Later we ended up in the university's cafeteria for a late supper.
'That was top notch, Nel!'
Dylan was cradling a cup of tea with some honey in it, talking with exhausted care.
'Just perfect. And you too, guys. Good job!'
Claire threw a fry at him.
'Shut up and drink your tea, Elvis.'
Ted was spinning an unlit cigarette between his fingers again. He chuckled and gave Dylan a pat on the shoulder.
'Thanks, man. I liked it, too. My previous crew? During rehearsals, they mostly spent time trying to impress groupies. I had a suspicion that the band existed just to attract chicks.'
He smiled.
'Not that there's anything wrong with attracting chicks. What is your band called, anyway?'
Claire shrugged.
'Heavy Armed Psychotics?'
Dylan frowned.
'Wait, I thought we decided to change it.'
'Oh yes. I guess at the moment it's not called anything then.'
Ted smiled.
'Well, you do know the commandments of naming a band, right?'
We shook our heads.
He leaned over.
'So, the first commandment is this: don't use some obscure reference, like "Dorian's Portrait" or something, because for everyone who doesn't get the reference, you'll come off as pretentious assholes. And to those who do, you'll come off as just assholes.'
Claire laughed.
'You here that, Nelly? That's a no to "Ismar Wine".'
Nelly crossed her arms and gave Claire a somber stare.
'Commandment number two: no random words in plural form. So no crap "Cufflinks" or "Wrenches", for fuck's sake. The seventies are over, forget about it.'
Dylan nodded.
'Commandment number three: no name plus a number, like Dylan and the Four or Claire's Five or shit. Because one day there'll be another member in the band, or someone will leave, and then it'll just sound silly.'
'And lastly. No fucking idioms or, especially, cut down idioms, like See no Evil or Para Bellum. Because no one likes...'
I finished:
'Pretentious assholes?'
'Word! Matt here is the least pretentious person of all of us, so I advise you listen to him!'
Nelly made a series of gestures to Claire, and Claire translated it to us:
'Nelly says you're missing the point. And the point is that in like twenty years, when we're old and famous, some young writer will make it his life's mission to write a book about our unprecedented, dramatic and breathtaking ascension into the pantheon of musical deities. And then, after a quirky but heartwarming adventure in which he gets to know his true self through learning our shameful secrets, and wins our trust, he'll ask "So why did you guys called your band 'insert band name'?". And there has to be a cool story behind it.'
'Nelly said all that?'
'I'm paraphrasing! Anyway. The most meaningful stories are the ones that are connected to how we met. And it can't be something lame like the number of the auditorium we used to rehearse.'
Dylan shrugged.
'I mean... we're not that cool. You and Nelly are roommates, and we have classes together. That's not much of a story, right?'
'Yeah, but we haven't officially met, all five of us, until yesterday! Fast! Think about a cool thing that happened yesterday!'
Ted looked at me.
'Well, Matt tried to get into a fight with that dude. But I don't think that 'Kill a Hobo' is a good band name.
I squinted at him.
'Dunno. Sounds fine to me.'
Claire laughed.
'Ted, you are forgetting your whole drunken "wraiths are the best" speech. So, how about, I don't know, "Comparative Anthropology" or "Crusader Guilt" or something?'
Ted almost made a spit take.
'Hey, I haven't said that wraiths are the best! I just said that they are scientifically fascinating. If anything, wraiths are the fucking worst, I mean as a race. It's almost like they were designed to be evil. Anyway, let's try to come up with a band name that's not associated with a thousand years of bloodshed and genocide, huh?'
Dylan waved at Claire.
'Hey, what about that story you told us about how you and Matt met? You know, about coffee? If I remember correctly, you called it "pure, coagulated evil" and "liquid antimatter". Sounds cool to me.
Claire lighted up with a delighted grin.
'I got it! Coffee Bandit! That's the name!'
We looked at each other, and everyone shrugged. Dylan mouthed it a couple of times, and then said:
'It's catchy. I like it. Plus, everyone loves coffee.'
Ted nodded.
'Not too long, not too short. You have my seal of approval.'
Nelly made several quick signs, the last of which looked like she was wiping an invisible mustache.
'What does she say?'
Claire smiled, and leaned back, looking at us with sparkles in her eyes.
'She says "Nice to meet you, Bandits".'
#
Sometime later Claire was walking me to the edge of the campus. The snow was squeaking under our feet, and the well-lit alleys were deserted.
'Wow, Matt. That was seriously cool. I mean, I knew you'll be good, but damn! That thing you played, it was so... like, beautiful. And you had your eyes closed for the whole time, I saw!'
Hearing that was strange, because I never thought about whether or not I was actually good on the piano. It was just something that I did, before. I never tried to measure it in terms of quality.
The whole experience was very unusual.
We stopped under the archway that separated university grounds from the outside world. Just a few meters away, evening traffic was pulsing with red lights in the snowy darkness of the coming night. But we were still apart from it, cradled in the calm silence of the campus. Claire was standing so close that I could feel her heart beating through the dormant prism of my Ability.
'How did you know?'
'Know what?'
'That I'll be good?'
She smiled.
'Well, I was almost sure. It's because you are... I don't know, different. See, people don't notice how similar they all are. In how they speak, how they hold themselves, what they choose to say. There are these invisible patterns that we memorize. Like saying sorry when you make way for someone, you know?'
I nodded.
'It's not like you don't do this, it's just you're a little bit... off. Like you're making a conscious effort to appear normal, although you're not.'
I felt something cold and dangerous rising in my chest.
'What do you mean?'
'Don't be insulted! It's a good thing. It suggests an unusual perspective. All exceptional people have a slightly abnormal way of perceiving the world. Maybe it's what makes them special in the first place. Anyway, that's why I thought that you'll be good at piano. Because you're so strange.'
'No one else thinks that I'm strange.'
'No one else really looks. Because we memorize what to see, too.'
A fire truck roared past, washing us in the red and blue flare of the emergency light. The wail of its siren gave me several seconds to come up with an answer.
At this point, I had to stop and think about what was happening. What was I doing here, really? And, more importantly, what was Claire doing here with me?
With any other girl, by now I would be sure if the attraction was mutual. But Claire had a way with people and a genuine desire to connect with as many of them as possible. Was I just another acquaintance in her collection of good people? Or was the attention she was paying me a sign of something else? Was she, for some reason, as drawn to me as I was to her?
If she was, this walk was an invitation, and I was making a fool of myself by not acting on it by kissing her.
But did it even matter?
The things that Claire said were meant to be a compliment, but to me, they had sounded like a death sentence. Different, off, unusual. No one was supposed to see me like that, because there was just one step from "unique perspective" to "not human". From Matt the Bartender to Matt the Wraith, a thing that was designed to be evil.
No matter how close Claire was to me, there was an invisible, impenetrable wall between us. On her side, life was ripe for the taking, and the future was a bright summer landscape of infinite possibilities. On my side, there was no future. Life was a barren wasteland of snow and ice, a Death Pilgrimage that started as soon as you were born.
In short, she was human, and I was not.
So, when the fire truck rushed away, I didn't make a move to kiss her. Instead, I took a step back and turned away to leave.
'See you next time, Claire. Today was awesome.'
As I was walking away, the echo of the fire siren was ringing in my ears.