The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Six Little Dairy Maids, All in a Row

Previously: "The Girl Most Likely to Kick Your Ass" 

Crashing in on somebody else's afternoon party would be a really needy and ungracious thing to do. It would look especially bad if you just followed Stephanie directly over there.

So you wait a couple of minutes -- to give yourself some cover -- then pull out your phone as though it's vibrated with a message. After pretending to study the blank screen, you lean over to tell Paul you have to go. "Yeah, where?" he asks, with a hopeful, pleading expression.

"Just a message." At any other time you might be inclined to throw him a lifeline, but he would just be in the way at the Dairy Queen.

* * * * *

Forty minutes later you're slouched in a back booth, jogging a leg and watching the door and wondering if you still have time to bolt before the girls arrive. Your plan had been to get Caleb or Keith or Carson or somebody to meet you at the DQ so it would look like you coincidentally had a meeting there as well. But Caleb was still busy re-shingling his ass (or whatever it was he said he was doing) and Keith was still with his "peeps" (none of whom were inclined to break away to see you) and Carson yelled at you for calling instead of texting right when he and James were in the middle of a delicate scientific maneuver. You tear at a fingernail and kick yourself for not bailing out earlier.

So when a half a dozen girls pile in through the front door, you can only do one thing: You pretend to be absorbed in your cell phone, and fake a double-take when you look up.

Stephanie is in the lead, and she favors you with a quick, expressionless glance as she strides through the entryway. Eva and Jessica Garner -- almost identical, but for the fact that Eva wears her blonde, curly hair long while Jessica wears it short -- follow, with Anita Nuevo, Bonny Trask, and Dominique Hughes taking up the rear. The latter three were on the soccer field, and they still look a little blown from the game.

No one but Stephanie so much as looks at you as they cross your eye line to disappear around the corner where the order stations are. You grimace and lower your head.

Stephanie seems to be in charge, for after several long minutes, she looks into the section where you're sitting. Again, her eye rakes briefly over you. "Yeah, there's no one back here," she calls over her shoulder. "Get me some ketchup too, okay?"

There's no one back here. If that doesn't totally capture what she thinks of you ...

In twos and threes the rest appear, talking intently at each other and carrying cups and condiment packages. Your heart beats faster when they throw themselves into the booth directly behind yours, and when Jessica and Eva walk past, you make a point of trying to catch their eye. When that doesn't work, you call out. "Hey Eva! Jess!"

Even though they're only a few feet from you, they look all around the restaurant to find who called their names. "Oh hey, Will," says Eva -- Jessica says nothing -- when she finally spots you, though you're only three feet from her. Then she and her sister slide into the booth, presenting you with the backs of their heads.

Before they can plunge back into conversation, you poke Eva in the shoulder, and you have to poke her again before she turns around. "Sorry I missed you at the soccer game," you tell her.

"Oh," she says. "We didn't go."

"Yeah, I know. I heard you guys and Yumi were going to be there."

"We changed our plans." She turns back to the table.

"I noticed. Yumi -- " Is she even listening? "Yumi wasn't there either. Paul noticed that." You poke her again. Her expression is very puzzled when she turns around. "I said, Paul noticed that Yumi wasn't there either."

"Oh. She wasn't?" Now she looks little anxious -- even a little frightened.

"Did something happen to her?"

"I don't know. Why are you asking?"

"Because Paul missed her. You know -- " You turn all the way around and sit up on your knees so you can face the girls directly, and you do your best to ignore the look of blank incredulity that Stephanie is giving you from across the table. "He really likes her. Do you think he has a chance with her?"

"I don't know," she says again. "Why are you -- ?" She suddenly looks very vexed. "Were you at the soccer game?"

"Yeah. That's why I said I missed you there."

Stephanie speaks now. "You left early."

"Yeah, I got a text." You're absurdly pleased to use the excuse you've just improvised. "Tilley wanted to meet me here, but it looks like he's failed. Typical. Pfft."

And then the conversation slips out of your grasp, for -- having no reply to that -- Eva and Stephanie look away. Only a few seconds later someone starts shouting out order numbers, and the girls pile out again to get their food. You anticipate the chance to renew the conversation when they reappear, but after a wait only Stephanie and Anita return, and then only to pick up their drinks and mustard packets. "Something happen?" you ask.

"We decided we wanted to sit by the front window," Stephanie says without looking at you.

* * * * *

"What is fucking with everyone?" you demand of Caleb after hurling yourself onto his bed. It barks and yelps as your weight hits it, and you half-roll off it lest it collapses.

"Yeah, you're buying me a new one if you bust it," he says, then turns back to his laptop. "What are you torqued up about now?"

"Oh, nothing," you sigh. "But shoot me in the face if I ever suggest going to the DQ again."

"Why? Ice cream headache?"

"Just a headache. Shit." Now that the topic is half out of your mouth, so to speak, you'd like to reel it back in. "I wound up there this afternoon because -- Well, just because." You shrug, even though Caleb has his back to you. "I wanted to talk to some people that I knew were going to be there."

"Yeah? Who?" Your best friend doesn't sound interested, and is occupied in scrolling down the YouTube page and opening windows in new tabs.

"Eva and Jessica Garner. I wanted to talk to them about -- " Spitefully you slap the back of his head. "Lisa, 'cos you won't talk to them about her for me."

Caleb spares you a brief, over-the-shoulder glare. "You should've talked to them yourself to start with. Like I told you. Except you shouldn'a done it even then. Let it go, Will. It was anti-kismet, wasn't meant to be. Fool's paradise. Wet dream with the usual really gross and humiliating ending."

"You know, if I ever become a friendless, sociopathic serial killer, and they catch me and psychoanalyze me, I'm pointing the finger at you, asshole, as the one who drove me to it."

"Long as you spell my name right, I don't care," he retorts. "So what did Eva and Jessica tell you that's got you so stupid-mad? And stupid."

"Nothing. That's just it. Stephanie Wyatt was there too, and she made everyone move before I could get Eva to talk about it."

Caleb lifts a quizzical eyebrow. "What do you mean she made everyone move?"

"They all moved, what's not to understand? They all moved to another table and left me at mine."

He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. "I would've too."

"Oh, bite me. Anyway, that's not the worst. Jeff Spencer came in not long after, so I started to go. I was getting out of there without him seeing me, but I heard him giving the girls some shit or other, and I heard Stephanie say something like, 'You want me to kick your ass, or do you want me get Jelena out here so she can kick it again?' So, like, you know. Jesus." Then you add "What?" when Caleb turns around with a mirthful expression.

"Oh that. Sick burn on Spencer, her referencing that ass-kicking. That's cool."

"It is not! It means everyone's heard about it now, and how they had to rescue me!"

"Bullshit. Probably none of the gossip even mentions you were there. Face it, Will, no one gives a shit about you, so stop worrying that they're giving you shit when they're not."

As an attempt to buck you up, Caleb's comment falls woefully short, but you let it drop. And he continues: "Anyway, I'm sure Stephanie has her own reasons to want Jelena around."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"They're both dykes, dude!"

You feel your eyes pop. "No! Where'd you hear that? I mean, I know all about Jelena, but Stephanie?"

"Oh, it stands to reason. Butch athlete like her. She's going to be a girls' PE teacher when she graduates college. Just look at her, always in those t-shirts and shorts. All she needs is a whistle around her neck." He puts his feet on the edge of the bed and spreads his legs. "That's what makes it so hot fantasizing about her. She's sexy, and I can so easily picture her munching on another girl!"

You suck on your lower lip. You'd agree that Stephanie is definitely sexy in a vigorous, Germanic-Valkyrie kind of way. Like, it's real easy to imagine you and her rutting in a green, sloping, Alpine meadow with the Matterhorn and a boiling waterfall in the background, and eagles circling in the cold air up above.

Trouble is, it's also too easy to imagine her breaking your back between her thighs, then biting your head off at the climax of sexual congress. "Whatever. What are you looking up online?"

"Oh, I got a dumb text from Tilley. He says he's got a cameo in a YouTube video that I should check out."

You snort. "This is special?"

Caleb shrugs. "He wants my opinion." He clicks the play button.

* To continue: "The Cheese Channel" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"