The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Games That Some Girls Play

Previously: "Fun in a Back Seat" 

Skipping class seems like a chicken-shit thing to do. Best thing to do, you tell yourself, is just go right in and make a point of trying to catch her eye. Don't even talk to her or make a production of it. Just let her know that you saw her and wanted to wave Hi! at her.

(And besides, you don't have her number, and would have to play a fast game of phone tag in the few minutes between class in order to track it down.)

But then, after all that drama, when you get to class, she isn't even there.

* * * * *

You hear from Stephanie while you're at work, though, when she texts to ask you for your notes from class. Briefly, you have to suspect that she had the same idea as you: that, frightened by the awkward meeting you would have in last period class, she skipped just as you had been planning to.

Sean is grinning slyly as you put your phone away after telling Stephanie she can come out to your house at around seven to get the notes. "Is that from a girl out at Josie's last night?"

"It's from Stephanie."

"Wyatt? She was at Josie's last night. You left with her!" He laughs.

"We weren't having fun."

"So you went off to have fun?"

"We went off and did homework together!"

Sean howls. "So what's going on with you two?"

"Nothing!"

"You were supposed to do homework at Josie's, and you snuck off to do it with just the two of you?"

"Oh, come on! Do you picture me with Stephanie?"

"Why not?"

You sputter. "Do you even know Stephanie?"

"Sure!"

"Then you know she's not interested in me!"

"Why, did you try something with her last night and she shot you down?"

"No!"

Sean claps his hands and laughs. "Oh, come on, Will, I'm just giving you shit. You sure are acting embarrassed, though. Are you sure nothing happened? No little 'connection'?" He grins.

Actually there was, sort of, so you have to squirm. "We talked some."

His grin widens. "Uh huh?"

"She told me about her crush, and it's not me!"

Sean's eyes nearly pop from his head. For a hanging moment he only stares at you. Then he slowly collapses to the floor, howling with laughter. "What's so funny?" you scream at him, but it's several long minutes, and his cheeks are slimy with snot and tears of laughter before he's able to clamber to his feet again.

"Nothing's funny," he tries to assure you even as he wipes the mess away with the hem of his shirt. "It's, uh, just the way you said it." So you can't help it, you are peevish at him for the rest of work.

* * * * *

Your Astronomy notes are on the kitchen counter, but you're helping wash up after dinner when Stephanie's car pulls into the driveway. You quickly dry your hands on a towel, grab up your notes, and bolt for the door. Stephanie is just getting out as you come out.

"So, these are the notes?" she asks as you hand them over. "Cool, thanks a million." She glances over them, then looks up at the basketball hoop and backboard over the garage. "You play basketball?"

"Huh? No. My dad put that up back when, I dunno, when I was a freshman or something. He thought maybe I'd practice outside P. E. But it's been forever since I did anything with a ball. My brother uses it mostly nowadays, I guess."

She's still eyeing the basket. Then she says, "You wouldn't consider it payback for this"—she shake the sheaf of notes—"and last night if I showed you a few pointers on free throws and stuff, would you?"

You grimace. "I don't know what good it'd do. Like I say, I don't play basketball and I'm not in any P. E. classes."

"Well, it was just a thought. I'm not a lot of good at anything else."

You shrug. Then you say, "Well, sure, I guess you could show me something, if you'd have fun. And, um, I guess I'm always up for learning something."

She holds your eye, then with a quick grin says, "Lemme just move my car back into the street." You watch and wait with ambivalent feelings as she clears the driveway, then takes a basketball from her trunk—does she go everywhere with a ball to play with?—and dribbles it back up to where you're waiting.

She's a lot more patient with you than she's ever been with you before, and treats you the way a very careful and conscientious coach would as she shows you how to stand and balance yourself, and how to touch and guide the ball, and how to dribble it and keep it under control. She's with you for quite a while, long enough to set you on little exercises to practice these techniques, and bends over with her hands on her knees, to watch you. But even as you try to feign interest and concentration: "You're not having a lot of fun," she observes.

"Yes, I am," you pretend.

"No, you're not, but I'm glad you're trying. You're not bad, actually. More like you never learned to do it right and are kind of rusty, but it wouldn't take a lot to get you good enough."

Is she serious? You smile tightly at her.

Then your face falls when the side door opens and Robert comes out. His eyebrows are up and his lips are pursed in an amused, impudent smirk as he watches you. You start counting to ten, unsure if you're trying to control your temper or making a countdown until you throw the ball at his smug little wretched face.

He speaks first, though. "Are you teaching Will how to play basketball?" he calls to Stephanie.

"Giving him pointers," she calls back. "Are you his brother?"

"That's Robert," you mutter at her.

"Yeah, and I'm about ten times better than he'll ever be!"

"You play?"

"Sure!" He holds up a hand, for you to throw the ball to him.

Stephanie sweeps it from you first, then advances on Robert. His smile falters a little, and then she's upon him, bending over to talk to him in a low voice. Her back blocks your view, but after a half minute—

"Mom!" Robert shrieks, and runs into the house. Stephanie hurls the ball back to you, and swaggers over, chuckling, to rejoin you.

"What did you say to him?" you ask.

"Oh, nothing too bad. Just the kind of thing my brother used to say to me when I'd come out and act like a showboating little cunt in front of him and his friends. Adapted for a little boy instead of a little girl, but the same basic stuff."

"Wow. I guess your brother was older than you?"

"I got two brothers, but yeah, Kayjay's older than me. Craig's a year behind me at school."

Then she cries, "Oh Jesus!" and she steps back with a look of alarm on her face. "Now I know who you remind me of!"

"What?"

"All last night and just now—! And even before! I knew there was something about you that reminded me of someone else!"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing!" She shakes her head as she recovers herself. "It's just been like having a rock in my shoe, been bugging me but I couldn't figure it out. It's that you remind me of my little brother, Craig." She cocks her head. "Yeah, you even kind of look like him, a little. But it's the whole—" She waves her loose-jointed arms around in the air. "It's like you're put together with balsa wood and rubber bands. And he's smart too, but— Don't take this the wrong way, Prescott, but Craig can't open an umbrella without giving himself an owie. You're more coordinated than he is, but still, it's kind of the same with you."

"Gee, thanks.

"It's just a resemblance, Prescott, and I told you not to take it the wrong way. But anyway, show me you remember what I was showing you just now."

* * * * *

If you're afraid that she might try to coach you into going out for basketball, those fears go unrealized, because there are no more coaching sessions with her, even after she sends you an English homework assignment to look over and maybe rearrange the sentences of. Instead, compensation (if that is what it is) comes in the form of an invite to meet up with her at Maggie Crenshaw's house on Friday for a party. And you are now comfortable enough with her that you don't immediately turn her down; but neither do you let yourself feel bullied into going. Instead, you tell her that you'll let her know on the day of the party.

Robert, meanwhile, is treating you with a lot more wary circumspection than usual. He said nothing to you after Stephanie left that night, but on Thursday, when at the dinner table you casually mention that there's a party on Friday night, and could you have your curfew relaxed by an hour two, Robert pipes up to ask, "Are you going with that girl who said those nasty things to me the other night?"

Your mother's ears perk up. "What girl?" she asks. "Who said nasty things to you?" But Robert primly presses his lips shut and slides his eyes sideways to light on you.

"Stephanie, the other night, when she came over to pick up some notes from me and we played basketball out in the driveway." You glance at your brother. "Bobby came out and started giving her attitude."

Robert flushes a deep red. "Mom! I didn't—!"

"What did you say to her, Robert?"

"I didn't say—!"

"I didn't hear what she said to him," you put in, "but she told me afterward that he deserved all of it."

"Mom!"

The upshot—probably as Robert intended—is that you don't get your curfew extended, but you're not forbidden from going to that party, either. If you want to go.

Next: "Party Crush" 

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