The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Team Ella

Previously: "Taking the Field as Ella Jaynes" 

"Who is it?" Autumn Mattera begs. "You've got to tell me!"

You hold her eye.

Then you say, "No!"

"Why not?" she cries.

"Because it's not really any of your business!"

Autumn throws her head back and covers her face with her hands.

"Will," says Sydney. "Don't tease her."

"I'm not teasing. It just isn't—"

"Will," says Autumn, dropping her hands. Her face is flushed, but her expression is much more serious than it was a moment ago. "Is this someone we could maybe add to the Brotherhood?"

You sigh and sag. This was so much fun when it was you and Sydney playing the parts of Ella and Autumn. And there was an important reason not to tell Autumn his name, why Ella never would have mentioned that near-miss incident to her.

But if it's a business matter, and Sydney is serious about business matters, then yes you do need to tell her.

"Okay," you say. "It was Luke Martins."

Autumn stares, and her jaw drops. "Luke?" she squeals.

"I wasn't going to say any— I mean, Ella never would have told you—"

"Luke?"

"Sydney," you rebuke her.

Autumn grabs her head between her hands, clenches her eyes shut, and makes a face.

Then she relaxes.

"You're right, Will," she says, and not just her tone but even her voice seems to have changed. "That's interesting."

"And there's still something between them. Not—"

"I knew that they—" she interrupts, "that Autumn knew Luke and Ella were really good friends. But, um—"

"And that's what he is. Ella's best boy friend. Though I'm pretty sure Luke would like it if they were more."

"Uh huh?" Autumn leans forward. You shrug.

"But he hasn't asked her. And I think he covers it by just being really protective toward her. He and Laurent Delacroix almost got into a fight at a party last year when Laurent was coming on really hard to her!"

"Oh my God!"

"Well, Laurent apologized to her, and he and Brownie, Noah, those guys, they've been kind of like brothers to her too. Except, you know those guys." You make a quick "gagging" sound. "Total horn dogs, and if she said yes to one of them, they'd—"

"So who do you think would make a good match with Ella?"

* * * * *

You do have to get home, and Ella—who takes the school bus—got a ride from Westside with Autumn, so you talk about it all on the drive to your new home. You explain that, except for getting grossly hit on by some (most lacrosse and football players) most of the guys in Ella's life fall into the "protective brother" class, the way Luke does.

"I don't know what it is," you tell her. "Maybe they're all like Laurent and them, think that if they act like a step-brother or something, she'll turn out to be into step-brother incest."

"I bet it's on account of her being such a tomboy," Sydney replies. "She's like one of the guys, but really sexy."

"Maybe." You think of Jenny Ashton, who is "one of the guys" with Carson and James and Caleb and other of your old friends. "But any of them would work for us. I mean, they'd look like they belong with her. Because they already do."

Sydney then changes the subject, to ask about other girls on the softball team, and who you should pick for the team-within-the-team.

"Maggie and Jenna for sure," you say, agreeing that far with Sydney's own choices. "Mandy, yeah, probably. Or maybe Gianna?"

"Gianna?" Sydney exclaims. "Why her?"

You grin. "Because no one on the team can stand her? That could make it ... fun."

Sydney gives you a look. "Don't ask me to do something gross, Will," she says.

You turn her aside by saying that there will be plenty of time to consider the full five-girl roster after you've added a third and got her perspective. Maggie or Jenna? she asks as she pulls up in front of your house. We can talk about that tomorrow, you reply as you climb from the car.

* * * * *

Ella's mom and her Uncle Jimmy both work, but they are both home by now, as they both work for the same oil change shop: he under the cars and she as the secretary/office manager.

They are brother and sister, her having moved in with him when Ella was ten after her husband ran off with a waitress. For a year Ella slept in a rollaway bed at the foot of her mother's bed, until Uncle Jimmy had finished slowly converting a carport into an extra room. It has no utilities—no electricity or AC/heating ducts—connected to it, so she and her uncle swap it out each year, with her taking it during the cold winter months, and her uncle taking it during the sweltering summers. Until Halloween—which is three weeks off, she (and you) will have the use of the good bedroom.

Chores are neatly divided among the family, and menus (and cooking duties) hardly ever vary. Tonight, for instance is "Meatball Monday," when Uncle Jimmy takes charge with pasta and an Italian meat sauce, so you are able to hide out in your bedroom until dinner time, getting a head start on homework after changing out of the stiff jeans and into some loose flannel bottoms. Over dinner, your mom asks why were late getting home.

"My friend Autumn wanted to talk about something to do with the team, so she offered me a ride home," you explain. "But she had to stop and see someone else, and I kind of got dragged into that." This is a fair approximation of how Sydney caught Ella for you.

"Your Uncle Jimmy and I thought maybe you were doing something with Jenna again."

"No, it was just Autumn this time." You have to keep yourself from bridling. Ever since Ella started high school, her mother has been very nosy about who her daughter comes and goes with. And you have to curb yourself harder when she asks who it was that Autumn had to go see.

"A girl named Sydney, from school."

"Why did she have to see her?"

"Autumn borrowed something and forgot to give it back to her at school."

"It wasn't very considerate, dragging you along for that."

"I didn't mind! And I know Sydney, which is how we all wound up talking so I was late!"

"I don't mind you being late—"

"Then what do you mind?"

"I don't mind anything, Ella. I just want to hear about your day."

So you tell her about your day. At length and in detail. Uncle Jimmy just stares at the wall behind your mother's head while slowly chewing his food.

* * * * *

You spend the evening on your bed with a writing board under your notebook—there being no space in the room for a desk—as you work on math and chemistry as the sound of the TV filters through the walls and closed door. Your phone is by your hand, and it takes a long time to get through your homework, what with the messages that come in from various acquaintances, and from Autumn.

Christine Coolidge, for instance, wants to know if you've decided whether to attend a music recital at the university this Wednesday, where one of your mutual friends, Danielle Davis, will be performing. Christine is going with a couple of friends from the swim team, and with Patrick Currier as her date. She needs to know if you're going too, in case she needs to set you up with a "recital date." You point-blank ask if she thinks you can't get a date on your own, to which she (reasonably) asks if you can get someone who can sit through an hour of classical music.

To which you start to reply that if you can't then you'll just skip the recital, but instead you tell her that you'll talk to her tomorrow night. She retorts that that will be cutting it very close if she's to help you find someone.

Haley Cordero, meanwhile, wants some help with the math in the class that you share with her. Texts between you and her, and you and Christine, get crossed, so that she becomes aware of your possible recital plans. She doesn't sound interested in the recital per se, but she does confess that she'd go if Jeremiah James—one of the soccer players, who is black like she is—asked her to go.

If Jeremiah asked me to go, you find yourself thinking, I'd say yes too! For in addition to being athletic and good looking, Jeremiah (you've heard) is pretty strong academically as well.

This all goes into the pot of plots once you start getting texts from Autumn. (And you are very careful not to accidentally send a reply to one of those to one of your other friends.) She is thinking very big—or maybe she just enjoys playing matchmaker—because (she tells you) it might matter which girls you add to the Brotherhood depending upon which guys might be paired up with them. That leads you to mention what Haley said about Jeremiah. She takes that in a spirit both of team gossip—Haley likes Jeremiah wow—and of planning for the Brotherhood. If they went together maybe add Haley instead of Mandy?

And by the time you are getting ready for bed, this has evolved into a very direct question: Do you want to "pick a guy" for Ella and move into him while Sydney takes over for Ella? You've both agreed already that either Jenna or Maggie should be your next "convert," so you don't need Ella's unique perspective anymore. Furthermore, with you as her "boyfriend" you and she would have a better perspective on pairing up couples while also gathering five males who would "click" together the way you want the softball team "clicks" together.

It makes sense. But you're also thinking: What's the rush?

Next: Coming soon! Check back!

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