The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Some Backstory on Amanda

Previously: "Party and Postlude" 

Brunch at the country club is a thing of cheeses and cut crystal. The boys—noisy and brash—scoop up omelets and Belgian waffles and slabs of bacon; the other girls, more finicky, nosh on white cheeses, fresh fruit, and slices of lean ham; you pick at plump wedges of red grapefruit, scoops of low-fat cottage cheese, and paper-thin slices of prosciutto. The boys guzzle coffee; the girls sip juices; you nurse a flute of sparkling water. Talk is of the lameness of parents, the idiocy of high school teachers, and colleges plans.

The party finally ends after that, with Geoff and Martin and Anthony and Rachel staying behind for a round of golf while everyone else splits. You catch a ride back to Kelsey's, where you collect your car. Sydney has been texting you, and once you're around the corner from, you pull over to text her back. She lives nearby, and she wants to meet.

She outside when you pull up, and she meets you at the car. "My mom's home," she says. "I figure we can take a walk."

In these heels? You make a face behind Sydney's back as she brushes past you toward the street.

"So, did you do anything with the meditation wand last night?" she wants to know.

"I had a party, I'm just now getting away."

She gives you a sidelong look. "Some party."

"It was at Kelsey Blankenship's. You've heard of her parties?" It irritates you when she only shrugs. "We close off her wing of the house and go all night."

"A wing?" Sydney echoes. "She's got a freaking wing?"

"You have a wing." You glance back the pile of stone blocks where she lives.

"I have a bedroom en suite. Okay, yeah, all to myself, and on the other side of the house from— What are you rolling your eyes for?"

"I wasn't rolling my eyes."

"Will, sweetheart, I think you're channeling Amanda again."

"Sorry," you mutter. Not sorry, you silently add, then kick yourself mentally.

"I want us to keep on pace," Sydney continues. "We've got nine more of these pedies we need to make—"

Pedies? you almost ask. Then: Oh. Pedisequos.

"—so we can't waste time with each one."

"So why don't we grab a bunch of them, all of them, get it all done at once?"

Sydney grunts. "I was thinking of that, and maybe we will. Thing is, I'm not sure about these things, if they'll work. I mean, the ones we make that don't have us inside them. Nicholas seems normal and all—" She makes a face. "And I get the feeling he'd be on top of me and doing things if I didn't have a chain on him. But I also can't shake the feeling that he's not, well, real. And I don't know if something that isn't real can, you know, believe in things like the way I told you yesterday that Baphomet needs—"

"Sydney, my darling, can you please slow down?" You clutch at her, pulling her to a standstill. "You're in tennis shoes, but I'm in these things." You flex an ankle inside one of your toeless boots.

Sydney glances down. "Oh, I was meaning to ask where Amanda got those."

"Anbrog."

"The hell?"

"Anbrog. The Shoppes at Fells Lake?" She shakes her head, and you sigh. "Up behind Northgate. The real shopping district. Anbrog, Chesterbrook, Eve, Cafe Oro."

"I didn't know there was a place back there."

You smirk. "So you're asking I should take you? We need to buy mask supplies anyway, and you said the Brotherhood would provide."

Her expression turns skeptical. "We need to buy supplies, but I think that should be all."

"So do I." You sniff. "After the things I was saying about you to Kelsey yesterday, it would be really funny if anyone caught us out shopping together."

"Will," Sydney says. "You're channeling her again."

* * * * *

It probably wouldn't do to be seen together even at a hobby supply store, so you and Sydney split up the shopping list and spend the afternoon hitting up separate stores. Your trip is complicated by repeated text blasts from Kelsey and Olivia and Eva Garner and even from Lisa at one point, most of them containing links to Instagram posts or x2z threads with gossip to be savored or deplored. You're too preoccupied to participate, though you do snap at and tuck away one morsel. You're picking up plaster at Michaels when you spot Karl Hennepin in one of the aisles. He doesn't see you, so you're able to take a quick picture of him with your phone.

You don't upload it anyplace, though. You'll just keep it in your album until you can think of a really catty meme to use it in. Then you'll post it to x2z anonymously as a swipe at Kelsey. She's been fucking Karl in dirty motel rooms for the past few weeks. She thinks it's a secret; probably everyone at school knows about it though.

So she's one to talk when she snipes that someone should be giving or withholding permission from you. It rode all over you that you couldn't fling Karl back in her face when she said that this morning.

And, naturally, thinking of that—and of Anthony and Olivia, and of Geoff and Lisa, and of others—puts you back to thinking how you can use Amanda to get at Blake.

Though the more you turn it over in your mind, the more you think it won't be as much of an issue as it should be.

* * * * *

"They're doing it at the Donna," you explain to Sydney as you show her the picture of Karl on your phone. "Which is really fucked up, because it's Kim Walsh's dad who owns the Donna, and Kim and Kelsey are supposed to be friends, so for her to be doing it there, practically under Kim's nose—"

You're in the school basement again with the supplies. You and she are carving runes into a new pair of brain bands while the fake Will Prescott hunches in the corner with a car buffer, polishing the first of the two new masks you cast.

Sydney smiles briefly, and bends her head back over her work. "That's interesting," she says with patent insincerity, "but what's it got to do with what I was asking you?"

"Oh, I was just following a train of thought. She acts like she's got clean skirts, but—" You deflate when Sydney gives you another look. "I got in trouble— Amanda got in trouble," you correct yourself, "at the start of the year. It was out at the Warehouse. She got a little toasted— Oh, fuck that, she was krunked. And she grabbed hold of Laurent Delacroix and got his shirt off him and tried sucking his man-titties off him. Someone got a picture of her doing it, too, and posted it on x2z. Kelsey did her best to cover for Amanda, and isn't letting her forget it."

"Why, was there something wrong with her making out with Laurent?"

"She's got a boyfriend already. Technically. Tch. Theoretically."

Sydney's expression turns hooded with curiosity, so you expound on Amanda and Ricky, painting as unflattering a portrait of him as possible, and telling how she can barely tolerate him. So why are they going out? Sydney asks You shrug. "It was a thing that just happened, back in their sophomore year. They're in the same classes, their parents are friends, they hang out together. It just seemed natural at the time that they'd be going out, and Amanda, well—"

You make a face. Though you don't mind humiliating this girl that you're pretending to be, you still feel reined in by her own reticence and pride, and so don't want to say anything about how she was still self-conscious about being "chunky," and so was desperate to validate herself by getting a boyfriend, but couldn't imagine any of the really hot guys being interested in her.

You compromise by saying, "Amanda wanted to have a boyfriend before Kelsey or anyone else got one, so when she realized that Ricky was interested in her, she decided to go out with him. Be a couple. And now she's stuck. She can't break up with him for anyone else."

"Why not?"

"Come on, Sydney. It would be like admitting she made a mistake. Besides, there's no one else to dump him for."

"Not even Laurent?" Sydney smirks.

"Fuck, Amanda would push Ricky under a train to get to Laurent. But it's a fucking class thing. She'd have to dump Ricky for one of the other guys in her circle. For Anthony Kirk or Martin Gardinhire—"

Or Geoff Mansfield. Your heart thumps as you think of Geoff smiling at you.

"—or one of them. But that'd be fucked up, dumping your boyfriend for one of his friends."

"It happened all the time at my old school back in Kansas City."

"That's because your old school was full of tramps."

Sydney's head whips up. "What?"

"I'm channeling Amanda again. I don't mean it, Sydney. But that's what she'd say. It happens all the time at Westside, too. But it's a trash thing to do. And there's no one outside her circle who's good enough for her. So she's stuck."

Sydney's expression turns incredulous. "Who says there's no one outside her circle good enough?"

"Her and the people inside her circle. They're up here—" You raise your hand over your head. "And everyone else is somewhere down here." You lower your hand between your knees."

"So you're saying that Blake isn't her type?"

"Blake is totally her type, Sydney. Amanda would push Ricky under a train, then drag him over and throw him under a second train, to get to Blake."

"But if she's got a boyfriend—"

"I'm going to cause a scandal, Sydney." You crack your knuckles. "I'm going to put Amanda in the middle of the biggest fucking scandal Westside ever saw."

Next: "Girls with Plans" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"