The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Back to School

Previously: "Home Sweet Hollywood" 

You and Sydney talk through the late morning and into the early afternoon. Decisions are made and then withdrawn. You feel the strain and so does Sydney (you can tell), because this first choice will likely determine everything that comes afterward.

It seems like you are about settled on Paul's friend Valerie Dunn when Sydney leaps off the sofa and stalks into the bathroom. She comes out wearing a frown and, ignoring you, goes out the front door. You wait a moment before following.

From the stoop you watch as she strides down the sidewalk that faces the apartment building until she comes to the corner, where she pauses before turning around. She comes all the way back, and with only a pinched glance in your direction she passes to march off the other way, where again she pauses at the corner of the building. Plainly, she is preoccupied with her thoughts, so you go back inside to give her some privacy, and fix a couple of sandwiches for you and her for lunch.

You are slowly munching your way through yours when she comes back in, still wearing a preoccupied frown, and flops onto the sofa. You suck the bread from your teeth, swallow, then silently go into the kitchen to get her plate, which you set on the sofa beside her. She ignores it.

"What are we doing this for, Will?" she asks with sudden force. "Taking over these identities? Ten of them."

"You tell me," is your diplomatic reply.

She gives you a look.

"Suppose we go with Valerie Dunn, or with Paul's agent or his producer friend," she says. "Who comes after that?"

"Whoever seems good."

"But who's that going to be? Are any of these people married?"

You think a moment. "Bryce is. I think Valerie is seeing someone. I don't know about—"

"So do we make masks of their partners? And who else do we make masks of? What I mean is," she says before you can express your bafflement at these questions, "if we make up a whole bunch of masks, are the ... pedisequoi, or whatever you call them, are they going to be able to ... hang out with each other? Socialize? See each other often without it seeming weird?"

You shrug. "I guess it depends on who we pick."

"Because we're making a Brotherhood of Baphomet, Will, and they're gonna have to see each other regularly. If we," she continues with sudden heat, "replace your friend Bryce, and he replaces some of the, I don't know, the actors in his shows, is he going to be able to, like, have them over to his house, or go over to theirs?"

"I guess we'll have to pick people who can do that."

She frowns. "I'm just thinking that the kind of people we're talking about, they're not going to be able to see each that much." She looks up at you, her gaze intent. "That we won't see as much of each other as we want."

You can't but be flattered, because it sounds like she's worried about being separated from you. "We can make it work," you assure her.

"You're putting me—Becky—in a high school," she blurts out. "What if we use some of the kids there instead of these other people?"

* * * * *

The suggestion bowls you over. If you're just going to infiltrate a high school, what was the point of leaving Saratoga Falls, where you were already in a high school? You put the question to Sydney.

"Saratoga Falls is not Los Angeles, Will," she says with some asperity. "And your friends out there weren't— Well, I'm pretty sure they're not the same as the people we'd get out here. That high school you sold Carmen on," she continues, "the kids who go out there are going to have connections, right? I mean, their parents will." You admit this is true. "So that right there is a better reason to be out here than back in—"

"So why don't we go straight for the parents?" you counter. "We know— Through Paul we can get to people that we know are—"

"Do any of those people we were talking about have kids? Who can hang out for most of the day in school together? That's why we should start with the kids," she says when you don't answer. "Start with the kids, then grab the parents if it seems like a good idea."

You don't talk much more about it. Sydney seems very set on the idea, and you can't come up with any good reasons not do do as she suggests. So you accede to her suggestion, and further accede when she insists on herself in the high school you pitched to Carmen. "It's going to have a better class of student than downtown Los Angeles, right?" she points out.

* * * * *

Fortunately, Rocky Beach High School in Calabasas makes it easy to enroll new students through their website, though you will have to take Becky in for a short interview in the morning. Having won all her points, Sydney is very affectionate, and she lets you take her before dinner and again in the evening before going to bed. You bring her to hard climaxes each time (so that you have to muffle her screams) but it's a strain for you, for you can't stop thinking of the expense of moving. For although Calabasas is a small enclave, it is going to be expensive.

You are up very early the next morning—it is still dark—and have to force Sydney awake; she showers and gets ready while you prepare breakfast. Then, with the sun still below the eastern hills, you make the long, twisty drive out to Calabasas, and to Rocky Beach High School.

It's a nice looking school, built in the California Mission style, with white-washed walls and low, sloping roofs of red tile, fronted by arched colonnades. If it wasn't actually built a hundred years ago, it was built to look like it was built a century ago. It makes your heart sink even further, because it looks like the kind of school associated with money.

The administrative offices are already open, and a smiling official is expecting you. He introduces himself as Eric Lance, and he is exactly what you would expect of a California educrat: youngish, smiling, efficient, and just a little wormy, like a larva newly hatched from an education program.

His main point of concern, it turns out, is the address you provided in Los Angeles, but you explain that you are in the process of moving to Calabasas, and give a little background on Becky and how she has moved out to join you from back east. That assuages him, and he looks almost relieved as he prints out the forms for you to sign. After handing over booklets dealing with honor codes and other whatnot, he sends Becky down the hall to the guidance counsellors' offices, so she can sign up for her classes. Alone, with you, he talks a little more about you and your circumstances—plainly trying to confirm to his own satisfaction that you are in fact intending to make the move to Calabasas—but you content yourself with telling him that you are a professional actor. If he recognizes your name or face, he gives no indication. After that, he gives you a short tour of the facilities, then leaves you to wait in the outer offices for Becky to come out.

She looks a little freaked when you see her again, and when you ask her why, she says, "It's my first day in a new school." Is Sydney serious? You suppose she might be. You give her a reassuring peck on the forehead and tell her to have fun and to start making friends. She gives you a look as she totters off to make her own tour of the school.

You brought your laptop, so you camp out at an IHOP for the day, trawling through real estate listings and searing your eyeballs with the prices. It's going to be tough to pay for even a rental unit unless you get a good part again in something steady, and somehow it is not much of a consolation to think that soon Paul's problems will not be yours, as you will have moved on to a new identity. For you've played his part long enough now that you suspect you will continue to empathize with him, or his pedisequos.

And who are you going to be? Sydney already has four candidates when you pick her up later that afternoon.

* * * * *

It wasn't the worst day ever, she tells you on the drive home, and the more she talks, the more apparent it is that she's greatly exaggerating the horrors. At worst, it was tolerable, and at least three people went out of their way to try making friends with her.

The first, she says, was a girl named Hailey in her American Literature class. She describes her as slim and blonde and very pretty, with a soft voice and a very intimate manner. "She made me feel like she was letting me into a conspiracy, just talking to her," Sydney reports.

The second was the Korean TA in her Intro to Drama class, a boy named Parker. He was very cheerful and helpful, and she is pretty sure that he asked her out on a date without actually putting it that way. But she isn't sure, because she saw him being "affectionate" with a cute Korean girl in a cheerleader uniform. "But maybe they were all just friends," she says, "because there were a bunch of them with her. Koreans, I mean."

Then there was a kid named Adam who definitely hit on her in math class. There didn't seem to be anything very special about him, but she says that if you want to get into the high school fast, he'd probably be the easiest to lure into a trap, since he seems very eager to get together alone with Becky.

The only path that would be easier, she suggests, is the drama teacher, Ms. Johns, who is in her early thirties. You, being an actor, could easily approach her for a private conference; and if you became a teacher you'd have a wider and deeper view of the school for making later choices.

But these are all just first day impressions. Maybe you should wait.

Next: "The Adult Thing to Do" 

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