The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Mini-Golf and Many Girls

Previously: "Things That Frighten You" 

(with an assist by Masktrix.)

Girls. So many girls. Out there, looking for you, waiting for you, desiring you. And all you have to do is—

"Your pastries, my— Uh, Kim."

Like smoke in the wind, the vision is dispelled by Keith's nasally whine. He holds out a box to Kim, who takes it with a smile. "How much do I owe you?" she asks.

You settle back in your seat and try to reconjure the lost fantasy. But your imagination just gasps, lays down, and dies, like a landed fish. You watch as Kim pays and goes out the door.

"She wants me," Keith says as he takes his seat again.

"You're deluded."

"She wants me," he repeats, "in the worst way."

"Anyone who wants you would be wanting it in the worst way."

But Keith is caught up too hard in his fantasy to let you crush it. "Every Saturday she comes in," he says. "She doesn't have to come here, you know. There's other donut shops."

"Better donut shops."

"Exactly!" Keith's grin widens. "There's better places, closer places. But you know why she comes all the way out here? 'Cos she wants my—"

"If you use the word 'cream' or 'batter' anywhere in what you say next, I'm gonna bitch-slap you."

Keith sniggers. And he's about to reply, but the bell rings again, and he has to get up to help a fat lady and her three pudgy children.

* * * * *

But Kim's comment has put a bug up your ass. Or maybe it's more like she's slid a stick up your dick. You can hardly sit still for the desire to go out and find some of those girls that she's promised are out there. So after leaving Keith you drive around town, nursing your restless cock.

And that's how you wind up passing the Monte Viso Mini-Golf and Go-Kart complex up by Northgate Mall.

* * * * *

"The fuck are we doing up here again?" Caleb demands as you and he and Keith pile out of your truck. The whine of go-karts—sounding like jet-powered mosquitos—fills the air. "And why are you dressed like someone in a Gap ad?"

You make a face back at him. The temps are in the sixties, so in your cargo pants and long-sleeve plaid shirt hung over one of your nicer t-shirts you are a little overdressed for a day of mini-golfing. But if you're gonna pick up girls ...

"Just had an itch," you reply. "And if you don't like the plan, how come you tagged along?"

"I don't know if I don't like the plan," Caleb retorts, "'cos I don't know what the plan is. That's how come I'm asking—"

"Oh, give it a rest," Keith interrupts. "Like you were gonna come up with a better idea." He jams his hands into his front pockets and gives you a knowing look.

Keith is a moron, one of the dumbest people you know, which makes it all the more discomfiting when he gets these moments (like now) when it looks like he can read your mind and is five steps ahead of you in the game.

And the game isn't mini-golf. It's girls.

Monte Viso is an open-air entertainment complex with a golf course up front, a racing track in the back, and a shed-like annex where you can eat popcorn, nachos, and hot dogs while playing old-fashioned arcade games. It promises for-the-whole-family fun. But when you were in middle school and were a freshman, it was also the place where guys and girls met up to talk and flirt and (if the talking and flirting went well) then go off to do something hotter and sweatier and itchier and kissier than flirting. It's the kind of the place that the ladies in your church tell the thirteen- and fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds not to hang out at unless they went with their parents. Kids could get in "trouble" if they went there unsupervised.

Which, naturally, makes it into exactly the kind of place that middle-school and freshman kids want to hang out at without their parents.

So you're a little old to be hanging out here. But you remember the good times on hot summer nights that you had at Monte Viso back when you were a freshman and sophomore—though in your case they never led to the kind of post-minigolf action you really wanted—and it's not like you can think of any other places to meet girls.

"Three, please," you tell the bored-looking girl selling tickets at the front. She's about your age, and wears her hair in a cute, pixie-like bob, but she looks right through you as she hands you the putters and balls, even though you are giving her your brightest smile and stare. Caleb has to push you toward the exit onto the course, and Keith dips into a wire bucket to pull out three balls. "Blue balls for you," he snickers as he hands you one.

The game that follows is hard-fought, for to your disappointment the course is almost entirely empty of potential, negotiable distractions. The only other customers are a family of five (oldest kid a boy of about ten) and a white-whiskered man playing solo with an intensity as though at a tournament. So you and your two friends concentrate on bragging rights, and are soon arguing over the number of putts taken, whether mulligans are to be allowed and under what circumstances, and whether it should count as a stroke when a furious Keith grazes his ball when taking a vicious swing at the windmill.

But it's fun, though you're still restless and anxious when you come to the end of the course. You don't leave though. You buy nachos and popcorn, and Keith buys a clutch of tokens for the arcade machines, and the three of you park at an ancient-looking picnic table under the annex's tin roof. But your eye keeps reverting to the girl at the register, and when Keith and Caleb are concentrated on an old Galaga machine, you take advantage of their distraction to not-so-casually wander up to the ticket taker.

"Hey," you say. "Nice day. Good game."

"Glad you had fun," she says, looking up from her Kindle. "Wanna buy another round?"

"You work on commission?"

"No."

"Because you almost talked me into it."

She gives you a very steady look. Not unfriendly, exactly. But cool enough to let you know that she's got your number and doesn't exactly think it's one that will win her the lottery.

"You go to Eastman?" you ask.

"No. Private school." Her tone turns clipped.

"Oh. Agape." You manage not to make a face. That's the Christian school, and most people you know think of Agape kids as weird, sexless, pod-person freaks.

The girl hesitates. "No," she says. "Xavier's."

It takes you a fractional moment to place the name. "Oh," you blurt out before you can stop yourself. "You're a Mutant."

The girl stares, then lays the Kindle flat on the scarred wooden counter. "You want a punch in the eye?" she asks.

"Oh, God, no! I didn't mean—" You raise your hands and stumble back a step. "It just came out! I'm sorry! I—"

"It's alright," she says, settling back against the counter. "I've heard it before."

"But I thought—" you stammer. "Private academy— You work here?" You gape.

"Some of us have to, to help make the tuition."

"I thought you guys all got scholarships. Or had, uh—" You blush.

"Money?" she finishes for you. "No, some of us got into it through the cathedral. You know, like, a quarter of the 'mutants'"—her lips twist around the word—"are actually locals. Not all of us come from— Oh God," she says as she looks behind you over your shoulder. "The Hamptons."

You turn to look too.

It's a trio of girls, and in their white tops and blue bottoms, and their bright sneakers and jaunty caps, they look like they just stepped from a page in a fashion magazine. The lead girl smiles brightly as she slides up to the counter. "Hey Roxanne," she says. "I didn't know you were working today."

"The regular guy called in sick. Three?"

"I guess that's good," the girl says as she slips a hundred dollar bill from her billfold. "Gets you some extra, you know, pocket money."

"Yes, whatever would I do without the extra twenty-five bucks I'll pick up today?" Roxanne takes the girl's hundred, and slides a pen across the face of the bill.

"What are you doing?" the girl demands.

"Policy to check all bills over twenty. Been a lot of fakes spotted recently. You're the real deal, though."

"Hmm." The girl smiles tightly. "Well, on the bright side at least, picking up a counterfeit hundred isn't something you'll have to worry about. Huh?"

The girl takes the three clubs that a glowering Roxanne hands her. As she sweeps past you, she pauses long enough to give you a quick up and down. "Gosh, you're cute," she exclaims with a glinting smile. Then she's gone.

One of her friends follows, but the third, a freckled girl with a tumbling mass of red hair, lingers. "Sorry about Mary," she tells Roxanne in a low voice. "She's in a pissy mood 'cos Marius turned her down for a date last night."

Roxanne shrugs. "It's alright, J. M. See you in class Monday." You and she watch as the red-head follows her friends out onto the course. "More mutants," Roxanne tells you.

"I'm sorry I said that."

"It's okay. It fits in Mary's case. Being rich does things to you. And they are different."

You hop on the balls of your feet. Do you dare flirt with—or ask out—a student who attends the tony, exclusive St. Francis Xavier School? There's something exotic about the idea, and you could be someone ... new ... with them, not a grubby fellow Westsider they've seen around for years. And you feel like you've broken the ice with Roxanne, who is at least of your class.

On the other hand, that rich one called you "cute" to your face.

Next: "Taking a Chance on a Game of Skill" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"