Jessica

Part 3 of 3

“Huh?”

“Choosing love over a career.”

“You did?” she asked looking at the room.

“Sort of, I played hockey.”

“Most of us used to.”

“No, I was good; really good.”  Deke paused.  “They all expected me to play in the NHL.”

“Is that where Deke came from?”

“Yeah, I was sort of known for it, which is a deke in itself really—”

“So what happened?”

“My Mom got sick.”

“Oh.”

“She was admitted to hospital the day before the scouts came.  I chose to stay with her.”

“Why didn’t you go, play the game, and come back?”

“She died in the middle of the second period.”

“I’m so sorry….”

“She’d spent everything we had on me and hockey.  After her funeral, the owner of this place, Jake, took me in.”

The thoughts she couldn’t quite finish hummed in Katherine’s ears like a badly tuned radio, “Wow….”

“Yeah….  But that’s life.  We all face our forks.”

“Sorry?”

Deke smiled, “In life we make choices.  When we’re young, we think life’s a video game but as we get older we realize there are no levels to replay and we have to live with the decisions we make.”

“Why didn’t you keep playing hockey?”

“I sold my skates for food a long time ago,” Deke said taking her glass.

“Oh… where’s your washroom?”

“It’s the room to your left.”

“Thanks.”  Katherine said pushing through the sheet Deke had pinned up over the doorway.

Deke refilled her glass at the sink and came back.  Putting down the glass, he flattened the couch.  He’d noticed her eyes drooping.

When she came out of the bathroom, her eyes were red and her face was wet.  “Are you okay?” Deke asked.

Katherine started to cry, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just….”

Deke came over impulsively, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.  “You made a choice Katie.”

She cried harder.  Everyone used to call her Katie, before she moved to the UK that is.  Katie was who she was here—at home.  Who she’d been to Dean before she left—

The tears were mostly the whiskey’s fault but her choices had kept her up at night for years.  She didn’t live with them the way Deke did, she lived against them.

When the tears finally slowed, she looked up at Deke again.  Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her forehead before he tucked her in.  Deke lay down on top of the blankets behind her, his thumb making soothing circles on her shoulder until her breath softened.  Quietly, he stood, withdrawing to his own bed.

The next morning Katherine awoke to the sound of Deke snoring lightly in the next room behind the floral bed sheet he’d hung in place of a door.  The flavour of burnt coffee smouldered on her tongue.  He was right.  Smiling, she quietly pulled on her shoes and jacket, letting herself out.  Last night’s snowstorm had left a fresh blanket of snow glistening in the morning sun and she revelled at the newness of her footprints.

© Jessica Becking 2010

Part 2 of 3

Deke paused, glancing around.  Too many eyes were on him, too many titters of laughter echoed in his ears.  He wanted to retreat, run away; he avoided being the center of attention now.  She was right though, he should know better.  Taking a deep breath and relaxing his shoulders he picked up the grey cloth off the wall and set to wiping down the bar.  “So what’s so terrible about your sister getting married?”

“It’s not that she’s getting married,” Katherine sighed.  “It’s that she’s two years younger.”

The locals all started to toddle home.  They’d never needed a bell in Fall’s Bar.  The grey rag was enough.

Deke took the empty glass from her, “I still don’t get it.”

“I had it and I gave it up.”

“Come again?”

“Five years ago I had the great relationship.  I gave it up for a British visa.”

“So you made a choice?”  Deke asked.   

“I guess you could say that.”

The bar was empty now and Jake kept shooting him get-rid-of-her-now looks.  “Where are you staying tonight?”

“Where’s the nearest motel?”

“I’ve got a pullout in my apartment?”

Katherine paused, her eyes narrowing.  “I don’t know you.”

“And I don’t know you.”

They looked at each another evenly.  Katherine wasn’t sure, but through the gauzy alcoholic vale she’d drawn over her face, she couldn’t bring herself to care.  “Sure,” she shrugged, “Thanks.”

Deke led Katherine through the kitchens and up some stairs.  His apartment was sparse: a faded couch opposite a television, a kitchenette with a folding table and a chair.  There was nothing in the way of decorations.  Nothing hung on the walls, nothing to say anything about him.  There weren’t even doors.  “Have a seat,” Deke offered, motioning to the couch.

“Thank you.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Water.”

“No more alcohol?”

“I’m expected to be a maid of honour tomorrow.”

Deke filled a glass from the cupboard above the sink and brought it back to her.

“Thanks.”

“No problem…” he paused as Katherine took a gulp.  “Making the choice the other way isn’t any easier you know.”

© Jessica Becking 2010

Part 1 of 3

“Check out the muckymuck,” Jake whispered to Deke as Katherine rolled into Falls’ Bar.  She’d looked like a frozen tumbleweed then, blond waves crisped with frost.  Every face had turned to stare at her as she perched on a barstool.  Her body and the plunging V of her black dress, created crisp contemporary lines against the old, scrubbed bar and the round velvet stool.  Deke had been pouring a pint at the time.  She had waved the manicured hand she draped across the bar lazily in an over-confidant attempt to get his attention.  It had made him want to ignore her and he did, until, Jake started chatting her up.  Jake’s grey, husky drawl smoked through the bar asking her where her toque and boots were and whether her mom had forgotten to attach idiot strings to her mittens.  Deke had gone to her rescue.  He’d served her four double Irish coffees, a plate of poutine, and a butter tart since then.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Katherine laughed, “A twenty-sixer of vodka, no mixer.”

“You’ve already had four doubles.”

Katherine shrugged, “You’ve been counting?”

“Bad day?”

“Bad month more like it,”

“What happened?” Deke asked compulsively.

“Let’s just say that today alone, freezing rain and black ice both tried to stick nails in my coffin.”

“Why’d you even leave home?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for almost twenty four hours now.”

“So you don’t live around here then?”

“Nope,” she paused.  “I’m Katherine.”

“Deke.”

“That’s an unusual name.”

“It’s a nickname that stuck.”

“Get me another?” Katherine asked swaying her mug back and forth.

“How about some water?”

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“So what’s so terrible?”

“My sister’s getting married.”

“Aren’t weddings supposed to be happy affairs?”

“Yeah, if you’re the one getting married,” Katherine bit back sarcastically.

“Did you just get a divorce or something?”

“Do I look that old?”  She knew she was asking for a fight or for him to ignore her.  Somehow, she couldn’t be bothered to care which he gave her—or nothing at all.

“No, you look too good to be single.”

“Nice line.”

Deke handed her a glass of water with a smirk.  “Ten years of bartending.”

“So you started serving when you were what, fourteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“High school drop-out?” Katherine sneered.  She shouldn’t have had so much; alcohol always made her mean.

“Don’t judge me!” Deke said, getting in her face.

“You judged me.”

A number of the locals were watching them now.  Deke lowered his voice, “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes you did!” Katherine shot back, her voice far too loud.  “You assumed I was taken.  You looked at me and you saw nice hair, great boobs, expensive clothes, and thought she must have a great job and a great relationship, but guess what?  I don’t.”

© Jessica Becking 2010