The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Love in the Afternoon

Previously: "Michelle Doubtfire" 

Your mother wants to talk about the cheerleader squad over dinner, but you brush her off with excuse that you've got a lot of homework to get done, including some projects that need doing so you'll have the weekend free. She looks hurt, but backs off.

You do in fact have a busy night.

There is, for a start, mask stuff you have to complete.

Last Saturday you made up enough blank masks to get Michelle her full set of six, and Number Three polished them and left them for you in the loft on Monday. You also made up enough of those metal strips to go with the masks. But it's a lot more tedious getting the rune work done, and you've barely stayed ahead of it by staying up late almost every night this week to get one done. You do have one ready to go, to use tomorrow on Chris Love, but you need to finish another one for use in Michelle's mask. So after speeding through your homework, you buckle down to get that one done while talking on the phone to Number Two and cocking an eye at social media on your laptop.

It's been awhile since you've coordinated with Kim, and she opens by telling you that she's got some candidates to be girlfriends for Zion Barber, the junior class president.

"I've changed my mind, we're not doing that," you tell her. "But what are the names, anyway?"

They're almost all junior girls, so they don't interest you, and Number Two confesses she doesn't know if they'd interest Zion. She's also not sure about the one senior girl on her list, but you do perk up when Kim drops her name at the end of the list: Kelly Rinaldi.

"Really?" you ask. "What made you think of her?"

"She and Zion have a class together, the Leadership/Citizenship one. I don't know what they think of each other, but it is an overlap."

"Hmm. I'll think about it." As one of Anita Nuevo's sidekicks, she'd be useful, and because Anita is such a pushy bitch, you can maybe sell Michelle on a duplication and replacement. (Assuming you can wangle her into picking a sixth without throwing up.) "Did you have that talk with her and Anita about the banner?"

"Yes, and I'm pretty sure I'm just about Anita's least favorite person now."

"Doesn't matter. Next time you see Hannah Westrick, give her an apology about that whole fiasco, and make sure you make it sound like you totally blame Anita and Kelly for it."

"Yes boss."

"Now, about all the stuff that's going on with Number Four ..."

You spend almost an hour talking about the burgeoning scandal surrounding Kelsey Blankenship, and whether you can keep bending it back to hit Justin and Karl instead. Number Two reports that "Kelsey" is practically in a nervous collapse, and is suffering hysterical crying jags. But all of her friends are rallying around her. At least officially.

"I'm pretty sure that Amanda's been posting some nasty stuff about her," she says. "Brent and Ricky at least have been really vocal about supporting her. I'm not sure about the rest of the guys. I mean, they're real supportive of her when we're all together. But Anthony and Geoff, they don't say anything to me, not like Ricky and Brent do, about it. And no one's talking about the elephant in the room."

"What's that?" You'd think the "elephant" would be that Kelsey had a three-way, which is what everyone's been talking about.

"That she's been secretly going out with Karl," Number Two says after a pause, "and that she still hasn't admitted it."

You also talk about why Lily Hallet, a member of the track team, should be so vocal about the "double standards" at the school, and you learn that she's one of a small group of girls who, at least among themselves, are pretty outspoken about the "asshole-bro" culture at Westside. You ask for their names, in case you want to "recruit" them to your team at some later date. Besides Lily, they are Audrey Briscoe, Rachel Bell, and Ella Swope. She also tells you a little more about Emily Sparks and Janelle Pelletier.

As for whether the culture at Westside could be changed, she doesn't know, but she hazards that a lot more people would have to be duplicated and replaced before it could for sure happen. As for a walkout or some similar demonstration, she's pretty sure it could be done—the administration certainly wouldn't stand in the way—but she's not sure how many would join it. "It would have to be planned pretty carefully," she says. "You'd have to get the right people to start it and say they'd join it if it happened."

All of this, then, is food for thought, and after hanging up you turn it all over in your head a couple of times as you finish the metal strip.

* * * * *

It's cold and rainy the next morning, as it has been all week, but that doesn't dampen your mood, for it's Friday again. Last night while talking to Kim you went onto social media to find a party, and found one happening tonight at the house of a junior named Kian Benefield. When you asked Kim about it, she told you that Kian is a friend of Zion Barber's, so it seems the perfect place to take the cheerleaders out in a show of support and friendship for Stacey. You pitch it to all the other girls at first-period practice, but only Gloria and Kendra and Maria talk as if they will go.

"I need you to put the screws to the squad this afternoon," you murmur at Number Seven when you catch up to him at his locker at the start of fourth period. "Tell Cindy and them—her and Lin and the Garners—that you want them all to show up at Kian Benefield's party tonight. As a show of support for Stacey."

"You want me to order them to go?" he asks dubiously.

"No, just do that passive-aggressive thing Jack does so well. Tell 'em you're gonna go out there 'cos you think squad spirit is important, and you think it'd be nice if we all showed up at the same time. Like around eight-thirty or so, maybe. Nobody has to stay for the whole thing."

"You got it. Oh, a pack of us are going out to the Warehouse for the battle of the bands."

"Is that tonight? Well, whatever. Do what you have to. Oh, how well do you know Chris Love?"

He explains that he knows Chris pretty well through girls like Laura MacGregor and Elle Moore—in fact, Chris is supposed to be one of the guys going out to the Warehouse with them all. He says he'll figure out an excuse to get Chris up to the school around seven or so. "He's a good choice," he adds when you explain that Chris is slated next to be duplicated and replaced.

* * * * *

"Grab his feet," Number Three grunts, and Number Seven, who had handled the mask, scoops up Chris Love's feet. Together, the two doppelgangers shuffle their colleague-to-be over to the nearby bleachers, and lay him out. You then dismiss them.

"Okay, this is going to involve a little more work than usual," you tell Michelle after you have summoned her from the girls' changing room, where she had been hiding out. "I'll undress him. You need to sit down or lay down, and put this onto your face." You hold out a mask.

She blanches, and hesitates a moment before taking it. "And I have to take it because?" she asks.

"Because we need to make a new Michelle, a new doppelganger. Someone has to take your place so you don't disappear. Don't worry, she'll do everything you tell her. Also, we need to hide him." You point to Chris. "So, you'll put on his mask, and he'll wear yours, and then it will be like nothing's happened to either of you. Except you'll be him."

"But won't he, um— Won't he know everything that I, um— That we—?"

"No. It doesn't work that way. Come on, Michelle!" You frown at her.

And so, visibly trembling a little all over, Michelle sits on the floor, takes a deep breath, and puts the blank mask to her face.

You amuse yourself while everyone else is unconscious by pulling Chris's clothes off him: loose-fitting khaki trousers, a billowing undershirt, and a long-sleeve, baby-blue linen long-sleeve shirt that is several sizes too large for him. The figure underneath is lean and muscular, with well-defined chest and stomach muscles, and smooth as a girl all over. You lay his mask aside when it comes out of him, then watch him alertly for movement as you paint the inside of Michelle's mask and burn a little of her hair inside it. Chris vanishes when you set the mask on him, and another Michelle Estrich sits up with a look of alarm on her face.

You convince the new doppelganger to hide out in the changing room, so as to keep the freakouts to a minimum, and seal Chris's mask. You then gently shake Michelle awake. "You should take your clothes off," you tell her. "There's a girl in the changing room who needs them." Michelle looks a little ill, but complies. She is shivering harder as she lays down afterward on the bleachers with the other mask. You leave her there to take the clothes to the other Michelle. Another Chris Love has popped into existence when you get back.

* * * * *

"Birthday."

"I don't know."

"Where do you live?"

"I don't know."

"Do you have a brother or sister?"

"I don't know!"

You bite your lip and try not to show too much panic. The fear on Chris Love's face is enough for the both of you.

He is very white beneath his tan, and his clothes hang awkwardly off his frame. He trembles all over.

For twenty minutes you have been trying to gently coax Michelle into relaxing so that Chris's memories and personality traits will come, but to no avail. Putting on the clothes, going out to his car, scrolling through his phone: none of it has worked to jog anything loose.

Michelle Estrich looks exactly like Chris Love. But she has no idea how to act like him.

Next: "Totally Mental, I Must Say" 

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