The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Of Two Minds About Almost Everything

Previously: "Schools of Fishiness" 

It is sweet that David thought to rescue you from Sarah and her friends, so you thank him with a smile. "But I've got some errands I have to run after school anyway," you add.

"Yeah?" His eyebrows go up. "Like what? Anything I can help out with?"

"No, just running around."

He tenses, and you tense too, waiting for him to offer to tag along. Don't ask me, you silently plead. I know you're trying to work up your courage. But don't. Please.

He sags, then looks up to give you a sad, shy smile. "Well, maybe tonight we could get together," he says. "I mean, you, me, Matt, Kevin. Caleb."

"I'll have to see," you tell him. "My mom's being weird."

You swing back around in your seat. That God he's as much of a coward with girls as I am, you think.

* * * * *

But is it what you really think? On the drive out to Acheson afterschool, you feel a growing sense of disappointment at David's failure to pursue Dana.

No, it's not that you regret his hand not being in yours. It's pretty clear you can have that any time you want it—and you don't. No, the regret comes at seeing the guy fail the same way you've felt yourself fail with girls so many times before.

Lisa was your first girlfriend (and God willing won't be your last), but she's not the first girl you've harbored feelings or hopes for, and she wasn't the first that you'd ever felt like you might have a chance with. You had a crush on Rachel Burton your sophomore year; and when you were partnered with Meghan Farris on an English project your junior year, you had the distinct impression that she was interested in you, and you toyed with trying to start something with her.

The one that got away, though, was Julia Watson. She was another crush your sophomore year. Okay, "crush" puts it a little too strongly. But you liked everything about her, from her coppery hair and bright green eyes, to the tight blouses she wore that showed off her plump, mango-shaped breasts. And yes, you liked her personality, which was smart and peppery without being mean. She was friendly with you too, and her eyes would light up and she'd smirk a Hey Will, how's it hanging? at you when you bounced up beside her in the hallways.

And she did seek you out, once. It was during a charity drive—she was taking theater classes, and they were doing a fundraiser thing—and she asked you to go with her and Chris Love to canvas a couple of neighborhoods for canned-goods donations. You figured that she'd be more interested in Chris, who was a soccer player with bouncy blonde hair and a wide, white smile; but then Chris invited another girl along. Julia didn't seem to mind that, and she was the one who suggested splitting your quartet into two twosomes so as to cover more ground, and it was you and her who went off together. She didn't say or do anything that seemed to hold out hope that there might be more between you. But you thought about it afterward, and decided to try asking her out again on ... Okay, it wouldn't have been a date. Just a you-and-her study session.

But she had something else going on.

And you never asked her again.

Then of course she moved away last Christmas, so it wasn't to have been, anyway. Still, maybe it was a memory of that missed opportunity—anger with yourself at having crumpled so quickly in the face of what probably wasn't even intended as a snub—that led you persist with Lisa over the summer.

Okay, it's not like that worked out either. You blow a bang out of your face with a heavy sigh.

Anyway, all of that is why you can't help sympathizing with David and his inability to handle his crush on Dana, and why you find yourself wishing he had pressed himself on you a little harder. He wouldn't have gotten anyplace. But you'd have wanted to high-five him for his effort.

* * * * *

So preoccupied are you with that you overshoot your turn and have to come back around again into Acheson. A lank, straw-headed kid is idly bouncing a basketball in the driveway of your old house when you pull up to the curb. "Hey Will!" you shout to him through the open window of the car. "Come hang out with me?"

He rolls his eyes and tosses the basketball back into the open garage, where it knocks something over with a loud clatter. You unlock the passenger-side door as he trots over to hop in. "Thing is in the side-pocket of my bag," you tell him as you pull back into the street.

"Tell me again why you need my help?" he says.

"Because I don't want Lisa knowing I had anything to do with it."

He gives you a sidelong look. "This isn't our Lisa, is it?"

"No! It's Dana's. Lisa Rickover. She goes to Eastman."

"Is she hot?" he asks as he takes out and examines the new memory-strip.

"No. She's a friggin' busybody, is what she is. It's why I don't care if it works on her or doesn't."

Lisa's sedan is already parked in the street by the elementary school, and you point it out to your double before cutting down another street to let him out.

"Just slap it on her forehead," you tell him as he gets out, "then hang with her until it's done doing whatever it's supposed to do. Then bring it back here."

"We gonna hang out after?" He leers at you.

Jesus, I hope I never gave that look to any girl, you think. "No," you tell him. Then: "You got any news about Caleb or Chelsea?"

"Oh, yeah." He smirks.

You sigh. "Then send me an email." You give him Dana's school address. "I'm gonna have to go hang out with Lisa after you're done with her."

"Our Lisa?" he asks. "Or—?"

"Just get going!" You lean over to yank the door closed on him.

* * * * *

It's fifteen minutes before he returns, and he has a frown on his face. Your pulse quickens with worry as he trudges up. But there's no bad news, it turns out. He got the memory strip, and everything went as usual. He's only puzzled that Lisa's name glows a ruby-red rather than the sapphire-blue that the other memory strips do. You tell him it's a new kind of memory strip and not to worry about it. Maybe he takes your injunction a little too much to heart, for his brow clears up instantly, and he flirts with you one more time for you chase him off.

Then you drive around the block and park behind Lisa.

You have to tap at her window a couple of times before, with a furrowed brow she opens her eyes. She blinks stupidly, then sits up with an alarmed expression on her face. "Jesus!" she exclaims at you through the window.

"Caught you napping?" you ask.

"No, I—" But she doesn't know how to finish that sentence, and impatiently gestures you around to get in the car with her.

What happened to that weirdo, she is clearly wondering as you settle in beside her, and what happened to me? But she only says, "So what's up, Dana? What's with the secret rendezvous?"

She sounds impatient, even angry, so you don't waste a lot of time. (Not that you want to; the "thing" you texted her about right after school was only a set up for the just-concluded ambush.) You show her those pictures from the Warehouse that Melissa was worried about, and tell her the story, and ask on Melissa's behalf if there's talk about going around school about her and Adam. Lisa just grunts and tells you that sure, some people are bound to be talking about them, but it doesn't seem very interesting. She sighs impatiently when you beg her to keep the thing under wraps for Melissa's benefit.

She does have a stinger for you: "You like to dress comfortable after school, don't you?"

"Pardon?"

Her lips twist into a satirical smirk. "You changed your clothes."

You glance down at the sweatpants and overlarge t-shirt you changed into right after school. "Oh. Yeah." You can tell by the look she's giving you that she's still speculating about how and why you were dressed up at school the way you were. You do your best to ignore it, even though you feel yourself flushing. "Well, thanks for coming out to talk to me," you stammer. She only says "Pfuh" and takes out her cell phone. You've got that tingling feeling in your feet as you walk back to your car, and you imagine Lisa's eyes boring into the back of your head. She's still parked as you drive off.

But you don't drive far, and pull into an alley a couple of blocks away, parking behind a trash dumpster. After glancing around to confirm that there's no one around, you clamber into the back seat, kick off your shoes, and pry Dana's mask from your face.

* * * * *

You're disoriented when you wake—of course you are, you're hopping in and out of other people's bodies and brains!—and it takes you a moment of confusion before you place yourself. Your heart is in your throat as you study your fingers—they seem very knobby in comparison to Dana's—and gingerly grope the rest of your body to confirm that all the important bits are in place again. (They are.) You flinch as you check yourself out in Dana's phone, but though your face is bonier and hairier than her, it's a relief to see that familiar, straw-headed chucklebrain grinning back at you with a snaggle-toothed smile.

You take a few more minutes to catch your breath before picking that memory strip back up again. Lisa Rickover's name blazes up at you.

But now that it's come to the point: Maybe instead of putting it on yourself, you should continue to experiment by putting it on someone else.

Next: "Who Comes Here?" 

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