The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Clothing Makes the Man

Previously: "The Whole New You" 


"What's 'Thrifty Nifties'?" you ask, playing for time.

"It's where Cassie works," says a girl. Another: "It's a second-hand clothes shop." "It's just around the corner from here."

"Are you on a budget or something?" the impudent red-head asks.

"Well, I— I'm just looking right now. Uh, getting—"

"You were looking at some overalls," says the girl whose eyes you locked onto earlier. "God, those are going to be, like, a hundred bucks here. Cassie, you've got some over at your place, don't you?"

"It's not my place," Cassie says, finally speaking in your presence. "I just work th—"

"You can get him a discount too!" The brunette seizes your arm. "Come on!"

Given that you only have, maybe, forty dollars to your name at the moment, the idea of paying cheap and getting a discount sounds too good to pass up, so you let the girls hustle you out into the parking lot and around the corner.

"So what's your name?" one of the girls asks.

"Will," you reply, without thinking. Your guts flop over when you realize what you just said. "Uh, Will Chang." Shit! you think with a jolt. Is that even a real Chinese name? Or did I just fuck it up for good?

"I like your hair, Will," says the brunette. She ruffles your unruly mop. "Do you color it?"

"Uh, no."

"Oh God, that's natural? I only love it!"

"The girl who loves your hair is Melissa," says the impudent red-head. "I'm Mindy, and we're taking you over to Cassie's work." She grabs Cassie by the shoulders and shoves her at you. You get a hard spark of excitement as she bumps into you. "The rest of them—"

Well, you'd have a hard time keeping them straight if you didn't have a passing familiarity with several. The very forward red-head is Mindy McAdams and her brunette sidekick is Melissa Adams. (No relation, you're informed when the surnames are eventually deployed.) Cassie, of course, is Cassie Harper. The other girls are Molly Shaw, Faith Becker, and Elle Moore.

All this tumbles out, like spilled rags, as you're spilling out a lot of ragged clothes over the bins at Thrifty Nifties with them. It is, as you'd been informed, a vintage clothing store, and it smells like one: close, with a scent of clean fabrics that are turning musty through disuse. It's crowded with racks and barrels of old shirts and old jeans; cut-offs, cargo pants, camo pants, and ball caps; and lots and lots of dresses and blouses and skirts for the girls. Nothing is as cheap as you would like, but you're not given much of a chance to worry about prices as items are torn off their racks and held against your frame for inspection. Pretty soon, you are feeling like a life-size doll that a bunch of grown-up elementary school girls are playing dress-up with.

You have to give them a story, though, about what you're looking for, and why. The last thing you want to admit is that the clothes you're wearing are the kind you usually wear, because you look too exotic for them (in your own opinion) when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirrors scattered about the place. So—

"All my stuff burned up in a fire," you tell them. "We had a fire a few weeks back, just before we moved. Oh, it's all okay," you assure the girls when they cry out in dismay. "We saved all the important stuff, and we got insurance. So it's just, like, most of our clothes and some of our furniture that's got to be replaced."

"So you want to get stuff like you used to have?" Mindy asks.

"Oh, maybe, maybe not."

"What was your style?"

"Kinda this, kinda that? This stuff like I got on," you hurriedly add, "is just sloppy, casual Saturday stuff. At school I—"

"I thought you were homeschooled."

"Only this year. And only 'cos it's my final year. Like, too much trouble going to school for only one year—"

"Were you, like, an honors student?" "You play any sports?" "Oh, God, don't you wanna hang out with people?"

You're glad of the last question—it seems like an easier one to fake your way through—until you actually blurt out an answer: "Sure, I'd love to hang out with you guys."

Another Oooh! ripples through the crowd. "Sure, we can show you a good time." "What kind of things d'you like to do?" "Where do you live?"

It's all way too frantic, and when they start tugging on you, pulling you from one rack to another, you start to feel like a chew toy that's fallen into a dog park. Finally, with a desperate laugh, you make it clear that you've got a deadline for getting home, and that you were just driving around window-shopping. You tell them, though, that you really want to meet up with them after school tomorrow, here at Thrifty Nifties, so you can collect and pay for the things that you pick out. That at least gets the girls back onto the subject of clothes, though you do have to fend off questions about your music and movie preferences. (But these are easy to answer, for you just answer as yourself.)

At the end, because you don't have money to buy anything, you wind up setting aside a couple of items, including—because Faith thinks you must have had a pair in your old wardrobe, and because it's more outrageous than anything you'd ever try wearing as your own—a pair of distressed overalls and a striped muscle shirt. They want you to pair this with some black, high-top Converse sneakers, and rather than argue you let them gather those things plus a mens' ski beanie and a camo jacket, which they deposit in Cassie's name at the front. The girl who accepts them knows Cassie of course, but you get the impression they're not friends, because she looks skeptically between you and her when Cassie says she'll be back tomorrow to pay for them.

Outside, the girls once again try to persuade you to ditch your evening responsibilities and hang out with them, but you tell that you have to get your truck back home because your dad needs to use it. Still they argue, proposing to follow you home and pick you up, but you insist that you'll see them tomorrow. To soften their disappointment, you do something you'd never dare try under your own face: you give a couple of them, including Cassie, a close and slightly lingering hug to thank them for helping you. And even though you are frazzled, frightened, and more than a little exhausted, you are grinning brightly when you part from them.

* * * * *

You almost forget to change out of the mask after leaving the mall, but you remember in time before getting home, so it's under your own face that you pull your mom aside and ask if you can have some money to buy new clothes.

She looks a little surprised. "When do you want to go shopping, honey?" she asks. "Next weekend I can—"

"You don't have to go with me, I can do it myself," you hurriedly interrupt her. "I mean—" Your vocal cords freeze as her eyebrows go up.

"You want to go shopping by yourself?" she asks. The unstated question, of course, is, Since when do you like shopping for clothes? I always have to drag you to the stores when it's time to get you some new ones!

Maybe it's residual bravery from this afternoon, but you tell her, "I'm supposed to meet up with some friends. A girl named Cassie Harper—I think you know her—and—"

Oh, your mom's expression says. You're going shopping with girls. She looks surprised, pleased, wistful, and suspicious all at once. "Okay, honey," she says, a little guardedly. "Where are you going to go?"

"Thrifty Nifties? It's a vintage clothes store—"

"Don't you want new clothes?" Translation: I want you to have new clothes!

"Well, Cassie works at Thrifty Nifties and she can get me a discount— And Old Navy's right around the corner so we can go there too!" you hastily add.

"So when are—?"

"Tomorrow after school. And evening. Um, I think I'll be eating out with them too?"

Your mother bites on her upper lip. It's a bit of a struggle for her, you can tell. But she relents with a private smile, and asks you to wait while she disappears into the bedroom. A minute later she returns with a credit card. "Two hundred dollars," she says as she hands it to you. "That's your limit."

"Thanks!" You peck her on the cheek and hop back into your room.

* * * * *

You're on high alert all the next day, head swiveling in the hallway for a glimpse of any of those girls. You can't help it, even though you know there's no point. They don't know that was me yesterday, you remind yourself. They don't know that I was him.

You don't have any of them in your classes, except for Astronomy, where Cassie and her friend Melissa sit in the back corner of the classroom. Almost you barge over to ask them point-blank what they're doing after school. Wouldn't it be great if they said, We're going up to the mall to meet this totally hawt guy we met yesterday! But you resist temptation and settle into your desk instead.

Then you think: Why not go talk to them anyway, ask about their afternoon plans? I know Cassie, you remind yourself, I can get to know Melissa, and the rest of them. I can start hanging out with them. Even if I'm not a "hawt" guy named Will Chang.

And wouldn't it be worth trying to get to know them under your own face? At the very least, rumor of "Will Chang" might reach you that way, which would be cool.

Next: "Chang and Change" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"