The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Triangle with Two Identical Corners

Previously: "Secret Boyfriend" 

You don't say anything more to Mike about your worries, but when you wake up the next morning you realize that you have every intention of busting up Kelsey Blankenship (both the real one the fake one) with Karl Hennepin.

How you're going to manage it, of course, is another matter entirely.

But even before you get to school, you discover that the universe has decided to make it as tough as possible for you.

* * * * *

"Hey," Sienna says as she leaps into your car. "I've been thinking about what we were talking about yesterday, about Karl."

"Good morning to you too," you retort as you pull out into the street, narrowly dodging the homeless meth addict loitering in front of Sienna's apartment building.

"How well do you know Karl?" she continues.

"Karl?" You grip the steering wheel more tightly. "I know him to talk to."

"But don't you know him better than that?" she pleads. "You're both into art. Sculptures and stuff."

"How do you know he's into art?"

"What? Oh." Sienna flinches. "Well, I've seen his stuff," she stammers. "He brought a piece in to school last year? I think? I know I saw him with something or other. Don't you have a class with him or something? You're taking, like, fifty art classes this year."

"Where are you going with this, Sienna?" you ask, as if you didn't know.

She grabs you by the upper arm.

"I want to go out with him," she tells you. "Friday night," she hurriedly adds. "I want to go out with him someplace. I was hoping you could talk me up to him?" Her fingers tighten about your arm like she's trying to pinch it off.

"Well, first of all, Sienna," you reply through your grimace, "I don't know him that well. Not, like, well enough that I can 'talk you up', like my opinion would mean anything to him. And second of all—" You try twisting out of her grip, but she's got her fingernails in you. "You should be doing the asking yourself. You know? And since when do you have trouble talking to guys?"

"Karl's not just any guy," she protests. "He's, like, I dunno." Finally she releases you, and hunches up in her side of the car. "Okay, he's better than anyone else I've tried going out with," she blurts out.

Maria's words from yesterday come back to you: Chelsea says that Kelsey thinks she's slumming with Karl. So what does it say about Kelsey's opinion of Sienna, that she's fallen from a world where going with Karl is "slumming," to one where he's too good for her?

For a moment you are insulted on Sienna's behalf. But then you decide that this is something you can use.

"Well, I've been thinking about Karl too," you tell her, "and I'm not sure it's a good idea to try going out with him."

Sienna bristles. "Why not?"

"Because—"

But the phrase Like you said, you're too low-class for him, now that you've come to it, refuse to form in your mouth. As a desperate expedient, you make a detour. "He's not available," you say.

"What?"

"I started asking around about him," you improvise. "After you went home. I started calling around, asking people about him." You take your eyes off the traffic long enough to give her a direct look. "He's got a girlfriend, Sienna."

Sienna makes a noise in the back of her throat. Then she says, through frozen lips, "No he doesn't."

"Yes he does. I mean, it's not—"

"I haven't heard anyone talk about him having a girlfriend," she exclaims in a shrill tone. "I haven't seen him around with anyone. And this isn't like some sudden thing I just suddenly decided," she adds in a rush. "I've, well—" She swallows. "I've had kind of a crush on him for awhile now," she stammers, "and—"

"He's going out with Kelsey Blankenship," you blurt. "They're going out together," you add into the numb silence that Sienna returns.

After a long moment, Sienna says, "Who told you that?"

"Maria Vasquez," you reply after running through about five hundred other possible names in your head before settling on the truth. "I was talking to her after class yesterday, and she said something that made me wonder, so after you and I talked, I called her back and—"

"Maria Vasquez?" Sienna exclaims. "That fucking airhead? How the fuck could she know what she's talking about?"

"She said she heard it from Chelsea Cooper."

The click in Sienna's throat as she swallows is loud enough to sound like a gun cocking.

"She said that Kelsey and Karl are going out, but that Kelsey is trying to keep it a secret. She said—" You hesitate, then pound in the nail: "She said they're doing it in cheap motel rooms."

Sienna gapes, then wheels with her arms crossed to stare out the passenger-side window. You let her steam against it for a moment before continuing, softly: "If it's that serious between them, Sienna, I don't think—"

"If it's serious between them," she snarls, "why is Kelsey keeping it a secret? I mean, if they're going to motel rooms, and that's all, then it just sounds like they're, you know—" She chokes on the phrase before forcing it out. "Fuck buddies." A hard shudder runs through her, and she hunches up even tighter in her seat.

"Well, if that's true," you start to say without knowing how to finish the sentence.

But Sienna finishes it for you. "If that's true," she says in a rush, "then I can ask him out, can't I? There's nothing stopping me. Maybe he's ready for a change." She sniffs hard, and it staggers you to realize that she's on the verge of bursting into tears. "Anyway, if I don't know that he's going out with— with anyone—" Again, she sniffs. "Then he shouldn't be surprised if I ask him. And, like, what's the worst that can happen? He'll just tell me he's seeing— someone already—" She breaks off before she can totally lose it.

"Yeah, but what if Kelsey finds out you asked him? I get the impression she's pretty goddamn possessive, Sienna. If she caught you trying to take her boyfriend away, even if he's just her fuck buddy, well, it might be like trying to take a chew toy away from a Doberman."

You have to fight to keep from smiling. It feels so good to tell Kelsey to her (false) face that she's a grasping bitch.

She freezes you out for the rest of the drive, and doesn't even look at you after you park and get out to go into the school.

* * * * *

But that's not the only curveball the universe throws at you. At the beginning of fourth period, as you're shoving your way through the crowded hallway toward your home ec class, you look up to see Kelsey Blankenship herself (well, the facsimile) loitering at the classroom door. She looks directly at you, and smiles.

"Hey, Fatima," she says with lazy insouciance. "I was waiting for you."

"Hi, Kelsey," you return. You're not even sure that Kelsey is supposed to know who Fatima is. "What's up?"

She leans against the door jamb, and tosses her long, brunette hair so that it cascades down her back. She's dressed in white today: a short, snowy, pleated skirt whose hem bounces off the middle of her thighs, and a sleeveless top that's closer to the color of parchment. You can't help but notice how dark her limbs are, darker than they should for mid-October. She must be putting herself under a sun lamp or something.

"I wanted to hang out with you this period," she says. "I've got study hall."

"I've got class." You glance into the home ec room in order to emphasize the point.

"Tch. It's just a food class, right? You can skip." She reaches out to tweak a lock of your hair. "I want us to start hanging out, you know." She gives you an admiring glance up and down. "You're so stylish, Fatima."

Would Fatima skip Ms. Duggan's Food Preparation class to hang out with Kelsey? You're not sure what the real girl would do, but you've got your own reasons for saying "Yes."

So you follow her into the library, curious to see what Sienna Goldman, in the guise of Kelsey Blankenship, has to say to her best friend.

The answer, it turns out, is "Not much." It's an awkward hour that passes, monopolized by Kelsey as she asks you lots of questions about yourself and squeals over the answers, and prattles about how cool you are and why is that you haven't hung out very much before? "You have to come out to my place next Saturday," she tells you. "I have a party every Saturday, you know, just a little thing where me and all my friends can hang out." She grasps you by the arm. "You need to come, you'd fit in so perfect."

It doesn't help that you have to endure all this in the company of your ex-girlfriend, Lisa Yarborough, who is sharing her study hall with Kelsey.

But the capper comes when the hour is finally over, and you all get up to go to lunch. "I'd ask you to come with," Kelsey says. "Oh, but Lisa, you can take Fatima in with you to the cafeteria, right?" Lisa nods. Kelsey puts her hand on your arm. "Only, I'm going off today to be with my S. O."

"Your S. O.?" you echo as your heart plunges.

"Karl Hennepin," she says.

* * * * *

And that just about tears it. When Maria asks you after school if you'd be up for taking a third beta, you're sorely tempted to give him the name of a girl you can use to seduce Karl away from Kelsey and Sienna.

Next: "The Trouble with Karl" 

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