The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Solving Other People's Problems

Previously: "A Change of Routine" 

"Good morning, Thomas," you gasp as you totter into the Westside tutorial offices at seven-fifty-three. Clocks aren't exactly punched at Westside, but Shannon is never later than eight getting in.

Thomas Luna looks up at you from under his brows. "You missed the staff meeting," he growls.

You stop dead and stare at him with an open mouth. Staff meeting? I forgot a staff meeting?

"Oh, shut up," Michelle Clayton snarls from behind your shoulder. "He tried the same joke on me." She holds out a small plate to you, on which roll a couple of donut holes. "It's not funny,"

"Says you," Thomas smirks. "I got both of you."

You take one of the donut holes and leave Michelle to fuss at Thomas. Her voice carries, and you can see both of them clearly through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the tutorial offices. Fishbowls inside of fishbowls is the way the Westside staff describe it, and they all hate it.

Thomas and Michelle continue to nag at each other as you take out your laptop and set up for the day. You're not sure if their constant fighting is because they really don't like each other, or if there's an attraction there they are both trying to fight off.

Thomas, a Hispanic whose dark complexion is almost black (but without the African features normally associated with that hue) is the only male on staff, there's a lot of chatter amongst the girls that he likes being the office's stallion and rooster, and given it's an open secret he's carrying on a torrid affair with one of the female coaches, you'd not put it past him to try seducing the younger tutorial staff. (Michelle has told you in confidence that she's sure Elina D'Cruz had a fling shortly after she was hired.) And you— Well, Shannon— has caught him casting some meaningfully hooded looks in your direction more than once.

Michelle's possible attraction to Thomas you're less sure of. She's married, for a start, which is why a full-blooded Korean immigrant (she even still has a noticeable accent) can have the name "Michelle Clayton." She's also a lot more serious than Thomas is, and has no noticeable sense of humor. Yet aren't opposites supposed to attract? The way she can't stop hectoring sure suggests some kind of fascination on her part, like he's a scab she just can't stop picking at.

You greet the other members of the staff as they come in one by one: Sandra Johnson, the tall, elegant, fifty-something head of the department; the dumpy and grandmotherly Elaine Browning; and Elina, a Filipino immigrant who is almost as mousy as Shannon. Sandra does like to have staff meetings which accomplish nothing but which leaves her feeling involved and managerial, but otherwise everyone on staff is allowed pretty much to run their own affairs. And as there is no staff meeting this morning, you are soon immersed in your regular work.

That means one-on-one tutoring sessions with a succession of students. You have to immerse yourself deeply inside Shannon's head in order to get through them, but the deeper in you push yourself, the more relaxed and enjoyable the experience becomes.

I can't imagine teaching a roomful of the little monsters, Elaine once told you out of earshot of the others. But get them alone? She beamed.

You—Shannon—get what she means. How draining it would be to try to control a roomful of high school students, and how hard it would be tell if any of the lesson work were actually seeping in. But when it's just you and a student across the desk ... Well, sometimes it's like pulling teeth, or trying to herd a cat, but at least you can usually tell when you're getting through.

And there are some surprising cases. Today, for example, you have Brady Wilson as your seventh-period student. (Each student comes in once a week, for a full class period.) Brady is a freshman, though he is almost as tall and as packed with muscle as a senior, and he has the bold impudence of a class clown. He's a fidgeter and a joker. But he is also alert and a hard worker, even though it might be easier teaching Algebra I to a Labrador retriever. Maybe it's because his bad math scores are what kept him off the JV football squad. Or maybe (so Michelle suggested recently, in what might have been one of her rare attempts at sly humor) it's because he's got a little bit of a crush on you. Whatever. Brady makes it easy to tutor, even if every week he returns having forgotten ninety-nine percent of what you taught him the week before.

On the other hand, there's Rhea Ware. Usually it's the girls who are eager students and the boys who resent their lessons. But Rhea (who needs all the help she can get if she's not to flunk French II) just slouches and sulks and shrugs as you try going over the vocabulary with her. Three times you have to tell her put her phone away, and when you finally yank it from her she slides down in her seat and glowers back with a frank hostility.

Barbara Meek comes in at lunchtime—which startles and even alarms you a little—to ask if there's anything she can help you with; you thank her and tell her there isn't. She leaves with a slightly glazed smile on her empty face. And at a little before final bell, Mr. Staufford comes in to tell you that one of your worst problem cases, a sophomore named Trask McKinney, is being withdrawn from the school for unspecified reasons, which comes as a relief. Otherwise, it's simply a day like any other for Shannon.

Then, as you're packing up, comes a text from Stephan: Hey, pick up sashimi sampler and volcano roll plus whatever you want from Osaka on way home. Celebrate.

You blink. Celebrate?

* * * * *

Stephan looks like the proverbial "cat that ate the canary" when you get home. He positively preens but says nothing when you ask him what there is to celebrate. "What'd you get for yourself?" is all he asks as he unpacks the sixty-dollar meal you picked up.

And still he says nothing when you press, but only smirks with pleasure as he gums and sucks at a wad of tuna sashimi.

"You know," he says, "I used to think the whole idea of eating raw fish was positively revolting. I think now I could totally eat this every day." Expertly he plucks up another sashimi with a pair of chopsticks and brushes it quickly through a small bowl of soy sauce. "What about you?"

"It's nice having money," you agree. "But is this all it's about? Celebrating that we've got money and no one else to spend it on but us?"

"Fuck me," he says with a full mouth. "When I think of that trip to these two took three years ago—" His expression turns hooded. "We gonna start doing stuff like that again? I mean, if we're gonna bring back the sexy times in bed, how come we don't—"

"We moved in here so we'd have a place to work," you remind him. "My dad? Remember him, and what you did to him?"

"Oh. Well." He shrugs, and his expression turns even more puckish. "Maybe then I won't tell you what I accomplished this afternoon."

You feel your back hairs rising.

But he waits until he's bitten off, chewed, savored, and swallowed a yellowtail sashimi before he puts down the chopsticks and beckons you to follow him into the living room.

"I took the day off early, right after I finished my second class. Came home, got out the book, started looking it over again," he says. The grimoire is on the coffee table and he picks it up. "Remember where we left off?"

It's been almost a week, and you have to cast your mind back. "Yeah," you say after a short hesitation. "There was that funky page with the blurry lettering."

"You mean that funky page that someone tore," he retorts as he pulls open the front cover and starts flipping pages.

That's right: There was a page with a set of instructions. But the bottom part of the page had been torn away. The writing on the following page was visible but blurry, and there was no way to turn the page to reach it, on account of the sigil to complete the spell on the torn page was missing.

"Well, I fixed it," Stephan says with smug pride as he turns the book around to show you. "See?"

You look down at the book.

The page he shows you is complete but half blank, with a set of instructions (in Latin, naturally) taking up the top half while the bottom half is white and unblemished. You tentatively touch it, and find no sign of a tear or of a repair.

"What did you do?" you ask.

"I did what it says here." He points to the final line of instructions. "Utere me ad me reparandum. 'Use me to repair me.' You have to use something from the book in order to fix it."

"Uh huh? So what did you use?" You are quickly losing your patience.

"Well, I asked myself, what does the book make? It makes masks and those metal doohickies. And pastes. So I came home early and made up one of everything."

He drops onto the sofa, and you sit down next to him, feeling more than a little resentful at the way he's so gleefully boasting of how smart he is.

"I tried some of the pastes first, but they didn't stick. And when I put a mask on the book, and nothing happened. But when I put one of those metal memory things on it—" He grins. "It sucked it right in, like when you put it on someone. And I waited a bit and then it spat the thing back out. I put that on the torn page and— Bam!" He punches the air.

"And then I turned the page to the next spell."

Next: Coming soon! Check back!

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"