Yoharie (part six)

Yoharie

Giarma Meets Trevor

(part six)

Oh, funny. Giarma pushed tightness out of her smile, making an odd face odder, no doubt. But he wasn’t looking. He was pulling the well-thumbed Totem to the cushion beside him. He drew another from the bottom of the stack. “Take this. It’s the twenty five edition. Anniversary reboot coming October, new art and all. Should’ve asked me to write the foreword.”

“Okay…thanks… So.” A compliment had been fished, and she’d let it hang.

“Hey, you wanna look at Iron Seeds?” He jumped up, tugged on a closet door.

Where she’d expected coats, Giarma saw a mini-office. Trevor wheeled out a stool; his work desk was the white-panels-on-metal-legs type, overhead light the exposed-bulb-on-metal-arm type. He jogged the corner of the desk, and the screen of his computer lit.

There was no purple here, only black and white sandwiched by beige margins. A dark green banner. No art, only a title, and thumbnail of Trevor and his cat. A sidebar had advertising, recent posts took up the main of the page.

“You ought to show this to Val.”

“So you got his email, you can hook him up as a subscriber.”

Trevor put his finger on the screen and scrolled to a form. “Listen, Giarma…can I call you Giarma? I don’t want you giving your brother that book. I want you to read it. Fair’s fair.” He edged around her, tapping her shoulder.

Pushy? Over-performing? Well, let it slide. She found herself liking Trevor okay.

And Val was not going to bristle…so why not? He read fantasy, drew comics. These two were likely-enough soul mates. For another, Val drifted with the current. She could sign him up for a drumming circle, an artisan bacon club. He would thank her, smile his wistful smile, and ignore the whole thing.

Artisan bacon club. Her Dad…

“Trevor,” she said. “Do you mind if I do a little search on your computer?”

“Have at.”

A moment later: “It exists! Trevor, can I order something?”

He moved to lean over her shoulder. “Cool.”

She went to his recliner, and flopped down. “Sorry.”

“Beer in the fridge,” he said. “Or, I’ll make coffee.”

“Diet Coke?”

“Coffee?”

“Hmm. Maybe coffee.”

6

Yoharie

Yoharie (part seven)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)