The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Self-Made Girl

Previously: "Better Off Red" 

You dress slowly, enjoying the feel of the clothes as you pull them onto your body, and watching yourself in the mirror. First come the tight, frilly panties, then the bra. (Your nostrils flare with pleasure at the heft and firmness of each of your breasts as you tuck them into a cup.) Then you tug the jeans shorts—the hems stopping just above the knees—up your legs and button them closed. Then the blue-and-white sailor top. (Except it's not really a sailor top, it's a soft, heavy, white hoodie with a triangle of blue-and-white stripes over the breastbone.) Last, you sit on a table to pull on and tie the black Chuck Taylor high-tops over your bare feet.

Now you're dressed, but you've got to do something about your hair and makeup. It's funny: when you peer closely into the mirror you can see that the mask copied the foundation and the white powder, but the rest of the makeup is splotchy and a little smudged. So you open your bag and take out the powder and the lip gloss and the mascara and the eyebrow pencil; the fingernail polish; and all the other little things that you need. It's too dark in the basement to give yourself the treatment you really need or want, but Scarlett's practiced habits and knowledge are enough to get the basics down, particularly the eye-liner and eye-shadow that she uses to augment the natural shape of her eyes.

Oh, yeah. Her eyes. There's a story there.

It starts with the fact that Scarlett has never felt close to her father, but it wasn't until middle school that she learned that the emotional distance between them was—or was supposed to be—unusual. It was a talk she had with her friends that set her to thinking. It was a lot of light and general girl talk about being "daddy's special girl" (and how sometimes that was a good thing and sometimes a bad thing for a girl), and into the middle of it Esther Menzies confessed that she would never be able to feel close to her stepfather because that's what he was—her stepfather, not her biological father. And that set Sonia to wondering if it wasn't the same thing with her: maybe she felt distant from her father because he wasn't her biological father. Somehow, the idea didn't seem horrible. It seemed something like a relief.

Well, that was the seed, and it sprouted in fertile soil. Sonia had always been a dreamy girl, prone to fantasy and self-dramatization. When she played with dolls, the dolls were not "Barbie" or "Jasmine" or "Lagoona Blue," they were her—Sonia—and all their adventures were happening to her. The same with any stories she read (and with the stories she wrote during an intense but short-lived burst of fan-fiction writing in the eighth grade): the girl in the high-fantasy stories were always her. So it didn't take much to invent an elaborate and secret fantasy backstory wherein her father was not her father (and sometimes her mother was not her mother), and that she came from somewhere else, like a changeling child. It helped that her eyes have a slight almond cast to them, easy to augment with a little shadow and mascara. And so "Scarlett Bard" was born. Her biographical details were hazy and varied. Usually she was simply "half Japanese," and when explanations were demanded she would say (when she was mad at her dad) that her "real father" was a Japanese man her mother had met before marrying her current husband, or that she had two or more Japanese ancestors back in the family tree and that her eyes came from them. Once, her mother called her to account for these stories, which had somehow gotten back to her, and Sonia with a nervous shrug had only said that she was making up stories to amuse the other kids. It put her mother in a bad temper, but luckily she dropped it.

After getting your makeup done, you turn to your hair, which has lately acquired an auburn rinse and been trimmed back to hang just below the earlobes. You carefully brush it until it is lustrous. Then you pack everything away and stand back to examine the full effect. Perfect, you tell yourself as you turn around and around, greedily drinking in your bare thighs and calves; the curve of your ass; the softened bulge of your breasts, and the slim pedestal of your neck. Atop all this floats the puckish, J-pop mask that's your face. Well, you have correct yourself, as perfect as I can get it in this creepy place. You wince as you glance around the basement. I'm going to need a better workshop, if I'm going to run things from here. But that's a problem for another day.

Into your giant bag of a purse you slide a completed mask, a paint brush, and the tubs of sealant, and out from it you pull another sucker. You unwrap and toss the cellophane away, put it to your mouth, and dimple at the reflection of the incredibly cute girl you've become.

* * * * *

My stupid mom says I have to stay in, you text Bastian while stopped at a light. So can't go to movie with you. You add a string of five crying emojis. You would have added more, and some other emojis, but the light changes.

Your plan had been to meet up with Bastian for that movie, but just as you were getting into your car Chelsea had texted to say that Jelena was on her way over. Almost you told Chelsea to cancel the meeting, that you had other plans, but then you reflected that it would be better to disappoint Bastian than to miss a chance to capture Jelena. You can always see him later tonight, or on Sunday.

Bastian replies as you're pulling up to Chelsea's house, wanting to know if you're grounded. You tell him, Something like that, and follow up by saying that you have to turn off your phone. In the back of your mind, you find yourself thinking that Scarlett really isn't very good at making up plausible stories, and that her lies too quickly spiral out of control, but you've got other things to think about at the moment. There's more than one car parked in front of Chelsea's house. You twirl the sucker nervously in your mouth as you ring the doorbell.

The door is opened by a woman who looks like Chelsea plus about twenty years. "Hi," you stammer. "Um, is Chelsea in? I'm, um, supposed to be—"

The woman beams. "Okay, so you must be Scarlett! My goodness, the look the other girl gave me when I asked if she was you. I'm Chelsea's mom. Don't mind me. Chelsea!" she yells. Then, to you: "Maybe you should go right on up." She gestures at a staircase just off the foyer. You nod and make for it. As you set a foot on the lower-most step, the tousled head of a college-age male pokes in through the doorway to another room. He does a double-take at you, and you pretend not to notice as he stares.

Chelsea meets you at the top of the stairs. "Oh, thank God you're here," she murmurs. "I'm having to make up all kinds of stuff just to keep her here!"

"What do you mean?" The story that she used to lure Jelena is the same one she used to lure Scarlett, that she wants to hire a band to play at a party she's planning to throw, and if that was enough to entice Scarlett, it should be enough to entice Jelena.

"What I mean is, I don't think she's interested. She—"

A figure steps through an open doorway behind Chelsea. It's Jelena Petrovic, and the scowl on her face is well-matched to the dirty jeans, white t-shirt, and leather jacket she's wearing. "Listen, I have to go—" she starts to say, but stops dead when she sees you. Her eyes narrow.

Chelsea whirls. "Can't you stay for just a few more minutes?" she whines as she whips her glance between you and Jelena. "I— I mean, uh, Scarlett here—"

Fuck this, you think, and feel yourself surfacing from beneath Scarlett's candy-like exterior. You shove the lollipop back into your mouth to get it out of your hands, drop your bag to the floor, bend to pull the mask from it, then march smartly past Chelsea to slam it into Jelena's face. She just has time to look surprised before her expression goes blank and she falls back against a door frame and slumps to the floor. Chelsea squeals.

"Shut up," you snap as you bend to grab one of Jelena's arms. "Help me get her into your room." Chelsea hustles over to help.

Jelena is not a big girl, but she's too much for two smaller girls to easily handle, and you're only just able to haul her across the floor and into the bedroom before there's the sound of footsteps outside. Chelsea whirls and jumps out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her. The sound of muffled voices is barely audible over the hammering of your heart in your ears. A moment later Chelsea re-enters, and leans against the door after she shuts it behind her.

"My freaking perv of a brother," she snorts, "wants to know who the hot anime girl is."

You can't help being flattered. "Really? He thinks I'm a hot anime girl?"

"That's what he says." Then she tilts her head, and seems to really see you for the first time. "I know it's you boss," she says, "but it's just such a change from the other one. Why the switch?"

"It seemed like a good idea." You bite on the sucker, crunching it into a thousand shards, and pull the stick from your mouth. "Got a waste basket?"

Chelsea points at her desk. "Who are we adding after Jelena?" she asks.

"Not sure. I'll have to think about it."

"I've been making a list."

The confession startles you. Independent initiative? You weren't expecting that.

But you were expecting to relax a little, and enjoy things, after your switch into Scarlett.

That's all for now.

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