Yak Page 4

  “I’m tired, Leni. I know you still have questions, and I will answer them if I can, but not this morning, okay?”

  Aislin did look exhausted, and I immediately felt guilty. The night shift was hard on the sleep cycle, and I know I was usually in bed within half an hour of getting home each morning. I jumped to my feet and grabbed my coat from where I’d dropped it next to the front door. After thrusting my feet into my shoes, I knelt to tie them.

  She had followed me, and was standing so close that my hand accidentally brushed the leg of her jean.

  I could detect her fragrance mixed with the scent of cinnamon and sugar, and it sent shivers down my spine. Fumbling as much for words as with my laces, I tried to cover up. “I really like your home, Aislin. You were lucky to find such a nice place to rent.”

  “Thanks, but it’s not a rental. I bought the place from Joseph and Eileen Decker when I moved here.”

  I’d risen to my feet, but I think my eyebrows rose even higher at that. “You can afford to own?”

  She gave me a wry smile. “It’s not like I have a lot of other things to spend my money on.”

  I glanced around the room. “’Cept books.”

  “Except books, you’re right. They are my vice.”

  If I live a thousand years, I will never know where I got the courage to do what I did next, but maybe it was from her eyes—her sad, warm, gentle eyes.

  She was so near that I barely had to move. Without plan, without intent, without guile, I kissed her. Then, as I realized what I was doing, I jerked away and started to apologize.

  Aislin laid her fingers over my lips and shook her head with a smile. “No need, Leni.” Her lips took the place of her fingers, and I shook like a trembling aspen in a stiff autumn wind.

  * * *

  I don’t remember leaving Aislin’s house, or the drive home, or pretty much anything else about that morning. All I could remember was her kiss. And when I woke up hours later, before I even opened my eyes, I touched my lips and smiled.

  “I know you’re awake, Leni. We have to talk.”

  My eyes flew open to see Yvonne sitting at the end of my bed, watching me.

  “Jesus, Von! You trying to give me a heart attack?”

  “We have to talk.”

  The sternness in her voice and expression sank into my sleep-befuddled brain. “Von? What’s up?”

  “You can’t do this, Leni. I mean it. You really can’t.”

  “Can’t do what? What the hell are you talking about?” I was beginning to get annoyed. First Von vaporized the sensual memory I’d been basking in, and now she was chewing me out for God knows what.

  “Get involved with Yak. You can’t get involved with Yak!”

  I sat up and glared at Yvonne. “First of all, her name is Aislin, not Yak. And second of all, it’s none of your business. And third of all, how the hell do you know whatever it is you think you know?”

  “Darla Mae came into the shop late this afternoon to get her hair done. She told me that you and Yak left together after work this morning. I called here and your mom said you didn’t get home until almost noon. Two plus two equals you and Yak together.”

  “For crying out loud, Von, we just had breakfast and talked.”

  “Where did you go for breakfast?”

  I resented the interrogation, but life-long friends do have a time honoured right to pry. “She made me breakfast at her house, we ate in her kitchen. Happy?”

  “Happy? That my best friend has gotten involved with a witch? No, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m thrilled.”

  Now I was angry. She wasn’t even giving Aislin a chance. “Goddamnit, Von. Aislin is not a witch! She’s a beautiful, intelligent, warm and wonderful woman.”

  Yvonne blanched. “Oh dear God—you’ve fallen for her. This is even worse than I thought.” She pounced on me and shook my shoulders hard. “Leni, you can’t do this. You have to quit your job. You have to get away from her. Today.”

  I grabbed her hands. “Stop it, Von. Calm down or I’m going to hurl all over you.” That at least quieted her. “Okay, I’m going to go to the bathroom, and when I come back, we’ll talk like civilized human beings.”

  When I finished up in the washroom, I dashed cold water on my face, sensing I was going to need my wits sharper than they had ever been if I was going to convince Von that her fears were groundless.

  Loping back to my room, I discovered Von huddled on the bed, her arms wrapped around one of my pillows. The expression on her face just about broke my heart. She looked like she had just lost her best friend.

  I deliberately sat down facing her, our knees touching. This was our traditional position for the exchange of confidences. This was the way we sat when she told me she’d lost her virginity, and when I whispered to her that I thought I was gay. We didn’t bullshit each other when we were face-to-face like this.

  “Voni, talk to me. What’s going on in there?” I lightly tapped her forehead, our ritual signal to begin.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of losing you.”

  “Okay, I guess I can understand, but Von, you’re not going to lose me. Even if Aislin and I get involved, you and I will still be best friends. I didn’t lose you when you and TJ fell in love, right?”

  Yvonne shook her head. “No, I don’t mean lose that way. I’m terrified of what will happen to you if you’re around her, if you make her mad.”

  It was a good thing Aislin had filled me in a little this morning, or that would’ve been incomprehensible to me. “I won’t—”

  She shook her head even more vigorously. “Yes, you will. TJ and I are crazy about each other—you know that—but still sometimes he makes me so mad that I could just kill him. You’re no saint. What happens the first time you make Yak feel that way about you, so angry that she could kill you? Because she could, without even lifting a finger, and no court in the land would have grounds to even charge her with anything.”

  Yvonne started to cry, and I took her hands in mine. “Voni, you’re making yourself crazy over nothing, not to mention wildly jumping the gun. All we’ve done is share a few meals and exchange a kiss or two.”

  “So you’re saying you are not falling for her? You don’t love her?”

  I saw the hope on Von’s face, so I considered carefully, but I couldn’t give her the answer she so obviously wanted. “I...I am falling for her, Von. Maybe it’s too soon to call it love, but this morning, if she’d asked me to stay, I think I might never have left.”

  “Because she’d have buried you in her backyard!”

  I’d tried to be patient because I could see Von’s fear, but this was getting ridiculous. “Jesus, Von, you don’t even know her and you’re condemning her. Based on what?”

  “Based on what she did to Susie Eckstrom.” There was no triumph in Von’s voice, only desperation. “Not to mention anyone else who’s crossed her.”

  Susie. That must be the one Sharon wouldn’t talk about. My voice flat and wary, I asked the question I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to. “What did she supposedly do to Susie Eckstrom?”

  “Made her miscarry, right there in the Jester.”

  “Tell me.”

  Von drew herself erect, her voice urgent, as if her life—or mine—depended on her convincing me. “The way Marlon told me, it happened about two years ago. Susie and Yak had never gotten along from day one. At the time, Susie was married to the previous owner of the Jester’s Court, and though she worked alongside the waitresses, she let everyone know that she considered herself better than them. She was always ordering the other staff around, and because her husband owned the place, everyone took it—except Yak. They butted heads so much that the owner finally moved Yak to the night shift.”

  I already didn’t like Susie, but I didn’t say anything as Von continued the story.

  “That solved things for a while, but then one night Susie and a couple of her girlfriends came in after midnight. They’d
been out drinking, and they were being pretty obnoxious about ordering stuff that wasn’t on the menu. I guess they figured the staff should be kowtowing to them, except Yak wouldn’t cooperate.”

  Nope, I definitely didn’t like Susie. If anyone was a witch, it was her.

  “When Darla Mae broke down in tears because Susie and her friends were giving her such a hard time, Yak came out of the kitchen. Elliot told Marlon that she just stood in the doorway, folded her arms, and stared at Susie. Then things began to happen.”

  I felt Von shudder and laid a comforting hand on her knee where it pressed against mine.

  “Lights began to flash on and off, eerie noises echoed loudly from the basement, and things began to tip over and fly off tables. Elliot told Marlon it was like being in the middle of Poltergeist! Customers ran out, including Susie’s friends, but Susie must’ve had just enough booze in her to make her stupid. She picked up a napkin holder and threw it at Yak…only it never got that far. It spun in mid-air and flew back at Susie, who tried to duck. But she slipped on some spilled coffee and fell so hard that she split her head open against the edge of a table. Later they found out she’d been five or six weeks pregnant and miscarried.”

  Von was almost breathless with the telling, but I wasn’t buying it. “So basically, no one saw Aislin do a damned thing but look at Susie, who, by the way, was being such a bitch that she deserved to have things thrown at her.”

  “No! Leni, you’re not getting it. Maybe Susie did deserve all that shit, but what about Jules?”

  “What about Jules?” I couldn’t help the quiver in the pit of my stomach as I recalled how leery the former cook had been of his colleague. In my mind, I could justify Aislin retaliating against Susie, if indeed she had, but Jules was a good guy. What could he have done to Aislin?

  “One night Jules came into work in a really bad mood. Word was he was having problems with his wife, but whatever the reason, he was crabby as hell with Yak and kept snapping at her. He’d just yelled at her for the tenth time for getting in his way, when all of a sudden a knife hung quivering in mid-air, right over his hand. Jules swore it was about to plunge through his hand when Yak yelled, ‘No!’ and the knife flipped away.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. “So basically, nothing happened to Jules?”

  “Nothing? Have you been listening at all?” Von stared at me incredulously. “Don’t you get it? She can hurt people, people who make her angry. What happens if some day you’re lying in bed together, you say something to piss her off, and she tosses you out the window without raising a finger? You could bleed to death, or at the very least be scarred for life.”

  I clamped down on the pleasure that rippled through me at the thought of lying in bed with Aislin. “Oh, for crying out loud, Von. You’re being bloody ridiculous. Aislin would never hurt me.”

  “Like she never hurt Susie? Like she never almost cut off Jules’ hand?”

  I was about to rebut her accusations when my big brother appeared in my doorway in his greasy coveralls, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “I finally got it going, Leni.”

  “Yes! Thanks, Herman.”

  “But no driving it anywhere except to work and back until you get new tires. And you’re buying winters, no screwing around with those fuckin’ all-seasons, got it?”

  I answered my brother’s glare with an agreeable nod. I knew he was intractable on the subject, and he was perfectly capable of disabling my engine if I didn’t go along with his order. “No problem, Herman. I’ll get them on my next day off.”

  He grunted and tossed me the keys before disappearing down the hallway. I juggled the keys happily, already thinking of the places Aislin and I could go now that I didn’t need to depend on my mother’s kindness or the bus schedule.

  “Leni.”

  Von’s strained voice reluctantly recalled me to our conversation. “Yeah, yeah. Look, Von, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never seen anything weird happen around Aislin.” I heard it, I didn’t see it, so I wasn’t lying. “And I feel perfectly safe with her.” Also deliriously happy and incredibly turned on. “I’m not going to condemn her because of hearsay—”

  “Hearsay?” Yvonne got stiffly off the bed, an expression of indignation on her face. “Hearsay?? Ask Elliot. Ask Ella or Darla Mae how many unexplained things happen when Yak is around. Ask them about how eggs can fly and plates can shatter when no one is within ten feet of them.”

  “Von...” I watched unhappily as she marched across the room. She stopped at the doorway and spun around to face me.

  “Just remember what I said, Leni. She’s dangerous, and if you end up hurt or dead, you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

  The door slammed behind her.

  I sat for a long time after Yvonne left, idly turning my keys over in my hands as I considered what she had said. Finally I did what I’d always done when I couldn’t figure something out—I went to consult Aunt Helene.

  Padding down the hallway in my bare feet, I poked my head around my great-aunt’s door. She was reading in her rocker-recliner, as she usually did in the evening hours when she wasn’t beating her grand-nephews and -nieces at card and board games.

  “Auntie, can I bother you for a few moments?”

  She looked up with a smile and lowered her reading glasses on her nose. “You are never a bother, sweetie. Come on in.”

  I came in and sat down on her bed. She clucked at my bare feet and tossed me the afghan she had tucked around herself.

  “Cover up before you get chilblains, child. Honestly, you’d think it was mid-July the way you wander around half-naked.”

  I grinned and tucked the cover around my bare legs and feet. Aunt Helene had been looking out for me ever since she first moved in with us when I was five. I’d never tell my stern, rigid grandmother, but I loved her younger sister more. Next to Yvonne, she was my best confidante, and she’d never once failed to make me feel better, no matter how serious the problem I brought to her.

  “What’s on your mind, sweetie?”

  I knew I didn’t have to beat around the bush. “There’s a woman at work. I really like her, and I think she likes me too.”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Yeah, but Von warned me in no uncertain terms that I should stay away from her, from Aislin, and now I’m torn. I know that Von loves me and is only looking out for me, but Auntie, I really, really like Aislin and I want to keep seeing her.”

  “Why did Von warn you away? Did she give you a reason?”

  I nodded as I plucked aimlessly at the afghan. “Because strange things have happened around Aislin, and Von thinks she might accidentally hurt me.”

  “Strange... Leni, are you talking about a woman nicknamed Yak?”

  I looked up to see Aunt Helene regarding me intently. “That’s what everyone calls her, but she doesn’t like that name. Do you know her?”

  Aunt Helene’s rocking picked up speed. “It would be impossible to play bridge with your grandmother and her coterie, and not have heard of the rumours surrounding your Aislin.”

  My Aislin. I loved the sound of that, but before I could get all dreamy-eyed, Aunt Helene started posing some hard questions.

  “Exactly how involved are you with this woman?”

  “Well...I mean we’ve only had one date—if you could call it that. We’ve been hanging out together at work for a few weeks, and we’ve kissed a couple of times.”

  “So it’s early. You could walk away from this without too much heartbreak.”

  I froze in shock. This was not what I’d expected to hear.

  My aunt sighed and took her glasses off as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m being just as judgmental as those old biddies, aren’t I?” She replaced her glasses and peered over them with a determined look. “I will endeavour not to do that again. Now, why don’t you tell me all about Aislin.”

  Still shaken, but with the cold knot in my stomach easing, I told her everyt
hing that had transpired since I first started working at the Jester’s Court, and everything that Aislin had told me only that morning.

  “And when she kissed me back...Auntie, I’ve just never felt anything like it.”

  “Like skyrockets exploding inside your body and mind, like you were utterly formless with longing, yet at the same time, so powerful you could move mountains for her if she asked?”

  “Exactly!” I beamed at my aunt. “I knew you’d get it.”

  “Hard as it is to believe, my dear child, I was young once.” She gave me a wry smile. “Is it possible...I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, so don’t get upset...but is it possible that what you’re feeling is simply lust? That the possibility of sleeping with her is overwhelming your good sense?”

  Because it was Aunt Helene, I didn’t storm out of the room. I paid her the respect she’d earned through all our years together and seriously considered her question. Was it just lust? Had I been longing for a real flesh and blood lover for so long that I’d jump through hoops for any woman who would give me the time of day?

  Aunt Helene sat rocking quietly while I pondered her question. Finally I knew the answer.

  “No, that’s not it, Auntie.” I leaned forward, urgently wanting her to understand even if no one else did. “Would I like to sleep with Aislin? Absofrigginlutely. Is that my primary motivation? No, it’s really not. I think she’s getting a raw deal, and while I can’t explain the odd things that go on around her, I want to protect her from those who automatically abuse her because they’re scared. I want to drive away the loneliness and pain I see in her eyes. I want to hold her and feel her hold me. I want...I want to love her, and let her love me. And I want what’s between us to last—to be powerful enough to endure Elliot’s rebukes, Ed’s jibes, Von’s warnings, and Grandma’s gossip. I want us to stand together, so that she never again has to stand alone.”

  A slow smile grew on my aunt’s face. “That sounds like a remarkably good description of love.”