Chapter #11A Choice Buffet by: Seuzz   It's not a very satisfying or convincing conversation that you have with yourself using the Garner girls as mouthpieces. It sounds stilted and unnatural, exactly as though it were one person talking through a couple of wooden puppets. You wonder briefly if maybe you should search out and possess a real puppeteer—someone who knows how to act as different character simultaneously—so as to gain their talent. But you don't know where you'd find such a person; and, anyway, it immediately sounds like a ridiculous idea.
But though it makes you tremble to consider it, maybe you need an audience as stimulation. You ponder it as you bring Marc back into the girls' company and walk them back to the minivan. Preoccupied as you are you don't pay attention to how you are moving your bodies, and you're pleased when you come out of your reverie to notice that you're moving them in a natural, loose-limbed way instead of the centipede-like lockstep you were moving them in earlier. It suggests that once you've trained yourself to a degree to move and use your bodies in a certain way, that the behavior becomes instinctual.
* * * * *
You need an audience to practice in front of, but you're too nervous to do it at home in front of these kids' parents. So with Marc's phone you text their mom to say that you're going to be having a "Garner triplets' night out" and will eat in town. She gives her okay.
You have a small brainstorm while driving up Twentieth Street, and almost act on it directly. But you decide to practice first, and make a stab at something like a real conversation:
Eva-you grabs Marc-you, who is driving, by the shoulder and points. "Let's hit the Sunshine Diner." It's coming up on the left.
"What, you want pancakes for supper?"
"I could go for breakfast."
"I want a burger, Eva. Something with some serious protein."
"They've got burgers."
"They've got catfish too," Jessica-you pipes up from the back. She takes out her cell phone and swipes onto a browser to look up the diner's website.
"Did I say I wanted catfish?" Marc-you takes his eyes off the road long enough to glare into the backseat.
"Watch it!" Eva-you grabs the wheel as the minivan drifts toward oncoming traffic. "Would you turn into the diner before you get us in a wreck!"
"I'm not gonna—" With a grumble, Marc-you swings about in a hard arc and bumps to a stop in front of the Sunshine Diner. "Everybody alive?"
You grumble in two throats, and chuckle in the third as you all dismount. You briefly survey the world through six eyes.
Sean Wilcox's eyes light up as you saunter into the diner on six legs. He's the reason you decided to come out here. His family owns the Sunshine Diner, and as a classmate who works as a host/waiter he can be counted on to talk to you without lingering too hard. In other words: a challenge without being too much of a challenge. "Hey guys," he says as he pulls three menus out. "You comin' to eat?"
"Yeah." Marc-you glares at your sisters, then raise your hand for a high-five that Sean returns. "Terry working tonight?"
"Nah. I'll take care of you myself." He leads you to a booth, and there's an uncertain moment when four of your legs try cutting in front of the other pair before Marc-you slides into one side of the booth and Jessica-you and Eva-you slide into the other. Your brain seems to swallow up the table, which is centered between your six eyes. "Uh, you doing any studying or just eating?" Sean asks
"Maybe both, not sure. We'll take some coffee, though. And some water."
"Gotcha." Sean saunters off, and your three bodies open three menus.
"Eva, why did you try getting on the same side of the table with me?" Marc-you mutters under his breath while studying the burger page.
"Habit," Eva-you mutters back. "It's usually just Jessica and me."
"Well, it looked natural but it also looked fucking weird."
"Why are you bitching at me if it looked natural?"
"Because, I said, it looked fucking weird. Don't pretend you didn't hear me say that."
"Bite me, Marc."
Three sets of genitals sputter to life at the thought of a getting down and dirty with these bodies. The table becomes a barrier stopping three magnets from flying into each other.
Sean brings drinks and he takes your orders. Jessica-you makes her omelet a complicated order, which Marc-you teases her about. Both sisters-you snarl at Marc-you.
"Why don't you two snap at each other for a change?" Marc-you picks up a sugar packet, and flicks two artificial sweeteners at his sisters. "Why is it always me?"
"Common enemy."
"Except we got something else in common." Eva-you puts a foot in Marc-you's lap.
Marc-you shoves it off. "Keep it under control, Eve. That's fucking weirder even than trying to sit with me."
* * * * *
Sean comes by a couple of times, and the hosting station is nearby, so you try to keep up a constant stream of banter even after pulling out three cell phones so you'll have an excuse for not talking to yourself. You gossip about Will Prescott and Lisa ("I feel sorry for him" "I feel sorry for Lisa" "Why don't you two try setting him up with someone instead of feeling sorry for him?"), and talk mutedly about Yumi and her cousin who goes to Eastman ("She got a boyfriend?" "What do you care, you've got Hannah?" "I thought we were talking about who has a boyfriend and who doesn't").
After your food comes you lapse mostly into silence. But you're halfway through Eva-you's egg-white omelet, slurping down some cheese, when she glances thoughtfully over at Sean (who is at the door to the kitchen), and leans across the table. "You know," she-you says, and for once the deadwood phrase is meaningful, for everybody at your table knows exactly what you're thinking, "if you owned a diner you could slip a little gooey treat into almost everything that you serve, and could possess almost anyone who came in."
Marc-you chomps into the burger and smirks at the clientele, most of whom are senior citizens coming for the discounts. "Yeah, all that wrinkled skin makes me horny."
"Don't be a pervert. I'm serious."
"So you're thinking about Sean?" Jessica-you looks over at him. He's small, trim, and good-looking enough. Popular too without being a party guy.
"Fuck," Marc-you snorts. "With these bodies," he continues quietly, "we could get anyone at school. And that's the key to getting anyone."
"Like in The Faculty?"
"Don't pretend you don't get what I mean. But yeah. You get the school kids, you get their parents, you get everyone."
"We can't get 'everyone', Marc, and I didn't think we were going to try."
"We're not. I'm just saying." Marc-you glances around. "But having a couple of bodies in reserve would be no bad thing."
"You just want some girls you can sleep with without Hannah catching on."
"Hannah could be one of them so what does it matter? Anyway, it wouldn't have to me. I know a couple of guys and a couple of girls who between them could bang everyone from the freshman class on up."
"We shouldn't be talking about this out loud," Jessica-you murmurs.
"We got a habit we need to practice."
* * * * *
You're still not ready to go home when you've finished eating, so you fetch your books from the minivan and spread out to do homework. Sean looks after you, bringing you a couple of carafes of coffee.
About an hour into the session, Marc-you's eyes light up as the door opens and a school friend saunters in. "Hey Ian!" You raise your hand. "Ian!"
Ian Patton chucks his chin at you and swagger over. A high-five is exchanged, and you encourage a blush of interest to warm Jessica-you's face. Ian groans when he looks down to see you doing math. "I came here to get away from that shit," he says.
"You meeting anyone?" Marc-you nudges Jessica-you under the table. "Eve and I can cover for Jess if she wants to— Ungh!" Marc-you gasps as Jessica-you kicks him in the calf.
But Ian has caught your meaning, and he turns a speculative eye on one of your bodies. "'Sup? What are you working on?"
"Math," Jessica-you replies. "Which you're trying to get away from."
"God damn it, Jess," Marc-you mutters under your breath. Eva-you shoots him a dirty look.
"Are you playing at the Warehouse this weekend?" Jessica-you asks Ian.
"Nah, it's— I don't remember who's playing. But hey, I got, like, a recital lined up for the university on Saturday." Ian pumps the air with his fists. "You comin' out?"
"Where?"
"University bookstore. Gonna be a signing. Some YA author."
"J. K. Rowling?"
"Fuck!" Ian laughs. "I dunno who. But I'm gonna be, like, extra entertainment there, get some exposure. I'll get to meet him. Her. Whoever."
Hands get slapped again, and Ian swaggers off into the kitchen.
"Makes you think," Marc-you says. He rub the back of his head. "Why are we hanging out here when we can hitch a ride back to New York or LA? Really have some fun after getting to know the right people."
"I don't think whoever it is will take us with them," Jessica-you says.
He scrape a middle finger along the side of your nose. "You know what I mean. Ian would go for you, Jess, if you followed him outside to talk. He'd take you with him." You settle back with a leer. "Ian. That author. Fame and fortune." | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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