The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Chill in the Air

Previously: "Flirt Till You Hurt" 

Joshua Cheswick's house is on the northeast side of town. Cars are piled up in the street, so that you and Cody have to hoof it half a block to a modestly sized ranch-style house. He cautions you a little about what you're going to find: "You don't have a phobia about puppets, do you?"

"No."

"Marionettes? Like Pinocchio?"

"I said no."

"Well, some people do. They think they're creepy, like clowns."

"I don't have a phobia about puppets, Chelsea."

Cody laughs. "Well, you might develop one after being at Cheswick's."

There's a couple of guys in Eastman varsity jackets out front, drinking from bottles and laughing hoarsely with each other, but the interior of the house is oddly empty until you reach the kitchen, where some girls are crowded near the sink. Cody greets them and they smile brightly back and chirp "Hi!" but their attention quickly settles on you. One in particular gives you a beady-eyed look. She has a narrow, hatchet-shaped face under a short blob of blonde hair. It takes you a moment to pair a name with her face: Lisa Rickover. It comes with bad associations.

Cody leads you in back of the kitchen, into what looks like a closet, but is in fact the head of a very narrow staircase. Two guys are coming up, and they back out to let you and Cody down. One of them you recognize from back at Catherine's: the scrawny guy with the brown, shoulder-length hair and Harry Potter glasses.

The staircase opens out into a basement that has been redecorated as a den. It's a big space, almost like a second, underground floor, with walls of knotty pine and a cement floor that's been softened (slightly) with cast-off scraps of office carpet. A long, dumpy brown sofa, looking like a dead bear, is pushed up against one wall, and beanbags are scattered around the floor.

It's also decorated with puppets, as Cody had warned you. At least two dozen marionettes dangle by their strings from the low ceiling, drifting and clattering gently against each other as they are stirred by the air. And there is definitely something creepy about them, with their grinning, nutcracker teeth; their manic, wide-eyed stares; and the inhuman proportions of their hands and feet and heads. It doesn't help that the room is dark, illumined only by half-a-dozen lava lamps that bubble silently on wall-mounted shelves, and scores of rave sticks dangling by threads from the ceiling. Sitar music plays softly from hidden speakers, and the smell of pot hangs in the air.

Also the faint, musty stink of forty or so high school teenagers crowded into the space.

All the sofas and bean bags are occupied, so Cody pulls you through the crowd to a corner where a low countertop and bar separate a kitchenette from the rest of the den. There's a couple of free stools there, and you perch on them.

Scarcely have you settled when the girl on the stool next to you spins around to peer at you. Her eyes pop. "Yumi!" she shrieks.

It's Brianna Gould, from Westside, one of the slutty "party hearty" girls, and your heart sinks a little. "Oh wow," she gushes, "I didn't expect to see you here!"

"I came with Cody."

Brianna peers around you at Cody and squeals his name. "I thought you'd be at Wendy's!"

"That's tomorrow night," he says. His expression tightens just the tiniest bit. "Who are you here with?"

"Oh, everyone!" Brianna sweeps her arm at the crowd, almost spilling the contents of the plastic tumbler she's nursing. There's an unlit cigarette between two of her fingers. "But I came with Andrew. Ohhhh!" She squirms on her stool and sidles up to you. "So you came with Cody!"

"I bumped into him at Catherine's. And a couple of other guys. They all said they were coming out here, so I was, like—" You shrug.

"Oh, you'll have fun! This is such a chill place. You get you something to drink?" She leans over to murmur in a confiding voice, "There's some excellent, just excellent, brownies around here someplace."

I bet they're just excellent, you think.

* * * * *

Jacob's not long in showing up, and Wes shows up shortly afterward as well, and both of them clearly come in search of you. Jacob has changed into an electric-blue t-shirt with a silvery stripe across the chest, like a sash, and blue jeans. Wes has also changed into blue jeans, but he wears a tight muscle shirt that shows off the tops of his pecs and some sinewy arms. Brianna, you are amused to note, strokes Wes's shoulder and flirts pretty openly with him when he squeezes in between you and her.

"Whaddaya think of the party?" Jacob asks you. He's pushed his way in between you and Cody.

"It's pretty chill," you tell him.

"Yeah, pretty chill," he agrees. "Do you—?"

"Who's party is it?"

"Joshua's. He's the guy over—" Jacob points, and if you follow his finger correctly, he's pointing to a guy slouched in a bean bag next to a stereo system. His head is turned away from you, and it's very dim, so you can make out little except a sloppy mop of curly hair. "This is a great place to chill out," Jacob continues. "Just after school and everything."

"Is it always, um—?" You wave your hand in front of your face.

"Always what?"

"So ... thick? In here?"

Worry lines pop out on Jacob's forehead. Wes leans around to catch your attention. "We can go outside if you—"

"I just don't wanna stink when I go home. Or get a contact buzz."

So Wes plucks you by the arm and guides you off the stool. Cody and Jacob trail behind as Wes leads you back over to the staircase. When you glance behind, you see Brianna watching you with a speculative look.

The back yard isn't nearly as crowded as the basement, but it's small, so it feels crowded. Many of the people out here are smoking, too, but by edging away you pull the other guys over to the plank fence at the back of the property. It's very dark.

Wes asks you about possible mutual acquaintances, both at Westside and at Eastman, some of which you know and some of which you don't. You ask if he knows Dana Pak. "She's my cousin," you explain. "She goes to Eastman."

"Your cousin?" Jacob's eyes pop. He's had a morose look about him since coming outside, but now he bubbles with excitement. "Yeah, I know Dana!"

"Who knows Dana?" a sharp voice interjects. It's Lisa Rickover, who walks up to join you. She holds a lit cigarette by her side. "Hey Cody," she says. "I thought you'd be out at Wendy's tonight."

There's an awkward silence before Cody says, "Nope. That's tomorrow night."

"Wendy?" says Jacob. "Wendy Knox?"

"Did you know that Dana Pak is Yumi's cousin?" Cody says.

Lisa gives you an appraising look. "Yeah, I see the resemblance," she says. She takes a hit off the cigarette and adds, "God, I'm awful. How are you, Yumi?" Another hit off the cigarette. "I didn't expect to see you out here either."

"I came with Cody. And Jacob and Wes. We were all at Catherine's."

"Mmm." Lisa takes another, longer drag on her cigarette. "How's Catherine these days? Gawd, it suddenly hits me, I haven't been out to her place in ages."

Probably because she'd throw you if you did show up, you think, and Catherine doesn't throw anyone out. She's giving you the creeps with her sly, sarcastic insinuations.

But that's her. Lisa Rickover has a reputation for being a sneak, a gossip, and more than a bit of a bully. There's a clutch of them at Eastman, or so Yumi has heard from Dana and Lin. They're not all as bad as Lisa, you've heard, but Lisa is at least as bad as all the rest of her gang put together.

You're saved by the guys, who take turns talking about the afternoon at Catherine's, and who they saw there, and what they did. Though she listens with a cat-like intensity, Lisa's eyes rove over the group, from Jacob's face to Wes's face to Cody's face to yours, then back over them all again. You can practically see her doing the algebra in her head as she calculates which of the trio—if any—has the best chance of scoring with you. She says nothing, though, and gradually retreats as more guys and girls drift over to talk.

* * * * *

It's a little past midnight when you leave. (Cody drives you, and again you have shake Jacob off when he offers you a ride back to your place.) On the drive back you talk vaguely about the evening. It was, relative to some parties Yumi has attended, "chill," but you got a lot more attention than Yumi usually gets at Westside, and pretty soon you notice that Chelsea is picking through the names of the guys who fawned on you longest or who (she hints) are the most eligible. As you're turning into your neighborhood, you call her on it. "Is there something you want to get off your chest about those guys?"

Chelsea pretends to be surprised, but after parking in front of your house and shutting off the engine, she says, "I'm just trying to figure out who would be a good match for you, Will."

"Who says I want a match?"

"Well, it's pretty clear you don't want to hook up with Cody." The blank assertion sounds very strange coming from someone who looks and sounds exactly like Cody. "I thought we were getting you a boyfriend, so you could pass messages along to me."

"Why would any of those guys pass along—?"

"Because they'd be your boyfriend. After we got masks onto them."

Your lip curls. "Are you saying Cody doesn't work for you, so you want—?"

"Cody doesn't work for you, Will. I owe you two masks, remember. We could put one of them onto one of those guys for you. And then— Well—" Her manner turns coy. "Then Yumi could pass messages along to you ... her boyfriend ... and you could pass them along to me."

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"