Chasing Yesterday

by Shiralyn J. Lee

  Jessie grabbed Travis by his arm and casually dragged him outside. They stood on the porch with the door closed behind them. She paced angrily in front of him, her eyes piercing irritably. “It would have been nice if you could have told me first before telling it to a room full of strangers! How the hell do you think I feel being humiliated like that?”

  His stance wide, he placed his hands on his waist. “Jessie, they’re not strangers.”

  “Well they are to me!” she shrieked.

  “Every single person in that room thought highly of your grandpa. He touched us all with his kindness and generosity. Maybe if you stick around long enough you’ll get to find that out. I haven’t heard you say one positive thing about him, or being here now. I know the circumstances might be the wrong reason for you being here, but for Christ Sake, Jessie, lighten the hell up.”

  Jessie stopped pacing—her hands in her pants front pockets and her one foot tapping impatiently. “The first taker who wants this place can have it. I’m done with the country way of living and tomorrow I’m going to arrange for a moving company to take the furniture into storage. I’m sick of all the nosey neighbors knowing my business before I even know about it. Do you think I want to even be here? There’s absolutely no other reason that would have brought me back here, do you understand that?”

  “Jeez, Jessie, don’t you think you should wait a while? I mean, your granddaddy was only buried today.”

  “Do you honestly believe that I don’t know that, Travis?”

  “I’m sorry, Jessie, I just meant it as a figure of speech, that’s all. You really should lighten up though.”

  The front door opened and Kennedy peered out. “Is the coast clear?” she giggled. “Joe and I are going to head off. Being as there’s only one of you living here, I suppose you won’t be needing all of this food. Would you mind—?”

  “Take whatever you want, Kennedy, I really have no need for it after today.” Jessie frustrated, rubbed her face with her hands.

  Kennedy retreated back into the house and helped herself to loading a container full of food.

  “You do know that half of the people who showed up today have been helping to keep this ranch afloat for the past few days, feeding the cattle and the horses, and I’ve been driving by to make sure the house hadn’t been broken in to. The guys who were working here, took off as soon as they heard that their boss was dead. There’s just no chivalry left in this world. And what about Blue?” Travis asked looking at the dog hiding under the table.

  “What about him? I’ll take him to a shelter first thing in the morning. I’m sure someone will want a raggedy looking dog, won’t they?”

  Travis stepped down from the porch ready to leave. “Oh, come on, Jessie, you can’t really mean that? Just look at him. He loves you. He loved Ned, and Ned loved him. Think about what your Granddaddy would have wanted. He would have wanted you to stay and for Blue to remain here, don’t you agree?”

  “I have no place for a dog back at my apartment. Why don’t you take him if you’re so concerned? I’m sure you could use a police dog for sniffing out the criminals and drugs. He can be trained, I’m sure of it.”

  Travis headed for his truck. He put his hat back on and opened the driver’ side door. Looking back, he said, “You’re wrong, you know. Your granddaddy didn’t want it this way. He wanted you here, Blue here. He would have given his right arm to have you back, but look at what it’s taken. No, Jessie, this time you’re wrong.”

  Jessie remained on the porch—patches of sunlight were catching her through the gaps in the wooden beams. She gave a single wave and turned around to walk back inside the house—her attention being caught by Blue. He huffed as she stared at him. “What?” she said to him and then continued into the house.

  •••

  The following morning Jessie put Blue in the back of her truck and drove to the nearest dog shelter. She could see him in her rear-view mirror enjoying the fresh air and sniffing the different smells as she drove through the open country. “Fuck. Why do I feel so guilty for doing this?” she asked herself. With guilt overwhelming her, she pulled the truck over to the side of the road. She turned the engine off and got out and lit up a cigarette. “Go for a run, Blue,” she told him. Blue jumped down and ran toward the trees, cocking his leg up at the first tree trunk he came across. Jessie leant back against the truck door and rested her foot up. She smoked her cigarette and thought about what her options were. “Fuck, Pop-pops, why did you have to die?”

  Unknowingly to her, she had pulled over at the same spot that her grandpa had died.

  Blue excitedly sniffed the trees and marked his territory until came across the ditch where his master’s truck had crashed. He looked down and barked—his tail wagging energetically. Jessie watched him for a moment as he continued to bark at the same spot. Then he growled.

  “Blue!” she yelled at him. Blue sat down and whimpered. “What is it?” Jessie asked, annoyed at him. She casually wandered over to see what he was barking at and at first, she couldn’t see anything, but then the sun caught a metal object. It sparkled. She stared harder to see what the object was. Blue barked again as if he was trying to tell her something. She crouched down and grabbed the object from the grass. Inspecting it, she found it to be a gold locket on a chain. Prising it open, she was surprised to see a picture of her as a young child and her sister. “What the fuck?” she said aloud. The locket had been in her grandpa’s possession ever since her parents died. It was his way of staying close to his daughter as she had always worn the locket. Jessie looked around not knowing what to think. “Blue, get back in the truck,” she told him firmly. Blue whined and then trotted over to the truck and waited by the passenger door. “So you want to ride up front, hey,” she asked him and smiled.

  She sat in the truck staring at the locket that dangled over her hand—her finger stroking over the picture of her and her sister. She gave Blue a pat and hung the chain over the rear-view mirror and it was at this moment that she heard her inner-self saying, ‘stay,’ and starting up the truck, she turned it around and headed back to the ranch.

  Later that evening after feeding Blue, Jessie decided to go to the local bar and just drink her sorrows away. She parked her truck in the parking lot and entered through the main entrance, where she sat herself on a stool at the bar and ordered a bottle of beer.

  In the background pool was being played, the sound of the resin balls being hit by the cue ball over the music playing from the jukebox. Cigarette smoke filled the bar and moments of laughter and murmured conversations went on.

  Jessie was on her third bottle beer—peeling the label off, when a woman calmly seated herself on the stool next to her. A smile passed between them and then the woman pointed at Jessie’s bottle and held two fingers up for the bartender to see that she was buying a drink for herself and for Jessie. The bartender plonked the two bottles down in front of the woman and took the twenty dollar bill that she was holding out. The woman picked up one of the bottles and placed it down in front of Jessie.

  Jessie looked up to see what was going on.

  “Cheers,” the woman said, as she brushed her long brown hair behind her ear and then put her bottle to her lips—swigging back the beer.

  Jessie picked her beer up and took a swig of it. “Cheers,” she said back.

  The woman rested her elbow on the bar and propped her head in the palm of her hand as she gazed at Jessie with her honey-brown eyes. “Are you here on your own?” she asked.

  Looking back at her bottle of beer, Jessie sighed. “I suppose I am now.”

  “That sounded a little sad, would you like some company?”

  “I can’t stop you from sitting there,” Jessie said casually to her.

  “I’m getting a sense that you’re not the talkative type. I’m Heather King, by the way,” she said, holding her hand out to shake.

  Jessie placed her beer down on the bar and shook her hand. “Jessie Wheeler, and thanks for the be
er.”

  “No problem,” Heather said and then took another swig of beer. “Hmm, perhaps I should put some different music on the jukebox, any requests?”

  “I’m not fussed, you choose.”

  Heather got up from her stool and went over to the jukebox, where she chose a couple of country songs to play. Jessie observed her, noting her slender figure in her caramel-suede swing-fringe sleeved jacket and dark-denim jeans—she liked what she saw.

  “This is one of my favourites,” Heather said, as she happily danced her way back to her stool.

  “Mine too,” Jessie replied. “So do you live around here?”

  “Actually, no. I was driving through when my tire blew out. The tire place is closed, so I have to wait until the morning to get it fixed. Looks like I’ll be spending the night in a motel.”

  “That sucks. So are you heading anywhere interesting?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I like to move around from town to town, I’ve never been able to settle in just one place for some reason. Shit, I’ve even been known to get up in the middle of the night and get in my Mustang and drive, never returning to where I came from. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it can be a real pain in the butt if I’ve left something behind like a personal belonging. I’ve had to replace my CD player twice now. Not because I couldn’t go back and get it, but because I didn’t want to. Long story and probably boring for you to hear, am I right?”

  Jessie caught the attention of the bartender and held two fingers up for the next round of drinks. She was on her way to getting drunk and for the first time in days, she was feeling relaxed. “Maybe,” she replied. “I don’t understand. Why would you need to get up in the middle of the night and just leave?”

  Heather sniggered. “One night stands don’t always go according to plan. You’ve gotta sneak out of there before they wake and start to ask the usual bull shit questions of, ‘when can I see you again,’ or, ‘can I have your number?’ and the usual ‘nah, nah, nah, nah.’ The best one was a girl that I met in a bar, ‘come and meet my mother,’ she said after having danced with her for ten minutes and getting a little heated, shall we say, in the women’s toilets. ‘She’ll cook us dinner,’ she said. I was out of there in a flash, and I mean I climbed out of the toilet window, landed on a trash can and then ran to my car without looking back once. God, I bet she waited for ages for me to come out of that toilet. I wonder how long it took before it dawned on her that I wasn’t coming back?”

  The bartender plonked the bottles of beer down in front of them and Jessie passed him a ten dollar note. “That’s for the next two drinks as well,” she said.

  “Wow, you are on a mission. Is there a reason that you’re drinking this heavily by yourself?” Heather asked. A half smile crossed her face.

  “Who says I’m drinking by myself? You’re here, aren’t you?” She picked up her bottle and drank its contents in one long chug and then slammed the bottle down on the bar. The bartender immediately served her another bottle. “Besides, it’s been a while since I had a good drink.”

  Heather held her bottle with both hands and caressed it as if it were a sensual object. “Can I ask you why you didn’t react to what I just told you?”

  “No.” Jessie replied sharply.

  “Okay. A little harsh, but I get it. So how many beers have you had, I can see that your eyelids are getting heavy?”

  “You sure like to ask a lot of questions, don’t you? If you must know, I’ve had five…I think.”

  The bartender picked up Heather’s empty bottle and gestured to get her another. She wagged her finger and shook her head. “I’ll have a cola, thanks.”

  “So you’re hoping to find a motel? You won’t find one close by, the nearest motel is miles away. This is hell, welcome.”

  “Shit! Really?” Heather replied.

  “Yep!”

  “Damn. Looks like I’m going to have to ride the night out in my car. Don’t you just hate that?”

  “Dunno, I’ve never tried it.”

  “Well, I’m out of here. I best get as much sleep as I can, it’s going to be along night for me. It was nice meeting you, Jessie Wheeler. I hope we bump into each other again someday.”

  Jessie gave a nod and waved two fingers. “Perhaps we will.”

  Heather got up from her stool and looking back over her shoulder at Jessie, she headed out of the bar.

  Jessie drank another two bottles of beer before she felt that it was time for her to make tracks. Her words slurred, she thanked the bartender and swaggered out of the bar. In the parking lot, she fumbled around in her jacket pocket for her truck keys and once managing to pull them out, she dropped them on the ground. Laughing at herself, she attempted to kneel down and pick them up, except her attempt was futile as she ended up falling into a crumpled heap, laughing hysterically at herself.

  She lay on her back, her vision blurred, and stared up at the blue-black night sky filled with stars and a half-moon—her keys lay next to her head. Too drunk to care, she remained in her position—her heavy eyelids opened and closed slowly.

  The sound of footsteps crunching over the gravelly ground could be heard approaching her. She slowly turned her head to face the direction that they were coming from. The silhouette of a woman with long hair bending over her appeared and a hand reached down to pull her up back on to her feet.

  “Looks like you’re not going to get rid of me that easily,” Heather said.

  Jessie laughed and grabbed Heather’s arm as she struggled to stand up. “Looks like I’m not going to be sleeping on the ground after all,” she laughed.

  “Come on, let’s get you into your truck. Where do you live, I’ll drive you home and then I’ll call a taxi from there. You can at least pay for that.” She hoisted Jessie up into the passenger seat. It wasn’t easy. Jessie wasn’t the sort to give in easily and struggled to do it herself, but instead she hindered the task by constantly laughing every time that Heather touched her. Eventually she managed to climb into the truck and Heather fastened up her seatbelt. Jessie slumped and drunkenly passed out. Heather paused and weighed up the situation. Searching through Jessie’s pockets, she found her wallet and looked for her driver’s license for her home address but it gave her Vancouver address. “That’s not going to work, is it?” she muttered. She then opened the glove box and searched through paperwork that had been shoved inside. Finding the letter from her lawyer with a local address on, she decided to drive to that location. Not knowing how to get there, she used the GPS to instruct her.

  The country lane was narrow and dark with overhanging tree branches—moths flew into the high-beam headlights and crickets chirped in the long grass verges. Heather drove slowly as they approached the ranch driveway, bringing the truck to a stop so that she could get a good look at the large ranch house with the outdoor lights lighting up the porch. “Nice,” she said quietly. She drove up to the house and parked the truck near to the steps leading up to the front door. She looked across at Jessie to see that she was still passed out and got out of the truck and walked around to the other side, where she opened the passenger door and unclicked Jessie’s seatbelt. “Hmm, how am I going to do this?” she asked—her hands on her hips. “Okay, you can do this,” she told herself. She placed her hands around Jessie’s waist and pulled her from her seat, dragging her out of the truck and across the ground—the heels of her boots leaving a trail in the dry dirt.

  She propped her on the steps, leaning her against the rail while she searched for a key to unlock the door. Blue barked from inside the house, causing Heather to be nervous about entering. She tapped Jessie’s cheek to try and wake her up—Jessie stirred and half-opened her eyes.

  “Where am I?” she muttered.

  “You’re home, Jessie. I just need to know where the key is, and is that dog friendly?”

  “Oh his name is Blue and the key’s up there.” She pointed to the hanging fern above her. “I’m tired,” she slurred, slapping her lips toge
ther.

  “Sure, hon, I’ll get you to bed soon enough.” Looking down at Jessie, she shook her head. “Not the ending to the night that I had in mind.” She stretched over Jessie and felt for the key in the hanging fern. Pulling it free, she unlocked the door—Blue came bounding out, his tail wagging, he licked Jessie’s face. Jessie laughed and tried to push him off her but she just ended up falling on to her back and laughing again.

  Heather turned on the light and then picked Jessie up by her armpits and dragged her backwards into the house. She plonked her on the sofa, plumping a cushion behind her head and then lifted her feet up—undoing the laces on her boots and prising them off her feet.

  Looking at the front door and realising that it was still open and that the dog was outside, she got up and called him. He didn’t come to her, so she then wolf whistled for him to come. He still didn’t come. “Shit! Okay, what does a dog like?” She went to the kitchen and searched in the fridge. Spotting a plate of chicken wings, she grabbed one and pulled a strip of meat from it. “Oh, dog, dog, dog, dog, come and get some yummy juicy chicken,” she called. Blue came running into the house, his tongue hanging out from the side of his mouth and his eyes focused on her hand. “Sit!” she said dominantly. Blue sat, his tail wagged over the floor. Heather fed him the chicken and then went and closed the door…

  Chapter Four

  As Jessie lay on the sofa sleeping into the morning hours, Blue sat at her side watching over her with his head rested on her chest. She stirred—waking to the distinctive stench of dog breath. “Jesus, Blue, that’s disgusting,” she moaned, as she pushed him away. She slapped her dry lips together—her own breath tasting of stale beer and cigarettes. Grabbing hold of her throbbing head, she slowly got up from the sofa. “Shit!” she groaned. She stood in the middle of the room and feeling slightly nauseous and dizzy, she held her stomach and covered her mouth, thinking that she was going to throw up. Blue pawed her leg to get her attention. “Stop it, Blue,” she managed to say.