The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Just a Perfect Friendship

Previously: "Stuff That Comes Out of Storage" 

Back at Westside, Jack drops you off at your truck, but before you can take off, he pops out of his car long enough to ask where you're off to now. "We're gonna go hang out someplace, me and the girls," he says when you tell him you don't have plans. "Come along."

"Are we going to go find that Christian guy, ask him about the book?"

"We can do that."

You get in your truck and follow him back into town.

* * * * *

"So we wound up getting Vietnamese," you tell Caleb when you talk to him on the phone later that night, while you're procrastinating over your homework. You find that texts are a better method for avoiding homework—it takes longer to type than to talk, and you don't run out of distractions so quickly—but Caleb wanted to chat directly. "You ever had Vietnamese?" you ask. "It's like Thai, only disgusting."

"No, Will," Caleb replies in a very even tone. "I've never had Vietnamese. Was this before or after you went dancing?"

"We didn't go dancing, man! Jesus, it was five in the afternoon. I said we just stopped by the dance club. Legends. You know."

"No, I don't know. How was it? Did you dance with Jack?"

You've been trying to ignore his passive-aggressive baiting, but it's really beginning to grate. When you agreed to talk, you thought it was only so you could plan how to get into Mr. Walberg's desk tomorrow—Caleb said in his text that he failed to get into it this afternoon—but he did insist on asking what you did and who you spent it with instead of helping him.

"No, we didn't dance! Jack just wanted to hook up— Wanted to talk to a guy who works there," you say through gritted teeth. "We got comped a couple of drinks. Non-alcoholic, the cocksuckers. But we should go out there sometime," you add in what you hope is a mollifying tone. "It was nice, even all shut down."

"Just you and me?"

"Well, we'd take Keith along. And a couple of dates!" you add with a blush. "Elle and Laura sound like they've been a couple of times and liked it. We could meet up with them."

"And then you could break your date with them to go with someone else," Caleb says, "the same as you broke your date with me to go with—"

"Oh, Christ, I told you I'm sorry! I had to do a thing, and then it was too late to help you out so I went out and did some stuff with Jack and them because we were already hanging out! Are you seriously mad at me?"

"Oh no, I'm fine with it," Caleb retorts in a tone that makes it clear that he's anything but fine with it. "You only promised you'd help, but then the instant a cute gay guy flirts with you—"

You snap. "I was trying to get back a fucking book that my dad fucking asked me to fucking get back for him!" you yell. "It had nothing to do with—! Fuck you! We can try it again tomorrow, the fucking thing with Walberg!"

"Unless Jack finds you, asks if you wanna go see a movie together, just him and—"

You're distracted by the bang of a door in the hallway, followed by a sharp rat-tat-tat at your door. Before you can react, it pops open and your thirteen-year-old brother shoves his leering face into your room.

"If fucking Dad hears you fucking cursing," Robert says, "he's gonna fucking run up here and fuck you—"

He ducks back out with a giggle as you hurl your pillow at him, banging the door shut again.

"—start by holding hands and end up giving each other a mutual hand job," Caleb is saying when you raise your phone back to your ear.

"Yeah whatever. Just come find me at my locker after school tomorrow," you snarl at him, "so I don't forget again."

"You didn't forget, Will. You deliberately bailed on me."

"Whatever," you growl and close the line. "Asshole."

* * * * *

The passive-aggressive son of a bitch has done a pretty good job of dragging your mood down. You had a much better afternoon with Jack and the two girls than you've had in awhile, and it makes you wonder why you don't hang out with him and his crowd instead of with Caleb and Keith.

After leaving the school, Jack drove you all out to a frisbee-golf park where you played a few rounds while filming each other on your cell phones, and as Jack tried rounding up some more people. He couldn't get anyone else, though, so after driving back over to the east side of town he stopped at the Legends Dance Club to see someone. (They were testing out the sound system, so despite what you told Caleb, you did get to dance with Laura and Elle both, and they with each other, while Jack took care of whatever business he had.) After that, you went up the street to a Vietnamese restaurant. Jack paid for yours, which was good, because whatever it was he ordered for you, it was like eating cold, slimy worms. But you had fun with the company.

Laura and Elle both paid a lot of attention to you, and though you half confess to yourself that it was at least partially because the other guy in your group was gay, you flatter yourself that you were pretty fun and charming. It wasn't hard to be, maybe, because it did seem like the girls were competing for your attention. Elle cut in on Laura when you were dancing at Legends, for instance. But Laura got some of her own back at the Vietnamese place by helping you invent more and more hilarious and disgusting names for the stuff you were eating, and Jack had to call a halt to the contest after Laura said she hoped your meal wouldn't give you the "Saigon Slithers" when it came out the other end the next day. You got the contact information for both girls (and for Jack, too) and you got the strong impression that both of them would be looking for you at school the next day.

But it's Jack you go looking for when Thursday dawns, for amidst all the fun, you never managed to get in touch with the guy you sold that book to.

Jack is in the library again when you check for him at lunch, at a table with two other guys and a girl, with books spread around. His expression brightens when he sees you coming over. "Hey," you say to him. "Did you talk to that Christian guy?"

Jack's eyes widen slightly over his smile. "Which Christian?" he asks. "What denomination?"

"What? The drama guy you sold my book to."

Jack stares back, then laughs. "Oh!" he exclaims. "Christian! Yeah, this morning, I forgot to text you about it." He winces. "He can't find it."

"What?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry, man. I asked him this morning, and he went looking, said he knew exactly where he put it. Backstage. But it's gone from there."

"Shit! Does he know where it went?"

Jack gives you a look. "If he knew where it was, he'd go find it for us."

"What's this?" asks one of the guys. He's a trim fucker with a narrow, handsome face under a lush head of dark hair. You instantly take a dislike to him, for he reminds you of Geoff Mansfield. "You guys lose something?"

"A book," Jack tells his friend. "Will sold it but he wants to buy it back."

"Bummer," says the other guy. Unlike Jack and his other one, who are neatly coiffed and turned out, this guy's brown hair explodes in a giant bouffant, like a Troll doll's. It doesn't look gelled, and you distractedly wonder how it manages to hold its shape, like a tumbleweed atop his head. You've seen that great mane of hair around in the halls before, but you haven't got a name to attach to the guy. "Maybe he says he can't find it," he suggests, "'cos he doesn't want to sell it back?" He gives you a narrow, mischievous smile.

You look at Jack.

"No, Christian wouldn't be an asshole that way," he says. But then his gaze goes distant. "I can see Charles pulling a shit move like that, but not—"

"Was it valuable?" asks the girl. She has a round face, and something about her well-scrubbed appearance, and the way she's sitting up very straight, makes you think "band girl" for some reason.

"The guy paid me eighty bucks for it," you tell her. "I don't know how valuable it really is."

"Which reminds me," Jack says as he lifts his ass to take out his wallet. He pulls out a twenty and a five, which hands over to you. "Your share of the profits of the sale the other day."

"You comped me dinner last night," you protest even as you extend a hand to take the money.

"Yes," Jack says in a very dry tone. "And the entertainment was worth it." He presses the cash into your hand. "Sorry we couldn't get your book back, but I'll tell Christian to keep looking. If he can't find it, well, are we square financially?"

You accede with a shrug. Later that night, you tell your dad you weren't able to get the book back because the guy you sold it to lost it. He makes a face, but dismisses the matter.

* * * * *

At least you seem to have come out the other side of the business with some new friends. Some of them seem quite eager to get to know you better. Elle doesn't wait for you to ask her out, but instead asks you out.

Well, indirectly.

Because it's your old girlfriend, Lisa Yarborough, who asks if you'd like to go do something with her and Geoff Mansfield, with Elle as your date for the evening.

Next: "Some Romantic Backstory" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"