Chapter 2
1
It’s a rainy morning in Reno and Kate wants a newspaper. Not any newspaper, either, but one of the sort she calls “a rag” or “a screed.” This particular screed is The West Coast Clarion .
Corrie points to Kate’s laptop, but Kate shakes her head and flashes a grin. “The Clarion is strictly hard copy.” She lowers her voice. “The internet is a tool of the deep state. Although the people who write this pile of crap don’t mind having the juicy bits posted on social media. Where troubling things like facts and context don’t matter.” Then, as an afterthought (afterthoughts have a way of causing trouble): “And wear my hat.”
“Are you kidding?”
Kate’s Borsalino—a kind of fedora, comically large, almost a parody of what the well-dressed Esquire man would wear—is a McKay trademark. She wears it to all her events, sweeping it off and making an extravagant bow to acknowledge the preordained storm of applause (plus boos). She was wearing it on the cover of both Ms. and Newsweek .
“Zero kidding.” She’s making notes for her upcoming speech at the Pioneer Center tonight. Although the tour is barely underway, this isn’t Kate McKay’s first rodeo. She’s got a basic template, but she’s a believer in the Tip O’Neill maxim that all politics is local, and tailors each speech to the town she’s in. And the bottom line isn’t Buy my book, now on sale , because the book is already a bestseller, like the three that came before it. The book is simply the door-opener to her views and agenda. Applause follows, outrage follows, press and TV coverage follow; on to the next city. Which will be Spokane.
“I want to see what garbage they have to say about me. I may be able to use it tonight, but I don’t want you getting soaked. God forbid you get sick when the tour’s just getting started. It’s really coming down out there. I thought Reno was supposed to be dry .”
Corrie settles the Borsalino almost reverently on her head, cocking it to the left as Kate does. That way it obscures most of her face, thus assuring her of a trip to Saint Mary’s ER not long hence.
“That rag will squeal like a stuck pig,” Kate says, not without satisfaction. She’s looking out the rain-streaked sitting room window on the top floor of the Renaissance Reno Hotel. “But nothing will equal the Breitbart headline when we kicked off the tour.”
That one had been THE B*TCH IS BACK. Kate had it framed, and by now it will be hanging in the study of her cliffside home in Carmel-by-the-Sea. She called it great advertising. Hattie Delaney, her agent, called it a recipe to bring out the kooks, nutbags, and True Q believers. Kate spread her hands and made a beckoning gesture with all ten fingers—another McKay trademark—and said, “Let em come.”
2
Corrie inquires as to where she can find a well-equipped newsstand and is told Hammer News on West 2nd Street should have everything she wants. She calls and asks if they carry The West Coast Clarion . She takes the reply—“Does a bear do it in the woods?”—as a yes and sets out.
Is the redhead in the rainhat and belted trenchcoat sitting nearby in the lobby when Corrie asks for directions at the desk? Perhaps looking at a magazine or bent over her phone? Corrie thinks later—tells the police later—she must have been. Must have listened to the helpful concierge giving her instructions, then gone ahead to get in position.
Did Corrie see a woman precede her out of the hotel? She’ll say she honestly can’t remember. Nor does she care. In the ER she only cares about two things. The first is whether or not she’ll ever be able to see again. The second is this: if she can, how ugly will be the face she sees looking back in the mirror?
Those things will be her concerns.
3
The previous year, Corrie was chosen along with ten others to attend a graduate seminar taught by Kate McKay. It lasted two weeks, and those were the best classes of Corrie’s academic career. After the last one, Kate asked her to stay so she could discuss something with her. Kate told her that her new book was going to be published in April, and she’d support it with a multi-city tour, beginning in Portland, Oregon, and ending in Portland, Maine.
“I need someone to assist. I was thinking you might like the job. Seven hundred dollars a week. You’d have to make arrangements to finish your other classes a little early. What do you think?”
Corrie was at first so astounded by the out-of-the-blue offer that she was unable to reply. This woman has been on the cover of magazines. She’s on TV all the time . Even more impressive to Corrie, a child of the social media age, Kate has twelve million followers on Twitter. That’s twelve with six zeros behind it.
“Close your mouth,” Kate said. “You’ll catch a fly.”
“Why… why me?”
Kate ticked off reasons on her fingers. “When I needed a PowerPoint, you hooked me up. Your paper on Ada Lovelace was well-written and thoughtful. You didn’t neglect the fact that she became interested in mathematics because she was afraid her father’s insanity might be hereditary. You saw her as a woman, not a goddess. Human, in other words. You ask good questions, and are currently unattached. Have I missed anything?”
Only that I idolize you , Corrie thought, but later she’ll come to understand Kate knew that all along… and she is a woman who enjoys being idolized. In many ways—Corrie will also come to understand this—Kate is a monster of ego. Her tongue is a Ginsu knife. She’s capable of coolly slicing and dicing a commentator who dares oppose her views, then doing a furniture-kicking tantrum over a busted bra strap. She has no off button. She’s also balls-to-the-wall courageous. Corrie thought then and thinks now that Kate McKay will be remembered long after most women (and men) of her time will be forgotten.
“No! I mean yes! I want the job!”
Kate laughed. “Relax, girl, it’s not a marriage proposal and it won’t be glamorous. I might send you out to Starbucks at seven in the morning. Or to Walgreens for Prilosec. You’ll have to lug equipment, plug in equipment, sometimes fix equipment—as you fixed that fucking PowerPoint gadget when I couldn’t make it work. You’ll also spend a lot of time on the phone. Keep a schedule, make calls, concoct the occasional excuse, organize press conferences. The one thing I’ll never ask you to do is apologize for me or, God save us, ‘clarify’ something I said. I don’t do apologies, I don’t do clarifications, and you won’t, either. Now does that still sound like—”
“Yes!”
“Can you drive a standard shift?”
Corrie’s shoulders slumped. “No.”
Kate grasped her by the shoulders. Her grip was strong. “Then find someone to teach you. Because we’re going in my truck. Homegirl doesn’t fly, especially over flyover country. I’m a gal of the people.”
Corrie went to a driving school and learned. Once she got the hang of using the clutch, it was sort of fun. She liked the instructor telling her, “Relax, young lady. If you can’t find em, grind em.”
Kate said they would split the driving. There was no need to adjust the seat when they switched, because both of them were about the same height, five-five and change. Kate was a blond, Corrie what her mom called a brownette, but in Portland she went blond, saying it was just for a change. Kate probably knew better.
“When you let your hair down, and from a distance, we could almost be sisters,” Kate said as they drove out of Portland, bound for Reno.
Which was, of course, the problem.
4
Corrie walks down Lake Street to West 2nd, Borsalino pulled low. If the woman in the trenchcoat is ahead of her, Corrie either doesn’t see or doesn’t remember. She can see her destination ahead—HAMMER NEWS OUT OF TOWN PAPERS, the sign reads—when on her left, a woman cries, “Hey, Kate!” Corrie will later tell police that the voice was hoarse, as if the woman had been screaming her lungs out at a rock show.
As Corrie turns her head, she’s grabbed by the collar of her jacket and yanked into an alley that stinks of garbage. She stumbles but keeps her feet. She thinks, I’m being mug—
The rest is jolted from her mind as she’s thrown against the alley’s brick wall hard enough to rattle her teeth. Now she sees the woman in the trenchcoat: taller than Corrie by a couple of inches, and with bright red hair that can’t be natural. It’s smashed down under one of those cheap see-thru rainhats you can buy for a buck. Her bag is on a strap over her left shoulder. Her right hand dips into it and brings out a Thermos with the word ACID printed on it in black Sharpie. She lets go of Corrie to unscrew the cap and Corrie is too stunned to run. She can’t believe this is happening.
“Here’s what you have coming,” the redhead says, and throws the contents of the Thermos into Corrie’s wide, startled eyes. “Suffer not a woman to teach, or usurp the authority of man, but to be in silence. First Timothy, bitch.”
The burn is immediate. Her vision blurs away.
“Go home, Kate. While you still can.”
She doesn’t see the redhead exit the alley. She doesn’t see anything. She can hardly hear her own screams. The pain has swallowed her whole.
5
The first thing she does in the ER when her vision begins to come back—blurry but there, thank God and Jesus and all the saints—is to fish her compact out of her purse and look at her face. Her cheeks and forehead are flushed a hectic red and the whites of her eyes are scarlet, but there are none of the blisters she expected.
This is after the doc has washed her eyes out with a saline solution. It stings like hell. He says he’ll be back in ten minutes to do it again. “Whatever she splashed you with, it wasn’t acid,” he says before hurrying out to deal with another patient.
The second thing she does is call Kate, who’ll be wondering where Corrie is. By then she’s calmed down a little. Kate is calm, too. She tells Corrie to call the police if someone on the staff hasn’t already done it.
Kate arrives ten minutes after a uniformed cop and five minutes before a woman detective. Corrie expects Kate to take charge, it’s what she does, but today she only sits in the corner of the exam room and listens. Corrie isn’t sure if that’s because the lead cop is female. It might be. The detective gets a description and writes it down. She tears a sheet off her pad and gives it to the uni, who leaves, presumably to call it in. The detective has introduced herself as Mallory Hughes.
“The red hair—was it a dye job or could it have been a wig?”
“It might have been either. It all happened so fast. I know that sounds like a cliché, but—”
“Understood, totally understood. If it was a wig, they’ll probably find it in a nearby litter basket. If someone hasn’t filched it already, that is. How are the old eyeballs doing?”
“Better. I’m sorry to have made such a fuss, but—”
“Don’t be,” Kate says from her seat in the corner.
“It’s just that I thought it was acid. It said so right on the Thermos.”
“Because that’s what she wanted you to think,” Hughes says. “Like in a Road Runner cartoon where the box says ACME EXPLOSIVES.” She turns her head. “Kate McKay, right?”
Kate nods. She’s not taking a big part in the discussion, she’s letting Hughes do her job, but her attention is fiercely focused. Corrie has an idea her boss is very angry—it’s in her tightly pursed lips and the way her hands are knotted in her lap—but she’s showing respect. At least so far. If she feels that Hughes is fucking up or slacking off, that will change.
“I’ve read two of your books,” Hughes tells her. Then, turning back to Corrie: “The woman who threw that shit in your face, probably bleach, thought you were her, didn’t she?” Cocking her head at Kate, whose lips are now so tightly pressed together they have almost disappeared.
“Probably.”
“The Borsalino,” Kate says. “It’s sort of a trademark. It’s on all four book jackets and a lot of publicity photos.”
“Well, this one is evidence,” Hughes says. “You’ll get it back eventually, but you’ll have to buy another one if you want to wear it to your gig tonight.”
From Mallory Hughes, Kate takes this without comment. Corrie wonders again if she would from a man. Kate’s not a hater of men, but she’s got a lot of push-back in her.
“Are you going ahead with your lecture tonight at the Pioneer?”
“Oh yes. I’d be happy to comp you tickets, if you want to come.”
“Working.” Then, back to Corrie. “I want you to come down to the station this afternoon and make a statement. You up for that?”
Corrie looks at Kate, who says, “ Early afternoon, if possible. I need Corrie later on.” Simply assuming that Corrie will be ready and willing to do her show-night duties. Corrie supposes there’s a degree of diva arrogance in this, but it doesn’t irritate her. On the contrary, she’s grateful for it. Understands it’s Kate’s way of saying she assumes Corrie is as brave as she is. Corrie wants to believe that.
“Let’s make it one-thirty,” Hughes says. “455 East 2nd, not all that far from where you were going when you were assaulted. I’ll want both your phone number and email address, since I expect you’ll be moving on with Ms. McKay.” She doesn’t defer to Kate because she’s not the victim. At least not this time.
“One-thirty it is,” Corrie says.
“If we catch her, you’ll have to come back. You’re aware of that, right?”
Corrie says she understands.
6
When Hughes is gone, Kate says, “I want you onstage tonight. Are you good with that?”
Corrie feels a bolt of fright at the idea. “Would I have to speak?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Then okay. I guess.”
“You don’t mind being Kate McKay’s object lesson? Don’t resent me for it?”
“No.” Is that the truth? Corrie wants it to be.
“I want to take your picture. While your eyes are still red and puffy and your skin is still irritated. All right?”
“Yes.”
“People need to understand there’s a price for standing up. But it can be paid. They need to understand that, too.”
“Okay.”
I’ve become a selling point , Corrie thinks. She sees Kate’s willingness to do this, to seize this, as a character flaw, but also as a character strength. That it can be both is a new idea for her.
Kate McKay has been called a zealot. She wears the label with pride. On CNN, a pundit accused her of suffering from Joan of Arc Syndrome. Kate’s response: “Joan of Arc heard the voice of God. I hear the voices of oppressed women.”
She asks Corrie if she wants to continue the tour after tonight. Kate says she didn’t want to ask the question in front of the detective.
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you sure? Now that you see what can happen?”
“Yes.”
“Talking about hate is one thing. Seeing it in action—actually experiencing it—that’s a whole other deal. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Subject closed.” Kate produces her phone to take Corrie’s picture. After looking at the screen, she says, “Muss your hair up. Widen your eyes.”
Corrie looks at her, not understanding. Or not wanting to.
“Let’s be honest, Corrie. This isn’t a book tour, the book would do fine if I just sat at home on my ass and watched TV. It’s an ideology tour. Otto von Bismarck compared ideology to sausage—you might want to eat it, but you don’t want to see it being made. Well, no. He was actually talking about making laws, but same difference. You’re sure you want to go on with me?”
For an answer she makes Kate’s trademark gesture, both hands out and all fingers beckoning: Come on, bring it . Then she musses up her hair. Kate laughs, snaps a picture, sends it to Corrie’s phone, and tells her what to do with it.
“Then call your parents, hon. They need to hear about this from you before they see it on the news.”
7
She’s in a shop called Cloth they don’t dare. The crowd is united. United for Corrie Anderson from Ossipee, New Hampshire.
And what does the object of this approving thunder feel? As they say on TV, it’s complicated. But she thinks of that one lone voice that cried shame , and is that what she’s feeling? That? Why would she?
Kate gives her a hug and whispers, “You done good.”
With that, Corrie is released to go back offstage, and there’s no question what she feels then: relief. Kate may crave the spotlight; Corrie does not. If she didn’t know before, she does now.
10
Not shame after all.
The applause, that standing O, has clarified her mind, and Corrie finds herself thinking clearly for the first time since the bogus redhead threw bleach into her open eyes and unprotected face. She goes back to the greenroom and calls the Spokane Police Department. The dispatcher switches her call to an Officer Rowley. Officer Rowley is a woman. That’s good.
Corrie identifies herself and tells Rowley who she’s working for. Rowley knows who Kate is; most women of a certain age do. Corrie tells Rowley that she and Kate will be in Spokane tomorrow. She tells Rowley what she wants and why she wants it. Officer Rowley—Denise—says she’ll see what she can do and promises she’ll text Corrie as soon as possible. In the course of the conversation they have become, not sisters in arms, but at least chums.
From the audience, faint in the greenroom, she hears the periodic thunder of applause as Kate makes her points. The haters are drowned out.
But it only takes one , she thinks as she ends the call. I guess I knew that, but now I’ve… what?
“Internalized it,” she murmurs.
It wasn’t shame at all. What she felt, standing beside that absurdly huge picture of herself and listening to the applause, was used . It doesn’t make her angry, but it does make her realize she has to take care of herself. Has to grow up a little. A gun won’t do that. Neither will pepper spray.
11
The next day they drive to Spokane in Kate’s Ford F-150 Crew Cab, their gear in back under a locked vinyl canopy. Kate is behind the wheel, keeping five over the 70 MPH speed limit, still high from last night. The radio is on loud, Alan Jackson singing about the Chattahoochee and what that muddy water meant to him. Corrie leans over and turns it off.
“I’ll keep the pepper spray, but I don’t want a gun after all.”
“Didn’t have time to find one, anyway,” Kate says. “We’re slaves to the damn schedule now, hon.”
“I’ve made arrangements with the Spokane police to have an off-duty cop with us while we’re in town. He’ll have a gun. The lady I spoke to—Denise—says there are always widebodies who want to earn a little extra cash. You’ll have to pay him, of course.”
Kate is frowning. “I don’t want—”
For the first time in their still-new relationship, Corrie interrupts her. “I’ll make similar arrangements as we go along.” She gathers herself and says the rest—the bottom line. “If you want me to continue, this is non-negotiable. It wasn’t just a threat, Kate. Not some online troll with a potty mouth. The person said, ‘Go home while you still can.’ She’s out to get you, she got me by mistake, and she could try again.”
Kate says nothing, but Corrie can tell by the set of her mouth and the vertical line between her brows that she’s not even close to happy about this—call it what it is—this ultimatum. Kate McKay doesn’t want to be perceived as a woman who needs a man to protect her. It’s antithetical to everything she’s made a career of standing against. But there’s something else as well, and it’s pretty simple: Kate McKay doesn’t like anyone telling her what to do.
She changes her mind when they check in. There’s the usual budget of messages, a couple of bouquets, and five letters. Four are fanmail. The fifth contains a photo of Kate and Corrie eating at an outdoor restaurant in Portland, a day or two before the first gig. They are laughing about something. The F-150 is parked at the curb in the background. There’s a note, carefully printed. You only get 1 warning, so receive it well. Next time it will be you and it will be for real. She who speaks lies shall perish .
Kate’s name is printed on the envelope, but there’s no stamp. She asks the desk clerk who dropped it off. The clerk, a pretty young man in a white shirt and red vest, tells her someone must have left it while he was away from the desk. Which probably means on a pee break.
“Don’t you have a security camera in the lobby?” Corrie asks.
“Yes, ma’am, we sure do, but it’s pointed at the front doors, not at the reception desk. Plus, whoever left it could have come in through the restaurant.”
Kate thinks this over, then turns to Corrie. “When is your rent-a-cop due?”
“He’ll meet me—both of us, if you want—in the lobby at three o’clock. Before I go to the venue to meet the event coordinator and the bookstore people.”
Kate holds up the photo and the note. “Let’s show him this. And then get a look at the security footage. See if the bitch made the mistake of coming in the front door.”
“Good idea,” Corrie says. Now that she’s gotten her way, she’s back to being the meek (but can-do) assistant.
“Bitch is actually following us,” Kate marvels.
“Yes,” Corrie says. “She is.”