Waking Anastasia (36 page)

Jerry put the cup on the saucer and placed his free hand on top of Mika’s. “Thank you.” He squeezed her hand gently and smiled at her. For the first time, he noticed bright green flecks in the light brown of her eyes. Then she leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, before standing up and letting him have his hand back. “You’re leaving?”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah. I hurt, but she did what she needed to do and has moved on.”

“If you’re sure you’ll be okay, I’d better go.”

“Really?”

“Jerry, you’re hurting from your loss of Ana, and I’m a little sad from my breakup with Danveer so—”

Jerry levered himself up off the couch and dropped the afghan. “Danveer dumped you?”

“No,
I
broke up with
him
. When we were here with Uncle Palak on Monday, I finally saw how dissimilar we are. I think I was more attracted to the idea of having Uncle Palak as a mentor than I was of having Danveer as a husband. He really doesn’t have a spiritual bone in his body. I spoke with Uncle Palak about it and he agreed completely. Actually, he wondered why it took me so long to figure it out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Or I’m not, I guess. If you’re not rushing home to him, stay awhile and watch a movie, chat, help me with my chakras.” He just wasn’t ready to be completely alone in the loft.

Mika shook her head and moved toward the door, where her coat hung. “I’ll be honest, Jerry. From the few days we’ve spent working together at the station, I’m more attracted to you than I
ever
was to Danveer. You and I are on the same wavelength on so many things. You may not think you’re a spiritual person, but the way you talk about music and life and how you find a way to tickle the laughter out of every situation, is straight from the spirit, the soul. And it’s damned sexy . . . If I don’t leave now, I’m going to take advantage of your heartbreak and mourning for Ana, and take you to bed. Or at least try to.”

“Um . . .” He didn’t know what to say, but mostly because he knew that under different circumstances she would have been his dream woman—if his dream woman weren’t already a dead Russian Grand Duchess.

“Jerry, I’m going. The roads are a little slippery, so I’ll text you when I get home safely. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. If you feel up to coming into the office, I’ll gladly come by and pick you up.” She shrugged into her coat, not giving him a chance to help her, and perhaps get too close to her.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. You probably think I’m no better than Lee-Anne, flirting with the new boss like he’s fresh meat and I’m starved for attention.” Her smile faltered.

“Not at all.” He put the cup and saucer on the kitchen counter and closed the distance to Mika, where he took her hands. “You’re not like that and really, neither is Lee-Anne. You’re an amazing woman, and I
can
feel some kind of energy between us, but my heart really and truly belongs to a silly little Russian ghost. You’re right that Danveer is wrong for you. Even this thick-as-brick man could see that. He’s a nice enough guy, but you walk different paths. You have to promise me, though, that you’ll keep walking your own path, confident that the right someone will someday step right up beside you and let their path overlap with yours.”

Mika laughed between tears. “Now you sound like Uncle Palak! That’s practically what he said to me.”

“He’s a wise man. In my case, though, my wisdom comes from listening to too many deep, soulful lyrics, and from a Deepak Chopra book I read last year.”

She moved a half-step closer and her voice softened. “Jerry, I . . .”

It was Jerry’s turn to kiss Mika gently on the forehead. “I know. Go. I’ll be fine.” He turned her gently around, opened the door for her, and patted her on the butt to scoot her out. “Text me when you get home, and I promise to let you know if I need a ride in tomorrow. Good night, Mika.”

“G’night, Jerry. Namaste.”

“Namaste right back atcha.”

Mika snickered and made her way down the stairs. Jerry closed the door gently behind her and clicked the deadbolt over as quietly as he could.

“It never rains but when it pours.” He looked over at Sushi. “If I’d known this whole I’m-dying-soon shtick worked so well on women, I’d have tried it years ago.” The fish looked at him and tilted his head as if he understood him. Jerry shook his own head. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s unfair. Mika’s better than that, and so was Ana.” He sighed and dropped back onto the couch. “Ana . . . where the hell did she go? Did that darkness she was so worried about suck up her soul?” The idea made him shiver, and he grabbed the afghan off the floor, wrapped it around himself, brought the television out of nap mode, and let the modern-day Holmes and Watson distract him. Fifteen minutes later Mika’s text came in saying that she was home safe and sound and thinking about him. She also urged him to call any time if he needed to talk. He texted back a quick note that he was glad she was safely home and he would call if he needed anything. He’d have written more, but he could barely read what he typed and the strain on his eyes threatened to bring on another headache. He did close off with a colon-bracket smiley-face, just so she didn’t misinterpret his brusqueness. Holmes himself was sending a text on the screen so Jerry put his phone and dark thoughts aside, and got lost again in the twisting, turning plot.

@TheTaoOfJerr: “Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.”

~Frank Zappa

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
, his small travel alarm beeped only twice before Jerry silenced it. He’d been up for ten minutes already, staring fuzzily at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the street outside. There was a single honk and a short-lived distant siren, but generally speaking Victoria just didn’t seem to have the traffic and energy of even the suburbs of Toronto where he grew up. Only St. Marys was quieter than Victoria, though not after a hockey game, when the car and truck horns of either celebration or frustration punctured the night.

Last night had been a quick one. He’d fallen asleep immediately, had no dreams that he could remember, and woke up before the alarm sounded. He felt emotionally pummelled, but surprisingly well-rested. He was also fed up with what he’d called the “pity party” yesterday and was determined to get stuff done today. He still had the most recent quarterly reports to review for Manny, and his overly cautious nature told him he’d better call and confirm his family’s flight and hotel reservations. Online booking from the comfort of his pyjamas allowed him to bypass a travel agent and maybe save a few bucks, but it also meant that he had to do all the calling around himself, to confirm that the ducks were in a row for his mother’s visit.

There was something else he was supposed to do, but that part of his to-do list had fallen through his Swiss-cheese memory and might never reappear. He remembered that he planned to drop by the station later on, but since Mika would already be at work, he would cab it or walk, depending on what shape he was in when the time came. He nuked a couple of eggs, tossed them on toast, and washed them down with black coffee while scrolling through the reports he’d emailed himself. He had to enlarge the spreadsheet immensely so that his failing eyes could make out the numbers, but he quickly saw a couple areas of possible overspending he’d bring to Manny’s attention and highlighted them, just to jog his memory later on. He thought about it for a moment and decided that the highlighting wouldn’t be enough. A few taps of the laptop’s touchpad opened a blank document and he typed a quick note to himself with the dates and entries in question. His new motto was “Leave nothing to chance.” What he remembered today could be gone tomorrow, or even by lunchtime. He squinted at his note, rereading it to make sure he’d got everything down he wanted to remember. He did this with five more points before he finished going through the report. “It’s really not too bad at all. There’s nothing here Manny can’t fix quickly and almost painlessly.

“Speaking of painless, I suppose I should post a few tweets just to say I’m still alive . . . while I am.” He pulled up his list of quotable music quotes, logged on to his @TheTaoOfJerr Twitter account, and posted a couple quips he hadn’t used before, including his favourite one from Frank Zappa. He considered working on his blog, but it could wait until he dropped by the station. With Ana gone, he really needed to see some friendly faces, especially Mika’s. “You know, Sushi, it’s probably time I do that Last Will & Testament thing. If I leave everything to you, will you just blow it all on one of those bubbling scuba divers for your tank?” He really
did
need to do a will, though there was something troubling him about the idea. Something needed doing or . . .
had already been done
! He opened up the desk drawer and there was the will kit, all filled out and ready to be notarized or whatever the lawyer had to do. “Shit. Two wills would have been as bad as none. Easily fixed.” With a quick phone call he set up a five-minute appointment with Manny’s lawyer, and with a second call, ordered a cab to pick him up in an hour. “Time to shit, shower, and shave.”

MANNY FRESHENED JERRY’S
decaf and leaned back in his chair. “I hate the idea of a young feller like yourself even having to fill out a will, but I’ll honour whatever requests you’ve made, provided you do your best to hang around as long as possible and make it all unnecessary.”

“Deal. I’m not really asking you to do much, really. Just take a little of my ashes and sprinkle them in the Pacific and send the rest to my mother. There’s a list of my possessions that my sister and mother get first dibs on and then the rest goes to Mika.”

“Mika? Not Ana?” Manny raised his considerable eyebrows.

“Ana’s gone. She never really expected to be here that long anyway.”

“Why Mika?”

“She’s been great to me. She’s probably the smartest one you’ve got on staff, and that’s saying something with this staff. I want her to have a copy of my digital music collection and anything else she wants after my family has picked over it. If there’s any meat left on the bones after that, maybe open it up to the staff or donate it to a women’s shelter.”

“I like how you think, mate. Since that’s not going to happen for some time, what have you got on that cost analysis you were so keen to talk to me about?”

“I found three immediate ways you can trim your overhead without anyone losing their jobs, and a couple that might require some reconfiguring of job descriptions as well as letting one of the part-timers go, or convincing one of the full-timers to shift gears to part-time.”

“Close the door, Jerr, and show me.” Manny reached for the printouts Jerry had brought into the office with him. Jerry nudged the door shut with his foot and leaned over the reports his boss was spreading across the desk.

THE TWO MEN
went through the figures and then Jerry’s proposals line-by-line, and only quit because Jerry could feel his frustration and anger building quickly, and knew that he was going to snap at any moment. Part of it was probably the tumour’s interference, but he also knew his blood sugar was low and he needed to eat. Mika nearly jumped out of her chair when he suggested the two of them go for Vietnamese subs.

“I was afraid you weren’t going to talk to me, Jerr. I sort of crossed a line last night.”

Jerry shook his head. “Not at all. We both stepped
to
the line, but nothing was crossed. I didn’t do more than wave at you when I came in because I didn’t want to get distracted from the task at hand, and with my shot-to-hell attention span, your smile would have been too much of a distraction.” He held the lobby door open for her and followed her out onto the chilly street. “Let’s just relax and get a bite to eat and not worry about all that other stuff for now. Deal?”

She squeezed his hand quickly and released it. “Deal, Boss.”

FOR TWO PEOPLE
in the radio industry, they were both unusually quiet while enjoying their sate beef or vegetarian subs. They split an order of fresh salad rolls and washed it all down with a pot of green tea. Jerry smiled across the table as he folded up his empty sub wrapper.

“I’d forgotten how nice it is to eat
with
someone.”

“What about Ana?” Mika wiped a bit of sauce from the corner of her mouth.

“She loved to cook and was terrific at it, but she didn’t eat.”

“I suppose she wouldn’t have to, really.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “That must have the most surreal experience, having a ghost in your life. I mean, I was both freaked out and intrigued for the short time we were over at your apartment, but that was just for a few hours.”

“I gotta admit that it was the strangest experience I’ve ever had happen to me, but after a few days it just seemed normal.”

“You’re a lot more open-minded than Danveer, that’s for sure. All he wanted to do when we got home was run back over and get Ana to do it all again so he could film it and put it on YouTube or Instagram. The true miracle of it all completely escaped him. That was the breaking point for me.” She finished her tea and moved the cup and saucer to one side so she could lean her elbows on the table and move closer to Jerry. “You should write a story about it. Use only the facts, but tell the whole thing as fiction so people don’t try to lock you up.”