Yak

  Table of Contents

  Yak

  About Lois Cloarec Hart

  Excerpt from Walking the Labyrinth by Lois Cloarec Hart

  Other books from Ylva Publishing

  Coming from Ylva Publishing in fall and winter 2013

  Yak

  by Lois Cloarec Hart

  Yak

  Lois Cloarec Hart

  “What d’ya mean Cara’s gone to be a nun?” I stared at my best friend, Yvonne, in disbelief. “We made a date for this Friday.”

  “I suspect she’s not going to keep it.”

  I hate it when she gets sarcastic on me. “How you do know for sure she’s gone? Who told you?”

  “Marlon’s Aunt Jean ran into Cara’s mother at Bingo last night, and she told her that Cara had just gone off to some place in Montreal—a school run by nuns or something. Jean told Marlon, and he told me at work this morning.”

  Yvonne looked awfully smug, but she always did like to be first with the latest news bulletin. Personally, I think that’s why she went into hairdressing. Marlon’s shop is gossip central in this one-horse town.

  “I don’t believe it. Cara would’ve called me. She wouldn’t just go off and not tell me.”

  “She would if inheriting her daddy’s money was in jeopardy.”

  Callous, but, I had to admit, probably true. “I just know Mrs. Richardson is behind this. She’s hated me from the get-go. She’s been trying to break us up all along.”

  “What ‘breaking-up’? You’ve had all of what...five or six dates? It’s not like you even got past first base.”

  That hurt. The subject of my unwelcome, unplanned, unbelievably annoying celibacy was a definite sore spot. Besides, Cara was the one who asked me out in the first place, so she must’ve been interested, right? Who knew what might’ve happened with enough time.

  “Anyway, Leni,” my former best friend went on, “don’t you start your new night shift on Friday? How were you planning to have a date with Cara?”

  I waved that off. “I don’t have to be at work until eleven. Lots of time to wine ’er and dine ’er.”

  If one could stretch that concept to include having a couple of beers I’d smuggled out of my brother’s stash and a late night pit stop at Mickey D’s. I wasn’t exactly flush in the money department these days, and it was putting a severe crimp in my love life. My current lack of wheels didn’t help either, but I planned to use the extra pay I was to get for working nights to fix up my ’93 Corolla. I’d be off those buses in no time, then—ladies of Langston Heights, watch out!

  I could see Yvonne was struggling not to laugh. The worst thing about having a best friend who’s known me since I was in diapers is that I can’t put anything past her. Yvonne, who started dating when she was fourteen, was usually pretty considerate about not teasing me. After all, we’d agreed that it was way harder for me than for Von. She’s had boys falling all over her ever since she grew boobs at age eleven, and she was practiced in the art of keeping their interest.

  The only time boys were of any interest to me was if they had an extra glove or stick so I could play in their games too. But I was sure getting tired of being alone—romantically speaking. In my house, actually being alone was a statistical impossibility. My parents believed in large and extended families, and at last count there were two parents, one grandmother, a great-aunt, and five siblings living there with me. I was lucky to get to use the bathroom alone.

  At the other extreme, Cara was an only child, and if Mrs. Richardson hadn’t been so paranoid about leaving me alone with her daughter, there were any number of places in her father’s nineteen-room Colonial where we could’ve found some privacy. Then it would’ve just been a matter of letting nature take its course...I think. Truthfully, sometimes I suspected Cara hung out with me more to piss off her mother than because of my charms.

  But it sounded like it was all moot now. Morose, I tapped a cigarette out of my nearly empty pack and lit up. I didn’t even have to look to know Yvonne was frowning at me.

  “I thought you told me you were going to quit for sure this time.”

  “I am, honest, Von. I’ve already cut down to under a half pack a day.” I carefully blew the smoke away from Yvonne. We were sitting outside Marlon’s shop on a bench, but fresh air or not, she’d freak on me if the smoke got in her face.

  “My break’s over. I’ve got to get back to work.” Yvonne stalked off, deliberately stepping in a wide circle around me so she didn’t get in my smoke zone.

  It didn’t tick me off. I knew where she was coming from. Her dad had died of lung cancer five years ago when we were seventeen, and she’d been a rabid anti-smoker ever since. If I hadn’t begun smoking a year before her dad kicked it, I’d never have started. As it was, I just hadn’t gotten around to quitting yet. I did try not to indulge when I was around Yvonne, but I think that learning your girlfriend has left you to go be a nun is pretty good justification for a smoke.

  The rumble of one of Langston’s ancient buses sounded from down the street. It bore my route number so I carefully butted the cigarette, put it back in the pack, and stood to catch my ride.

  On the way home to the old, two-story Victorian that had housed my family ever since my folks tied the knot almost twenty-five years ago, I gloomily pondered my next move. I knew that even if I went to confront Mrs. Richardson and demanded to know Cara’s whereabouts, all I’d get was a triumphant smirk and an order to get my sorry ass off her property, so I guessed me and Cara were history.

  I thought about that for a bit. It wasn’t like I was head over heels in love with Cara or anything, but pickings were pretty slim hereabouts. Langston Heights had more than tripled in size since I was a kid, but I seemed to lack the secret password that would allow me access into the local lesbian network—if there was such a thing. I could leave here and go into the city in search of women, but I loved this sleepy old town, and my family and friends.

  On the other hand, I’d be twenty-three come my next birthday, and I was really bummed about being without a partner. Still, if I moved to the city, would it be any better? What if the city women wouldn’t give me a chance? What if the only dykes they’d look twice at were career-driven, college-educated, big-money-making women with cool apartments and hot rides?

  It wasn’t like I qualified on any of those grounds, though I had graduated from high school and worked steadily ever since. It’s just that money seemed to have a way of slipping through my fingers; even the paperboy would’ve scorned the current puny state of my bank account.

  By the time I reached my stop, two blocks from home, I had depressed myself into a deep funk. Life sucked.

  * * *

  Friday came, and instead of making out with Cara in the alley behind Langston’s new multiplex, I spent the evening playing canasta with my great-aunt Helene, for whom I’d been named. Me and her get along like peas in a pod, but playing cards with my aged relative wasn’t exactly my idea of a hot Friday night.

  After she beat me for the sixth straight time, I looked up at the clock. “Gotta go, Auntie H. I gotta get to work.”

  She chuckled. She knew as well as I did that I didn’t have to be at work for another hour and a half, but she was merciful. “Run along then, sweetie. You don’t want to be late for your first shift.” As I slid my cards across the table to her, she added, “When you go up to change, see if Ronnie is interested in taking your place. I feel like I might even be able to beat her tonight.”

  “Okay.” It was mildly depressing that my baby sister could out-card shark me on her worst day, but twelve-year-old Ronnie, who was always at the top of her class, was regarded as the family brain. I’m not sure what I was regarded as—the family failure? The family freak?

  Apparently I hadn’t quite shaken the me
lancholy I’d been in all week as thoroughly as I’d thought. But damn it, even Ronnie had some pimply-faced pipsqueak mooning after her. Where was my other half? I had to have one somewhere, didn’t I?

  I summoned Ronnie away from the family computer, much to the delight of our brother, Kevin, who’d been pestering her for his turn, and then got dressed for my new job.

  One advantage—if you can call it that—of being the second oldest, was that my mother taught me to cook early on. Nothing fancy, mind you, but good, rib-sticking stuff that would feed a table full of hungry mouths. Which led to me becoming a short-order cook at a local diner before I even left high school. Which in turn led me to my new job as a baker at the Jester’s Court, the busiest restaurant and bakery in the town.

  The Jester’s Court was pretty much the only decent place out on the highway for a hundred miles in either direction. It got a ton of business from travelers who wouldn’t have given Langston Heights a second glance if they weren’t dying for a pee break, a sugar high, and a caffeine fix before covering the last stretch of Route 93 into the city.

  It was a change from flipping burgers and making chili to producing doughnuts and cakes and pies, but I figured I’d handle it all right. Cooking and baking are pretty elemental, and my only real concern was how to get a decent eight hours of daytime sleep in my noisy house now that I was working midnights.

  I looked in the mirror, shaking my head at the image reflected back at me. I’m skinnier than a toothpick, so the brand new shirt and pants weren’t exactly flattering. And the hat I had to wear... Geez, why didn’t I just wear a sign reading “dork.”

  Sighing, I tucked the cloth hat in my back pocket and grabbed my old trench coat out of the closet. At least it would cover up most of the uniform.

  My sister, Dylan, came in just then. We’d been roommates since she was born, 18 months after me, but we wouldn’t be much longer. She’d just gotten engaged to Bernie, her high school sweetheart. She had a big calendar hanging over her bed and was marking off the days until the wedding. I was watching the countdown too, because when she moved out, I’d have a room to myself for the first time in my life. It would be a great relief, if you know what I mean. The only thing that had saved me from tearing my hair out all these years was that a force five hurricane wouldn’t have woken my sister once she started sawing logs.

  “Wow, aren’t you the height of fashion!”

  I sneered half-heartedly at my sister. It wasn’t like I could argue. Besides, we actually got along pretty well. There were only two real bones of contention between us: she tried to hog more than her fair share of the limited closet space, and she was way too gleeful that she was having sex and I wasn’t.

  Dylan flopped on her bed with her head down at the wrong end so she could see the sacred calendar. I finished buttoning my coat and was about to leave when she emerged from her pre-connubial bliss just long enough to call after me.

  “Herman told me to tell you that the next time you steal any of his beer, he’s going to take a crowbar to the Corolla.”

  Damn it. Herman was the last one I wanted to piss off, since I was counting on my older brother’s mechanical skills to help me get my car road-worthy again.

  “Wasn’t me.” My denial was automatic, born of a lifetime as one of six kids.

  Dylan rolled over and regarded me with amusement. “Of course it was. Mom, Dad, and Grandma don’t know where he keeps it. Aunt Helene does, but she’d never take it cuz she only drinks gin. I don’t need to steal it since Bernie will buy me anything I want, and Eric is too damned scared to cross Herman. Kevin and Ronnie are too young, so that just leaves you.”

  It was hard to argue with her logic.

  “Leni, Leni, Leni, when are you going to realize that you can never get away with anything? Everyone in this family can read you like an open book. For that matter, everyone in this town can read you!”

  I scowled, and left her laughing on her bed while I stomped downstairs. I was on my way out the door when I heard Mom holler from the kitchen.

  “Leni, do you want to borrow my van to get to work? I won’t need it until the morning.”

  “No thanks, Mom. I’ll just take the bus.”

  Though it would’ve been nice not to have to wait for the bus, the last thing I wanted was to pull up in my mother’s van at my place of employment on my first shift. She got a great deal on an old VW microbus about five years ago, and in a fit of unsurprising madness, decided to paint it herself. That would’ve been okay if she’d just gone with one colour, no matter what colour it was. But my mother, indulging delusions of artistic ability, painted big murals on both sides, ala the sixties. You could see my mother’s van coming from ten blocks away, no word of a lie.

  I lit up as soon as I got out to the sidewalk. Mom and I had reached a truce: I didn’t smoke in her house or yard, and she didn’t nag me about quitting. It worked for us.

  Waiting at the bus stop, I shivered in spite of my coat. Fall was coming on fast, and already you could smell the change in the air. I wondered if I’d have my car running before the first snow fell. Probably not, and I knew Herman would chew my ass anyway if I tried to drive through the winter on my threadbare summer tires. Most of the time I like that he’s a licenced mechanic, but sometimes when his big-brotherliness takes over, he’s a pain in the ass.

  By the time I got to the Jester’s Court, I was still over an hour early for my graveyard shift. The night manager was pleased to see me, and he took me around on the usual familiarization tour. Elliot was good about explaining things and showing me the ropes. I’d already done a couple of afternoons of on-job training, so I figured I was ready to handle even the daunting glazing racks and hot fondant filling station.

  It was fun work, though I did burn my fingers a couple of times on the liquid icing. Two other cooks handled the short order stuff, and the small wait staff were kept busy running in and out of the kitchen. For the first three hours, the place was hopping with long distance truckers, night owl travelers, people coming in after the theatres and bars closed, and kids meeting up here because there weren’t any other places to go in Langston Heights after midnight.

  By three-thirty in the a.m., though, things had slowed down. The only customers left in the restaurant were a young couple, mooning at each other over their tenth cup of coffee, so the staff gathered at one of the tables nearest the kitchen for their lunch break. Most of the staff, anyway.

  One of the cooks sat off by herself at a nearby table, reading a book while she ate. Elliot hadn’t included her when he was introducing me around to my co-workers, and no one even acted like she was there, which I thought was pretty weird. Not wanting to rock the boat, I just ate quietly while I listened to Elliot and the three waitresses—Darla Mae, Ella, and Sharon—tease the other cook, Jules, about his impending departure for a new job in the city.

  Jules took it all in good spirit. When he announced that he was going for a smoke break before we went back to work, I hastened to join him. We shivered as we left the warmth of the kitchen for the chill of the night air out behind the restaurant.

  “I gotta quit one of these days. It’s gettin’ so you can’t smoke inside anywhere anymore, and I’m too damn old to be hangin’ out here in the ice and snow alla time.”

  I nodded at Jules’ statement. I was going to quit, too. Any day now. “So, you looking forward to moving to the city?”

  Jules shook his head. “Nope. We’re gonna lose out big time on our house. Can’t sell it for even half of what it’ll cost us to buy in the city. But what can you do?”

  “Why’re you moving then?”

  I was surprised to see Jules shoot a nervous look over his shoulder at the kitchen window nearest us. I could see that the other cook, her back turned to us, had returned to work.

  “Aw, you know—the wife wants to try life inna city and all.”

  Jules’ mumbled words lacked conviction.

  I don’t know why I didn’t just leave it alone, given my p
reference to not rock the boat so early in a new job, but I couldn’t help asking. “So what’s up with the other cook?”

  “Up?”

  “Yeah. Why’s she so standoffish? Does she always eat alone?”

  My questions clearly made Jules edgy, and for a moment I didn’t think he’d answer.

  “Yak’s just...well, she’s kinda anti-social, I guess. She doesn’t hang with us much.”

  Before I could pursue the subject, he tossed his barely smoked butt and ground it under his boot. “Gotta get back to work.”

  With that, he headed back into the kitchen, leaving me to finish my cigarette and puzzle over the odd end to the conversation. It was also my introduction to the inscrutable cook. Over the next couple of weeks, as I settled in and got comfortable with my co-workers, I couldn’t help covertly watching Yak.

  She never sat with us during our lunch breaks, yet she seemed to get along perfectly well with Jules in the kitchen. For that matter, though I didn’t have a lot of interaction with her, she was always polite and helpful when I did talk to her. Her seemingly self-imposed isolation didn’t make any sense to me, and my curiosity was driving me crazy.

  I tried to bring it up again several times when Jules and I would step out for smoke breaks, but he’d shy away from any questions about Yak as if he’d been tossed a hot skillet.

  I didn’t get any further with my amateur detective work until a couple of weeks later, when I met Yvonne downtown for lunch at the diner on my day off. I’d told her a little about Yak and asked her to see if Marlon knew anything about the cook’s background. If anyone would know something, Von’s boss would.

  I was about to begin my interrogation when Yvonne held up her hand.

  “Not until I get a cup of coffee, Leni. I’ve been run off my feet all morning and I haven’t had a drop since breakfast.”

  Yvonne without her hourly coffee is not an amiable companion, so I impatiently held my tongue until her cup was filled. She took her own sweet time adding cream and sugar, and I knew she was doing it deliberately to torment me, which probably meant she had information worth waiting for. It wasn’t until Yvonne had emptied her mug and beckoned for a refill that she finally took pity on me. “Okay, Leni. What do you want to know?”