The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Theater of One

Previously: "School Survey" 

You are baffled and bothered as you get in your car. The pressure that Sydney is putting on you is pissing you off. Not only because of the stress, but because it makes you not want to do what you really want to do: Drive down to Los Angeles and spend the night with her (and Paul!) again. But she'd just needle you some more about getting her that new face.

You don't pay much attention to where you're driving, so it's Gianna's reflexes that steer you back to her apartment complex, and you're out of your car and walking across the lot before you come out of the mental fog and realize where you are. Oh my God, you realize, I haven't been home since Monday morning! At least Gianna doesn't have a cat or dog that needs caring for.

The Grove Street Apartments consist of two closely-separated buildings whose front doors face each other across a covered walkway. You are just approaching the door to your apartment when the door directly across opens and Jackson, one of three housemates who live together, comes out. He's a trim young man, just out of college, with brown hair that covers his eyebrows, ears, and the top of his neck, and a bright smile in a handsome face. He is carrying a bike on one shoulder, and a satchel on the other as he comes out. He does a quick double-take at you, then grins and greets you with a "Hey!"

"Hi," you reply. "Going out for a bike ride?"

"Quick trip to the UPS store. See you around!" He walks briskly off, carrying the bike as though it's made of bamboo.

You are staring at his ass and his strong, tanned thighs before you can stop yourself, then jerk yourself around with a quick cuss word. Stop it, you chide yourself. He's a dozen years younger than you.

But that's still legal, someone inside you replies.

You sigh as you unlock and push open the door to your apartment. It doesn't seem that long ago—only a few years?—that Gianna wouldn't have hidden her interest in a guy like Jackson. Now, it seems like she might as well be forty years older than him. Does he even notice how pretty she still is?

How pretty I am, you remind yourself, and after dropping your bag on the dining table you go into the bedroom and open the curtains and lean back to drink in your full figure in the sliding mirrored doors of the closet.

I am very pretty, you confirm as you twist about to catch yourself from various angles. Long legs and a good ass inside jeans with flared legs. Your breasts are still firm and plump, and they push against the tightly stretched fabric of your t-shirt. The blue, denim shirt hangs loosely off your shoulders, covering your figure, but there's an hourglass when you part and hold it open. From the neck down ... Yes, from the neck down you could still be in your twenties. Maybe even late teens.

From the neck up?

Well, the lines are starting to show under your eyes and at the corners of your nose. But they can be handled with makeup, and the skin at your throat is still tight. The main thing that worries you, as you touch your cheeks and cheekbones, is that there is too little flesh on your face, and that the bones are already starting to show through. Body or face. That's the choice that confronts too many women, and Gianna will be one of them. Keep the face youthful by letting the body fatten? Or keep the slim figure at the risk of getting a haggard face?

At least your hair is good and shiny. It hang in healthy sheets down to your breasts, and you smile pleasurably as you play with it, pulling and pushing it around. Mmm. You end by hugging yourself and telling yourself it doesn't matter what will happen later, you've got a good thing now!

But you don't linger in front of the mirror, for you also have to take a really bad pee.

* * * * *

You should probably stay in and cook, but that chance brush with Jackson and the doubts it provoked have left you wanting to go out and be seen. Fortunately, you know just where you can go that will take the sting out of eating alone.

Bruges is trendy little French bistro on La Perla Boulevard, and the assistant manager is an old friend of Gianna's from her days at the Calabasas Community Theater, and the chance of seeing her is just the excuse you need to go there. You shower and scrub and spend an hour trying on different outfits and judging the results before settling on twill slacks, a t-shirt, and a jeans jacket. You accent these with a thin silver necklace and a thicker silver bracelet. High heels give your spirit as well as your spine a lift, and it is with chin held high that you stride out your door at a little after six.

"Is Brittney here?" you ask the waiter—a reedy guy with a patchy beard and black-framed glasses—after you are seated at a two-top covered with a crisp white cloth. "What about Brooke?" you ask more guardedly when he says that Brittney is due back within the hour. You're more pleased to learn that Brooke—a brash waitress you don't much care for—has tonight off. You order a Chardonnay and settle back with the menu to decide which meal best balances cost, taste, and substance. It's not an easy choice.

You are halfway through your Salade Nicoise, and have resigned yourself to finishing the meal alone, when you look up at a looming presence. Brittney Doyle is smiling down at you.

Your first thought is, My God, you've put on weight.

Well, it's not a lot, maybe only ten pounds. But on Brittney, whose body shape tends toward the pear, every ounce shows. You cover your momentary shock with the brightest smile you can muster. Quick greetings and compliments are exchanged before you settle down to serious gossip.

"Are you still with the community theater?" you ask.

She gasps with pretended offense. "Get out! Yes! Don't you follow us anymore?"

"Time gets away from me so much these days. What are you doing? When's your next—?"

"Arcadia," she says with a plump smile. "December 5. I'm Lady Croom." She splays her hand over her breast.

"I thought you'd be Thomasina."

"Oooh, you!" Brittney squeals at the compliment and touches your shoulder. "You should know who's playing Thomasina, it's one of your old students! Abigail Nielsen!"

"Abigail!" It takes you only a moment to put a face to the name and calculate that it's been three years since she graduated. "What's she doing these days? Besides playing Lady Thomasina?"

For ten minutes this goes on, with her telling you about the community theater and who has come and gone from it (Logan Buck (bleagh!) is still there, but Katherine Giles has moved to Ohio), and she urges you to come back out and at least do a guest turn with the company some season. You demur, but you do ask about what they're planning to put on.

A strange, out of-body experience creeps over you as you talk. Your own voice begins to sound hollow in your ears, as though it's coming from somewhere remote even as the words spill out of your mouth. Your own mind seems to separate from Gianna's, to watch in a kind of hypnotized curiosity as her mind fluxes and flexes, bubbling forth thoughts and reactions and gestures that have much to do with her, and little to do with you. I'm here but I'm not her, you find yourself thinking, even as you laugh at a recalled prank at Logan's expense when you were still at the community theater. She thinks I'm Gianna, but I'm not. "Did Mark ever find out it was us who pulled the fire alarm?" you ask. "Oh my God, do you think he'd still be mad?" She's completely fooled. Because I am Gianna. I'm in her clothes, her body, I drove here in her car, I live in her apartment. It's all seamless, I'm sewed up tight inside her.

The feeling of separation fades, and once again you are yourself—Gianna Johns—chatting gaily with an old friend.

Brittney is rattling off some play titles when she is interrupted by man. At first you think he is a customer, until he shocks you by putting his hand on her hip and sidling up close. Brittney jumps at his touch, then grins at him. "Hey you," she coos. "I thought I got rid of you."

"I'm on my way," he says, and nuzzles her cheek. "I stopped by to ask if you've got the spare key."

Brittney titters and rolls her eyes, and tells him to follow her back to her office. You watch, mystified by who this dark, handsome stranger is and what he's doing with Brittney Doyle.

She is blushing all over when she gets back. "Sorry about that," she murmurs through her embarrassed grin. "That was Jeremy."

"Uh huh?" you prompt.

"We're, uh, seeing each other."

"I guessed that. Who is he?" You lean forward eagerly. "And why haven't you been telling me about him?"

His name is Jeremy Short, and he's the city parks and recreations manager, and she's been seeing him for (she blushes) two weeks. They met at a city council meeting, where Brittney presented a plan for some Shakespeare-in-the-Park productions. And she can't stop from gushing about him, how he was almost a pro football player and how he still quarterbacks for the city team in an amateur league. Her eyes shine when you compliment him by saying he's got kind of a "young Mark Ruffalo" thing going.

You don't deserve someone who's that much of a stud, you find yourself thinking, and are startled by the hard stab of envy. I could take him away from you, you know. I could take you away from you!

Would Sydney enjoy being Brittney Doyle? Or are you just thinking how you'd enjoy being Jeremy Short?

Next: "The Search for Style" 

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