The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Money Matters

Previously: "Faces Under Faces" 

It's nearing midnight, and though neither David Kirkham nor Kelsey Blankenship has a curfew, it seems best to wind things up. Sydney is disappointed—"We paid for the whole night and most of tomorrow!" she groans—but you remind her that she'll want to get most of that money back because she'll have other things she'll want to spend it on. Like a coupla more afternoons or nights here, you tell her. That brightens her mood.

But she texts you, like a needy girlfriend, after you're home and getting ready for bed. That was fun want do it again.

Do it every nite babe if we had the bodies, you assure her.

We could get some.

Think abut it after Lisa.

Want do it again with Lisa. You and Lisa like tonite.

You find yourself hesitating, then thumb back. Sure and add Going to bed now.

Sydney chirps back, Me too and some emojis.

You're in the bathroom, stripped to your underwear and brushing your teeth as these texts come in, and after shutting the phone off you look in the mirror. There's a sly but querying gleam in the eye of the guy who looks out at you from the mirror.

Me and Lisa, you think. But which me?

The question gives you a chill, and you lean forward to growl at the face in the mirror, "You only think you're in control."

Sure. But which one of you is saying it, and which one is he saying it to?

* * * * *

Saturday morning.

Kirkham hasn't got a gym membership, so he works with weights at school. On weekends he jogs.

It's a cool and cloudy day with rain in the forecast, but as you step outside at a little after eight, you are dressed in nothing heavier than cotton shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt. The Kirkhams live in Caleb's ratty neighborhood, close to where Orlando Road crosses the railroad tracks, so it's a decent but not daunting jog over to the athletic fields near South Creek Park. You take the jog out at an easy pace, then put the pedal down once you're at the fields. And when you catch yourself slacking—because Kirkham's in more than decent shape, and can take the strain a lot better than you yourself could—you push down hard, crushing it in a way that even Kirkham would find a little excessive. Think you're hot fucking stuff, you growl at him as a fissure of fire opens in your side. I'll make you hurt, and make you hurt some more! At the climax of your third jaunt around the fields, you have to throw yourself onto the ground, gasping, for a minute or two before you can get up to walk it off. You hurt—but it's a good kind of hurt, almost an orgasmic hurt—as you jog slowly home.

Tad and your mom are up when you get back, but Tad has biked off by the time you're out of the shower and dressed in fresh jeans and a white, clinging, short-sleeve sports jersey emblazoned with the screaming, jagged-tooth skull of a moose (or maybe it's a deer) with claw-like antlers curling over its brows. Your mom glances at it with a poker-faced expression, and returns to unloading some groceries.

"I can get that," you tell her. "You went around the corner while I was washing up?"

"Yes. I'll get this, you fix your breakfast."

"I need to get stuff out anyway, I can put this away." Firmly, you wedge her away from the sacks.

She sighs, and says nothing but watches as you put away the canned vegetables and boxed mixes while getting out the pancake mix and some eggs and raw patty sausage. "Want me to fix some for you?" you ask.

"No, I ate," she says, sounding offended. She pauses. "You have practice this afternoon?"

"Yea'p. I think we might have something set up at the country club," you improvise. "Was talking to this girl, her folks are members, they might be able to set us up a gig." You continue to dodge her eye as you assemble your breakfast. "Could be good for a couple of hundred dollars."

"You need to have more fun in your life, David," she says.

Now you do glance at her. "I'm having fun. I'll be having fun at practice."

"You work so hard."

"I like working hard."

"Supper was good last night."

"Thanks. We can have pork chops night, if you'll let me pick up some pork chops."

She doesn't answer right away. When she does, she says, "Money's tight. Your grandmother's offered to take Tad in for a little while."

You turn to stare. She returns you a very serious look. You lean against the counter and put a hand on your hips.

"You tell me I need to have more fun in my life," you say, and feel the hair on the back of your head rising in anger, "and that I work too hard, but now you're fucking telling me our money problems are so bad—"

"We just need to economize, and—"

"Fine. I'll give up my fucking lessons with Dr. Lewis. I'll—"

"I don't want you to do that!"

"—get an after school job."

"David!"

"Fuck me. I must be fucking slacking, if we don't got enough money that Tad has to go off—"

"I'm just telling you that she offered!"

"—and transfer to another fucking middle school in the middle of the year!"

"Alright, I won't send him to your grandmother!"

"Fucking right you won't. I told you, I'll get a fucking job, I'll—"

"When did you start cussing so much?"

You make a face and look away. The pans aren't hot enough for you to just start making breakfast, so you chew your lip and fume.

"As for getting a job," your mom starts to say, but you interrupt: "You talk to Tad about going to Meemaw's?"

"No."

"Well don't. I'll talk to him about it. And I'll ask around at school, does anyone know about any after school or weekend jobs."

"You don't want that, David. You want time for your music."

"Yeah! Which is how come I'm gonna look for a job. 'Cos there's no point in keeping up my cello shit if I don't got Dr. Lewis."

Her expression darkens with puzzlement. "Aren't you good enough now? To me, you sound—"

"There's good, and there's being good enough," you snarl as you turn back to the stove. "Being good," you repeat as you beat the pancake batter around with a spoon, "and being good enough to fool people who don't know shit."

Your mom winces and withdraws.

* * * * *

You don't know what exactly the financial situation is with the Kirkham's. You have no idea what the utility and rental expenses on the house are, and your mom does most of the shopping so the food budget is a mystery. You know that she still has medical school loans to repay, and you suppose that that is why there are periodic money squeezes. Last summer, for instance, she dumped you and Tad both onto your grandmother, who lives on a farm northwest of Adaburg, because she said she couldn't get ends to meet. And now she's wanting to send Tad out there again, for his last semester of middle school.

Maybe you should have it out with her, tell her that you're taking over the money management. Maybe you couldn't do any better, but you'd feel less impotent and whipsawed.

It gives you indigestion, but you wolf down breakfast anyway.

Only afterward does it occur to you that this isn't really your problem.

* * * * *

Your mom needs the car, so at one o'clock she drops you off at Nathan Cruz's for practice with the string quartet. You trudge in through the open garage door, not bothering to knock. Voices from the nearby study tell you that Aaron Polk and Diana Dunnigan are already here.

The quartet came together last Christmas, when Dr. Heinz suggested reviving the Westside High String Quartet. She put Nathan in charge, and when he asked you to join, you told him you'd rather go down on Dr. Stemple than join an official school string quartet. When he said it would have to be you as the cellist, or the quartet wouldn't happen, you retorted that him and you should form a private quartet and do your own thing—fuck the school. He got very gleeful at the idea, especially when you started popping off with some of the bold-as-shit modernist pieces you could play, and topped it off by proposing to call it the "Cannibal String Quartet." He wouldn't go that far, but you did accept his compromise—hell, his suggestion gave you wood—when he counter-proposed "Wendigo String Quartet."

And that is why you and him, and Aaron and Diana, are all wearing shirts emblazoned with a demonic, skull-faced moose-monster. It's your string quartet's logo.

Nathan is fiddling on his phone, but he looks up long enough to chuck his chin as you enter the study, whose furniture has been all pushed back to make room for the four chairs and music stands. Aaron, the second violinist, is a quiet and intense junior about whom, even after two years, Kirkham is undecided. He's second only to Nathan as a fiddle player, and he has a quiet intensity that doesn't bug you. But he has a computer-nerd vibe, and you're pretty sure he's frightened of you. But Diana Dunnigan, the violist, is a sophomore who has zero fucks to give about anything that might get in the way of having fun. She grins up at you with a mouthful of mutant teeth and giant gums.

"You go out to the Warehouse last night?" she asks.

"Nah, I crashed in a motel room with a girl," you growl as you settle into the chair next to you. Having zero fucks to give means that Diana is forever trying to flirt with you.

Her face falls. But then it brightens again. "Are you going to the school play? I am."

That by itself would be a turn-off, but you pause. Sydney told you that her gang, including Geoff and Lisa are going. Maybe you should too.

Next: "Music Matters" 

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