Fourteen
to the courtyard in the slow moments at the cafe to check on the cats there. She knew—how could she not, after all the warnings her grandmother had given her when she had handed over the keys—better than to leave the cafe unattended and unlocked.
“The cats will know they’re alone, and they’ll get into all sorts of trouble,” Viola had warned. “I learned that lesson the hard way myself, and I won’t even tell you the extent of the horrors that were awaiting me in the kitchen.” She shuddered. “Learn from my mistakes, Jasmine.”
And so Jasmine had interpreted that warning to mean that, as long as a regular customer was settled in with a nice cup of coffee and the cafe and its cats weren’t truly unattended, then there was no problem at all with ducking out for just a few moments.
She had done just that three times now, always feeling a wave of nerves travel her spine just as she was about to cross the threshold, a fear that the courtyard would be empty or some tragedy would be awaiting her. And every time she had felt warmed from within at the sight of peaceful cats bathing in the sun, kittens purring as she greeted them, the whole thing the picture of domestic feline bliss.
“I think we really did it,” she said to herself with a nod, before returning to the cafe. “Not a fluke, but an actual success.” The thought made her smile. She might be about to leave, might be just a few weeks away from never seeing the cats in the courtyard again, except for the occasional visit of course, but she could take pride in knowing she had done this one thing right.
She had taken a picture of the courtyard in all its glory, and she sent it along with a short text message to her grandmother then.
“Look at this. Forgot to tell you before, but this was a project Burak and I were working on, relocating the cats from a construction site. I think they like their new home!”
Jasmine expected her grandmother’s eventual response to be nothing more than some heart eyed emojis or maybe a whole line of thumbs ups—Grandma was really into emojis these days—but she didn’t expect it anytime soon.
So she was surprised when her phone vibrated in her hand with a new message.
“Amazing! They look so happy. Can we talk tonight? Got some things I need to run by you xx”
Jasmine forced down the anxious pang in her stomach. She had known this was coming, of course, but it still didn’t mean she was immune to worrying about all the potential bad news her favorite person might be prepared to drop on her.
As if in answer to her feelings, her phone buzzed with one more message from her grandmother.
“It’s nothing bad, everyone is healthy, and you aren’t in trouble. I think it’s actually a GOOD thing that I want to share with you xx”
Her smile was broad then, as she texted her response. Of course it was a good thing for her grandma to be coming home, and she was relieved that there was nothing else that was about to be sprung on her.
“Can’t wait. I’m going out with Burak tonight—don’t get excited, nothing is happening there—but I should be home by…10? Talk to you then?”
Jasmine laughed out loud at the response that came almost immediately. Whoever had taught her grandma how to use the “eyes” emoji to suggest she was detecting something fishy deserved a raise. Okay, it was Jasmine herself who had conveyed that lesson, and of course she knew she deserved a raise.
“Don’t cut things early on my account. And now I have to add something else to the agenda for our conversation: Burak!”
Jasmine’s smile faded at that. She would have something to report about Burak by the time she spoke to Grandma, and she had a strong feeling that neither of them were going to like it.