by Drew Hayes
“Did you actually just use the word ‘fuddy-duddy’? I’d say that’s the bigger shame,” Violet accused.
“If the dud fits, use it,” Nick replied. “Seriously, he has a fairly good-looking lady gyrating against him and he looks like he is getting a root canal.”
“I imagine it’s a delicate line to walk, escorting one’s best friend’s sister,” Vince contributed.
“Waaaaaaait, what the shit now?” Alice said, turning her head.
“Aren’t Shane and Chad friends? I mean, they hang out so often I just assumed-”
“That’s not the juicy part,” Stella interrupted. “Did you just say Angela is Shane’s sister?”
“That’s what she told me at the water table,” Vince said.
“Wow, I guess that explains why she’s so involved in the freshman class,” Violet surmised.
“I think it’s kind of her to take an active interested in her younger brother’s world,” Thomas said.
“Mmmhmm, given how aggressively she’s dancing I’m not sure it’s Shane’s whole world she’s interested in,” Stella said. “More like just one hunky blonde part of it.”
“I don’t think it is like that,” Vince said. “He agreed to escort her in exchange for training assistance. She said she wanted him so that she could enjoy the act of dancing without fending off other boys.”
The table stared at him, silence on their tongues and doubts that he could possibly be serious in their eyes.
“Wait, does Chad believe that, too?” Alice asked.
“Of course,” Vince said.
Nick sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Holy damn they made two of them.”
“Two of what?” Vince asked.
“Maybe it’s something about being really powerful that makes them like this?” Alice proposed.
“Nope, I’m about on par with at least Vince and I’m not that dense,” Thomas replied.
“What are we talking about? Guys?” Vince asked.
“I’d say it’s more a factor of focus,” Mary ventured. “They commit so fully to their specialties that they find themselves mentally lacking in other areas.”
“I’m right here, you know. Perfectly in ear shot,” Vince pointed out.
“Yeah, but you don’t really know what we’re talking about, which sort of proves the point,” Nick said, addressing Vince at last. “Tell you what: the song is slowing down a bit so I say we couple up and hit the dance floor. I want to investigate this little curious coupling further and this is a good chance to close the distance.”
“I wouldn’t mind a dance,” Mary said, she and Hershel rising from their seats and proceeding to the floor.
Camille started to reach for Thomas, but Violet snatched him away first. She gave the smaller girl a pointed look, her eyes darting to Camille’s then flashing briefly to Vince and back. “Come on, big boy, you can take me for a spin.”
Stella rose from her seat. “I don’t do this kind of dancing, you kids can play detective and I’ll get us some beer.”
Alice looked at her remaining options: between Vince and Nick there was no contest. She’d rather keep her distance from the boy with the complicated moral compass. Unfortunately, her own sense of ethics was getting in the way of grabbing her simple yet honest friend and twirling him around the dance floor. It was obvious Camille liked Vince, yet the girl was too timid to make a move, and of course Vince was, well, Vince. Which meant if she snatched away this golden opportunity, heaven only knew when there would be another.
“Come on, Nick, try not to step on my heels,” Alice commanded. “And you two, don’t you dare try and just sit this out. So help me God I will organize a complicated tea ceremony with full etiquette and formalwear and guilt you both into coming if we don’t see you on the dance floor. This is a team night out, after all.”
Vince stood up and offered Camille his hand. The girl tried not to degenerate into a glowing red beacon as Nick and Alice stepped lightly onto the floor.
“That was quite nice of you,” Nick complimented. “Such a sacrifice to help a girl you barely know.”
“At least I’m stuck with a decent dancer,” Alice replied. “Besides, I like Camille. She may not speak loudly but everything she says is heartfelt and honest.”
“Not to mention you’re practically itching to drag her off to a salon and make her up like a doll,” Nick countered, the two falling into a softly swaying rhythm.
“Well, yes, that too.”
“So set on honesty, despite its failings as a philosophy,” Nick said.
“How does honesty fail as a philosophy? It keeps things simple.”
Nick laughed lightly and twirled Alice out to the end of his arm and pulling her gently back. “Honesty is many things, but simple isn’t one of them. Lies and half-truths keep the world simple. Truth complicates things, makes messes where there needn’t be any, and opens doors better left closed. Point of fact, it’s quite the opposite of simple.”
“Of course you’d think that way. If you ever tried being open and honest with someone you’d see how wrong you are.”
“Alice, believe me when I say every good liar is aptly versed in truth. Knowing where the two overlap is knowing where the spot for the greatest deception lives.”
“Jeez, you’re such a cynic. How do you live in the world if that’s the way you see it?’
“Years of practice. But all right, Alice, if you are so determined to believe that truth makes things simpler, let’s test that theory.” Nick took her by the small of the back and executed a small dip. When he pulled her back to standing he carried the motion a bit further than necessary, bringing her left ear within only a few inches of his mouth.
“I sincerely missed you over the summer,” Nick whispered in a voice that tickled against Alice’s neck and felt stronger than his usual flippant tones. Just like that he had pulled back to a respectful distance again, though the expression he wore was more earnest than his usual half-cocked grin. Alice heard a soft thumping in her ears and realized at some point during his antics her heart had significantly sped up.
“So tell me, Alice, did that little piece of truth make your life less complicated?”
36.
Nick washed his hands thoroughly, taking time to reflect in the serenity of the restroom. He needed to step away from the world, needed to compose, needed to take assessment of what a dumb fuck he’d been. Gerry had taught him better than that, taught him that the con and the character took precedence over petty emotions. Yet here he was, only a few years since graduation, making a moronic move that flew in the face of all that. He and Alice had been rebuilding their tenuous friendship. With quiet deference and a few well-placed gestures, he could have been back on her list of trustworthy persons by the time Halloween rolled around. Not now; now things were infinitely more complicated.
Nick had actively stoked the very fires of infatuation he’d worked so hard to douse last year. It wouldn’t make her more malleable, it certainly wouldn’t smooth out the wrinkles in their friendship; all it would do is add unneeded layers of complication. He’d let fly with the little quip just to prove her wrong and only now were the consequences fully settling in.
Nick pulled free some paper towels and wiped away the moisture. He tossed them into the trash and readied himself to try and do damage control. Curiously, in all of his machinations, analyses, and speculations, he never once paused to wonder why he’d selected that particular piece of truth as a wrench to throw in Alice’s gears, which merely goes to show that even the swiftest minds can fall into the gopher hole that is self-delusion.
* * *
Vince and Camille rotated slowly in place, each carefully moving his or her respective feet in an effort to avoid the other’s. They felt awkward, though for very different reasons. Vince had merely never felt quite at home in the center of a dance floor and Camille was doing her darnedest not to hyperventilate.
“Sorry I’m not that good,” Vince apologized. After watchi
ng Nick tip and twirl Alice about, he felt like his own slow-paced turning was somewhat inadequate.
“It’s fine,” Camille said. “I’m not much of a dancer anyway.”
Vince chuckled. “So neither of us is good at this, yet we’re both out here?”
“Alice is scarily capable of party organizing. I’m not taking the risk,” Camille replied to the unasked question.
“Very, very good point,” Vince agreed. “Actually, while we’re out here and no one can hear over the music, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while.”
“Oh?” Camille’s voice squeaked within the decibel range audible to human ears, but only just barely.
“Why are you in the Close Combat class? I mean, you work hard and do well, but given the nature of your talents it seems like an odd fit. The rest of us have the ability to at least deal damage in some way.”
Camille weighed her words precisely, knowing she was about to walk a tightrope between lying and merely not saying the whole truth. “Healers in general aren’t a physical risk to their opponents, but they represent a giant threat when on a team to the people they’re facing. So even if a healer isn’t dangerous, they can still get targeted. Knowing how to not get hit, even a little, can make a big difference.”
“When you point that out, it seems like a stupid question,” Vince conceded. “I was wondering why they’d put you in a position to get hurt, but I guess it’s actually more about teaching you how to stay safe.”
“That is the theory,” Camille said carefully.
“It seems like a good one,” Vince said. “You know, this girl I met a long time ago had a pretty useful version of healing. She didn’t just take away damage, she absorbed it like energy. She told me she could give it to other people later on. It seems like that would be a really good combination to have, both offense and defense rolled into one.”
“Sounds that way,” Camille said, her brain sludgy with uncertainty. So he remembered her but didn’t recognize her. What the hell? She hadn’t changed that much; she’d barely even grown. His eyes seemed far away when he talked about her, and he had a half-smile that materialized with the words. Which meant what, exactly? Camille dearly wished she was more adept at these sorts of social situations. Ultimately, her need to know got the better of her and she pressed forward.
“This girl you knew, did she ever go into the program?”
“I doubt it,” Vince replied.
“Ah, didn’t have the guts for it?”
“Oh no, not at all,” Vince said, hastily correcting himself. “I just don’t think she would have taken such a combative route. I have a feeling she found her calling helping people. She was a very kind and gentle girl. Small, too, like you, except she had brown hair.”
Camille blinked. She’d forgotten she used to dye her normally white-blonde hair to stand out less. It seemed as well that he still hadn’t realized that she and his former girl had the same power. That explained at least some of the recognition problems.
“She seems sweet. I’m surprised you didn’t keep in touch.”
“I... used to travel a lot, and we kind of met in passing,” Vince said, glossing over the long explanation that was his past.
“Well, she must have left quite an impression.”
“Yeah, but then again, your first kiss usually does,” Vince replied. The song came to an end and the crowd began swapping out, people preferring the loud rhythmic music to the slow twirls taking the dance floor while the other type left. “I think we’ve satisfied Alice’s requirements, unless you want to...”
“No, thank you. I can barely manage the slow songs, I don’t think I’m cut out for the other type of dancing,” Camille said politely.
“You and I are very much on the same page there,” Vince agreed. “I’ll go get us some water.”
“That would be great,” Camille said as she moved to retake her seat at the table by Stella. It was a blessing that Vince left her side at that moment: one more piece of stimulation might have made her completely fall apart. So he remembered her after all, he just didn’t know she was that girl. It had been over ten years ago, after all. The mere fact that he remembered her would likely have been the pinnacle of her night on any other occasion, but shockingly enough, there was another chunk of data that eclipsed that fact in terms of emotional potency.
She’d been his first kiss. They’d shared an intimate first experience on that sunny summer afternoon. She’d never known that, and somehow that little slip of information made everything a bit more bearable.
37.
As the night wore on, minds became soaked in booze, bodies coated in a thin shimmer of sweat, and spirits lifted beyond their previously dismal locations. The dancing became more prevalent and conversation became louder as the young people began to forget their formal attire in favor of recalling their naturally informal nature. It was under the cover of this happy-hearted dull road that Nick slid into a chair adjacent to Mary.
“Boyfriend time is over, huh?”
“Roy’s been charming a gaggle of girls for the better part of an hour now,” Mary replied.
“I’m impressed you’ve convinced him that doesn’t bother you, knowing every time Roy pulls this your boyfriend wakes up with new memories of a carnal carnival,” Nick complimented.
“I try not to think about it,” Mary said. “Besides, I know there are challenges to being with a telepath, even if I do try never to read his mind. There will always be issues if we date others like ourselves; best to meet them head on.”
“Whatever you say. On the subject of mental eavesdropping, gleaned anything from our fellow competitors?” Nick asked.
Britney and Amber had both shown up and begun working the room a little over an hour ago. They’d acknowledged their fellow HCP members non-verbally, but kept their distance otherwise. The group didn’t run in the same social circles above ground, after all. Familiar greetings would prompt questions from spectators, questions that would be met with lies that could be uncovered. No, the best course of action was distance in situations like these.
“I’ll say this much: either the girl is an expert at keeping her thoughts shuffled or Monday’s event is literally the last thing on her mind,” Mary answered.
“Really? She’s hasn’t thought about anything?”
“Oh, she’s thought about plenty. The flavor of the beer, how she wishes her high school friend was here, how sexy she finds Amber’s boyfriend and the implications she doesn’t want that to carry.”
“But nothing about us. Interesting,” Nick surmised.
“There is one thing,” Mary said tentatively. “I don’t know what it means, but whenever Britney looks at Vince, she feels guilty. Not a lot, just a few versions of ‘I wish I could say I’m sorry’ flit through her head.”
“That tells us something,” Nick said. “Those two were never close, so she can’t feel bad about abandoning him after the revelation, and she’s not friends with Sasha so there isn’t any connection there. Whatever she feels about Vince must be tied to something she is either going to do or going to let happen.”
“So we should keep an eye out for Vince on Monday?”
“No, we proceed as planned,” Nick corrected.
“But what about-”
“Whatever Britney thinks she might have to do or let happen, I’m not worried about it,” Nick said. “Vince may need looking after in many contexts; however, on the battlefield is definitely not one of them.”
“You sure? She’s got Michael, after all. He’s ranked number three and Vince is only eight,” Mary pointed out. “Maybe we should give him some warning.”
“If Vince doesn’t know to watch out for Michael by now then nothing we say is going to make him keep alert. Aside from that, neither of those rankings has been accurate for a long time,” Nick told her.
“Then why haven’t they been changed?”
“They were supposed to be, after the final exam last year. My guess is our absence a
nd the fiasco fouled up the system too much to make an accurate ranking. Or maybe it is because they want people operating under those old assumptions,” Nick explained. “As to why, well, it might make people create a few errors in their plans and match-ups. The smart money says those kinds of errors will be evaluated on the leader’s part as much as the individual fighting’s failure to win.”
“Seems overly contrived just on the off chance it might foul someone up,” Mary observed.
“Yes, well, it seems to be what they do best here. Speaking of contrived, have we confirmed that Chad legitimately thinks he is here in an innocent context?”
“Hard to say for certain since I’m deaf to him, but everyone is collectively leaning toward an affirmative.”
“Shocking, quite shocking. Also, kudos to the elder DeSoto.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve been listening to her quite a bit tonight and the girl is positively diabolical. She’s got a whole little plan for wooing Chad without his noticing,” Mary said.
“Smart girl. A direct approach on a guy as focused as Chad would only meet with distance. I sometimes wonder what’s going on in that boy’s head to make him so relentless.”
“Go figure, I can’t hear his thoughts and you can’t deduce his motives. Who’d have believed there was someone so well-defended that even the two of us can’t get in their brain?”
“I would have,” Nick said, taking a sip from a beer he’d set on the table. Despite hollow words said about only serving those of age, as soon as the local police had done their pop-in the bar’s serving scruples became visibly lax. “I’ve seen firsthand just how exceptionally guarded a motivated person can make their head.”
“You are quite the little mental tank,” Mary complimented. “Except for your interaction with Alice earlier, I mean.”
“I wasn’t talking about myself. And you heard that?”
“Alice is my best friend and, suffice it to say, it’s been on her mind.”
“Of course it has,” Nick sighed, taking a deeper sip.