Free The Alaskan Laundry by Brendan Jones

dropping them with a slap against her bare thighs. “
Amore
, I am no good at it.”
    As she stood listening, Tara realized her mother was talking about her.
    Alone in the woods, wanting to chase this memory away, she went up on her toes, shuffled her feet, and shook out her shoulders. She threw a couple jabs at the tree trunk. “Double jab left right hook,” she heard Gypo snap. “Jab uppercut followed by the right. Combination, then get out of there.”
    It began to rain, drops filtering through the branches. Winded, she let down her fists. She started back, this time gathering speed on the stairs, hopping high so her momentum wouldn’t cause her to slip on the dark wet wood.
Just a little faster,
she thought, pushing off her toes, trying not to fall.
Just a little faster and I’ll be good again.

15
    FRITZ GAVE THEM the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off. (He needed time to prepare his crab dishes.) Feeling lost without work, Tara headed to the bookstore, where she found a card with a woodcut print on it that showed a couple huddled together against the side of a mountain. Her palms began to sweat.
    Maybe her letter had fallen out of the mail plane, helicoptering down over one of those glaciers she had seen from the ferry. She could picture it, soggy, lost in the swirls of dirty ice.
    Behind the bookstore she found a coffee shop called the Muskeg. The room had a grotto feel to it, reminding her of Little Vic’s basement beneath the barbershop, with the windows looking out onto the sidewalk. She ordered coffee and a slice of salmonberry pie, and set the card in front of her.
    Â 
November 26, 1997
Dear Connor,
Sitting here in this café. It’s dark, just a few windows looking onto the sidewalk. Kind of like your garage.
I thought of you when I saw this print. They say you shouldn’t hike alone up here. More on that in a moment. But it also made me think of our trip to the shore, the blankets we wrapped up in.
    Â 
    She set her pen down and looked around.
Now you’re getting sappy and nostalgic.
Then she found herself meeting the eyes of the older, long-fingered man she saw at the library the night she called Connor. He wore the same workman’s cap, same peaceful expression.
C’mon, Tara. Take a minute and figure out what you’re trying to say here. Don’t get distracted.
    Â 
Connor, I’m sorry. I miss you. But I’m going to wait to hear from you before any more letters.
I apologize for being a little shit. For what happened over the summer, for sleeping with you then leaving like that. For tenth grade, going quiet. There are reasons I wish I could tell you. Soon.
Tara
    Â 
    As she reread the letter she heard a sound and looked up to see the man from the library in front of her.
    â€œDo you mind?” he asked, lowering into a chair with his coffee cup and a few cubes of sugar. He had a drawn, ageless face, and sloped shoulders—he could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy. “Excuse the intrusion. You appear to be hard at work.”
    â€œIt’s fine.”
    â€œBetteryear,” he said, reaching across the table. She shook his hand. Improbable distances separated the joints of his fingers. She caught the scent of old grass, and something else, cucumbers maybe.
    â€œTara Marconi.”
    He touched the bill of his patched engineer’s cap. “Did you just arrive in town, Tara?”
    What was that Newt had said about men in Alaska?
The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
“I did,” she said. She was about to add “just before I saw you at the library,” but caught herself.
    â€œWell, as I said, I don’t mean to distract you. I just thought I’d introduce myself.” He pulled on leather biking gloves and stood. “I’m often in here, reading the papers. Ah—and if you don’t have plans for Thanksgiving, we do a big meal at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall. Come if you