Part Eight

Peggy went to the right side of the ferry instead of the left. Her stride was deliberate and purposeful. She paid little attention to the glowing morning sky, her goal was to avoid Raoul.

As she entered the aisle on the right side she looked ahead and saw him sitting at the far end. She quickly turned away, hoping she wasn't noticed. Obviously he had the same idea. It irritated her; she wanted to be the one doing the avoiding. Peggy went to the left side, where she usually sat, but then avoided that as well when she saw Kelly Flinn there. She didn't want to have a conversation with him. Not this morning. She went up on deck, to the place known as the Quiet Room. By convention, passengers there refrained from having conversations or using cell phones or laptops. It was a place to read or sleep, or just be away from others. She found an empty corner and collapsed into a seat, her face burning with discomfort. The rosacea had flared up again.

The lunch with Raoul had been a disaster, which was compounded by the fact that she had looked forward to it all morning like a giddy teenager in love. He had chosen a swank lunch spot on 2nd Ave, to which he drove them in his black Mercedes Benz. The luxury was so foreign to her, it was not Taylor at all. Raoul looked dashing at the wheel of his car, his gray beard and dark suit, and smooth charming voice. She felt she was being pampered. The valet welcomed them and took the car with a note of familiarity; perhaps Raoul was a regular customer there.

Inside they sat in a cool corner, away from the intense heat of the day, while a demure waitress in a crisp apron brought them sparkling water with lemons. Summer had rushed upon them like a steam engine; it was the number one topic of conversation: where did this heat come from? Peggy knew the answer: climate change, global warming. Taylor ranted and raged about it for as long as Peggy was married to him, right up until his death. She also heard about it at work: her nonprofit organization, the Northwest Environmental Fund, was devoted to raising awareness of climate change. Peggy was in charge of the Education Database, a collection of data and references that documented the change in the Earth's climate since the beginning of the Industrial Age.

But she wasn't thinking of that as she sat across a mahogany table from Raoul and fingered the silverware and the cloth napkin in front of her. Their conversation was light. Deidre, his daughter, had enjoyed her visit to Bainbridge Island and was back in Philadelphia, where she was earning an MBA at the Wharton School. He asked questions about her children, so she explained that Taylor, Jr, her son, was an aspiring film maker in Brooklyn, taking classes at the Pratt Institute and waiting on tables at night. Her daughter, Marjorie, was a statistician who married to a lobbyist and they lived in Arlington, Virginia.

"A statistician married to a lobbyist. Hmm, I would love to hear their dinner conversations," he said with amusement.

"Arcane is the way I would describe it," said Peggy, enjoying herself.

Then the bomb hit. She had been extremely curious as to how Raoul spent his time. He wore suits everyday, and over that he wore motorcycle leathers and rode a large Harley-Davidson onto the ferry. She knew it was a Harley because she had seen him on his bike one morning while she was standing on the upper deck about to disembark and she leaned over the rail and glanced at the pack of bikers revving their engines, waiting for the ferry attendant to give them the signal to roar away in a cloud of exhaust and noise. He was there in his white helmet and his low, fat blue bike.

The bomb came when he talked about his job. He said he was a lawyer for Burnett and Edwards.

"Burnett and Edwards?" said Peggy.

"Yes. Have you heard of them?"

"I'll say. My organization opposes them in court on a regular basis."

"Oh? What organization would that be?"

"The Northwest Environmental Fund."

He groaned. "I hope you're not one of the militant types."

"I'm not sure how you define the so-called militant types. But we are aggressive about making polluters pay for their crimes."

Raoul shook his head. "Everyone wants everything to be black and white. It's never as simple as that. The firms we represent are following the law."

"That exactly the problem," said Peggy. "They are following the law, but the laws are too weak. The laws were written by Republican politicians who receive substantial contributions from the nation's leading polluters. Were any of your clients on Dick Cheney's energy task force?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Peggy, you are a very pleasant and attractive woman. Why do you want to bother yourself with politics?"

It was at that moment that Peggy didn't like the sound of his voice. What had earlier seemed musical and charming now sounded condescending and deceitful. "Because somebody has to not let these energy companies get away with murder. They will rape the environment to make a buck and you know it."

"Those are pretty strong words, Peggy. Look, can't we just have a nice lunch together. Why do you have to bring shop talk into this?"

"Is that what it is to you? Shop talk? One of your clients spilled oil in Puget Sound and tried to keep it a secret. Another of your clients released dangerous chemicals into the Columbia River for years until regulatory action force them to stop. If it wasn't for the law they would still be doing it."

"There's no proof that those chemicals were harming the environment," said Raoul with a flat, businesslike expression.

Peggy laid her fork down. She suddenly had no desire to eat the delicious vegetarian black bean quesadilla on the large plate before her. "Is that really what you believe. Tell me the truth, and I promise I won't repeat it to anyone. I just want to know how you truly feel about that particular case."

"I maintain that they were not harming the environment." He said it with all the sincerity of a politician.

Peggy stood up. "Raoul, I'm very sorry, but I can't finish lunch with you. Your views are too extreme for me. I have spent the last twenty years fighting the very organizations that you represent. I can't turn my back on that."

She turned and left the restaurant, expecting at any moment to feel his hand on her arm, trying to stop her. But that didn't happen.

Now, on the ferry the next day, sitting in the Quiet Room, Peggy felt her face burn from the rosacea, which seemed to flare up when she was depressed or stressed. A long three-day weekend lie ahead. It would be miserable. She wanted so badly to have a friend to spend it with. Instead she would spend it with Taylor.