The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Cheerleader Proxy

Previously: "The Rapunzel Protocol" 

You're too proud to crawl back to Jenny for the chance to hang out with her cheerleader friends. But you're not too proud to crawl back to her for a chance to copy one of her cheerleader friends into a mask so you can impersonate them.

* * * * *

Three forty-five. You are lurking outside the breezeway that connects the school to the student parking lot, waiting for Jenny and her friends to appear. You were lurking inside the breezeway until just a few minutes ago, when you saw a pack of basketball players swaggering your way. That was bad enough, but Seth Javits was in the lead, and though Seth prefers to work out his aggressions on Tilley, he will sometimes chase down you. And though he was on his way to after-school practice—the breezeway runs between the theater wing and the gym—it seemed wisest to duck out of his eye line.

It's another ten minutes before Jenny and her friends come barreling out into the parking lot with a lot of chatter. Almost you don't recognize them from behind after they pass you. Not until your eye falls to take in their asses do you recognize them.

"Hey Jenny!" you call. "Jenny!" The quartet of girls pause and glance around.

Jenny's eyes light up. "Hey Will, there you are!" she calls. "You been waiting long?"

You could say something cheesy like It was worth the wait or I'd wait ages for you, but you just roll your shoulders in a shrug. "Just waiting. Hey Eva, Jessica." The Garner girls smile warmly back at you. "Cindy," you choke out through your rapidly constricting throat.

Cindy Vredenburg has an unimpeachable claim to be one of the "Five Sexiest Girls at Westside," and she's a contender for the number one spot. She is a willowy blonde cheerleader with a waterfall of platinum-blonde hair that cascades past her shoulders in a shimmering sheet. She has big eyes, a tiny nose, and a small mouth that naturally falls into a kissable pucker, all set in a pie-pan face with a peaches-and-cream complexion.

And she has breasts like cantaloupes. She must have an amazing sense of balance to be able to tumble and somersault with those things wobbling around.

She gives you a quick, polite smile, and your eyes (after making a quick stab at her chest) dart back over to Jenny. "So," you stammer. "Coffee shop?"

Jenny looks around at her friends. "Flying Saucer," Jessica says. "One of those big round tables so we can spread out."

"You know where that is?" Jenny asks you.

"I've been to the Flying Saucer before," you stiffly inform her.

"So I don't have room for all of you in my car," Jenny says. "Cindy, can you ride with Will?"

You can see the twinge in Cindy's eye—she wants to protest. But she shrugs and says, in a very cool voice, "Then I guess I'll see you out there."

Jenny smiles at you all and turns. There's a fractional hesitation before Eva and Jessica turn to shuffle after her. That leaves you alone with Cindy.

Alone, with your feet rooted to the asphalt. The fuck? you want to shout out after Jenny. The fuck are you trying to do to me?

Because Cindy Vredenburg isn't just a gorgeous cheerleader. She is also Seth Javits's girlfriend.

* * * * *

It's with a tongue-tied mumble—I'm parked over here—that you gesture Cindy to follow you. She says nothing, and your own brain is seized up. Not until you are both buckled into your truck and you've turned the key in the ignition does someone speak. "Seth has a truck like this," Cindy says.

"Oh. Cool." You wince internally. "So I guess, um— You can put your feet up on the console if you want." She turns to give you a look, and you shrink up inside. "My friends do it all the time," you mutter.

"So what do you have to study?" she asks you after a pause.

"Math, I guess. Mostly. Calculus. You?"

"We're in the same math class, Will," she reminds you.

"I mean, do you have anything besides calculus?" Your forehead begins to burn.

"Chemistry."

"I could do your math for you," you offer, "while you work on your chemistry. Like you say, we have the same math class."

She gives you another look. "I like doing my own work. It's how you learn."

You glance around as you pull out of the parking lot onto Borman Avenue, searching for a pot hole deep enough that it would kill you if you drove into it.

"Is Seth going to be joining us?" you ask after you've driven a couple of blocks. "I know he has practice now," you add before she can remind you of that, too, "but I mean when practice lets out."

"Maybe. I don't know." She folds her arms. "We're not really talking right now."

"What? You have a fight?"

"We'd have to be talking in order to have a fight." Her tone is very frosty.

"I'm sorry to hear that." You keep your eyes on the road, even though you see her, from the corner your eye, turn her face to you. "I mean, you and Seth, everything I hear from Jenny, it sounds like, I dunno—" The blood boils in your face, but the words come rushing out anyway. "True love."

Half of a city block passes before she replies. "It's nice when it's working," she says, and turns away.

I'm trying to be nice to you, trying to make conversation, trying to be a fucking human being with you, you cunty cow! you want to shout. I know I'm like a muddy splotch of bubble gum stuck to the bottom of your brand-new sneaker, but would it kill you to be polite to me back? "Well," you mumble, "guys can be real dicks sometimes."

Again, you sense it rather than see it when Cindy turns her face back toward you.

"Excuse me?" she says. "What do you know about my boyfriend and what's going on between us?"

"Well, nothing," you stammer. "I just, um—"

"So where the fuck do you get off calling him a dick?"

"I didn't, I just—!"

"You did, you called him a dick!"

"You said you guys had a fight—!"

"I'm not even talking to him these days! And where the fuck do you get off thinking it's his fault?"

"Are you saying it's yours?" you gasp.

Cindy turns away, and the temperature between you plunges to somewhere between the sub-Arctic and absolute zero.

After another block of this, you decide to fuck it. While idling at a stoplight, you haul your backpack onto the bench between you, and with one hand unzip it. You dig around inside it until you've loosened the mask. And at the next stoplight—the last before your destination—you pull the mask out, lean over, and smash it onto the side of Cindy's face. She just has time to squeal and try turning away before she slumps over, unconscious.

* * * * *

So that ruins your chances of hanging out, studying, with Jenny and her friends. Not that that was your plan anyway. But Cindy is a cyclone of fury when you drop her off at The Flying Saucer, and she doesn't even wait for you to bring the truck to a full stop before she jumps out. As for your explanation of what happened: Well, you figure it doesn't much matter what you say, she's going to be pissed at you anyway, so you just tried gaslighting her by denying that you'd done anything to her at all. You even denied that she'd passed out on you.

Your phone has been chiming with texts from Joey, asking where you are and what the plan is, but not until you've dropped off Cindy and pulled into a nearby parking lot do you reply: Just getting away fm schl b at ur place thirty mins.

It will probably take you longer, though, for in addition to sealing up the mask and putting it on, you're going to have to stop someplace to buy a brassiere. Double-Ds, at least. Maybe more.

Nirdlinger's Department Store isn't far, so that's where you go. And once you get there, you're glad that you are on a time table, or else you would probably stagger for twenty minutes through the women's department in a haze of fear and shame. Instead, you grab a package that advertises a reasonable size and take it up to the cashier. She says nothing as she rings it up, but you can't help blushing furiously as you pay for it.

Then it's back out to your truck, where you pull out the rest of your supplies and seal up the mask. You turn it this way and that, admiring the sheen and drooling slightly at the ghostly image of Cindy's face that it contains. That's going to be me in a minute! you think as you squeeze yourself down into the passenger-side footwell of your truck.

Not until you've got the mask almost to your face does a discordant thought occur: I hope Joey won't be jealous when she sees the girl I copied.

But it's too late for that second thought, for the mask is already touching your face. It seems to latch itself onto you, gripping the front of your head and sucking you inside of it. You become very giddy and lightheaded for a moment, then feel yourself sinking into a tarry blackness.

* * * * *

You are stiff when you awake, and your head hurts. Oh, God, you think as you pull yourself out of the footwell. Why didn't I just use a changing room inside the store? But despite the soreness, you are trembling with anticipation as you settle yourself back behind the wheel of your truck. Your hand shakes as it pushes a sheet of hair from out of your face.

Your phone chimes with another text, from Joey. On your way yet? she wants to know. It's the second text she sent while you were unconscious. The first wants to know if you want her to wear your mask to the meeting.

But you're distracted by the slim hand and the tapering fingers with which you are holding the phone.

Next: "When Carly Met Joey" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"