The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Minding Jessica's Business

Previously: "Jessica Has Plans" 

You stare, boggle-eyed, at your doppelganger. Jessica wants to use masks to get back at Laurent and the guys?

"Like how?" you ask. "What are we gonna do?" What are you going to do? would be more like it, because it's clearly going to be Jessica's plan.

"I dunno," Will grumbles. "We'll figure it out after we make summa the masks. Oh, d'ju bring my money?"

You start to take it out, then pause. "How are you going to buy supplies?" you ask. "You're grounded."

He stares at you, then frowns.

"Uh huh," you say. "I'll keep the money. I'll go buy the supplies."

"You know what to get?"

"Bring me a shopping list tomorrow," you say. "I'll go pick it al. up tomorrow after school."

But will you?

* * * * *

You wrestle with it all evening: Do you help Jessica with her plans for revenge?

On the one hand—and much the larger hand it seems, too—you can imagine all the ways things could go wrong. Not in detail, but enough of an idea. Things are really fucked up now, with you and Jessica now pretending to be each other. And that was from just one mask being made, and one miscommunication! If Jessica makes a bunch of them, and really uses them to try fucking up the guys, all hell could break loose!

You also feel a residual loyalty to the guys, and no inconsiderable resentment toward Jessica.

On the other hand, there is some justice in her complaints. The guys have been pretty goddam careless with the masks, and a sharp lesson might be just the thing they need. And can you really stop Jessica from taking revenge? She's got the book, and she's got other ways than through you to get supplies to make masks. You probably can't stop her just by refusing to cooperate, and if you did, that would put you in her crosshairs—and at a time when she is impersonating you and can get you into all kinds of trouble with your family. Pragmatic reason, then, suggests that you should cooperate with her, both to keep her happy with you and also to rein her in.

The resulting struggle of emotions and reasons leaves you balanced on a knife's edge all night, and you are still undecided when you go to bed. But you wake up the next morning feeling very clear and certain in your mind. You do wonder if sleeping a full night in Jessica's mask has embedded you even more deeply in her mind and personality, but even that doubt can't change the very firm conviction you now have that you must cooperate with Jessica—if only to protect her from her own furies.

* * * * *

This new evolution in the situation overshadows all, and you charge through the following day paying attention to only what needs to be done. Before second period Will stops in the library long enough to give you a "shopping list," and you tell him you'll drop the stuff off at his house this evening. James and Eva? You put them on the back burner. You also dodge Luke at lunchtime—your promise to meet him outside the cafeteria notwithstanding—because that would be another distraction. (You do seek him out afterward, though, to apologize for skipping out on him, and telling him that one of your girlfriends had a crisis you needed to deal with. You make him promise to look for you outside the German classroom tomorrow, so that you'll be sure of seeing each other then.) And you arrange with Marc to drop him and Eva off at home after school, as you will need the car.

Eighty dollars is enough to get the bare minimum of supplies: enough for six masks, but only three metal strips. You drop them off, along with what little change remains from the transactions, at Will's place. You offer to execute the spells for him, seeing as how he is grounded, but he demurs. You are in a thoughtful but distracted mood the rest of the night, and put off meeting with Stephanie when she texts.

* * * * *

Thursday. Lunchtime.

"So then she pulls out the front of his shirt," Adam Dortch is saying, and he demonstrates by pulling forward the collar of his own t-shirt, "and she dumps the whole plate of lasagna down the front of it!"

He rocks backward on his seat, laughing. Ben Gunnison, seated beside him, brays with laughter. Adam's girlfriend, Catherine Greathouse, smiles though a wince, and daintily continues eating.

And Luke, whose humiliation in a freshman home economics class Adam has just been describing? He grins through his blush and gives Adam the bird.

And you? Like Catherine, you grin at the story while wishing you didn't have to pretend.

There's five of you clustered at the end of the table, barely able to hear each other over the roar and clatter of the cavernous cafeteria. Luke made the quick introductions when you met up with them in line outside the door: Adam, Catherine, Ben, and Taran. You already know Taran from class, of course. Ben, a roly-poly kid with short, brown hair and a quick grin, is someone you've seen in classes, but never talked to. Catherine is new to you and to Jessica both.

As for Adam? Well, he's hard to miss. He's tall and trim, with a bouffant of hair that he teases up into a massive, flaring burst, like a tumbleweed, or the hair of a troll doll. His face is flat and freckled, and he's got buck teeth, but he's not bad looking. In fact, there is something compelling in his face—maybe it is the very direct stare that he has—that, despite a surface ugliness, has the effect of making him actually look handsome.

The trouble, so far as you're concerned, though, is that he is almost brutally cocky. He has the loudest voice at the table, and he dominates the conversation, making it either about how great he is or how silly others are. It especially makes your skin crawl when he looks at you. The gleam in his eye and the curve of his lip convey, almost telepathically, what he thinks of you. You'd be a meal to a guy like him, if Luke hadn't staked you out first.

Maybe Luke senses the dislike that you harbored for Adam, for at your locker afterward—he followed you there—he says, "Adam can be kind of a jerk."

"I like Adam," you protest, though maybe not convincingly.

Luke leans against the locker next to yours, and smiles down into your face. "I got a lot of friends," he says. "We don't have to hang out with him."

"We can hang out with whoever."

Not until you see the quick, hooded look that flickers over his face do you realize the import of what you just said: that you're not just going with him to a party on Friday, but that you're already up for "hanging out" with him.

You try to cover this minor blunder by asking, "Who else do you hang out with?"

"Oh, lots of people," he says with a shrug. "Lots of guys from the team. Noah and Michael and Cam. Sebastian. Other guys. Who do you hang out with?"

"Some of my old friends from the soccer team. Anita and Barbara, girls like that. Stephanie Wyatt. A lot of the girls that were at Josie's party, you know."

He nods. "Maybe we should have a party," he says. "An end of the semester thing."

There's meaning in the glance he gives you: A party to mark that we're going together.

* * * * *

Will Prescott, looking hot and stung with some secret anger, is fidgeting outside your English class as you approach. He glares when he sees you.

"Where were you at lunch?" he demands.

"In the cafeteria. What's it to you?" you retort.

"D'ju get the stuff I left in your locker?"

"Yeah." That would be the mask and metal band that you found inside your locker, wrapped in a plastic bag, when you went to change books after cheerleader practice. "That was quick work."

"I was up practically all night. Your dad's pissed at me for stinking up the garage. But we got another problem."

We've got lots of problems, you want to retort, and you're going to make some more, aren't you?

"Laurent grabbed me, said he needs the book back," he continues. "They're doing some kind of project with it out in the wilderness, and they need the book to figure out how to continue."

"So you gonna give them the book?"

He flinches.

"I don't want to," he says, "but it's gonna be hard to come up with excuses. If I'm going to give it to them, I wanna go along so I can see what they're up to at least. You'd want to go along with them," he adds in an accusing tone.

You shrug, but observe, "You can't, because you're grounded."

"I know. I tried putting him off that, told him it would have to wait until next Monday, when I'm ungrounded, but he was all, 'You don't have to come, or if you want to we'll get someone to cover for you.'

"But," he resumes after a full-body squirm, "I wanna know what the fuck they're up to. Think you could cover for me?"

You blink, then rear back. "You mean switch back?"

"Sort of. You—" He glances around, and lowers his voice. "You take off my mask, put on some of your old clothes, and go home as yourself. Then I can go out with Laurent and them and see what's going on."

You can't help making a face: She's offering to let you take some of your own punishment so that she can spy on Laurent and the others from under your face.

But she's also given you another thought: How about you just take off her mask, and go with Laurent and the others while she continues to play your part at home?

That's all for now.

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