by SP Durnin
Sounded good at the time, Laurel mused.
Between keeping the books, dealing with the suppliers, searching for local product, filling then shipping orders, and days that started at five a.m. (ending usually around ten at night), she hadn't possessed anything resembling a life for almost a year now.
Laurel tried to remember the last time she'd done anything other than have coffee with Kat. Her roommate/best friend/sounding board, made it a point to pull her (kicking and screaming) once a week to her favorite bar/house of java and song on the lower south side of town. The filtered bean squeezings were always top notch, nine of ten times the music was something folksy (or at least acoustically performed), and if the crowd wasn't full of people Laurel could connect with? She could live with that for an hour or two of relaxation.
Laurel St. Clair was an inch or so shorter than Kat's five-foot-ten with a shock of deep red hair cascading halfway down her back, hair which earned her countless envious complements. The only problem was it would never quite cooperate. No matter what she did, one stray lock would always work its way from the scrunchie, or out of the hair clip, and fall over her left eye. She had a dancer's build and even though she didn't possess the Out-To-Here breasts the current crop of semi-anorexic movie starlets displayed, she filled out the Saint Brigid sweater (which she'd knitted herself, thank you very much) quite nicely. Her waist was slim and it curved appealingly into shapely hips, which had a tendency to sway a bit more than usual when she got upset. A few freckles, the legacy from a Scottish grandmother, complimented her looks and as Kat phrased it, Would make any red-blooded boy sit up and bark at the moon. Trim and toned, Laurel had no idea she'd caused a few hapless victims to walk into streetlights and a couple of parking meters on her morning jogs. Not until the last one almost got hit by a bus. Which was why she'd changed up to her earlier five a.m. run time.
Originally from out west, she'd come to the wilderness that was Ohio a few years ago just in time to purchase a failing health food store. Laurel breathed new life into the place and had more than tripled its clientele in the first months. Two years later it was still putting food on the table.
She was considering changing her rose hip supplier when Kat all but flew in the door with an expression that was, in a word, worrying. Usually she was an upbeat bundle of smiles. The Kat who walked into Laurel's You Are What You Eat today, however, had the determined look of a WWI trench-fighter, fully prepared to pull the trigger and shoot a bullet across no-man's land and into the noggin of a German stooge.
Katherine Bright-feather Cho was Laurel's polar opposite. She made no apologies for her looks. Mama-san had fallen for a Native American Air Force pilot back in the day and she'd received her exotic features from both parents. Her complexion was that of mild Earl Grey tea and many people asked if her ancestors were Japanese or Chinese. Her reply was always I'm Squaw. Her face displayed the high cheekbones and dark eyes of her Navajo father, and her trim form moved with a panther's grace due to daily lessons in several different styles of martial arts via her mother from the time she began to walk. That, coupled with her habit of wearing midriff shirts to show off her well-defined abs, gave her the come and get it look. Kat's appearance made it necessary, more often than not, for her to go after guys herself, rather than waiting for them to work up the courage to approach her though. Laurel had warmed to her free-spirit nature when Kat had been looking for a roommate to split the rent while she finished her pharmacy tech certification.
They'd been best friends ever since.
"Hey Kat," she called, "how was your day in the land of the ill and ill-mannered?"
Her roommate smiled.
Laurel began to worry at that point.
"Believe it or not, I met the single most annoying fucking bitch in the world today," Kat said, still grinning like a cat that had just coughed up a mouthful of yellow feathers. "She was suffering from pickle-up-the-ass syndrome if anyone ever does. If that witch had spoken to me on the street that way, she'd be eating pudding for the next four months until her face healed. I'd have broken her jaw for her."
Laurel's eyebrows rose. "And this was a good thing?"
"Not really." Kat admitted, shaking her head as she grabbed an energy drink from the stand-up cooler next to Laurel's register. "It was the guy that made her take her bitchy ass on out the door that made my day."
"Another one?" Laurel asked. "How many does that make, this month?"
"Stop that," Kat said. "And Bernard doesn't count."
"You were playing tonsil hockey on our couch for an hour."
The blue-haired woman laughed. "You are becoming a prude. When was the last time you engaged in any nocturnal gymnastics of your own?"
"Well, the last one ended so well," Laurel said dryly. "I thought I'd take a break from drama and emotional…"
She stopped to give her roommate a narrow look. "You know, the last time you started in on how long it'd been since I'd had a date, I ended up spending a unpleasant evening in a sports bar, fending off advances from a Cro-Magnon, with a steroid addiction," Laurel said.
Kat rolled her eyes. "Bret was a nice guy! You would've gotten along great if you'd given him a chance!"
"He thought wheat-germ was a type of flesh eating bacteria!"
Kat threw her hands up in exasperation. "That's your problem, Laurel! You always find fault with every guy you meet. This one isn't intelligent enough, that one isn't sensitive enough. It's like you want to become that crazy lady, with twenty cats, locked up in your house, where the highlight of your day—"
"What did you do?"
Kat stopped, mouth open. "Huh?"
Laurel crossed her arms. "What. Did. You. Do?"
"Don't know what you mean."
"Kat!"
"Alright, alright!" She gave a resigned sigh. "I might have given that guy my number in a feeble attempt to introduce him to my best friend who needs to break out of her emotional stagnation."
Laurel put her face in her hands. "Tell me you didn't give him my name."
Her roommate gave her a scathing look. "No, I told him you hadn't had a date in six months and was desperate for some hot, monkey loving. Gimme a little credit, will you?"
"Okay. Point taken. Sorry"
"I told him about your show tonight and asked if he wanted to come."
"Aspirin! I need aspirin!" Laurel exclaimed. "No! I need a drink!"
"You keep Jameson's under the counter," Kat offered helpfully. "Seriously. This guy was a dish. Had that rugged, strong-n-silent vibe and basically pulled a knight-in-shining-armor move outta his hat. I wish you could have heard him take that broad apart. He didn't yell or scream or anything. He just calmly squashed her self-centered attitude like a bug."
"Really?" Laurel droned as she grabbed the bottle of Ireland's finest, along with two cups from a display, and poured two fingers into each. "Why don't you date him then?"
"Oh, he couldn't keep up. That man wasn't the love 'em and leave 'em type."
"What makes you say that?" she asked, taking a healthy swig of her whiskey. Laurel had never been one of those women who had to play with her liquor. She believed if you were going to drink, drink. If you were going to sip, get a water.
"His whole demeanor, really." Kat downed her shot and smacked her lips. "Boy, that's good. He was late twenties, and his eyes had this weight. Like he'd seen some really bad stuff, you know? I guess he may have, being a journalist. Anyway, he was there with this woman in one of the scooter carts? Obviously not family, and he was helping her shop for heaven's sake. How many guys can you name who do that for their own mothers let alone random senior citizens?"
"Maybe she was his neighbor?"
Kat raised an eyebrow and considered that. "The defense rests. Nice to little old ladies? That's a keeper. Besides, he had the cutest ass..."
Laurel choked on her whiskey and went into a coughing fit. "You're incorrigible," she said, once she got her breath back. "If a man rated you on your boobs you'd have a fit, but you'll
do it to a supposedly nice guy?"
"No. You'd have a fit if a guy did that to you," Kat explained. "I'd just feel the need to educate him on my other qualities. My razor sharp wit, my love of Hemorrhaging Brain shooters, my utter sense of selflessness when it comes to hooking up my roommate with hunky journalists. You know, the minor stuff."
Laurel shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. "Fine. Help me close up. We'll hit the North Market on the way to Bueno Dave's and get some Thai."
"Why don't we ever eat there?" Kat asked. "Dave's a great chef, but I don't think I've ever seen you eat so much as a tortilla chip at his place."
"Because," Laurel replied as she locked the front door, then reached up to pull the security grate. "I know how much that puppy in the window is there. Hit the lights for me, will you?"
"What do you mean?" Kat killed the lights and made for the side door as her roommate grabbed her coat from the closet-sized (because it used to be a closet) office.
Laurel gave her a pitying look as they exited. "Dave's from Korea, right?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Canine is a staple there, you know."
"What does that have to do with any..." Kat turned slightly green. "Oh, gross! Are you shitting me?"
Laurel smiled. "I wouldn't shit you, you're my favorite turd."
Kat's face displayed the you got me look people show when they realize they've just fallen for it, then she grinned slyly. "There is a silver lining to playing a venue that serves Benji."
"What's that?" Laurel gave the side door a good shake to make sure it was latched.
"That guy today definitely had the mild-mannered journalist thing going." She chuckled. "Maybe if you bat your eyes and jiggle the twins, you can spend the night with The Man of the Steel. Or at least a man with wood."
Laurel chased Kat down the street to the battered, dark grey 1970s circa pickup she'd driven since high school, swearing loudly that she was going to style her roommate's hairs with a pair of garden shears.
Kat wiped her eyes, still laughing as she buckled in and her roommate pulled away from the curb. "Seriously. I pretty much hit the nail on the head with Calvin. I knew he was a slime ball, so you should trust me about this guy."
"Okay," she sighed. "I'll give him a chance. If he shows up. And if he's not a butt-head. We don't get along, I can always say I have diarrhea from the nachos or something and take off."
Laurel admitted that Kat had been right about Calvin. He'd been a gigantic mistake. Successful, educated, charming, but utterly lacking morals. Worse he was, quite frankly, a pussy hound. After they'd been seeing each other for just over five months, he'd shown his true colors when Laurel walked in on him getting it on with a blonde from his job.
In her apartment.
She'd stood in the doorway to her bedroom stunned for almost a full minute, while the blonde rode him like a Sit-n-Spin.
Once they noticed her, the blonde pretty much freaked out and left Calvin to Laurel's wrath. He didn't have a choice, really. He'd had the bimbo tie his hands to the headboard. She'd neglected to let him loose in the scurry to grab her clothes and dash past Laurel for the door.
Calvin had almost soiled the sheets when Laurel approached holding a large knife she'd retrieved from the kitchen. He begged her not to do anything crazy. He said he cared about her more than anything in the world, that he'd made a mistake, and would do anything to make up for it. Laurel told him that he was a two-timing, slut-humping pig and to get out, then cut the ropes binding his wrists. Calvin very much looked like he wanted to reply to that as he put his clothes on, (actually pulling his briefs on backwards at first), but thought better of it as she tested the edge of her knife with one thumb.
Laurel had avoided relationships like the plague since, throwing herself into her music. Most of what she played sounded much like what you'd hear at a medieval fair, but more upbeat and with lyrics that weren't so outdated you had to have a degree in Victorian studies to understand them. She managed to get gigs about twice a month at Bueno Dave's, because Dave was a fan of anything Swords and Sorcery. Many a night he held role-playing or card-game tournaments for all the would-be Dungeon Masters to get their magic on as she performed. He said it added to the ambiance of the evening and, since that night was always wall-to-wall packed, Laurel played for almost two hours every time. Granted the money wasn't all that good, usually a couple of Franklins, but she got free drinks. Besides, she'd had bookings for more than a few parties and weddings from Dave's patrons, which added to sometimes low coffers, so she really didn't mind giving up a Friday or two a month.
"Look out!"
Laurel jammed on the brakes and swerved right as a police car careened from a side street, siren blaring. It skidded into a bootlegger turn and would've slammed into her driver's door if she hadn't jumped the curb. Her truck ended up sitting on the sidewalk just shy of the doors to Darryl's Pawn and Pay. The two women sat in shock as the cops ignored them and, without a second glance, shot north to vanish around the corner half a block away.
"Are your all right?" Laurel asked after a minute, once her heart rate returned to normal.
Kat still had a death grip on the dash. "I'm good. I think I need a Dramamine, but I'm good."
Laurel slowly pulled her pickup back onto the street, dropped it into neutral, and sat idling next to a parking meter. As her breathing slowed, a fire engine blew across the same intersection, following the police car's path.
"Wow," she said, "whatever happened must have been pretty bad."
Kat grunted in acknowledgment, then released the dashboard, leaned back against the bench seat, and lowered her window. "Probably another shooting. Seems like these nuts are going postal at the drop of a hat anymore. Like that freeway shooter a few years back, wigging out…blowing people away? Personally, I think they've all played to many video games."
She joked about violence as a defense mechanism. Her parents had both been killed by a car bomb when they'd gone to visit her mother's family in Japan, just after Kat had graduated high school. Her grandfather had pulled her through the next eight months with a flurry of hard-nosed calls and emails. He'd made it clear that if she didn't keep herself together, she'd get a visit from her grandmother, who'd always wanted her mother to move the back to Japan anyway. While Kat did like Japanese food, she had no desire to move to Tokyo and become a sardine. The place was so crowded you couldn't take a deep breath without having to apologize for stealing someone's air.
Laurel shook herself and put her aged truck into gear again. "Well. Let's just hope none of the dark elves bring their crossbows tonight."
Kat smiled. "That's my girl. Just remember to keep that rapier wit in your pants when Romeo shows up."
Laurel sighed and wondered if it was too late to join a convent.
* * *
Jake leaned against his Jeep on the field butting up to Bolton Airstrip, the airport beside the outer-belt, south of the city. Bolton was far smaller than Buckeye Central's main hub, so you could actually get close to the runways. He stood there sipping a Coke, waiting for Allen Ryker to once again thumb his nose at the gods.
Allen had discovered skydiving at a young age and had jumped at least twice a month for the last twelve years. At the ripe old age of twenty-seven he'd racked up well over two hundred and thirty jumps. The fact that he hadn't had an accident and burrowed into the ground, much like the coyote in those old Looney Tunes animated shows was a testament to his ability as a jumper.
Personally, Jake thought his friend was nuts.
The seventeen jumps he'd made with Britain's SAS had more than rid him of any desire to ever again throw his aerodynamically challenged body out of a perfectly operational airplane.
Unless it was crashing.
He tilted back his head to watch a single engine plane bank east, move with the prevailing winds, and finish its climb just shy of eight thousand feet. He knew any moment now, Allen was going to leap out of that hatch to plummet towards the sod and concrete at ov
er one hundred miles an hour. Allen had claimed that free-fall was as good as sex, and that the only thing that could be better was having sex while in free-fall, which was why Jake feared for his friend's sanity. He'd always been far too worried about catching a really big bug through the mouth, then having the back of his head blow out like a watermelon hit by a hollow-point, to get any enjoyment out of the experience.
He took another swig of Coke and saw a speck separate from the plane. As he always did, Jake prepared himself for Allen's normal antics. His friend had a habit of pulling his chute under what the instructors termed, "a prudent-fucking-altitude".
As Jake began mumbling to himself Allen's form continued to streak closer. By the time he could see the color of his friend's goggles, he was bellowing at the top of his lungs.
"Pull the cord... Allen, pull the cord... Oh shit, pull it-pull it-pull it...! Goddamnit all! Pull the fucking cord!"
Jake broke out in a cold sweat, certain he was seconds away from seeing a best-friend-flavored bag of Jell-O bounce off the tarmac. Then he saw the parachute unfurl and heard the WHOOMP as it flowered out into a massive rectangle, bringing Allen Ryker nearly to a dead stop midair.
What his—now undoubtedly crazy—friend had performed was called a LALO: Low-Altitude, Low-Opening jump. It wasn't something attempted by novice jumpers and, when done improperly, it could easily result in death. As if flinging yourself out of a plane thousands of feet up couldn't do that without adding the excitement of playing chicken with the ground. Jake swore Allen was trying to break both his legs every time he jumped. His friend laughed it off, however, and swore Jake had lost his nuts in Limey-land. Jake in return always gave Ryker the one-fingered salute, letting Al know he was number one in Jake's book.