Veneer (30 page)

It was different with Ilya, though Rosalia wasn’t sure why.

She seemed to take everything in stride; the Vinestead building was a perfect example. Rosalia had dragged her away from school and into downtown only to sit across the street from an abandoned building and discuss nothing but the nightmarish visions of other Canvas players. A strange feeling had come over her when they crossed the street and approached the doors, that perhaps it was all a lost cause. And as they stood there reading the poorly reconciled notice on the nameplate, she couldn’t help but apologize to Ilya for wasting her time. As expected, Ilya tried to reassure her that it was okay, that she would rather spend the day away from school with her than be stuck listening to Mr. Quan recite the laws of physics.

The uniform didn’t say anything until Rosalia turned up the path towards Deron’s front door. And even then he had to clear his throat first, as if he had been salivating over her.

“Can I help you, young lady?”

Rosalia barely paused to mutter, “No.”

“Are you an acquaintance of Mrs. Bishop?”

Stopping halfway up the sidewalk, she turned in place. “
Ms.
Bishop. And I’m sure that’s none of your damn business.” There it was, thought Rosalia. The quickest way to turn off that sexual fire was to question their domain.

“
Everything
is my business,” he proclaimed, subconsciously touching his belt, as if having a dick were some kind of sanction. “Ms. Bishop is not receiving any visitors at the moment.”

“It’s okay,” said a voice from behind her.

Rosalia turned and saw Ania standing in the doorway; her body language contradicted the polished veneer she wore.

“Come in, Rosalia,” she continued, beckoning.

Casting a triumphant glance at the uniform, Rosalia followed Ania into the house. For a moment, she stood dumbfounded in the foyer. Although she had only been to Deron’s house a few times, she had never seen it so spotless. She looked at his mom with wide eyes.

“I clean when I’m nervous,” she explained. “I made some tea. Would you like some?”

“Please,” replied Rosalia, though she wasn’t a bit thirsty.

In the kitchen, the virginal motif continued. The counters were bare and their black marble veneers had been reconciled to a radiant sheen. On the stove was a solitary teapot; steam was just barely visible rising from its spout.

“Tea is good for the soul,” said Ania.

Rosalia had never spoken with Deron’s mom for any appreciable time, so she wasn’t sure if she was just making conversation or not. She had always seen her as a protective mother, unwilling to let another woman tear the last piece of her family away. Rosalia could relate to the fear of abandonment, but she didn’t know how to bring it up, how to expose how similar the two women were.

“Why aren’t you at school?” She placed a cup on the table in the dining nook and motioned for Rosalia to sit.

“I wanted to see you,” she replied. “I know how I feel about Deron being missing, but I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

“No, you can’t.” Her gaze fell on the patio doors.

Rosalia didn’t know what to say, how to continue after that. Though Ania had been right, it only took those three words to trivialize Rosalia’s relationship with Deron to an insignificant speck.

“I miss him too,” she said, mostly to herself. “We went looking for him last night, me and Sebo. Ilya too.”

“Are they also cutting class today?”

“I don’t know. Sebo is his best friend, but I don’t think he loves Deron like we do.” Her confidence faltered as Ania narrowed her eyes. Whatever questions she had about the validity of Rosalia’s love went unspoken. “I can’t concentrate on school right now,” she added.

“You need to,” said Ania in her parenting voice. “You can’t skip out on your education for your boyfriend. For all you know, you would have broken up over the summer anyway.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. Ania was being cold, but a little placation might turn her around. “But we’re not there yet. I’m not stupid. I know it might not last forever. Just... while I have him, you know? I just want to do my part.” Her eyes drifted during her slow delivery and when she looked back, she saw Ania looking at her. Whether there were tears or even the slightest emotion behind that veneer, she couldn’t tell, but at least the woman was acknowledging her presence.

“The police think he left Easton.”

“How do they know?” asked Rosalia.

“I don’t know,” replied Ania, shaking her head. “Nothing they said makes sense. Why would he leave the city?”

The question went unanswered and a pall followed. Feeling the conversation slipping away, Rosalia stopped actively reconciling camouflage for her true emotions. She focused on thoughts of Deron, things that wouldn’t normally make her cry but in that instance seemed to evoke powerful emotions. Streaks appeared on her cheeks and droplets formed under her chin. Wiping them away wasn’t an option; she wanted them to drop one by one onto the table. Staring into the untouched cup of tea, Rosalia wondered if her display had made any kind of dent in Ania’s armor.

At long last, Ania spoke. “Every mother believes her child will listen to her. If I could only talk to him, tell him to come home, I know he would. I believe he would.” She sniffled, her nose barely registering the movement. “As a son grows up, he loses touch with his mother, stops relying on me. Now he relies on you.” A bitter but restrained sob. “He’s mine, Rosalia.
My
child. But he looks to you for guidance. Because he loves you. I can see it in him. If anyone is going to bring him back, it’ll be you.”

Rosalia looked up to make sure the words had come from Ania.

“He’ll come back for you.”

“I don’t understand...”

“He’ll contact you when he’s ready. And when he does, you need to do everything you can to get him to come home. You tell him how much you miss him, how much I miss him, and you
make
him come back.”

Ania got up and retrieved a box of tissues from the other room. She slid it onto the table and said, “Fix your veneer, honey.” Then she gasped and turned away again. “You and Deron are a lot alike.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday,” she began, sounding as if she were smiling, “his veneer was all over the place. And out there.” She pointed to the hallway. “There were smudges all over the wall, handprints and footprints reconciled here and there.”

“Sometimes he reconciles without realizing it,” offered Rosalia.

“I know. But not like this. This was too random, like he was reconciling blind.”

Rosalia cringed at the sudden pain in her stomach, feeling as if Ania had just delivered a crushing body blow. Two synapses snapped together; it was more than just a concussion, but how much more?

No, thought Rosalia, as she stood up. Her legs felt numb, but it was clear she had to get out of there before she spilled her idea to Ania. His mom would laugh her out of the house, right past the smug uniform, and out of the neighborhood. The only people she could tell, the only people who would believe her, were Ilya and Sebo.

“I have to go now,” she blurted out, her voice loud in her ears.

Ania didn’t protest, as if she had been waiting for the opportunity to resume her solitude. She escorted Rosalia to the door, but said nothing as she closed it behind her.

Although Rosalia wanted nothing more than to break down, she resolved to hold it together. The uniform was still there, but she brushed by him without a word, keeping her eyes open for a private surface to reconcile. It didn’t have to be big, just enough to load a portal and send a message to Ilya and Sebo. Finally, she found a van parked on the street and pressed her hand to it.

Her portal blossomed and when she brought up her instant messenger, she was surprised to find a message from Sebo.

“You missed it,” he had written. “Russo came by the school and slammed the shit out of Jalay’s face!”

She knew she should be happy about that and a smirk did try to worm its way onto her veneer, but her lips wouldn’t follow the direction. Not even the suffering of her enemy could cheer her up.

39 - Sebo

After the final bell, Sebo stepped into the harsh light of the outside world, happy that school was over but confused by the lingering mood of the day. It occurred to Sebo as he collected his personal effects from his locker that he had barely spoken to anyone and most of his interaction had been through instant messages that went unanswered. That his closed social network could be so easily shattered didn’t really surprise him, but it didn’t make it easier to bear. It consisted of so few people that when one fell out, the others tumbled with them.

From the plaza in front of the school, he glimpsed Ilya getting onto a bus. She was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt that was just white enough to discern the pink bra underneath. Even in cold weather, she found a way to show off her body. Not that Sebo didn’t appreciate it, but that kind of behavior seemed better suited to pre-programmed Roommates than a junior with understated tits. For a moment, he debated going over to talk to her, but she had been scarce all day. At least she could have sought him out between classes, explained why Rosa wasn’t in school. For that matter, Rosa could have sent a message or two.

He laughed to himself, thinking there was no one left in Easton who was amenable to talking to him.

Jalay would have at least made for interesting conversation, but even he had abandoned the school at the first sign of face-smashing. Recalling the details of the story, Sebo basked in the justice of it all. It served Jalay right. He couldn’t just spend all of junior high and most of high school being the scrotum to the boy who in the
Encyclopedia of Cock
held both the first and second listings. That the punishment had come from said cock just made it all the more satisfying.

Sebo began the long walk home, during which he perused his mental list of Destined 4 Death friends and wondered if any of them were worth hanging out with in real life. There were all types among them: the fighters, the bosses, the inept, and even the slightly retarded. But few played with the simultaneous indifference and intensity that Deron brought to the game. People who could have fun but still win were rare.

It was then he realized it would never be the same. He could make new friends at school, find people to hang out with, but in the gaming world where it mattered, he was destined for desolation. All he had to look forward to were unsatisfying sessions with random players, most of whom couldn’t aim a reticle to save their lives. And nowhere else was that skill more important than when the Nazis were raining down their Stielhandgranates and filling the trenches with fear and guts.

Smiling at a distant memory, Sebo thought of World War II, of an era when men sometimes fought with their bare hands, where death meant death and not simply launching another drone. He had the sudden urge to go back there.

The most likely place to find a new WWII shooter was at Entertainments by Pilar, a small boutique in an ill-placed micro-mall one street over from Parker Avenue. Some time ago, an enterprising homeowner had razed his own creation and decided to rent the land out to small businesses. And when he said small, he meant it. Every shop in the barely five-thousand square foot mall could only accommodate three or four people at a time. As a result, the vendors were often those who had little to no physical inventory.

Pilar’s was a monument to stimulus overload and stepping into it was like experiencing the revelation that all in the universe was good and nothing would ever get in the way of a righteous frag. She had beads hanging in the entryway; beyond them was a room lit only by the scintillating graphics on the three walls. There were usually a variety of trailers playing, depending on the crowd and the time of day. On alternate Tuesdays, she used a whole wall to show off in-game footage of the latest mindfuck murder simulator to hit the market.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Pilar, greeting him from behind her half-counter, one of only two pieces of furniture in the room. She had the friendliest and darkest veneer of anyone Sebo knew, with black being a central color and glints of silver at various locations around her lips and eyes. Tall but not towering, she had an elongated frame that looked somewhat alien. While the trailers might have done eighty percent of the selling, it was clear that her themed veneer and ample cleavage did the rest. “I was beginning to think you’d stopped gaming.”

Sebo smirked, tried to imagine what immense tragedy would have to befall him to make him ever give up the game. “I’ve been... preoccupied,” he began, the words tingling as they rolled off his tongue. “There have been, let’s say, certain events outside of my control that have prevented me from visiting as often as I would like.”

Pilar snickered a little. “Is that so? Then why did I see your handle pop up on the Swarm Survivor board the other day?”

“That,” he replied, approaching the far wall to examine a breakout of an enemy model, “was my attempt to reacquaint my friend with the gaming world.”

“Going by your score, you didn’t have much luck.”

“Not. Much.” He heard her slip off the stool and turned in time to glimpse her skirt as it slid back into place. Biting his lip, he waited.

She joined him at the wall and folded her hands. “One Man Army,” she said, nodding towards the video. Reaching out and touching it, she reconciled the in-game footage away and brought up the polished trailer.

Sebo basked in Pilar’s perfume as he watched the gold text float in the darkness. After a quick cut, a ruined city came into view and then the camera zoomed in on a lone soldier running through the rubble. He ducked the incoming fire, the blue beams that streaked across the gray landscape. Gentle fades displayed the many arenas, including jungles and underwater science labs. It all seemed like a retread until the hero took a critical shot to the abdomen and collapsed to the ground. As the enemy soldiers emerged from their hiding places, the hero reached for a device on his belt. A flash of light filled the screen and suddenly he was somewhere else, blinking away the brightness. Above him, several figures came into view and after a few seconds, Sebo realized they were all the same person.