Chapter 4

Chapter Four:
In the morning after my alarm went off for work, I took to my usual routine. I slipped on a little black Jersey dress (also, coincidentally, a boobage bearing article of clothing), paired it with five inch platforms of death, and added a heart shaped pendant to top it all of. Simple, but sweet. Good sometimes, like a breath of fresh air. Or Frosted Flakes instead of Reeses Puffs.
When I was ready to go, I set off for work, blatantly avoiding the house when I passed it. It seemed like every time I went anywhere near that place something horrible happened, so I needed to just keep away. I doubted the resolution would last, but it made me feel good for the time being.
Heading into the shop and going straight for my apron, I noticed that there was a whole crowd waiting for me. Reba and Kennedy were seated on one side of the counter talking quietly to each other, while in the far corner Dante and his friend sat watching the house. For a brief moment I wondered what their connection to it was, but it passed.
I headed straight for Reba and Kennedy, but Dante never gave me the chance to get to them. He sauntered up to the counter and leaned on it, giving me the elevator eyes. They lingered on my high heels, bare legs, and low top. Typical male.
“Awful lot of trouble to go to for a fake boyfriend,” he said simply.
I froze up for a moment before I could answer. “What would you know about it?”
He grinned at me, the same grin that dazzled me the first time we met. “I have incredible hearing.”
I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks. Oh no. What did I say yesterday? Not anything bad, did I? I wanted to think that I didn't, but something told me he had heard more than a little he wasn't supposed to. “Well. Even if he is fake, maybe I already like him better than you.”
He raised an eyebrow, still smirking. “Is that so?”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “Are you always this irritating?”
He chuckled as I struggled with my frustration, obviously amused. What was it with guys and thinking girls were cute when they were angry, anyway? The point in being angry isn't cuteness, it's being FREAKING PISSED OFF.
“Why don't you just go away?” I said.
He shrugged. “All quiet on the western front. Nothing better to do, so why not bother you?”
I just now noticed that his friend had followed him over from the table and was talking to Reba, watching her draw.
“That's Gabriel, by the way,” Dante said in a blasé manner. I spared him a glance before I wandered over to Reba and Gabriel. I couldn't quite see what she was drawing at first, but as my mind put it together my stomach knotted. It was Gabriel, over and over. A whole crowd of Gabriels, standing in neat little rows. Even if he didn't get what she was saying, I did.
“You're very good, you know,” he told her with a smile. “I'm flattered.”
“You shouldn't be,” she muttered, not looking up from her work.
“Excuse me?”
“You shouldn't be,” she said louder, finally looking up at him with an intense gleam in her eye. “Because guess what? I don't like conformists.” She went back to her work. “You look just like the guy next to you. The hair, the suit, the sunglasses. All things that society has told you will make you attractive and successful. All lies to mask your identity.”
I watched, stunned. Go, Reba, go.
There was a long silence where no one knew what to say, and finally Kennedy broke it. “That's her way of saying she's just not that into you,” she translated. Gabriel gave her a blank expression in return, and she avoided his gaze by checking her nails, painted pink with smiley face appliqués on them.
“Anyway,” I concluded the strange little tangent, and turned back to Dante. “I think you should go away now.”
He shrugged. “Can't. I have to be here. Besides, I want a Cappuccino.”
I rolled my eyes, then rung him up and threw together a coffee. But, just to make things interesting, I added a little special ingredient. Nutmeg. LOTS of nutmeg. Enough that no living being could ever want to drink that coffee.
“Here you go,” I said, walking around the corner to stand close to him and handing over the coffee with a sweet smile. As I did, an older woman walked in and stood looking at the menu that hung behind the counter.
He looked at me suspiciously; where had the hard to get act gone? As he took a sip of the hot coffee, his eyes widened and he realized the fact of the matter. He grabbed a napkin and spit the coffee into it, grimacing all the while. “What the hell are you trying to do?? Poison me?”
With that, the customer widened her eyes and hurried out of the shop.
Still, I sat with a smug smile on my face. “Oh, you know. Just spicing things up.” It was a cheesy line if I'd ever given one, but it had its merits.
He advanced on me until we were inches apart. “Don't worry,” he said softly. “I'll get payback for that.”
“Something wrong, babe?” a familiar voice said from the door. We all looked. It was Vincent to the rescue.
I grinned as he walked over and slipped his hand around my waist and planted a kiss on my cheek. Just marking his territory.
Dante glared daggers at him. “It's no use. I know you're just a fake.”
Vincent's eyebrows shot up and he straightened his posture. “Fake? You're certainly one to talk with that dye job of yours...”
I saw Dante exchange an exasperated glance with Gabriel before looking back at Vincent. He began to retort, but Vincent cut him off.
“You know what? I think you should leave,” he said, unyielding in his eye contact with Dante, a conceited tone showing through in his voice.
Dante clenched his hand on the silver top of his cane, as if he was going to beat Vincent with it, but he made no move. Suddenly Gabriel was there, putting his hand on Dante's shoulder.
“He's right, Dante,” Gabriel said. “Let's just go.”
Dante muttered something in another language before turning and walking toward their table in the corner.
“Thanks,” I offered to Vincent as he respectfully backed away.
“No problem,” he responded with a wide grin. “It was fun.”
I smiled and shook my head. “So, just out of curiosity, why do you hang around this place so much?”
He shrugged and continued talking to me as another customer came in and ordered. “No particular reason. I like the atmosphere. I recently moved here and decided to hold off on getting the job for a while; I don't really need the money, and it's good having some time to adjust and get to know the city.”
I nodded to him as I handed the customer his coffee. “I can see that. But I guess for me it's been just the opposite. Working here is what has helped me get to know the city.”
I thought back to my life in Seattle for a moment. I generally tried to avoid reminiscing, because it just made me sad and it did no good to dwell on the past, but I couldn't help myself. I had loved Seattle, and always would. Salt Lake had a great vibe, too, but it was different. And I missed the ocean.
Back in Seattle, I had been a completely different person: straight A student, plain fashion sense, star dancer of the dance company. There I had always felt left out and lonely, like I never quite fit in. I had only ever had one friend who stuck with me always. Amelia Monzani had been the only person who understood who I was under all the pretenses; probably because she was like me, a loner. She never quite fit in. For me, it was because I could only pretend to be like everyone else for so long before I wanted to rip my heart out. With her, though, I had never figured out what it was that had set her apart.
When I came back to reality a few moments later, I could see that Vincent was silently watching me while my friends chatted on the stools at the counter.
“You miss it a lot, don't you?” he said quietly.
I shrugged. “Sometimes. But I'm better off here. There I was always trying to be something I wasn't. Here I know who I am. And I have friends, even if they're all insane.”
He smiled. “That's good to hear. Just remember that.” He lingered for a moment, then turned and walked to his table and pulled out the book he'd been working on. As he tilted the book up slightly to catch the light, I caught what it was that he was reading and allowed myself a giggle. Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Of course.
I looked over at my friends and found them watching me. I quirked a questioning eyebrow and Kennedy responded by beckoning me over with a single finger.
“Spill it,” she said. Reba gave her support with the unrelenting gaze she gave me. It was reminiscent what I imagined a vulture would look like if it were given a human face.
“Um.” I chewed my lip, not sure how they were going to take it. Still, I launched into the entire story, all through Dante's leaving me fifty bucks to kissing on the front porch to recruiting Vincent as my fake boyfriend. I decided to leave the whole pepper spray incident out for the time being, seeing as it wasn't quite on need to know status. When I finished, Kennedy was grinning and giving me some slow applause, while Reba looked concerned.
“Bravo! Honey, you know how to tease,” Kennedy congratulated.
Reba, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as thrilled. She gave Kennedy a doubtful glance and added her two cents. “I don't know, Cleo. It sounds like this could get really messy really fast.”
“That's where all the fun is, duh!” Kennedy's eyebrows jumped up and down.
Two customers came in at the same time: one was a businessman engaged with someone on his cell phone, and the other was a regular- Paul, a fellow with a handlebar mustache and a British accent. As I started the order for the first customer, Kennedy glanced at her cell phone to check on the time. “Listen, I need to get going. I have a hot date with this stud-monster from my kick boxing class today. But why don't we all get together later? None of us have to work tomorrow.”
Reba shrugged, and the light bulb flickered on in my head. “Yeah, that's perfect. My mom's going out of town for the weekend to visit a friend of hers in Mesquite. We can have it at my place.”
Kennedy snapped her fingers. “Sounds like a plan. See you chickadees later.” Without waiting for a word of parting, she breezed effortlessly out the door. No matter how proud I was of my new look since moving to Salt Lake, I could never keep up with Kennedy. She was Venus incarnate.
Reba didn't say anything, but kept working. She and I chatted a little after I finished with my customers, and as it got closer to time for a late lunch, she bid me farewell and headed home to whip up a shredded carrot and peanut butter sandwich. A couple hours later, I was off. When I got home, rather than doing anything productive, I decided to take a nap. After I woke up I saw that I still had some time to burn before Kennedy and Reba headed over, so I watched a kids' movie and critiqued its artistic and conceptual qualities.
When Kennedy and Reba showed up, the party began. We dug through my movie collection for the sappiest, most girlie movies we could find, turned them on, then broke out the snacks. We started with popcorn, then graduated to home blended Oreo milkshakes, as fattening as could be.
“You know, that redhead could be a superhero,” Kennedy said, taking a long sip of Oreo milkshake goodness. “Like the one who fell into a vat of radioactive chemicals and became super strong and super sexy and for some reason his hair got changed color. And his friend could be his partner in fighting crime- maybe he's even secretly gay. Maybe they're both secretly gay.”
Reba and I laughed our heads off, high on a sugar rush.
“No, no,” Reba corrected as she caught her breath. “It would be the dark one who would be the superhero. The dark ones are always the superheroes, and the quirky ones are always the side kicks. Like Batman.”
“Whatever, yo!” Kennedy protested loudly. “Batman is NOT even a superhero. I mean, come on! He doesn't even have any powers! He's just a super sexy ninja!”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you saying that being a super sexy ninja is not a super power in and of itself?”
Kennedy snorted and stuffed a hand full of popcorn in her mouth. “Okay, okay,” she nodded exaggeratedly as she spoke, barely comprehensible behind the mouthful of popcorn. “That's true.”
Reba raised her plastic cup of Oreo milkshake. “Here's to super sexy ninjas and their quirky sidekicks!” she toasted. Kennedy and I were enthusiastic to join. After a moment I decided to give up on the straw and instead gulped the milkshake down directly from the cup. Reba and Kennedy liked this idea and followed suit.
Kennedy gave a loud sigh of satisfaction and Reba started digging through the beaded bag she'd brought with her.
“Now then,” she said as she produced a tube of old lipstick and twisted it open to reveal a stick that was almost completely used up. She used it to draw a line on each of her cheeks, then raised her arms as if engaged in a druidic chant. “Tonight is the new moon,” she said, struggling to stay serious. “The time of month when wishes come true. So ladies,” she handed the lipstick to each of us in turn, who mimicked her war paint. “Let's give a little praise to the moon.”

Ten minutes later, we were running around outside in our skimpy pajamas of shorts and tank tops and fuzzy slippers, yelling and beating on pots with spoons. In any other neighborhood someone might have called the cops or the men in the white coats, but not here. It was the most mellow neighborhood I had ever known. People just didn't care- possibly because they had seen it all before.
We ran down the middle of the street, half dancing, drunken with the rush we felt. We ran all the way out of my neighborhood to the larger street that ran between the coffee shop and the house which then continued all across the city. It was six lanes wide, and completely dead this time of night. We spun around in circles and made loud Indian calls, competing to create the weirdest noises we could.
In the middle of the revelry, Kennedy stopped and extended her arms straight out with her face directed up toward the sky. “Oh, great god of the moon!” she yelled out into the chilly air, struggling to contain her giggles, “Grant us gorgeous guys and years of acne-free faces! Give us youth and happiness forever!” She twirled, beat on her pot, then stopped and resumed the same position. “And in return...” she paused, and peeked down at us. “What should I offer?” she stage whispered, giggling.
“Your favorite pair of pink socks?” I supplied with a wide grin.
She gave me a nasty look and stretched out again toward the black sky. “And in return, I offer myself!”
She yelled out another light, trilling Indian call and beat rapidly on her pot. Reba and I were in stitches, doubling over in the middle of the dead street.
“Yourself, huh?” I gasped as we started to recover.
“Way I figure it,” she explained, “Any god has gotta be very bloody sexy.”
I giggled and took in a deep breath of the crisp night air. It was cold outside, so much so that I could see my breath. But I didn't feel cold. I felt alive and brimming with energy, and the cold air only helped to intensify that feeling. We continued dancing and yelling down the street, all the way down to the house, where we taunted its scariness. Kennedy threw her spoon at it, and we laughed hysterically as she tiptoed across the haunted lawn to retrieve it from the bushes in front of the porch.
“Ow ow ow! Freaking ow!” she whined as she ran on her tippy toes back to us. “The bush scratched my thigh!”
I cackled. “That's what you get for throwing your spoon at it!”
She used the contaminated spoon to thwack me on the head, then Reba pointed hers like a general's bayonet toward my neighborhood. “Onward, my soldiers! Return to the barracks!”
“Oh good,” Kennedy huffed out. “I want to put a wet rag on my thigh so it doesn't swell up.”
I agreed with the decision as well. It had been fun that I would remember for years to come, but it was late, and the high was wearing off. And I was starting to actually feel cold. So we ran full throttle all the way back to my house and collapsed on the floor. An hour later we had cleaned ourselves up and fallen asleep.