The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

A Kind of Artillery Volley

Previously: "Making a Makeover" 

You don't need the pressure of impressing some strange girl on top of the pressure of going out to the Warehouse, so you demur. It ends up being a very quiet drive out to Legends, for Patrick spends the whole time tapping into his phone.

* * * * *

The girls are already at the club, waiting in the lounge area, when you arrive.

"So, hey, you remember Lacie," Tiffany says, indicating her friend for the second time that day. "This is Will, from school."

Like Tiffany, Lacie is not a small girl. She's got big breasts and big hips, and a hefty in-between as well. She is stitched up tightly in a white, sleeveless blouse with ruffles at the shoulders and down the front, and is wearing a very short blue skirt that shows chunky bare legs all the way down to her high-heeled sandals. She has pinned most of her mass of dark hair up in a bun on the back of her head, but two thin tendrils of curls tumble past her ears to rest on her shoulders. Her eyes are large, dark, and sparkling.

"Hey," you greet them. "I've never been out to your family's restaurant before," you tell Lacie. "I'm gonna have to start going."

"Oh, thanks," she says with a smile both deep and bright. But she looks past you, apparently at something more interesting.

"So, Patrick says you guys are going out to the Warehouse," Tiffany says. She looks you up and a down with a grin that is just a little too knowing for your taste.

"Yeah, you going with us?"

"No, the Warehouse is a little too intense for us. I mean, I've had fun when I went out there, but—"

Then, like Lacie, she looks past you. You turn, but see nothing except some guys in letterman jackets talking by the doorway leading into the dance room. But while you're watching, Dean comes in. He has to squeeze through that throng of jocks to reach you, but he pays them no more mind than they pay him.

"Hey," he says when he reaches your company. "Lorenzo and Kristin here yet?"

"Don't think so," Tiffany says. "We saw Patrick heading onto the dance floor a couple of minutes ago."

"I thought we were going to the Warehouse." Dean looks at you.

"Maybe he's looking for someone," Tiffany says. She plucks at your track jacket. "We could go find him."

A repetitive but not unmusical beat is blaring in the dance room, but only a couple of people are on the floor, twisting and flailing. Patrick isn't one of them, though. He's off at the side of the room, talking a mile a minute with some girls. You recognize a couple of them from school, but you can't immediately place any of their names. Tiffany leads you over to them. Patrick does a double-take when he sees you, but doesn't break off to say anything to you.

"Hey girls," Tiffany gushes to the company. They all greet her with grins and greetings of their own. "How's Friday treating you all?"

"Hasn't got started yet," says a girl with long, straight, red-brown hair. The moment she speaks you remember her: Ellie Kent, or something like that. She touches one of her friends on the shoulder—a serious-looking girl with her dark hair done up in a tight bun on the back of her head. "We're trying to get Whitney to unwind a little." That earns her a roll of the eyes from her friend.

"You should come out to the Warehouse with us," Patrick says. "That'll unwind anyone!"

"Oh God," says Whitney. But a girl with short, fluffy brown hair, in a leather jacket, asks, "Who's playing?"

"Apollo's Creed, I think."

"They're pretty good," the girl says to her friends.

"We're already here," Ellie says. "We already paid and everything."

"Well, come out later," Patrick says, "when things have died here. They're already dead." He looks around.

"They haven't got started yet!" retorts a heavy-set girl with long hair and a bold nose. She laughs. "They for sure haven't got started at the Warehouse!"

"We're gonna sit around, do a little weed, until they do."

"Who's 'we'?" asks the heavy-set girl.

"Me, couple other guys. Dean." Patrick punches you in the shoulder. "Will."

Ellie does a small double-take at you, then leans forward to peer closer at you. Then she jerks back.

"Oh my God!" she exclaims. "It is you!"

You feel yourself reddening.

"Well, I'm not gonna let you waste your time out here," Patrick tells the girls at large. "I'm gonna call you later if you're not gonna come out now. Or we could—" He starts to dance in place, swinging and thrusting his pelvis as he pumps his arms back and forth. "Start out here and leave for there later!"

That draws some laughs. But before he can pursue it further, he's interrupted by the arrival of a couple of more girls. There's more greetings, more laughter—

And you feel yourself subtly maneuvered so far out onto the edge of the throng that you are in danger of falling out of it altogether.

* * * * *

You're not fully pushed out, though, and you even wind up on the floor, dancing awkwardly with one of the newly arrived girls.

In fact, she was the one who asked you to dance.

She's much better at it than you are, and her hips and shoulders twist and gyrate in pleasing rhythms as she grins at you. (But she doesn't seem to be laughing at you.) She's got enough concentration left over that she can talk to you—half-shouting—over the music.

"So, you go to Westside?" she asks.

"Yeah. You?"

"Eastman! My name's Justine, by the way!"

"Will!"

"You're friends with Ellie and them?"

"I know some of them! Kind of!"

She nods. "I'm friends with Marilyn, that's how I know Ellie and them!"

You nod vaguely, as though what she's said makes sense.

"You on the track team?" she asks.

"No!"

"Oh! I just wondered on account of—!" She nods at your clothes.

"Just wearing them! Party clothes, I guess you'd call them!"

"Oh!"

Conversation lapses at that point, and you concentrate on your footwork, for you've lost the rhythm during the talk.

A couple of minutes later, though, you stop when Justine does, because one of her friends stops her to whisper in her ear. Justine looks startled, and glances around. Her expression freezes.

Then she bursts into a hard giggle, and puts her mouth to her friend's ear, and whispers back. They fall against each other laughing.

You turn to look, but you can't make out who or what in the crowd behind has so filled them with mirth. When you turn back, both girls are hurrying away to rejoin their friends at the side of the room.

You're not keen to follow, and glance around the room. But everyone else has a dance partner. So you leave the floor to use the restroom, and end up sitting in a corner of the lounge with an expensive soft drink.

* * * * *

You've almost finished nursing that drink when Tiffany joins you.

"There you are," she says as she sits down opposite you. "You still going out to the Warehouse?"

"I dunno. I thought so?"

"'Cos Patrick's dancing with the volleyball team. You might have to go without him." As you ponder this, she adds, "I heard you were dancing with some Eastman kids."

"Yeah, I guess. A Justine someone?"

"I think they're going out to the Warehouse. If you can't get Patrick to go with you, you could go with them."

"Who are they?" you ask.

"Just friends of the volleyball team. I don't really know them." She looks around, then shouts at a small cluster of kids who are talking and laughing by the bar. "Daniel! Daniel!" A guy in a cowboy hat and denim jacket looks over, and Tiffany gestures to him. He hitches up his jeans and trots over.

"Who's those girls from Eastman that Patrick's hanging out with?" she asks him.

"What girls? The volleyball girls?"

"No, they're friends with Ellie and them, but from Eastman."

He frowns. Then understanding breaks.

"Oh, the Eastman volleyball girls! Yeah, they go to Eastman." He nods, as though he's actually imparted something meaningful. Tiffany looks at you.

"Yeah, are they going out to the Warehouse?" you ask.

"Dunno. They're talking about it, I think." He wipes the tip of his nose with the back of his hand. "There's a bunch of guys from Eastman going out there. I think Patrick and them are going out too."

"I thought Patrick was staying here," says Tiffany, "with Ellie and them."

Daniel breaks out in a sudden grin.

"Yeah, there's one of 'em he's real interested in," he chortles.

"Which one?"

"New girl at school, blonde?" Daniel's eyes roll back over his grin. "Like— Mmm!"

"Oh, is it Sydney McGlynn?" Tiffany bursts out laughing. "Oh my God!"

She leaps to her feet and hurries off. Daniel watches her go.

Then he glances at you, looking you up and down with a curious, gleaming eye, before turning to shamble back over to join his friends.

I wish I knew who any of these people are, you mutter to yourself.

* * * * *

You have just about finished your drink, and are about decided on going home, when your eye strays to the crowd of girls that Tiffany has joined. You let them distract you for a little while.

And, as you watch, the girl who stopped Justine on the dance floor joins them, interrupting with a question. To your astonishment, Tiffany answers her by looking around, and pointing to you. The girl comes swaying over to your table.

"Hey," she says. "Justine's asking about you. We're all gettin' ready to go out to the Warehouse. You coming?"

She's a slinky-shaped girl in a sequined dress held up by two thin straps. Her reddish-brown hair is long and thick and falls in gentle curves past her shoulders to the top of her breasts. These are small, but the bare skin between them and her collarbone excites you anyway. So does the sultry expression on her small, pert face.

* To go to the Warehouse with these people: "Hijacked in Your Own Truck" 
* To hang out here some more: "Dance Hall Daze" 
* To go home: "Book Ends and Beginnings" 

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