The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Dancing Around the Issues

Previously: "Bets and Bluffs" 

It's nearly ten-thirty when Marc does show up at the dance club, which gave you plenty of time to feel smug at Wendy's expense. You had a blast in the meantime, shuffling between the dance floor and the booth where you and your guys were hanging out.

Not that Wendy was paying much attention to you. And she probably couldn't have read your expression, what with all the pastel lighting—purples and pinks and greens—that flash and float around the room.

Legends is one of the two main nightclubs where high school students like to hang out. Of the two, Legends is definitely the "safe" one: a well-lit space with plenty of burly bouncers, a huge dance floor, lots of places to sit, and a bar where you get carded every time you go up to order a drink. Mostly—judging by the kind of people you see there—it caters to young adults out on casual, non-threatening first dates, but it's also a good place for seniors and juniors like you and your friends.

Not that you—and Brianna and Genesis and Susie; and Jack and Parker and Wendy and Kristina; and others who have shown up—are shy about going out to the Warehouse, where you're not unlikely to get caught in a fistfight. But sometimes you just want to take it easy and relax without running the risk of going home with someone else's vomit dripping down the front of your blouse.

Not that Legends is itself completely safe.

"Gawd, creepy guy in the back table," Philippa Hosford moans as she drops into the booth with a couple of wine coolers for her and Genesis. "He keeps staring over here."

You poke Jack. "Is he the guy you asked out?"

"No!" Philippa answers for him with a shudder. "It's some pervy guy, just out of college, it looks like."

You glance past Philippa's ear, but can't really make out who she's talking about. "You keep saying he's not here yet," you needle Jack as you take one of the coolers. "Are you sure you asked him out?"

"Sure I did." He hasn't been in a talkative mood, but has been chilling in the corner all evening, grooving to the music behind half-closed eyes.

"Dance with me," you challenge him, for in the hour since you've arrived he still hasn't been out on the floor. But he just grunts, though he does stir himself enough to reach out and take one of the coolers for himself.

"God, you are so gay!" Cindy exclaims. Your colleague, who arrived only fifteen minutes ago, is sitting on the other side of him. "If Seth was here, he wouldn't be able to stand it."

There's an icy silence, ended when Parker says, "Then it's a good thing you said he's not showing up."

Cindy grabs the cooler from Jack's lips. "I wanna dance," she tells him. "Leah tells me you're the best dancer in the school. Show me."

"I don't gotta show you anything," Jack grunts.

"Show me you're a better dancer than Seth. Which isn't hard." She pulls at him, but he's immovable. "Come on. I wanna dance, and I want it to be with someone who isn't going to grab my ass or fondle my boobs!"

The tension at the table is thick and slimy, and it makes you skin crawl. It's Parker again who breaks it.

"Come on," he says, getting creakily to his feet. He plucks at Cindy. "I won't fondle you, I promise."

Cindy clucks her tongue, but humps and scoots out of the booth to follow him onto the floor. Your company—except for Genesis and Susie, who have been engrossed with their cell phones for the past hour—watch as they start to dance. Parker has some good moves, and Cindy has a cheerleader's gracefulness, but they are very stiff.

"Thank you so much," Brianna hisses at you, "for inviting her out here!"

"I didn't think she'd come! Anyway, I didn't invite her! I just bumped into her and mentioned a bunch of us were coming out here tonight!"

"Why would you even do that?"

"I'm sorry! I told you, I didn't think she'd—"

A thought seizes you, and you whirl on Jack. "You said you invited your guy out here, right?"

"That's what I told you, about a hundred times now, every time you ask me."

"Did he say 'yes' or did he say 'no'?"

With the lights playing over his face, it's hard to read the subtleties of his expression, but you think his eyes shift ever so slightly. "He didn't say anything."

You groan.

"Is that how come you're sulking? You've been sulking ever since we got here. You think you blew it with him by asking?"

Jack picks up the cooler and drains it in one long chug, then sets the empty bottle back onto the table with a hard tap.

"It's just embarrassing," he says, "watching Parker flail around out there." He starts pushing his way out of the booth. "He's trying way too hard to not get close to Cindy."

Your chest tightens as he trudges out onto the floor, where Parker and Cindy are dancing with what might as well be a hundred yards of empty air between them, and dark spots start to dance in front of your eyes.

Gordon Black, in the body of a gay Chinese guy, is going out to dance with the girlfriend of one of his basketball teammates.

Jack lays a gentle hand on Parker's shoulder, and pushes him away. Cindy stops cold and stares with her mouth hanging open. You chortle inwardly. Tilley just had his bluff called!

You've Leah's memories of all the times she's been out at a club or at a party with Jack, so it shouldn't be a surprise when he busts out his moves on Cindy. But somehow it is.

He starts with a basic, fast shuffle, feet cutting in and out and around each other, bouncing from ball to heel inside a small square of floor space while keeping his torso rigid and holding his arms out for balance. But as he works, he slowly layers in more complexity, kicking in extra jumps and shuffles, his feet whirling and whorling like living things that have nothing to do with the rest of his body. And when the rest of him comes alive—his back bending and arching from side to side, his arms lathing the air like boneless serpents—it's like two people doing two different dances in one body, one working the hips up and the other from the hips down.

Cindy only stands and gapes, and turns slowly in a circle as he starts to orbit her. Otherwise she is rooted, even as Jack mimes hurling a lasso over her, then mimes pulling himself to her, hand over hand, on an invisible rope, his feet kicking furiously at the empty air beside her ankles. He works his way up to her, chops at the air around her head with blade-like hands, then rests them on her hips while pumping in place. How he manages to keep from knocking her feet out from under her as he kicks and grinds while holding her so close, you have no idea.

"Whoa!"

The voice in your ear startles you, and you nearly come out of your seat when you look over to find that Marc Garner has dropped down next to you. He is staring, rapt, at Jack and Cindy, his eyes shining with admiration. "How do you learn to dance like that?"

"Like Jack?" you shout at him over thumping music that has suddenly surged in volume. Now that you've taken your eyes off Jack, you notice that the rest of the dance floor has stopped, and everyone is watching him. "You practice since you were, like, five years old!"

"He could be the world's greatest hacky-sack player!"

You glance past Marc to see that his girlfriend, Hannah Westrick, has plopped into the booth on the other side of him. She's watching Jack too, though she doesn't look like she's into it as much as her boyfriend.

Then you have to look over at Wendy. She is leaning back in her seat, arms folded, openly smirking at you.

"Toldja it was Marc," she gloats when she follows you into the girls' room a little later. You had to splash some water on your face because you felt hot and exhausted just watching Jack out there on the floor.

* * * * *

But you wouldn't have lost the bet anyway, because the next day, when you talk to Jack, he tells you that it wasn't Marc he invited out. My guy didnt show, he texts back when you message him.

That's convenient! you think, but you reply, Poor jack! and ask if you can meet up. He says he'll be happy to see you, if you make the fourth in a game of doubles he's trying to set up for five o'clock. I'm rotten at tennis, you remind him, to which he replies, Thats y I put u with Parker.

That lodges you in the cleft of a decision, for you also woke to a second text, this one from Cindy, saying that Fairfax wants to meet with you and her. You put off replying until you'd texted Jack, and you're glad you did, because now you've got an excuse to blow off that business meeting.

Next: "A Double Game of Doubles" 

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