Free Jaq With a Q (Kismet) by Jettie Woodruff Page A

work with her. I asked trivial little questions about trivial little things to take her mind off her fears.
    Jaq called again right after noon. I had just hit familiar ground. Well, sort of. A lot had changed since I had been back there. The dairy where we used to get ice-cream was closed up, the shoe store completely gone, building and all, and the drugstore on the corner, gone. New buildings had gone up in places that used to be crop fields, a shopping center, an office building, and a Walmart Supercenter, all new since I had been back there.
    “Hey, everything okay?” I questioned, my eyes on the familiar, yet foreign scenery around me.
    “No, my computer won’t work.”
    “What do you mean it won’t work?”
    “Nothing happens. It says no internet connection.”
    “I’ll take a look at it later.”
    “How? You’re all the way across the world.”
    One, she wouldn’t let me in her apartment anyway, so why did it even matter? And two, I questioned her geography, missing the sarcasm. We were both still on the east coast. “I will walk you through a couple things later,” I said as I drove out of town, unbelieving of how much things had changed. Even the county roads I had to go on looked different. New homes, a log yard, and horse ranch, all new to me. The horse ranch may have been there, just not as big. I vaguely remembered a conversation with my dad about it. He had planned on taking us there. Silas was stoked about it and I wasn’t having anything to do with it, but the memory still brought a good feeling. I could almost picture Silas and me in the back seat of that old Cadillac, arguing about getting on a horse. Here I was staring thirty in the face and I still hadn’t done it.
    “Well, I have a rash. I need to look something up.”
    I rolled my eyes, but not only at Jaq’s new disease dilemma, the tracks in the long driveway, too. My eyes squinted from the bright sun to the barely visible path in front of me. Silas beat me, and I ignored the life threatening rash. “I’ll fix it later. I’ll call you after bit. I literally just got to the lake.”
    “You did? How is it? What does it look like?”
    Jaq’s inquisitiveness caused me to check myself, my feelings, and the warm sensation I felt from being there. It was grown up, no doubt about it, the place had been taken over by Mother Nature, but the beauty was still there. In the eye of the beholder. “It’s definitely spring. Little purple flowers are blooming all along the road, the trees are camouflaged with bright new leaves, and the sun is over a beautiful blue sky. I can’t wait for you to see it.”
    A deep sigh exhausted in my ear. “I have to go, bye Ollie.”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Working on my computer.”
    “Well, stop it. I’ll help you later. It’s lunch time. Go make yourself a nice lunch. Try a recipe for once.”
    “Where am I going to get it from, Einstein? My computer is broken.”
    “Your smart phone, Miss Einstein.”
    “Oh, I can look up this rash. I’m so dumb. Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”
    “Don’t look up the rash. Look for a recipe. Chicken Devine. It’s one of my favorites and I know for a fact you have everything to make it. Go look that up.”
    “What if I don’t like it? What if it’s my last meal?”
    I did the heavy sighing that time. “I’ll talk to you later.”
    “Okay, bye.”
    I shook my head at Silas, leaned against his car, hands opened, wearing a smile and dark shades. Silas and I were precisely the same height, but our shared genepool stopped right about there. I’d had glasses since I was three, Silas wore mirrored shades. I stayed fit by working out and lifting weights, Silas stayed buff, arms twice the size of mine, by doing the exact same thing. I had high cheekbones, Silas had a sharp jawline, the model kind that made me want to punch him in his pretty little face.
    “Bro,” Silas called with a huge smile, our hands meeting as I stepped out of my car.
    We both tugged,