The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Friday Night Frolics

Previously: "Red Harvest" 

Harmony is going to the Warehouse tonight, and Veronica is going along for "moral support" in case her crush is there. That leaves you with Brian and Alanna Foss, and Mackenzie Fuller and her boyfriend, Michael Wilson, for company at Legends.

Legends is a long-established fixture in Saratoga Falls, a dance club that goes back to the ... eighties, maybe? But it's kept reasonable pace with the times. Still, it's regarded as something of an old fogeys' hangout by a lot of the kids at school—the ones who hang out at the Warehouse—and that makes it just about the right speed for Mackenzie and Michael, and a little edgy for Alanna and her cousin Brian, who are Mormons.

"Wow, lookit that!" Mackenzie squeals. She is watching with rapt fascination as Jack Li, of the band's color guard, busts out some amazing moves on the dance floor. He seems boneless as he hops, twists, shuffles, and bounces in a complicated counterpoint to the beat. His friends Brianna Kirschke and Genesis Lee—who are also in band—sort-of dance nearby, but their attention, like yours and Mackenzie's and Alanna's, are on Jack. "My God, how do you get that good?"

"Practice," says Michael. "Lots of it. Also, you have to be gay."

"Michael!" Mackenzie smacks him on the shoulder.

"It's a compliment!"

"Not the way you said it! Whoa, did you see that? Michael, you're not watching!"

"I don't stare at guys."

You can't help glancing askance at Michael, who is acting uncharacteristically like a jerk. Jealousy, you finally decide. Michael is a swimmer, and he moves gracefully, and he's a good dancer. But he's not "Jack Li" good.

But at least he's polite when Jack and his girlfriends come over to say "Hi," and wind up joining you and your friends. But it confirms your hypothesis (at least to your own satisfaction) when Michael declines to go out onto the dance floor despite all of Mackenzie's tugging.

Alanna is edging along the side of the dance floor, halfway between your table and bar as she brings back some drinks, when she stops, turns her head, stares, then whips around to jerk her head at you in a summons. Or maybe she's summoning Mackenzie, because she follows you over to meet Alanna. "Here," Alanna says, pressing coolers and sodas onto you, "pretend you're helping me out. And look over there but don't look!" She glances over hard in the direction she'd been staring. "You see 'em?"

There's lots of gyrating bodies in the way, so at first you don't, but then you do, at a table on the opposite side. "Oh my God," you gasp. "Is that—?"

"Yes!"

"Who?" Mackenzie squeaks. "Who are we—?"

"Matthew! Ghenz! And look who he's with!"

"Where—? Oh my God!" Mackenzie gasps up most of the oxygen in the room.

It's Matthew Ghenz, the drummer for Los Scorchicos, bandmate of Bastian and Scarlett. He's hunching at a table, his face hardly visible under the brown cap he has pulled down low over his eyes, and he's with Jody Lepley.

She's a sophomore, like Matthew. More to the point, she's the boss-girl of Tiger Driver, another garage band at the school.

"Wow!" you exclaim. "Is that a date they're on?"

"It looks like he's trying not to puke," Mackenzie says.

"Don't be gross!" Alanna retorts.

"That's what he looks like! All bent over."

"He's just nervous," you say. "He's on a date."

"So he's on a date, what's he got to be nervous about?" Alanna says. "He's freaking Matthew Ghenz!"

"All guys get nervous on first dates. My first date with Luke, he had his hands shoved down into his front pockets the whole time."

"Eww!" Mackenzie titters.

"It wasn't like that!" You lead the girls back over to the table. "And over there, I bet that's a first date. Have you heard anything about Matthew and Jody before?"

"No," Mackenzie thrusts the bottles she's holding at you. "I'm gonna go get a picture!"

"Mackenzie!" But she's scampered off to find a position to shoot the shivering love birds from.

At the table, you all gabble some more about Matthew and Jody, and what it means that members of two rival bands should be hanging out and maybe hooking up this way. It all amuses the others at the table, who are seniors, even Brianna and Genesis, who get caught up in the gossip despite their condescension.

And because your boyfriend is working at the Warehouse, the sighting of Matthew and Jody turns out to be the high point of your evening.

* * * * *

Luke is late calling you the next day so that you've not only showered and ate, you've also been out for a light jog and done a more serious session with the weights in your dad's gym. He sounds like he's just woken up—grumbly and mumbly. "You wanna meet me out at the Warehouse again, in a little while?" he asks.

"I don't wanna hang out there."

"Not t'hang out. Just meet. I got clean up from last night—"

"Didn't you clean up before you left?"

"Ngh. I, uh ... Well, I still got some cleanup to do."

"I don't want to watch you clean up, Luke."

"Well, could you pick me up, uh, there at least?"

The request takes you aback. "What happened to your car?"

"Um, Owen went off with it. I mean, I lent it t'him. He and, uh—"

"Can't you get him to come out and drop it off? He's gotta return it to you at some point."

"Yeah .... Uh ... I think he's out at the lake."

"What?"

"Yeah, him and, uh, this girl—"

"You lent it to him to take out to the lake?"

"Don't yell at me, Belle, it's my car, I can—"

"So how are you planning on getting around? How are you planning on getting to the Warehouse?"

"I, uh, spent the night here?"

You cuss.

* * * * *

The story, as you gradually pry it from him, is that Owen got real friendly last night with "this girl" (not that you believe him, but Luke claims not to know her name) and so as to be a friend Luke loaned them his car so they could drive out to Lake Covington to spend the night and probably all of Saturday and maybe Sunday too. (Because they were going to pick up some camping gear on the way out of town? Maybe?) That left Luke stranded at the Warehouse, and now he needs a ride.

You tell him that he can get a ride from one of the other guys doing clean up, and that you'll pick him up later, at his house. If you feel like it. Then you storm out of the house and drive out to the elementary school, to work on the mask and metal band you'll need to capture Jelena Petrovic.

You don't fully understand why you're so angry at Luke (though at least the anger gives you a lot of energy and strength, which you pour into polishing the mask and carving runes into the metal strip). The best you can figure is that you're pissed off because in acting so "generous" to Owen he is acting selfishly toward you. Also, can't escape the sense, from his stammerings and equivocations and "Uh, I don't knows" and "I don't remembers" that he is lying to you, and probably lying about something big. You don't want to be the jealous or suspicious type, but at last the thought hammers its way to the forefront of your consciousness: I think he was with another girl last night.

You pause in mid-stroke, and shiver hard. It's like being socked with a cold douche. Suddenly you are yourself again, and not Annabelle Edwards.

You lay aside the chisel and pick up your phone.

* * * * *

Scarlett sucks on a lollipop the entire time you talk to her, and listens with an unblinking amusement as you sketch out your plans. "Love it," is her only comment when you ask her what she thinks, and the lollipop and her lips both glisten with wet sugar as she says it.

She's dressed Japanese-pop style, as she always is when you see her, but a little less flamboyantly today, in knee-length jeans shorts, a blue-and-white sailor top, and black, Chuck Taylor high-tops.

She's been driving you wild ever since she joined you in the basement, and now you can't stand it. The shining lollipop touching the pouting lips is the last straw. You stride over to the table she is perched atop, push a knee between her bare, swinging legs, and put your lips to hers. They taste of cherry.

She hesitates and doesn't kiss back, and you feel her stiffen a little, and even after you have pushed your tongue between her lips she only nibbles back a little, and drifts backward from you.

"Scarlett," you say as you pull her forward again into a close embrace. "You said you 'loved it'. So what's wrong? Is it because I'm Annabelle, I'm not Jelena?"

She pushes the lollipop between your face and hers long enough to get a good suck off it. "I'm not really into other girls," she says.

"But you said you 'love it' when I said that you and Jelena—"

"Well, I'll do it for the plan, boss," she says. "And I'd do it to get into Slow Fast Hazel, for sure. But, you know, liking it—"

She doesn't have to "like it," you suppose, so long as she follows the plan by becoming Jelena's girlfriend and joining Slow Fast Hazel. But you think it would be better if she did like it. Could you order her to "like it"? You haven't been ordering any of your creations, you've been seducing and persuading them, it feels like.

No, you decide, if Scarlett Bard is going to "like" being Jelena's girlfriend, she is going to have to be a person who would himself like it.

And the only person that could be, is you.

Next: "Better Off Red" 

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