The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Double-Dates for a Double Date

Previously: "Ex- Marks the Sore Spot" 

It's with no great enthusiasm that you lever yourself off the bed and put your shoes back on. If you're going to meet Dean and his friends (and this girl he met last night) it's because you will hate yourself if you don't.

* * * * *

The Squeezin' Freeze is in downtown Saratoga Falls, across the street from the campus of Keyserling College. Street parking downtown is tight, even on a Sunday afternoon, but the parking lot two blocks down from the place is mostly empty, and it's an easy walk from there to the shop.

It's a cool day, with temperatures in the high 60s under partly cloudy skies, and though you are in long pants you don't wear so much as a wind-breaker over your t-shirt. You're feeling a lot more comfortable in your usual street clothes than you did in either your church suit or last night's party clothes, and it feels good to tug the brim of your sloppy white ball cap down over your brows, instead of having it bopping on the back of your neck like the had did last night. As you saunter along toward the juice place, you feel your confidence rising.

You do wish you'd worn a jacket, though, when you step into the Squeezin' Freeze. It feels almost Arcticly cold.

There's a couple of college-age girls sitting on stools at the bar that looks out onto the street, but otherwise it's empty, and you check the time on your phone. 2:07. Technically, that makes Dean and the others late. But "two o'clock" was certainly just an estimate, and you don't worry about it. You study the menu behind the counter for as long as you can stretch the minutes to, then order a strawberry-banana smoothie. You perch on a stool of your own by the window, and sip it very, very slowly while scrolling through your phone.

You are thoroughly irked by 2:45, which is when someone finally shows up.

It's David from last night, and he's got a girl with him. His face brightens when he sees you, and he nudges the girl to follow him over to where you're sitting. He slaps hands with you and introduces you to "Brooklyn."

"Hey," she says with a giggle. "Didn't I see you out at the Warehouse last night?"

"Uh, maybe," you admit, guardedly. "I was out there."

"Yeah, I think I saw you." She giggles again.

You nod and smile back, but keep your attitude cool, especially after David raises his arm and lets it hover over Brooklyn's shoulders without settling it there.

"Will goes to Westside," he says. Despite that protective arm, his eyes and his smile are warm and friendly.

"Oh my God, really?" Brooklyn gushes. "I got some friends out there. You know them?" She rattles off some names, none of which are familiar to you. "Well, we might still run into each other at parties," she says.

"If you want to get a table," David says, "we can all sit together. We got some more people coming in."

"Oh?" Maybe he thinks this is a coincidental meeting, or maybe he doesn't know you were invited out. Either way, you decide to follow his lead. "Who?" you ask as you rise.

"Dean and Andrew. A couple of Brooklyn's friends." As he turns away, he looks back to give you a solid, meaningful wink.

Oh God, you think, and gird your loins.

* * * * *

It's eight of you, eventually, squeezed around a small round table at the end of the shop counter. Your voices bounce off the hard tile of the floor and the hard Formica of the countertops and tabletops as you talk and laugh.

Dean and Andrew brought four girls with them, so there's a girl for each guy at the table. But as Andrew isn't into that, and Dean and David each have one that they are in to, that leaves you with a choice.

You start off paying attention to Dean and his girl first, though. Her name is Presley, and she has a narrow, oval face and large dark eyes, framed by long, thick, brunette hair. You don't remember her being the girl you pushed Dean at last night, but you probably wouldn't be able to recognize that girl anyway. You actually have a hard time believing that Presley was at the Warehouse last night, for she seems very serious and more than a little shy. The mystery of how she and Dean came together is cleared up a little when you figure out that they actually know each other, at least a little, at Westside.

Dean's eye recurs to you many times while you are all talking, and unless you are misreading his expression entirely, there seems a light of gratitude in it when he looks at you.

Andrew, meanwhile, seems to have both calmed down and cheered up from last night. He is pretty subdued, but he talks and laughs easily. He has a snarky sense of humor—and he has particular fun regaling the table with some of the stupid things said and done by "this dumb blonde jock" he has in one of his math classes—but he's not mean or snotty about it, the way Charles is, and you're relieved to see that you actually do like him. He is also very relaxed with the girls, nudging them and complimenting them on their hair and their outfits.

As for those other two girls they brought along ...

* * * * *

"Didn't I see you sneaking out of one of the upstairs pads last night?" Amy Burnett asks you point blank. Her eyes twinkle, and her mouth twists up in a smirk. It's the first comment she's directed at you since the introductions were made, and you had the impression she wasn't paying much attention to you. But when Dean says something about not having seen you around much after you left him, that's what she hits you with.

"Uh, I don't think so," you reply, because you're not absolutely certain what she's talking about.

"You mean you don't sneak out?" she ripostes.

"I ... don't think I was upstairs last night."

Her smirk deepens, as does the glint in her eye. "How drunk were you?"

You realize your mouth is hanging open, and you shut it with a snap.

"You think you saw me upstairs last night?" you ask.

"I think so."

"So you were upstairs?"

She stares at you, then bursts out laughing. "Busted," she says, and picks up her smoothie to take a sip.

"She's gonna get you in a game of strip poker," her friend Kate warns you. The two girls flank you, so that you have to swing head around like a lighthouse depending on which one is talking to you. "I'm telling you so you can be ready if you like that kind of thing."

Kate, unlike Amy, who seems to have a secret smile even when she isn't smirking, is a very serious-looking girl. Her gaze is open but skeptical, and when she looks at you it's with an expression that might be touched with disdain, but which might simply be emotional exhaustion. Both of them leave you feeling judged, but where Kate looks disappointed, Amy looks like she's caught the scent of fresh meat.

Without even meaning to, you swing back around to stare at Amy. Her tight-lipped smile widens even as she sips at her smoothie.

"I got twelve pairs of boy's boxers in the back of my closet," she says.

"She does, too," says Dean. "One of them's mine."

Too late he seems to have remembered that he has a date, and turns nervously toward Presley. She stares at him with a slack jaw.

"We were in the ninth grade!" he protests. "It was just a game!"

"He didn't even take them off," Amy assures Presley, whose shock has deepened. "He was in tidy whities, which are gross, so I made him keep them on and bring me a pair of boxers at school. They were still in the package when he gave them to me."

"Are they still in the package?" David asks her.

"Bring me a old pair of yours," she retorts, "and I'll wear them to bed and give 'em back."

Much gasping and laughter at that.

Later, as you're walking back to your truck—

Kate, who is walking next to you, says to the gang at large, "I'm gonna stop in the used book store for a little while, catch up to you guys later." But she bumps you firmly in the arm as she says it.

"You looking for something in particular?" asks Andrew, who is walking on the other side of you.

"Oh, just a book," she says. "Something with vampires or demons in it. I don't mean like Twilight," she hastily adds. "You ever read any old seventies' horror books? Like, with Satanic stuff?" It takes you a moment to realize she's asking you. "It's pretty cool," she says when answer that you haven't. "Fun."

"I should look for something to read too," says Andrew.

Someone bumps into you from the back, and you start as a pair of lips press against your ear. "Gay porn!" Amy whispers.

"Yeah, I heard that," Andrew says. "I give her all my gay porn when I'm done with it," he tells you.

You glance back at Amy, who's smiling like she'll never leave off. Instead of denying the assertion, she nods enthusiastically.

She and the others—David and Brooklyn, Dean and Presley—are going back to Dean's house to hang out, which leaves you a choice:

* To go to the bookstore with Kate (and Andrew): "A Girl with a Taste for Horror" 
* To go with Amy (and the others) directly to Dean's: "Busting with Amy" 

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