The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Games That Girls Play

Previously: "Of Hearts That Suffer" 

You feel like you don't know this girl well enough to argue with her, so you let her vent, and content yourself with nudging her with questions about Gillian and Braydon.

Questions like: "So how did they hook up?"

Natalie snorts. "Hook up?" she echoes. "He put a spell on her."

"What?"

"I'm joking. Prob'ly it was at a party. I don't even remember when I first met him. You notice that about him, right? Even though he's such a creep, he just sort of slithers around in the background."

You allow that Braydon Delp doesn't really jump around and draw attention to himself.

"Oh, doesn't he?" she sneers. "What do you think all that freaking jewelry is about, and that mascara? He's a total whore for attention. Just in a bad way. Oh God!" she groans. "I probably sound like a total bitch." She hops off the table. "Wanna go get something to eat? I'm hungry, and it's making me hangry."

So you offer to take her to get a bite. "Don't forget your book and your art project," she reminds you, and it is a little embarrassing to have to turn around and fetch them off the table.

* * * * *

You wind up at Taco Famoso, which is an infamously bad Mexican fast-food place, but is really cheap and you're on a very tight budget since blowing most of your savings on the the stuff to make that mask. At least the flat tacos are semi-edible, and Natalie seems not to notice or care about the shitty quality as she munches down on hers. Over the meal and on the drive out she told you a little more about Braydon and Gillian.

She and Gillian used to hang out a lot, even though they went to different schools. They would meet up at Catherine Muskov's house after school—this was back when Catherine went to Eastman, before she moved to Westside—and do homework and talk, then either go home or (if it was a Friday) go out to a party.

(There came a lengthy digression at this point when Natalie asked if you were ever out at the Warehouse, the kids-only all-weekend rave in the decrepit and dangerous industrial section of the city. You lied and told her that you were sometimes out there, and so she talked to you knowingly about some of the creeps and cretins out there, sharing about how she'd had to kick some guys in the family jewels a couple of times, but it was worth it on account of some of the bands that played there, and she asked if you'd ever been "upstairs." And, since you had no real idea what she was talking about—you'd only heard rumors about the place—you shrugged and said you'd been up "once or twice," and she burst out laughing and asked "who with," and when you said you didn't remember off hand, she gasped and gave you a very long and very merry stare, like she was about to call bullshit on your lies, but instead she just laughed to herself and changed the subject back to Gillian and Braydon. It left you feeling embarrassed and shame-faced and tongue-tied.)

Anyway, Gillian during her junior year fell in with a crowd of drama people. She'd always been a semi-theatrical personality anyway, and she got a little gothy, and that, said Natalie, was probably what got Braydon creeping up to her. At first it didn't really seem serious between them. Gillian still hung out with her theater friends, but then she also started hanging out with Braydon's friends—Christian and Howie and them. And that was great at first, Natalie said, because it meant that Gillian was at the comic shop almost every day over the summer, and that wasn't far from Natalie's house and she liked hanging out at the shop because Eric Kim (who she goes out of her way a couple of times to say is a really cool guy) would let her read his stock without buying it and let her study and copy the drawings into her notebooks while Gillian and Braydon did their roleplaying with the other guys.

Except Gillian didn't really seem into the roleplaying. She'd treat it as a joke and it made the other guys tired, except for Braydon, who also started treating it as kind of a joke.

But later, when Natalie went in to the shop, the other guys would be there but more often than not Gillian and Braydon wouldn't, even though Gillian had texted to say that she'd be at King Kong. And if she did come in, which more often than not she didn't, it would be hours late, and Braydon would be hanging off her like crepe paper.

Natalie even demonstrated how he "hung off" her. She scootched up close to you and put her chin on your shoulder and looked up at you with moony calf eyes. Then she backed off with a shudder. It gave you a little thrill to have her nestled up close that way, even if it was only for a few seconds.

And now Gillian doesn't go to Catherine's anymore, and she's hardly ever at the comic book shop, and when Natalie asks Gillian where she hangs out, she'll titter and say things like In the back seat of Braydon's car. Ycchh!

At the end of it, Natalie crumples up the taco wrappings and looks around with a sneer of vexation. "Jeez! Why'd you let me go on like this?"

"You sounded like you needed to get it off your chest."

She does a little double-take at you, and for the first time you get the impression that she is really looking at you. "Who are you friends with?" she asks.

You think you've told her already, but you rattle off the names of the usual suspects: Caleb and Keith, along with Carson Ioeger, James Lamont, Jenny Ashton ... and few more as they occur to you.

"And Christian and Howie and them," she adds. You don't contradict her, even though you hardly talk to that crowd, you only know them from school.

"There's a soccer meet on Saturday afternoon," she tells you. "At the metropolitan fields. Eastman versus Westside, the girls' teams. Wanna go to it with me?"

Did she just ask me out on a date? you wonder. Whether she did or not, you accept the suggestion, and she takes your phone from you again, like she did yesterday, to put the event into your calendar. "God," she observes as she taps it in. "You've got nothing on your schedule!"

* * * * *

You don't hear from Natalie for the rest of the week, and you don't pester her. You just assume that you'll see her on Saturday and that will be it.

In the meantime, you continue to work on that mask, polishing it a little each day while watching videos, DVDs, or streaming something. You concentrate on areas of it at a time, rubbing it until it won't turn any bluer and all the whitish streaks are gone. But even then, by the time the weekend comes, you've only got about two-thirds of it done. You just don't have the stamina or enthusiasm to work at it any harder.

On Saturday morning you wake to a text from Natalie: Gillian comng too can u pick her up? You reply that you can, and Natalie sends you an address and Gillian's number.

You don't actually have a lot of time to get ready, because it's already after nine and the match starts at eleven. You quickly shower and dress, and it's not a quarter past ten before you're running out the door. Even though you're only picking Gillian up, you feel nervous.

She's not out front when you pull up at her house, so you text her to say you've arrived. Come in, she replies, but she comes out the door as you're mounting the porch. "Are you shy, Will?" she asks with a twinkly smile.

"Huh?"

"My dad won't bite your head off if you come in."

"What? No, I—"

"I'm just teasing. But jeez, way to treat a girl. 'Hey, I'm outside, get yer ass out here!'"

You gasp, both because of what she said, and also at the way she slips an arm into yours. "I didn't—!"

"Do you have a girlfriend, Will? Natalie says you don't have a girlfriend, but I think she's full of shit." She pulls you down the walk, back toward your truck, and you stumble along beside her. "Maybe you don't have a girlfriend, though. If you did, I bet she'd have you trained by now not to pull up in front of a girl's house and blast the horn. Do you want to open the door for me?" You're at the truck now. "Never mind." She lets go of your arm and dimples at you. "I can do it myself."

You stagger around to the driver's side and climb in. "Are we picking up Braydon?" you ask.

"My hubby?" Gillian bursts out laughing. "Not for where we're going. It's noon and he's practically a vampire. We're going to the soccer game, aren't we?"

"That exhibition match? Yeah, that's what Natalie—"

"Are we?"

"Well—"

Well, yeah! That's what you were about to say, but something in Gillian's tone of voice has caught your ear, and you look over at her. She's smiling impishly at you, and as you stare back, one of her eyebrows goes up.

Are we going to the soccer match? is what she is clearly saying. Or are we going to go do something else?

Next: "Field Babes" 

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