother caught a train the hard way. Because Coop and Carl had been pals, or something, and she could see in Carl's eyes that he felt awful guilty about how they'd drifted apart. 'Course his life wasn't perfect either; ain't she heard from somebody that he'd done a turn down in county lockup for whaling on some poor bastard? Even if he hadn't, he spent an awful lot of time at Annie's. "He was a friend of my uncle's," she told Harry. "My father was already sick when Uncle Cooper died, and he hung out 'round the house, helped mom and dad and stuff."

"Nice," Harry repeated. He was probably thinking quaint, small-town people and even if he wasn't she noticed he glossed over the way Cooper Findlay had met his end in the passive voice.

The pier ended in half-rotten wooden steps that could not in their wildest dreams have been called a boardwalk, but that was what the map said in the brochure at town hall. At low tide the boardwalk provides access to the town's famous shoals. Her feet met soft, wet sand, and she tried to ignore the obscene sucking noise it made against her boot. "Our famous shoals," she told Harry.

"This isn't quicksand, right?"

"Not usually," she said -- actually she'd never heard of any quicksand on the flats but who could tell? Before them, the receding tide had revealed great stretches of sand. Close to the water it glistened wetly, shimmering and gelatinous. A little higher up it was dry enough to walk on at some speed. Joan trotted, looking for the telltale signs. "These little holes," she told him. "You're looking for these. Could be any -- oh!"

Heedless of the surprised perk to his ears, she dropped her bucket and grabbed for the shovel. Pushed it in hard and turned up the sand quick as she could. Knelt down, ignoring the wet cold soaking her jeans, and stretched her paw down until she felt something hard and bony. When she pulled her arm back, her fingers were wrapped around a razor clam. A lovely specimen, brown like perfectly prepared toast.

"If you see a little spurt of water," she explained -- too late for her excitement to have made any sense -- "that's a real good sign."

Harry still seemed mildly amused. But he nodded, and followed her as she probed and prodded at the little holes on the beach. "Like this one?"

Joan cocked her head. "Yeah. Gotta be fast, okay?"

He took two deep breaths, almost like he was psyching himself up for it. Then he grabbed the shovel and dug in. Her ears perked, watching his arms move, nice, strong, muscular arms that commanded the shovel, really -- faster than she'd been, that was for certain. Five seconds later there was a sandy clam weighing the blade down. "Is this a good one?"

She rinsed the razor clam off and added it to her bucket. "Very good one," she agreed.

Harry grinned. "Fun. You do this often?"

The collie shook her head. Not for years; Peter wasn't interested and it wasn't the kind of thing she wanted to do by herself. Not that she could say why, except sometimes she wound up staring out at the grey sky over the Pacific, terrified by it, and she needed somebody around to pull her back from the brink.

"Why not?" Harry didn't know. He was already searching for the next clam.

Joan trailed along a few paces behind, knowing she couldn't explain why she couldn't come to the beach by herself. How it wasn't the cold, or the waves, or the threat of a storm. How it was the aching emptiness of being alone: being the only person in the universe, standing on a little strip of wet sand between the silent cliffs and the endless dark waves that went on and on and didn't mind if anyone feared them or hated them or loved them or noticed them at all.

How it was knowing that if she screamed at the top of her lungs nobody would care anymore than the surf did. How it was dreading the way the fog washed color and space and sound from the world. How it was feeling the gritty sand, and being just as insignificant as the tiny grains that were the only thing left from what had once been mountains.

She was not a person, at those times. She was a starfish in a tidepool, stranded when the water receded, slowly suffocating. She was one of those stones, shiny and glittering like a jewel in the water, that faded and dried to something ordinary until it was tossed back into the ocean and nobody would ever pick it up again.

Dumb. Dumb silly Joan stuff.

"Guess it kinda slips my mind," the collie said, scuffing the sand. "You gotta come down here at the right time. Right tide and all, and even then you don't know if it's going to be any good..."

But it was. In an hour they'd filled the bucket with nice, healthy clams. By the time they headed back to her car the sun was starting to come out. Another lovely summer day, by the look of it -- the promise of a warm breeze and laughing kids and ice cream. Joan held on to that, too tightly, tucking their equipment into the trunk of her Honda.

Back at his hotel, Harry paused at the door. "So..."

"Well. How do you like your clams, anyway?"

The grey wolf shrugged his big shoulders. "I'm not so familiar with them..."

Of course he wouldn't be. The clams had been her idea, not his; he was just humoring her anyway. Joan flattened her ears, knowing that the apology would just be received awkwardly. "How about a barbecue, then? I'll fry up some clam patties, and if Carl comes back with anything my mom and I will make some bisque..." He might not like that, either. Give him an out. "Er -- I mean, if you want. You don't have to."

Instead, he grinned. "Love to. Can I take a shower first?"

"I... I should go to the store anyway... and I suppose you might want a nap." Because she'd woken him up, with typical Joan thoughtlessness, and it had been early by anybody's standards. "I can come back and pick you up in the afternoon? Like two or three?"

For some reason, he grinned wider. Winked. It was all very puzzling. "Sure. I'll see you then."

At the IGA she picked up whatever she thought she might need for the clam cakes, and some corn that looked like it was in pretty good shape for so early in the year. Halfway home she realized she'd forgotten something for Carl's cupcakes after all. Lists, her mother said. That was how Valerie lived her life, one checkbox at a time.

It had not worked for her daughter: Joan was halfway decent at making lists; she was terrible at remembering to follow them.

"Well?" Valerie asked, as soon as Joan was through the door.

"Well what, mother?"

She was still wearing her nice church clothes. "You can't just go wandering, Joan. I almost called the police, but I didn't even have a clue what to tell them! What if you'd had an accident? Where did you go?"

Sighing, Joan set about unpacking her bags from the store. "I went out for clams, mother."

"Clams! You mean down on the beach?"

"Yes, I mean down on the beach." Her mother had a way of aggravating whatever agitation the younger dog happened to be experiencing. Feeling her fingers twitch, she went for the corn and began to shuck it to burn off some of the nervous energy. "I wasn't by myself. I was with a friend."

"What friend?"

Of course Val didn't mean it that way but when she emphasized the first word it came out like you don't have friends and not which of your friends are you talking about. Not like the first was really inaccurate, of course. "Nobody you know, mother. Remember the day before yesterday I stopped to help somebody? Well, you'll meet him today. We're going to have dinner."

Valerie looked very suspicious. She watched her daughter going to work on the corn in silence until Joan thought she was going to have to say something just to end it but then, no, the old collie shook her head and put her paws on her hips. "Joan, what am I going to do with you?"

"Help me make some rolls," Joan suggested. "You like baking."

"I don't like baking. Not with my fingers."

Years of practice, that was. Years of trying to figure out how to defuse her mother's protectiveness when it flared up. Joan forced a smile, and picked up the next ear of corn. "I'll knead the dough for you, mother. Just let's not use the bread machine."

"But I..."

"We'd have to clean it. Come on, you do like baking..."

"Do we even have any cream of tartar?"

Joan set the corn down, reached into the IGA bag, and handed the little bottle over. And then, without another word, she went back to work. It was an effective way of ending the argument before it began.

Not that Val was convinced; Val was often hard to convince.

That afternoon Joan stopped by the docks to find Carl MacRory's boat in and the mutt leaning against one of the trailers that served as kind-of offices, to the extent that anything in the Shoals was important enough to warrant an office. "Hey, Joanie."

"Hey, Carl." Joan held out a cardboard box to the dog. "How'd it go out there?"

"Better'n usual," he answered with a grin, and lifted the flap of the box. "Nine?"

"The muffin tin has places for nine," Joan explained. "Give the other to KJ."

Carl chuckled. "I do that, you know what she's gonna say? Ain't like you can pay the bank in cupcakes, that's what." Even so, he was still grinning. Carl was one of the few people, like Paul Fisher, that Joan could talk to without second-guessing every damn thing she said.

"Tell her your girlfriend gave them to you," Joan teased.

The big mutt laughed louder at that. "You know, I think I just might." Holding the box carefully upright, he padded in long strides over to his pickup, returning shortly with a plastic bucket filled with water. "My end of the bargain."

Not bad, at that. Four crabs, and pretty good sized ones at that. "So it was a nice haul?"

"Tol' ya. I ain't always useless. Your guy likes seafood?"

Without Harry around, she only felt the need to blush, rather than to run away completely. "We'll see. And he's not mine... I just found him by the side of the road."

"Pickin' up strays." Carl's chuckle was almost always enough to bring a smile to Joan's own muzzle, and this time was no exception. "You make a good impression, then, Joanie. Don't want him turnin' on you or my crabs."

"Promise," she said. And she accepted his hug, when he offered it. He smelled of the sea, and engine grease, and cigarette smoke, but the collie didn't mind so much -- in a way she thought of him like an uncle. Nice personality.

Plus, he'd delivered on the crabs. That was one hurdle cleared.

Hurdle two was going to take more work. She steeled herself to it before pushing open the door. "Mother?" Val appeared, looking skeptical as ever. "Hi. This is Harry, okay? Harry, this is my mother, Valerie."

"Pleased to meet you." Val made no offer of a handshake, so the tall wolf settled for a bow that left him still towering over her mother.

Since Valerie was apparently going to be difficult, Joan settled for taking care of practicalities. "And I have some crabs from Carl, so we're going to make a bisque. Do you want to prepare the crabs or everything else?"

Val's eyes flickered between her daughter and Harry.

Under duress, she settled on the crabs. Joan got the vegetables out and began chopping under Harry's watchful eye. Recipes, for some reason, she could remember. Appointments and grocery lists and phone numbers, no, but her mind was a computer-precise database of recipes and subtle modifications to recipes.

Like the way she added a little bit of curry powder to the bisque; it seemed like that was something she'd picked up from Romana Reyes down at the bank, or maybe from Paul's girlfriend Sandra Callaway. Or she'd read it in a book, or on the Internet -- things blended together for Joan. Wherever it had come from, it was hers now.

The baking powder biscuits, on the other hand, were solidly Val's. They went well with the clam patties, fried a nice crispy brown. Between the breading and the rolls and the corn, the two Border Collies had managed to come up with a meal that was mostly carbohydrates.

And entirely delicious. Harry thanked them every time he tried something new, and then again with his second helping of crab bisque. Joan smiled to herself, scooting so that her wagging tail could slice through empty space rather than drumming against the wood of the kitchen chair.

"You're moving here?" Valerie asked.

Harry was still chewing, and kept on with it. Maybe clams had been a bad choice? "No," he finally said, when he was able. "I was just passing through. On my way to Alaska."

"He's a scientist," Joan added.

"I see."

"Not a very smart one. I did break down." The wolf laughed, and Joan cracked a smile that her mother failed to echo. "Um. I mean, that part was a dumb mistake; I probably should've replaced that pump a long time ago. Fortunately Joan was here to help!"

"Joan has a way of getting herself into situations," was her mother's answer. The younger collie shut her eyes, but failed to disappear. Why did her mother have to be like that? She was that way with Paul, too; cold and distant like oh Joan, what do you think you're doing. Except probably even Paul knew that she was a fuckup; she didn't need help with that.

"Well, I'm awfully thankful."

Valerie kept the rest of the conversation short, and fairly clipped. It was uncomfortable for Joan, although Harry kept up a cheery demeanor. He talked about Alaska -- admitting that he'd never been before. About growing up in the Dakotas, and moving west. About the clam-digging...

Joan hadn't thought far enough ahead to plan for dessert. Carl had taken all of her cupcakes. She should've made more, really, on account of she'd had to go to the IGA anyway and it would've made sense to pick up ingredients for something to finish up dinner with, but she hadn't, and perhaps that was a blessing in disguise because it gave her a reason to take Harry back to town.

Without making an explicit excuse for her mother's distance she told him that Val could sometimes be a bit of a character. But he didn't seem to mind, or he didn't think it had been awkward.

At the door to his hotel room he turned, grinning that friendly grin he had. And he kissed her, right below her bangs. "See you around. And thanks again for dinner..."

Her forehead still kind of tingled from the touch, and she was in a giddy daze all the way for the short drive from downtown Cannon Shoals back out to their house.

Val was already at work cleaning up, and with a guilty droop of her tail Joan rolled up her sleeves to join in. They had a good rhythm -- Joan nudged her mother to the side and took over the sink, scrubbing the dishes clean and handing them over to be dried. It was the sort of thing Valerie appreciated, what with the arthritis and all, and Joan tried to be helpful since as her mother was fond of pointing out there wasn't anyone else around to lend a paw with the chores.

Brisk silence, which the older dog was the first to disturb. "I don't like him."

Joan felt her ears lowering. "Why's that, mother?"

"I just don't," Val said, primly. "Besides, he's not staying here. So don't you go getting any ideas, Joan."

"Ideas." The Border Collie's voice was flat. "Right."

"Don't take that tone with me, Joan." She thumped a saucepan down heavily, and Joan jumped with the sound. "You go mooning after some itinerant when there's plenty to be done around here. Plenty of people to meet, too."

"I'm not mooning." She scrubbed intently at one of the plates. The cracked ceramic held her attention. Fixed it. The plate hadn't broken -- yet. So neither would she.

Yet.

"I notice you didn't invite Peter to dinner." It was such a strange accusation -- like it was supposed to be significant in some way.

"That's true."

"You could've." Val didn't feel like letting up. "You decided not to. Joan, I'm just looking out for you. I'm not going to have my daughter chasing gypsies like some --"

The word that followed was impolite, but Joan only half heard it anyway. More clearly she heard the porcelain of the dinner plate crack, and clatter to the metal bowl of the sink. Her mother's startled yelp. Some more shouting...

Directed at the back of her head. Joan barred herself in her room, and locked the door.

Why? Why had she done that? Valerie was always nosing about Joan's circle of friends, and almost always finding them wanting. Zach was too 'wild' and Paul was too 'book-happy' and Ian Stachs was a 'hippie.' Peter, dull as a lead knife Peter, was safe enough -- but if her mother knew what they'd gotten up to, on occasion, then he'd no doubt be just as banned.

And sometimes she thought that her mother was trying to look out for her and sometimes she thought her mother was just terrified that Joan might leave, one day, and who would there be to help clean and to watch "Wheel of Fortune" with in the evenings? And sometimes she hated herself for thinking that her mother could be that way.

She was kidding herself. Daydreaming.

That was what she had, that was all she had. Fragments of daydreams. The way when Paul said she should come to one of his conferences she almost believed him. For a few delirious seconds she could see herself doing it: leaving the town, going back to school... making something of herself, for the first time in her life because sometimes patterns did get broken after all...

The way when she'd still been working she'd hear the tourists come in and pick over some of the trinkets in the shop and for a little while she could imagine their world being familiar to her -- Seattle, say, or Portland, or Sacramento. The big city. She could see herself driving to the bus terminal... buying a ticket...

It never lasted. There was always a reason not to. Her mother, mostly. But in truth the reason was that they were just daydreams, and what she saw when she looked around was it. The four walls, straitjacket close, were it, and it would never get better.

That was another daydream. It came to her sometimes, when the fog lifted from her mind. How easy it would be to turn the wheel out on 101 and go over the edge. It was so vivid -- she could feel the crunch of the guardrail buckling, and then a moment, an exhilarating final moment of freedom and then the darkness.

Valerie would be upset. But then, she wouldn't have to know. She wouldn't have to blame herself. Joan had decided she wouldn't leave a note. Their last exchange would be something civil, something unremarkable. Goodnight, mother, say. And the next morning she'd get up early and as far as Valerie was concerned her wayward, distractible daughter would've just had one more accident...

She'd get over it.

Not that it mattered. She wasn't going to do it anyway. It was just another thing Joan couldn't finish, like everything else except her books. She was good at finishing those, most of the time; now she stared at Dashiell Hammett, rereading the same line over and over until at last she gave up and tossed the thing aside.

She fell at last into unsettled sleep; when she woke it was as though she had not rested at all.

The day that followed passed uneasily. Agitated and tense and heavy, the way an oncoming storm felt. Joan said almost nothing to her mother, and Val didn't press the topic. They both knew who would win, so what was the point?

Perhaps Val knew something Joan didn't. About life, about Harry, about men in general. It was possible, after all. Joan was able to convince herself of that until the evening, when defiance finally got the better of her and she stalked out to the car.

It wasn't any of her mother's business anyway. It was her business, and if she wanted to see Harry again there wasn't anyone who could stop her. It was just like Valerie to be like that -- meddling! I don't like him -- well, who the fuck asked her? All the way into town, with the fading sun spilling orange fire over the waters of the Pacific, she had to bite back the low growl lurking behind every breath.

It wasn't particularly cathartic. Mostly by the time she'd pulled in to the parking lot of the Beachcomb-Inn she was tired. Drained. As usual, the things that had seemed so important, so worthy of her anger now felt a bit silly.

"Don't be like that, Joan," she muttered to herself. "Get out of the car; go knock on the door. Have a conversation." Nothing. The Border Collie gritted her teeth. "At least turn off the fucking ignition."

That part was easy.

Taking a deep breath, she did the rest all at once, before she had a chance to change her mind. Didn't even bother to lock the car door, just nudged it shut and slunk like a beaten puppy to the wolf's hotel room. Knocked.

Didn't run away.

The door opened; she could see inside the flicker of the old television, rebroadcasting the evening news. She saw his fingers, fumbling with the chain lock; finally he pulled the door open, and she raised her paw shyly. "Hi."

Harry's eyes widened. "Oh. Hey. I thought I'd done something wrong."

"No." She shook her head. "It was my fault. I just... I got confused. I'm sorry. I... I get confused sometimes. And then I get even more confused and I just..." Stop. Joan. Stop. She was trying to, but... "I didn't know what you were expecting and I know we just met and I didn't want to seem like I was clingy or anything like that and --"

"Whoa, hey," the wolf cut her off. Joan glanced up at him, expecting to see that look of faint, disappointed recognition people had when they finally figured her out. Instead he was smiling. "It's not a big deal. You don't have to make a big deal out of it. It's a nice surprise, that's all."

And for some reason she believed him. "Then..."

"It's okay! Really. I'm sorry, I'd invite you in, but there's nothing, uh... here..."

"Well..."

"Do you want to take a walk?"

Of course she did. Getting to the beach itself took some effort, but a winding track threaded its way down the cliffs to the harbor, and that proved to be close enough. The docks were all but deserted; there weren't even any cars in the parking lot. Joan hoped it was because they'd all had as much luck as Carl, though that wasn't especially likely.

Desolate, the place had a kind of rustic charm; she could imagine being lulled to sleep by the steady rocking of the moored boats and the splashing waves. Harry sort of followed her lead, but mostly they walked side by side.

She slipped her paw into his, half expecting him to recoil, or to pull away. Instead he squeezed, with deceptive gentleness. She threaded her dainty fingers through his, marveling at the size of the wolf's broad palm. "Nice evening," she murmured.

"So it is. Thanks for showing me around, by the way. You know? Was nice of you."

The collie smiled softly. "I don't get to do that so often."

"I figured." They had reached the end of the pier. Water lapped in a gentle rhythm, hidden. Above, the twilight yawned in deep, darkening blue. Below, the black harbor caught the twinkling of dawning stars like coins in a fountain. Harry let her paw go to sit down, and Joan carefully followed. "Hell of a sight, huh?"

It was. A cloudless, moonless sky; when the sun had finally gone completely there would be no boundary between ocean and stars. But not yet. Joan pointed to the horizon, and a strip of neon blue that glowed, and shimmered. "You can still see the sunset, out there..."

"Is it true what they say about that green flash?"

"I've heard so, but... I've never seen it myself." She didn't come down to the water's edge at sunset for the same reason she didn't go digging for clams by herself. "Carl says he's seen it."

Harry nodded. Before he said anything else, he put his arm around the collie. Joan's fuzzy ears perked. One more strange thing in a litany of them. But if he was sincere... if he cared... She sighed, and leaned on him. He was warmer than the pier; warmer than the sun had been. Warmer than a solitary bed. "It's kind of a nice town..."

And when he said it, it almost seemed true. "It has its moments."

"Nice people. I liked Carl. Vic Gowen seems like a pretty straight guy... the guy at the coffee shop... hell, your mom wasn't so bad. Don't think she likes me much."

He must've caught the way she sniffed at that, a not-quite-laugh, because he gave her a light hug. Nobody did that to her; Peter wasn't much for hugs and Paul was in a relationship anyway and there was no way he'd want anyone to see him cuddling with even a good friend like Joan. "She can be kinda... slow to take to people. I'm sure she'd get better."

"Probably."

The world felt very small. Some miles beyond the bay a fishing boat bobbed gently, but its lights seemed no closer than the stars above them. Even the rhythmic heartbeat of the harbor light, sweeping in its ceaseless dance, was distant and calm.

And all of it was background noise and scenery. It was as though a spotlight had been focused on the pair; as though the universe was just the two of them. A few wooden boards and the stump of the pilings, and a stage gone black and quiet everywhere else.

Joan turned to look up at him. "Thanks for, ah..."

"For what?" The wolf was smiling; she loved his smile. Not just that; she loved the sound of his voice and how strong his arm felt -- how safe she was in his grasp.

Putting up with me. That was what she wanted to say. Even as the words came to her, though, she knew that they were the wrong ones. And though her mind raced, none better came. Caught off guard, now she smiled. And her ears came back up.

And he kissed her.

She knew it was coming a quarter-second before it happened; not long enough to do anything but plenty for a moment of anticipatory bliss, and then Harry's lips brushed hers gently. It was a soft. Warm. Slightly sticky.

When she didn't pull away, he did it again; this time she turned, so she could face him more directly. So it was easier to tilt her head to the side, meeting his muzzle with hers so much more closely now. So in that honey-lensed eternity in the darkness she could lose herself in his body...

Harry had both his arms around the Border Collie, wrapping her up as surely as if she'd been caught in a fisherman's net. By starlight the wolf's dark eyes were as black as the ocean, and as deep. Joan felt a giddy skip in her quickening heartbeat. He was everything -- filled all her senses. And she was --

His.

Don't think, Joan. No time for doubting herself; for second-guessing. When the wolf's tongue sought entrance to her muzzle she parted her lips by instinct, by reflex, letting her thoughts trail long behind. Besides he was so sure of himself, so confident... it was easy to let him lead.

A fuzzy blur cloaked her. The individual pieces were... amplified, somehow -- the soft liquid heat of his breath in the short fur of her muzzle. The taste of his tongue gliding wetly against hers. The tingling bristles of the wolf's whiskers. Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, scattered...

Stars? She was momentarily puzzled until she discovered that she was on her back; that he was atop her, that the stars vanished behind his silhouette. Their lips were still locked; their bodies were still intertwined. He didn't seem able to pull away any more than she could: for the briefest second he lifted his muzzle, fumbled for a question, and then abandoned the attempt to steal another kiss.

Except finally pragmatism won out; neither of them could breathe, really, and as he panted and she ran her fingers lovingly along his arms she wondered if it was possible to will a moment to last forever.

"This is... ah..." He laughed, between soft pants. "It's kind of public, right?"

"Maybe," Joan mumbled. The odds were that nobody would come looking. If she said yes though then he might get up, and...

He got up anyway. Unsteadily. Their legs were tangled. "Can we go back?"

It seemed like it would be a very long walk back to the hotel. Almost like it would be worth the risk. Wouldn't that be scandalous? Joan giggled to think of her poor mother, confronting that reputation. I don't like him, indeed; she'd give her a good reason. But just in case... just in case, she sat up, too, and let Harry pull her to her feet.

And the walk was agonizing. Every moment of it. The wolf had his arm around her waist, and every step sent tingling pressure roiling through her. Like a static charge building -- by the time they were at the door to his room, and he was digging through his pockets unsteadily for the keys, she thought she might die from it.

Harry's paw fumbled for the light switch and missed and he didn't bother for a second attempt. It seemed to be all he could do to pull the door shut, and as soon as it was he was on her again, his presence dominating her. Clingy, that's what she'd said, she didn't want to be clingy but now she was pulling herself into him, her slim arms just barely circling his broad shoulders.

The bedsprings barked a startled protest when they tumbled onto it. They were old, run-down -- like the paint on the walls and the old lamp and the rabbit-eared television. And it didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the sudden outburst of youthful energy as they embraced.

Joan's folded ears heard the dull thumps of his shoes hitting the floor, and the softer swish of his windbreaker. Too much was happening all at once -- she needed to be doing the same thing but she also needed him to be holding her again, to feel his lips on hers. Thankfully Harry had the presence of mind to keep going; he tugged the zipper of her jacket down until at last it opened and she could wriggle free from it.

Her t-shirt surrendered next -- then there was the warm air of the hotel room right on her fur, and when her paws closed on her lover's shoulders again she found that he'd done the same thing. Harry's fur was gloriously thick, a nice rugged pelt that would do just fine in Alaska if he had to go and _but -- maybe not -- _and she heard him groan when she pulled him back atop her.

Another hot, desperate kiss, though it was briefer -- shakier. Harder to hold a thing like that. Paws found her jeans; she managed to kick her boots off just in time for the worn denim to follow. Touch me -- she begged for it, not quite certain if she'd said it out loud, but even if she hadn't there was a firm, hot caress smoothing out her right leg. Working up -- higher -- cupping her rear to pull her up further into the bed and taking the opportunity to give her a squeeze that sent thrills through the collie.

His fingers ruffled up her sides, mussing the tufts of thick fur and sending it all askew. He traced an arcing path along the swell of her breast, and growled into her muzzle with the kneading caress that left her squirming. And every time she needed more of him, more of that wonderful touch he was one step ahead of her. Teasing her nipple with the fuzzy heat of his fingers and the brief smooth hardness of his claw. Stroking her again, settling back the fur he'd disturbed.

Working his fingers into the downy warmth of her thighs. She parted her legs for him with a quiet moan that was almost a breathless plea and she knew that he heard it that way. In the dim light filtering through the blinds she saw his rounded ears all perked and eager, and his whiskers twitching. And she felt him touch her. Slick. Hard. Nudging her, an insistent pressure that built -- yielded with a gasp from the collie as she felt his stiff, throbbing heat slip just inside.

He took her slowly, and Joan watched every moment of that first thrust play out in his features -- the way his eyes narrowed and lost focus, and his ears wavered to the soft moan that crossed her wanton lips. Wonderful, all of it. He was perfect inside her, a solid warmth filling her, completing her, stretching her around him. Finally he came to rest, and she murmured his name dreamily.

Harry. He kissed her lovingly as he drew back, and when he pushed back inside her she got to watch the pleasure soften his face all over again. His pace was nice, and steady, and strong as she'd known it would be. A smooth rocking of his hips that worked him in an endless, easy tempo into the clinging warmth of her body. He belonged there, the collie decided. More than anyone. Every fluid thrust was kindling a building glow inside her, urging it warmer and brighter, spreading embers into the very core of her being.

She was consumed by it. By him. Tensing as that pulsing heat slid deep inside, deeper than she'd ever had a man before. Imagining she could perceive every inch of him, every textured ridge and vein that made him a living thing -- a desiring, eager masculine presence, craving her body as much as she craved his. Sighing to the aching, longing absence when he drew back, nearly pulling free of her...

Joan wrapped her arms around his thick grey body, following Harry's movements as the wolf bucked atop her, his spine arching and his chest heaving with ragged, growling breaths. Faster now; he was starting to lose his self-control. The bed strained and squealed with the effort of their swift coupling -- she was moaning, crying out for her canine lover as he groaned and plunged roughly into her with that mounting, desperate urgency.

The big wolf was nearing his end, she could sense it. Harry was pushing deep now -- had to fight against the urge to stay there with each shuddering, half-completed withdrawal. His knot formed a thick bulge, and bright sparks of shocked pleasure cascaded through her vision when it buffeted her. Joan arched her hips, pushing into his thrusts. Trying to take it, hungry for him, needing that final act of completion.

To have him locked inside her. To feel their bodies joined in such exquisite intimacy. To know that she was his and he was hers. The collie's body begged for it; she whimpered and clawed for him as his pace built to its peak, as the flames he stoked in her body flared, as she knew too late that she was going to scream. His name was on her lips, a giddy exulting oath of it, and the fire burst forth in rippling, silken hot waves that painted the darkness of her clenched eyelids in washes of color.

She opened them to find him rigid. Teeth gritted, eyes narrowed to slits, ears back. Harry shook through two or three more erratic thrusts -- and then -- a sudden emptiness. He pulled himself from her -- groaned deeply -- caught in the throes of her own release she could see orgasm take him, but his hitching hips were grinding the wolf's length against her from outside. His shaft jerked; hot, strong pulses of his essence streaked her white pelt and he grunted deeply as the warm seed that should've been filling her jetted in sticky, musky ropes that smeared the soft fur of her belly.

Finally he sagged, and fell against her. It was a comforting, solid weight that pressed her down and into the mattress and she was still processing her surprise as it mixed into the blissful glow of her fading climax. She could still feel him twitching between them; the wetness matting their fur spread further. They lay together in each other's arms for a long minute before she whispered to the gasping wolf. "Harry?"

"Hey..."

"How..." It sounded kind of silly. She stroked her paw down the wolf's side to give herself time to collect her thoughts. "How come you didn't, um. Tie with me?"

Harry raised his head, and nosed at the side of her muzzle. "Didn't think you'd want it?"

"Of course I did." Although it wasn't so big a deal; she'd have to shower, sure, and maybe scrub a bit harder than usual. But she loved him, all the same. Sighing, Joan favored the wolf's ear with a tender lap, and he took that as permission to lower his head once more. "Such a tired wolf..."

"Worn out," he laughed weakly. His laughter filled her fur with its warmth. "And an early morning tomorrow..."

"Yeah?" She prodded his tail until he wagged it. Just barely.

"Vic says car'll be ready. I gotta... gotta get back on the road..."

Her ears flattened. "Really?"

As soon as she said it Joan regretted the quickness of her tone; the neediness to it. Harry lifted his head, and then rolled all the way off her so that he could prop himself up on an elbow. "Yeah? I'm supposed to be in Alaska. Better sooner than later..."

She knew that objectively. But secretly... secretly there'd been that hope that maybe he might not have to leave? That his car wouldn't be fixable; that he'd find a job he fancied. Doing what? She didn't know. It was a stupid hope, like they all were. "Just... soon, I guess. Feels... soon."

"A bit," he agreed. He seemed to know that wasn't quite good enough: "You okay, Joan?"

"Yeah." The Border Collie splayed her ears further; her voice softened. "No. I don't know." Dumb me things, don't ask. Please don't ask, Harry. Please...

"What do you mean? Don't know what?"

Joan was blinking too quickly to hide the dampness in her eyes. "I don't want you to go, that's all."

"But I have to."

She couldn't stop it any more than she could've stopped anything else. Tides. Sunrise. "I know." Sniffling -- hating herself for it, which only made things worse. "I know you have to. Just wish you didn't have to. And..." And it was the wrong thing to say and Joan knew it but all the same it was true and before she could stop herself she'd swallowed to clear her throat and whispered: "I love you."

"Oh, Joan," Harry sighed.

"I... I should go." That was easier. It was easier than getting up the nerve to come to the hotel had been, actually -- a clear goal with clear steps. Sit up, Joan. And then: find your jeans and pull them on because if she moved fast enough maybe she could manage it without breaking down completely. That was the thing about her kind of breakdowns, was nobody stopped to help and Vic couldn't do a fucking thing about it and the mental image made her laugh, an awkward choking kind of sound that had left Harry bewildered.

"Look, I'm sorry. Joan. Really, I didn't --"

"It's okay." She smiled, and entertained no fantasies about how reassuring it might've looked. The boots were on the wrong feet. She'd have to fix that later. "I should just head out, that's all and -- and you need to sleep 'cause you've gotta get going, you said that and I -- I don't want to keep you and -- and I mean it, I mean -- uh -- I mean... I mean thank you..."

"Joan..." She stood, wobbling, and he reached out to try to catch her.

Missed. Or rather, she ducked away from him, and made it to the door. She wanted to say goodbye and have fun in Alaska and she would've meant those words but she didn't think he'd believe that. They'd stick in his head, and he'd assume she'd been trying to hurt him when the truth was so far from that, was anything but that, so instead she stumbled on those awkward boots to the car. With the door left unlocked.

Of course.

Not for the first time Joan wished that she could rewrite the past. I love you. She shouldn't have said it. It hadn't been fair to Harry. Even if it was true, and -- and could she be so certain of that? She'd only known him for a few days, after all. Wasn't it just like her to do that? That's what her mother would've said.

Mooning.

And what right did she have to expect him to feel the same way? Of course he didn't love her back. She could've guessed it -- no, should've guessed it. And so she'd been rather unfair. Rather cruel, even, to lay the burdens of her existence at his feet like he could help them. He had his own life, and she had...

What? What did she have? The answer wasn't really fair, either, but the truth of it was she had nothing. That was why she pinned her hopes on other people, wasn't it? Why she'd expected Harry to save her from herself. Because she'd never been able to make any headway, not when it was so easy to get lost. To get distracted. To drag her awkward mind from day to identical, empty day with the chaos fading to so much white noise.

She wanted it to get better. Out of all the daydreams, all the silly dumb wishes, that was the one she clung to. That some person or some thing or some answer could make it better. That the fog might lift and stay lifted -- but it wasn't going to. This it, Joan. This is what you've got.

At least she could admit it to herself; that was a start. And she could admit it then she could do something about it. The tears she'd expected didn't come. Instead there was an aching, awful, wrenching clarity. She saw her life unrolled like a tapestry, slashing a line towards its climax as cold and as sharp as the stars.

More obvious than anything had ever felt. She parked the Honda, and remembered to douse the lights and lock the door on the very first try. Valerie was sitting on the sofa, knitting. "Joan?"

She hung the keys up neatly, where she could find them when they'd be needed next, then slipped into the living room and gave the older dog a hug from behind. Bent down so she didn't have to get up, and kissed her between the ears.

"You alright?"

"I'm alright," she agreed. The sweater was nearly done; it would be ready in plenty of time for fall, when Val would really be wanting it. Everything in its form was neat, and clean, the product of skilled fingers and years of practice. "Everything's alright."

"That's what I want to hear..."

Didn't they all?

Didn't she?

Joan Findlay smiled softly, and let go. "Night, mother."