Veneer

by Daniel Verastiqui

  Shrugging, Rosalia opened the pantry and fished a packet of instant oatmeal from a box. She shook it to settle the contents and then pulled a bowl from the cabinet. “I don’t know, but I bet they’re not the overreacting types.”

  “This is still my house,” said Lynn, sipping her coffee noisily.

  “No, this is our house,” she corrected, seeing the image of her formerly complete family in her mind. Her mom was always smiling, even when she was angry, even when she was sad. It was as if the muscles in her face knew no other way to be.

  But it wasn’t muscle; it was a veneer, a mask to keep her husband and child from seeing the pain underneath, from seeing the sickness that would eventually take her. Rosalia flashed on the last image of her mother and felt anger. Turning to Lynn, she said, “You just occupy space here.”

  There was no change in the woman’s veneer, no ripple of retribution trickling up from below. She simply looked down at her palette and pretended to read one of the news stories. After a moment, she took another sip of her coffee.

  Rosalia put her oatmeal in the microwave and started the timer. Then, remembering her guest, she prepared another bowl and pulled a serving tray down from the refrigerator. There’s cinnamon around here somewhere, she thought, checking each cabinet for a spice rack.

  “It’s not lady-like,” declared Lynn. “When I was a girl, we respected the rules of the house, whoever’s house it was.”

  “Things change,” Rosalia pointed out. The microwave beeped and she swapped out the bowls. “Would you rather I have Deron over? We could have unprotected sex all night. Or would that be too unlady-like?”

  “At least that would be normal. Then maybe your father wouldn’t have to run out of the house so he doesn’t have to confront his le—” She stopped short of saying the word, catching her tongue between her teeth.

  “His what?” The silence that followed was broken only by the beeping of the microwave.

  Lynn narrowed her eyes and placed the palette on the counter. There was hesitation in her veneer, a definite struggle to keep her lips and eyes from moving. It must have been easier, Rosalia thought, years ago when people weren’t always wearing masks. Then, you could see every movement, every nonverbal slip that gave away what a person was truly thinking.

  “His lesbian daughter!” Lynn blurted out. Her mouth hung open, perhaps surprised by its betrayal.

  Rosalia put her hands on her hips defiantly. “I am not a lesbian!”

  “You can deny it all you want. I know what I heard.”

  “What? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

  Lynn raised a finger. “Don’t you make this worse by taking the Lord’s name in vain!”

  The anger inside Rosalia slipped away. It was the mention of God, she realized, the inclusion of religion that pushed the argument into the realm of absurdity. There was no point in arguing if Lynn’s objections were based on the concept of sin.

  Rosalia opened the microwave and took down the steaming bowl. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I’m a lesbian.” It sounded funny to say, evoked images of her and Ilya in their underwear having a pillow fight, but her veneer held steady. “I’ve been living a lie for years, but no longer.” She turned, stared directly into Lynn’s hate-filled eyes. “I love the pussy! I can’t get enough of it!”

  Lynn’s veneer finally shattered, settled into a level of contempt so intense that Rosalia was momentarily taken aback. “I will abide you,” she said, “for Michael’s sake, but Jesus won’t. You remember that.”

  “Are we done? Can I go have breakfast now?”

  “You just get to school on time. I’m not signing any tardy notes.”

  “Fine,” replied Rosalia, picking up the tray. “We’re just going to eat some breakfast and then have a quickie in the shower and we’ll be on our way. You won’t even hear us.”

  “I heard you last night.” Again, the contempt. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she mimicked and then crinkled her nose. “Disgusting.”

  Rosalia had heard enough. She exited the kitchen and started up the stairs, shaking her head at her step-mother’s crazy ideas. Lying about hearing noises from her room wasn’t like Lynn, but then she always found new ways to be an evil bitch. She had probably spent the whole night putting ideas into her dad’s head, turning him against his daughter. Groaning, Rosalia pushed open the door to her bedroom with the tray. She found Ilya seated at the desk, trying to reconcile a wrinkle from her blouse.

  “The nice thing,” she said, as if they had already been having a conversation, “is that people won’t know I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday.” The previously white canvas cycled into turquoise, accented by orange flowers on the left side.

  “Except for the smell.” Rosalia set the tray down on the desk and offered a bowl to Ilya.

  “Do I really smell?” she asked, reaching for her breakfast. As she did, part of her shirt fell to the side, revealing her bare chest. When Ilya noticed the look on Rosalia’s face, she motioned to the bra on the desk. “I broke a strap somehow, which sucks, ‘cause I loved this bra.”

  Rosalia nodded and wandered over to the window. “This is going to sound stupid,” she began, thinking again of Lynn’s accusation.

  “What is it?”

  “Did we surf the porn wave last night?” Behind her, she heard Ilya choke on her oatmeal.

  The coughing slowly changed to laughter. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t think we did.”

  “I remember...” Trailing off, Rosalia tried to latch onto the wisps of memory passing through her head. In their inebriated states, they could have reconciled a portal and cruised the network for sex videos without even realizing it. A feeling was there, something warm and faintly sexual. The sensation of excitement came back to Rosalia in a sudden flash, weakening her knees.

  “That’s strange,” said Ilya, her face turned away. “But then people do strange things when they’re Mellow. Maybe we were talking about you and Deron and you ended up...” She seemed unsure of her words.

  Rosalia huffed. Had she reconciled a fantasy of her and Deron for Ilya’s entertainment? It would at least explain the noises.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Lynn thinks we were having sex.”

  “You and me?”

  Turning around, Rosalia found Ilya with her eyebrows dancing. She nodded in reply. “She thinks we’re lesbians.”

  “Oh, I think I would remember that.” She smiled broadly.

  “Me too.” Another flash, another quiver moving up the inside of her legs.

  For a few minutes, they ate in silence. Rosalia was consumed by her own questions, but soon began to wonder about the conflict brewing on Ilya’s face. She could only see her from the side, but her head was down and her shoulders slumped uncharacteristically.

  “If I were,” said Ilya. The rest of the question was lost in her rapidly blinking eyes.

  “If you were what?” Rosalia leaned against the windowsill, having had enough of her shaky legs.

  Ilya’s eyes glimmered red, perhaps from the drug. “If I were a lesbian.”

  Rosalia started to respond, but she knew that anything she said wouldn’t be the right thing. There was too much to put out there all at once: her growing suspicions, her acceptance, and even her questions about mechanics. Most confusing was why Ilya had chosen to hide it. Even when they were joking about it before, it wasn’t as if Rosalia had displayed the same kind of abhorrence that Lynn had channeled so easily.

  Forgoing words, Rosalia put her bowl down on the windowsill and crossed the room. She didn’t even consider the implications of putting her hand on Ilya’s shoulder.

  “Is it too weird?” inquired Ilya.

  “No,” Rosalia assured her, “it’s not weird at all. I mean, I thought...”

  “It’s not like I was hitting on you. I wasn’t trying to give you the gay.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  Ilya looked up and smiled, showing her sparkling teeth. There was
a tear trailing down the left side of her face. Rosalia put her hand to her friend’s cheek and reconciled it away.

  That was the way of things. The indicators of pain could be hidden, but Ilya would still be able to feel the dampness on her cheek, would still feel the lingering teardrop hanging from her chin.

  Rosalia chuckled, thinking back.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I told Lynn that I love the pussy. Is that something a lesbian would say?”

  Ilya smiled politely. “I don’t know. I never finished my lesbian training.” She shook her head. “But, yeah, if I had a step-mother like yours, I’d probably say that just to mess with her head.”

  Rosalia wanted to ask her other questions, but it didn’t seem like the right time. If they didn’t hurry, they would be late for school and would have to spend first period in the tardy room.

  “I need to shower,” said Rosalia, absently. At her dresser, she pulled out a fresh pair of underwear.

  “I promise not to peek,” joked Ilya.

  Pausing in front of the bathroom door, Rosalia considered the absurdity of it all. In a couple of hours, they’d both be naked in the gym showers anyway, same as they had been doing all year.

  “I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” she replied, stripping off her shirt and tossing it by the dresser. In the bathroom, she grabbed an elastic tie and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

  Rosalia studied her reflection in the portal above the sink, going over every inch of her veneer to make sure it was perfect. Over her shoulder, she glimpsed Ilya doing the same.

  44 - Deron

  It was a long night waiting for a response that never arrived. Deron passed the time by practicing his reconciliation, mystified by its wavering effectiveness. Sometimes he could send out radiating circles of color. Other times, the rubble around him remained a neutral gray. Sitting back against a slanted slab while watching the stars turn above him, he considered the possibility that his message had not gone through. His portal only seemed to work for a few minutes at a time and after that it became inert if it didn’t fade out altogether. There was damage to his chip; he was certain of that. Whether it would hold out long enough to send another message to Rosalia was another question.

  As dawn approached and the prospect of hearing from Rosalia dwindled into nothing, Deron faced a tough decision. He could wait outside the walls for another day, hope his portals would stay up and connected to the network. Or, he could venture back into the city and risk being seen. There would be questions and he’d have to be clever, come up with some excuse as to where he’d been. He couldn’t tell anyone about Dos Presas except Rosalia. She’d have to know because he wanted her to come back with him. And she’d have to decide quickly; the longer he stayed in Easton, the greater the chance they’d discover him.

  In the end, it was the twitching of the sentry guns that made him opt for the drainage pipe. At night, they hung their heads as if ashamed of not being able to see in the dark. But with the sun rising, they were coming online, resuming their hunt for fleshy targets. Deron made a break for the pipe before the sun broke the horizon. He was up and into the field quickly, finding the whole trip less frightening than before. Down the street, he saw a tram dropping off the early morning workers. When they stepped off, he stepped on.

  As the tram glided towards the center of the city, Deron realized that he had no destination in mind. The clock at the front of the tram was blank, but it felt early enough for Rosalia to be on her way to school. Showing up there was sure to get him caught. Instead, he decided to catch her on the way home. Until then, he could just ride the tram around the city or hide out at Gillock Pond.

  Deron changed lines a few times at random just to keep the scenery changing and to prevent retracing his steps. After a while, the tram slipped into the Newell District and onto a road with apartments on one side and a two-story strip mall on the other. His dad lived somewhere on this street; Deron remembered looking up the return address on a birthday card once. Sitting up in his seat, he scanned the apartments and spied his dad’s down the road. Deron reached up and tapped the stop button over the window, but unlike his alarm clock, nothing happened. He tried again with the same result.

  Across the aisle, an older woman raised an eyebrow at him. Her face flashed, appeared youthful for a moment, and then succumbed to the wrinkles once more. Without saying anything, she reached up and touched the stop button, bringing the tram to a halt.

  “Thanks,” muttered Deron as he disembarked. Looking back, he saw the woman was still staring at him as the tram continued its route.

  I can’t stay here, he realized. There was just no living half in and half out of the reconciled world.

  His dad’s name was on the directory at the front of the building, a sectioned portal with Bishop reconciled in black and white. Deron didn’t see it at first, but touching randomly on the adjoining wall had helped him illuminate the panel. Each time that happened, he got a little more frustrated, a little angrier at the city’s dependence on veneers. He pressed the call button, but there was no answer. Taking a step back, he looked up at the third floor window, saw nothing moving behind it. Travelling, he guessed.

  “Or maybe he’s shacked up with the whore,” said Ania’s voice in his head.

  Deron smirked and tried the door handle. To his surprise, the door was unlocked and there was no one in the small breezeway to challenge him. Climbing the stairs was difficult; he had not eaten anything since the awkward dinner in Dos Presas the night before. On the third floor landing, he wondered if his dad had any food in his fridge or if he were living the true bachelor’s life.

  “Maybe the whore went grocery shopping,” said Deron, surprised to hear his own voice.

  Pausing at the front door, he tried to think of what he would say if his dad answered. It would have to be anything except the truth, maybe something about wanting to get out of the house, needing to get away from everything for a while. He’d relate to that.

  There was a thumb pad to the left of the door that Deron mistook for a doorbell. When he pressed it, the red glow changed to green. Something clicked within the door and it swung open with a just gentle push.

  In the foyer, it became apparent that his father wasn’t there, hadn’t been there for a while. The kitchen on the left was dirty, with dishes piled up in the sink and a box of assorted pizza crusts on the counter.

  The living room was in disarray. If this was what his father had given up for a clean home, then he was crazier than everyone thought. There was nothing enticing about the broken-down sofa or the cracked palettes stacked in a pile on the coffee table. The windows that looked out over the street showed their true grime without their veneer.

  A stranger lived here, some indeterminate person without a name whose presence he felt only indirectly. In the bedroom, the queen-size wasn’t made up. The comforter was crumpled at the foot of the bed, the sheets had been thrown aside, and the pillows were scattered. If he concentrated, he could almost see that person, his dad, waking up, making the short walk to the bathroom to get ready for work. Then coming back in, going to the dresser.

  A garment unlike anything a man would wear made Deron pause. So it was true; there was a whore. He picked up the bra between his thumb and index finger—a pretty well-endowed whore at that. For a moment, the bra flashed fire red with yellow flames erupting around the straps. Startled, Deron dropped it onto the dresser where it once more became a bland collection of straps and cloth. It had been one thing to imagine his father running off with some younger woman, but to actually touch the evidence...

  Maybe his mom already knew; she always seemed to be on top of things, no matter how far removed. She knew when he failed a test, knew when his homework had gone unfinished. There was even a time when he was very young that she had hired a tutor to help him with his reconciliation. No one had known, not his teachers, not his schoolmates. Looking back, it all seemed a waste. Had they just told him it was technology and not his fa
ult, it would have made things so much easier. He shrugged at his own train of thought, unsure if his then undeveloped mind could have even grasped the concept of reconciliation without attaching some kind of mystical aspect to it.

  The apartment wasn’t much, he concluded, after taking another look around, but it was infinitely better than the outland rubble. At least here he wouldn’t have to worry about sentry guns or dehydration. Deron cleared away a collection of beer cans from the recliner next to the couch and sat down. Finding the arm on the side, he pulled back and extended his feet. It was as comfortable as he had been in days and after a restless night, a nap would go a long way into making the hours fly by. Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep, but his mind was running too quickly and despite his best efforts, his body kept shaking itself awake.

  It was there in his mind, reconciled clearly as an accusatory statement that spoke both to his dad’s indifference and his own tacit acceptance. There were so many questions circling his head: how to fight a bully, how to defuse a confrontation without ending up in the hospital, and how a father could go so long without seeing his own son. Each time he thought about it, he opened his eyes, looked to the side, and realized again that his dad wasn’t there. He had come to his home, sat in his chair, and the man still couldn’t be bothered to put in an appearance. The anger surged, made him twist in the suddenly uncomfortable recliner.

  Deron squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his nerves. It wasn’t fair to come to this place and see what was hiding behind the image he had reconciled of his dad. It went beyond a simple veneer, something even his mom couldn’t tear down. But now he could see past it and it was too much to take in. All he wanted to do was reconcile it away, put up a barrier that nothing could penetrate.

  It felt like Easton was crushing down on him, showing him a world that he no longer wanted to be a part of. The only way out was back to Dos Presas where there were no cheating husbands, no ruthless bullies, and no veneers to make people think everything was okay when it really wasn’t.