The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Noises Off

Previously: "One-Ups All the Way" 

Fuck just got text fr Lorzo while we taking about him, you tell Caleb.

Lol, he replies. What he want?

Wants buy book I show him today.

Don't do it man

Why?

Just don't

You scratch your nose, then call Caleb direct to talk.

"What have you got against Lorenzo?" you ask him when he picks up.

"I don't got anything against him," he replies. "Except he's an arrogant asshole."

"Anything else? Like, why shouldn't I sell him this book he wants. He's offering me fifty dollars for it!"

"What is it?" Caleb asks.

"Just this thing I picked up at Arnholm's the other day. Yeah, it was this thing I was gonna put in the time capsule, then I changed my mind. I brought it out to school with me, and I showed it to him. Now he says he'll buy it from me. Fifty dollars!"

"What's he want it so bad for? If he wants it so bad, you shouldn't sell it to him. Fuck him."

"I don't know what he wants it for. It's no use to me, so why shouldn't I sell it to him? Besides, he knows I've got it and I don't want it. I don't want to just be a jerk to him, tell him I'm not gonna sell him this book, after he does this huge favor for me for Walberg's class."

"Tell him you paid more than fifty for it."

"But I didn't, I already told him only paid two."

"He wants to pay you fifty for something that cost you two?" Caleb exclaims. "Jesus, now you definitely don't want to sell it to him. He's up to something. What's so special about it?"

"Well, come over and look at it and you tell me! It's just this old book, and all the pages are glued shut or something."

"You are living one weird, random-ass life, man," he says after a silence, "if Lorenzo Whiting wants to pay you fifty dollars for a book with glued-together pages that you bought for two dollars. Why did you even buy it if the pages were glued together?"

"I don't know! Arnholm's originally wanted two hundred for it, but—"

"Oh Jesus!"

Caleb listens while you give him the whole story, beginning to end, sparing no detail. And when you're done he only grunts.

"Listen, don't sell it to him, he smells an opportunity," Caleb says.

"But like I said, he knows I don't want it—"

"So tell him you got rid of it already. Tell him that I bought it from you, before you heard from him."

"You gonna give me fifty dollars for it?"

"I'm not gonna give you anything for it," he retorts. "I'm just giving you the story you can give him so he'll know why you can't sell it to him."

* * * * *

You don't feel the same vendetta against Lorenzo that Caleb apparently does. But he rubs you enough the wrong way that you decide to spite him, even though he did you that favor this afternoon. So you text him back to say that you already agreed to sell it to Caleb for twenty.

Have you given it to him yet? he replies. When you say you haven't, he says, Sell it to me instead and I'll give you seventy.

You are for a moment very tempted by this offer. But then you suddenly feel yourself repulsed by Lorenzo's suggestion that you double-cross your friend (even though Caleb didn't in fact offer you anything for it, so it is still technically yours to sell). The very idea is loathsome, and so is the way he seems to think that you would even listen to such an offer.

So you tell him that you already promised it to Caleb, and that he'll have to talk to him about buying it.

When it becomes clear that he's not going to respond any further, you call Caleb back and tell him what happened.

"Huh," he says. "Well, I bet that's the end of it."

"What are you going to do if he contacts you, offers you fifty dollars or something for it?"

"Oh, I dunno."

"Dude! You haven't even bought it from me!"

"I didn't say I'd sell it—"

"You better not! Not if I haven't sold it to you!"

"Fine," he groans, "I won't sell it to him, even if he offers me something for it."

"Well, you don't have to go that far, not if you could use the money. Tell you what," you continue as he tries to interrupt you. "If he offers you a serious amount for it, like seventy dollars, take it. But you have to give me half."

"I was going to say I would give you twenty, but okay. Half."

"Deal!"

"You know, you could've just sold it to him direct and left me out of it."

"Yeah, but you're a friend."

* * * * *

You had been planning to take the thing in to school the next morning, but you forget. But it works out, in a sense, because during fourth period Caleb tells you that Lorenzo decided against buying it.

"Yeah, I went looking for him last period," he tells you, "told him I had the thing and asked what he wanted for it. He said he changed his mind."

"Asshole."

Caleb nods, and sits back in his chair. Then he leans over to ask, "Do you still want twenty for it?"

"What? Why?"

"Oh, I was just thinking that I basically killed your chance to sell it to him. He offered you seventy, and I talked you out of it."

"That's okay. He pissed me off."

"Still, that's seventy dollars. I can't really afford to pay you that much for it, but I can give you twenty."

"No, forget it."

"I feel bad, Will."

He seems oddly insistent, so you ask him if Lorenzo really did back out of the deal.

"Yes, I told you! But I'm also thinking there might be another way to get it from him."

"What? How?"

"I just got a hunch is all. If he does wind up buying it, or things work out some other way— Well, I'll still give you half of what I get for it. But I'll give you twenty up front. That way I don't feel so bad about blowing it for you earlier."

You relent and tell him you'll accept. But you still press him to know why he's pursuing a deal with Lorenzo.

"I just wanna stick it to him," Caleb says. "Guy rubs me the wrong way."

"So you wanna make a deal with him?"

"I wanna get something out of him, and I don't care what or how."

"Sounds fuckin' weird, man, but whatever. Drop by my house after school and I'll hand it over to you. If you got the twenty."

"I got it," he assures you.

* * * * *

You take lunch out front with Carson and James, and it's weirder even than it was yesterday. Carson doesn't hustle you off, but his friend Jenny Ashton—a tomboyish girl that James has a too-obvious crush on—is full of questions for you.

"So what did you do Saturday night?" she asks after she's spent a solid minute squinting closely at you over the apple she's slowly been eating.

"Um, went out and had a little fun," you say. You are careful not to glance in the direction of Carson or James.

"Where?"

"He went to the Warehouse," Caleb answers for you. Your friend Keith, who has been lying on his side with his back to you, watching the front of the school, turns over to give you a dark look.

"Yeah, I went out to the Warehouse," you confess with a sigh. "I went out there with some guys."

"Who?" Jenny asks, and she asks in a way that suggests she already knows the answer.

"Um ... Patrick somebody, and some of his friends. What's Patrick's last name?" you ask Caleb.

Carson answers: "McGehee."

Then he pales a little, and claps his mouth shut. Over his sandwich, he shoots you a baleful glance like he gave you yesterday.

"Was Tiffany Howard out there? Or Lacie Frisch?" Jenny asks.

"No. Well, I dunno. Maybe they came out later, they didn't go out right away with the rest of us. What's with the questions?"

"Oh, they've just been talking about what went on at the Warehouse Saturday night," Jenny says. "I was just wondering if any of what they were saying is true."

"Well, if they're saying I was out there, then yeah, that much is true."

"I wonder if the rest of it is," Jenny says in a tone that is just about as airy as cast-iron anvil.

What else have they been saying? you want to ask. At the same time, her words seem so freighted that you decide that maybe you shouldn't. It is real easy for Jenny to get a bug up her ass, and if she is willing to drop the topic, even on such a heavy-handed note, you'll let her.

But though no one else says anything about it, you feel like her questions hang over the rest of lunch.

You find out why just before dinner.

* * * * *

Caleb has just been by, to give you a twenty in return for which you happily hand over that weird book you got at Arnholm's. Your phone is buzzing on the bed when you get back upstairs. It's Carson, and you groan and roll your eyes when you see his name on the screen.

"Yeah, I didn't tell anyone I saw you or James out at the Warehouse Saturday night," you say as soon as you pick up. "There anything else you're calling about?"

A dead silence is your only answer. Then Carson says, "Well, I'll take that as a small mercy, all things considered. It means you're not a total dillweed, Prescott."

"Who pissed up your nose, man?" you demand.

"No one, until you started in just now. You wanna hear what I've got to say, or do you want to walk into a buzzsaw tomorrow?"

You sit on the edge of your bed, and press your phone closer to your ear.

"Okay, I'm sorry, what's going on?" you ask.

"That's what I'd like to know. What a lot of us want to know. And if you're smart, you'll clear it up with us before Yumi herself hears the rumor that she gave you a blowjob at the Warehouse on Saturday night."

That's all for now.

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