Speaking of fleshy lumps, when we came out of the piercing place and found Britain, she was sitting on a bench, staring up at the skylights, and looking despondent.
She opened her mouth to say something, then my adorable new eyebrow piercing caught her attention, and she closed her mouth.
“Mission accomplished,” I announced.
Britain looked straight through me as she grabbed Courtney's hand. “Sweetie, we'd better get to the theater so we can grab good seats. I know you like to sit in the optimal spot for sound.”
My eyebrow radiated angry heat and the apple juice felt sour in my stomach. I considered excusing myself and going home, but then I gave myself a pep talk about trying to be nice to Britain, and trailed along behind them like an obedient dog.
At the mall's theater, called SilverCity Metropolis, Courtney and I both jumped up and down when we saw the
Hunger Games
poster. The movie was opening soon and we already had our tickets.
Britain said, “It's no
Battle Royale
.”
My eye twitched. “Don't be a hive-mind hater,” I said. “Like you even heard of
Battle Royale
before
Hunger Games
.”
Britain ignored me, scanning the crowd around us.
“What do you think?” I asked Courtney. “In
Game of Thrones
, they have people battle for the entertainment of the King. Is that ripping off
Battle Royale
? How about roman gladiators?”
Courtney gazed at the movie poster. “Jennifer Lawrence is so pretty,” she said.
Britain released Courtney's hand. “I'll go save three seats. Get us some popcorn, no butter.”
Courtney agreed and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Britain on the cheek.
Britain still hadn't said a single word about my piercing, and it was making me crazy, so I said, “Hey, Brit, did you notice anything different about my eyebrow?”
Britain said to Courtney, “Some people will do anything for attention.”
After she'd walked away to go save the seats, I said to Courtney, “See? She just did it again. She was totally rude to me. I'm not imagining things.”
Courtney wandered in the direction of the food counter, toward the intoxicating smell of popcorn.
“Well?” I said.
“What? She was just joking around.”
I wanted to grab Courtney by the petite shoulders and shake some sense into her. “Jokes should be funny. She's just mean.”
“Well, Britain thinks
you're
smart and funny, and she's really hoping you two will be friends.”
“If she said that to you, she's lying,” I said.
Courtney ordered her food and made a pain-face over the cost of it all, so I gave her a ten to help cover the popcorn and tub-sized Diet Coke, even though I wasn't thrilled about sharing a straw with Britain and her cooties.
I said, “You could have warned me she would be here today.”
“Would you have still come?”
“Yes,” I lied.
With our snacks in hand, we made our way into the theater, which was already quite full, considering the pre-release buzz for
John Carter
hadn't been that great. Based on some blog posts I'd read, I had low expectations for the film.
Britain was sitting just a little to the side of center, the optimal spot for sound. There was one empty chair on her left and one on her right. I figured she'd move over and have Courtney sit in the middle, but she didn't, so I had to sit right next to her and listen to the trash-compactor noises of her eating all the popcorn and slurping away at the Diet Coke like a horse at a water trough.
Worse still, I was seated right behind a tall guy with even taller spiky hair. He must have felt me shooting eye daggers at him, because he turned around and looked right at me.
“Smart mouth waitress!” he said.
His head was backlit by an advertisement for either phones or tiny cars, but I could tell by the voice it was Cooper, Marc's artist friend.
“Perry. And you may remember Courtney and Britney—er, I mean Britain—from the art show.”
He turned around and sat up on his knees, on his theater chair, shaking everyone's hands.
“Courtney's doing a mosaic thing,” I said. “Maybe you could give her feedback sometime? As an established artist.”
“Established. Hah, good one,” he said.
Some people nearby shushed us, even though it was just the advertisements playing, not even the trailers.
“Is Marc here with you?” I asked, even though I'd already deduced neither of the guys on either side of him were Marc.
“Nope. But we should all hang out together soon,” Cooper said.
“Sure.”
A few seconds later, he held his phone up, showing me a photo of my own face, from a month ago, when I had dreadlocks. “I'm
face-friending
you,” he said.
“I will accept,” I said.
My own phone was in my pocket, turned off, and I fought the urge to take it out and check to see if he really had requested to friend me.
Twenty minutes into the movie, after being shushed several times by Britain for my funny comments during the film, my bladder demanded a washroom break.
In the relative quiet of the ladies' room, I turned my phone on and accepted Cooper's friend request. A moment later, when I was peeing, a message popped up from him:
You snuck out!
Me:
Bathroom break.
Cooper:
We should go get some real food.
Me:
Right now?
Cooper:
Meet me outside the doors.
Me:
Sounds like a plan! Yes.
After I came out of the stall, I quickly washed my hands and scrubbed my teeth with my finger. I looked up at the water-splashed mirror to check my face, shocked to see two metal balls framing my right eyebrow.
I really did just get my eyebrow pierced, didn't I?
What a weirdo. At least it looked cute. I dried my hands on sandy brown paper towel, then very gingerly touched my fingertip to the end of the piercing. It hurt, but not as much as I expected.
The piercing looked like a good one, for all I could tell. I'd seen home-pierced ones that were too close to the surface, and they seemed to be working their way out of the person's face. This one looked secure. I wondered how it would look with another one next to it.
“Admiring yourself?” someone said.
I turned to find Cooper, inside the ladies' room, watching me.
An older lady washing her hands next to me gave him a wide-eyed look and shook her head.
I ran toward him, pushing him away with hand gestures. “Get out of here, ladies' room pervert,” I squealed.
Laughing, he said, “I didn't see anything, I swear. Besides, I have a sister and she pees around me all the time. I can't get her to stop.”
Right
, his sister was the blue-haired girl, Sunshine, who was also Marc's ex, the one he probably “just got out of something serious” with.
Out in the movie theater lobby, I said to Cooper, “Food of many lands?”
“You mean the food court? No way. Let's go somewhere. I know a Greek place that does great seafood.”
“I don't really do seafood.”
“Typical girl, always has to be so difficult,” he said, smiling. “They have other things too. You can have the chicken, or the lamb, or the vegetarian stuff.”
“Okay,” I said as I walked toward the movie theater, so I could let Courtney know I was ditching her with Britain.
Cooper said, “Let's just leave them and make them think you were abducted.”
I laughed into my hand. “No, bad idea. How would you feel if your sister disappeared mid-movie?”
His face got serious. “You're right. My bad. Go tell them.”
I crept into the theater and told Courtney I was going off with Cooper. She made a crude blowjob gesture just to horrify me and Britain.
“Not like that,” I insisted, but I did feel naughty sneaking off with him.
When I came out of the theater, Cooper looked adorable, studying the movie posters in the hallway. Is there anything cuter than a guy by himself, waiting for you?
We made our way out of the theater lobby, toward the elevator. Once in the elevator, with some other people, he turned to me and said, “You'll love this Greek restaurant.”
“You're a good salesman,” I said, wondering if the other people in the elevator thought he was my boyfriend.
He said, “That's a good thing, because I am no painter.”
“Don't say that. Your paintings are really nice.”
“Yeah, they really are,” he said, grinning widely. An older Asian lady with a wheeled cart smiled at him and then me.
We reached our floor, and as we walked through the parkade to find Cooper's car, he told me a bit about some large-scale pieces he was working on for a custom order—a
commission
, he called it. The way he talked about his work didn't sound like bragging, but it didn't sound weak and insecure, either.
When my mother writes a new song, she paces around the house, talking about how terrible it is—how awful, how pedestrian—then my brother, my dad, and anyone else who pops in for a visit, all have to boost her back up by raving about how talented and luminous she is. She really is a wonderful songwriter and singer, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her daughter. It's easy to be supportive when you believe.
The other artist in my life, Courtney, can get uptight about her tiny-handed sculptures, though I'm saved by much of the drama by not living in the same house as her. Before she shows me something, I'll ask her to tell me what she wants: critique or support. She always says critique, but I give her ninety percent praise, because I really do love everything she does. Her work has a tribal sensibility to it, but from the future, like from some post-apocalyptic new civilization.
I don't mind being my mother's or my best friend's cheering squad, but it was refreshing to be around Cooper, an artist who was also his own support group.
His car was black and sleek, but not flashy. He mentioned he'd had all the brand-identifying features removed when he'd purchased it, which I thought was cool, but also defeated the purpose of buying such a nice car. The interior of the car was spotless, and the electric seat warmers were a pleasant surprise for my bum when he started the engine.
There wasn't a lot of foot room, so I put my purse on my lap.
“Is that a bowling ball bag?” he asked, reaching over to stroke the top-stitched leather stripes.
“Vintage,” I said. “I got it at the same place as my wrestling boots.”
He reached down and actually touched my purple and yellow boots, which had been worn by some small-footed wrestler guy before they became mine. There had been some dark stuff staining the laces, and my mother was concerned I'd catch some blood-borne contamination from the boots, so she'd made me give them an overall bleaching, along with the bowling ball bag.
Cooper ran his hands up and down my shins—well, up and down the laces on the outside of the boots. It gave me a shiver, and made me glad I'd put on a cute outfit for the day instead of jeans.
On my legs, I wore lace leotards—not the trampy kind, but the ones that look like granny doilies. Because I had a lot of color going on with the purple and yellow boots and the big yellow purse, I wore a dark gray dress paired with a gray trench-style jacket the same length as the dress. My hair was up in a loose bun, so I had to turn my head to the side a bit to rest my head on the headrest of the car.
When I faced Cooper, he kept turning to smile back at me. I didn't want to distract him from driving, so I turned to face the window instead. It had been raining when I left the house, but the weather had gone through a typical Vancouver mood change, and the sun was bright gold around us.
We drove for a bit in contented silence.
Cooper parked the car on a side street, off Kingsway, and ran around to open my door for me. “I haven't been here in ages, I hope they're still in business,” he said.
“There's a Mexican place over there, just in case.”
“Sheesh, what have you got against Greek food?” he joked.
“I don't know if I've ever had it, actually. Besides Greek salad.”
“You are missing out,” he said as he held open the restaurant door for me.
Out wafted a scent that removed any doubts I'd had about eating there. My stomach started letting me know it might be interested in this fancy Greek food.
The restaurant was huge, maybe five times the size of The Whistle, with seating on several platforms of varying heights.
“The waitresses must get a real calf workout,” I commented as a young man showed us to a quiet corner booth.
House plants—live ones, not plastic—trailed down from beams over my head. The sun peeked through some clouds and flooded the place through several skylights.
My eyebrow tickled and I touched my new piercing before I could stop myself. A little zap of pain shot through me. “Yow!” I said.
“That piercing's new,” Cooper said.
“I just got it today. At Human Arts.”
“That's cool. They did my frenum.”
Breathlessly, I said, “What?”
“Joking.”
“I don't even know what that is.”
He grinned at his menu, eyebrows raised. “Maybe I'm joking, maybe I'm not. Who's to say?”
I pulled out my phone and looked it up. A frenum piercing makes the penis look like it's wearing a little bow-tie. I was pretty sure Cooper was joking, but he had made me think about his pants-business, which I realized might even be a good portion of the point behind getting piercings in that area.
The menu, with its myriad of strangely-named and hard-to-pronounce items, did little to take my mind off what might be under Cooper's stylish clothes.
He said, “That piercing of yours makes me want to nibble on your eyebrow.”
I didn't quite know how to deal with his forwardness, so I said, “What's halloumi, is that the fried cheese? I think I had that once before. I don't know.”
“You're thinking of the flaming saganaki.” The waitress had just arrived at our table, so he turned to her and said, “We'll start with the saganaki, and I'll have a Coke.”
The waitress wore Uggs, which my boss at The Whistle would never allow. Her jeans and shirt were awfully casual, and I assumed she had to be family, perhaps the daughter or granddaughter of the owners.