Night of Cake & Puppets

9 Heart Hole

The door swings open, loosing the cafe din of voices and music into the courtyard, and then it shuts again, sucking back the noise like a cuckoo into a clock. Footsteps crunch across the snow. I can’t see, and I’m fairly sure I can’t be seen. I’m crouched behind a tombstone, just beyond the splash of light from the window, and as the sound of footsteps fades, I think two things:

• Hiding behind tombstones definitely constitutes stalker behavior.

and

• Mik is en route to Location Three, and Location Three is the final location, the place where I am supposed to manifest my actual self and commence human interaction.

Do I have to? a voice in me whimpers. Can’t the puppets act on my behalf? Puppet ambassadors? Yeah, because what’s creepier than a stalker? A stalker ventriloquist who speaks through angel and devil puppets. I imagine Mik introducing me to his family: ‘I’d like you to meet my girlfriend Zuzana and…her representatives.’

No no no. You can do this.

I can do this. I unfurl myself from behind the tombstone. I am the same person who just put fear in the heart of that best-friend-despoiler, Kaz. Rabid fairy, rabid fairy. Why should speaking to a boy I like be so much harder than speaking to one I despise? I know it’s all brain chemicals – everything is brain chemicals – but my excitement and dread feel like tiny wrestlers in my heart right now. I picture Excitement choking out Dread and gently, almost lovingly, lowering his inert body to the ground.

Go. Now. Leave Dread lying there. Go fast, before he gets up and sees which way you went. Breathe. Walk. Breathe. Walk. Look, Mik’s footsteps. Follow them.

Breathe.

Walk.

Okay. I’m good. I’m going. I set my feet in Mik’s footprints and feel a connection to him, like a total lunatic. Location Three isn’t far, and it’s a route I’ve walked hundreds of times, usually with Karou. Breathe. Walk. Mik’s probably there already.

Do I know what I’m going to say to him?

Oh hell.

Dread rallies, chases us up the block. High-kicks Excitement in the neck just before I round the corner to Location Three. It stops me in my tracks, and I find myself stuck to the side of the building by the centrifugal force of my anxiety.

What am I going to say?

I fumble out my phone and text Karou: URGENT ASSISTANCE REQUIRED. WORDS. FIRST LINE. JUST SOMETHING SIMPLE THAT WILL MAKE HIM FALL INSTANTLY IN LOVE WITH ME. GO.

And then I wait, phone in my hand. And wait. The snow’s coming down faster now, and my breath is a dragon’s plume. The cold stone of the building seeps through my coat to turn my back to ice, and no message comes back from Africa.

Fine. I shove my phone back into my pocket. I know what I have to do. The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, ‘First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.’ Good old Epictetus. I would be Confident Girl, and that means unplastering myself from the side of this building, for starters. It’s my personal theory that only 27 percent of perceived confidence is actual confidence, and the rest is sham. The key is: If you can’t tell the difference, there is no difference. Oh, the person shamming can feel the difference, in their clammy palms and pounding heart, but the outward effect – hopefully – is the same.

Words will come out of my mouth when the time comes and I’ll just have to hear what they are at the same time Mik does. There’s no way to script this. (Or is there? Maybe I could write a script, and be in total control of our first conversation – No. No you cannot. Walk.) I set my body in motion. I feel Excitement and Dread hanging on to my ankles, but after a few steps I stop noticing, because I pass the point of no return. I round the corner into Maltese Square. There’s the pink Baroque facade of the Lyceum. The courtyard gate, and beyond it only shadows. I can’t see Mik, but…Mik can see me. I walk.

Location Three is the courtyard of my school. It’s a pretty place, with a frozen fountain in the center and a marble bench carved to look like mermaids are holding it on their shoulders. The gate’s left unlocked at night so students can use the studios as late as they need, but on a Saturday night this early in the term desperation levels are low, and there won’t be anyone around. The courtyard’s private but only semi-enclosed, which seems right. Intimate but not too intimate.

I stroll right up to the gate. That’s not my heartbeat pounding in my throat. That’s confidence.

The gate’s standing open. I see Mik’s footsteps.

I falter.

Because Mik’s footsteps, they go in, and…

…they come back out.

They lead away.

And when I look into the courtyard, this is what I see: On the mermaid bench, my angel and my devil are locked in an embrace.

And Mik is not here.

I look around, over both shoulders, across Maltese Square. I stop just short of looking up, as if he might have flown away. He’s nowhere.

He left.

Inside me: a desert of disappointment.

Mortification.

Paralysis.

Bewilderment.

And humiliation.

I hate humiliation. I want to kick humiliation in its measly toothpick shins.

I stand here for a minute before I realize that Mik could be watching from somewhere close by, and that thought propels me into the courtyard. I don’t step in his footprints now, but skirt them like I’m scorning them. Jerk footprints, take that. My heart feels zested. Finely shredded and ready to add to cake batter. It doesn’t hurt, because it’s not there anymore. Like the angel’s chest, with her empty heart hole – but without the sparkler.

So very without the sparkler.

I stop in front of the puppets, and there’s a blankness in my mind as I stare at them. He posed them like lovers. How mean. I would never have guessed that Mik was mean.

And then I see that the ice orb is gone. I’d hung it from the arbor that arches over the bench. The final artifact on this treasure hunt: a smooth chunk of clear ice about the size of a baseball, and frozen inside it, rolled up and tucked into a little plastic tube, is one last message. The idea was that by the time the ice melted, I’d be ready for Mik to read it, ready for the talking portion of the evening to transition to the next portion. You know which portion I mean. Oh god. My lips are bereft, like they’ve been left at the altar. They were so sure how this night was going to end.

Did Mik take the ice orb with him? Why would he do that? I look around to see if it might have fallen, but it’s not here, and…I start to get mad. He shouldn’t have taken it. If he was going to leave, he should have left the message, too. I don’t want it at large in the world for him to read and laugh over and show to his friends.

(He wouldn’t do that, a voice in me insists, like I know him at all.)

(You do know him.)

I don’t. Of course I don’t. We’ve never even spoken. But I was pretty confident that he wasn’t a jerk. That he wasn’t a jackass. Not that this is on par with what Kaz did to Karou, of course, but it’s not great, either. I was fully prepared for him to not show up at Location One. I’d have been really disappointed, yeah, but I couldn’t have held anything against him. If he’s not interested, he’s not interested. But why follow the treasure hunt to the end, looking all dazzled and velvety the whole time, and then…run away?

My phone buzzes. It’s from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won’t be needing.

—a) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I’m actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out?

—b) Hi. I’m Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin’.

—c) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I think I might like you.

I read them with bitterness, then drop down onto the bench and nudge the puppets apart, breaking their embrace. The angel falls back, her arms askew, head lolling off the edge of the bench in a swoon. Dead of a broken heart. I think I might like you indeed. No dancing around it, just honesty. That’s what Confident Girl would say. If she had someone to freaking say it to.

I write back: Thanks, but I won’t be needing these after all.

—What? Why?

—…he ran away.…

—???

—Left the puppets. Left them MAKING OUT and didn’t wait around for me. At least the puppets got some action tonight.

There’s a pause during which I imagine Karou getting outraged. But when she writes back, it isn’t outrage that comes through.

—This makes no sense, Zuze. Did he leave a note or anything?

A note? I didn’t think of that. A spark flickers in my heart hole. Is it possible?

Heart hole.

Heart hole! The angel’s heart hole. Something’s poking out of the angel’s heart hole! I look up, around, as if Mik might be spying on me the way I’ve been spying on him. But I don’t think so; there’s nowhere to hide. I reach out…it’s a rolled-up paper. I unroll it and, in a second, all of my disappointment, mortification, paralysis, bewilderment, and humiliation evaporate and are replaced by…giddiness, relief, thrill, swoon, and delight.

It’s Mik’s own version of my first treasure map, hastily done. At its center: a ballpoint-rendered self-portrait that is pretty much a child’s smiley face doodle with sideburns and a goatee. As bad as it is – and it is – there’s something so sweet about it, something so totally affectless and jerk-free that I can’t believe I ever thought Mik would do something mean. Oh ye of little faith. I remember the conversation I had at Poison with Karou a while back, before I even knew Mik’s name, where I wondered what chance there was of him being a non-orifice. As if there could be any doubt! He radiates non-orificeness. I was just afraid to believe it – or else afraid that some other girl was already the lucky beneficiary of his non-orificeness.

Which doesn’t appear to be the case – because he played my game tonight, and now…he’s inviting me to play his.

The puppets’ embrace takes on new meaning, and my cheeks go hot. Was it a message? How could it not be? The scroll is a message, too: A speech bubble balloons from smiley-Mik’s lips. It reads:

Devil’s Stream, 20 minutes.

PS walk slowly

And there’s a crudely drawn map of the Kampa, but no X-marks-the-spot that I can see. The Devil’s Stream isn’t very long, but it’s certainly long enough that a precise location would be helpful. And what’s with the twenty minutes? What’s he up to?

Intriguing…

My phone is vying for my attention. It’s a string of texts from Karou, all along the lines of: Hello? Z???

My fingers are shaking a little with thrill shivers as I type back: You’re a genius and a savior. THERE IS A NOTE! <3 <3

I have never in my life typed a heart symbol. Those are for milquetoast girls. Karou will probably think my phone’s been stolen – or possibly my body, by a lovelorn alien. I send the text anyway.

This is what comes back: …who is this??

Me: Don’t you dare mock me.

Karou: You’re not going to start collecting heart-shaped rocks or anything, are you? Because we might have to renegotiate our friendship.

And I have some time to kill before the mysterious twenty minutes elapse, so I call her – stupid texting, anyway; sometimes it takes a ridiculously long time to think of actually dialing the phone and speaking instead of typing away like numbskulls – and I assure her emphatically that there is no heart-shaped rock collection in my future. ‘Toes,’ I say, thinking of my grandfather’s supposed golem souvenir. ‘I’m going to take toe trophies from all my boys from now on,’ and if Karou knows that ‘all my boys’ so far equals zero boys, she doesn’t let on.

‘That’s more like it,’ she says.

It’s really good to hear her voice. She tells me she’s going to Pakistan next. Pakistan! I issue all sorts of ill-informed warnings that she doesn’t need, like to wear a burqa and not do any random sexy dancing in public, and she keeps trying to bring the conversation back to me and Mik.

Me & Mik.

I’ve never been part of an ampersand before. Never a ‘we,’ never an ‘us,’ but by the time I get off the phone and start walking – slowly, as directed – in the direction of the Devil’s Stream, I’m feeling pretty good about my chances. It may be a grand delusion, but the feeling carries me along like I’m floating, and in no time at all, I’m nearing the footbridge at the end of Velkoprevorske Street, wondering where to go next. And that’s when I hear it.

Music.