The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

More Help Than You Know What to Do With

Previously: "Signals in the Dark" 

"You don't want to do the scavenger hunt?" you ask Leah.

"That was just to get the other guys out of the way." She turns a hungry grin on you. "Jack said you wanted to hang out with me."

Your heart tries to climb up into the back of your throat, and you have to swallow it. "I— I— I thought—" you stammer,

Then you pack all your questions and objections away. It seems best to just roll with it. "We can do whatever," you tell her. "You want to get coffee or something?"

"We can get that when we meet the other guys back at Cherry Brook," she says.

You feel frozen from the neck down. So how it is that you manage to stammer the words, "We could go down to the river," you don't know.

But Leah likes the suggestion. "Cool. I love the river."

* * * * *

Maybe she likes the river, but she's not ... enthusiastic ... about it the way you thought and hoped she might be, for instead of steering you toward the flat, open strip on the eastern side where kids like to park and make out, she suggests hanging out at Potsdam Park. It also overlooks the river, but it's a place for adults and families, not high school kids, and you and she stroll along the riverwalk that just overhangs the edge of the Mohegan. The sun is still high but is beginning to slant toward the western horizon, and the rippling light on the water dazzles you.

And because she suggested Potsdam Park rather than the river's edge itself, you hold back from making any moves on her, but keep to light talk. In an offhand way she tells you about her classes and her activities.

"I should find something to keep me busy," you say, remembering her advice at lunch. "You were telling me about some of the after school clubs?"

"I was? Well, the only club I belong to isn't really a club," she says. "It's just an extracurricular thing with the school chorale, the Harmony for Hospitals thing. You know?" You shake your head. "We go around and sing for people in hospitals, nursing homes, places like that."

"That sounds depressing."

She gives you a look. "It's really nice," she insists. "It's like doing something nice for people, bringing a little sunshine into their lives."

"I guess." You kick the ground. "I think I'd just feel sorry for them, feel bad for them."

"Do you sing?" she asks.

"I've never really tried."

"Sing something for me," she goads you. "Lemme hear you sing!"

"I don't know—! Whaddo I sing?"

"Anything! First thing that comes to mind!"

You stare at her, dazed. The first thing that comes to mind? Nothing's coming to mind!

You glance over at the river. "Uh ... Row, row, row your boat, gently down the—"

Leah claps her hands and staggers back, laughing silently. "Hey!" you holler at her. "You said to sing the first thing that comes to mind!"

"Don't you know any real songs? Never mind. It doesn't sound like singing's your thing anyway. You like games? There's a Trivial Pursuit Club at the school. Ooh! And the Murder Club!" Her eyes widen with excitement.

"What's the Murder Club?"

"They commit murders. Not real ones, you goof!" she adds, though you didn't say anything and don't even think you reacted. "I don't know how it works, but someone gets secretly picked to be the killer, and someone else is secretly picked to be the victim, and then— I dunno how it works. I just know some of the people in it."

"You know lots of people," you observe.

She gives you a puzzled look. "Yeah, I guess."

"I don't have— I don't hang out with a lot of people," you tell her. "There's only, like, three or four people I really hang out with."

"Yeah, who?"

You give her names. She doesn't know Keith, she says, and she only knows Caleb by name and sight. She says she knows Carson and James, though, and that she has Jenny Ashton in Chorale. "They're a good group," she says.

"I guess. Except we don't do a lot together, me and my friends."

Then you remember last Saturday night. "Except— Well—"

"What?" Leah goads you when you don't finish.

You hesitate, and give her a long, steady look. "You know Jamie Rennerhoff?" you ask her.

* * * * *

The story you tell, of digging up the time capsule, and of the text and video from "Clover Mystery" and of Jamie's jeering at you in class, shocks and excites her. "Oh my God!" she says over and over again, and her mouth hangs open.

"So I don't know what to do," you conclude with a sigh. "I told Jack and Caleb, but they—"

"You told Jack?" she exclaims. "What did he say?"

"Nothing. Except not to get excited. Uh, him and you are the only two people I've told about all this. Could you, uh, not tell anyone else about—"

"Oh, sure!" She makes the "zipping my lips" gesture. "Oh, but dammit!" She leans against the riverwalk's railing and stares intently out over the water. "And you can't really do anything about Jamie. And you're not friends with him, right?"

You shake your head.

She chews her lip. "I wonder if I talked to him," she muses, "if he'd— No, he'd just think it was a huge joke."

"You know Rennerhoff?"

"Well, sure. He hangs out with some real creeps, but he's not a bad guy."

You don't argue, even though that's far from your own impression of Jamie Rennerhoff. He's slender son of a bitch, and unless he knows some wrestling moves you bet you could take him in a fight. But he's got a nasty, creepy smile—huge and white and full of teeth—and gets a leering, sociopathic flame in his eye when he grins. He reminds you far too much of the Joker.

Leah is still musing to herself, and she asks to see your phone again, to look at the video. She peers at it, and pinches to expand it, and mutters to herself. Slowly, a wicked smile spreads across her face, and there's an evil glint in her eye when she looks up.

"That's not you in the video," she tells you.

"What? Sure it is," you say. "I told you, me and Caleb."

"No," she insists, "it's not you. You didn't tell Jamie that it's you, did you? And you didn't tell Clover Mystery it's—"

She breaks off, and goes back to studying the screen, scrolling up and down it. You let her do her thing without interrupting, even though you're dying to know what she's thinking.

Eventually, she tells you. "This isn't Jamie sending you these texts, either," she says.

"It isn't? How do you—?"

"He doesn't talk like this. And he doesn't— Clover Mystery?" She gives you a skeptical look. "That doesn't sound like him either. For a start, it's a girl's name. I think it's a girl who was sending you these texts."

"Oh my God." For some reason Leah's deduction chills you.

"Yeah. Something about them just sounds like a girl. He must've sent her the video, and she recognized you, or she thought it was you, and sent it to you." She looks up at you from beneath her brows, and her smile turns sly. "Do you have any secret admirers, Will?"

* * * * *

Leah's question completely flustered you. She thought it was hilarious, and poked and teased you mercilessly while you denied it. "How would you know?" she challenged you. "How would you know if you had a secret admirer if they're secret?" It left you blushing hard.

But just as quickly she sobered up and went back to studying the texts and the messages. She insisted that "Clover Mystery" couldn't be Rennerhoff, and when you reminded her that he asked you the same question—"What's in the coffin?"—that Clover Mystery did, she retorted that there was more than one person there when the video got taken. "You can hear them talking, right?" she says. "There's a couple of guys there. Your secret admirer was probably there too."

Is this "secret admirer" the kind of girl who hangs around with Jamie Rennerhoff? It makes you shudder.

But as for why she says it isn't you in the video—

Leah takes out her own phone and scrolls through a photo album. "Here," she says after picking a photo. "This is the guy in the video," she says with a grin.

You know it's not—you know it's you—and you blink in exasperation at the guy in the picture she shows you. He's just another high school kid, so bland looking that he's almost anonymous. A skinny frame, dirty blonde hair, a floppy t-shirt and cargo shorts, and a sloppy white ball cap. He laughing into the lens with a glazed-over gaze, like he's high.

"It's not him in the video," you insist to Leah.

"It could be him. It looks like him in the video. Same hat." She darts a hand out and flicks the brim of your cap. You have to catch it to keep it from flying off your head.

"But it isn't, it's—"

"Don't be so dumb, Will!" Leah explodes. "Just tell people it's Eric in the video! Jesus! Or send me the video, and I'll tell people it's him. He deserves the grief." She pauses. "Maybe I could send him some mysterious texts about the video, like your secret admirer is doing to you."

All her talk of a "secret admirer," though, has reminded you of Elle. Since you're sharing confidences with her, maybe you should tell her about your situation with Elle. She's being a lot more helpful than Jack.

Next: "Too Many Tasks" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"