CHAPTER FOUR CECI
Chapter Four
Ceci
Sir Stick Up His Ass?” Pixel cried, taking the last bite of crème br?lée.
“I think so,” said Ceci, ignoring the stares from a couple of guests who were sitting at the large circular table. “Maybe.”
“Sir Stick places your hand on his heart? And tells you to be kind and aim here?”
“Weird, huh.”
“What do you suppose he meant by it?”
Ceci had been asking herself the same question.
Aunt Delilah shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? He was dressed as the Man in the Iron Mask. He feels imprisoned, doesn’t know what crime he’s committed, and doesn’t know his true identity.”
Ceci scoffed. “Crime? Sir Stick? I bet the man has never even jaywalked.”
Pixel grinned. “I’ll bet when the cashier gives him too much money back in change, he corrects their mistake.”
“Even if the man has to drive over one hundred miles to do it,” added Ceci.
This got them both laughing.
Once Ceci could catch her breath, she turned to Aunt Delilah. “Just because he dressed up as the Man in the Iron Mask doesn’t mean he identifies with him.”
“You dressed up as Annie Oakley—independent, tenacious, courageous, and resilient. Not to mention a crack shot. Are you going to tell me you don’t identify with her?”
Ceci crossed her arms, refusing to indulge her aunt. “Can you tell me what crime you think Sir Stick committed?”
“Speeding,” her aunt said with a smug expression.
Ceci rolled her eyes.
Aunt Delilah wiped the corners of her mouth, splotching the napkin with her favorite shade of lipstick, Scarlet Shame. “He wouldn’t have said what he did if he didn’t identify with the man. Sounds like he’s got all the marks of a tragic romantic hero.”
Ceci, sitting between her best friend and her aunt, shook her head, regretting she’d brought up the subject of the Man in the Iron Mask.
But only because her aunt had overheard her.
Ceci suspected Aunt Delilah’s supposed hearing loss was just that—supposed.
It was just a tad too convenient. She had no trouble hearing things she wanted to, things that were usually none of her business.
“We should have waited until she wasn’t around,” whispered Pixel.
“She wasn’t,” Ceci whispered back.
When they’d first sat down, her aunt was nowhere in sight. Most likely she was flirting with one of the waiters.
Pixel cupped her mouth. “I know. And then she was. Like that.” She mimicked snapping her fingers. “Seemingly out of nowhere. How does she do that?”
“You’ll have to conspire in a softer voice than that, Cecilia and Piper,” said Aunt Delilah.
Pixel sighed. “Do you think your Aunt Delulu will ever refer to me by my chosen name?”
Aunt Delilah slapped her palms on the table.
“Piper MacKenzie, while you might favor that absurd name, I do not. And for good reason. It is my understanding that a pixel is an infinitesimal dot, which when combined with other infinitesimal dots makes up the images I see on my TV or computer screen. You, my dear, can hardly be reckoned an infinitesimal anything, least of all, a dot. If you could, neither myself nor my niece would have anything to do with you.”
It didn’t matter how many times Ceci told Aunt Delilah that Pixel had adopted the name as a badge of honor, given her success as a game programmer and software engineer.
Shrugging, Ceci glanced at her friend, indicating it was no use responding. If there was one thing Aunt Delilah was set on—it was getting the last word. And as long as Ceci had known her, which was all her life, Aunt Delilah had maintained a perfect record.
“In any case,” Aunt Delilah said, placing her napkin on her empty plate, indicating the end of one topic and the beginning of another, “even you two can’t deny that we have the makings of a classic fairy tale.”
Both women looked at her with puzzled expressions.
She sighed. “It’s ‘The Swineherd.’”
The Swineherd?
“Oh,” said Pixel, “the one where the emperor’s daughter rejects the gifts from a prince. So the prince disguises himself and applies for the job of swineherd at the palace?”
“That’s the one,” said Aunt Delilah.
Ceci was used to Pixel spouting knowledge about things no matter how random. The girl had a photographic memory.
“I’m supposing,” Ceci ventured, “she gets to know the man, falls in love, and the two live happily ever after?”
Pixel shook her head. “The prince or swineherd makes a musical pot, and she pays for it by giving him ten kisses. Then he makes a musical rattle, and she pays one hundred kisses for that. Her father, the emperor, is disgusted she would kiss a swineherd and casts her out into the streets.”
“Oh,” said Ceci. “Okay, so after that she goes to the swineherd, discovers he’s really a prince, gives her father the middle finger, and then they live happily ever after.”
“Nope. The prince is disgusted too. He basically slut-shames her. He cleans up, dresses in his royal attire, shows himself to be the prince, and rejects her.”
Ceci looked at her aunt. “This is the fairy tale you liken my encounter with Sir Stick posing as the Man in the Iron Mask to? If it even was Sir Stick.”
“He was in disguise just like the prince. And you did kiss him.”
“First of all, he kissed me. And second of all, how do those two miniscule facts lead you to draw a connection between what happened and that swineherd story?”
“Well, you can’t argue that there’s no connection. He was in disguise. The two of you kissed. Finis.”
What Aunt Delilah could do with logic was truly mind-bending. And she managed to do it without the aid of magic mushrooms.
Suddenly her aunt’s eyes blew up. If she were a cartoon, she’d have a lightbulb above her head.
“It isn’t just ‘The Swineherd.’ It’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Snow White’ as well.”
Glancing at Ceci and Pixel and seeing their expressions, she frowned, drumming the table with her manicured nails painted Brazen Trollop. “Did I never read you any fairy tales?”
Ceci shook her head. “You did however read me the complete works of D. H. Lawrence, Ana?s Nin, and Henry Miller. Oh, and how could I forget? The Marquis de Sade, along with a slew of articles from your Cosmopolitan subscription.”
“Well, I wanted you to be well-read, erudite.” She sighed. “In ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Snow White,’ it’s the prince’s kiss that awakens our heroine from the Sleeping Death.” She tapped Ceci’s arm. “Heroine—that would be you, dear.”
“What about the Sleeping Death?” Ceci asked. “That hardly applies.” Ceci thumped her chest. “As you can see.”
Aunt Delilah narrowed her eyes and gazed at Ceci pensively. “That’s debatable. How long since you’ve … you know?”
“What?”
Ceci turned to Pixel for some assistance, but her friend shrugged. “You know.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s got everything to do with everything,” Aunt Delilah exclaimed. “If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be talking about it now.”
“We’re not talking about it. You are.”
“Trust me, dear. You are talking about it, even if you’re doing it in code.”
Ceci was about to respond, but her aunt wasn’t finished.
“Talk of sex aside … at least for the moment. What’s really puzzling me is if it was Sir Clarke, why dance with you?”
Ceci threw her hands into the air. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Why kiss you?”
“That one’s easy. That was so I wouldn’t remove his mask.”
Pixel made a face.
“What? It’s true.”
Pixel shook her head. “But the way you described it.”
“I didn’t describe it because there was nothing to describe. As I said, he did it to keep me from removing his mask.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing.”
“What’s the thing?”
“It’s not like you not to say anything more.”
Ceci threw up her hands in exasperation. “I just told you, there wasn’t anything more to say.”
“Well, given it was good, there must have been something more to say.”
“Why do you say it was good? I never told you it was good.”
“You didn’t have to. The tone of your voice did.”
Ceci had phoned Pixel the very next day.
Fuck. Why didn’t I just text her? There’s no tone in a text.
Huffing, she turned her back to her friend, only to meet up with Aunt Delilah’s devilish grin.
“It’s a real conundrum,” Pixel said.
Frowning, Ceci swung back to face her friend.
“Because,” explained Pixel, “how are you going to confront him? What if you’re wrong? Can you imagine his reaction?”
Ceci didn’t want to imagine it.
The pompous, superior Stick? Ugh.
If there was one thing that told her the Man in the Iron Mask couldn’t be Sir Stick Up His Ass, it was that kiss.
There’s no way that ironing board can kiss like that.
Ceci jumped when Aunt Delilah slapped her palms on the table, hard enough for the silverware on the plates to rattle.
“That’s how we’ll catch him,” she said. “With the kiss.”
Ceci’s eyes blew open. “What?”
“You’ll just have to kiss Sir Clarke.”
“Kiss Sir Stick Up His Ass?”
“Then you’ll know. Surely you’ll be able to tell. Have I taught you nothing useful in life?”
“Okay,” Pixel said, “let’s just suppose we go along with this plan.”
“What?” Ceci cried. “Are you insane?”
“Just humor me a moment,” Pixel muttered under her breath. She turned to Aunt Delilah. “When exactly is she supposed to kiss the knight? How? Exactly.”
Aunt Delilah shrugged. “That’s for her to figure out. She’ll have to create an opportunity. She can’t just wait for one to drop in her lap. If I’d waited, I wouldn’t have the impressive kissing record I have to this very day.”
Ceci eyed Pixel. “Don’t you dare ask,” she muttered through clenched teeth.
“Come on,” Pixel said in a low tone. “Don’t you want to know?”
“Even once she tells you, you won’t know. Whatever number she gives, it won’t be the truth.”
“It’ll still be entertaining.”
Ceci sighed. “Okay, Aunt Delilah, what’s your kissing record?”
“Fifty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty.” She paused. “So far.”
Pixel leaned forward. “Fifty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty? I don’t even know fifty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty men.”