Chasing Yesterday

by Shiralyn J. Lee

  Blue turned over on to his back and stretched his front and back legs.

  Heather went inside and grabbed herself a beer from the fridge and a bag of sea-salt chips that were on the counter-top and headed back outside to join Jessie. She sat on the swing next to her and opened the chips, offering them to Jessie, who declined them. Heather guzzled down half of her beer and then grabbed a handful of chips, shoving them in her mouth and irritating Jessie with the sound of crunching.

  “Do you have to eat them right next to me?” she complained.

  Heather stopped chewing in mid-crunch. Then she tried to crunch slowly—a failed attempt at trying to eat quietly, so she opted to crunch them fast and swallow them down with another guzzle of beer. “I’ll bet you that I get to break that hard-ass attitude of yours.”

  Jessie looked down and cradled her beer. “I don’t have a hard-ass attitude. In fact, it’s far from that.” She turned her face away from Heather and wiped her tear-filled eyes with her hand.

  “Are you okay?” Heather asked leaning herself around Jessie and pulling her arm so that she could get a look at her. “You’re crying, what happened?”

  “Why am I even here? What did my sister do so bad that she ended up the way that she has? My life is shit because my girl—” She quickly stopped herself from revealing any information about her personal background.

  “Your sister? Can I ask what’s wrong with her?”

  Jessie sneered and knocked her beer back in one long gulp. “You want to know.” She sighed heavily and then drew in a long-sharp breath. “My sister exists in a home. She has no functioning abilities, her mind is like a plate of mush and it should have been me in that car and not her. She was my best friend and looked out for me because I was too young, and on the day of the car crash, I had taken her shoes and buried them out back just behind this house. I did it because I didn’t want her to go to school and leave me, but my mother scolded me for hiding them and I was too scared to tell her where they were. So instead of trying to find them, they all got into the car to go and buy Corby a brand new pair of shoes. I had been a selfish brat and because of that, my family died. I killed my family. There, are you happy now?” She turned her face away from Heather in desperation to hide her saddened eyes.

  “It seems to me that you have carried a lot of guilt on your shoulders for many years. You were how old when this happened?”

  “Five.”

  “And you think that a five-year old would know any better. Hell, I would have probably done the same thing too. Have you told anyone else this, or have you kept it all bottle up until now?”

  “I saw a shrink a few years back. Well, if you can call three sessions any help. She was useless. I couldn’t figure out the point of seeing her, wasting my time when I could have been working. And Kelly was no use with her heavy drinking.”

  “Who’s Kelly?”

  “Huh?”

  “You mentioned that Kelly was no use because of her heavy drinking.”

  The muscles in Jessie’s face tightened. She got up from the swing and took Heather’s empty bottle from her hand. “I’m getting another beer, do you want one?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Heather observed Jessie as she walked away from her, noting her firm butt in the dark-denim jeans that she was wearing. “Do you work out? You’ve got a nice hiney.”

  Jessie turned around. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Oh just admiring the scenery.”

  “Well don’t! I’ve got enough on my plate without you adding to it.” She marched inside the house holding the two bottles with a finger stuck inside the neck of each one. They clinked together as she plonked them down on the counter-top.

  “She didn’t say she that didn’t like it,” Heather chanted to herself quietly as she waited for Jessie to return.

  Jessie stared into the open fridge. Food had not been her priority when she had stopped at the store. A torn open box of beer and a few items left over from the wake, were all that sat on the glass shelf. She took a plate of chicken drumsticks and removed the plastic wrap—discarding it in the garbage bin. She took a bite from one of the drumsticks and gazed out of the window while she chewed.

  “Is everything okay in there?” Heather called to her from the porch.

  “Yes, I’m just coming.” She grabbed two cold bottles from the box and twisted the tops off, then carried them and the plate of drumsticks out with her. “Here, I figured you might be hungry.” She handed Heather the plate.

  “So, are you going to tell me about this Kelly, or am I going to have to prise it out of you slowly?”

  Jessie sat back down on the swing. “I’m out of cigarettes.”

  “You can have one of mine but on one condition…you tell me about Kelly, I know there’s something sinister going on there and I will get it out of you.” Heather smarted off.

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  “Nope, not until you tell me all about Kelly.” Heather removed two cigarettes from the pack and waved them in front of Jessie’s face. “Well?”

  Jessie snatched one and stuck it between her lips. “Light me up.”

  Heather lit her cigarette and then her own. Clouds of smoke drifted from the porch and out onto the warm air where the light breeze carried it away. “I’m all ears.”

  “You keep your mouth shut about this. I know what people are like around here and it’s one of the reasons why I left this small town of gossipers. I met Kelly in a bar, actually the same bar that I met you in. I was minding my own business, just drinking at the bar and thinking about leaving this stinking town. She sat next to me and introduced herself. Kelly Hicks. God, that night I got so drunk. She kept plying me with beers and I actually forgot why I was even drinking in there in the first place.”

  “Was she hot?”

  “Is that all that you think about? Yes she was if you must know.”

  “I’m right about you, aren’t I?” Heather asked smugly.

  “I don’t put myself in a category like that. I don’t like too many people, hell I don’t think I like anyone around here. There was one but that was many years ago, just a stupid teenage girl crush. It was all in my infatuated head and the other person knew nothing about it.”

  “Oh, I think she did.”

  Jessie raised her brow. “Am I going to regret hiring you?”

  Heather smiled and chugged her beer down. “Not at all. Now tell me the rest about Kelly Hicks.”

  “We were drunk, in fact, too drunk for either of us to drive, so Kelly suggested that we sleep it off in my truck. We took ourselves out to the parking lot and spent a good hour laughing about nothing. Then the bar closed and the outside lights were turned off. We were in complete darkness. I didn’t even know what I was doing but seeing her silhouette in the dark, I pounced on her.”

  “WOW! That was a cool move.”

  “Not really. I forgot to mention that Kelly had unbuttoned her shirt and told me that she wanted to fuck me.”

  “I just knew it. I actually thought that I had picked up the wrong vibe in the bar. God I’m good at this.”

  “I’m not. The woman I had my teenage crush on was sitting at the end of the bar when you came in. I was grateful for the interruption. Having a crush on a straight woman and knowing it’ll never happen is hard. That woman will always be my first and Kelly, well she was my first relationship but I always thought about Edie.”

  Heather realised that she may have just interfered with Jessie’s one true love. “So what happened with you and Kelly?”

  “It didn’t take too long for me to figure out what women meant to me. I let my walls down with her and found myself unexpectedly falling in love, and I thought that my grandpa would see it the same way that I did. Well, there’s always a first time for finding out where someone’s kindness suddenly finds a way of turning to narrow mindedness. He just couldn’t be happy for me and he made that fact loud and clear.”

  “That must have hurt.”

  “
Sure did. I left this place the very next day and never looked back. Kelly had a good paying job and her own place, so I lived with her. Then I got my job at Graphcan Designs which pays well, and I bought an apartment in the heart of Vancouver. Kelly rented her apartment out and moved in with me. It was good for a while, I really believed that we were going to make it. Shit, how wrong was I?”

  “So what happened that caused you two to break up?”

  “She cheated on me.”

  Heather guzzled her beer and drew on her cigarette. “So was she a friend who Kelly cheated with?”

  “He was a work colleague of mine. Kelly would sometimes come to the office and join me for lunch and I’d see him approach her either on her way in or on her way out. There’d be a conversation and smiles between them but I never thought that they were flirting with each other. Turns out that he was really hot for her chili.”

  Heather clamped her fingers on the top of Jessie’s thigh. “I would say, and how exactly did you catch them cheating?”

  Jessie removed Heather’s hand and placed it onto her own thigh. “I decided to take a sick day from work. I didn’t tell Kelly about it, as I wanted to surprise her. Well the surprise was on me. I got up as usual but pretended to go to work. Instead, I went to the coffee shop on the corner of our street and ordered her favorite coffee and bagel. I’d been gone less than half-an-hour. As soon as I opened the front door I could hear groans coming from the bedroom. I don’t know which one of us had the biggest surprise, me, her, or Teddy fucking Clark. At that point it didn’t matter. I kicked them both out immediately.”

  “WOW. And you still have to see this Teddy at work?”

  “God no. I threw myself into my work, and I mean I worked every hour that my body could keep awake. My boss saw what he thought was loyalty, but in reality I just couldn’t face going home. He promoted me and gave me my own office. I had Teddy fired as soon as I could, but not before seeing him squirm and sweat it out a bit. God it felt good to see him beg me to keep his job, the snivelling little worm. The sad thing is that he had a wife and a small child. She quickly left him when she found out what he had been up to. I took great pleasure in calling her and reporting about his sordid affair, and yeah, I did feel guilty about making a child grow up without a father around, but look at me, I lost both parents and I turned out fine.”

  “Did you? You are filled with hostility, aren’t you? Heaven forbid that I ever cross you, not that I would, as we aren’t that way with each other. So how long have you been on the singles market?”

  “Jesus H Christ, you sure like to ask a lot of questions. I can’t believe that I’ve told you this much already about myself, I never do that with anyone. This all happened about five months ago, that’s why I was so bitter about it all. Six years of my life just tossed out of the window and for what, so she could fuck a guy? Last I heard, she was with a married woman. And yes, before you ask me, I am still in love with her. It feels as if she died and I need to figure out how to deal with the grief.”

  “It’s never gets any easier, does it?” Heather said sympathetically.

  “So now that you’ve heard my story, what about you? What brings Heather King into town?”

  “As I said, I was driving through town.”

  “And where were you driving to?”

  “Oh my story isn’t as anywhere near as interesting as yours. I happened to have been on my way to Harrison Hot Springs when my tire blew out on me.”

  “Any particular reason why you were heading to Harrison Hot Springs?”

  “Nah, it was just the next place I wanted to visit, but you changed all of that with your job offer.”

  Jessie leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and swishing her beer around in the bottle. “You can stay in the room next to mine, it’s a decent size but I’m not forcing you to stay. You are free to leave any time you like. Trust me, you’ll leave, we all do.”

  Heather’s inner smile allowed her to keep her confidence secret. She was in no rush to leave Hope, not now anyway.

  Chapter Seven

  Waking up to a 5:a.m. alarm, Heather slipped out of her bed and drew open the cream curtains to let the early daylight flood in. The sun—a deep-rich orange, was rising over the mountains—the clear sky filled with light hues of pinks and yellows, and the lush-green leaves in the trees rustled with the light breeze flowing through them. She opened the window, and for a few minutes she listened to the finches chirping away, and absorbed the freedom that she had once felt before. Contented, she headed to the bathroom to take a shower.

  She stood beneath the warm spray of water, lathering the shampoo in her hair, when Jessie knocked on the bathroom door. “I’ve made a fresh pot of coffee,” she called and headed back downstairs, where she had been for the past hour clearing up the mess from the night before. Blue was outside entertaining himself by rolling in the dry dirt and making happy whiney sounds as he enjoyed his play. Jessie filled a bowl of fresh water for him and left it on the porch by the front door.

  A while later, dressed in her jeans and a chequered flannel shirt, Heather joined Jessie in the kitchen. She poured herself a large mug of coffee. “Damn! That’s good first thing in the morning.”

  Jessie was sat at the table going through some bills, she raised her eyes to look up at Heather. “I like it strong, if you like yours weaker, then add more water to it.”

  “No, it’s perfect.” Heather looked out of the window to see a silver colored car driving up to the house and Blue excitedly running toward it to greet the occupants. Her eyes widened when she saw Edie climb out of the driver’s side and whom she assumed to be her daughter Livy, get out of the front passenger side. Blue jumped up at the girl, who in return gave him a pat on his head and fussed over him as they approached the house.

  Heather immediately made her way to the open door and met Edie and her daughter on the shaded portion of the porch. Edie was dressed nice in a white-flowy dress and strappy sandals. Her golden-brown hair shone from the sunlight reflecting on it and her eyes seemed bright and vibrant, as if life had suddenly enveloped them. She carried her car keys with the ring on her finger and jingled them happily as she drew closer to Heather. “Hi,” she said warmly. “This is my daughter Livy. She was so excited about helping out with the horses that she wanted to come right on over and get stuck in. I have to drive her here and pick her up of course.”

  Livy grinned and showed a mouth full of metal braces. She was a sweet looking girl, overly-skinny, long dark-brown straight hair that reached down to her lower back, her youthful face still had that fuzzy peach-like appearance and her long eye lashes intensified her deep-set brown eyes. Her shoulders hunched inward and her feet pointed inward, a typical teenage girl.

  “Well, Livy, maybe I should put my coffee down and take you over to meet the horses and get started,” Heather said to her.

  Livy nodded shyly.

  “She does speak, don’t you, Livy. She’s just shy when she first meets new people. Say hello to Heather, Livy.”

  “Hello.”

  Heather held her hand out to shake Livy’s. “Hello, Livy.”

  Jessie finished drinking her coffee and went to the door to see who Heather was talking to. She was surprised to see Edie standing on her porch, but it was a pleasant surprise all the same. She remembered standing in Edie’s coffee shop and gazing at her with big love-sick eyes. Her crush for this older woman had been unbearable as a teenager and not understanding why she felt that way at the time was extremely confusing. She wanted to spend every day just looking at her and admiring her, but it was her husband who would scare her out of her wits when he showed his face on the premises. She thought he would know how she felt about his wife and would chase her off after a good-hiding. “Edie, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

  “Jessie? WOW. Well, all I can say is that you’ve turned out just fine. This is my daughter Livy. She’s accepted Heather’s offer to come and help out with the horses.”

 
“Oh, I see. And is Livy starting now?”

  Heather folded her arms across her chest. “Yes she is. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No. As long as she knows what she’s doing, that’s all I’m concerned about.” Jessie maintained her gaze on Edie and Edie found herself blushing as she maintained her gaze on Heather. Heather ignored the fact that Edie was intent on getting her attention and ushered her and Livy over to the stables to get Livy acquainted with the horses.

  Livy looked in on every horse behind its stall and practically fell in love with them all. Her whole being lit up with excitement. “I won’t let you down, I promise. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

  Edie joined Heather in the first stall where Summer was grazing on hay, while Livy took her time stroking and talking to each of the other horses. “I wanted to ask you why you left in such a hurry. I thought that…well, I don’t really know what I thought,” she said to Heather.

  Heather stood on the opposite side of her horse grooming his coat and peered over his back to talk to Edie. “Look, Edie, I think that I went too far and shouldn’t have made that move on you. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that there might be something between us…”

  Jessie wandered into the stable behind them. Her hands in her jeans pockets and wearing her suede tasseled jacket, she felt as though she had just intruded on them. “How is Livy finding everything?”

  Heather turned around sharply, surprised by Jessie standing so close to her. “I think she’s happy by the looks of her.”

  “Good. Well get her started on her chores. We need to get the cattle fed and check that the fences are all intact. We should get Paint and Summer saddled up.” She smiled gratifyingly at Edie. “Edie, it was nice seeing you again.”

  Livy picked up a pitch fork from the rack at the end of the stable and began her chores mucking out the straw in each stall. Edie slowly made her way out of the stable. She sensed that her presence was causing some sort of awkwardness. “I’ll pick you up at lunchtime, Livy,” she called to her and then headed for her car. Before she opened the door she waited for Heather to follow her out of the stable. To her disappointment, Heather remained inside. She drove away, ready to cry from embarrassment.