The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Taking a Chance on a Game of Skill

Previously: "Mini-Golf and Many Girls" 

(With an assist by Masktrix.)

"We’ll have another round," you tell Roxanne.

She lifts an eyebrow. "Desperate for that giant Toblerone, huh?"

"What giant Toblerone?"

Her expression fades as she takes your money. "The one you win if you get a hole-in-one on the Crazy Windmill."

"Oh. Yeah, something like that." You nod desperately as she hands you three putters.

Caleb does a double-take as you run up to join him and Keith at the Galaga machine. "What's going on?" he says. "We're playing again?" He staggers back a step as you thrust a putter at him. "It's dead here," he protests, "just old Tiger Woods and—"

"That's what makes it perfect," you blurt out. "No distractions!"

"Oh, there's distractions alright," Keith says. He's gazing out the window onto the course.

"I wasn't consulted about this!" Caleb hollers. "I'm not paying for another—"

"Shut up, dumbass." Keith slaps him on the back of the head. "Will's paying for your game. Aren't you, Will?"

It'll use up the last of your cash reserves, but you nod and hop on the balls of your feet.

"That's right," Keith says as Caleb looks thunderstruck. "Because he's not paying for your game, Johansson. He's paying for one of his own."

The girls are still on the first tee as you dash out onto the course, and the brunette one—Mary? Was that her name?—is lining up her first putt as you come bursting out onto the course. "Hey ladies!" you shout. "Fancy a game?"

All three girls look over at you in surprise, but none of them say anything.

"What I mean is," you pant, "do you want to play us?" You point to yourself and back at Caleb and Keith, who are following at a more stately pace.

Now the three girls exchange startled glances. "You mean us against you guys?" the red-head says.

"Right. Team play. Winner takes all."

"Winner takes what?" Mary demands.

"Er—" Sweat pops out all over your body. Why the hell did you gallop out here without a plan? "Name your price," you reply with wide, terrified grin.

Behind you, Caleb mutters, "The fuck are you doing, man?" while Mary's friends look skeptical. But Mary gives you a long look up and down. Much longer than the one she gave you inside, when she called you "cute."

Finally, she turns a wide, beaming smile on you.

"Okay," she says. "We'll name our prices at the end."

"The end?"

"End of the game. Winner names their price then."

For a long moment you hesitate. Dare you sign a blank check with this girl you've never met?

But then you lock onto her face, and the expression of impudent challenge on it.

"Okay," you reply. "Deal."

* * * * *

The game gets off to a bad start for you and your friends. Mary sinks the very first putt, and each of her friends sinks theirs in two strokes, while you and Caleb need three putts and Keith needs four. Mary sinks her first putt on the second hole as well, banking off a corner where a direct shot isn't possible. By the time you reach the first serious obstacle—a fiberglass goose straddling the hole—you and your friends are twenty-one strokes behind.

You try making up for it with a lot inane, friendly chatter. You ask the girls their names and confirm that, like Roxanne inside, they attend the St. Francis Xavier School. All of them board there, and none of them are locals. Mary is from Connecticut, and Jocelyn (the red-head, who goes by "J. M.") and Corinne both hail from California. All three are on scholarships and all three, though they affect to pretend it's no big deal, have money.

As for their personalities ...

Mary is the leader, and there is something imperious about her manner. Napoleonic, even, for she is very short, with the crown of her head hardly reaching your chin. She has a babyish face under a high forehead, framed by long, dark hair that's parted in the middle. Her manner is brisk and a little snappish, but she laughs easily. Unfortunately she is mostly amused by the bad putts you and Keith are especially prone to make.

J. M. is a lot nicer, but she's also a lot more reserved. She is tall and slender, with a sharp nose and dark red hair that drapes down to her shoulders. She fidgets and doesn't meet your eye when talking to you, and though she doesn't laugh the way Mary does when you take a bad shot, her reaction is somehow even worse. She looks like she's embarrassed for you.

The last girl is a blonde who also wears her hair in long, straight sheets. She's the quietest of the bunch, and plays a very serious game of putt-putt with all her concentration on the ball. But she listens very directly when you or Keith have something to say, and when she laughs—showing big horse teeth—she sounds genuinely delighted by your wit.

"Hole in one!" you exclaim when Corinne's yellow ball slips between the rotating blades of the Crazy Windmill. "You win a Toblerone!"

"A what?"

"Um, it's a prize," you stammer, for you've no idea what a Toblerone is, or even if you're saying it right. "Tell Roxanne when you go in. Hole-in-one on the Crazy Windmill."

"I've been meaning to ask you," Mary says as she concentrates on her first putt, "how you know Roxanne."

"Well, I don't," you confess. "Just met her today. Before you guys came in."

"She's non-binary, you know," Mary says, and gently taps her ball.

"She's what?" you exclaim.

"It's a prize," Mary says. She gives you a lazy smirk and doesn't even look over to watch as her ball sails between two blades to drop into the hole. "Dating Roxanne is like getting a two-fer. One in the hand and one in the bush, if you're bi-curious yourself."

"Jesus, man," Caleb mutters in your ear as you gape at Mary. "Are we done here?"

"Hey, I made a bet," you mutter back, "and I'm gonna stick to it."

"You don't have a chance."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Keith explained it to me while you were pounding your chances to pulp back there on the mushroom course. Are you saying I have to explain it to you?"

You turn a burning face on Tilley. He grins like an idiot before looking away.

By the time you reach the turn at the eleventh hole—where you have to loft your ball over a hazard of running water—you have to concede that there's no hope for your team. But that doesn't mean there's no hope for you. Mary did call you "cute," and though it's a desperate hope you do hold out on the chance that Mary will claim your honor and virtue as her prize. Of course, you'd much rather claim hers as the fruits of your own victory. But as your fifth putt bounces off the monkey's butt on the fourteenth hole, and rolls off into the far corner, you decide you'd be happy just getting your hair mussed and your collar crooked, no matter who won the bet.

"Girls," Mary declares after sinking her last putt on the eighteenth hole—your teams have long since ceased to keep track of the score—"we have met the enemy and they are ours. What are we going to do with them?"

Caleb stands stiffly under Mary's speculative gaze with the resigned air of a dog that expects to be smacked on the nose. Keith stares back with a dopey expression on his face. J. M. looks embarrassed, and Corinne only looks puzzled. You're just glad you can't see your own face. From the way your cheeks are aching, you'd guess your mouth is curled up in a ghastly grin of shame and humiliation.

J. M. mutters something at Mary, who shakes her head. "No, a deal is a deal," she says. "We won fair and square. Tell you what," she says, addressing you and your friends. "You guys have fake IDs, right?"

"Um ..."

"Oh, fuck me, don't tell me you don't." For the first time, Mary looks really disgusted by you.

Keith puts up his hand. "I do." You swing on him surprise. "Hey, I do! One of us has to be ready to carry your lazy asses!"

"Okay, you know where Xavier's is?" Mary says. "Well, we got busted for carrying contraband in a week ago, and we're getting searched when we come back. So I'm going to give you guys a drink order," she says as she takes out her cell phone, "and you're going to smuggle it in for us."

"Holy shit!" Caleb exclaims. Keith's jaw drops.

You must also look shocked, for Mary gives you a narrow frown. "You're not going to welsh on me, are you, Will?"

"Uh—"

"I ain't helpin' you with this!" Caleb declares. "I didn't sign up for this bullshit game. I didn't even pay for my own!" He stalks off toward the annex, and a moment later Keith hops after him.

"Let 'em go, Will," Mary tells you. "What I was going to add was, I'll give you the money and you just have to carry it in. But hidden, you know. I'll even tell you how to get it in. And afterward—"

She puts her hand on her hip, and grins up at you.

"We're having a Saturday night party, and you're invited!"

Next: "Liquored Up With Somewhere to Go" 

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