The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Becky

Previously: "Just the Typical Hollywood Story" 

Sydney gives you a narrow smile, and leans over to peer into the passenger side of your Mustang. Rebecca is sleeping there with her head against the window.

"Is she a narcoleptic?" Sydney asks.

"No. I hit her with a memory dingus after I shut off the engine. I figured it would be less of a fuss as putting a full mask on her."

Sydney pats her purse. "Will," she says, "I brought a full mask to use on her."

"Is that all you brought?"

Sydney hesitates. "Well, no. I brought everything, I've got it in my car."

"Including just masks? No memory strips in them? Then we'll use one of them on her, then we can glue 'em together."

"Do we need one for her mom?"

"Hmm?" You were distracted by a thought. "No, she'd be dead weight. We'll take Rebecca with us to L.A.—"

"Will her mom let her go?"

"Sure," you say, though you suspect Carmen will put up a fight. "But I got a idea that could maybe save us some trouble ..."

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later, a girl who looks and is dressed like Sydney McGlynn climbs out your Mustang. She gives you a lascivious look up and down. "I really wish I was going with you guys," she says.

"We could get you a job out there."

"Really?" Her smile deepens. "So I can—?"

"Not right now. You'll have to wait till you've graduated." But there's a gurgle of desire in your throat as you say it.

Fake-Sydney pouts, and plucks at your shirt. "Aw, but—"

"No buts. Real-Sydney told you to skedaddle."

"I am skedaddling." She has been edging an inch at a time over toward her car.

"Basta! Get out of here! And remember," you add as she turns away with a playful sulk, "you're supposed to keep Will happy."

"But you're Will!"

"Not any more. That kid at school is the one you've got a crush on."

She glints at you, her expression sly and witchy, and you can't tell if it means I know, I'm on my way to maul him right now or if it means, We both know that's not true, but I'll play along for the sake of the plan. She puts lots of wiggle into her butt as she saunters over to her car, and gives you one last slinky glance before getting in. She slides on some sunglasses after starting the car, so you can't be sure if she's giving you another long look before driving away.

And will that be the last you see of Sydney? Oh no, not by a long shot, for the real girl is in the back of your Mustang, getting into the face and clothes and mind of Rebecca Oliver. But you can't help feeling a twinge of loss as a girl who looks and acts like the girl who helped lead you here turns out of the parking lot and speeds off back toward town.

* * * * *

Sydney, in her new guise, takes a very long time before emerging, which makes you a little nervous as you lean against the side of your car, squinting into your cell phone, for you're trying something new. The idea is that she will put on the memory strip first, to see if she can get the memories, then add the mask on top of it. If it works, then she should be able to do a full impersonation of Rebecca, and do it almost immediately.

You look in on her twice while waiting. The first time she was still unconscious, and still in her own face. (And body, which was naked, though she had Rebecca's tangled-up clothes piled up in her lap.) The second time, it was Rebecca resting there. Eventually, a gentle rocking in the car alerts you that Sydney is awake and probably dressing. You stand away from the car, to give her plenty of time without unnecessary interruptions from you.

But, at last, the passenger-side door opens a crack. You pull it the rest of the way open, and Rebecca Oliver—

Your daughter.

—squeezes out over the folded-over front seat and clambers out next to you. She puffs and blows. "God," she mutters. "You'd have to be a midget to do it back there!"

"Which is why I never do it back there."

"Well then, where do you do it?"

"What are we talking about?"

"What do you think we're talking about?" She sounds a little peevish.

"Oh, well, if that's what we're talking about, I do it in my bedroom, usually. Or in the living room. In the complex's swimming pool at three in the morning. In a closet in the production offices. At her house, and at her sister's house, when she's had a sister. At— How's the mask working, Sydney?"

The girl who looks like Rebecca stares back at you, her moon-face frozen in a querulous gape. Then she says, "Pah!" closes her eyes, and shakes herself out all over. She frowns and rubs her temples.

"Sydney?"

"It's all here! I can tell you anything you want to know! I'm just— It's like trying to scoop up water from a stream, is all. Her personality just wants to slither away from me!"

"Well, how about we go inside and relax? I've been standing out here for thirty minutes—"

"Good idea, I need to pee anyway."

Without waiting for you, Rebecca trots off toward the restaurant like a foot soldier on his way to formation.

* * * * *

You've never been to Le Metropolitain yourself, and neither has Paul, but he has been to places like it (though much better) in Los Angeles. It's small and intimate, with padded walls and a muted carpet and white tablecloths, so that sound is dampened and conversations are hushed. But the windows looking onto the parking lot in front are clear and bright, so that the restaurant is filled with a gentle radiance that gleams off the polished brass railings and glass work.

Though the temperatures are in the mid-sixties, you ask the hostess for outside seating, and after letting Rebecca excuse herself to the restroom, you are led onto a deck in back, where you can sit and look across green, tree-clad slopes to Fell's Lake beyond. Geese and ducks are swimming in it. It would all be very peaceful if it wasn't for the loud swish and grumble of traffic on the nearby freeway, and at the Northgate shopping district.

You have plenty of time to gaze onto the lake, and to glance over the menu, which have prices that don't even approach those in Los Angeles but which are enough to make you wince at the dent they'll put in your credit card.

But, finally Rebecca appears.

She looks much calmer now, more like when you picked her up. There's pink in her cheeks, and her small mouth is soft and her eyebrows relaxed. Her dark, elbow-length hair, which she parts in the middle, separates and spills around a forehead that is clear of lines. Her charcoal-gray dress, which looks like it's made of silk, floats diaphanously in the breeze.

"Better?" you ask as she pulls out the chair across from you. "Why don't you sit next to me?"

She hesitates, then with a slight smile pushes the chair back in and pulls out the one at your left hand. "It's a little chilly out here, isn't it?" she says.

"I can get you my jacket from the car."

"Maybe later." She sips from the water glass. "This must seem pretty poor, next to what you have in Los Angeles."

"I told you about Paul's finances, Sydney."

She lowers her eyes, and through frozen lips says, "I'm trying to be Becky."

"Oh. Well. Yeah, there's a lot of great restaurants out there. But I'm a burger-and-fries kind of guy."

"Really?" She gives you a shy side glance.

"Sure. By the way, what do I call you?"

She frowns. "I told you. 'Becky.'"

"I thought it was 'Rebecca'."

"Oh. Well, that's what Mother calls me. I have to remind my friends to call me that when they're over at my house and she's around." She rolls her eyes.

"Why, does she beat you with a coat hanger if they call you by the wrong name?"

"No! She just gives me a lecture. We have to be so good."

"And you don't like that, huh?"

She takes another sip of water before answering, "I just get lonely, sometimes."

"Well, who are your friends? Do I know them?"

Through a tight mouth she says, "How would you know them if you don't even live here?"

"Oh, that's right, I slipped. Still, tell me some of their names."

Some, like James Brewer and Dylan Blain, you sort of know. But most of them you don't, and Becky admits that a lot of them are juniors. You ask her about classes, and she rattles off her schedule. None of them, you note, are arts classes. "What do you like?" you ask.

"I like animals," she says after a pause. "I want to be a vet. Or a pet groomer."

"Don't you want to be an actress?"

Her expression curdles.

"Mother wanted me to," she says. "It pissed her off when Mr. Wilkes told her to stop wasting my time and his with theater classes."

Next: "The Character Thing" 

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