The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Cindy for the Win

Previously: "Keith's Confliction" 

"Well, I've picked Cindy," you tell Fairfax. Keith jerks his head and gives you a startled look. "And me and Keith have come up with a bunch of other possible names for him. But we were kind of thinking maybe we should wait until, you know, you guys already did your own switches. That way we have a better idea of who could be useful in the plan." You try to ignore Keith's heavy breathing.

"That's a good point," Fairfax says. His gaze turns distant and thoughtful. "We're set on all the others, but I like the idea of flexibility. Yes." His eyes light up. "That's very perceptive." To Keith he says, "Well, let me know when you've decided." With a quick nod he turns and walks off.

"Dude!" Keith sounds deeply wounded. "I told you I—"

"I know, but it's better this way. Trust me."

"Better for you! Getting Cindy's tits and—"

"Quiet!" You punch him in the chest. "You want people to hear you?" Knots of students, heading past the gym into the school, are flowing by not a dozen feet away.

"Cindy Vredenburg's tits!" Keith shouts at the top of his voice. Luckily, only a couple of heads turn in your direction."

"See, this is how come I should play Cindy," you growl. "You don't have any self-control. Keith." You put your arm around his shoulder. "You know what you'd do if you played Cindy, right? You'd break up with Javits right away. 'Cos you wouldn't wanna kiss him or fondle him or suck his— You know?"

"And you do," he sneers.

"Shut. Up. But think about what happens if Cindy breaks up with Seth right away. There's no fun in it. You wanna milk this, dude. Play it out. Get Javits all turned around so he doesn't know if he's coming or what. Fuck with his head, that's what you want!" Keith glares. "But I know you, you're not gonna have the patience for i t. I will. I will fuck him in the head so hard—"

"But I want to do it!"

"And you will, dude, you will. But as some other girl. Someone who can really turn loose on Javits. The way you want to."

Keith's expression doesn't clear up completely, but it does turn more thoughtful. But you're interrupted before you can continue when you see Caleb loping your way from the parking lot.

* * * * *

You thought you were done with Fairfax for the day, but Keith has a message from him when you go into second period: He wants to talk to you. And as if that was a signal, your phone dings with a text from him: Got a min to talk?

Then, as you're tapping a reply, you look up to find Fairfax gesturing at you from the classroom doorway.

"Jesus, is your hair on fire or something?" you grumble at him. He frowns blankly. "You tell Keith you want to talk to me, you text me, now here you are—"

"I just wanted your number from Keith, then he told me where you were." He still looks puzzled, as though not understanding why you didn't figure all this out yourself. "Keith says you hang out with Eva and Jessica Garner." His eyebrows go up.

Keith is a dumbfuck who doesn't know half the things he thinks he does. But aloud, you say, "I sometimes talk to them."

"That's more than the rest of us can say. Is there any way you could set things up so we could get together with them this afternoon? Preferably out at Carlos's studio. In the storage unit," he asks when you look blank.

You chew on a cheek. The only times you ever "hung out" with Eva and Jessica was when you and Lisa were ... dating. They were never mean to you, were sometimes friendly, but you doubt they'd accept any kind of invitation to hang out just with you. Still: "I can try," you tell Fairfax.

"That's more than the rest of us can do." Fairfax glances down the hallway. "Try to set it up for this afternoon. We want to get moving as soon as possible."

"Is this about ... that project?"

He nods. "For Mike and Carlos. Eva and Jessica are the only ones we have a prayer of reaching." For a moment he looks glum, then shakes himself free. "Thanks," he says, and trudges off.

"Wha' was that about?" Keith asks when you drop into the desk beside him.

"I should slap your head off," you retort, "but I don't even want to touch you." He gives you a reproachful look, but you don't explain yourself further.

* * * * *

You don't share any classes with either Eva or Jessica, so you hurriedly track down Jenny Ashton to ask about their schedules. Jenny has good news: She shares a third-period study hall with Eva, and you tell her you want to follow her to the library because you have a favor to ask of Eva. "It doesn't have anything to do with Lisa, does it?" Jenny asks. You flip her off.

Luck was with you that you could get to Eva so fast, but you were also prepared, for during second period you had plotted up an idea for luring her into an ambush: Carlos and Mike are staging a video bit for their YouTube channel, you tell her, and they'd like the services of a cheerleader. Eva quickly rejects the idea, pleading stage fright, camera fright, a lack of experience, and the huge pain it would be to fetch and don her cheerleader uniform for a thing she doesn't even want to do; and she's supported by the dirty looks that Jenny gives you. But you assure Eva that her appearance would be more in the nature of a prop, that there would be no lines, she doesn't have to wear her uniform, and that Carlos and Mike are so good at putting people at ease that she would wind up having fun despite herself. After a lot of sighing and grumbling, she finally agrees to show up at four o'clock at the address you give her, just to talk about things with them with no promises that she'll do anything for or with them. She's a little taken aback when you tell her it's the Top Self ("Or maybe it's the 'Top Shelf'") Storage complex, but you explain that it's where Carlos has his studio.

Then, before fourth period starts, you pull Mike and Carlos aside to tell them what you told her. They almost hyperventilate with excitement. Carlos gives you the key code that opens the door to the climate-controlled units.

This is actually happening, you think with mounting fear, excitement, dread, and astonishment as fourth and fifth period pass. This afternoon, we're going to turn Mike and Carlos—one of them—into Eva Garner, and he's going to take her place. Then we're going to turn the other one into Jessica. Chelsea Cooper and Maria Vasquez are also going to be swapped out. We're going to become them!

You swallow thickly around the sandwich you are distractedly eating.

And I'm going to be one of them too! I'm going to be ... Cindy Vredenburg!

"Base command to Will Prescott." Carson Ioeger rudely snaps his fingers in your face. "Are you still in this dimension?"

"Oh, leave him alone," Jenny growls. "He was talking to Eva in the library third period." Carson and his best bud, James, exchange chortles and glances. But you continue to groove in your own private pocket universe.

The one where you are now a hot, popular cheerleader.

* * * * *

You are almost bursting with anticipation when you approach sixth-period Calculus, but it has nothing to do the class's subject matter, and has everything to do with one of the girls you share it with. There are a number of cute and sexy girls in there. Josie Holden. Kelly Rinaldi. Susie Lekuawehe. You've even let your eyes linger over Anne Starkey, even though her football-playing boyfriend sits next to her. But the one you have hardly ever dared to look at is Cindy Vredenburg.

Whichever way you turn her, Cindy is a knockout. She's a lollipop, Carson once drawled at lunch. James smirked and said, How many licks would it take to get to the center of Cindy Vredenburg? He and Carson had high-fived each other. But their expressions darkened when Jenny said, Seth knows, but you two never will.

Cindy is tall and slender. Skinny and bony, someone might say, if she wasn't put together so well with a prodigious set of bosoms, and hips that bloom below a tight, flat tummy. Maybe her head is a trifle big for her body, but that's easy to forgive when it's such a beautiful head. Between a broad, smooth forehead and a tapering jaw and chin, she has a well-shaped nose, a mouth whose corners twerk easily into knowing smile, and dimples in her pie-pan cheeks. Her platinum-blonde hair drops like a smooth waterfall down the sides of her face, to touch and drape off her breasts. But her most striking feature has to be her eyes, which are huge and green under dark, peaked eyebrows. Her expression is usually serious—grave, even—but not daunting. It's only the face of a girl you could never live up, who knows you could never live up to her, and who doesn't hold it against you but doesn't pity you either.

Today's she's dressed in a dark, short-sleeve t-shirt, and white shorts that ride up high on her slim, strong legs. Those legs are crossed as you enter Mr. Kowalski's classroom, and she is pointing the toe of a bubble-gum-pink Converse sneaker in your general direction. She has a white ball cap pulled down low over her face, and is studying the screen of the cell phone she is holding in one hand while abstractedly rubbing together the tips of her forefinger and thumb of the other.

That's going to be me, you think as you try not to swallow your own tongue. That will be me. It could almost be me over there right now!

Next: "The Spiders' Doorman" 

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