The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

People Who Want to Talk to You

Previously: "The Possibility of Cassie" 

"Does it have to be today?" you ask your mother. You have to press a fingertip over your other ear to hear her over the grumbling mutter of kids pushing their way past your locker.

"He just asked to see you today," she says. "Why, is there something going on?"

"I'm just supposed to do something with a, uh, a friend now."

"Well, let me give you his number, and you talk to him. He said it's very important."

I don't even have the thing the guy wants to talk to me about! you want to object, but you say nothing.

You are checking the text your mom has sent—it's the number for Gregory Williams, of Parsons Collegiate Media—when Cassie jumps out of the crowd in front of you.

"Hi!" she exclaims in a chirpy burst. "Are we taking your car? Because we can take mine instead! Only—"

"Yeah, I'll drive," you interrupt her. You touch her on the shoulder and guide her back into the crowd with yourself by her side.

* * * * *

Maybe it's because you were thinking of that book, and of Arnholm's, that you wind up at The Crystal Cave, one of the numerous kooky coffee shops that dot Saratoga Falls, because it shares its building with the book store. You let Cassie do the talking on the drive out there, and confining yourself to the occasional grunt or "Really?" as you concentrate on the road. Inside the cafe, she finally goes quiet as she confronts the wide array of coffee choices spread before her. The sudden silence is almost eerie.

"So how was your day at school?" she asks as you settle into a booth with your drinks and two biscotti. (She told you, in depth on the drive out, about hers.) "Oh my God," she gasps, "I was jabbering again, wasn't I?"

"It's alright," you assure her.

"No it wasn't! Oh my God, you said it's alright, that means I was jabbering!"

You're taken aback by the look of abject horror on her face, and your laugh sounds forced as you try to put her at ease.

"I just mean it's alright, Cassie," you say. "Everyone knows that you, um ... like to talk."

"Oh, but it's like I can't stop!" she wails. "People tell me that talk so much, and I'm like, I'm going to do better, but then I just start talking again and—" Abruptly she shuts up with a look of alarm.

"What?" you ask, and you look around for whatever it has that has frightened her.

"I didn't say anything!"

"Oh." You turn back to her. She is staring at you with her lips pressed firmly together.

"Will you relax," you tell her. "Or do you want me to talk?" She nods gravely.

"Alright, so—"

You plunge into an account of your own day, which requires rewinding back to last week. You tell her about the time capsule assignment for Mr. Walberg's class, and how you picked up a book at the store next door, but then wound up selling that book back to the former owner for a couple of hundred dollars; and of how on Sunday you used some of the profits to buy a little plastic toiletry kit which you packed with a toothbrush, some toothpaste and floss, some soap, deodorant, shampoo, and shaving cream and a razor, and gave that to Mr. Walberg for the capsule. It's all very boring, but she seems enraptured by it.

Haltingly at first, and then with more confidence, Cassie asks you about each of these: What was the book and what exactly was wrong with it? Why did the owner want to pay so much money to get it back? Why did you give Mr. Walberg a bunch of toiletries, and do you think you'll get a good grade for it? But she's clearly trying to rein herself in, because she doesn't offer her own speculations about any of these.

After this, it becomes easier to talk to her, and she has an easier time of it. You talk about mutual friends, particularly Carson Ioeger and James Lamont, and you learn to your astonishment that at the start of the semester she actually helped them perpetrate a prank against Seth Javits, one of the school bullies.

"God, I was so scared," she says, and she starts to talk very fast again as she warms to the remembrance. "I mean, all I was supposed to do was stop him on the way back from the office so Carson and James would have a chance to glue his books together, and I managed to do that but we wound up talking and I think he was coming on to me. Which made me feel weird, because I'm not interested in him, of course, but I'm helping them play a prank on him but here he is like he's liking me or something, and I'm thinking, should I pretend like I'm into him too, but—"

As she rattles on, it occurs to you that maybe she talks so much because she has to do her thinking out loud. For instance, she seems to surprise herself a couple of times with what she says, as when she interrupts herself to exclaim, "Oh my God, I don't even think he's that good looking!" as though this fact about herself is a discovery, and a shocking and unexpected one at that. She also argues with herself out loud, taking first one side then the other on the question of whether it was actually okay to bully a bully. (Which leads to another shocking discovery, that she didn't even ask herself this question at the time.) And when she asks your opinion, as in "Do you think it would be okay to prank Carson and James if you thought their pranks went too far?" it feels like fodder for her own thoughts, not because she is interested in your opinion.

After an hour of this, you are ready to go home, so you take her back to the school to pick up her car. On the way, she apologizes again for "monopolizing the conversation," and you tell her it was okay, that she didn't monopolize it, she just had more to say than you did. She seems anxiously grateful.

Your own feelings, though, are more ambivalent. Giving her the benefit of the doubt—that she is just "thinking aloud" when she talks—it still leaves her seeming somewhat self-obsessed, and her talk oppressive. It's like she can't get out of her own head, and has expanded her head to take up all the space around her. You wonder what her own friends think. And then you wonder how much you really care what they think.

* * * * *

When you get home, your mother reminds you of the phone call that she got. It is after five now, which seems too late to call the guy, so you tell her you will contact him tomorrow at lunch. But you don't have to, because he calls you at around seven.

He introduces himself, then comes right to the point: "I understand that you recently purchased and then sold an item from the special collections at Arnholm's Books. Could you tell me a little about it?"

You reply you've nothing really to say. He asks you to describe the book. You do your best to oblige, but he sounds dissatisfied.

"I would very much like to discuss this in person with you," he says. You're about to say that you're not interested, until he forestalls you by saying that he will "of course, reimburse you for your time."

That book, you reflect after you've made an appointment, is proving very lucrative, even after you got rid of it.

* * * * *


Tuesday afternoon.

Salopek Engineering is almost clear on the other side of town—you basically have to drive past your house to get to it—so it is almost four-thirty before you get there. You've only been to your dad's office a couple of time, so when you check in at the front building, you have to get directions from the receptionist. Fortunately, his office is only one building away.

He called you during lunch—he actually had the office call you in talk, instead of getting you on your own phone—to tell you to come out to his work as soon as you were out of school. This request mystifies you, and alarms you more than a little.

He's on the phone when you peek in through the door, a familiar scowl on his face, and it doesn't clear up when sees you and gestures you to come in. Nor does he hurry to wrap up his business just because you've arrived. You're left to shift back and forth on your heels until he can get around to you.

"Alright, don't sit down," he says as he hangs up, though you've made no move toward either of the chairs in front of his desk. "I got a call from a professor up at the university," he continues, "asking if you'd be free to take an after-school job." He picks up a slip of paper from near at hand and holds it out to you. "It's up to you," he says, "but if you want my advice, you'll take it."

You take the slip and look at what's written there. "Aubrey Blackwell, prof. archae." Underneath is a phone number and an address. Of course you recognize it.

"And he asked for me?" you ask. You can't believe the man is still trying to get you to take a job with him.

"He asked if we had any high school students here who'd be interested in taking on a little extra work, and then he asked if I had a kid who would. I told him I did." He gives you a meaningful look.

And you have no trouble grasping the meaning behind it. Your dad has been riding your ass about taking an afterschool/weekend job at Salopek, which you've been resisting, so now he's pushing you toward another one. To make sure you understand this, he now adds, "I told him you would be out this evening at around five to talk to him about it."

That's when you're supposed to meet this Gregory Williams fellow. You can't make both appointments. But you can use one appointment as an excuse to get out of the other.

Next: Vote in the poll to pick the next choice! "BoM Poll: People Who Want to Talk to You" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"