The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Of Paralysis and Procrastination

Previously: "Assertiveness" 

The next day. Lunchtime. You drop onto the grassy quad in front of the school, where Carson Ioeger, James Lamont, and other friends take their lunches. Caleb and Keith have joined as well.

"S'up?" Ioeger asks. He's lounging on his side, lazily taking bites from a sandwich.

"Conor and Justin are having a party this Friday."

Ioeger stops in mid-chew. Lamont, his best friend, looks up from his cell phone. "Hutchison and Carr?"

"Yeah. So I was—"

"How did you find out they're having a party?" Ioeger demands.

You blink at his hostile tone. "I ran into Justin at Starbucks, and he told me?"

Ioeger and Lamont exchange a glance. "When was this?"

"Yesterday. What's with the questions?"

"What's wrong with asking questions, Prescott? It's how you find things out."

You blink again. Then— "Oh, bite me!"

But Ioeger's not paying attention. "You texting Carr now?" he asks Lamont.

"Hutchison."

You ask, "What're you texting them for?"

"To find out about this party. Word to the wise, Prescott. If you're invited and we're not, you'd be smart to skip."

"How come?"

"Because then I won't want to be your friend anymore."

You groan and open up your own lunch.

Well, this is just the way Carson and James are. They're stamped from the same mold as you and your other friends—skinny, sloppily dressed guys who skew heavily toward the nerd/gamer side of the spectrum. But with Carson and James, as with Caleb, it manifests as a pronounced interest in science and engineering, but these two take it a lot farther than Caleb does. They're as sarcastic as cheerleaders, and as arrogant as jocks. You like them, and you know that they like you. But they do like to play rough.

"Well, anyway," you resume after you've made a start on your own lunch, "assuming we all go—"

"Mark that down as our starting hypothetical," Carson tells James.

"Dude," Keith interrupts, "are we all going?" He gestures broadly at your group, which includes Jenny Ashton and Paul Davis.

"That's what we're trying to find out, Tilley," Ioeger says. "It could be a pity-ask that Prescott got, in which case—"

Jenny bangs Carson on the back of the head. "Yes, we're all going," she says. "Unless you've got something better to do."

"Well, I don't say I don't got something better planned," Keith says. "But—"

"Shut up," says Carson. "I can only deal with one idiot at a time. What were you saying, Prescott?"

"I was saying, assuming we all go, would it be okay if we brought dates with us?"

There's a very pregnant silence. Then Carson rolls onto his back to laugh asthmatically at the clouds.

"Sure we can bring dates," says James. "You can bring Tilley, Davis can bring Johansson, I'll take Jenny, and—"

"And Ioeger can bring his own super-massive ego," Caleb finishes for him.

"I assume," Jenny snaps, "that's a question to ask Justin and Conor."

"Well, I was thinking about—"

"Ashton is right," Carson says, recovering from his mirth. "There's no reason to get tangled up in conditionals and hypotheticals when the controlling parameters have yet to be established."

Keith says, "The fuck?"

"Ask again when you know if you're even going, and if you're allowed to bring a date," Carson translates. "And if Conor and Justin," he adds, looking Keith up and down, "would consider your jerk-off rag a 'date'."

Keith's brow beetles up, and he shoves his sandwich into his mouth.

* * * * *

That's all that gets said at lunch, but you make a point of following Jenny into the school afterward. "So about this party at Conor and Justin's," you say. "I was thinking about asking Yumi to go along."

Jenny seems to catch herself in mid-stride. "Well, I don't think she really knows them," she says. "So I don't know if she'd like to go."

"Well, I mean as a— a date."

Now she pulls to a full stop. "Your date?" she asks without looking you in the face.

You feel yourself redden. It is so clear that Jenny thinks you wouldn't have a chance with Yumi.

So it's a bit of a surprise when she says, "Well, you can ask her, Will," she says. "But does this mean you and Lisa are, uh—?"

You tense all over. When you decided to ask Jenny about Yumi, you had no idea that that subject would come up. Still less that she'd be asking you to decide, once and for all, about you and your ex-.

Well, the girl that you consider your ex-, even if she says she was never even your pre-ex-.

"And here's another thing I'm thinking," Jenny continues, "even though it isn't your business or even mine. But if you ask Yumi along and she goes— as your date— and if Paul goes to the party too— Um—"

Shit. That's an angle you hadn't thought of. Not that you give a fuck, or that anyone else seems to give much of a fuck either. But the hard crush that Paul Davis has for Yumi is an open and rather embarrassing secret within your set.

"Look, it's up to you whether you want to ask Yumi or not," Jenny says, and finally looks you in the face. "So why are you asking me?"

Why indeed? If you had wanted to be de-pantsed and punched in the face as neatly as she's just done to you, you'd have sought out Seth Javits or Lester "The Molester" Pozniak.

"Well, I guess I'll think about it," you mutter.

Jenny smiles brightly at you, then hurries off.

* * * * *

You do give it some more thought, a lot more thought, though it wracks you with second-guessing and indecision, especially after you get a text from Justin Carr: Hey u on for party? Starts 6 goes til wenev. Grill, byo eat stuff. Bring ev girl u know lol.

You think: Yeah. Lol.

The question, you decide after wrestling your own most cowardly instincts into submission, is this: Would Yumi say "yes" if you asked her to go out to the party with you? Or was all that talk about liking "assertiveness" just a generic thing she wanted to tell you, a kind of all-purpose "You go, Will!" that doesn't mean anything about whether she would like it if you got assertive with her?

The moment for acting finally arrives on Thursday night when, in a moment of panic and self-recognition, you realize that you've been procrastinating in the hopes that when she says "no," it will because she's made other plans rather than because she doesn't want to go with you.

Be assertive, be assertive, you tell yourself as you hunch on your bed with your cell phone, feverishly composing a text as though the next ten seconds will make all the difference for how the rest of your life goes:

Hey yumi remember Conor n Justin? They having party tmrw nite lots us going if u want go to. You cringe after sending it, both because it makes you sound like a special ed student and because you couldn't even bring yourself to ask if she wanted to go with you. "So much for being 'assertive'," you grumble to yourself. Well, baby steps and all that.

By contrast, Yumi's reply when it comes reads almost like an English term paper: Jenny told me about it already. Sounds like fun but it depends on what Eva and Jessica want to do I already said I'd do something with them. What times it start?

Sixish, you thumb back. You agonize over mentioning the "byo" aspect of the party. That might scare her and her friends off—What do you mean we have to "byo" stuff?—but if they showed up without their own stuff they might be pissed at you for not mentioning it. Your decision, when it comes, leaves you shame-faced: You'll say nothing about it until tomorrow when school lets out, when you'll offer to take them on a store run with you, when you'll be getting your own stuff.

All this time Yumi's been typing in a reply, which finally comes: Need to talk to J n E. Maybe sounds fun and could squeeze in before other stuff. Talk to me tmrw ok? She closes with a smiling emoji.

K, you text back, then leap about the room as if you just scored the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl.

* * * * *

Assertiveness pays, you tell yourself the next morning as you're packing your things for school. You need to be more of a go-getter, Will.

So this is your frame of mind as, while glancing about for anything you've forgotten, your eye lights on the spine of that crazy book, which is now layered under a couple other books and stacks of paper on your desk. Which of course reminds you of that mask you made, and which you have hidden in the bottom drawer of your chest of drawers. (Where it had a narrow escape. Your mother cleaned that drawer out on Tuesday, and only missed finding the mask because you were still carrying it around in your backpack.) In all your anxiety about Yumi and the upcoming party, you had completely forgotten about it and your intention to test it out on someone.

Well, as long as you're being confident and assertive, why not take it to school again, and this time for sure find a guinea pig?

Or take it to the party tonight?

Ah, but maybe it would be best to wait for the weekend or next week.

Next: "Ballsy and Ballsier" 

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