Mother of Magic

Phone Call

The phone rang in the bar. Vivian, ever-present, picked it up. "Hello? Yeah. She's here. Sec."

Vivian set the phone down on the countertop, walked out from behind the bar, and went over to the table with her favorite customers. "Ava? Yellow Feather is on the phone. Says she needs to talk to you."

"Be right back." Ava told her friends.

Standing Bear looked very interested in what this was about. His head and eyes tracked Ava back to the bar.

"That is weird." Silena commented as she also watched Ava go to take the call.

Standing Bears and Silena's reaction puzzled Le. "Makes sense to me. If you are going to call Ava, call here. Not like she has a phone up at her house. Or that she spends as much time up there as she does down in town."

"Not that, Boss. Of course if I was going to call Ava? I'd call here first. Everyone knows Vivian's place is where you find people. There are other bars in this town, but Vivian's is the only bar Ava regularly goes to. Unless she is helping someone somewhere else with a thing, as Ava does. You want to play pool? You go over to John's place. Shuffleboard? Two blocks over at Padma's. More into microbrews than food? Rising Sun taproom up North a bit. Coffee, Beer, and Cheyenne cuisine? Greys is the place in this town. But for just hanging? You look for Ava here. Same for you guys. Me. All of us. What I meant is that of all the people Yellow Feather is calling, she is calling Ava? There are at least four people sitting right at this table that she is more likely to call."

"I'll bite. Stand Bear. Obviously. Who else?" Le asked.

"Me, for one. I lived there for a while. Kinda was adopted. They are hoping Standing Bear and I get together..."

"I thought you already did." Stephanie injected

"Still talking about that, aren't we Bear?"

"We have not agreed on terms." Standing Bear supported.

"Terms?" Stephanie asked.

"As to whether or not that arrangement would be exclusive. Full time." Standing Bear said.

"And if there are going to be kids." Silena said.

"My mother would like for there to be children." Standing Bear said.

"And you have the thing with Bob." Stephanie said

"Not exclusive, because Bob and Vivian." Silena said.

"What?" Le looked over at Vivian "Bob and Vivian? Really?"

"Is the Boss always this clueless?" Silena asked Stephanie.

That got an affirmative. "All the time. Not that I have any room to talk since it took Vanessa kicking my ass for Le and I to get together."

"But you knew about Bob and Vivian, right?" Silena asked the Witch.

"Of course. Their body language says it all. If I was amazed by anything it was that you were able to insert yourself into that."

"Bob and Vivan are not a couple. They are friends who fuck. That was easy to see, and so it was easy for me to become another woman with that sort of setup with Bob. Unlike with the Bear, Bob has no pressure about kids. Or marriage. Or exclusivity." Silena explained.

"I should say that I understand all of this. Silena was recently an assassin who is in the middle of life changes, and a relationship is not anything she is ready for. The pressure is not from me. It is from my mother." Standing Bear explained.

"Yep. One hundred percent. So: as soon as Bear is ready to do it without advertising it to his mother? We are on." Silena said.

"But: His respect for his mother is stopping that from happening?" Stephanie asked.