The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Three Bastards

Previously: "The Main Chance" 

Last night wasn't a disaster—any night that you get to talk to a beautiful creature like Sydney has to be a win—but you feel exhausted by it, and have no desire to get swept back up into anything like it. You ignore Dean's text till after lunch, then reply that maybe you'd like to do something later this week.

Instead, you text Caleb.

* * * * *

"Well, fuck, why didn't you call me last night?" he asks you much later, as you're on your way up to the discount theater inside the mall. "I could'a fucked up the play for that blonde bunny instead of you, and then you'd get to point at me and say, 'Ha ha'!"

You turn long enough to shoot him a sour look. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because now I get to point at you and say, Ha ha!"

And for good measure, to emphasize that's exactly what he's doing, he points at you and says, "Ha ha!"

You glower at him again, but don't even bother to flip him off. Because, in a sense you deserve it.

He was mostly asleep when you roused him with your text, followed by a phone call, but he quickly came alert when you asked if he wanted to do anything. He said he'd be up for anything except minigolf. And since you have very little money left from last night, you suggested catching a showing of The Challengers: Vengeance Brigade, the summer's mega-blockbuster, which is now showing at the dollar theater. You still had to cadge some money off your mom so you could get enough at the concession stand, but at least you won't have to sponge off of Caleb, who is technically must poorer than you.

Still, when you picked him up, the first thing out of his mouth was, How come we can't spend any money? which was your stated reason for seeing a cheap show. I thought you said yesterday you had a lot still at home.

So you had to tell him about last night. Which was not a choice you were going to fight anyway.

He was a little put out at the start when you admitted that you went and did something without him, but calmed down after you told him who you were with and only asked what happened. So that led into your talking to the volleyball squad, and to dancing with that blonde girl, and with going out to your truck with her. He got very quiet at that point, and said nothing until you reached the anti-climax. After which he was silent for a pregnant moment before asking Well, fuck, why didn't you call me last night? I could'a fucked up the play for that blonde bunny instead of you, etc.

"Well, you know," you tell him, "the only reason I said anything to you was because you asked how come I was broke this afternoon."

"Bullshit. You were dying to tell me."

You have to stifle a snicker. "Yeah, I was!" you confess.

"Uh-huh. And what was her name again?"

"Sydney."

"And she wants to see you again?"

"Well, she didn't say exactly—"

"She wants you to wear that cowboy hat so she'll recognize you at school."

"Uh ... Yeah!"

"Right." Another pregnant pause. "If you need money, Prescott, I'm willing to buy that hat off'a you."

"Oh, fuck you!" you exclaim. "That hat's the most valuable thing I got! Dude, that hat—!"

"She's in love with the hat."

"She's gotta know it's me!"

"Doesn't speak well of you, man," he honks, "that she can recognize you only because of a cowboy hat you've never worn before."

"I'll never take it off again, if she'll go out with me!"

"If she goes out with you, I will eat that cowboy hat. And then I'll go down on you."

You turn a crooked grin onto him. "Deal?"

He only gives you a look.

* * * * *

The Crescent Six Cinemas are inside the mall, and as you got there early you decide to splurge on a corn dog at the food court before heading over. You're not the only ones with that idea, though. Three of your least favorite people are also at the food court, relaxing with a basket of chili fries. You know them pretty well, so you can't exactly ignore them. Still, it is Caleb who takes the lead by going over as you trail unwillingly behind.

"Hey guys," Caleb greets the trio of Anthony Kirk, Martin Gardinhire, and Geoff Mansfield. "Can't you get chili fries at the country club?"

They look up at him and at you with expressions that at least aren't hostile. Anthony actually smiles, if a little thinly.

"Hey, Johansson," he says, and puts out a hand for a quick squeeze-and-release. "This where you eat, how you keep that track-star physique of yours?"

"No, I just stay away from the lobster bisque." He nods at Martin and Geoff. "Do you guys do everything together?"

"I was gonna ask the same thing about you and Prescott," Mansfield retorts. Gardinhire just shoves another chili fry in his mouth.

These three are part of the AP/country club clique at school. (Well, one of them. There are others that you know of.) Well-groomed, well-dressed preppy types who glide through the school trying not to notice anyone except each other. It has been your bad luck that throughout your high school career, you've had bunches of them in the few non-AP classes that they have to take. And so though you don't really know them that well, you've breathed their air long enough to get a pretty good idea of their personalities and how they operate.

Kirk, for instance, is the alpha of the pack. (The alpha male, at least. Whether he out-alphas Kelsey Blankenship, the snooty daughter of a luxury car dealer, and Amanda Ferguson, the icy bitch who goes around with her, is something you haven't settled.) He is a trim, six-foot blonde with wide shoulders and a good chest to go with his golf-course tan. He would ooze male-model charisma, except that something indefinable is missing, so that he is a discount-catalog model rather than a fashion-magazine model; and Carson Ioeger, who has an eye for these things, has laughed privately that he looks like Fred from the Scooby Doo cartoons.

Martin Gardinhire, meanwhile, is the clear beta. He is as tall as others, but skinnier, and he has a harder time keeping his skin blemish-free. He has mousy brown hair, and dresses constantly in polo shirts, khaki shorts, and flip-flops; and he is almost never without his shades. You suppose that he thinks this makes him look relaxed and cool. To your mind, it makes him look like a dork who can't get his wardrobe together.

Mansfield, who is your least favorite of the three, balances somewhere in between. He has dark brown hair and favors polo shirts, like Martin, but he is heavier and more handsome, and carries himself with more confidence. Arrogance, even, and even sitting down he lifts his head to peer down his nose at you and Caleb. He is an immaculate dresser, you've noticed, and you've never seen him with one hair out of place.

"Sometimes I wish we were Siamese twins," Caleb tells him, in reply to his jibe. He glances back at you. "Last night he went out to Legends without me, and wound up dancing with Sydney McGlynn."

A frozen silence settles over the table, and you feel all eyes—including Martin's, behind his shades—shifting onto you. You freeze as well, crack a grin at them, and shrug.

"No fucking way," Martin says. Anthony smirks and says, "Sounds like you're his bad-luck charm, man, if that's what he gets when you're not around." Mansfield glowers at you.

"It's the truth," Caleb says, and grips your shoulder. "And Will's so confident he can get with her again that we've made a bet on it."

You do a double-take at him.

"Well, good for you, man," Anthony says to you. (It might be the first time you can remember that he's ever spoken directly to you.) "You'll have to share your secret with me."

"Oh, that's easy," you improvise. "Just don't take Caleb with you when you go out to Legends!"

That only draws pained smiles, and Caleb hustles you away.

* * * * *

That should be all, but it turns out those three are also going to see the movie, so you meet up again inside the theater. That's when you get a really bad turn when Kirk politely asks you and Caleb what you're contributing to the time capsule assignment, which is due tomorrow. (He and the other two are in that class with you.) Caleb volunteers only that he's giving Walberg a thumb drive, and Kirk (the others keep silent) replies that he's contributing a one hundred-and-fifty dollar bottle of Scotch. "How about you?" he then asks you.

Of course, you had completely forgotten the assignment. The only reason you remember that book you picked up at Arnholm's is because it originally cost more than two hundred.

So that's what you tell him you are submitting: a rare book worth two hundred dollars.

"Oh, bullshit," Mansfield exclaims. "I didn't believe that story about Sydney McGlynn, and I don't believe this one!"

"Hand to God!" you swear. "I—"

"Lemme see it," Mansfield says. "Or I'm calling you a fucking liar."

And he doesn't leave it alone, repeating his sneer when the movie is over. Of course, you then have no choice but to go home and get it. You meet him (and the others, including Caleb) later at the Mexican restaurant inside the mall.

"This ain't worth two hundred dollars," Mansfield sneers as he examines it. "The pages are all stuck together!"

"That's what they were selling it for!" you insist.

"I call bullshit, and I can prove it." He takes out his wallet and slaps a hundred-dollar bill on it.

"I will buy it from you for this. If you bought it for two hundred, that's a hundred dollar loss. Or admit you're just bullshitting us!"

That's a ninety-eight dollar profit to you if you accept it. Or you can save face by rejecting it.

That's all for now

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