The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

The Same Question, Over and Over

Previously: "A Fashionable Foot Forward" 

"I'm gonna get something eat with Yumi," you shout back at Cindy, and you shoot Yumi a quick, querying look. She shrugs. "What's the plan for meeting at the Warehouse?" you ask the other girls.

Jessica answers. "We'll send you a text about meeting and picking you up. You got plenty of time," she adds, "things won't even come close to getting started till ten at least." She falls in with the other two girls, to study the photos that they've taken, and to giggle over them. It only reinforces your desire to get Yumi's read on things.

* * * * *

Lin tags along too, and you all settle in at Panera. Lin snags your new hat after you're seated and takes a selfie of herself in it, then pulls you in to take a selfie of you both before she returns it to you. You grin at her. "You like my hat."

"It's a good look for you," she says. She looks you up and down. Her expression is more curious than critical, and you have the impression that she's updating and recalculating her opinion of you. "How'd you pick it out?"

"Jessica found it. Her and Eva and Cindy helped me pick out all of my new stuff."

"How did this happen, Will?" Yumi asks. Her expression is more disbelieving than Lin's, maybe because she's known you longer and better than any of the other cheerleaders—which admittedly isn't saying much.

You're actually at a bit of a loss yourself to remember how it all started. "It just sort of snowballed, I think," then fall silent again as a waitress drops a sandwich in front of you and a couple of salads in front of the girls. "They invited me out the Warehouse, and then they asked me to meet them at Nirdlinger's." It all happened so quickly and in such a chaos that you can't put your finger exactly on where and how it evolved into a "makeover."

"Have you ever been to the Warehouse?" Lin asks. Her fork hovers over her salad bowl as she asks it. "You know the kind of thing that goes on there, don't you?" she asks when you shake your head.

"There's dancing and music and stuff, right? Bands playing?"

"And drinking, and pot, and fistfights and knife-fights—"

"There aren't any knife-fights, Lin," Yumi says. "They have guys out there to stop it."

"It's because of the knife fights that they have guys out there to stop them," Lin retorts. "And there's the rooms upstairs where people, well—" She compresses her lips in a disapproving way.

"Basically, it's like the portables at school," Yumi says. "It's the same kind of people who hang out there, mostly. Only they're drunk and high and blasted out of their skulls on music and adrenaline, and there's no teachers or security or anything."

You don't like her implication that you can't handle that kind of scene. "You've been out there, it sounds like," you say.

"Yeah, but with the kind of guys who can take care of us."

"Well, I'm not going out there by myself," you retort before you can come up with a less embarrassing string of words.

Yumi shrugs, as though to say It's your funeral, but Lin says, "That's true. Seth'll be along, you know."

A lump of ice settles in your stomach. "I thought he and Cindy broke up."

Lin and Yumi exchange a glance. "We don't know what's going on with them," Yumi says.

"So give me some gossip," you say. Not that you're fascinated, but you'd rather talk about who's dating who and who's breaking up with who than to listen to her complain that you're not man enough to go to the Warehouse.

* * * * *

Talk about their girlfriends takes up the rest of the dinner hour. Mostly it centers on Cindy, who is whipsawing between sticky makeout sessions with Seth and screechy, window-shattering fights with him. The consensus theory seems to be that she's trying to keep from losing herself in her relationship with him. "She wants his babies," Lin says. "She wants his babies and she wants to marry and move in with him. But she also doesn't. So she's trying to push him away and tie herself to him, at the same time."

"Sucks to be him," Yumi says.

Sucks to be anywhere around him would be your opinion.

The topic of the Warehouse does return, though, when Yumi asks if you have a curfew. "Things don't even start until ten or eleven," she says, "and it'll be morning before they start winding down." You're unsure how to handle it until Lin suggests that you arrange to "sleep over" with a friend.

* * * * *

So you try Caleb, and that seems to work until he throws a wrench in your plans. "Sure," he tells you when you call him. "But you have to give me an alibi too. Because I'm going with you, remember?"

You had forgotten that he'd threatened to go along too. "How are you getting out there?"

"Same as you. Driving. Wanna go together?"

"I'm getting a ride with someone."

"So can I get a ride with them too?"

"I'll have to ask," you sigh, and you text Eva. can we take caleb too?

Her reply is long in coming, but flattering. ok but we want you to ourselves. She tells you to be parked in back of Eastman High School by ten, where you will be picked up for a carpool.

"I'm spending the night with Caleb," you tell your folks as you run through the living room. "See you in the morning."

"I'll call later to check how you're doing," your dad says, and his warning almost causes you to lose all bowel function. All the way out to Caleb's—for you've arranged to pick him up at his house—you try to figure out some way to defeat or fool your dad. If he hears anything remotely resembling a party when he calls you, he'll know you were lying to him.

"So maybe we should just go back to my house," Caleb says after you've picked him up and explained the problem. "You really don't have any business going to the Warehouse anyway."

"Neither do you," you retort. "Less than me. I got invited."

"Yeah, and I notice I didn't." Even in the dark you can read the quick, dirty look he gives you. "Fuck, maybe you should drop me off at Ioeger's."

"Yeah, maybe I should."

"No you shouldn't." He twists around in his seat to stare at you directly. "How did Eva and Jessica even get the idea to invite you out with them?"

You grit your teeth at the presumption behind the question. "Ask them."

"Were you talking to them about Lisa again?"

"Shut up about Lisa! I told you, I'm over her."

"But were you talking with them about her, and then they—?"

"They just asked me out of the blue! Okay? Which is totally awesome," you continue, "and why are you trying to make it sound like a crime against nature?"

"Because it is. No, wait, forget I said that, I didn't mean it."

"So what did you mean, cocksucker?"

"Look, just forget it." He slumps in his seat. "I guess I should just be happy for you."

You don't know what to say to that, for in truth you don't know why they're paying any attention to you at all. You tell Caleb as much. "Glad to hear you're as freaked out about it as I am," he grumbles in reply.

* * * * *

The rest of the drive passes mostly in silence, and so does the wait in the parking lot of Eastman High School. You're surprised by the number cars that are parked at the school, until you see a crowd of school kids at one of the lot and deduce this must be a regular drop off and pick up point for the Warehouse, which is only a mile away. You and Caleb keep to yourselves though, and it's not until you hear your names being shouted that you realize your ride has come.

They're calling from an SUV that pulled into the lot while you were waiting. Shadowy figures wave, and not until you're close do you recognize Eva and Jessica. "Oh God, Will, you look great," one of them gushes, and they both brush your shirt and snap your suspenders playfully. "You're not going to lose your hat, are you?"

Caleb snorts. "He's probably going to lose his head."

"Oh, hi Caleb," Jessica sniffs. "So you showed up too. Are we going to be able to squeeze you in?" She puts her head into the minivan, from the inside of which comes the sound of girls shrieking and laughing.

"You'll just have to fold yourself up," Eva says, and she pushes him toward the back. She pops the rear door, and someone falls out with a cuss word.

"Come on, Will." Jessica grabs your hand and pulls you to the back seat. "You get in there. Mindy! You're going to have to lay on top of people!"

"As long as it's a cute guy, I don't care!" a girl shrieks back. Jessica pushes you into the back seat, and you have to brush your way past flailing limbs until you've squeezed in and Jessica has shut the door on you. A girls plops into your lap and puts her face in yours. "Hi, who are you?" she chirps.

"Will. Prescott."

"Hi! It's me, Mindy! McAdams!" She giggles. "What's that on your head?" She lifts your hat off.

"Everyone inside?" someone yells from the front seat.

"Hang on!" The yell is followed by a loud shriek, and someone bumps the back of your head. A door slams. "Okay, I think we're packed in!"

"Where'd you get the hat?" Mindy asks, but you're too confused and dizzy to answer. "I think we can fit three more girls back here!" a baritone voice shouts from behind you.

"God damn it!" the driver roars, "we already got too many!"

"So make Seth walk!"

Seth? As in Javits?

* To continue: "The Dance Floor" 

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