D’Cardi’s was an upscale women’s clothing store with an Italian flair. The store featured signs in Italian and English, murals of the countryside and ancient churches and villas along the walls, and of course, the strands of opera at a gentle volume; mingled together with the fashionable leather coats, bags, belts, and earth-toned jewelry, the store exuded a sophisticated class that made it perfectly at home as a mall highlight. Jennifer Tabarone worked there, one of the junior members of the DMIC. Tuesday nights were slow nights and she was idly scanning the CD rack for something interesting. She had just come across a tenor described as the Pavarotti of Gregorian chant when Tristiana walked into the store.
Tristiana’s eyes lingered on the sign in the window that read “Everything half off!”. Then she walked over to Jennifer and pointed to the sign. “How much for the sign?”
Jennifer narrowed her eyes. She didn’t recognize her and she wasn’t in high school, but she couldn’t tell exactly how much older the customer was. “That’s not for sale.” Rule number one, she thought; stop trouble before it starts.
Tristiana feigned shock. “It says everything, and the sign is inside the store. Although I think I’d like it in a more lace — no, an off-white color. Red isn’t really my thing.”
Jennifer stood up tall and said curtly, “Excuse me, ma’am, but –” She couldn’t help but thinking that the sign would be better in off-white, too.
Undaunted, Tristiana continued. “Other stores sell their signs. You did know that, didn’t you?”
Jennifer looked surprised and then lifted a finger to her temple. Whoa. Why am I so lightheaded? “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Pluvious Canine just two stores down said that theirs was two-thirds off. Can you beat that?”
Jennifer’s mind raced in several directions at once. Was that the name of the store they just finished down there? No-one knew what it was; it had been a secret. And two-thirds off! How could they survive with those margins? Most importantly, why would they sell their sign if they were just opening?
“What if I used my DC card?” Without waiting for a response, Tristiana whipped out a glinting, glittering card with the store’s name on it.
Jennifer closed her eyes involuntarily and when she opened them again, she felt that a whole minute had passed. She found herself leaning against a mannequin for support and the only memory she had was a cold, cruel laugh ringing in her ears.
* * * * *
Written with letters pulled from newspapers and xeroxed several times, the flyer read,
“Westchester High Tournament of Intellect
#1 of a 3-issue limited series
The Inner Circle summons all hale and hearty ones
strong of mind and peculiar in interests to declare
and defend thy wits. Not attending is not an option!
Food, drink, internet, and dice shall be provided. B.Y.O.B!
Friday @ WHS Auditorium, 6PM-times unknown”
“Did you see this?” asked Dana, thrusting it under Jimmy’s nose.
Jimmy turned from his locker to look at her and said, “Uh, ohio.”
She blinked and then said, “Ohio. Well, did you see it?”
He rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out an identical note. “All of us got one. It’s held three times every school year.”
Dana mumbled something to try to cover up the fact that she had forgotten that. Jimmy loaded a few books into his backpack and shut the locker, spinning the combination lock. Together, they walked towards the library in the dawning day.
“But that’s this Friday,” Dana said after they had walked for a bit, hoping that she didn’t sound too nervous, or too whiny.
“Everyone knew it was it coming,” he chided her. “We talked about it last Friday.”
“When last Friday?” she huffed.
“Right after the lycanthrope fighter pilots discussion.” He felt her forehead. “You are watching Bikini Weekends again aren’t you? Symptoms of acute brain drain suspected.”
Dana held out her arm and stopped Jimmy from walking forward. Such an insult to her intellect could not go unchallenged! “Again? I am not a ditz!” She tossed her hair and then vowed, “I’m going to completely dominate this tournament! Dom-i-natus, from the Latin, meaning to rule over! There!” Jimmy politely applauded and thought to himself, “I need to brush up on my Latin.”
Dana clenched her fists. It was all Brandon’s fault! She had been so focussed on finding out what he was doing that she had forgotten everything else.
* * * * *
The rest of the day trudged on and eventually Westchester High gave up and begrudgingly released students from its confines.
“Man, I hate Wednesdays. They’re so long,” complained Brandon, walking with Brian out of school.
“I know what you mean. Glad it’s over!”
“And it’s also the homework day.”
“Isn’t every day homework day?” wondered Brian.
“Not like today. Wednesday is THE homework day. They really stick it to us. At least my teachers do.”
Brandon pulled his backpack up and let it drop back to its usual position. “Hmm. It does feel a little heavier than usual. Maybe you’re right.”
“So what are you doing tonight?” asked Brandon as they reached the bike rack.
“Nothing really. Why? I thought you had DMIC.”
“I got the evening off, so I was wondering if you wanted to shoot some hoops or something.”
“Sure yeah man, that sounds cool. Seven at the park?”
Brandon made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “Right-o.”
By seven, dusk was almost night and Brandon was pedalling to the park. It was a pain now that Brian’s hoop was broken; he hoped that the lights were working at the park. It seemed so foreign, so odd for it to be a schoolnight and for him not to be at DMIC. He took in a sharp breath and wondered what everyone was doing at the conclave meeting. Then he breathed again and remembered that life used to be always like this, before the DMIC. He rounded the turn into the park and pedalled over to the basketball courts.
The empty court greeted him with two basketball goals raising their monocled eyes to the sky on spartan steel shoulders. Above, the stars spread out in a glittering expanse against the night sky. Brandon laid down his bike silently and noticed that the air had grown colder recently, as fall began its long, fatal dance with winter. Beneath the stars, on the empty court, he felt his finiteness creeping into his awareness. He made his way to the nearest goal and brushed his fingers absent-mindedly over the flaking paint and steel, wondering when Brian would show up.
A few minutes later, Brian rounded the bend and sent his bicycle wheels flying over the loose gravel that led into the park. Brandon stood there, back against a goal, eyes out-of-focus, looking into the sky. He didn’t seem to notice Brian until Brian laid down his bike.
“Hey man, you didn’t go to sleep or something did you?”
“Nah, I was just thinking,” Brandon said.
“I did all my thinking at school,” joked Brian. “Let’s shoot some hoops!” He headed over towards the shack that held the lights and flipped them on, then he shot the basketball over to Brandon.
* * * * *
Dana bicycled downtown, looking in various stores at random, in a helpless attempt to find where Brandon was spending his time. She had tried everything else and now it was down to this.
She had known Brandon since the 8th grade, but this had taken her by surprise. If there was one thing Brandon wasn’t, it was mysterious — at least until now. He was smart enough, but just distracted. Jimmy was like that, too. Maybe guys either had some kind of focusing problem or they weren’t distracted because they only thought about three things ever, like Brian did. Maybe he had advanced to four things since high school. She grinned. The exact number didn’t matter, but she knew he’d never talk with her about lycanthrope fighter pilots.
She took a turn down Woodlawn Avenue, and noted that the bank was still open on the right. Most of the other shops were closed. “Just one more,” she promised herself, “and then I’ll warp home for Oddworld!” She scanned the stores and slowed her pace. “First National Bank, T.J Harvey’s, Rizalla’s Cafe`, It’s All Venice To Me Imports, the Department of Minor Incompetence Correction.” She slammed on the brakes and turned back around to check out that last one, reading the small brass plaque beneath it: “Aim for the Stars! Tie Your Shoes!”
She burst out laughing and then after a few moments thought to herself, “This is always where someone opens a door and gets sucked into an alternate universe or gets eaten by a humongous reptile.” She reached into a side pocket on her backpack, rubbed her lucky 20-sider, and then reached for the door. It was locked. Locked? That never happens!
She couldn’t see inside through the tinted glass no matter how she scrunched up her eyes. Even the light provided by her collapsible lightsaber wasn’t enough. She took a long look at the sign again and then spun around to make sure it really read the same thing. Then she noticed the next store over, “Water Wheels of the World”, followed by “Astelle’s Investigations”, and then “Our Secret Cafe`”. She shook her head. It had to be some kind of joke. Besides even if it wasn’t, she couldn’t picture Brandon in some bizarrely-named place like one of those. It just wasn’t him!
When she reached the end of the street, she thought to herself, “This sucks like Cygnus X-1! I need to make it past the castle gate!” Then as she looked up into the night sky, she felt heat rise to her cheeks at the plan that came to her mind. She bit her lip and wondered aloud, “Could I pretend to like him?”
* * * * *
“Six up!” said Brian, after sinking a hoop within the half-circle of the court. Brandon took the ball and dribbled it back to the top of the key. “What are you doing for English?” Brian asked him.
“Oh I’m reading stuff mostly,” said Brandon with a grin.
“Get out! Me too,” he said lunging to the side and dribbling to the left side of the goal. Brandon stood a few feet away, arms crossed to prevent the shot.
“I haven’t got an idea for the paper yet. I’m thinking about doing a bio of one of the poets.” He shot and missed and Brandon went to get the ball.
“That sounds good, man. I think I’ll do like a poem or two and see how they fit in today. Mrs. Eldridge likes that application stuff.”
“That’s right,” said Brian, following his friend back to the top of the key. “Maybe I’ll do something else.”
“Nah, just relate-ize it, you know?”
“Right,” said Brian, adding a “Crud!” as Brandon whipped past him to take a shot and dropping the ball cleanly in the hoop. “Eight-six!” Catching his breath, he added, “You know, that sounds like eighty-six.”
“Yeah it does,” said Brandon. “Or it sounds like someone ate six.”
“Isn’t that a lot to eat?”
“I guess it’s not so much if it’s like six donut holes,” said Brandon.
“But if it was six cars, that’d be too much.”
“Yeah.”
They played for a few minutes without saying much, and Brandon took the lead, eleven to nine.
“I saw something pretty crazy the other day,” said Brian.
“Like what?”
“Lauren. She was talking to some other girls.”
“No way!” said Brandon, unbelieving.
“Yes way, man. I saw it with these two,” and he pointed to his eyes with two fingers while he dribbled the basketball with his other hand. “And I could have sworn that it was about clothes or shoes or something girly.”
“Really?”
Brian made a shot but Brandon blocked it and recovered the ball before it went out of bounds. Brandon took a three-point shot and made it, leaving Brian momentarily short for words.
“Come on, I’ve done it before,” Brandon reminded him.
“It’s been a while,” said Brian, returning with the ball. Brandon rolled his eyes.
“So anyways, did you ask her what it was about?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I just couldn’t find the right time.”
Brandon called a time-out. “That sounds weird.”
“It is weird.”
“No, I mean weird, like there’s something else going on weird.”
Brian ran his hand through his blonde hair to wipe the sweat off and said, “Where did you get that idea from?”
“From you. But don’t go do that. That would unsettle everything, you know?”
“I know.”
“Ok.” Brandon looked at his friend with his eyebrows raised, not sure if he was really telling the truth or not.
“Honest, man, I don’t have a thing for her!”
“Ok, ok!”
“But you, now, you have something going on.”
“I always have stuff going on.”
“No, not ordinary stuff! I don’t know, man, but you’ve been out-of-it lately.”
Brandon tried not to think about Wenchy at this particular moment, but her face kept appearing in his mind. “Well, I guess…”
“There’s no guessing about it! You are totally distracted. You have to be crushing on someone.”
“Well if I am,” said Brandon, more defensively than he wanted to, “it’s not anyone at school.”
Brian smirked. “That just means you met her in the neighborhood or at the library or the hobby store or somewhere.”
Brandon felt some confidence seep back into him. “Yeah, right. Like girls hang out in those places, and we know all the girls in the neighborhood.”
Brian looked at him. He was right, but he had every indication of someone in love. It didn’t add up.
“Ok,” said Brian at last. “Maybe you’re not, but you sure look like you are.”
“Whatever!” said Brandon, calling a time-in and charging with the ball.
They played two games of 21, each winning one game, before they called it a night. Afterwards, they sat on a bench nearby because it was warmer than the cold concrete court. They had started talking when the lights went off with a violent electrical snap. In the darkness, lit only by the stars, Brian said, “Guess the time’s up.”
“Yeah, guess so.” Brandon could help but think how ominous those words sounded. He didn’t get to see Brian as much after school and he knew that he’d been hanging with his jock friends more.
The trip back home was quiet and when they bade each other goodnight, Brandon felt even smaller and more isolated beneath the stars, surrounded only by the dark. He felt out-of-place somehow, not where he always was and yet, not what he was going to be, only, he had no idea what he was becoming. The porch lights of his house drew him in without protest.
* * * * *
The Complexitor was seated at the bar at Starry Nights, and had just slipped his phone back into his jeans. It was Wednesday night, not his usual night, and none of his business associates were around. A boring and repetitive industrial guitar song throbbed through the speakers like a headache. The words he had just texted to his cousin burned in his mind as if they were on fire — “No room. Bad idea. Can’t do it!” He looked suspiciously at a watery scotch and rearranged the three sunglasses that he wore. He was wondering if she would show, but those thoughts fled with a familiar poke between the shoulder blades and a coy giggle.
He looked over into the star-and-dagger eyes of Tristiana. “So you did it?”
“Of course I did,” she said.
“I doubt it,” he said.
“I knew you’d say that,” she replied, sitting down on the stool next to him, and then pulling out a silver phone from her too-cute purse. “Watch this.”
Her fingernails clattered across the phone and quickly located a series of video clips. In turn, the Complexitor watched her approach one junior member of the DMIC after another, though not a single one that he had seen the night of the football game. One by one, after Tristiana’s confusing web of words, their expressions shifted from intrigued to confused to momentary panic, and then to a slack-jawed expression of unconsciousness.
The Complexitor gritted his teeth. “These look authentic. I don’t quite understand how you did it, but you did. What do you want me to do?”
She smiled a brilliant, disturbing smile. “I want you to ask me out.”
The Complexitor recoiled so quickly that one of his sunglasses flew off and skidded down the bar.
“What?”
She smiled again and leaned in closer. “I said, ‘I want you to Ask Me Out.’”
The Complexitor began to sweat and his beady eyes scanned the area for some sort of social system that he could manipulate into complex behavior.
“No you don’t,” she said, placing her manicured nails on either side of his head. She stood up and loudly declared, “But we had a deal!”
The Complexitor felt the knot in his stomach mushroom instantly into a familiar ill feeling. He had moved here to get away from his ex-wife and now this? “Ok, ok,” he found himself saying. “Where — where would you like to go?”
“Mediterranean cuisine is delish!”
He hadn’t thought this way in years. Where was that place Roberts liked? “How about the Sicilian Station for lunch, uhm, tomorrow?”
She turned her back to him. “On such short notice? What kind of girl do you think I am?”
Others were still watching. He cursed, silently, and then offered, “How about Friday, then, for dinner?”
She spun back around. “Yes, that’s perfect! See you then. Seven PM.” She winked at him with the star eye and then sashayed off into the lace-colored dance floor lights.
