The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Dates Made and Dates Contemplated

Previously: "Friendly Warnings" 

Kristy Suffolk? Is Eva seriously suggesting that you could have a shot with Kristy Suffolk? The basketball player?

Kristy Suffolk is not as intimidating as Stephanie Wyatt—who is?—but it's hard to think of one without thinking of the other. The thought of putting the moves—

Wait. Are you actually thinking of "putting the moves" on a girl?

—on someone like Kristy is at best absurd and at worst terrifying. You can just picture her breaking your arm while Stephanie watches with smug approval.

But then, somehow, the picture completely reverses. Instead of wondering how you can possibly dare an approach to Kristy, you are suddenly wondering why the hell you shouldn't dare? What's the worst that can happen?

No, she's not going to break your arm. She plays on the girls varsity squad, not the boys. She's not a thug. And Stephanie has been surprisingly decent to you recently. Maybe she'll think you're shooting out of your league if she sees you running up and down the court with Kristy, but maybe she'll be impressed at your gumption.

Anyway, it's not like Eva is pressing you to ask her out. She's only asking who you'd like to be sure of meeting at the Warehouse tomorrow night. And Kristy would definitely be the pot of gold at the end of some kind of rainbow.

You retrieve your attention from these distant prospects to find Eva looking at you with evident amusement. "Yeah, I hadn't thought about Kristy," you announce with pretended surprise and feigned indifference. You recline in your seat. "I don't have her for any classes," you continue, as though to explain your lapse. (Actually, you have her next period, in English.) "It would be fun to run into her, hang out with her."

"That's great, Will," Eva gushes as she picks up her cell phone. "I'll tell Jessica and Cindy, get them right on setting it up." She taps furiously at the screen. "I bet we won't have any trouble. Kristy loves to party."

Your gullet freezes. The idea of "partying" is awesome, but you've not a lot of experience at it.

Eva blinks at her phone, then holds it up and starts shifting it about while staring at the screen. It takes you a moment to realize she's looking at you through the camera, as though lining up a shot. "You trying to take a picture?" you ask her.

"Huh? No. Just ..." She bites down on a small smile, which widens after she's laid the camera back down on the table. "What are you doing this afternoon?" she asks.

"I dunno. Hanging out with friends?" You snap your fingers. "I should talk to Michael and Carlos about that thing I promised them I'd—"

"You should hang out with me and Jessica," Eva says, and she grasps your wrist with a smile. "Look at some new clothes for you, maybe do something about—"

She sweeps your cap off your head and brushes at your stiff bangs. Your body goes sprooiiinnnnggggg all over.

* * * * *

"I can't hang out with you after school," you tell Caleb when you slide into your desk next to him in English.

He takes out his phone. "Thanks for the alert. I'll give myself a reminder to cry into my beer."

"Don't be a dick. I'm just telling you. It's 'cos, um—" Would you be a dick if you told him what you'll be doing? You decide you don't care. "I'm going up to the mall with Eva and Jessica."

His reply—"Well, that's cool"—surprises you until he adds the stinger: "They taking you up there for a stiff lemonade and a good talk about why Lisa dumped your ass?"

"Pft. Lisa. I'm over her." But the wound still throbs. You salve it by turning in your seat to stare in the general direction of Kristy Suffolk.

She's dressed in jeans and a turquoise windbreaker, but her tomato-red blouse has a plunging v-neck that shows the curve of firm, tanned breasts. Her hair—a coarse, dishwater blonde—is tucked back in a thick braid that hangs down between her shoulder blades. She has wide-set eyes under dark eyebrows, and they have a grave mien as she studies her cell phone. She tugs in an absent-minded way at her ear.

She's the kind of girl who should be dating a wrestler or a football player, whispers the nasty internal voice that's always running you down. Retorts the bantam-rooster voice that too few times pipes up to argue back: She's the girl you're going to be dating in a week, God damn it. Buy condoms tomorrow so you won't be caught out.

You blush and turn back around, then start at the sight of who's in the doorway: Maria Vasquez and Chelsea Cooper.

Chelsea, thank God, is preoccupied with watching someone or something on the other side of the room, and whatever it is, it deeply amuses her, for she's quietly tittering and chortling behind the hand she has covering her mouth. She gasps and nudges Maria and says something like, "Oh my God!", then grabs her fellow cheerleader and yanks her from the door.

But Maria was staring at you, with a hard and unwinking gaze. She's still staring at you as Chelsea pulls her back into the hallway.

"Hey, 'dja see that?" you whisper at Caleb. "Chelsea and Maria, looking into the classroom. They were looking at me!"

"Yeah, you're pretty fucking unbelievable," Caleb retorts. "Every day I look at you and think 'What the fuck'. I mean, really. 'What the literal fuck'?"

You flip him off, but he's already gone back to fiddling with his cell phone.

* * * * *

Jessica and Cindy don't appear at lunch again, as you'd more than half hoped they would, but Eva looks into the library at the start of seventh period long enough to tell you that you should meet her and her friends at Nirdlinger's at four-thirty after school. "And I think we're all set for Friday," she adds with a wink. "Kristy too." You have to get a drink of water after that, and your legs are as stiff and springy as pogo sticks as you hop down the hallway and back.

In Astronomy, you almost go over to Stephanie to ask her about Kristy. But your innate cowardice—or maybe it's just good sense—prevails. When class is over, you sprint to your locker, then sprint to your truck, and gun the engine impatiently during the quarter-hour it takes you to snake your way out of the parking lot and onto Borman Avenue.

You must be flummoxed by the afternoon's plans, for not until you're turning into the parking lot of Saratoga Falls's oldest and largest department store do you realize that you're more than ten minutes early for the rendezvous. The girls are not going to be there yet, and since they are girls after all they're more likely to be ten minutes late than ten minutes early, and more likely to be fifteen minutes late than to be on time. So you jack-rabbit back into the street and go up a couple of blocks to The Crystal Cave, one of the city's many notoriously avant-garde coffee shops, with the half-assed idea that you'll buy a lot of coffee and take it back to the girls. You're halfway to the door when you realize that would be very stupid—they're not going to let you bring drinks into the store—and turn around to drive back. That puts you in front of Nirdlinger's at four thirty-two, and to your immense surprise you find your three dates—as you've been preening over them in your mind—waiting for you just inside the door.

And what a sight they are!

Eva is in pink hot pants that wrap tightly around her butt and a midriff-baring one-piece shirt that barely restrains her boobs. Her blonde hair falls in loose ringlets about her shoulders, and her eyes and teeth flash as she laughs and gasps with the other girls. She is in flip flops, so that her strong, toned legs are bare practically from her crotch to her toes

Her sister is dressed in a tight black leotard that shows bare, rock-hard calves between the knees and the tops of her tennis shoes, and which tightly hugs the curve of her hips, stomach, and bosom. She's covered it, though, with cut-off jeans shorts and a sloppy grey hoodie with the sleeves pulled up past her elbows. Her pixie bob glistens under the fluorescent lights, as though she's dusted it silvery glitter. Fat red plastic earrings the size and color of strawberries are locked onto her ear lobes.

Delectable as the Garner sisters are, they still can't compare to Cindy Vredenburg. You can't stop your eyes from slowly raking her from the feet up: Bright white tennis shoes and ankle socks; creamy legs bare to the pleated miniskirt that only just drapes over her hips and the tops of her thighs; a powder-blue sleeveless blouse so tight that she looks like she was sewed into it, but open at the top to expose the tops of snowy white breasts; platinum hair that falls in shimmering sheets past her shoulders; a pie-pan face with high cheekbones and brilliant blue eyes surmounting a button-like nose. A ring glitters on her finger as she twiddles a lock of hair and laughs with her friends.

Eva spots you, and with a squeal puts out her hand to beckon you over. "There he is!" For a moment you're nailed in place by your erection, but with a grinding of the gears you shuffle over to them.

Eva and Jessica you can more or less look in the face. You dodge Cindy's gaze, but blush furiously when she says, "Nice to see you again, Will. I wish you'd stop running away when you see me. We could have a lot of fun together."

"Oh, stop teasing him," Eva says. "Can't you see you're embarrassing him?" That only causes you to blush more furiously. Your scalp is on fire, and your nose feels like it's going to start running. "So, uh, what are we doing?" you stammer.

"We'll start you with some new clothes," Eva says, then she sweeps your cap off and runs both hands through your hair. "And we'll go from there."

* To continue: "Your Makeover" 

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