The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Boys in Mind

Previously: "Aftermath From an Invitation" 

You're wracking your brains for a discreet way of broaching the topic of Maggie's party, when Jenny appears. Yumi nearly wrenches your arm from its socket as she hustles you over to meet her.

"Jessica's going on a date with Luke Richardson Friday night," she blurts out before Jenny even has a chance to say hello.

"Yumi!" you exclaim.

"Well, aren't you?"

"Uhnhh!" You turn to Jenny, who is frowning in astonishment. "Maggie Crenshaw's having a party Friday night, and Luke Richardson asked me to go with him."

"That's what I said!" Yumi yells.

"You made it sound—!"

"Luke?" says Jenny. "Richardson? Oooh!" Her eyes pop. "How'd this happen? When?"

So you get to tell her (and Yumi, in more detail) about the party at Josie Holden's last night, and how you hung out with Luke. Jenny's eyes glitter and gleam, and her grin gets very wide.

"Oh that's so cool!" she gushes when you're done. "You have any classes with him?"

"No, not this year. Last spring—"

"Has he been going out with anyone?" she asks Yumi. "I'll ask around, find out if he's broken up with anyone lately."

"What does that matter?"

But she ignores you. "So I heard about Maggie's party," she says, "but no one's, like, told me about it. Like— Would she mind if we crashed it?" she asks Yumi.

"Why would you crash it?" you ask.

"Because I want to go!" Jenny turns again to Yumi. "Don't you want to go?"

"I don't care," she says. She has suddenly gotten sulky.

"Well, I want to go," Jenny declares. "So if I can crash it—"

"You don't have to crash it," you tell her. "I'll just ask Luke if—"

"You're gonna have to have a date," Yumi tells Jenny, very flatly.

"How come?"

"If Jessica's going to get you in. What?" she then caustically demands of you. "Were you going to tell Luke you want to go as a thruple with him and Jenny?"

"No!"

"So what were you going to say?"

You hadn't thought that far ahead, and lapse into a rather helpless silence.

"I can just crash it," Jenny says.

"I'll talk to Luke," you tell her. But you don't feel happy, and Yumi and Jenny don't look it either.

* * * * *

You three girls wind up taking your lunch apart from the others, around the corner of the wing and out of sight. You talk around the party, and how to get Jenny in, rather than directly about it: You talk about Luke and who he hangs out with, and the baseball team, and Maggie Crenshaw and the softball team. You gossip about who has been dating or going around with who, and sharing opinions about them without once offering an opinion about whether you or Yumi or Jenny would or should try going out with them. You broach the topic of Carson and James delicately and obliquely (for James has a crush on Jenny, just as Paul has on Yumi) by asking if she (Jenny) would be willing to go as one of their dates if one of them got invited separately to the party. The way she tenses tells you that that's an avenue she'd rather not employ.

"Listen," you wind up telling her after the bell has rung and Yumi has gone. "I'm gonna get you into the party."

"I don't have to go," she sighs. "I'm just being, you know, a busybody."

"No, I want you to. I said yes when Luke asked me, but, you know, I'm not into him."

"You're not interested in him?" she gasps.

"Interested or interested? That's why I'd kinda like to have you along. You know." You shrug. "So you can get an impression of him—"

"I don't want to run your life, Jessica."

"I'm not asking you to! I just think, you know—"

"Okay, okay. You just know I'm not pushing myself at you."

"No, I'm asking you, Jenny."

You nod, and she nods, and there's an awkward moment when neither of you speaks.

"Okay," you lamely conclude. "I'll work on getting you in somehow—"

"Just don't make a big production out of it, okay?" she says. "I don't wanna go because I want to go. Or because I want to go," she adds with a squirm, "with some guy."

"I understand," you assure her, and you part for your next class.

* * * * *

As it happens, Luke is standing outside your sixth-period classroom, talking to Taran Pritzker, when you approach. It gives you a warm glow to see him, even as it sets your insides skittering and jumping, like a lot of rabbits in roller skates. Oh my God, you ask yourself. Why am I acting like I've got a crush? Why am I acting like I've got a crush when I'm pretty sure even Jessica hasn't got a crush!

Luke does a double-take—he almost jumps—when he sees you, and breaks out in a huge grin. "Hey!" he exclaims as you sidle up with a dopey grin on your own face. "I was looking for you in the cafeteria, but I didn't see you."

"Oh, I ran into a couple of friends," you reply with a shrug, "wound up having lunch outside next to the music wing." You flash a quick smile at Taran, and try to will your heart into slowing down to under five thousand beats per second. "How about tomorrow? I'll make sure to hang out in front of the cafeteria so we don't, um, miss each other again."

Luke says that'll be great. Then he gives Taran a quick grin and slap on the shoulder, and is suddenly gone.

Literally. He turns sideways, slips into the crowd that is worming through the corridor, and is instantly carried off. It's almost like magic.

Wow, you think. It's like with bears. I think he's more scared of me than I am of him.

But that doesn't comfort you. It means that he might have a serious crush on you.

You turn to find Taran giving a close but gnomic look. "Hey Taran," you say as you try to catch your breath. "I didn't know you know Luke."

He shrugs, and turns to go into the classroom. But he hesitates long enough to glance over his shoulder to see if you're following.

And you do. In fact, you follow him all the way over to the table where he usually sits. This is very much to your own surprise, and you can only figure that it's the result of instinct or cowardice, as it seems like he was almost expecting you to sit with him. But why?

You yourself have never laid eyes on Taran Pritzker, and Jessica only knows him from this class—Art III—and has never really spoken to him. In fact, no one in the class seems to talk to or pay any attention to him—not even Ceres Kesey, the blonde hippie girl, who spent the first week of class sitting next to him and trying in a really obvious way to chat him up. Nowadays he hunches like a stump in the back of the classroom, working mutely on his projects and not looking at anyone except Mr. Trencher.

There's a force field or something around Taran, something that pushes people away after they try to approach him. And approach him they do, especially the girls (like Ceres). For he's a good-looking guy, though in a slightly grimy and unkempt way. He has dark hair that covers his brow and falls over his ears and the top of his neck, and regular, handsome (but not beautiful) features: a small nose and mouth, and a firm chin. He dresses in dark jeans and ratty tennis shoes, and favors sloppy t-shirts, usually of a grayish-greenish color. But he hunches and slouches, as though trying to draw a shell up over himself, and he moves at a shuffle with downcast face and eyes. And yet, even then, he seems to fill up a space, and radiate a presence.

Possibly it's his eyes which create that spell, and which even when downcast are never completely invisible. They are large for his face; grayish-green in color, like those shirts he favors; and they seem to be filled with a deep and wounded melancholy. The few times that you—well, Jessica—have caught him looking in your direction, they seemed to be filled with thought so deep and penetrating that it was like your soul was being laid bare before him. But then you realized that he wasn't looking at you, he was looking through you, as though utterly absorbed with some inner problem.

You look at him now, as he slowly unpacks his bag. You give him a long moment to notice that you are watching him, but when he remains absorbed in his work of setting out sketchbook and pencils and erasers, you lean over to address him. "Are you going to Maggie Crenshaw's party on Friday?"

He lifts his face, and gives you a very direct look.

Direct, but somehow empty.

He says nothing, until you raise your eyebrows in a query. Then he shifts on his stool, and hunches over his art supplies.

"I dunno," he says. "Luke was telling me about it."

"Him and me are going to it together."

Taran shrugs.

"I didn't know you were friends with Luke."

There's the slightest hint of resentment in the sidelong glance he gives you. "He lets me hang out with him," he says, and with careful movements begins to rearrange his work space.

You let it drop, and wind up saying no more to him all class long.

* * * * *

"Why'd you go sit with Taran?" Kerri Mullen wants to know. She is in the art class too, and you usually sit with her and Ellie Kemp. You have her for seventh-period English as well, and are walking with her to class.

"We bumped into each other in the doorway," you tell her, though you really don't have a good answer to her question. "I thought I'd be nice. He's friends with Luke, did you know that?"

But you don't catch her reply, for the hallway is loud and crowded.

Besides, you've just caught a glimpse of James Lamont, and have suddenly remembered the idea you had for pairing him with Eva.

Next: "Ambushes and Ambushed" 

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