The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

A Knot in the Improv

Previously: "Slick 'n Slide" 

"That sounds like a great idea," you tell Lorenzo. "But I've already got something picked out and told Mr. Walberg what it is. And it's due at five o'clock."

Lorenzo's brow furrows. "You haven't turned it in yet?"

"It was due this morning, but I forgot it at home. Mr. Walberg gave me a few hours extension."

"Well, I can—"

Then he catches himself.

"Well, it was just an idea. If you've already got something picked out, go with it." He claps you on the shoulder.

* * * * *

You dash home after school to pick up the book, and are back up on campus by four-thirty. You're hurrying along the breezeway in front of the gym when you hear your name shouted. You look over and spot Patrick leaning against the wall of the nearby drama wing. He grins at you as he puts his phone away and picks up his backpack.

"Lorenzo mentioned you were gonna be coming back up here after class," he says as he joins you. "What are you doing now?"

"Uh, I have to drop something off with one my teachers."

"And then?"

"Was gonna go home." You squint at him.

"Well, hang out with me when you get done, for a few minutes. Oh, fuck it, I'll come with you. But we gotta hang out on the quad until five, at least!"

"Why, what happens at five?" you ask as you resume your course toward the main building.

"Sports practice lets out. Basketball practice."

"Uh huh?"

He waggles his eyebrows.

"So a bunch of the cheerleaders like watching the basketball squad practice after school," he says, "and they come out when practice is over. I sometimes stay and watch!"

Oh God, you think. That's a little sex-obsessive even for you.

"Anyhow, what'cha gotta see a teacher about?"

"I forgot an assignment I had to turn in this morning. Our class is putting together a time capsule, and—"

"What's that?"

"It's a box of junk that gets buried, and then people in the future dig it up." You roll your eyes.

"The fuck's the point of that?"

"I don't know! But Mr. Walberg is all hot for it, and our class is doing one, and we each have to bring something in, and I forgot mine."

"Huh. So what are you bringing him? What's that?" he asks he asks as you show him the book.

"Just a thing I found in the used book store. A book."

"So why'd you pick that?"

You stop dead in your tracks at the junction of two wings. Shit! you think. What am I gonna say if Mr. Walberg asks me that?

"'Cos it doesn't matter, man," you reply. And now you break into it a sprint down the hallway, so you can get this stupid assignment turned in as soon as possible. Patrick hustles after you.

Mr. Walberg isn't alone in the classroom. Dane Matthias, a cheerful stoner you are slightly acquainted with, is sprawling in one of the desks in the middle of the room. But you concentrate on the teacher.

"Hey," you pant as you thunder up to his desk, for you are slightly out of breath. "I got my thing here."

Mr. Walberg's mouth sinks into a frown beneath his busy mustache. "Your 'thing', Mr. Prescott?"

"My contribution. Here it is." You hold out the book to him.

He looks at it as though it might be a booby trap. Then slowly he takes it with both hands and stares down at it. Behind you, you sense Patrick fidgeting, and hear him giggling under his breath.

"And what is this 'thing', Mr. Prescott?" Mr. Walberg asks without looking up at you.

"Um, it's an old book I found at Arnholm's. It's— Um. Well, it's a— It's a mystery!"

Mr. Walberg raises his face fractionally to look up at you from under his brows.

Then he turns to lay the book on his desk. Carefully he turns the cover back to examine the end papers. Patrick continues to mutter and burble behind you; you glance up briefly to catch Dane grinning.

Mr. Walberg studies those shifting faces. Then he turns the page and starts reading—or closely examining—the Latin script.

"And what did you learn from the book store about the nature and content of your 'thing' here, Mr. Prescott?"

"Um ... Nothing, really. I didn't ask. It was in their special collections cabinet, and I was looking at it and took it up to ask how much it was. And they told me it was two hundred dollars"—that gets you a quick look from Mr. Walberg—"but they marked it down to two. On account of— Well, just try turning the page. A couple of pages."

He does, and soon finds himself stymied as you and Ted Arnholm found yourselves stymied. He struggles to insert a thumbnail between the pages, then stands the book on its spine and tries prying them apart. He lifts the book to his face, pushes his glasses up onto his forehead, and peers closely at the edges of the stuck pages.

"See?" you say. "It's like the pages are glued shut. So, it's a mystery."

"It's certainly that, Mr. Prescott," says the teacher, "though to my mind— Mr. Matthias, kindly turn around and resume your studies. And you—" He leans back to look past you at Patrick. "Do you have any business in here other than to be disruptive?"

"Uh, I came with Will," says Patrick.

"I deduced that without your telling me. Have you any other business in here?"

Patrick turns red, gives you a fish-eyed look, and retreats into the hallway.

"Well, Mr. Prescott," Mr. Walberg says after he's gone, "you have now successfully turned in your 'thing'. Late, but it is now in." He raises his hand, and flaps it at you dismissively. "You can go now, and take your 'friend' with you." He then turns back to the paperwork he was conducting in his grade book.

* * * * *

Patrick mutters at you about the "mean old fucker" you just got through with, and you agree with him about the characterization. At least you don't have him for a class, you tell him.

Then you return outside, to take up station next to the drama wing where you can watch the doors to the gym without being obvious about it.

"So I was thinking about what we could do Sunday," he starts in as you're waiting. "After you're out of jail. Who you were with Saturday, you be up for doing anything with her?"

Your guts flip over at the return of that subject. Almost you tell him that you didn't actually get with a girl at the Warehouse. But you feel you're in too deep now to make that kind of a humiliating confession, so with a sense of dread you plunge deeper into that morass of pretense.

"I don't think so," you reply while concentrating on the front doors of the gym.

"You weren't that into her?"

"Not really. It was just a— Just a thing."

"Well, I kind of get that," he says. "But even I— I like squeezing out as much juice as I can."

You squint over at him.

Except for the sweaty eagerness with which he speaks, this is the kind of talk that you'd expect to hear—and have overheard, in class—from players on the sports teams. The kind of lazy, sneering bro-talk they exchange while bragging about their weekends. But Patrick doesn't fit that stereotype, certainly not physically. He's not fat, but he is soft and pudgy, with a doughy face under his sloppy-curly hair. His eyes are bright and his grin is quick, and when he locks his gaze on you—as he has on you now—he has a way of making you feel like he's seriously and intensely interested in you. You suppose that would count for something with a girl. But he certainly doesn't look like a babe magnet.

It occurs to you that maybe he's been pretending with you just as much as you've been pretending with him.

"What about the girl you went off with Saturday?" you ask. "What was her name?"

"Sherilee? She goes to Eastman."

"You gonna see her again?"

"I dunno." Patrick twists on his feet, and that bright excitement he was showing just a moment ago vanishes. "I don't think so. She goes to Eastman," he adds again.

"So? You squeeze all the juice from her Saturday night?"

He actually flinches. He hesitates, with darting eyes, and squirms.

"Okay, look," he says in a sudden rush, "I'll tell you this, but you don't tell anyone else. I mean, no one else!" His eyes flash as they lock on you again.

"Sure."

But he hesitates again, and his eyes fall. He kicks at the sidewalk with the toe of one foot.

"This girl, the whole time I was with her, I was like, Who does she remind me of, who does she remind of. But we were into it, and we got into it some more, and it wasn't until it was all over that it hit me who she reminded me of."

He looks up at the sky, and squirms so hard it's like he's trying to wriggle out of his skin.

"She reminded me of Mattie!"

* * * * *

Of course, you have to ask who Mattie is, and he tells you it's Mattie Sears, one of Tiffany's and Lacie's friends, who he and everyone else hangs out with. He can't believe you don't know her, or don't remember her, because he's sure you must've met her while hanging out with him and friends.

Anyway, the upshot is that he's horribly stricken by the thought that he got with this girl Sherilee because she reminded him of his friend Mattie, and it would be mortifying if he showed up with her in front of them, because they'd be sure to start speculating about why he "really" got with her Saturday night.

And this confession even comes with a warning: You've got to be careful around Tiffany and Lacie and Kristin, and he looks serious in a ghastly sort of way as he says it, because once they start talking about who is interested in who, it can really spin out of control.

It's about that time that the gym doors open, disgorging a bunch of athletes, including a small clutch of cheerleaders. After they are gone, you catch Patrick studying you closely, as though for your reaction to them.

That's all for now.

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