The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Party of Five, Chapter 11

Previously: "Party of Five, Chapter 10" 

There was nothing from Sean when you got up Sunday morning, but he's replied to your comment when you check after church: Wow thanks but sorry I gave you writing virus lol, he says. I am enjoying your Party of Five story, the webcomic is favorite of mine, was thiking for long time of writing my own version of it but now you beat me!

This reply excites you far more than you'd have guessed it could, and you have to take a quick run down the street and back to settle yourself. When you're at the computer again you reply with trembling hands: Lol ooops sorry. You should write yours tho becos it'll be thousand times better than mine.

You originally prefaced this comment with "Guess we think alike," but you delete it before hitting "Post." He has no way of knowing that you have a copy of his brain inside yours, but that's no reason to get cute with second meanings.

You check back multiple times for replies from him while writing your next chapter ...

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IT HAD TAKEN TANYA almost thirty minutes to work up the nerve to talk to Alfie about Susie, and they had been standing in the supermarket's cookie aisle for five minutes before she finally blurted it out. To her immense relief, Alfie took it graciously. In fact, he looked almost relieved.

"I'll tell her that as soon as we get back," he told Tanya, then went back to trying to decide between regular Oreos and the golden vanilla variant. "Do you really think that'll help?"

"Scarlett's working on her," Tanya said. "That's why she told me and Dougie to come with you, so she'd have a chance to talk to Susie."

Now Alfie looked surprised, and a little irritated. He covered it, though, with a change of subject. "Don't call him 'Dougie', okay?"

"I thought that's what everyone called him."

"That's what Scarlett calls him."

Tanya shrugged. "Whatever," she said. "As long as I don't do it in front of him, right?"

The total bill came to more than two hundred and fifty dollars when they checked out, which Alfie put on a credit card his folks had given him. After that, they drove around Saginac for a little while, looking at the old houses and neighborhoods. It was a small, quiet town of about eight thousand people (or so Doug reported after looking it up on his cell phone), and Alfie cynically suggested that they must have some real banger parties at the high school, because there'd never be anything else to ever do in a town that tiny.

It was a little after noon when they got back to the cabin, which they found empty. Doug made them all some sandwiches, and Tanya reminded Alfie of what he needed to do when Susie got back. Then they settled in, Tanya with a book, Doug at the laptop, and Alfie on his phone.

Tanya was still into her book, but Alfie was leaning over Doug's shoulder, watching a YouTube video that Doug wanted him to see, when they heard girls' voices outside. Tanya watched the front door nervously, hoping that (judging by the laughter) Scarlett had brought Susie around to forgiving Alfie, and that things would now calm down. She glanced back to see Alfie, still bent over Doug's shoulder, also watching the door with white, compressed lips.

Then, after a long moment during which the voices fell away to silence, the door opened and Scarlett and Susie came inside.

Both girls were dressed down to practically nothing, wearing bikini tops and jean cutoffs that barely covered the tops and bottoms of their hips. They bumped and stumbled and leaned against each other while holding hands, and Tanya briefly wondered if they were drunk. The impression that they were high on something was only reinforced when Scarlett flashed a sloppy peace symbol at the room.

"Hey, ya'll," Susie drawled and giggled. "We're back!"

"How were the caves?" Tanya asked. She was very conscious of how stiffly she was sitting and holding her book.

"So sweet!" Susie groaned. "We should all go up there tomorrow!"

"No way," Doug said. "I told you, caves give me the willies."

"It's not the way you're thinking," Susie said. "They're big and airy and cool. Oh, and we found that hot spring those guys were telling Scarlett about!"

"I'm still gonna skip," Doug said. "It'd be just my luck to run into the only bat in the place."

"I'm with Dougie," Tanya said. "Count me out." Then she kicked herself mentally for slipping and calling him by Scarlett's nickname.

"You guys are missing out," Scarlett sang as she sauntered on bare feet for the kitchen.

"Hey Susie," Alfie called. He shuffled up to her when she turned. "I'm sorry for being such a jerk."

"A jerk?" Susie asked, looking nonplussed.

"You know." He shifted on his feet and looked up at her from under his brows. "Sexting with Carla," he said in a barely audible voice.

Susie broke into a huge grin.

"Oh, no sweat, sweetie." She touched his lips with a fingertip. "I know that boys will be boys." With a lingering smile she followed Scarlett into the kitchen.

Alfie turned to Tanya, a look of alarm on his face.

"It's okay," Tanya told him in a low voice. "You heard what she said."

"But what does that mean, boys will be boys?" He shoved his hands through his mop of hair.

"It means she gets it," Tanya said, but Alfie continued to look pale and skeptical. He could say nothing, though, as Susie came back out of the kitchen.

"Alfie, sweet," she cooed. "Did you get hot dogs at the store? I want hot dogs for supper."

"I didn't get hot dogs," he said. "I got hamburger meat—"

"I want hot dogs," Susie groaned. "I wanna do a cookout. We could go up to the caves tonight and have a cookout, and we could cook hot dogs over—"

"I don't think we're allowed to build outdoor fires," Doug said. "There's hazard warnings up on account of the drought."

"Oh, screw the hazard warnings, I want—"

"Don't push it, Susie," Scarlett said as she came back out of the kitchen with a bottle of mineral water. "There's a brick grill out back, we can have a cookout there. But," she added, addressing Alfie, "Susie's in the mood for a hot dog. You know. A fat, long, juicy sausage she can wrap into her mouth and tongue and tonsils around—"

Susie squealed and smacked Scarlett in the shoulder.

"I guess I can go back to the store," Alfie said, unhappily. "Anything else we need?"

"I'll look," Scarlett said as Susie began rattling off hot dog condiments. Alfie left a few minutes later, with Doug for company.

Tanya, her book still frozen in her hand, had watched all this with a feeling of trepidation, and it only grew as Scarlett tugged Susie down the hallway and into the bathroom. A moment later the shower water came on.

This was all very strange.

Tanya had hoped that Scarlett would get Susie to forgive Alfie, and it sounded like she had. And yet she couldn't help feeling that Alfie had a right to be edgy. Tanya knew her sister, and she knew that Susie was a fairly serious girl. Flirty, yes, and emotional. But she said what she meant, and unlike Scarlett she never veiled her reactions in sarcasm or innuendo. Boys will be boys, though, sounded like the kind of thing Scarlett would say, and it sounded like the kind of thing that could mean either "I forgive you" or "I will NEVER forgive you and will torture you forever about it."

Well, Tanya thought with a sigh, maybe it sounds like Scarlett because it's what she told Susie to say. Certainly, if taken at face value, it was Scarlett's own philosophy. From everything that Tanya had heard, "Boys will be boys" was why she tolerated Brad's little affairs.

But she couldn't imagine Susie tolerating Alfie's "side dishes."

In fact (she thought as she reflected further) it was exactly the wrong thing she should have said if Scarlett's little therapy session had gone the way it was supposed to. She needs to make Alfie totally jealous and upset, Scarlett had told Tanya. She needs to make him so wild and angry that he'll want give up the "side dishes" to make her happy.

That seemed pretty ambitious, but Tanya had lived up to the task Scarlett had given her, and had gotten Alfie to apologize, explicitly, for texting with Carla. But instead of nailing down that Alfie had been wrong to do that, Susie had said "Boys will be boys," which sounded like she was giving him permission to cheat. But Susie couldn't mean that.

By now Tanya felt as alarmed as Alfie had looked. "Boys will be boys" to her now sounded not like forgiveness, but like the threat of a real storm to come.

The water in the bathroom shut off, and Tanya listened. There was a murmur of indistinct voices after the door opened, and she heard footsteps going down the hall. Once she thought the girls were in the master bedroom, she crept quietly down to the other bedroom, where she stood in the doorway and listened.

There was a rustled of feet and clothes from the other room, and Susie said something about "borrowing a bra and some of your panties," followed by a pause and then, "What's wrong?" and "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Scarlett said, "but I can't stop itching. You?"

"Same. I hope it isn't going to be like this from now on."

"It was better for a little while, but it came back."

"Skunk—"

But then there were footsteps, and the door shut. Tanya went into her bedroom and very quietly shut her own door.

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... but not until you publish it does a reply from Sean come through: Haha no worries you just saving me the trouble.

It puts a dopey grin on your face as you open a blank document to write another chapter.

Next: "Party of Five, Chapter 12" 

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