The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Poker? I Hardly Know Her!

Previously: "Meet the Morrows" 

"I'll mention it to him," you tell Corey Morrow. "But, you know, I don't think he's done with acting."

"Well, he wouldn't have to be," Corey starts to say, but you interrupt him with an even cooler, "I'll mention it to him."

You're pretty much done with the Morrows by this point. Though there is some temptation in the idea of adding them to the Brotherhood—they are physically attractive, and Corey's idea would give Paul some security—you are feeling tired and aggravated by them. They seem to talk and think only of themselves.

In fact, you feel like you have to put a little distance between you and them, and after refilling your wine glass you go looking for Becky.

She's not in the living room, so you check in the den, where the poker game is continuing. There's a lot of loud chatter in there, but Becky isn't.

You pause to watch the game. There's some kind of drama unfolding.

It's focused on Paul and Brooke Perry. He's sitting back in his chair, covering his downturned cards with his hand, smiling enigmatically at her. She's leaning halfway across the table, tightly clutching her cards in her one hand while jabbing at Paul with a hard, stiff finger.

"Bullshitter!" she is shouting with a wide, laughing grin. "You're a freaking bullshitter, man!" Paul's smile widens. "You all see it, right?" Brooke addresses the others at the table. "The bullshit?"

Jeremy Short—Brittney's date—is relaxing in his chair with a smile almost as wide as Brooke's. Joel May—Brooke's date—rests his elbows on the table and with laughing eyes slowly draws on an enormous cigar. Even Samantha wears a narrow smile as she glances between Brooke and Paul.

"Cost you fifty to make the charge stick," Paul murmurs. He waves at the pot, which holds a couple of hundred dollars.

"I been watching this guy all night!" Brooke yells. "I know every tell he's got, and they're all flashing like freaking neon! You're tryin' to bullshit me!"

Joel takes the cigar from his mouth. "Fifty dollars, babe," he says.

"It's my last fifty!" Her voice catches; it's full of smoker's gravel. "If I lose this I have to go home!"

Paul's smile widens fractionally, but he doesn't otherwise move. Brooke falls back into her chair with a growl.

Brooke is a tomboy. At least, she tries to be one. She's dressed in a sloppy t-shirt, and wears a silver choker and two leather cords about her neck. There's another leather band on her right wrist, and on her right, middle finger she sports a ring with an opal the size of a marble. A web-mesh trucker hat, turned backwards, is jammed onto her head, holding back the cascading blonde hair that spills past the tops of her shoulders. She wears too much mascara, but her unblemished face is otherwise mostly free of makeup. She is in her early thirties, same as Gianna.

Maybe that's why Gianna dislikes Brooke so much, it occurs to you now. They're so similar: Brooke could be Gianna's younger, lewder, trailer-trash cousin.

She grins brightly at Paul now, her teeth a blinding rictus. Her eyes dance. God, she's horny for him, you think with a stab of envy and anger. She'd jump the table and give him a lap dance if she could. You have to fight to throttle the fury that Gianna feels.

Brooke picks up her last two chips—both green—and taps them on the table. Paul's gaze drops.

"Oooh!" Brooke gasps, and comes half out of her chair. "Oooh! There it is, guys!" She points at Paul. "You see it, you freaking see it? There's the tell!" A rumble of laughter rises around you, and you glance back to find that Brittney and Corey have joined you to watch. "You ain't got shit in your hand, man!" Brooke gloats at Paul as his grin turns bashful and he starts to blush. "You ain't got shit, and you're about to be busted as a bullshitter! Call!" She tosses the chips into the pot, and leans across the table to grin at him.

Paul winces, and turns over his cards with a quick flick of the wrist. It takes you a moment to register the flush.

It takes Brooke a moment too. When she does, she slams her palms and her face into the table.

Jeremy hoots unsympathetically while Joel snickers around his cigar. Paul delicately scratches an eyebrow.

Brooke suddenly springs to her feet.

"Alright, that was a good game!" She circles the table, keeping a finger aimed directly at Paul's face. "But you owe me, you bullshitter! You got all my money, so you owe me!"

"I won it fair and square," Paul says. With a casual swipe he pulls the pot to him.

"You still owe me. Here's what."

She lays both hands on his perfectly coiffed hair, and quickly musses it.

"There! Been wantin' to do that all evening! I'm going out back for a smoke," she adds. "I know house rules say we can smoke in here, but I need a cooling douche. It's too hot in here!" She sweeps from the room.

A couple of conversations break out around the table, but you've lost your interest, and continue your search for Becky.

She's not in any of the bedrooms—but you'd hardly expect her to be—and are driven to look on the back porch. That's where you find her, curled up in a cast-iron chair next to a glass-topped outdoor table. She's got her phone out, but she's talking—or listening—to Brooke, who is leaning against the redwood railing that separates the patio deck from the small back yard and blowing streams of smoke into the night air.

She glances over as you come out.

"I was tellin' the kid here," she says, "that's quite a poppa she's got. Is he a professional?"

"Gambler?" You glance at Becky, who only returns you a blank look of her own. You've been outside of Paul's mask long enough now that everything except basic knowledge about his life and circumstances has faded from your memory, so you've no idea if he's good or just lucky at cards. "I don't know," you confess. "I mean, professionally he's an actor—"

"Well, he could do the cards thing professionally," Brooke says. She takes a drag off her cigarette. "How long you two been seeing each other?"

You feel uncomfortably aware of Becky's presence. "A couple of weeks?"

"Is that all? Is it serious between you?"

Possessiveness flares in you. "How long have you and Joel been seeing each other?"

"Oh, me and Joel." She waves her cigarette dismissively. "We're just old friends. Comfort food."

You didn't get much of a look at Joel when Brittney introduced you to him, and you only got the briefest impression of him. He's older than Brooke, you'd wager that much, in his late forties or even early fifties. He has a full head of hair, worn semi-long, that still has streaks of brown and black in it, but it has mostly faded to the color of smoked ash. His face is unlined, though, and his eyes are alert and amused. The way he slid panther-like through the house, though—and the way he greeted Jeremy and Corey with hard back-slaps and a couple of Bros and Bruhs—gave you the impression that he is, if not a retired surfer, at least someone who has done a lot of surfing in his time. He has a very easy way with that cigar, but you'd bet he has an even easier way with a blunt.

So if he seems too old for Brooke, at the same time he seems fast enough and loose enough for her too. Are they "comfort food" for each other? You guess you can see that.

But Brooke is still talking. (She loves to talk.) "For your next date," she says, "you and bro-hunk should come out to Joel's, let him treat you guys to dinner."

"What's his 'place' again?" you ask, as though you'd momentarily forgotten something you'd never even been told.

"Well, he owns Bruges, though that's not exactly public knowledge, so don't spread it around, okay?" Brooke says. She takes one last drag on the cigarette, and grinds it out atop the railing. "But his big thing is Fat Beach."

"The brewery down by the pier?" This surprises you.

"That's right. The brewery and the restaurant. The onion rings there? Oh my God!"

Gianna does know the onion rings, and mention of them sets your mouth watering. Fat Beach—named after the smaller, secondary beach a mile or so up the coast from Calabasas's more famous "Rocky Beach"—is a local institution dating back to the mid-nineties: a microbrewery with a national (if minor) presence, and an attached pub famous for its gourmet burgers and chicken-fried steaks. Between them they must gross several millions, maybe several tens of millions, of dollars a year.

And that surfer-bro in there, who looks and dresses like he lives out of his car? He owns it?

"I'm going back inside," Brooke says, detaching herself from the railing. "See if I can pick up a few tips and tricks watching your guy. Oh!" She stops at the doorway and turns. "Does your guy do endorsements?"

"I don't know."

"Well, that's something maybe he could talk to Joel about. Publicity, ads. Spokesman stuff, you know. You think he'd be interested?"

"I don't know," you repeat.

"Well, talk to him about it. Then bring him out to Fat Beach. Or Bruges. I'd rather it was Bruges," she slyly adds.

You feel your breath slightly taken away after Brooke has gone. Maybe that's another reason Gianna doesn't like her: She moves fast and breaks anything in her way.

Still, what she has said has given you an idea you hadn't even bothered to consider before.

"What about her?" you suggest to Becky.

"Okay," she replies. "What about her?"

"For a mask. The Brotherhood. Her and Joel?"

Becky glances at the door, and looks a little askance.

"If you like her, Will," she says in a low voice. "By this point I'm not picky."

Next: "From Plan B to Plan C" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"