The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Roles and Role-Players

Previously: "Black Narcissus" 

Chelsea wants you to stay and scheme, but you feel like you've had enough of her for the day. "So maybe you've got nothing else to do," you tell her, "but I do."

Her eyes glint. "Like?"

"Like catching up with my friends."

My friends. A prickle, like a rash, sweeps over you. You have a whole new set of friends now! Friends who think that you're Danielle Davis!

"We can catch up with them together!" Chelsea protests. "I need to know everything that you—"

"Tomorrow," you tell her. "Well, maybe. Right after school," you correct yourself.

"Is something going on tomorrow night?"

"There's a recital up at the college."

"Oo, a recital!" Chelsea purses her lips, as though she finds the idea of a "recital" scandalously amusing.

"Which means I'll have to get my homework done early. So ... Thursday? It'll be fine," you snap when she groans. "It'll give me a chance to come up with some ideas for you."

"Uh-huh." Chelsea cocks her head. "Are you going to be able to fool this girl's family?" she asks. "Your character seems off. I'm not used to having Danielle talk to me this way."

You catch yourself before you can say something really regrettable. "I'll be okay," you assure her, and point to your temple. "I've got everything I need up here."

"Including how to play the piccolo?"

"Piccolo? Danielle plays the bassoon!"

Chelsea's dimples spring out. "Just testing you, Will." She brushes the front of your shirt. "See you tomorrow in English?"

"Sure." You reach past her to grab your—yes, it's your—purse.

"We don't have English together, Will."

"Yes we do."

Chelsea titters. "Just testing you again."

* * * * *

Danielle lives halfway across town, and not so far from where you live, actually. Both her parents are black (though her mother is as light-skinned as she), living a solidly middle-class lifestyle in a nice house in a pleasant neighborhood. Danielle is no stranger to the occasional taunt or racial slur, but for a middle-class, academically advanced girl like her, that sort of thing is less a real problem than just an unwelcome spice sprinkled lightly on a safely bland existence. In fact, as far as race goes, Danielle's only problem is with—

You shy away from thinking about Danielle's love life. Or, more particularly, the guys who think they should feature in it.

Instead, as you crawl across the city, you probe at Danielle's memories of you and Lisa. You don't find much. You can remember running into Danielle a few times up at the mall while in Lisa's company, and once having gone to see a movie as part of a group that included both girls. But the only memory you have is from your own point of view. When you try to review the same events from Danielle's, you only get a hazy impression of yourself hanging out on the edge of the group. (Of the movie, you've a much more vivid impression of Danielle's ardor as she tried to catch and hold the attention of Joel Wharton.) Nor does it seem like the subject of you and Lisa came up much when Danielle was around. Wrack your brain as you try, you can't remember her talking about you and Lisa, while you were together or after your break up.

Is there actually something wrong with your memories? Will Prescott. What do you know of Will Pr—?

Again, you flinch. (Luckily, you're stopped at a light, or you might have flown over into the next lane.) You remember now your sophomore year, when you and Danielle were partnered in English on a project on the Moby Dick. Your own memory is of doing the work. Danielle's memory is of her doing all the work while her unshaved partner slouched in a chair, chewing gum and poring over his cell phone.

So, yeah, it looks like you've got her memories. And as you pull into the driveway of your new house, you are forced to conclude with a sigh that Danielle simply wasn't that interested in what happened to you and Lisa, and that Lisa didn't share anything with her.

* * * * *

You're up early the next morning after a sleepless night. Danielle is not a light sleeper, but you kept waking from dreams in which you felt yourself being transformed into various girls you know. It was always the same: You felt yourself being enclosed inside a kind of chrysalis made of a stiff membrane, like plastic; then a wormy feeling erupted all over your body, as though your skin was full of snakes wriggling beneath your epidermis; then you burst out through the shell to rise, naked and chilly, to clasp your hands to pert breasts or to sloping hips. You would hold yourself and realize (in that way that you "realize" strange but true things in dreams) that you have turned into ... Catherine Muskov. Or Kelsey Blankenship. Or Jenny Ashton.

You woke from each of these dreams to find yourself in a strange bed, and the shivery realization that you have actually turned into a girl—Danielle Davis. You laid back down and clapped a hand over a pert breast and stared at the dark ceiling, but quickly fell asleep again.

The fourth or maybe the seventh time that you woke (thinking briefly that you were now Kennedy Palmer) you looked at the clock and saw that it was 6:25. So you clambered out of bed and hit the shower. A glance out the window showed that it was going to be another rainy day, so you dressed down in Levis, sneakers, and a thin beige sweatshirt. Most of the rest of the morning was taken up with combing out and pulling back your hair, and applying just enough makeup to cover up your pores and to give a little definition to your eyes.

You have to admire the girl who glints back at you from the mirror when you're done. It's not a face—let alone a complexion—that you ever imagined having, but you like it now that it's yours. Danielle has large lips under a small snub nose, and they are something she is conscious of, but they retreat when she smiles to show large, almost blindingly white teeth—and her mouth settles almost naturally into a faint, teeth-revealing smile when she relaxes. You twinkle at yourself shyly as you study the planes of your face, and the curves of your breasts and hips, and the way your hair cascades around your shoulders. There is no reason (you surprise yourself by musing) that Danielle should not have a boyfriend; and (to your even greater surprise) you wonder what it would have been like to have her rather than Lisa as a girlfriend.

Downstairs you have breakfast (oatmeal, an egg, and a slice of bacon) with your parents, both of whom are dressed for work. (Both work for Mohegan Gas and Electric, he as a managing engineer and she in the human resources department.) You chat idly with them—they are engrossed in their copy of The Wall Street Journal—and remind them that you'll be going up to the college this evening to attend a music recital.

Then, because the second car has to in to the repair shop today for some maintenance work, you go out to stand under a small, fold-out umbrella, to wait for the school bus.

You're concentrating on your cell phone—there's a reminder there from Kennedy, who is in the school orchestra with you, about the recital—when a car passes, then turns around and comes back to stop in front of you. "Want a ride, Danielle?" Christian Knouse asks from behind the wheel. "Nasty weather." He cocks an eyebrow over his sharp glance.

* * * * *

"Put the die down and back slowly away!" Christian yells into the rearview mirror. "Role-play it, man!"

"I'm not going to—! Danielle!" Howie Baylor protests from the back seat.

"What do I have to do with it?" you retort.

What indeed?

You're still a mile from school, for Christian (as he warned you after you were in the car) had to detour to pick up Howie. (It's like I'm role-playing a school bus, he grumbled good-naturedly.) And though there's no table top or rule book or any other RPG detritus in the car, Christian and Howie had instantly launched into a campaign, yelling at each other from front seat to back seat and back again. It was a two-person side-quest they had been forced to start during their last game session, and which they had promised the others in their group they would conclude in time for this afternoon's scheduled session.

"You don't want to hear me try to get it on with Christian!" Howie hollers. "Do you?"

"You're not getting it on with me!" Christian retorts. "You're trying to get it on with my half-orc."

"Well, if Pifflewog wasn't so— If he didn't want to—" Howie looks like he's about to burst.

"Yes?" Christian asks. When Howie doesn't answer, he snickers. "Come on, man, how many orc warrior princesses does Pifflewog get to meet? You're probably the first in fifty years."

"Not me." Howie glowers. "Grishkella."

"Right. Role-play!"

You know you should stay out of it, but you can't help asking, "So why does, uh, Grishkella have to ... seduce ... Pifflwog?"

"Because Christian wants him to."

"And Pifflewog doesn't want to be seduced?"

"Exactly!" Howie slaps the car seat. "Thank you, Danielle. Pifflewog shouldn't want to! It's why I— Uh. It's why Darrell cast that spell of chastity on him. So he wouldn't be horny around her!"

"Just because he's not horny doesn't mean he doesn't want to get it on," Christian retorts. "It just means you're going to have to be very, very persuasive if you're going to satisfy him. Like I told you, Pifflewog's not unlocking those shackles until Grishkella surrenders her—"

He leans into the rear-view mirror and waggles his eyebrows. "You are well and justly punished, asshole, for that little scheme you and Darrell's wizard cooked up to cock-block him."

"Just let me roll a die," Howie grumbles.

"Role play! I'll tell you if you make it with him."

* To continue: "Learning Like Danielle" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"