Silk Over Razor Blades by Ileandra Young Page B

avoiding Lenina’s gaze then
finished the last of her sandwich. ‘I’m just worried.’
    So was Lenina. Aloud she said,
‘Sorry. I’m a bit tense.’
    ‘I’ll say.’ Ramona brushed
crumbs from her hands. ‘Let’s go for a walk then.’
    ‘Now?’
    ‘Aye. It’s gorgeous out there,
blue skies, gold leaves. Fresh air will do you good.’ Enlivened and
comforted by her new role of mother hen, she stood and clapped her
hands. ‘Chop, chop. Get dressed. We’ll talk about why you suddenly
hate your beautiful dress.’
    All the talk in the world
couldn’t fix Lenina’s real problem. Just the same she sighed,
turned and trudged up the stairs.

Chapter
Eleven
     
     
    Lenina kicked a pine cone. It
skidded across the pavement before balancing on the edge of the
kerb. The slipstream from a passing car dragged it into the road
where a second car crushed it. She felt much like the pine
cone.
    ‘Isn’t this nice?’ Ramona clung
to her arm like a limpet, chubby cheeks rosy in the cold. She wore
a woolly hat crammed over her red curls, giving her the look of a
fluffy, upside-down ice-cream cone.
    ‘It’s okay.’
    ‘Moody,’ she chided. ‘It’s good
to be out of the house. Stop whining.’
    ‘I’m not whining; I’m tired. I
have a headache.’
    Squeezing her arm in what she
probably thought was a comforting way, Ramona pointed to the coffee
shop across the road. ‘Let’s get a latte.’
    ‘I don’t want a latte.’
    ‘I do.’
    Narrowing her eyes against the
watery sunlight, Lenina slouched through the doors and searched for
a seat away from the windows.
    She reached a seat near the
back half a pace behind another woman who was balancing a
cappuccino in one hand and a laptop in the other. With a defiant
tilt of her head, the woman sat, opened her laptop and took a sip
of coffee. Lenina closed her fingers over her palms. They felt
itchy but she knew the urge to slap this woman was merely a
reflection of her poor mood.
    Another search revealed a table
near the front, still littered with debris from the last user. It
faced the window, but the outside awning offered shade. She raced
towards it, weaving around tables, knocking her hips against chairs
to slam her rear into the nearest seat just as a weary-looking man
with a mullet and a stack of folders approached from the right.
    He looked at her, then at the
spare seat.
    ‘My friend is at the till,’ she
said.
    His eyes widened. ‘Guess I’ll
go downstairs then.’
    Lenina folded her arms and
glared out the window.
    The faceless masses streamed by
in unending procession, most with their heads down against the
wind. One woman, with a massive Alsatian on the end of a chain,
fought to calm the creature outside a large department store. She
tied the chain to a loop in the doors and slipped inside, leaving
the dog to watch her through the glass.
    A man with his face wrapped up
to the eyes in a thick red scarf weaved through the crowds like a
slalom skier with a pushchair out in front. The baby inside bawled
and kicked, tiny hands waving from the depths of woolly
blankets.
    Two men in their middling
twenties laughed and pushed each other as they crossed the road,
sharing a cardboard box of fried chicken. One of them dodged to the
side, steering clear of a shuffling form in grey approaching from
the other direction.
    The man in grey paused and
turned to watch them, fingers twitching in his tattered gloves. He
followed them for a step or two before the blast of a car horn
pulled him up short. Shaking a fist, he hurried back on to the
pavement and kept walking.
    Lenina nerves fired with a rush
of adrenalin. She stood, pressed her face to the window and watched
the man continue on his way, scratching the back of his head with
one grubby hand. A nest of ginger curls protruded from beneath his
hat.
    Lenina slumped back into her
seat. She felt lightheaded and clutched the arms of the squishy
green chair while trying to think. It couldn’t be the same man,
could it? She