Masking for Trouble

by A J Maybe

  I gave him a look, trying to get a reaction that might tell me if he was joking or not.

  “Here,” he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his baby blue windbreaker, “Have a cookie. It settles a stomach.”

  Ding! A light went on in my head. That accent, eastern European or something. “I know you!” I blurted out. “You’re the Cookie Mumster, from Elmwood Lane!”

  The man laughed, a full laugh I hadn’t heard since I was about eight years old, and I knew I was right. The man in front of me once lived on the same dead-end street as me. The neighbourhood kids would ring his doorbell almost every day, and he’d always have a cookie and a smile for us.

  I suppose that sort of thing would raise alarm bells these days, but it was a different time. My parents knew about it — heck, they encouraged it. A deal’s a deal, my dad would say, before he disappeared on us. And free is better, my mom would add, pushing me out the door so they could fight in private.

  “Ah, you caught me. And I remember you, too, I think. Anyway, I remember that ‘witchy’ hair, as Jimmy called it.”

  I shook my thick, bouncy black mop around and worked up a smile. Cookie Mumster was here! His presence made me feel like everything would be okay. I accepted the ginger snap he offered and unwrapped the waxed paper. The signature aroma of pepper and lemon, spicy yet sweet, dilated my nostrils involuntarily. My sinuses opened and the ache of nostalgia felt like a hug.

  “I never knew your name, Cookie Mumster.”

  “It’s Kasper. And I don’t quite remember…”

  “Oh! Piper, Piper Mars,” I said.

  “And I’m Sherry,” added another voice, sounding annoyed to be left out. The girl who had poked Rex Bales at the mask table peeked her head around Kasper’s shoulder.

  “Hi Sherry,” I said, extending a hand across Kasper. “Anyone who stands up to Rex Bales is a friend of mine.”

  She squashed her lips together in a disapproving grimace, and lines creased around her eyes. So she wasn’t 16, anyway. She just had a certain… openness about her that was rare in adults. “You can’t wear someone else’s mask,” she said. “It’s the rules. Even if they’re dead.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  Sherry nodded. “And now you understand that.”

  Kasper clapped his hands. “Okay, like I said then: we’ll go see the auction manager together, and work out a deal.”

  I nibbled the ginger snap as we walked. It was crisp on the outside with a hint of chewiness in the center. Perfect. The spice bloomed as I chewed. “That must be real, fresh ginger root,” I said. “Never noticed that as a kid.”

  Kasper nodded and grinned like we were sharing a secret.

  The auction manager sat at a desk in an enclosed trailer — auctions are travelling affairs. As a soon-to-be owner and operator of a mobile business myself, I took note of the set-up.

  A line of maybe a dozen people stood at the bottom of the trailer’s door, which had been swung down to become a ramp. My fingers tingled with adrenaline but at least my stomach wasn’t threatening to jump out of my mouth anymore. Kasper’s cookies had always held a sort of everyday magic.

  A man bounced down the ramp, cradling the two bottles of single-malt. His teeth were a billboard for dental whitening services and I recognized his salesman’s smile. At one time, I’d fallen for those teeth, thinking the smile was real. Now I knew it was more like a wolf baring its teeth.

  The man was Robin Jarvis. He was a wolf, a snake, and various other animals you wouldn’t want to pet. I knew him from his online reality show, where he helped people break their hoarding habit. “Help” is too generous a word, though. The so-called addiction counsellor only preyed on people’s shame to increase his subscriber count.

  Back in Guelph, as I shared my bachelor apartment with a fast-growing colony of boxes I’d won in fruitless auctions, I was once “nominated” to appear on the show but managed to narrowly avoid that particular disgrace.

  Jarvis was scum, but I couldn’t help feeling a little starstruck — the man had three million subscribers! And here he was in Carterton Cove, picking up deals on old bottles of scotch. How curious.

  “That’s Robin Jarvis,” I told Kasper. He nodded, but I felt silly as I surmised that this 85-year-old probably didn’t spend a lot of time watching trashy videos on the internet.

  “Yes, Mr. Big Time Hollywood. Doesn’t like the speed of computers in the Cove,” Kasper said. “Came here for a three-month contract with his VIP client. Guess that’s done now, and he can go back to where the internet is zip-zip-quick.”

  I supposed I should check my assumptions about the computer habits of 85-year-olds.

  Our turn came. Kasper stepped ahead of me and brushed off Sherry’s offer to help him up the shallow incline of the ramp. After a moment talking to the manager, he came back down. Kasper shrugged apologetically. “Sorry.”

  Well, I guess it was time to face the music. And you know what? I didn’t want to make payments anyway, I decided. I wanted that truck now. I could get it cleaned up through the week, and probably get most of the business registration stuff done online. By the time Brennan’s renters kicked me out of the camp, I’d be ready to roll into Saint Mauvais as the owner of the coolest cupcake truck in Ontario.

  I spread all five of my credit cards on the desk. “That should do it,” I said, and explained how much could go on each card. A dozen beeps and boops later, the truck was paid in full. I signed a few sheets of paper with confidence. “All right, that’s that?”

  “That’s all our business,” the manager nodded, peering at me over her half-moon glasses.

  I held out my hand. “Keys please!”

  The manager pressed her glasses to her nose with one finger and shook her head like she was disappointed in me. “You know you can’t drive it off the lot, right?”

  “But Jimmy said ‘ten-K and drive it away!’ ” I protested.

  “Figure of speech. He also said “The sale is “As-Is, Where-Is”, if you noticed that bit. You have to tow it to a mechanic, get it certified, then get to a Ministry of Transportation outlet to get it registered, and then talk to your insurance company. And that’s just to drive it! Don’t go selling food without getting the public health board to inspect it and issue your permits.”

  I sagged. “Yeah, yeah, no. Of course not,” I said, putting on a brave face. “I can just, uhh… well I rode my bike, so, I’ll just call a truck” —I paused, realizing a tow truck would require payment and may well put me into overdraft— “um, anyway, yeah, okay.”

  Behind me, braying laughter sprayed out of a mouth and I knew whose it was before I turned around: Rex Bales. “Your bike!” he hooted. “You’ll tow a 7,000 pound truck over the Familiar Island Bridge with your 10-speed! Perfect!”

  “Shut up!” I shot a look at him. “I’ll just...it’ll be fine.”

  “And you’ve got twenty grand into it! You know how old that truck is, right? It’s a lemon!”

  “It runs!” I said, from the high ground of the trailer ramp.

  “Yeah, across the lawn. Needs a new tranny, brakes, fuel lines...when you’re another ten grand deep in repairs, I’ll take it off your hands for the scrap value, okay?”

  Kasper drew himself up to his full height and puffed his chest toward Rex. “Young man, sit down,” he said, exaggerating that vaguely Slavic accent. “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” He paused and twitched his eyebrows for emphasis. “And anyway, my truck will tow her truck. It will be at Gino’s in twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. Minor repairs, maybe a new signal light, and ta-da: good to go!”

  “Yeah!” I said, wondering who Gino was.

  “And mind your own beeswax,” Sherry added tartly, giving Rex a shove as she trundled past him and reached her hand up the ramp to guide me down.

  Gino, as it turns out, was the finest (and only) mechanic that Familiar Island had to offer. Kasper slid out a heavy chain from under the bench seat of his dusty old truck and directed me in th
e art of driving a towed vehicle without hammering the back bumper of the vehicle in front.

  I buckled into the driver’s seat of the hulking pink truck and grinned like a maniac. Who cares what Rex said? The truck was fine, a work of art, and it was mine.

  Suddenly, I had a plan for my life again. First stop: Gino’s Garage.

  5

  Death Mask

  Following Kasper to Gino’s garage took forever. The food truck seemed to run just fine, so it was less like ‘being towed’ and more like ‘tailgating very carefully’. The chain between the two trucks wasn’t more than fifteen feet long.

  I wondered about renaming her. Bessie? Piggy, since she was pink? Maybe I’d break my social media sojourn and ask my ‘Friends’ to come up with a new moniker.

  Gino’s was closed on Sundays. Kasper said it’d be fine to leave the food truck there, with a note on the driver’s seat and the keys in the center console. “Nobody locks doors here. There’s no crime in Carterton Cove,” he promised.

  “You’re staying at the old Miller place?” Sherry asked.

  I nodded. Brennan had mentioned that his camp had been a year-round home to the Miller family for decades before he came along.

  “Too far to bike,” Sherry said.

  I shrugged. “It’s a ways. But I have time.”

  “Maybe twelve, thirteen clicks?” Kasper estimated, meaning ‘kilometers’. “Too far to bike without dinner, anyway. Come to my place, and instead of cookies like on Elmwood Lane, you can have a nice bowl of sam-pot-leek soup.”

  “Pot leak?”

  “Salmon, potato, leek,” Sherry said.

  I made a face. Salmon soup?

  Kasper leaned in before I could protest and confided that the leeks were fresh: early spring shoots picked yesterday, and the soup had been simmering all day.

  Going to Gino’s had taken me even further away from the camp. I was looking at a 45 minute ride home, at least, and it included a real huffy-puffy section up Fifty Curses Hill, which earned its name anytime someone tried to bike up it.

  “My place is ten minutes closer to the Miller camp,” Kasper said with a tone implying the decision was made.

  Well, if the soup is ready… stopping in would only add thirty minutes to my day. I’d still be home before sunset.

  Kasper’s home tucked itself into a hollow at the end of a long, dirt driveway curving into a wooded area. A brick bungalow, painted the same blue as his jacket. Some people think it’s a sin to paint bricks but the effect was cute. The house was small but well-kept. Kasper’s garden boasted a rainbow of colourful vegetation rooted in black earth, and the state of it was incredible for this early in the season.

  “My humble retirement castle,” he said, voice filled with pride.

  “You must be so proud,” I said.

  “Yeah, life is okay,” he said.

  The front door opened on the kitchen, much like Brennan’s camp except Kasper’s had a proper dining room just left of the door. I nearly jumped back as my vision adjusted to the low light. A set of piercing eyes stared at me from the near wall. “Yikes!” I blurted.

  In the same second, I realized the eyes belonged to some sort of puppet. Her body was curvy in an exaggerated way, almost excessively feminine, and wrapped in a black jersey dress that I might wear on a first date at a nice restaurant. The face was mostly cheeks and a high, rounded forehead —a sea of white punctuated by undersized, smirking lips and those intense dark eyes— but it was dominated by a strong, slightly hooked nose which commanded attention and suggested authority.

  I knew the authority thing was an illusion, because the puppet’s nose was exactly the same as mine, and I’d never commanded any authority whatsoever.

  She was probably eighteen inches tall, and clutched a regular-sized wooden spoon like it was a sword.

  “Ah, Piper: let me introduce you to Esme,” Kasper said.

  “She’s a kitchen witch!” I’d seen a million on auction.

  “Our kitchen witch, not a kitchen witch.”

  Sherry entered the mudroom area and closed the door behind her. “Esme brings magic to the kitchen, and luck, and protects against disasters.”

  “Sure. She wards off tornadoes and such, right?”

  “No, this is Canada, not Kansas,” Sherry said, patiently, like I was a toddler. “More like… burnt cookie disasters.”

  “Or when you cut a janky hole in the milk bag and it pours all over the counter,” Kasper added.

  I nodded. “That makes more sense. Everyday magic.” Luck and coincidence were chalked up to ‘everyday magic’ on the Magic Seeker forums. “But, that spoon… is it enchanted?” I couldn’t help myself from asking, but I used a neutral tone so Sherry could decide whether I was joking or serious.

  “The spoon? No.”

  “Okie dokie,” I said, but Sherry’s answer made me think something in that kitchen might actually be charmed. “Anyway, that soup smells amazing!”

  Sherry held up her hands. “Potatoes, cubed,” she said, lifting one finger. “Leeks, diced. Butter, lots of it, but it should be unsalted,” she listed, adding two more fingers. “Garlic, cloves peeled and smashed. Dill. Pepper, freshly ground. Heavy cream. Corn, two cups. Salmon, not smoked.” Nine fingers stood at attention now. “And secret broth.”

  “Secret broth?”

  Sherry nodded solemnly.

  “And you know the secret?”

  “I made the soup. I have to know the secret.”

  “Ah, right. Kasper, you said Esme was ‘our kitchen witch’... so you two live together?”

  “Esme has been here as long as I have.”

  “That’s not what she meant,” Sherry said.

  Kasper smiled, knowing what I was getting at. “Sherry stayed here over the winter.”

  “He’s old,” Sherry said. “So I help him.”

  “I guide her studies,” Kasper corrected.

  “Oh! You’re a student, Sherry?” I said, imagining that it’d be tough to do an online correspondence course with the stone-age internet available here.

  “Well yeah,” she said, as if it should’ve been obvious, and she said no more.

  As we entered the kitchen the balance of power shifted. Kasper drove the truck, and he had held the paddle at the auction, but it was clear that Sherry was in charge here. Her frame —short, thick and powerful— reminded me of a bulldog as she bustled into the space.

  A low wood stove, older than Kasper I’m sure, supported a lidded pot big enough to boil a whole turkey in. Thin wisps of steam escaped from irregularities in the lid. The uneven ripples in the black iron made me think they were hand-cast.

  “That’s a cauldron!” I gasped. Still riding the high from buying the truck, I could believe that this might be the day I’d find a real enchanted treasure.

  Sherry’s lips twitched with a tiny smile as she lifted the lid. A swirl of steam rose toward the ceiling, twisting in on itself with eddies of that delicious scent. I cocked my head and squished my eyebrows together, surprised to see the steam shimmer and flash with green, like lightning inside a storm cloud.

  “It’s green!” I said, stating the obvious. “Like… radioactive!”

  “Magic,” Sherry said simply. Then she held me in a look. “Most people can’t see that, you know.”

  Her earnestness unsettled me, but was she being serious? Had I finally found real magic? “Like… magic magic?”

  Sherry kept her back to me as she handled a rough wooden ladle with reverence and skill, like it was a fine violin. She hummed a soft song as she readied three bowls, finalizing them by grinding a dried pepper over each.

  “Smoked paprika,” she said. “Not charmed, just tasty.”

  I felt lightheaded, almost drunk. So far today, I impulse-bought a food truck and got invited to eat a magical dinner with near-strangers, one of whom seems to be a witch. After years of searching, magic had basically shown up and been shoved down my throat!

  My first sip was tentative, but the
play between the leeks and the dill was so amazing that I devoured my first bowl. It was more a chowder than a soup, so rich and fatty that I felt like someone was going to come and take it away, chastising me for eating dessert first.

  But does it taste magical? I wondered. Do I feel more powerful after eating it?

  “A bowl of this could get a family through a tough winter,” I said, hoping to segue into any magical qualities the soup might have.

  “Almost summer now,” Kasper said. “Better have two.”

  Sherry rose to ladle out another bowl. I turned so I could glimpse the flashing green steam again and was about to ask about the chowder’s powers when a piano crescendo swelled up from under the simple pine dining table.

  “Ah, that’s me,” Kasper apologized, digging out his phone. “This fool thing shouldn’t interrupt dinner, but at my age, nobody calls unless somebody’s dead.”

  I smiled politely at the quip, betting he’d used it a hundred times, and Kasper stomped through the kitchen to take the call in the living room. Sherry and I could still hear the strident, ringing tones of the afternoon’s auctioneer, loud and clear.

  “Where are you, brother?!” said the caller, loud and clear on speakerphone.

  “Ah, Jimmy Kiss. I am enjoying a fine dinner with friends. That woman who bought the truck is here. For disrupting us with this, somebody had better be dead!” Kasper emphasized, repeating his joke.

  “Bloody baskets, Kasper,” Jimmy swore. “Listen, brother, it’s LT!”

  “The Lion Tamer? What, is he dead?”

  A pause.

  I whispered to Sherry: “Are those two brothers?”

  Sherry rolled her eyes. “Jimmy calls everyone ‘brother’. Every wrestler, anyway.”

  Is Kasper a wrestler? If he used to be, it’d be back around the time the TV camera was invented…

  “—found him in the park!” Jimmy was saying, almost shouting. “With that blasted bumblebee mask on.”