Who By Water

by Victoria Raschke

  She set the tray back on the tea counter and turned back to the kitchen. The rack was gone.

  She looked around, but it definitely wasn’t there. She counted the racks on the shelf over the dish sink. Maybe she just needed some caffeine. She scooped the tray up and headed back out to Vesna and Igor.

  They were seated at a four-top near the empty bakery case that separated the seating from the service area at the back of the shop, and were deep in conversation about which wall was best for the mural. Jo was set on the back wall behind the service area, where it would be the first thing customers see when they walked in. Igor seemed to prefer the right-hand wall that separated the teahouse from the new age shop next door. Vesna agreed with him. And she was flirting. It was very subtle, but it was definitely flirting.

  Vesna still knew how to flirt. Happily surprised, Jo poured tea for everyone and sat back quietly in her chair without interrupting their conversation. The plate rack still puzzled her. Things didn’t just move or disappear.

  Vesna looked up at her a little sheepishly. “Thanks. Oh, Jo, did you bring the sketches?”

  “What? Yes.” She popped up from her chair to grab the messenger bag she’d flung onto the first table inside the door when she’d arrived. After a short rummage on her way back to the table, she produced three tea- and possibly wine-stained sketches she’d done sitting at her dining-table desk upstairs while Vesna had paced and talked brand-speak at her. Jo’s main concern was that the mural look cool and fit in with the teahouse’s vibe.

  Jo handed the sketches to Igor, who made a bit of a show flattening them out on the table with his forearm. He laughed softly. “At least they aren’t on napkins.”

  Vesna was indignant. “We don’t use paper napkins. It’s wasteful.”

  “No disrespect to your Greenpeace membership.” He smiled at her.

  “It was a joke. I’m sorry.” She looked like she’d just told the coolest girl in ninth grade about her extensive Barbie collection.

  “Vesna’s a little concerned about the money we’re spending. As you can imagine, it’s more than we usually spend on décor.” Jo waved her arm around in a sweep to indicate the walls surrounding them. She slid Igor a plate with two sandwiches and a shortbread cookie.

  “I can imagine. I think it’s smart though. Not to brag – well, maybe a bit – but it might bring in more tourists interested in street art.” Igor took a bite of the cookie and then looked at it, surprised.

  “It’s pink peppercorn shortbread.” Jo continued, “And that was kind of what we were thinking. Plus the place needs a facelift.”

  She looked around at the aging punk and metal gig posters they’d hung when they’d first opened the shop almost a decade earlier. The wear and tear of restaurant traffic and kitchen heat had battered them. The place had its own aesthetic, but it was time to evolve.

  Igor held up her sketch of a clipper ship rendered like an old-fashioned sailor’s tattoo, and looked at the wall. “Just out of curiosity, why aren’t you all in Metalkova? It seems more suited to what you’re going for here.”

  Vesna answered, “Our silent partner owns the building.”

  Gregor, their other partner, was one of the friends Jo met when she’d first arrived in Ljubljana. She’d hit on him at a club, not realizing it was Pink Night. He was kind to the lost American, and they became friends and then business partners. His family owned the building that housed Renegade Tea and therefore all of the flats upstairs, where both she and Vesna lived. There were other tenants as well, a university professor, and a guy in the tiny flat on the top floor whom Jo saw maybe once or twice a year.

  “That would be reason enough.” He looked at the second sketch of waves mimicking the style of Hokusai’s The Great Wave of Kanagawa, but filled with burning crates of tea. “Boston Tea Party?” Igor looked to Jo.

  Vesna nodded. “Jo said the Boston Tea Party was punk as fuck.”

  Igor laughed. “I can see that.”

  Jo poured more tea in his cup. “Is that your favorite? I mean, can you work with it?”

  “Yeah. I think I can work with that.”

  “Okay. So we’re closed tomorrow. We can move everything away from that wall after we close tonight. I’ll come help after this thing with Gregor.” Jo tied her long French waiter-style apron over her clothes to get started on the day’s setup with Maja and Frédéric, who’d arrived soon after Igor left.

  Someone had flipped on the sound system and Roky Erickson’s “I Have Always Been Here Before” was loud enough to block out the words Maja and Fred were chattering at each other. Jo heard Maja laugh. That was a rare thing, but Fred seemed to be the one to bring it out. She wondered if he knew their baker had it bad for him.

  Vesna gathered up the stack of bills and paperwork she’d been leafing through to return them to her esoteric filing system in the desk drawer. “Can you let Igor in tomorrow morning?”

  “Hot date?”

  Vesna looked up at Jo, her brown eyes glinting with a bit of murder. “No. I promised my mother I’d have lunch at home. I have to catch the early bus.”

  “Special occasion?”

  “Miha is engaged.” Vesna’s face fell as she said it.

  Miha was her younger brother, and Jo knew that tomorrow’s lunch was less a celebration of Miha’s engagement than a prime opportunity for Mother to remind Vesna that she’d neglected to marry and produce grandkids.

  “I don’t know whether to say ‘congratulations’ or ‘I’m sorry’.” Jo slid against the wall to get behind the desk with Vesna as she stood. Towering over her pixie friend, she put her hands on Vesna’s shoulders and looked her in the face.

  Vesna glanced down at the desk and then back up at Jo. “I think it’s time to tell her enough is enough. I’m a successful business owner. The whole marriage and kids thing . . . That’s not me.”

  It was a good speech, but it was only half true: Vesna didn’t want children, but Jo’s unattached life didn’t appeal to her in the least. And even if she did treat them like her children, Antony and Cleopatra, her cats, weren’t all the companionship she ever wanted.

  “Go for it honey,” Jo said. “Just remember, she guilts because she loves.”

  “I know.”

  “If she listens, she might even stop trying to fix you up with 50-year-old bachelor accountants.”

  A rueful smile turned up the corner of Vesna’s mouth. She finally laughed. “Jo, you really are the best.”

  Jo gave the tiny woman an extra squeeze and slipped out from behind the desk and into the kitchen to join her brigade prepping for service.

  The three shifted into overdrive to pump out the day’s menu. Frédéric made curried chicken salad sandwiches for the tea special.

  Maja was efficient, as always. Vanilla bean shortbread cookies were already cooling on a speed rack jammed in the corner of the kitchen as she worked on their signature decadent brownies. That left Jo to get on with the verrines and tartlets. She filled shot glasses with yogurt while Frédéric threw together some odds and ends to make an eggy torta as the hot dish. They’d serve it with some Tuscan kale for a side salad.

  Despite the eclectic punk ambiance of the teahouse, it was important to Jo that food be high quality, sustainable, and seasonal. She hated the idea that kids, the teenagers and students who were the bulk of their clientele, just wanted pizza and crap food. The Renegade Tea menu was a mashup of English teatime tradition, Jo’s American roots, and Frédéric’s Algerian background, all interpreted in local produce.

  The shop opened at 3:30. Frédéric ran the kitchen. Maja had a second job bartending at a trendy place on the river, so Vesna did table service and made tea along with Damijan, a philosophy student at the university. Jo floated between the front of house and kitchen, doing whatever needed to be done to keep them out of the weeds. That night, though, she was on tap to be Gregor’s date at
a schmooze-fest at the City Museum, so Vesna and Damijan would be running the show without her.

  Frédéric was taking their sidewalk menu board out onto a table to write the day’s specials. He poked his head back into the kitchen.

  “Jo, did you do a soup?”

  “Fuck. No.”

  Maja stepped out of the kitchen. “In the freezer there’s a gallon of that minestrone base Fred made for the catering last week. We can boil some orecchietti and add some of the kale and maybe throw in a couple herb bombs to freshen it up.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Good thinking.” Frédéric nodded his approval and went back to his task.

  Maja took the three steps back into the kitchen and pulled a gallon Lexan and a bag of herb bombs out of the little reach-in freezer jammed between the speed rack and the door to Vesna’s broom closet of an office.

  Herb bombs had been Maja’s idea. At the end of service, any fresh herbs that looked the worse for wear got chucked in the food processor with some olive oil to produce a green gunge. The gunge was frozen in ice cube trays for adding to soups or sauces. They were also good for masking the lawn-clipping flavor of Maja’s wheatgrass hangover smoothies, a concoction Jo needed less frequently these days, noticing as she had that 40-something couldn’t drink like 20-something.

  Soup handled and everything else prepped and ready for service, Jo de-aproned. Vesna joined them, standing in the door of the office: four people in that kitchen at the same time was an impossibility.

  “All ready?” Vesna tried to peer over Jo’s shoulder to the counter where Frédéric was cutting the crusts off the last batch of smoked salmon sandwiches. He handed her one of the sandwiches over Jo’s shoulder. “Mmmm. These are my favorite.”

  “You guys should get a plate and have staff meal. I need to head upstairs and ponder what I’m wearing tonight.” Jo rolled her apron into a ball and threw it for a goal toward the hamper next to the desk in the office. She missed, and took the six steps to pick it up and place it in the hamper. “And that, ladies and gent, is why I never played basketball.”

  Frédéric went into the dining room to add the soup to the menu board. He had, by far, the best handwriting of any of them. He’d come to Ljubljana to study architecture in the mid 1980s. His half-French, half-Algerian background had made him stand out in Slovenia’s largely-homogeneous capital. That, and the fact he was gorgeous. He’d inherited his Algerian mother’s complexion, dark hair, aquiline nose and full mouth along with his French father’s deep blue eyes.

  When Frédéric’s midlife crisis hit in a big way, he’d walked in and quit the firm he’d been with since graduation. A few days later, he’d shown up at Renegade Tea asking for a job. Jo hired him on the spot even though Vesna thought she was crazy. Jo figured anyone ready to make that kind of change needed an outlet and a chance.

  Maja walked out with Jo so she could have a cigarette, pausing to point out something on the chalkboard to Fred. She laughed again and touched his arm before joining Jo in the courtyard and offering her a cigarette, which Jo declined. She’d quit years ago, though she would occasionally have a social smoke. Shit. She’d probably quit smoking before Maja was born, or close. That was sobering.

  Maja held her cigarette between two fingers tattooed with astrological symbols, and exhaled a perfect O smoke ring. “What’s this thing you’re going to?”

  “It’s to celebrate the success of the Emona exhibit.” It was the 2000th anniversary of the founding of Emona, the Roman city that would become Ljubljana. The summer had been filled with activities around the celebration, including this exhibit at the city museum and tours to all the Roman sites in Ljubljana, complete with costumed characters. “There’s drinks and schmoozing at the City Museum, and Gregor asked me to join him at the Emona house excavation for an even schmoozier gathering with more expensive drinks, for donors or something, afterward.”

  “Doesn’t much sound like your kind of thing.” Maja took another long drag off her cigarette. Her gaze kept straying back to the shop windows.

  “Not really. But Gregor needed a date, and I enjoy people-watching.”

  Maja laughed. “And no way in hell could Gregor take his actual love interest and still be one of the elite.”

  Jo arched her eyebrow at Maja. “What are you talking about?” She kept her tone light, but she was fiercely protective of Gregor.

  “Keep your shirt on, boss lady. I don’t care if Gregor’s gay. I just know that he is, and despite the more liberal attitudes of those elites, he’d still have a hard time in that crowd with another dude on his arm. Everyone knows you’re his beard. They just don’t care because Gregor plays along with their bullshit.”

  Jo was surprised Maja was so frank. She usually kept herself to herself, did her work and ducked out, but her other job probably made her privy to a lot of gossip. Jo didn’t really know what to say.

  Maja bent over to stub out her cigarette in the ash can hidden behind the planter full of herbs at the front door. “The thing most people don’t know is that Gregor is kind of your beard, too.” She pulled the elastic out of the bun on top of her head and a curtain of neon blue hair, black at the roots, fell to her shoulders.

  “Okay. What?” Jo didn’t even pretend lightness this time.

  “We all see you almost every day. I could set my watch by when you come downstairs and by when Milo or Rok or whoever that goddess is you’ve been seeing heads out in the morning. Otherwise, you do a pretty good job of keeping your private shit private. Being Gregor’s public companion probably helps with that. I did overhear my boss one night talking with someone at the bar about being surprised you don’t know or don’t mind that Gregor’s gay.”

  Jo was rarely at a complete loss for words.

  Maja slapped her playfully on the shoulder and laughed. “Hey, it’s no big deal. I like you and don’t give two shits about who you, or Gregor, are sleeping with, as long as someone signs my paycheck.”

  Jo smiled. She couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh, but she figured her not-so-secret secret was probably safe with Maja. Maja turned to go back inside and Jo crossed the courtyard to the stairwell that led back up to the flats.

  She saw the top of Goran’s salt and pepper head bent over in the antique shop’s windows as he selected an item from the display that faced the courtyard. As always, the window was dark and the “Zaprto” sign was on the door of the accountant’s office next door to the antique shop. In all the time Jo had lived in the building she’d never seen it open. She’d asked Gregor about it. He said he didn’t worry too much; they paid rent by bank draft and kept the place clean.

  Did she really need a beard, as Maja had suggested? She wasn’t ashamed of her life. Her son knew she dated around, and they were no more likely to discuss her sex life than they were his. Faron was first among the handful of people whose opinions mattered to her. The others, she could count on one hand: Gregor, Vesna, Rok, and her Aunt Jackie. Rok because they’d been friends, with benefits, for almost fifteen years. And Jackie, because she was the only “old life” family Jo kept in touch with.

  It didn’t do much good to dwell on these things, or on things in general. Jo’s life suited her temperament. She liked the way things moved along in an orderly fashion, with just the little bit of turbulence and rush that came with restaurant life and none of the crap she’d left back home. Jo liked her personal excitement scheduled. Rok and Milo had days assigned to them, in her head at least. Helena, the “goddess she’d been seeing,” was always a surprise, as she’d been from the beginning.

  Not that she had never been attracted to women; she had just consistently preferred men. Her biggest concern about getting involved with Helena was stepping into unknown territory. She didn’t want to hurt someone inadvertently by not wanting anything serious. Helena had put that fear to rest as quickly as she’d gotten Jo into bed. Romance wasn’t her thing either. She was more feral
and demanding than any man Jo had ever been with, and she wasn’t even remotely sentimental. Helena would soon tire of her, so she intended to enjoy the ride while it lasted.

  Chapter 3

  Gregor met her in the courtyard downstairs. He wore an impeccably fitted suit. His dark hair was newly clipped but long enough to tousle if he, or someone else, ran fingers through it. The gray at his temples gave him just enough gravitas, but it was his eyes that drew her to flirt with him all those years ago. They were a soft brown, kind, and hid almost nothing.

  He took her hand and twirled her about. “Don’t you clean up well, Ms. Black T-shirt?”

  She laughed. Her day-to-day work uniform was jeans or a long black skirt with a black t-shirt and a cardigan, also black. She liked her wardrobe simple enough to get dressed in a power outage without clashing. She’d also put on a little weight over the years and had lost some interest in flaunting her sturdy but curvier ass.

  She knew how to dress herself well when the occasion called for it though. Her cocktail dress was a peacock blue she thought brought out the blue in her eyes. She paired it with silver, low-heeled sandals – too many years of chef clogs and Doc Martins to go teetering over Ljubljana’s cobblestone streets in sky-high ankle breakers. Her hair was wrapped into a low bun, with a few loose pieces to avoid the ballerina-bunhead look. She wore the tiny pearl earrings her aunt had given her as a high school graduation gift, her only adornment besides the ring she always wore, a sparkly clutch, and a grey pashmina to stave off the chill October air.

  She smoothed the lapel of Gregor’s jacket. “Aren’t we leaving a little too early to be fashionably late?”

  “I’m supposed to meet Tomaž to discuss this new restaurant idea he has. He said he wanted five minutes before to give me the pitch.”

  “Do you think doing business with him is a good idea?” She tried to hide her distaste.

  He knew her too well to miss it. “Why? He’s very successful. Two of the busiest places on the river are his. The locals even brave the tourists to be seen in them.”