It was late in the afternoon when Anthea rolled over and said, "When are you going to do that soil sample?"

"What soil... oh. I'd forgotten." Shay grimaced and sat up. "What made you think of it?" Shay wondered how Anthea could think after the marathon they'd been through.

"Well, you're going to need some results pretty quickly, aren't you? Why not hop down to the refinery today and get it?"

Shay blinked. "It's a little more complicated than driving up to the well."

Anthea rolled her eyes. "I know we have to stop and get Tyvek suits from somewhere. I've got a cooler we can hold the sample in."

Shay looked at Anthea incredulously. "How did you learn to do a well sample?"

Anthea sat up, looking put out. "For your information, I'm a cost accountant. Procedurally, there's not very much that happens on that refinery that I don't know about. That's how I do my job."

"I didn't mean to impugn your honor," Shay said. She had obviously hit a sore spot. "I had no idea your job required you to get into such detail."

"I know a little bit about everything," Anthea said, apparently mollified.

"You should go on Jeopardy. Category: Sampling Devices. Tap water and a plastic wading pool." She nudged Anthea with her knee.

Anthea made a buzzing sound, then said, "What is a portable non-potable decontamination site, Alex."

"That's correct so you must be kissed."

"Why, Mr. Trebek," Anthea said. She seized Shay by the shoulders and kissed her fiercely. "How you do talk."

"Didn't you know you were playing for kisses?" Shay's hand drifted to Anthea's breast.

"Stop that," Anthea said. "You're deliberately trying to distract me. What about that sample?"

Shay sighed. "I'd like to keep reality away for a while longer."

Anthea smiled softly and trailed her fingers across Shay's shoulder. "Isn't this real?"

Shay shook her head. "It's too good to be real."

Anthea's smile faded and she said seriously, "What can I do to make it real?"

Shay gulped. "I'm not ready... to answer that."

Anthea looked away, chewing her lower lip. "I'm not either. You're the best friend I've had in a while. Can we go on being friends?"

"Just friends?" Shay stroked the side of Anthea's breast.

Anthea shivered and then smiled with what looked to Shay like false bravado. "How about friends who like to screw the daylights out of each other?"

Shay laughed. "I can live with that definition for now."

Anthea nodded. "For now," she echoed softly.

"Well," Shay said. "Since you are determined, how about we go get that sample?"

"Wouldn't waiting until dusk be better? We could get on the premises right as they're turning on the lights. Maybe no one will notice a car in the pipe fields."

"We should probably pick up a vehicle at the trailer. When we get the suits. Much later. To tell you the truth, I need a nap." Shay settled into the corner and pulled Anthea against her.

Anthea showed her badge to the guard at the gate... not the regular guy who would have let her go in with a wave. She felt her heart rate go up as she allowed herself to recognize that what they were doing was expressly against company policy. I could get fired for this. Entering the premises when not scheduled to work was a "serious" offense. Shay leaned over so the guard could see her badge too.

"I left some baseball tickets in my desk," Anthea said. "At least I think so."

Shay said, "I still say they're in my desk. We're going to have to drive all the way out to the field trailers."

The guard raised the barrier with a toothy smile. "I hope you ladies don't have to spend your night crawling all over this place."

Anthea smiled back and drove slowly ahead.

"He didn't make us sign in," Shay said in a whisper.

Anthea smirked. "Show enough cleavage and you can go anywhere." She glanced down at her light cotton shirt left unbuttoned over a low cut tank top she'd pulled even lower.

"Will you pull that back up, please? I honestly didn't think it would work."

"You can't overestimate a man's ability to underestimate a woman with boobs," Anthea said. "I think Marilyn Monroe or Mae West said that. Or Madonna." Anthea steered them into the empty parking lot right next to the Executive Building.

"Why are we stopping here?"

"Because we're in sight of the Guard station. We'll have to go in." Anthea could feel time ticking away. Would the guard wonder what had kept them? Would he call ahead to other gates asking if they'd left?

She unlocked the main door and Shay followed her inside. Without thinking she summoned the elevator.

"Where are we going?" Shay sounded as impatient as Anthea felt.

"Just killing some time."

"Oh, yeah?" The elevator doors closed and Shay reached over to trace the rim of Anthea's tank top. "I can think of a way or two."

Anthea pushed Shay's hand away. "Stop that, not here. We've got business to attend to." But she could feel herself smiling. Shay planted a kiss right in Anthea's cleavage. "Oh, fie," she whispered. "How can I resist such wiles?"

Shay let her go as the elevator stopped. The doors opened and Anthea pressed for the ground floor.

As the doors closed again, Anthea said, "Now, where were you?"

Anthea had retucked her shirt by the time they returned to the car and she drove with deliberate care out to Shay's work site. Shay let them in and rounded up two Tyvek suits and breathers. When Anthea saw the truck they were heading for she said, "At least this time I'm appropriately attired."

"I must say you're the hottest thing in a Tyvek suit I've ever seen."

"Stop joking," Anthea said. "Right about now this seems like a lot more than a fraternity prank."

"What's the worst that can happen?" Shay unlocked the truck and Anthea scrambled into the passenger seat.

"Oh, they can fire us. You're resigned to that and I guess I'd get over it." Anthea couldn't believe what she was saying. A few months ago she would have said her job was her whole identity. "But we're about to remove something that belongs to the company. They could call the cops." Her mind wrote the headline: LESBIANS CAUGHT STEALING FROM CORPORATE GIANT.

"I'd say two ounces of dirt is petty at most."

Anthea realized her hands had started shaking. "And a sample bottle. I guess it's not grand theft." No, it's not. Get over it.

"Hey," Shay said. "If you're having second thoughts, let's not do it."

Anthea shook her head. "No. It has to be done. I can handle it."

Anthea listened carefully while Shay explained the procedures. The sun was dropping behind the foothills between the bay and the ocean. The pipe fields reflected in orange... it was almost like modern sculpture. As the gloom deepened, some vapor lights snapped on and erased the illusion of art. She could plainly see the grimy metal and barren soil.

"Mask," Shay said. She stopped the truck long enough to pull her breather over her face and ensure that Anthea's was also fitted properly. Anthea's stomach did a slow roll as they passed a sign reading, "Restricted Area — Hazardous Substances."

In the mixed natural and artificial light it seemed unreal to watch Shay standing out on the edge of a thin plank of wood. Anthea waited with the cooler and nervously looked around. No place to run to, nowhere to hide. She hummed the tune under her breath to pass the waiting time, then sighed with relief as Shay got to her feet. She sealed the vial, labeled it with an indelible marker, then handed it to Anthea, who dropped it into a Mason jar, snapped the lip closed and put the whole thing in her small cooler. She followed Shay back to the truck, then mimicked her motions at the decontamination stop.

Her heart was pounding. She knew she'd just done something that had changed her life, an act she would have been incapable of a short time ago. Ever since Lois had left, her certainties had come unraveled. She'd thought she'd go back to being the Anthea she was before Lois. It hadn't worked out that way.

She wanted to tell Shay to stop the truck. She wanted to feel Shay's fingers in her, she wanted to bite Shay's nipples. As if they were live wired, Shay would quiver in response. Maybe this is an automobile fetish I'm developing. She told herself to get a grip. Now was not the time.

She had thought that discovering her lesbianism was the biggest change she'd ever go through in her life. Who would have thought she'd have had to wait until her mid-thirties to discover that she was... could be... passionate. She'd spent years of her life confusing self-control, and self-denial, with purpose.

She followed Shay back into the field trailer. The changes in her life weren't Shay's doing, they were hers and hers alone.

Shay tossed the used suits and breathers into the decontamination bin. She went back to her cube for her fanny pack while Anthea went to the ladies room. She walked toward the bathrooms as she snapped the strap around her waist. Glancing up she saw Anthea opening the door directly ahead. And then someone stepped out of the side hallway between them.

Shay's heart stopped. She felt herself flush with guilt. "Scott, you scared the shit out of me."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Shay decided he didn't sound hostile, just confused.

"I left tickets to the A's game in my desk." She saw Anthea hesitating in the bathroom doorway. "We had to drive all the way down here to get them and we've missed half the game. But there's a great fireworks exhibition."

"Oh —"

"Sorry I took so long," Anthea said. Shay took guilty pleasure in watching Scott jump. "You know what Prince Charles says, never pass a bathroom." Anthea held out her hand to Scott as if their meeting was an everyday business occurrence. "Hi," she said, her voice dripping with charm and good humor, "Anthea Rossignole from costing."

Shay remembered that charm from that safety meeting where they'd first met. It seemed ages ago when she had disliked Anthea for this very same ability to turn on the charm. It was certainly useful now.

"Oh, that's right. I knew I recognized you." Scott slowly looked Anthea up and down and Shay saw her flush slightly.

"Well," Anthea said brightly. "Let's get to the game. The beer's not getting any colder." She swung the cooler she carried.

God, she was calm, Shay thought. "Yeah, let's go," she said. "See you on Tuesday, Scott."

"You two ladies have a great evening."

"What the hell was he doing there?" Anthea kept her tone to a whisper even though they were back in the car.

"I don't know. If he'd been five minutes earlier he'd have seen the suits."

Anthea's flush had deepened. "He looked at me like he couldn't figure out why... what my excuse was."

"Excuse?" Shay was confused.

"Excuse for being a sexual deviant."

"You're imagining things."

"No, I'm not," Anthea said. Her voice sounded as if her throat were constricted. "I've been stared at. That wasn't just 'hey, honey, I got what you want.' That look said, "one night with me could make you forget her.'" Anthea pursed her lips. "It's been a long time since I've received one. Which way?"

Shay said, "Left, then right." They waited for a hauling truck to amble across the intersection, heading toward the heavy vehicle garage. Shay stared after it for a moment, then cleared her throat. "Does it bother you so much? The way he looked at you?"

"Yes. It bothers me a lot. But... the old Anthea would have felt guilty."

Shay gently touched Anthea's shoulder. "And the new Anthea?"

Anthea took a deep, shaky breath. "The new Anthea is pissed. The new Anthea would like to... to do something that makes him sorry. I was going to say punch his lights out, but that would violate my nonviolence policy."

Shay laughed. "So when do I meet this new Anthea?" She leaned over with Anthea to wave at the guard. He raised the barrier and returned their wave.

"You had sex with her in her kitchen."

"Oh, so that's the new Anthea. I liked her a lot." The refinery was fading behind them and Shay felt lightheaded. "Oh, God. I can't believe we pulled it off. I feel like Thelma and Louise."

"Neither can I," Anthea said. "It makes me feel..."

"What?"

Anthea glanced over at Shay, her lips slightly parted, eyes shining. "Like I... like I want to..."

Shay stroked Anthea's hand. "Take me to your place."

Anthea looked over at her. "You want to?"

"God, Andy. I want —" Shay licked her lips. Her throat was suddenly parched.

"Want what?" Anthea's voice was a whispering caress.

"I want tonight to make the last two days look like amateur practice. Next time you touch me I want you to do it for hours."

9