The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Adrift and Seasick

Previously: "Explosions That Fizzle" 

You pick Caleb up early the next morning, so that you have time to drive out to the barn before you have to be at school. He is shaking his head as he comes running out from checking on the spell.

"Still going," he says as he hops back into the truck. You and he speculate glumly on how long it might take and what might happen if anyone stumbles over it before it's done. You are also bothered when Caleb reminds you that the spell said something about "relighting" the fire if it goes out until it does not relight any more. You have a premonition of an anxious week ahead of you.

* * * * *

And so it proves. Teresa and Keith both ask you at school about the state of the spell, and you tell them what you and Caleb found and discussed. Keith just frowns, but Teresa looks anxious. You don't ask her for her thoughts, though, as you are still somewhat put out by the fact that she spilled to Caleb about your Saturday afternoon together, and hasn't confessed to you about it. She continues to join you and your friends at lunch, but she doesn't say much, and the rest of you don't have a lot to say to her.

So Monday passes, and Tuesday and Wednesday as well. You and Caleb settle into a routine: You check the burning dirt pile in the morning before school, in the afternoon after school, and once again in the evening. Thursday morning Caleb reports that the fire went out during the night, but that it relit when he put a match to it. The same thing happens again Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, because the book is buried under the dirt and flame, you can't make any more items. Keith suggests doing another "dress up" on Friday, but after Saturday with Teresa, you find you've lost a lot of your taste for disguises—and for Teresa's company. Though you do your best to be polite and friendly with her, there is a definite tension between you that puts you on edge. You wonder if she feels the same.

You've also grown very protective about "Mickey," so that when Keith asks if he can borrow her mask (because you've said you don't want to go out in it), you tell him to fuck off. "Dude!" he exclaims with a wounded look. "The fuck is the matter with you? I just wanna—"

It's lunchtime, and you're all squatting in your usual spot behind the school. Teresa hasn't joined you yet, and you glance around anxiously, looking for her, as you don't really want Keith jabbering away about "Mickey" in front of her. "We'll talk about it later," you hiss at him.

"Dude," Keith repeats, in a voice as loud as before. "I thought we were all sharing this stuff. I'll let you borrow whatsername if you let me—"

"Just shut up!"

"Yeah, shut up about it, Keith," Caleb puts in. "This isn't the place to talk about it anyway. Out in public."

"I just wanna know what we're doing tonight," Keith whines. "We go through all the trouble of making those things, and then—"

"You and me'll go do something," Caleb tells him. "With Maria and your girl. Will can join us later, if he feels up to it."

Keith casts a shrewd glance in your direction. "You got sumfin planned on your own?"

"Will got burned last weekend, remember?" Caleb gives Keith a very direct and meaningful look.

"He should get back on the horse," Keith mutters back.

"Just shut up," Caleb says, and loudly changes the subject as Teresa comes walking up.

* * * * *

Maybe she sensed a special tension in air, or maybe her mind was just running on tracks parallel to Keith's. But she comes to find you at your locker after the final bell, to ask if she can ride along with you and Caleb to check on the thing in the barn.

"Then maybe we can go find Keith," she says, "and go do something. It's Friday, you know."

The anxiety you've felt all week now concentrates into a ball in the pit of your stomach.

"Sure," you tell her. "After we check on the thing, I'll drop you and Caleb off at Keith's, if you want. They're gonna do something together tonight, you can hang out with them."

Teresa frowns. "What about you?"

"I don't feel good," you say, and it's actually the truth. You are jittery, and are on your way to convincing yourself that you're nauseated.

She peers into your face, and hesitates before saying, "It seems like you've been 'off' all week."

"Just nerves, I guess," you mutter, and resume changing out books.

"About it the thing out in the barn?"

That's not really it, but you tell her it is.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I suggested we set it up out there," she says. "We should've done it at the elementary school."

"We didn't know. You ready?" you ask as you finish zipping up your pack. You slam your locker shut, and lead her off to the parking lot.

* * * * *

The fire has gone out again when you get to the barn, but again Caleb relights it. As he clambers back into the cab, he voices the thought that has been gnawing at you. "Sure hope those guys don't come out here to have another barbecue tonight."

Without thinking, you turn to Teresa, who is sitting next to you. "Will they?" you ask her.

She freezes up. Then, in a tiny voice says, she says, "I don't know."

Caleb looks quizzically at her, then over at you. Then, in a carefully casual tone he says, "If you two wanna go off and have a date tonight like you did last Saturday, me and Tilley can find something to do, just us."

No one says anything to that, and you occupy yourself by starting the truck. You keep your eyes locked on the road as you drive back to town.

"It wasn't a date," you finally grind out when no one else says anything either. "And maybe you and Teresa should go do something tonight," you add as your temper starts to run hotter and hotter, "and me and Keith'll do something on our own. You and Teresa can use the same masks her me used last Saturday."

There's a tense silence.

Then Caleb says, quietly, to Teresa, "Want to?"

"Maybe I'll stay in tonight," she says, "and you guys can go do something."

"I don't care which mask I wear," Caleb says. "Or which one you wear."

"Then do something with Keith, he'd be up for anything," you growl, and are surprised by your own words.

"Are you talking to me or to Caleb?" Teresa stiffly asks.

"Whoever."

* * * * *

The upshot is that you drop Teresa at her house. Caleb tries talking to you on the ride out to his house—"You done fucked up good there, my boy," he says—but you shut him up by telling him to go fuck himself. He doesn't lose his temper, though, and only shrugs at the end of the ride when he hops from the cab. "I'll talk to you later," he says, and slams the truck door shut before you can curse him out again.

Back home, you lay on your bed and try to figure out how you feel.

You feel embarrassed, that's how you feel. Deeply and almost suicidally embarrassed. It's bad enough that you had that weird time of it with Teresa last Saturday—her trying to make out with you while playing a guy, and you almost going along with it while playing a girl. On top of that is the dreadful feeling that everyone thinks that you and Teresa have become a couple.

And worst of all, you have the guilty sense that maybe Teresa thinks so too—or at least that she thought you were on your way to being one.

Do you want it to be? Not really.

Not because you are repulsed by Teresa—you're not—but because you feel cornered, and because you don't know how to get out that corner without hurting Teresa's feelings.

That is, if she actually is interested in you, and if all this isn't just a figment of your conceited imagination.

That's the other embarrassing side of the question. What if you're just imagining it all? How humiliating would it be if you tried gently breaking it to Teresa that you weren't into her, only to learn that she was never into you?

It would seem easiest to just let things drift, but then you reflect that if you feel yourself in a corner, it's because you let yourself drift into that corner, instead of taking a firm line with Teresa. Now it's too late to take a firm line without either making a fool of yourself, or possibly hurting her feelings.

Dread turns to something like horror when you reflect that you are now on the other side of the problem you and Lisa had. There, she was the one that wasn't interested in you, and crushed your heart when she told you too late that there was nothing between you and her.

Is that what my problem is? you ask yourself. I don't want to risk doing to Teresa what Lisa did to me? But if so, it might be too late. Lisa let things drift into a bad place when she was with you, and it seems you might have let things drift into the same kind of bad place with Teresa.

Again, assuming that all this isn't your imagination.

Maybe, it occurs to you with a glimmer of hope, I've just been taking Caleb's and Keith's bullshit about her and me too seriously.

If so, maybe you should talk to them about the situation.

Or maybe you should talk to Teresa about it.

Next: "The Thing in the Barn" 

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