The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

At Home as Maria Vasquez

Previously: "The Girl Who Wants to Be You" 

Hang out with Chelsea and her other friends? Funny to say, you really don't feel like doing that.

Or maybe it's Maria who doesn't feel like it. You work through your feelings—her feelings—on the slow drive back home.

Maria didn't try to become friends with Chelsea. (So you discover as you let her memories pulse and ebb through you, like the waves against the beach.) It just sort of happened, when they were in middle school. Chelsea was very popular with the boys even back then, for she had curves and sass and great, heaping clouds of blonde hair. Maria was also popular with the boys. But she didn't like the attention. She felt she was too skinny to be pretty, so why were they always getting up in her face and grinning at her? She vaguely felt like she was being picked on.

Maria kept mostly to herself back then, but Chelsea always had lots of friends around her, so it was harder for the guys to get in at her, and her friends could help her beat them back (when she wanted them beaten back). Then she and Maria shared a science class one semester, and they started hanging out more and more often after that. Until one day Maria looked around and realized that Chelsea friends were treating her exactly like she was one of them: someone who was part of Chelsea's group. And she found a little more protection inside it.

She still felt felt lonely, even in a crowd, but something about Chelsea also struck her as being lonely. She didn't seem able to relax with her friends; rather, she constantly pushing them into doing things, and into to finding more people to hang out with, as though she was afraid of quiet and solitude, and yet couldn't fill a fearful silence no matter how many distractions she surrounded herself with.

But maybe she learned to find something restful in Maria's silences. She took to inviting her for private time together, to prattle and chatter about this and that while checking her social sites and messages. Gradually she'd opened up, offering confidences that Maria had accepted even if she didn't quite understand. "I'm the goose girl," Chelsea once sighed, "and you're the stove." But Maria didn't ask what she meant by that.

But lately it's felt there's been a growing divide between her and Maria.

No, that's not true! But is it? Your fingers tighten on the steering wheel as you flinch under a sudden storm of conflicting emotions.

I like Chelsea. We're BFFs. Just last week she broke down crying and told me how scared she was about her and Gordon, how she didn't know if she was strong enough to help him with all the shit he has to go through with his family. We held each other, and I told her I'd always be there to help prop her up, and she started bawling all over again and told me how glad she was to have me for a friend!

And yet ...

That still doesn't stop her from calling you an airhead and a birdbrain at cheerleader practice. Oh, she's not mean about it. Well, not usually.

Except she has been meaner about it, it seems like. She looks angrier now when she calls you on your screw ups, and there's an edge to her insults where before there was a laugh.

She's feeling the pressure. That's what you overheard Gloria telling Kendra a week or so back, after Chelsea threw one particularly vicious tantrum, and Kendra had nodded back. That was odd, and you didn't like it. Kendra and Gloria don't like each other, and here they gossiping about Chelsea's problems. You thought about telling Chelsea what they said, but decided not to. It would feel weird—you don't like all the gossip that the other girls get up to—and it would make Chelsea feel bad.

Then you wondered if maybe, as her friend, you ought to tell her anyway even if it did make her feel bad.

And then you wondered why you were worried so much about such a thing. This sort of stuff didn't use to worry you before. So you did your best to forget about it completely.

You're halfway to the next town over before you realize that you got in the interstate without even realizing it, and have been heading west for the last twenty minutes.

* * * * *

"There's my princess!" your dad exclaims when he drags himself in through the front door at a little after six. You're setting the table and he still has to change out of his constricting business suit, but he stops long enough to take your hands, beam into your face, and give you a light hug.

You smile and hug him back. Even for Maria it feels awkward. But she is and always will be her daddy's little princess.

Bruno Vasquez is a mover and shaker in Saratoga Falls—an important property lawyer and a member of the school board—so they live in a big house in a tony subdivision less than a mile west of the country club. When you got home you spent a good few minutes looking over the two-room suite (bedroom plus a study/sitting room, with a private bathroom) that you have inherited from Maria. It takes up one whole corner of the second floor, and Maria more or less takes it for granted. For you, it's like having your own private apartment.

"How was practice today?" your mom asks when you're seated at the table and dropping heaping spoonfuls of a flavorful ratatouille onto your plates.

"It was fine." That's all Maria ever says when asked about almost anything at school.

"Is Chelsea settling in okay?"

"I guess."

"Are you going over to see her tonight?"

You pause with a forkful halfway to your mouth. You realize that you never did reply to Chelsea's texts this afternoon. "I don't think so. I've got lots of schoolwork tonight."

"That's my girl," your dad says. "Oh, I got a call from Jack Cheney this afternoon. He said they might have an opening soon at the museum. If you put in an application now you can probably get a position there. Pass the salt?" he asks your mom. "I can't imagine it's an onerous job. You'd probably have time even to do your homework there. And it would look good on a college application."

You feel your head sink. Not this conversation again. "I'd rather hold out for the animal shelter."

"I know, sweetheart. But I don't think there's going to be a job for you there, not before you graduate."

"I could just volunteer."

"We've talked about it, honey, and it's not that simple. You can't just show up and volunteer. They have to have something for you to do."

You suppress a sigh. "Okay, I'll think about the museum." After stabbing your food with a fork, though, you have to ask: "Which museum?"

"The railroad museum. Downtown, in the old train station?"

"Oh, right." You have a vague memory of him saying something about it before, but it didn't register with Maria.

* * * * *

In your bedroom, after dinner, you sit down at your desk with your math homework. You dread working on it—math has always been your worst subject—even though Maria only has good associations when she thinks of it. You're tempted to text her, to see how things are going at your house and how "your" first day at Salopek went (you have a suspicion about how it went, but you don't want to credit it), but you force yourself to open the math book instead.

But you're only seven problems in and marveling at how easy calculus can be when your phone buzzes with a text. You wince—thinking, Chelsea—and ask yourself how come you are so unhappy when only yesterday you would have shat yourself with excitement to get a text from her. But when you look over, you see the text is from "Will Prescott."

Can I kill your litl brothr pls? he asks.

You have to smile. Sure whats he done? you reply.

Got all in my shit *yor shit *yor stuff

Yeah he does that how was work

Rly good kind of scary yur dad mad I late but o well Then, while you're tapping a reply: btw u want good grade on math hwrk?

You make a face and erase the text you were typing. Sure

Dont fukc up my math pls ok?

I wont I'm getting all right answers for you

Cool. Again, you are caught in the middle of a long reply when Maria asks Can u do backflip or rutnies for practic tmorw?

Again, you erase what you wrote to say, Havent tried.

Maybe u shud n case we hav to swich back tmorw bfor school.

Brb. You set the phone down, stretch your back and shake out your limbs, then execute a flawless series of backflips. Did three perfect, you text back.

Son of a bitch I cant I bangd mysfef into wall lets swich back aftr school do whole day as each other.

You hesitate, then reply, Ok. You watch anxiously for a further reply, then push the phone away when it remains silent.

It makes sense, you tell yourself, that Maria wants to try a relatively anonymous day at school, as an anonymous guy and not a center-of-attention cheerleader.

It surely has nothing to do with going into Salopek again. Like, she only said she wanted to play you at school. She didn't say anything about playing you at Salopek.

But maybe you should text her, to see if that's what she wants to do?

At the very least, you could find out—as you meant to find out before you chickened out and erased those texts—if she enjoyed her time with Sean Mitchell.

The guy she has a secret crush on.

Next: "Maria's Crush" 

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