The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Spicy Supper for Four

Previously: "A Special Effects Extravaganza" 

Much as you'd like to go off with fake-Sydney for some real fun, your gut says you should follow the real Sydney's lead, and with a cheerfulness you hope doesn't sound too insincere you say that you'd love to do a "double date" with her and Seth.

* * * * *

You wind up back at the mall, for an early supper at the Arriba Mexican Cantina. It's a family restaurant, but it has a dark and smoky ambience, with faux-adobe and lots of heavy green and red and white cloth hung on the walls. Up-tempo trumpet and guitar music blares from hidden loudspeakers, and you and the others have to put your heads together in the corner booth to make yourselves heard.

Cindy smiles brightly at you over the table, but she seems almost as interested in the faux-Sydney, and something about the way her eyes dart between the two of you makes you think that she guesses you and "her" got hot and heavy inside the movie theater. By contrast, Seth plainly doesn't want to look at either of you, and his gaze soon locks onto something over and behind your shoulder. You glance back, and spot a muted TV monitor tuned to a sports channel.

Talk turns more serious after the chips and con queso have been delivered to the table. After the initial pleasantries are out of the way, and a few more opinions have been shared about the movie—"I thought it was fun," Sydney says; "I thought it was too loud," says Cindy; "It was alright," grunts a distracted Seth; "Plot didn't make any sense," you suggest—Cindy nips off a corner of a tortilla chip and asks how you and Sydney met.

"Oh my God," the copy of your girlfriend gushes. "It was so romantic! It was in a cemetery!"

The smile falls off Cindy's face, and Seth's attention swings from the TV.

"We were— Ooh!" Sydney squeals as you pinch her thigh. "He can't keep his hands off me!"

"We were there for a funeral," you interrupt. "So, uh, it wasn't 'romantic'."

"It was not a funeral!" Sydney exclaims. "It was, like, nine o'clock at night! There's no funerals at nine o'clock! You had a shovel and you were—"

"Look, I'll tell the story," you shout over her. The blood is draining from Cindy's face, and Seth has the alert look of a Doberman that has sensed trouble but hasn't decided yet whether to do anything about it. "I was there on a dare," you improvise. "My stupid friends, Caleb and Keith?" You turn a pleading look on Seth—surely he'd agree that they're "stupid" and believe them capable of putting you up to a stupid dare. "They wanted some dirt from a cemetery. Or they were all, like," you correct yourself, "you're such a chickenshit, Prescott, you wouldn't go get dirt from a cemetery after it's night, would you? And I was all, like, Pfft, easy money guys. Because there was money on the line by this point."

Your scalp starts to crawl with sweat, and it has nothing to do with the jalapenos in the con queso.

"You didn't tell me that," Sydney exclaims. "You told me it was on account of this book you found in the—"

"Well, I was embarrassed!" You squeeze her knee. "Sydney, would you let me tell the story?"

"Fine." She bites down on a smile and rolls her eyes. "I don't know why you have to make one up when—"

"And then it turned out that Sydney here was in the cemetery too because— Um—" Your powers invention suddenly blink off.

"Yes?" Sydney drawls when you look to her for support.

"Well, she was also there on a dare—"

"Oh, for Pete's sake!"

"Look," you gasp. "Actually—"

You find you can't look the others in the face. A flush is creeping up Cindy's throat, and Seth has the bright, incredulous look of someone watching as an attempted magic trick starts to go all wrong. "Actually," you sigh, "we just had a study date. That's all. My friend Caleb was supposed to tutor her at some math, but he called in sick and I took over, and we just, um, hit it off from there."

Fortunately, the waiter chooses that moment to drop off your drinks and take your food order. "Pff. Weird," Seth snorts afterward, and goes back to watching the monitor behind your shoulder. You ask Cindy how she and Seth got together.

"Oh, it was so sweet," she gushes. She nudges her boyfriend, who studiously concentrates on the TV as he munches on chips. "We had a bunch of freshman classes together, and we just liked each other from the start! It was puppy love," she adds with a sigh. "He was so adorable, especially when he came in after P. E. in fresh workout shorts. Oh my God, he's always had the sexiest legs!"

Apparently she pinches him under the table, for Seth jumps a little. But his eyes remained glued to a spot above and behind your head.

"But that was all," Cindy continues. She stares with shining eyes at Seth's profile. "Until I gave him a Valentine's day candy for Halloween in the tenth grade.

"Oh my God!" Sydney squeals. "That is so sweet! Except, you know, he should'a been the one to give it to you!"

"He was so shy!" Cindy exclaims. "He still is! He's like a little bunny rabbit! I know he's like a tiger or a timber wolf on the basketball court, but with me he was just a ittle! Wittle! Bunny wabbit!"

Cindy pinches the very tippy-tip of Seth's earlobe. He shakes her off.

And, like an utter doorknob, you have to be looking him in the face at that very moment. His eyes fall from the TV to meet your gaze. His expression remains impassive—not even frozen; just completely neutral—but you can see the warning in his cold, clear gaze. I will tear your cock and ball sack off and stuff them down your throat if you repeat any of this at school.

Sydney squeals.

"Did you know I had to make all the first moves?" Cindy continues. "Every one!" She giggles, and briefly hides her face. "He wouldn't snuggle up with me when we studied in the library until I did it first a couple of times. And I remember the first time we held hands." She gives him an adoring look, which he ignores. "It was behind the school on the first day of February, in the tenth grade. I told him my hands were cold, and he said, 'You could put on your gloves'—"

"Oh my God!" Sydney cries.

"—and I just picked up his hand and held it all the way back to class. He was so red in the face!" Cindy laughs and nudges Seth again. He sways a little under the blow, but doesn't even blink.

"And the first time we kissed—!" Cindy buries her laugh in her hands. "We were on our way back from a school spirit marshmallow roast. And on the way back, it's like eleven o'clock at night, and we're in the very back of the bus, all cuddled up, and we're talking, and our faces are right up against each other. Like, his breath is so hot on my lips. I finally couldn't stand it, so I kissed him."

She titters, and for the first time Seth seems to react, for a slow flush starts traveling up his cheeks, even as he maintains a stony attention to the TV monitor.

"And he peed himself!"

"No!" Sydney shrieks, and throws herself, laughing, away from the table.

"No, I creamed myself," Seth says, very calmly. "Just a little." He pinches his forefinger and thumb together. And still he stares at the TV.

"Wow!" Sydney gasps. "So when did you guys first fuck?"

* * * * *

It's a question that instantly kills the good feeling.

Cindy throws her napkin on the table and declares she needs to visit the powder room, and in a steely voice invites Sydney to join her. You and Seth both have to get out of the booth in order to let them out. Seth goes back to watching the TV after the girls have gone. And even though it's a pointless thing to do—because unless something very bad goes wrong, tomorrow you will be him—you apologize on Sydney's behalf.

"She's never going to make it onto the squad," he replies while still concentrating on the monitor.

"What do you mean?"

"That's what all this is about, right?" he says. "She's trying to grease Cindy up so she can a spot on the cheerleading squad."

You mutter that that's news to you.

"Your girlfriend's a weirdo," he replies. "I heard she was a major fruitcake, but after tonight—"

"What did you hear?" you ask. Suddenly, for the first time, you have the real and awful sense that maybe there is something wrong with Sydney, something that you haven't noticed because you were so besotted with her.

Seth's eyes flick across your face.

"She had about a hundred guys ask her out," he says. "From Steve down to some of the paste-eaters in the chess club. And she turned 'em all down for you."

He shakes his head. "She's a bug-eating lunatic."

* * * * *

Sydney is much calmer when she returns from the powder room, and she is much cooler toward you. After supper, when you've left Cindy and Seth behind, Sydney tells you that her mistress "explained" who you really were. "If you'd just been honest with me, Will," she says, and there's a biting chill in her tone, "I would have known better than to say the things I did."

And you mumble an apology to her—to it—as well.

You get a weird message from Cindy later that night: After talking w Seth I decided if you want me to break up with him I will. Hurt him n get me new boyfriend for u to be.

Next: "A Motel Room and the Girl of Your Dreams" 

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