The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Picking a Brain the Old-Fashioned Way

Previously: "In Which Life Grinds On" 

You waste ten minutes toying with your phone—checking day-old texts, opening apps you haven't opened in months, hitting bookmarks in your browser and hitting new bookmarks before the first website has even loaded—before working up the nerve to text Yumi: Hey get tgthr for talk smplace before dinner? My treat?

It's ten minutes before she replies: Just you and me?

Yes. Then you add, Not a date, and kick yourself hard after hitting "send."

But Yumi only says Sure in reply, and you agree to meet at The Crystal Cave. You run home long enough to tell your mom that you're meeting friends and you think you'll be eating with them. "Think?" she says, and doesn't look happy when you shrug. "I'll put your portion in the refrigerator if you don't eat it tonight."

* * * * *

There are lots of bohemian coffee shops in Saratoga Falls. More than seems likely, even. This place is like Seattle, Jenny Ashton once observed, back in your sophomore year. All these kooky little coffee shops.

More like Arkham, Carson replied.

You mean like in Batman? you asked.

No, you sub-literate ape, he shot back. H. P. Lovecraft. Goes with the whole Miskatonic vibe that Keyserling's got going.

At least it doesn't rain like it does in Seattle, Paul Davis observed, which drew a withering glare from Carson.

Some months later you found a book of Lovecraft stories in the library, and recognized some of them as really cool horror stories you'd read in middle school. You have no idea what Carson meant by comparing Keyserling College to Miskatonic University. But maybe he was just thinking of all the occult accouterments that decorate so many of the retail shops near the college. Besandwiched, an occult-themed sandwich shop, is probably the most extreme example, but coffee shops like The Flying Saucer, with its life-size mannequins of gray aliens standing in the corners, and The Milagro Beanfield Warehouse, with its murals depicting Native American gods and demons, seem to be competing for the same demographic profile.

Who those weirdos are, you don't know. And even after the games you've been playing with that grimoire, you're not sure you want to know.

Anyway: The Crystal Cave. It occupies a corner of 100 Twentieth Street, a ritzy building of ruby-red brick, white pillars and lintels over the windows, and a forest green canopy hanging over the sidewalk. It's a prestigious address. There's a jewelry store in the opposite corner, and Arnholm's Used Books takes up the rest of the first floor and all of the second. Luxury apartments (you've heard) occupy the top four floors.

The front room of the Cave has a certain buttery splendor—polished brass and whisky-hued woodwork—but the real "business" of the place is in back, behind the barista station and the pastry bar. The main dining room contains twelve booths lining two walls, and ten tables in between. Each of the booths has a weird-creepy symbol painted on the wall, glaring down at the table, while each table has a wire stand holding a card printed with its own creepy symbol. The booths are the zodiac, and the tables are the planets, someone explained to you once. They use those instead of numbering the tables.

You arrive ahead of Yumi and after getting your coffee you settle into a booth. Yumi bustles in about ten minutes later, looking small and pert and very healthy in a pair of short-shorts, sandals, and a halter top. It looks like summer wear, but then September has been unseasonably warm. The high today reached the mid-80s.

After greeting each other and going up front to pay for her drink, you settle back in the booth. Yumi smiles at you expectantly. "So you wanted to talk?" she says.

"Um, yeah." You twirl your half-empty coffee cup between your palms. "I kind of took off fast at lunch, when you were talking to me."

"I noticed."

"There was someone I didn't want to run into. But you were talking about this, uh—" You swallow. "Girl?"

"Oh yeah. Katy Conlee. You know her?" Yumi pulls out her phone after you shake your head. "She's on the basketball team."

Great. At least half your interest evaporates.

Well, five percent, anyway.

Yumi scrolls and taps her way to a picture, then hands you the phone. On the screen is a picture of a girl with long, straight blonde hair, dark eyebrows, and a peaches-and-cream complexion. She's in basketball togs, holding a basketball and smiling at the camera.

She instantly puts you in mind of a chipmunk, the way her eyes and nose scrunch up over her grin, and her cheeks puff out. If it were a video, you'd half expect her to lift the ball to her mouth and start nibbling on it. But if she's a biter, she's an adorable biter, even if she is a basketball player.

You recognize her, of course, as the girl who was sitting behind Stephanie Wyatt and laughing at you.

"So this is her? Katy Conlee?" you say. Yumi reaches out to take the phone, but you hold onto it. "And why did you want to mention her to me?"

"I told you. She was looking at you."

"You're looking at me now."

"Not like that. Like— Well, it looked like she was interested in you." Yumi cocks her head. "Did you get a haircut this weekend?"

You lift your hat and brush your hair out.

"It looks nice. You should keep it like that."

"I'm not gonna get a haircut every week!"

"Not every week, but more often than you do."

You blink a couple of times. Is there a hidden message in what Yumi says, that she's trying to impart? "Is that why this Katy girl was looking at me?" you ask. "Because of my hair?"

"I don't know. You should ask her."

Your heart ricochets around inside your chest. "Have you talked to her? Does she, uh—?"

"I haven't talked to her," Yumi says. "I never see that much of her. I don't have her for any classes."

"So how do you know her?"

"I just know her. Jesus, Will," she sighs. "It's not hard to get to know people. I know you."

You shrug in a way that means, Yeah, but what are you gonna do?

"You want me to set something up so you can meet and talk to each other?" Yumi asks.

You take a deep breath. Your reply—"Sure"—comes out as a squeak.

"I'll see if I can set up a study group or something. Here, give me your schedule." She takes her phone back, taps at it, and returns it to you with it open to a "Notes" app. "It's gonna have to be a big group of us, but that's okay. Just don't be shy with her, alright?"

You blanch a little, but concentrate on entering your schedule. Yumi nods over it after you hand her phone back to her. "The film class sounds interesting," she says. "You could talk to her about some of the movies you've seen in it, maybe talk her into watching some of them with you. What's 'limch'?"

"What?"

"Here, for fifth period, you've got 'limch.' Oh. It's lunch. Do you have Katy for any classes?"

"No."

"You sure? Because it would be really awkward if you do but haven't noticed her before."

"I would have noticed her," you insist.

Yumi looks skeptical, but only says, "Alright, I'll see what I can work up." She bends over her phone.

And you use that as an excuse to use the restroom. She says nothing as you slip from the booth.

Inside the restroom, you splash some cold water on your face and study yourself in the mirror. You look like a dork, you think, with your hair chopped back. Like a squirrel that's been to the barber. Well, fuck it, you tell yourself. If Katy looks like a chipmunk and I look like a squirrel ...

Shit. What would our kids look like?

You flinch as though slapped.

Back in the dining room you trudge back toward the booth. Yumi looks up at you from her phone. "All better?" she asks with a dimple in her cheek.

"I guess." You make the "jerk off" motion with your fist, then realize to your horror what you just implied you were doing in the bathroom, and shove your hand under the table. That looks even worse, and your face nearly burns off with shame and horror.

Luckily, Yumi is completely absorbed in her phone, and seems not to have noticed.

Why the hell would you do a dopey dipshit like me any favors? is what you want to ask Yumi.

And you do.

"I'm not doing you any favors, Will," she says. "I'm just setting it up so you can talk to a girl who maybe would like to talk to you."

"That sounds like a favor."

She gives you a look. "Well if it is—if you think that counts as a favor—then no wonder you have such a hard time with girls. Have a little confidence in yourself, jeez." But then her phone buzzes, and she has to answer another text.

Her retort leaves you abashed—and a little grumpy—so you fall silent. Yumi has also apparently decided she's done talking. "I have to go," she says as she gets up. "But if you're feeling like a brave little tiger, come around to the Dairy Queen at eight. Some of us will be out there, and maybe Katy will be with us." She sweeps out.

Your heart plunges. You were nervous enough about meeting up with this girl under cover of a study group. Now it sounds like Yumi's daring you to be more direct and brazen.

Or maybe you will go out, you think to yourself on the drive home. See what this girl is like.

But that doesn't mean I have to go out under my own face.

Next: "Secret Agent Girl" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"