Seven
Little Vestemere had finally caved to the call of the big box store. Owen wheeled his cart up to a display of breaded chicken…No. Steve had fed him another Dagwood (and more pie) at lunch. Breaded chicken was out. Still, his stomach growled and “Never shop hungry,” he muttered, cart squeaking in protest as he rolled it away, over to the produce section. Clean eating had been a commitment he’d picked up from Sondra, initially just for health, but over time it had evolved, became a way he convinced himself he truly was better than the guy he pretended to be on the street. Off duty, the real Owen was health conscious. Took excellent care of himself. It was a mind-screw, and he knew it, yet the results (unintended, but still), seemed to be worth sacrificing breaded chicken and pie. He’d become ripped in a way that surprised him; bulky muscle. A six pack on his gut. And so…he added tomatoes and spinach to his cart, red onion too, considering. A few chopped eggs and he’d have a salad that was way better than any sandwich Steve could build. He squeaked in the direction of Dairy. Heard “Hey, Old Man” and turned.
Rob and Jessalyn’s cart was stacked with frozen pizzas on one side, yogurt and granola on the other. His ’n hers. Owen grinned. The artist and the blue-collar carpenter.
“I needed to see you,” said Rob.
Oh? To tell him they’d taken their weird fairytales to the police?
“My rental.” Rob looked harried. “I don’t suppose I could re-assign you away from framing in the new development and into the bathroom there? I want to try some tile work—you done tile work before?”
Hell, no. He was a cop, not a carpenter. And what about the books? “Uh—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Rob waved a hand. “It’s dead easy. A couple Google tutorials and you’ll be set. I just want to pilot a look before I roll it in as a feature in the new development.”
Okay, but what about the books? They’d had a deal. And beyond that, was this a legitimate job offer? Or pity? “You know, Rob,” he said, voice low, “if you’re worried about me needing money—”
“I’m not. I mean—shit, that was callous. I mean I am, but…” Rob looked hunted. “I’ve taken on more than I can manage—”
“—which was exactly what I told you,” inserted his wife.
Little harpy. She reminded Owen of Tess, he and Steve’s youngest sister.
“—and now I’m behind a dozen eight balls.” Rob pulled a face.
Owen gnawed the inside of his cheek. A Google tutorial on tiling was all he’d need to master something he’d never done before? He highly doubted it, but it was a step up from checking his phone every five minutes. “I can surf youtube,” he said. “Now about the books—”
“Thanks!” Rob exhaled. “Now, there’re some new folks in town and they’re renting from me, but—”
“There’s one of them now.” Jessalyn pumped a hand in the air. “Natasha! Hello!”
Owen stared at them. These two did not give a single shit about the weird books. He massaged his forehead.
“Uh…Owen?” Rob prompted his hand from his face. “Could I introduce you to Natasha Nikoslav?”
Owen took his hand from his eyes and…wary. It was the first word that sprang forth as a lithe blonde in yoga pants inched up to them, reluctance all over a face that….his brow quirked. That was all peaches and cream and way too much perfection for someone whose cart was filled with potato chips, soda, and—Jesus! They still make those?—bags of frozen perogies.
The blonde smiled, a reluctant twitch of expression that looked the way feet felt when they wanted to run. “Good evening Jessalyn,” she said. “Rob.”
An accent. And not Nordic like her silver blonde hair, but instead…Nikoslav. Was that Russian? Ukrainian, maybe? And regardless, why were her hands white-knuckled on her cart? And the way her throat worked….that’s panic. His senses sharpened and as Natasha Nikoslav’s fists slid greasily back and forth on the handle, his own words revisited him: Be on the lookout for anything hinky. He stared at the newcomer knowing that if she were a teen he’d demand she empty her pockets, show him what she’d stolen. Because she acted just like a street thief. A dart-eyed, unskilled street thief.
“Natasha, meet my oldest friend, Owen Brophy,” said Rob. “He’ll also be the carpenter who disrupts your life for a while.”
A carpenter? That was stretch. Still, he stuck a hand out.
Natasha Nikoslav’s fingers hopped on and off his so fast they barely connected and he resisted the impulse to snort. Add snob to sneak-thief? Or…crap. She was eyeing his hair. His beard and tats. Add frightened to sneak-thief. He stifled an internal sigh and—when there’s alarm, use charm—cranked up his smile. “You come into the Valley from out on the coast, Ms. Nikoslav?”
“I—you mean Vancouver?” Her eyes enlarged. “Oh, my no. I mean I wish. I’m from Eastern Alberta.”
Eastern Alberta? Was that somehow different from the rest of Alberta which, as far as he’d ever been told, was made up of rich hillbillies who thought a trip to their Oilsands constituted a science lecture? “Alberta,” he echoed, and knew he should bite his tongue, yet…“So does that mean you’re a rancher? Or a rig worker?”
The look she pinned him with was akin to a needle being thrust through a bug, and her eyes. What color was that? He squinted. Gold? Why, how very regal, Tsarina.
Her forehead knit in the tiniest frown, then “I have never set foot on a ranch or in an oilfield,” she said.
Well. He forced back a grin. I stand corrected.
“But most of my clientele are employed by either one or the other and I assure you,” she sniffed. “They work very hard.”
“That right?” He tucked his tongue in his cheek. “What do you do?”
Her nose was slightly aquiline. It amusing to see it soar in the air. “I,” she said, “am a therapeutic masseuse.”
Oh, for… a ‘therapeutic masseuse’? Right. A therapeutic masseuse who looked like her and sounded like she’d been mail-ordered from Europe? At least his junkies on the Downtown East Side had the decency to be straight-up and just say ‘hooker’. ‘Therapeutic masseuse’. Was that rich Alberta lingo? He smoothed his whiskers to pull away a smile, and “A masseuse,” he reflected. “Is that what brings you here? Are you setting up a…clinic?”
“No.” Her tone was so cold it could freeze the flowers in the orchards. No crop this year, folks. An icy Tsarina blew into town. Had she really been that pissed off about the rancher / oilfield remark? “My cousin deals in collectables,” she said. “He’s scouting the market and I’ve come to help.”
Bull. He didn’t know quite how this was a lie—only that it was one. He affected a perplexed look and “Vestemere instead of Cascadia?” he said. ’Cause if it was him looking to sell goods to tourists, he’d head down the highway, to the lakeside town.
“The rent was too high in Cascadia,” she replied. “Vestemere was ideal.”
Bull again. Her rapid-fire answers were too anticipatory. Too rehearsed. And why, exactly, did she keep glancing at Rob like she wanted his approval?
Unless…a ‘masseuse’. Did she know the wealthy local contractor had deep pockets? “So your cousin,” he reclaimed her attention. “He’s a picker?”
“Why…” She blinked. “Why…yes.” She sounded shocked. “He does play the guitar. How did you kn—”
“Natasha,” Jessalyn broke in. “What Owen is asking is if Jakob’s a junker. As in someone who scours yard sales and junk yards.”
The Tsarina’s mouth—a plump, pink bow that some men (maybe even some women) just might pay top-dollar for, formed a perfect, round O. “Is Jakob…no. Oh, my no.” She started to giggle, a sound that reminded Owen of coins raining into a fountain before she clapped a hand atop her mouth. “I am sorry, but…if you met Jakob, you’d know why just picturing him in a junk yard…”
Another coin-toss of giggles grabbed her tongue and Jessalyn said, dryly, “She’s not wrong.”
Okay. Owen chewed his tongue. So much for assuming that most people who dealt in collectables scrounged through hoarder’s yards and other dumpster-dive places. But regardless— “I’m surprised a collector of high-end memorabilia—”
"—it’s art, actually. He deals with Sotheby’s.” Natasha Nikoslav was still laughing.
“—would land in the boondocks here.”
She sobered, and eyed him. “Are you not local?”
His brow jumped. Had he said he was local?
“As such you may not notice the high volume of vacationers who visit you in the summer,” a serene smile graced her face, “but an eastern Albertan who’s never seen a single tourist drift alongside the tumbleweeds on the prairie notices precisely how tourist-rich your beautiful British Columbia is.”
She was mocking him. Making fun of his province the way he’d made fun of hers. It took him aback. Over the past years women had flirted with him. Been scared of him. Flirted with him because they were scared of him. And now here was this Albertan Tsarina, mocking him. “You think tourists can afford your cousin’s high end junk?” Art, his ass.
“Tourists can afford much more than just peaches from your roadside fruit-stands,” she replied. “After all, if they have money to travel, they have money for a memento.”
“Touche,” Jessalyn said and wore a look that said she’d like to wet her finger, draw a line in the air to signify the Tsarina’s scored point.
And that irritated the hell out of him. Had he not just told her and Rob to keep their heads up about anything hinky? Civilians, he thought sourly, and as for Jessalyn—You are the most clueless cop’s kid ever, Sunshine. He shook his head and when Rob murmured, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jessie,” he wondered if maybe her husband was calling her out for being so gullible.
But—“Why not a dinner party?” she replied. “We have new friends—and old ones—” Here she gave him a smirk “—in town.”
Wait, what? A dinner party? He looked to Rob, relieved to see his old friend look pained. An expression the poor sap probably wore a lot.
“You have a show in just a few day in Vancouver,” Rob said. “So a dinner party—”
“I cook for you and me anyway.” Jessalyn shrugged. “So what’s doubling or tripling a recipe for a few more people?” She beamed at the Tsarina—whose eyes were so wide Owen was flat-out astonished that Rob and Jessalyn couldn’t see all her panic.
“I…I don’t socialize much,” the masseuse said.
Unless you’re getting paid to? he wondered
A startled look crossed her face and he winced at how coincidental its timing was. Although…who the hell was he, really, to be so suspicious and harsh? So she looked uncomfortable. Maybe she had social anxiety. Or maybe she was on a tight schedule, had no time for idle chit-chat. And maybe he was being paranoid and belligerent because those were the exact traits he’d been warned he’d take on back when he first trained to go undercover.
Jessalyn clapped her hands together. “Dinner party!” she announced. “I’ll get a hold of everyone by tomorrow.”
Everyone? Shit. Exactly how many people was he going to be forced to break bread with?
“Uh…thank you?” said the Tsarina, and when their gazes met it felt like a moment of commiseration connected them.
“Chat soon!” said Jessalyn and wheeled her cart, and Rob, away.
He remained before the Tsarina. “Guess I’ll see you at the dinner party.”
“Ja—yes.” A troubled knot marred her peaches and cream face. He analyzed it. First panicked, now worried. And no, it was not just paranoia or belligerence misreading things. Natasha Nikoslav was chewing her lip, had a death-grip on her cart…
“It was a pleasure,” she said, politely yet distractedly, and he murmured something in kind, then kept her in the corner of his eye while he found the eggs he’d wanted, and a jug of skim milk. She meandered, still in that aimless, disconnected sort of way, over to a shelf of Doritos (a few bags of which she tossed top the potato chips already in her cart), then on to a display of books big box stores were all wont to have now, one effort of many to keep shoppers locked under one roof instead of escaping out into the smaller shops and boutiques that were locally owned.
He stayed a couple aisles down as she moved amid the books, close enough that he could tell by the gregarious colors on the covers that she’d moved into the children’s section, where she selected a tome, font big enough that he could read the title.
Well, surprise, surprise.
Children’s Best Beloved Fairytales.
©bonnie randall 2005