The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Candidate Pool

Previously: "Shopping for a Shift" 

Seventh period is your study hall. After settling into the library you text Andrea, asking, If I be someone on swim team who should I pick? You quickly add, Not Nathan, because you want ideas besides him.

Her reply comes just as the bell rings: Almost anyone. Which isn't helpful, and you've opened up your browser to look for photos of the swim team, when someone drops into the chair opposite you.

It's Sydney.

Not Andrea. Sydney McGlynn.

* * * * *

Her expression is both anxious and melancholy, and there is a sharp look of disappointment in the glance she turns on you. "I guess the boss really wouldn't want me talking to you," she says in a very tight voice. "But fuck it."

You stare back.

"Reagan told me you were out at the Warehouse on Saturday night," she continues. "She told me you were—" She bites her lip. "You were telling people that we were never really going out."

"Yeah," you reply. It sounds like a groan.

"Oh, Jesus," she says. "Why'd you have to say that? I mean, breaking up is bad enough, but—" Her glance sharpens. "Did Will—? Did your boss—? Did he tell you to tell people that?"

You blink. It takes you a moment to realize she thinks you're the fake-you that you left behind in your place.

"Uh, yeah," you stammer. "He thought— Well, he thought that was, uh, a nicer way of, um, making it sound."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

You're drawing glances from other tables, so you gesture her to hush herself.

"Did he at least talk to—?" She catches herself, and glances around before lowering her voice. "Did he at least talk to my boss about it first? 'Cos I can't imagine she—"

"He didn't say. He just told me—"

"It's a shit thing to say, you know!"

"How come?"

"How come?" she exclaims. "How come? Will!" Again, you try to hush her. "Because," she hisses, "think how it looks and feels from my point of view! Everyone thought we were going out! I told them—! And now you're going around saying we weren't? And how does that make you—how it makes your boss—look! Like he didn't even care enough about me to dump me! No! We were just never even going out!"

Yeah, you have to admit as you remember how you felt about Lisa. She's got a point there.

"I mean, if we 'broke up'," she continues, "we could at least pretend it was a mutual thing. But—"

"But you already told people I broke up with you," you cut in. "And you told people it was because I said that Kirkham 'made me'."

She catches her breath, then reddens.

"Well, what did you expect?" she demands. "You dump that on me, and you dump me at the same time, and I'm—"

"You didn't have to tell people what I told you!"

"Don't make me the issue, Will!"

"I'm not—! Look." You try to put your hand on hers, but she yanks it away. "It was a fuck up all the way around," you plead. "The boss— My boss— He was just taking me out to talk. But freaking Chen came along, and then my boss had to make it look good, so he— He had to 'order me' to break to break up with you. But he didn't think— He didn't know that's what I'd do."

"You have to do what he says!"

"I know. But he didn't realize when—"

"You're saying your boss is a dumbass?"

You have no idea what a pedisequos should or should not admit to when it comes to having an opinion of the boss. So you shrug and reply, "That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, at the moment, you know— Crunch time—"

"He explained all this to you?"

"Um ... Yes. Later. After."

She snorts. "Well, lucky you. My boss doesn't tell me shit." She looks at you closely. "Do you know where she is? Where's your boss?"

"Um ... He's still being David Kirkham, but he's getting ready for another move. Don't bother him or go looking for him."

"I wasn't going to. You understand, right, that it's him I'm mostly pissed at."

You wince inwardly. "Right. But can you and I at least try to be friends?"

"Gonna be freaking hard," she mutters, "considering what my friends have been saying about you. And what I've been saying about you."

You wince again.

She sighs. "But I guess I can tell them that I'm over you. That I just don't want to think about you anymore. Except—"

She looks at you, and tears well up in her eyes.

"Except Sydney has it so bad for you, Will. So I do too!"

* * * * *

That final confession leaves you reeling. Sydney hasn't really been coy about the fact that she likes you, but the ... intensity ... of fake-Sydney's cry really astonishes you.

So you're sorely distracted as you wind your way to your last class, and can only blink in confusion when your phone dings with a text that includes four names. It takes you a moment to realize these are the aliases Sydney is suggesting you could assume for the coming week.

While you are puzzling over them, your phone rings. It's Andrea. You press yourself up against the side of the hallway with a hand over your other ear as you answer.

"Hey," she says. "You get my text?"

"Yeah. Why are you calling?"

"To get an answer, quick. 'Cos if you can get over to my place with a mask right after school, I can probably get one of these guys out there. By the way, why don't you want Nathan?"

"I just wanted some other ideas. But I don't know most of these guys you sent me."

"Well, you know Bethany—"

"Yeah, I know her."

"Well, I picked her because I'm kind of mentoring her. Andrea is. I have lunch with her most days, so she'd be a natural. Same with Heaven. Except she's a sophomore."

That gives you pause, but you don't make any judgements yet. "I know Olivia," you say. "She hangs out with Kelsey and Amanda, right?"

"Right, that's why I suggested her. So there'd be a link between us back to them. Um, you know these aren't just going to be for the week, right? This'd be someone we're adding to—"

There's an outbreak of voices on the other side, and her voice is suddenly muffled.

"Sorry," she says when she comes back on. "That was— Never mind."

"Okay, so who's the guy? Mark ... whatever his last name is."

"I just figured you might want a guy, and he's on the team and you didn't want Nathan. And because we were talking about you getting some friends who could be my friends? Mark could do that, I think you'd fit in good with his friends. I'm not so sure about, like, Ethan or Michael."

"Uh huh."

"So what do you think?"

"I think I'll have to tell you after class. Give me an hour to think about it."

"Well, if you think you've time."

"I do. I brought a mask with me, I can take it straight over to your place, if you can get—"

"You have to get me a name asap."

You promise her you will the moment the final bell rings.

* * * * *

After Sydney left you in the library, you had gone back online to glance over photos of the swim team, and after falling into your chair in science class, you take your phone out again and examine the roster page.

Bethany you already know, and Olivia Byrne—a curvy brunette—you know as well. Heaven Granberry turns out to be a small, slim girl with long, dark, frizzy hair and a crooked grin. Mark Szymanski is a dopey-looking kid with a buzz cut, and you flinch to think that he's the "kind of guy" that Sydney thinks you'd be a natural friend with; you console yourself with the thought that maybe he's got a fun personality.

You get a quick shock, though, as you're scrolling past the other faces, wondering why Sydney didn't pick them, when one leaps out at you: Jamie Bornholm.

She's a girl who is somewhere between pretty and "striking", with a bold nose and mouth full of big teeth. But her features are symmetrical, and her gaze relaxed; and she has dark-blonde hair that falls in fashionably cut tresses down the side of her face to drape across the tops of her shoulders. Her neck is long and slim and accented (in this photo) with a silver chain on which hangs a shiny pendant. Except for that nose, which makes her face just a little too interesting to be beautiful, she looks quite stylish.

But what makes her leap out is your sudden memory of her from your time being David Kirkham: He knows her, because she is also in the school orchestra—a violin player. It strikes you now, hard, that she, like Nathan, another swimmer who is in the orchestara, could be a link between Andrea (and you) and Kirkham. And you would bet that she (or rather, you, once you've replaced her) could get you in with a better class of new friends than Mark whatsisname could. You remember, from your perch at the front of the cello section, seeing her talking to Yumi Saito and Eva Garner, and if she is friends with them, and if you could use her to make yourself better friends with them ... Why, that would be terrific revenge against Caleb and Carson and Keith and James!

You think about it all through class. Then, as soon as the bell rings, you whip out your phone and text a single name to Andrea.

That's all for now.

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