Masking for Trouble

by A J Maybe

  I still have that camp near the Cove. It’s spoken for most of the summer, but the first renters aren’t coming for two weeks. Getting an early start on the May two-four party I spose. Until then, give yourself a little vacation. Take a breather, you’ll need it. The first year after quitting is like the first year of mourning a death. Each familiar event, the birthdays, the holidays, all that… each one brings the old feelings back up, and you’ll have to process them again. Back in your hometown, temptation will lurk behind every corner.

  So rest up first. No rent. Just leave the camp clean and we’ll call it even. The key’s under the propane tank on the bbq, but the lock doesn’t work. A good jiggle works just as well as the key. Don’t freak out when the neighbour checks in. I think she comes by on Wednesdays. Empty the mousetraps maybe? You’d be doing me a favour.

  I didn’t argue, not for a second. Brennan’s camp was like a port in a storm. The longer I could put off going home, showing up on mom’s doorstep with my hat in my hand, the better.

  The satellite-fed rural internet connection at Brennan’s timber frame oasis was shockingly slow, but honestly, I could stay in Carterton Cove forever. Only a few hundred people actually lived in the Cove, but it swelled to a few thousand in the warmer months, filled with a mix of tourists and seasonal Cove dwellers — the aforementioned Bridge Trash.

  The downtown section was one street, which curved softly toward the marina. The pristine pavement was kept meticulously clean, and adorable little sandstone buildings lined it. These buildings were art shops, craft stores, gift shops, and the like, plus a cute restaurant-slash-ice-cream-parlour. It served nothing but ice cream and a variety of grilled cheese sandwiches and called itself For the Love of Cheese’us. The township projected movies onto an inflatable screen in the park every Saturday night, and there was some festival or another every weekend, but you could also just keep to yourself, since even the houses ‘in town’ were well secluded from each other.

  Idyllic, really.

  Too bad my eviction drew near. I had just over a week to fortify myself and drive the remaining 120 kilometers to Saint Mauvais.

  As this reality crept into my brain, Luke “The Lion Tamer” Turner gave my shoulder a friendly punch.

  “Nawww,” he said, giving me a vexing know-it-all grin. “You’re not just killin’ time in camp country. I saw the looks you were giving Barry’s truck.”

  “I, well, I mean. Until today, I didn’t even know… what truck?”

  Luke laughed. “I worked on the Cupcake Machine a few years back. After wrestling shows Barry would need a hand, because the fans would be breakin’ their necks trying to buy some of his sweet stuff.” He accented the last two words bobbing his head left, then right. Most people fear public speaking more than death itself, but this guy clearly loved to be on stage. “When I was just startin’ out in the biz,” Luke said, “Barry would throw me a few extra bucks to sling cupcakes with him. Really helped a young dude out, you know? That Barry… good guy. Just wanted to make sure everyone was happy.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure… except for maybe his son.”

  “Haaaa! You met Rex? That dude’s never happy, don’t worry about it!” he said, once again concerned about my level of worry. “I like to call him Little Bales.”

  “Bet he loves that.”

  “Hates it. C’mon. Let me make up for Leo here sniffin’ your butt. Lemme give you a tour.”

  “A tour?”

  “Yeah! You gotta see inside the Cupcake Machine if you’re gonna buy it, right?” he said, bobbing his chin in giant nods toward the vehicle. I admired it again, in all its opalescent beauty, with the goofy horn poking out of the hood. A giggle leaked out of me as I pictured a pair of big hulking wrestlers baking cupcakes in that tiny space.

  Had they worn frilly little aprons, cradled the piping bags in their ham-like fists, and delicately dabbed mint rosettes on chocolate cakes?

  How could I say no? “Luke, show me that unicorn.”

  He led me to the truck, but our tour plans were interrupted by a ruckus back by the mask table.

  I turned to assess the scene and wasn’t surprised to see Rex Bales in the middle of it, still clutching his cup of Gwillimbury IPA in one hand, and gripping a black and yellow mask in the other. A group of three burly guys with long rockstar hair faced him, forming a flank around a small but sturdy woman with a boyish pixie cut. “That’s Sherry!” Luke said, stepping forward and pinning his hands to hips in a superhero pose.

  “And you know those beefy dudes too, I bet?”

  Luke nodded. “Darby, Ty, and Roger. Wrestlers, like me. We all came for Barry’s funeral and stuck around for the auction.”

  “They’re my masks anyway!” Rex stormed. His ringing voice carried to us, plain as day. “Or they will be!”

  The girl stepped forward and poked a finger in his chest. “The sign says ‘DO NOT TRY ON!’ ” she quoted. “So you don’t wear the masks! Doesn’t matter what your last name is.”

  “Oh, what, so they’re teaching you people how to read now?” Rex shot back.

  Whatever he meant by “you people” was enough to get a reaction. The blond wrestler stepped forward to press his chest against Rex’s.

  “Keep your monkey hands off me!” Rex shrieked, pressing back against the table. He was a perfectly average-sized guy, at least, but with the wall of beef in front of him, he must’ve felt like a cornered raccoon.

  “First you disrespect The Business, putting on someone else’s mask and breaking the lucha tradition, and then you talk to our number one fan like that?!” the blond growled. He stomped one foot down, posting a hand on his hip and thrusting out the other to point an accusing finger in Rex’s sternum. “You best put that mask back on the table, and even if you win it back this afternoon, all the good people of Carterton Cove know! They know, you’ll never, ehhh-ver be a REAL MAN.”

  The other wrestlers erupted in cheers, and I realized what I had just seen. I’d watched plenty of these shows when I was a kid, sitting next to my dad on our faded corduroy couch. The wrasslin’ shows were full of displays like that: the wrestler in front of me had just cut a promo, as if he was in a packed arena, hyping an upcoming match.

  Do they really talk like that all the time?

  Rex tossed the bumble-bee patterned mask on the table with disdain and retreated with a sneer on his face. The wrestlers gasped.

  “And if you ever, ehhh-ver wear a lucha mask again, you won’t be a real man, you’ll be a DEAD MAN!” the blond wrestler shouted. He stomped for emphasis, the same way they stomp to make a phony punch sound real.

  Unbelievable. These guys really deal with real-world problems the same way they did on TV! If you play a character long enough, do you become it? I thought of the online magic-hunting group, and the lingo we used. The difference was that I wouldn’t go blabbing about shifters and grimoires at the supermarket. Do these guys place their drive-through orders with the same bravado?

  Or did they save their theatrics for important things, like making death threats?

  3

  The Auction

  “Well, wasn’t that a hoot?” Luke said.

  “Oh, sure. A real riot.” The whole scene had seemed like a performance, a build-up for a surprise match later on. Maybe they were going to flip and dive and fake-punch each other all over the lawn in front of the auctioneer’s stage, in tribute to their fallen mentor.

  Luke slapped a palm on the Cupcake Machine’s pearly pink paint. “So, let’s peek under the hood!” He seemed excited about it, and practically jumped through the open driver’s side window to yank on the release latch.

  He heaved up the hood and propped it open with the rod. I leaned over the bumper to inspect what he’d uncovered.

  “Ooh, yeah,” I said. “Sure is… engine-y in there.”

  Luke recited some numbers describing the horsepower, gas mileage, plus the number of gears and cylinders.

  “Six cylinders eh? What will they think of next?” I
watched Luke’s eyes to see if he understood that I was joking.

  He didn’t seem to get my attempt at self-deprecation. “No worries, no worries, right? As long as she goes from point A to point B, right?”

  I patted a small dent in the food truck’s fender. Maybe this thing could get me from ‘destitute’ to ‘respectable’. “C’mon, Luke. Show me the good stuff. Let’s see the kitchen!”

  As he led me to the rear of the truck, I reached up to trail my fingertips over the order counter and peek through the open service window into the darkened food prep area. Goosebumps crawled over my skin in an almost magical ripple. Luke knocked at the back door.

  “Are you expecting an answer?”

  “Haaaa. Guess not. Go ahead, it won’t be locked either.”

  I reached up to pop open the screen door and twist the knob on the interior door. It was just like any house door, except eighteen inches higher. “No step?” I asked.

  “I used to just hop in!” Luke grinned, “But Barry’s knees were shot. He used that milk crate.” He pointed to the blue plastic basket just inside the door.

  From where I stood, I could see the twin sinks, a pair of small deep fryers, and two ovens, each the size of a case of beer, stacked one on top of the other. Twin fire extinguishers mounted to the wall, connected to the hoses of an automatic fire-suppression system. A blue cooler was tucked under the stainless steel prep counter. At the end of the counter, a pair of cooling racks stretched from floor to ceiling. One hid under a clear plastic cover. Dirty white jugs marked “OIL” lined up like soldiers under the sinks and I crinkled my nose.

  “Ew. How old is that oil?” I said. “Did Barry ever clean his gear?”

  Luke didn’t answer. A woman stood on the flatbed trailer that was set up like a stage, and rattled a cowbell like a martini shaker. “Auction’s starting!” He beelined for the stage, while I strode to the registration table to get signed in.

  Moments later, clutching my bidding paddle like a battle axe, I joined all the other bargain hunters on the lawn. A tingle in my belly felt like a fire kindling, just like when I used to hit the “Bid Now!” button online.

  No wrestling matches broke out, so the fracas at the mask table must have been real.

  The auctioneer approached the stage, a small man with a cane in one hand and a neon megaphone in the other. Bet he was a friend of Barry’s too. His age was about right — well into the ‘retirement’ zone — and he had the presence of a performer, someone who knew they were being watched and liked it. His slime green megaphone matched the sequined lips sewn onto his suit jacket.

  A few paces from the stage, he paused in his limping and then stumbled forward. The crowd gasped and a few people lunged forward to catch his fall, but he rolled forward like a gymnast, popped back up and belly-slid onto the stage instead of using the stairs.

  “Ha-oooo!” he hollered. A portion of the audience returned the coyote call.

  “That megaphone is just for show, with that voice,” I murmured. “It’s like a donkey stepping on a Lego.”

  The elderly man beside me snorted and bowed his head in amusement. “Ah, you’ve got Jimmy Kiss all figured out,” he said.

  The man’s accent plucked a nostalgic string inside me. Something about the broad, flat vowel sounds mixed with the almost Russian consonants brought me back to my childhood. I scanned him from bottom to top: from his brown canvas boat shoes to his wavy, Santa Claus hair.

  “His name’s really Jimmy Kiss?” I said.

  “Yes. And this megaphone business is only a prop. You’ve got him all figured out.”

  “He doesn’t seem like a guy who keeps a lot of secrets.” I offered a warm smile, but it wavered as I recognized the girl at his shoulder: she was the one who’d poked Rex in the chest. I guessed the man at 85, but her age was still an enigma, even up close. She could’ve been 16 or 36, for all I could tell. Interesting pair.

  Jimmy got the auction underway. The first item was a ringside bell used at Wrestle Smash 3. With great reverence, Jimmy rang it twice. He started calling out numbers and rattling off the auctioneer’s chant.

  Rex, standing with one hand on the stage, held his paddle in the air and didn’t drop it until he owned the bell, for $650.

  A crystal decanter the size of a basketball went next, followed by two bottles of 21-year-old single malt scotch. Rex didn’t bite on any of those and they went so cheap that I almost bid on them.

  A decanter MIGHT be enchanted, but I had to save every penny if I had a chance at winning the food truck.

  Rex snapped up nearly every bit of wrestling paraphernalia and people started to get restless.

  Finally, Luke drove the food truck around and my breath caught in my throat as I was, once again, struck by its beauty and captivated by the possibilities the truck represented. Could I afford to buy a truck right now? Of course not. But they took credit cards here, and it would pay for itself, right? It wasn’t a splurge, it was an investment.

  With all my auction spending, the card company had bumped my limit way, way up right before the forklift incident. If the Cupcake Machine went for less than my new limit of fifteen grand, that truck was mine. That would be a steal.

  Luke honked the horn, showing off the warm, full tone, like my grandparents’ cars had. I briefly wished my phone had a data plan so I could Google the value of the thing, but it was more fun to just guess.

  And anyway, I didn’t know the year or the mileage or even the model. What would I even Google? I knew the truck was gorgeous, all flowing lines mixed with weighty heft, a sort of style you don’t see anymore, and it ran, so surely it was worth at least fifteen grand, right?

  Jimmy held up his megaphone. “All right folks, here she is! The largest item of the day, ole Barry’s retirement plan, and ain’t she a beaut? C’mon now, don’t hesitate, just participate! All proceeds are going to a good cause, remember, a real good cause, all those poor cats and dogs, so let’s start the bidding at $10,000 and go! Do I have ten-K? Ten-K, and drive it away today!”

  An actual whine escaped my lips as the man in the windbreaker beside me held up his paddle. I deflated like a balloon.

  “We have $10,000, ten-k-and-go-giddah-guy, and now eleven! Eleven thousand, and where’s that bid coming from? Saving’s fine but spending’s wiser, trust me, I’m your financial advisor!”

  Rex held up his paddle.

  Cheese and rice! If Rex was bidding, no one else had a chance. Rex’s pockets seemed bottomless.

  The paddle beside me rose anyway. The bid climbed. Twelve, thirteen thousand, fourteen, and then fifteen. There goes my limit, and I hadn’t even bid. Rex and the man in the blue windbreaker continued, back and forth. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. The old guy must be near his limit, because he called out “Eighteen-five!” to shrink the raises.

  People kept shuffling about and I lost sight of Rex. Standing on tip-toes as Jimmy called for the answering bid, I finally saw that Rex had disappeared. In his place stood Luke, with both hands firmly on the stage, paddle down. Had Luke scared Rex off? Or removed him by force?

  “Nineteen-five!” shrieked a female voice. “Nineteen thousand five hundred!” the shriek repeated, and I realized it was my own. I looked up at my paddle, waving wildly against the background of the blue sky. Oh dear.

  My heart pounded in my ears and I couldn’t hear a thing. For two terrifying heartbeats, my vision clouded over and I thought I might faint, but the elderly man caught my elbow with a steadying hand and the spell passed.

  “And soooooold!” Jimmy hollered, “To the lovely lady with the orange dress and witchy black hair! Paddle number seven-oh-five!”

  I twisted my paddle, numb with shock. Seven-oh-five. That was me! I won a food truck!

  Well, I bought a food truck. For about ten times the amount in my bank account.

  I was still shaking as I whispered to myself: “Piper Mars, what have you done?”

  4

  Buyer’s Remorse

  I squeaked. I
’m not proud of it, but that’s the noise that came out of me. Would all my credit card limits combine to make $19500? Was it crazy to max out my credit to launch a business I knew nothing about?

  Yes, of course it is. That was my mother’s voice in my head.

  And there’d be other expenses to get going, right? With everything maxed out, I wouldn’t be able to buy flour, let alone fuel, or insurance. I was in over my head.

  I turned to the elderly man in the windbreaker. “I take it back! I cancel my bid! You can have it.”

  He turned his blue eyes, surprisingly clear for his age, to mine, which were filling with tears and threatening to spill over. The man shook his head with a sad smile, “That is not how it works. The bid is a contract. You signed the agreement when you got the paddle.”

  “Well, sure, but...I’ll sell it to you! Eighteen-five, just like you wanted! C’mon, please? I just don’t have the cash.”

  He shrugged. “Bah, you have credit, surely. The auction people might grant you an extra week to pay, if you ask.”

  “But I’ll sell it to you!”

  “Like you, I’ve had a change of heart in the last fifteen seconds.”

  “It feels different as soon as the bidding stops, doesn’t it?” observed the woman with the pixie cut. She was right: auction psychology is an incredible thing. We’d been competing for that truck just a moment ago.

  “And what’s an old man like me going to do with that truck? I was only going to park it. I can’t start a new business at my age. It’s better that a young person has it. Barry would want that truck on the road, in action, elevating people’s blood sugar levels.”

  I moaned and turned back to the truck. “I’m gonna throw up.”

  “Only a little buyer’s remorse,” the man said, ruffled by neither the threat of my tears or my vomit. “I tell you what. I’ll go with you, and we can ask if you can make payments. The auction manager is an old friend. Well, I dated her mother briefly. So maybe she’s not a friend exactly, but she knows my name anyway.”