Page 5 of Guilty as Sin
She realized after she said the “call before and after” thing that she’d plucked the topic out of nowhere, but Lily, of course, followed her fine. Lily lifted a raspberry off her slice of cake, looked at it on her dessert fork like she wasn’t sure how it had arrived there, and said, “I know. Maybe I will. But I’ll be OK. It’s fine.”
Oh. Lily was embarrassed for saying something? Huh. Was Paigethatjudgmental? Probably. “Hey,” Paige said, “I call you too when I need you. Really—if you get desperate, go to the ladies’ room and call me during. Or better yet—email Whatshisname that the answer is no, so there’s no point in pursuing it. And then don’t go.”
Lily didn’t say anything, and Paige looked past her sister and out the window, where a million twinkly lights swooped around trees set into pots, and beyond them, firepots danced with flame. There was a moonlight hike and astronomy session scheduled for after dinner, complete with Indian star legends. She drank some more champagne to fortify herself for the ordeal and thought—well, not about stars, and not about Lily, not exactly. She thought about paid administrative leave and surrendering her service weapon. About sitting on the couch, staring at the walls of her apartment, and waiting for the investigation to be over so she could go back. She thought about how Lily had always been the little spoon when they snuggled, because even though their bedroom had had two beds, the two of them had somehow always ended up sleeping together. And maybe she thought about all the times she hadn’t been there enough for her sister. How often she’d seen—had felt—that shadow fall and hadn’t pushed past it, hadn’t worked to dispel it, because she’d been caught up in her own life. Because she’d been busy.
Maybe a vortex pulsed, or whatever vortexes did. They were either masculine or feminine, their guide had told them this morning on the hike. The masculine ones made you tougher. That wasn’t what was happening here, because Paige was already plenty tough. The feminine ones, though—they strengthened your giving side. The side, probably, whose aura was pink rather than brick-red. All Paige knew was, the champagne was sliding down her throat in all its tiny bubbles, tickling her nose, and she felt as relaxed and alert as if she’d—done whatever New Age-y thing made you relaxed and alert. And she was saying, “You know what we should do? We should switch.”
Lily still hadn’t eaten her raspberry. Instead, she’d dunked it into her champagne glass and taken her own sip. She looked at Paige from over the top of the flute, her brown eyes widening, then lowered her glass and said, “What?”
“We should totally switch,” Paige insisted. She drained her glass, pulled the bottle out of the ice bucket, and emptied the contents into first Lily’s flute, then her own. “Here we are, thirty-one today. I’m at a turning point, maybe, and you’ve already turned. You need a break and I need a challenge.”
“Are you sure that’s what you need?” Lily asked. “You’ve been challenged forever. You need a break at least as much as I do. You’re so… restless.”
Paige waved her glass in the air. Maybe not as femininely-vortexed as she’d thought, or maybe just a little drunk, because she said, “Being you for a week or so isn’t a challenge. Telling off Mr. Bigbucks isn’t either. Showing powerful men they’ve underestimated me? That’s the kind of thing I live for.”
“Except that you’d be telling him he’s underestimatedme,”Lily said.
“Same thing. Or—yeah, but—” Paige gave up trying to figure it out. “I’d be telling him, anyway. Telling the town. Taking the heat, and meanwhile, you’re doing whatever San Francisco things appeal to you, because you don’t really have to be me. I’m on leave. I’m free.”
That was it. That was the ticket. “Free.” Not “at loose ends,” and definitely not something worse. “Free” sounded so much better.
“You know,” Lily said, an unaccustomed dryness creeping into her tone, “there’s the shop.”
“You’ve got sales help, right? Or you couldn’t be here. Heidi.”
“Hailey.”
“Whatever. And it’s the off-season. Skiing’s over and summer hasn’t started, and most people in town can’t afford your stuff. How hard could it be? When’s the… the meeting thing?”
Lily stared at her for a moment, then said, “Uh… about a week from now. Wednesday at seven. And you have to be tactful, you know. It’s lingerie. Nobody wants to hear, ‘Nope. That one will show your cellulite. Pick something longer.’”
Paige waved her glass again. “Give me some credit. I’ve watched you all your life. I know how to be you. All feminine and all.”
Lily still looked unconvinced, so Paige said, not sure why she was pushing it, but going ahead all the same, “So we do it for a week or so, as long as I’m still off work. The meeting, and a few days afterwards. Give me time to handle any fallout.” She paused on the way to drinking and said, “Wait. You’re not seeing anybody, are you? Because that would be too weird.”
“No. I told you. Not interested. Anyway, the only semi-good-looking guy around is my scary neighbor. Besides Brett Hunter, of course.”
“Brett Hunter’s good-looking? And what scary neighbor?”
“Weird. Hairy. Hermit. Glares at you.”
“And that’s good-looking?”
“Well, not to me. To somebody who wants to live dangerously. And doesn’t want to talk. Anyway, how about you? Not that I’m doing this. But say we did. What about friends?”
“Oh,” Paige said, “cops don’t need friends. Take a vacation. Look at clothes. Buying trip or whatever. And I’ll go back to blonde and be you.”
“If I did it, though,” Lily said, “I’d have to cut my hair.” She fingered a curl amongst the tumbled mass that hung halfway to her waist. “Too many people know you, whatever you say, and you don’t make hair longer overnight unless you do extensions, and nobody who knows you would believe you’d done extensions, no matter how wild you got on vacation. I don’t know. It’s crazy. At least you didn’t say I’d have to dye my hair. That would’ve been a dealbreaker. Nobody dyes their hairfromblonde anyway, you know. Nobody except you.”
“Sure they do,” Paige said. “If they’re in a male-dominated profession and that kind of male attention is the exact wrong kind, they do. But I remember how to be blonde. I did it for twenty-five years. I’ll be girly except when I’m not. Let’s do it.”
Lily looked at her, and once again, Paige felt that pulse of rightness. Even though switching was never as easy as you thought it would be. It was exciting, though. It was action, and she needed action like Lily needed peace and quiet.
It was an adventure. And she needed to do it.
“I’d only say yes,” Lily said slowly, her brown eyes serious, looking too deep, “if I thought it was good for you, too.”
Paige wanted to talk more, to talk until she’d talked Lily into it, but she knew from long experience that Lily could get stubborn if she felt railroaded. So she waited, and it was as if the crowded room faded away around them until there was nobody here but her and Lily, and nothing visible except the bond that connected them. Even though it wasn’t visible at all.
