The Leak

don't know how to patch roofs!" Katie complained when they reached the last item and she still had no work assignment.

"Neither did any of us when we moved here?" said ever-tentative gray-haired Dorothea who made every sentence a question and was one of R's ex-lovers.

R asked quietly, "Do you think you're unique?"

Katie hated that she pouted around R. "I'll slide off the moss, I know I will."

Solstice, the out-of-town customer at Jeep's store in San Francisco who they'd originally come to visit, groaned. "Did you have to bring up the moss?" She tossed a log on the fire, but it was damp and smoke slid into the room. Katie coughed.

Seven women lived at Spirit Ridge-plus Katie. In the dry season came campers, goddess worshipers, and burned-out freeloaders. Best, Katie had been told, were the city Ridgers who helped support the land with donations and work party/vacations. They'd pitch tents in the field or under the trees, tear off their shirts, get sunburned and lusty, and make plans to quit their jobs, which some actually did. It blew her away that a few, for the sake of two or three weeks of pure women's space a year, went back to the cities and tithed what they earned there to protect the land.

Tonight, at the monthly meeting, the lodge's tiger cat sampled seven laps, kneading her claws into Katie's thigh along the way, before settling in her basket beside the woodstove. They were having a late spring storm. Rain pelted the roof with every gust of wind. People in town said it was supposed to snow above 3000 feet. All this talk of outdoor chores seemed pretty ludicrous.

She felt like crying. This was so cool, this homeland and these women like her who had made a sanctuary. She'd never even be able to conceive of such a place, and a handful of them had bought the land, built the structures, put in electricity, plumbing, the whole nine yards. It wasn't exactly up to subdivision standards, but who set the standards? The point was, they'd done it, back in the 1970's when she was an infant. They'd done it for themselves, and kept it going for her.

According to R, they'd been on the verge of losing Spirit Ridge when she came along several years ago. Katie had the impression that R had taken over the management of their funds and found new resources until it was out of fiscal danger, but no one talked details. It was easy to see that she was the big cheese here now, whether they called themselves a collective or not. They'd finally accumulated enough money to buy materials for this year's repairs. Only the roof lacked a volunteer worker.

Katie realized she'd been counting drips from the leaking communal kitchen roof. One hit the plastic pail every three and a half seconds. At each hundred she'd start over. It was a habit-a compulsion?-she'd used to distract herself from the terrors and tedium of childhood. Leaks, curse words, planes flying overhead, she'd count them all.

She was supposed to volunteer for the project list which had been drawn up last summer at the annual meeting, but she didn't have the kind of skills it took to do these things. She tapped her foot, counting one, two, three, four to some opening rock riff she couldn't identify.

"I like the moss," she told them. "The lodge looks like a gingerbread house. We're cozy with the big shadowy woods creaking around us and the wolves howling-"

"They killed the wolves off a century ago," Dorothea noted sadly. She was a tall, red-haired woman whose quick long fingers knitted bright yellow yarn.

Aster's voice got louder and deeper as she spoke, like someone who'd been screaming. "That's a whole other project. And we're not using poisons up there." She glowered at the group and turned back to Katie. "Poison is the quick method, the American way. But rain will wash the moss killer into the ground."

Spruce, the big, awkward, quietly butch kid, said gently, "When I put off a small job, it only gets bigger."

"Kate," explained R, "has never owned property. This is all new to her." R sat cross-legged in the middle of a sprung couch, back straight, writing notes of the meeting in a bold hand. "I have to agree with the rest, Kate. This is no fairy tale. Nobody's going to take care of lesbian roofs but lesbians."

"You're making me homesick for the trailer park where I came up-flat roofs too dry for moss. The gringo manager fixed what got fixed."

"We don't want the man on our land. It's like R says," Solstice explained in a tone that hinted of deeply held beliefs, "the leak will get too big for us to handle and we'll have to bring a man up here. I think they talk about us in town enough."

She and Jeep had named Solstice the original retro queen because of her harem pants, Birkies, hemp pullovers, and boycott of deodorant. "So I volunteer. I'd probably make it worse."

"I could teach you how to do it right," said Spruce.

R placidly asked Spruce, "Is that your privileged white liberal guilt volunteering?"

Did R think Spruce was coming on to her? If so, it was the first sign of possessiveness she'd seen. R made a strange white knight. Before Spruce could respond, Katie tweaked R. "No. It's my kind of politically incorrect butch coming to the rescue!"

Only Nightfall laughed. R shook her head. Katie noticed quick glances toward R to see how she was taking Katie's rebellion.

Spruce, face red again, mumbled, "I was only trying to help."

She was pretty hot in patched jeans and a black T-shirt rolled up her brawny arms. Spruce was a good name for her. "How about if this magnificent mujer who actually likes this kind of work does the repair while I tape her?" Katie suggested. Aster laughed. "Spruce doesn't talk."

Spruce grinned, pretended to flex her biceps, and said, "Oh, I could talk into the tape."

"And I could interview you while you worked. How you got your skills, what projects you've done. What brought you to the land?"

"I've only been here eight months."

"Still," Katie insisted, although it was plain Spruce's shyness would spoil her as a subject, "why couldn't I, like, do an interview and paint the goat shed? I could handle that."

"Because it's too rainy? Painting has to wait until the summer," Dorothea explained. "And we have no goats anymore."

Katie read from the list, "Patch roof? Clean chimney? Be real! They used to make little kids do that in Dickens's books."

The group looked at her, but Spruce was grinning, eyes cast down. Katie wondered if Spruce was crushed out on her. She'd do the roof for her, no problem, and on the QT. Katie felt like a user, but the child would get her moment in the spotlight even though she wouldn't get the girl. God, she was really contemplating this rural film project, wasn't she? She was supposed to be freeing herself from being obsessively on the prowl for stories, but this project could be very different.

She'd felt so lost back in San Francisco, like the cities, always light, were really dark. Like her light inside had been turned off. Did she need to get out of the biz, or just the daily grind? There had been times she'd felt like she was suffocating-no, dying, and she was only twenty-nine. There was an old Stones song, ^"Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown," that she'd been unable to get out of her head at times. She'd needed to breathe clean air for a while and had been doing anything she could to get out-of-town assignments. Her boss had begged her to take some time off, not resign, but she'd needed to cut the ties. In the city, the work was the only thing that made her feel alive. She wanted to get her candle lit again. Would hammering nails into a roof do that for her? No, but filming a lesbian doing it would, with some working song in the background, something by Sweet Honey in the Rock, that group R played over and over on her mini-boom box. And, of course, Spruce would do it while Katie got her interview.

"Okay! All right!" she said. "I'll patch the roof. You think I'm scared? I've done interviews from cherry pickers. I've covered climbing expeditions. I can manage to throw a plastic tarp over a roof."

"Oh, no!" wailed Aster.

"Joke," countered Katie. "You tell me how, I'll do it, but I only work with a net."

The whole group laughed this time. Katie had agreed to the collective will. Did they find that validating or were they simply relieved that the new girl was doing the least popular chore and that they wouldn't have to toss her lazy ass out? She admired their ideas, but was too independent to ever sincerely pitch in and build a lesbian utopia. Spruce fiddled with the fire, pushed the still-smoldering, smelly log deep into the coals. The cat stood, licked a spot on her back, turned in her basket, and settled back down.

"New business?" asked Dorothea.

There was a shifting of bodies, plumping of pillows, then dead silence except for the dripping roof and Dorothea's sliding, clicking needles. The rain must have stopped. Katie munched a handful of cold popcorn, popped in olive oil instead of butter for the vegan in the group, but well salted. She counted thirty-two drops, and felt apprehensive. Were they going to tell her she'd done something wrong? She was clearly not cut out for collective decision-making, collective interpersonal intrigues, collective incest. The cat's ears twitched.

Finally, in a rush of words, Nightfall, who'd volunteered to prepare a new compost bin for spring, asked, "What about Chick and Donny?"

Katie was startled. What did Chick and Donny have to do with Spirit Ridge housekeeping projects?

"Why is it up to us to do something?" Marge asked.

"I agree," Aster said. "If they want help they'll ask."

"Women!" protested Dorothea, needles accelerating. "The word is they haven't talked to each other in two weeks. It isn't our business, unless we care about the couples in our community."

Aster said, "You are so seventies, Dorothea."

"And that," Nightfall responded, "is a good thing. We wouldn't be here without seventies feminists."

Dorothea smiled at her yarn and murmured, "Aster is also not historically correct. Exclusive coupling was frowned on in the seventies."

"Maybe one of them, Donny or Chick, needs a time-out. We could offer Star Light Cabin up on the hill until they sort it through," suggested Solstice. She always wore a little purple velvet spangled beanie.

Spruce murmured, "All couples go through things like that. Don't they?"

"In the straight world they have family and priests and other het couples to turn to," said Aster, arms folded, resentment clear.

"Or rabbis," Marge added. "And," she said, looking at Aster as if they'd discussed this before, "couples can get counseling."

Solstice laughed scornfully. "We sure don't have a community of long-term couple role models to turn to."

"It's something in the air," Marge ventured. "Couples don't last here."

"Incompatibility?" asked Dorothea, squinting at her stitches. "Infidelity? Changes of the seasons?"

Aster gave a nasty laugh. "Electromagnetic repulsion?"

Thinking that these women must have come from a microsociety she'd never studied in her sociology class, or were so bored they manufactured problems for themselves and anyone else they could think of, Katie suggested, "Not that I noticed a problem, but it could be something simple like that friend of Donny's overstaying her welcome."

"Abeo," Marge said in her thoughtful way, "does take up a lot of psychic space."

"She could stay here?" Dorothea suggested.

Aster glared at Dorothea. "Abeo's not a birth woman."

"Better!" Marge argued. "She chose to give up her male privileges."

Katie decided it was Marge and Aster who had relationship problems, never mind Chick and Donny.

"All right," R sighed, as if to quash Dorothea's idea fast. "Maybe we can resolve this some other way. I'll talk to them."

Again the group got what it wanted, someone to take responsibility for a nasty chore. Katie could feel their relief at R's words, as if an angel had appeared to rescue them.

Nonetheless, Aster jabbed. "With your track record, R? You go through relationships like women grow on trees."

Gawd, thought Katie, these snipe-happy women are not only from this planet, they're no different than people back in the city. R didn't answer but, with deliberate, slow motions, closed her notebook. Katie noticed how every woman in the room began to gather her things together. R might as well have announced that their meeting would soon be over. Her every move was commanding. What made her so powerful? Did all that meditation gather some pure kind of energy in her?

Only when it was quiet did R say, "I know something about harmony. Communication. Perseverance. Women mate with many things, Aster. The land, for example."

Solstice nodded with a solemn look. Could it be that these women, to whom she'd come for harmony lessons, were looking for harmony themselves? R began to sing. Katie had seen her defuse tense situations like this before with song, but never so disarmingly. In a clear, high voice she was singing a lighthearted piece called "A Proper Little Pot," which involved tongue twisters. She had it down perfectly, of course, but when the others joined in, they tripped over words and one another as they had throughout the meeting, but they laughed about it now.

At the song's end, R stood and stretched out her arms.

Quickly, Dorothea asked, "Any other new business?"

Katie moved next to R, still fascinated by her. The woman should be in show business. What a talent. When R abruptly stopped rancor with song, she not only showed the women how sour they were being, but how sweet they could be. Again and again Katie had seen R save the home they'd made not only for all these women, but for women to come.

The rest rose and held hands. R led a closing chant, adding, "May the energy of these women and this land bring healing to all women. I give thanks for the land itself and for the women who dwell on it with me. Blessed be."

While the rest repeated, "Blessed be," Katie wondered where it left her if R was married to the land. She might share R's bed, but she totally knew right then that she'd never get to keep a piece of the woman's heart.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN