Veneer (12 page)

Deron looked over at his friend who had shut his eyes and was nodding to a syncopated beat. They would have a blast in the run and gun tonight, he was sure of that. And even if Sebo spent the entire time babbling in his run-on sentences, at least it wouldn’t be time spent alone. He suddenly remembered the new map pack for Destined 4 Death that Sebo had been talking about three weeks ago. That was a long time in the gaming scene. Depending on who they played, it might not be the cakewalk they were expecting.

For the first time in a while, Deron thought of violence and felt anticipation.

14 - Ilya

The tram rocked lazily as it adjusted to the flow of traffic heading down Parker Avenue. Ilya found it fascinating that such a bulky vehicle could drive itself through crowded streets without running anybody over. More than that, it stopped only when there were passengers to pick up or when somebody wanted off. It should have taken a human to figure that out, but somehow the software in the tram did it with infallible accuracy. Most riders took no notice, and Ilya thought that the absence of a real driver made them less inclined to fool around when getting off or on. Distrust of the onboard sensors resulted in people finding their seats quickly, lest the tram start moving without them. It made for a marvel of automated efficiency, but there were still some things that the tram’s artificial driver couldn’t detect.

Graffiti, for one, like the crude veneer someone had reconciled on the partition in front of her. It was arguably obscene, though so poor in composition as to be laughable. It was likely the work of a pre-teen, a kid going through the public reconciliation phase that was pretty much a rite of passage for Easton residents. Ilya thought about undoing the work, but there was a connotation of civil disobedience in the wildly exaggerated breasts of the stick figure and she figured it would be wrong to silence nonviolent protest. She let it remain, but not without her mark.

Touching the corner of the partition, Ilya reconciled a shaded fold with a three-dimensional effect that made it look like the backing was coming loose. Behind it, she colored in a blue-white background and then an angel with a smile that showed its appreciation if not outright endorsement. It looked out of place, but the juxtaposition made the image stronger—the fighters and the spectators together in one place.

Sitting back in her seat, Ilya turned her attention to the passing shops and restaurants with their internal lights playing off the glow of the sidewalks, an effect that grew more intense as the sunlight faded. It was nearing eight, which on a Saturday night meant lots of customers for the parlors and cafés sprinkled amongst the locally-owned businesses. Perrault’s was lit up for the weekend crowd; Ilya recognized a few faces from school sitting at the small tables that bled out onto the sidewalk, sipping their faux coffees and vitamin-enhanced smoothies. It was the kind of thing her grandmother would scoff at, that Babushka would call an idle existence. Avoiding that kind of behavior came naturally to Ilya, the byproduct of some ill-defined prejudice locked away in her DNA.

A trio of newly teen girls got on when the tram stopped at Trinity; they shared a two-person bench a few rows back from Ilya. Their conversation was what she expected: shallow obsessions and useless gossip, nothing geared towards real problems. It was just like the graffiti, meaningful only in a certain light, only to the person that created it. That was a better time, thought Ilya, before reality brought gifts like loneliness, attraction, and mortality. Once recognized, those issues seemed to dominate her daily thoughts.

That was why, when the instant message popped up on her palette an hour prior, she gladly accepted the invitation to a night out. With dinner done and no plans for the night, Ilya had already changed into comfortable clothes and settled in her grandmother’s rocking chair with a palette in her lap. Going out would have been something different, a borderline cliché, but the idea of forsaking something for its conformity seemed in itself too conformist.

That it was okay to be different never even occurred to Ilya. It was an accepted fact that didn’t require debate, internally or externally. Choosing to get dressed and hop on the tram was just as valid an option as remaining in the rocking chair, reading for a couple of hours, and then turning in before the clock struck ten. The more time she spent watching the world scroll by outside the tram, the more confident she became in her choice. There was so much to see in Easton, so many pretty veneers going about their lives in a world that celebrated ostentatious artificiality. It was a strange paradox, like rats in a well-decorated maze.

Parker Avenue split right after Browning Road, as if the Tsugumi Galleria had always existed and the road forced to go around it. The shopping center was a squat three-story building that, thanks to an animated veneer, made a fitting cap for a street dedicated to commerce. It was there that residents could find the legacy chain stores, the once-great giants that the city had forced into small pens to keep them from overtaking local businesses. At least Victoria’s Secret still had a varied collection.

There were two stops on each side of the mall and when the tram paused at the second one, Ilya disembarked.

It had grown colder throughout the day and with the sun finally gone, she was starting to feel the chill in her bones. Her shirt, though long-sleeved, felt thin against the constant breeze, and the loose bottoms of her jeans fluttered constantly as she made the short walk to the entrance. The double-doors parted for her automatically and once she passed the second set, a blast of warmer air enveloped her. The activity inside, the noise and the sparkling veneers, distracted her and for a moment, she forgot why she had come. There was so much going on, so much liveliness compared to the laid back aura of Café Perrault.

The smell of pastry reminded her of the instant message.

Fountain in front of the Cinnabon.

Ilya caught the scent on the air and followed it to the left. Merging into the crowd, she listened to the many voices around her, all talking at once about nothing.

Her date was sitting alone on the edge of the fountain, spaced evenly between a couple eating pretzels and a man reading a palette. Thinking herself unobserved, her face had a blank look on it, one that could approach sadness if the right screws were turned. The ponytail that she wore at school was down; one side of her hair hung by her cheek while the other disappeared behind her shoulder. Unlike Ilya, she had been smart enough to bring a jacket, one of those white half-trenches with wood-colored buttons on the pockets. It would have made a good picture with the water falling in the background. Ilya concentrated on the details, resolved to reconcile it later when she got a chance.

“Been waiting long?” Ilya asked, her apology hidden somewhere in her playful tone.

Rosalia looked up and flashed a new veneer, this one with vibrant eyes and a smile to match. “Just a few minutes.” Her gaze wandered to the left. “I was thinking about getting a cinnamon bun.”

“They smell good.” The aroma grew more intense the longer Ilya stared at the flashy advertising above their storefront. “Have you eaten?”

“No. Didn’t really have an appetite today. You?”

“My grandmother made
kapustnyak
.”

“What’s that?” asked Rosalia, scrunching her eyebrows.

Ilya shook her head slightly, surveyed the other eateries in the food court. “I’m not sure. Maybe one day you’ll come try it.” Her lips spread in a smile.

“I’m in the mood for Mexican.”

“Nachos,” said Ilya in agreement. “I love nachos.” She waited for Rosalia to stand and then together they navigated the distracted throngs. “I tried to make them for my family once. Babushka said, ‘What is this? Chips and cheese? This is meal?!’” She adopted a thick accent for the quote, garnering a small laugh from Rosalia.

“All Mexican food is like, three or four things.”

“Italian food too,” offered Ilya. “Sauce and noodles. They think just because they make the pasta into a corkscrew or a bowtie that it’s a different meal.”

“Yeah,” replied Rosalia, chuckling.

The El Chico restaurant was on the edge of the food court in the gray area between food and retail. It was late so they didn’t have to wait long before the hostess showed them to one of the high tables by the windows. They had a view of Parker, of the cars and trams zipping by, and of the neighborhoods beyond with their lines of streetlamps snaking into the darkness. Ilya made small talk as Rosalia stared at the twinkling veneers, her face alive with their muted reflections. Only after the waiter had brought their food did Ilya dare bring up Deron.

“Where is he tonight?” Ilya asked, reaching for the salt shaker.

Rosalia stared at her food as if her appetite had suddenly disappeared. “In Paramel with Sebo.”

“What’s in Paramel?”

She laughed in response. “Sex, drugs, violence.” Looking up, she added, “No, he’s going to play video games.”

“You wish he was here, don’t you?”

“Why do you say that?” Her eyes darted away as she took a long drink. “I’ve seen that face before, in a book.” Ilya touched the amber glass of the table and reconciled the cover. She flipped it around so Rosalia could see it.

“
Show Me Love
,” she read, “
erotica by Claire Beaudoin
.”

“I found it on my mom’s palette when I was thirteen.”

“A little young, don’t you think?”

Ilya shrugged as she coaxed a jalapeño onto a chip with her fingernail. “You have to learn about sex eventually. What would you prefer, a beautiful story about people making
passionate
love, or a diagram of a penis in health class?”

“That’s how I learned,” said Rosalia.

“Either way, Deron should be spending time with his woman instead of his man.”

“No, I told him to go. He deserves some release.”

Ilya smiled knowingly.

“He’d like that,” Rosalia admitted. “At least this way he can go out and have some fun instead of being with me and remembering...”

The pall that followed made Ilya shiver. “Russo is an asshole.” It was all she could think to say.

“I just don’t understand Deron,” continued Rosalia, her head dipping. “I always thought he was a little disconnected from the world, but not like this. There’s carefree and there’s careless. If he’s gonna do something, he’s not telling me.” A pause while the waiter refilled her glass. “We met last night. I was ready, you know, to
comfort
him, but he didn’t bite. We kissed, but that was it.”

“Maybe he wasn’t in the mood?”

Rosalia scoffed. “Have you ever known a boy that wasn’t in the mood?” She looked away, pretended to watch the people walking by on the street. “It might have been the pain. Or the drugs.”

“Da,” said Ilya. She wanted to comfort Rosalia, say the right things to make her happy again, but even she could see the subtle rejection coming from Deron. Maybe he was doing it out of some romantic necessity, pushing her away so he wouldn’t have to look into the face of betrayal. It was a scene straight out of
Show Me Love
with the broad-chested Salvio and his cheating lover, Dominique. Ilya smiled, recalling a passionate scene.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, I was just thinking...” She gnashed her teeth. “You haven’t given him the ultimate gift yet.”

Rosalia blushed and tried to hide it with her veneer.

“Just saying it could help.”

“Sure,” replied Rosalia. “I almost got you killed so let’s fuck?”

Ilya spread her hands. “If he can get it up on his meds...”

“You mean if he still wants me.” Rosalia stabbed absently at her food.

“Come on, who wouldn’t want you? And you’re right, all boys think about sex all the time, so that works in our favor.” She looked Rosalia up and down. “Though, we do need to find something more enticing than that shirt.”

“What?” Rosalia looked down at her dark blue tee with its understated floral design. “Deron loves this shirt.”

“It’s nice, but it doesn’t show off your body enough.” Then, in epiphany, “We should do some shopping!”

There was hesitation in Rosalia’s eyes. “I guess we could go to the Gap.”

“Yeah, no,” said Ilya. “I was thinking something more Secret.”

15 - Sebo

When it came to overwhelming the senses, American Reality had their veneers down to a manipulative science. Their storefront was, in essence, just an extension of the virtual worlds contained within, so it fit that the displays gave people a taste of what they could expect if they had the guts to walk inside and slap down thirty bucks. A novice player could lose their mind just standing on the sidewalk, staring at the screens and the replays of explosions and aliens and grisly dismemberments that would rival the most realistic of snuff films. And even if they closed their eyes, the smells would still be there: fresh blood pooling around their feet, the acrid smoke from a signal flare, and even the oily aroma of a Signet, a half-lizard, half-infant concoction found in the later levels of Destined 4 Death. It was a devastating display of sensory overload, which was encouragement enough for some to let go of the real world and embrace the nightmare.

“You don’t mind, do you?” asked Sebo, as he laced up his game boots. The ready room in the bowels of American Reality smelled like disinfectant, a deliberate choice to match its Spartan motif, complete with blank walls and a light overhead that flickered like an old-style bulb. It was atmosphere, a bland cracker to clear the palette for the feast to come.

Deron shrugged in response and fiddled with the harness on his chest.

He
did
mind. Sebo could usually read Deron’s true emotions, even if his veneer suggested otherwise. All he had to do was watch his body language, examine the way his shoulders slumped, the way his hands moved slowly, lacking enthusiasm. Sebo frowned inwardly. He wanted to tell him that this was for his own good, but it felt too soon to bring up the business of Russo Rivera.