Jon Athan - Am I Beautiful?

She sat at the bar and ordered a mojito, which she drank through a straw under her mask. She could hear people laughing at her from a table in the corner. She was sure they were laughing at her—or someone —because they were snickering and people snickered when they were mocking others. It wasn’t the same jolly, friendly laughter she had heard before she started drinking. It didn’t bother her, though.

Her ego died with her beauty.

After about ten minutes of drinking alone, a young man named Matt Wolfe approached her. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-two.

“How’s it going?” he asked, leaning against the bar next to her with a cocktail in his hand.

“Fine,” Miki said, avoiding eye contact.

She visited the bar to observe the citizens of Los Angeles. She counted the number of masks she saw in public. She planned on killing more children, but only if she could murder them while wearing her mask. She wanted to be able to lure the children without compromising her identity. She had no interest in Matt.

But Matt was tipsy. He couldn’t take the hint because he didn’t recognize it. If a woman wasn’t screaming ‘get away!’ or ‘stop!’, he felt like he was welcome to continue pestering her.

Matt took a sip of his drink, then he asked, “Aren’t you hot in that?”

“I’m fine,” Miki replied coldly.

“You’re wearing a… Wha–What do you call ‘em? A trench coat? Yeah, you’re wearing a trench coat in here. I mean, look, there’s a fa–fireplace over there. It’s kinda hot in here. Don’t you… You wanna take that off or, um…”

Miki knitted her eyebrows at him and asked, “Are you asking me if I want to take off my coat?”

“Uhh… Yeah?”

“ Why? ”

“Um… Small talk?”

“That’s your idea of small talk? Walking up to a woman, asking her if she’s hot, and then asking her if she wants to undress herself in public?”

Matt pursed his lips, his brow wrinkled, cheeks inflated, eyes red and glassed over. Then he smirked and shrugged at her before bursting into a chuckle. Miki huffed, then she laughed at him. Although not exactly romantic, their quirky conversation and the bar’s cozy atmosphere reminded her of the first time she met Adam. Nostalgia warmed her body.

Miki removed her jacket, revealing her black long-sleeve dress. She folded her coat and placed it on her lap. While she did that, Matt noticed the dark purple scars on her wrists. They made him shudder. Although she didn’t seem bothered by his staring, Miki adjusted her sleeves to conceal the scars. Scars were easy to remember, and she didn’t need anyone to remember her visit to the bar.

Trying to keep the conversation flowing, Matt said, “My name is Matt. What should I call you?”

“You can call me Miki.”

“That’s a pretty name,” Matt said. “So, uh… what’s the mask for, Miki? Is your face cold, too?”

“I don’t want to get sick,” Miki responded.

“Sick?” he repeated in surprise, as if Miki’s explanation were absurd. He gave her a one-syllable laugh— Ha! —then he said, “Honestly, I thought you were, like, a… I thought you were a doctor when I first saw you. That’s actually why I came over here.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, you know, I’ve got a case of the ‘lonelies’ and I was hoping you could, uh… cure me?”

Miki couldn’t hold her deadpan expression for more than five seconds. She slapped her hand over her mouth and giggled.

“What?” Matt asked, smiling. “What’s so funny?”

“Was that a pick-up line?”

“If it worked… yeah, it was a pick-up line and I thought of it myself. If it didn’t, then I really have to see a doctor for these, uh… these burns from this public humiliation and— and —my friend over there came up with it. I just listened to him ‘cause I’m a little buzzed.”

Miki smiled as she observed him. He was a tall, scrawny guy with a babyish face and boyish combover. He looked like he had never thrown a punch—like his voice still cracked from puberty. With the alcohol mixed into the equation, she was confident she could overpower him.

She asked, “Did you drive here?”

“Huh?”

“Did you drive here in your car? Do you own a car? Did you come with friends? A taxi? Uber?”

“Oh… Oh! Yeah, I drove here,” Matt said as he nodded rapidly. Then he squinted an eye and stuttered, “Wha–Why? You need a ride or something?”

Miki glanced around the room. The bartender served drinks to a couple at the other end of the bar. A group of college students laughed and screamed at a booth. Middle-aged men prowled the corners of the bar, searching for vulnerable young women to take home. There were a few downers in there, too, but most of the patrons appeared to be enjoying life.

No one paid any attention to Miki or Matt.

Miki said, “Let’s go for a drive.”

Eyes sparkling with excitement, Matt responded, “Re–Really? Okay, let’s, uh… Let’s go.” He pointed behind him with his thumb and said, “Let me just tell my buddy so he can get a ride from someone else.”

“No. I don’t want anyone to think I’m ‘that’ type of girl. We go now privately or we don’t go anywhere together at all.”

Matt liked her spunk. She knew what she wanted and he knew what he wanted, so he figured they were two smart people with an understanding between them. He looked back at his friends in the corner of the room. They pressured him into approaching Miki, but they weren’t watching him anymore.

Matt shrugged and said, “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

Matt drove a red 2015 Honda Civic EX. It was nighttime now. Rush hour had ended, but there were still plenty of drivers on the streets and pedestrians on the sidewalks.

“You wanna play some music?” Matt asked as he pointed at his radio.

From the passenger seat, Miki said, “Actually, I prefer the silence.”

“You mean, uh… You don’t want me to talk? You just want to get back to my place and… you know. ”

Miki smiled and said, “What I mean is: I’d rather listen to your voice and have you listen to mine than listen to anything on the radio.”

“That’s… very sweet. It sounds like a pick-up line, actually. Maybe I’ll use it someday,” Matt joked.

“What? You’re one of those guys that picks up girls at bars for one-night stands and then dumps ‘em?”

The car stopped behind a truck at a red light.

Matt said, “Oh, no. No, no, no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, I, uh… I like you, of course, but I’m just not… I don’t think about the future so much, you know? If we click, we click. If we don’t, well at least we had fun. That’s the way I look at it. I try not to be an asshole. I just don’t wanna be that type of guy.”

The light turned green.

Miki could see Matt was a nervous wreck, the type of guy to ramble until he was out of trouble or out of breath. He was confident, he was willing to humiliate himself to seal the deal, but he seemed inexperienced. She didn’t think he was a virgin, but she assumed it was his first time actually picking up a woman at a bar.

She said, “Good. You should know something about me. You see, if you did try that on me—fuck me and then leave me—I’m the type of girl that would keep coming for you. And if you did anything to hurt me, I’m the type of girl that would chase you across the world to get even. I guess you could call me an asshole or a bitch.”

His mouth hanging open, Matt kept his narrowed eyes on the road. He braked to a stop at another red light. He turned in his seat to look at her with an expression that said: What the hell did you just say? Miki stared at him with a steady, cold expression. They could hear the muffled voices from the sidewalk and a motorcycle engine nearby.