The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Afternoon at the Improv

Previously: "The Adult Thing to Do" 

"Did you tell your teacher why I wanted to meet with her?" you ask Sydney as you're crossing the teacher's lot toward the school.

"No, I thought I'd leave it up to you."

Great, you mutter to yourself. An improv exercise. Those were never Paul's strong suit.

But instead of figuring out an attack strategy, you distract yourself by casually studying the students and the school you are planning to invade. The facade that Rocky Beach High presents the street seemed simple enough: A central, three-story building built like a cube, with two projecting wings (two-stories each) on either side, built of white-washed walls of either real adobe or some facsimile, all topped with a gently sloping roof of red tile. But as Sydney leads you around the back, you find that the facade hides many more wings, all of a more modern and varied look: a mix of concrete and yellow brick (and walls of glass brick in places), and flat roofs. They bend and twist around each other too, so that after you have passed under a covered arch separating two wings, it's like plunging into a small maze. As though reading your mind, Sydney says, "I still haven't totally found my way around."

As for the students: Well, you weren't expecting them to be green-skinned aliens with antennae popping out of their foreheads, but you didn't expect them to look so much like the kids you left behind in Saratoga Falls. This being California—this being Los Angeles!—you expected them to look more like something out of a movie, or at least a TV ad. Better clothes, better grooming, more poise and, well, arrogance. But except for one clutch of girls done up in nearly identical black-and-white blouses, vests, skirts and hose, they all look pretty normal. Lots of chubby girls and chubby guys like you have back home; lots of sloppy clothes hanging off lanky shoulders; lots of shorts and t-shirts and ratty tennis shoes. In fact, it is so much like Westside High that it creates something of an "uncanny valley" effect: You might as well be back home, except for it's also completely unfamiliar. The thought, This is going to be my school leaves you feeling slightly nauseous.

You get a good view of the entire campus, because Sydney has to lead you all the way across it to reach the school theater. It's large building, circular in floor plan and rising two stories, so that it resembles a drum. Students are still passing in and out through the double doors at the front as you enter. Inside is a small atrium and a taller, statelier pair of double doors that presumably lead into the auditorium, but Sydney hangs a left and leads you down a curving, antiseptic corridor to a stairwell. "I feel like a need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs," you mutter.

But at last you reach an office whose nameplate reads "Gianna Johns." Sydney taps at the open door and puts her head into the office. "Ms. Johns?" she says. You poke your head in after her.

It's a small, windowless room with just enough space for a desk (itself so small it can hold a laptop and not much else), two chairs, and a small bookshelf. The pleasant-faced woman behind the desk is looking up with a smile, and that smile widens when she sees you.

She is almost exactly as Sydney described her, but also quite different. Of all the people you've seen so far on campus, she looks the most "Californian," probably on account of her long, blonde hair, which drapes in thick handfuls down to just past her shoulders. Her face is bold, and her mouth, which isn't too large, is still large enough to contain a good set of teeth that flash into a bright, wide smile. When she stands, you can see that she has good curves. Her face is a light and healthy brown—the face of someone who gets quite a bit of the California sun, but (you would guess) does not sunbathe and probably spends most of her time indoors.

All this you take in instantly, even as you are putting out a hand, which she takes. "This is my dad," Sydney is saying, and then you and Ms. Johns are exchanging hellos and introductions: "I'm Gianna Johns." "Paul Griffin." If she recognizes either you or the name, she doesn't show it.

After a short but awkward pause, you plunge in.

"Thanks for seeing me," you say. "I don't want to take up too much of your time—"

"Don't worry about it," Gianna Johns says with a laugh as she sits back down. "I'm required to stay until five anyway."

"Well, I wanted to talk to you about—" You halt and turn to give Sydney a penetrating stare. Get the mask ready, is what you're trying to telepathically communicate to her, but she just smiles back at you.

Fine, you think to yourself. If that's the way she wants to be. You turn back to Ms. Johns. "I wanted to talk to you about Becky and whether or not she should really be in this class."

Ms. Johns blanches slightly, and her gaze darts onto Becky. "Oh?" she says. Sydney, by your side, starts a little.

"Yes. Um, don't take this the wrong way. I'm a professional actor myself, and I support Becky in whatever she wants to do. I just don't to see you wasting your time with her."

Sydney drops her backpack onto the visitor's chair and unzips it. "Maybe I should take a book and go read someplace outside," she mutters.

"Uh, I don't 'waste my time' with anyone, Mr., uh, Griffin," Ms. Johns says. "It's a class, you know, and Becky is one of the students. If you're worried about the grade she might get—"

"Oh no, it's not. It's the class I wanted to talk to you about." You feel the sweat pop out all over your body as Sydney draws out one book, and then another, and then a third from her pack. She seems to be taking her sweet time finding ... whatever it is that she's looking for. You can't keep your eyes on Ms. Johns, for your gaze insists on fastening onto Sydney as you silently but frantically urge her on. "It's, it's about your, um, technique. Pedagogy, I guess. Um. I'm not questioning it— I mean, I guess I am, in the sense that—" God damn it, will you get a move on, Sydney? "—I want to talk about what it is, what you'll be teaching her and how. I mean, uh, I know Becky and her, uh— Well, I'm wondering if this class might be too advanced for her? Is there another, more basic class she could be taking instead?" Anxiety crawls over you like ants under your skin.

"Well, yes, there is an Introduction to Performance class," Ms. Johns says. She is sounding more and more puzzled, and you can hardly blame her. "But I already talked to Becky, and she says that at her old school—" Her glance strays to Sydney as she at last straightens up from her backpack. But she is still talking to you ("—she already took a theater class that by the sounds of it would have—") even as Sydney swings around the side of the desk and slaps at her teacher's face. Ms. Johns just has time to violently flinch before she freezes, and then slowly slumps in her chair. Sydney hisses, "Will! The door!" and you come unfrozen yourself, and reach over to slam the office door shut. "Now help me with—" Sydney continues, and you wheel around to catch Ms. Johns before she can slide from her chair to the floor.

"Jesus, it took you long enough," you growl as you help her ease Ms. Johns onto the floor, where she curls up, with unseeing eyes, like a broken doll.

"Well, I'm sorry," she retorts. "I wanted to use the metal doohickey on her, and it was at the bottom of my pack. Now help me get her undressed."

Matters would have been much worse if Gianna Johns liked to dress up. But even in her relaxed wardrobe—a blue, denim work shirt, open with the sleeves rolled up, over a white, cotton t-shirt, and blue jeans and sandals—it's hard for the two of you two work on her in the cramped office space, and you keep bumping your shoulders and elbows into the desk or the walls. Sydney is also fumbling clumsily behind the desk.

You've just got the teacher down to her underthings when Sydney asks, "Okay, so which one of us needs to get undressed?"

Before you can answer—if you even had an answer, but your brain is still frozen around the question—a cell phone buzzes. It's like a prompt in a play or movie, and instinctively you look around for it. You find it in the enormous shoulder bag in the corner next to the desk.

Michael Riordan, the caller ID says when you look at it, and in a panic you ask yourself, Who?

"Will," Sydney says.

But you don't answer, for you are too fascinated by the name, and by the unknown implications behind it. Who is Michael Riordan, and what is his relationship to Gianna Johns? Her husband (though she doesn't wear a ring)? Her boyfriend? Her gay best friend? An old flame, a long-ago fling looking to reconnect, a best friend from high school? Her landlord, insurance agent, car mechanic? Taking on Gianna Johns's identity, you'd be throwing yourself into a life you don't know, and with relationships that might badly complicate your plans, and Sydney's.

"Will," Sydney says. "Which of us should be getting ready to make a switch?"

Next: "A New Role for Will Prescott" 

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