The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Consultation with an Expert

Previously: "The Famous Will Prescott" 

You arrange to meet with Stephanie the next afternoon at the McDonalds on Orlando. She seems eager to see you, for she's already waiting when you get there, and you yourself get there early. She calls you into a back booth with a cheerful, "Hey! Will!"

You're in your new things, but she's in her usual uniform—green polo shirt and athletic shorts. She gives you an appreciative once over as you approach, and you actually like the faint, glinting smile she's giving you for once. But she also looks faintly puzzled. "So you had a fun night last night?" she says as you slide into the seat opposite her.

You're smart enough not to wince in embarrassment, but you can't help shrugging. "My first time out there," you say. "I got a little out of control."

"I hear you danced with Kristy."

Oh. Yeah. "Not as much as I wanted." You hope that sounds diplomatic. "I went looking for her a couple of times—"

"Yeah?" Stephanie's eyebrows go up.

"But it was really crowded, and I was a little, um—" You rub your forehead.

She snatches up a sugar packet and plays with it. "You can catch up with her tomorrow, right? You have English with her, don't you?"

"Yeah." You say it with a gulp. Now Stephanie's stare is starting to make you nervous, and you feel all your conversation dry up.

She picks up the threads by reaching across to tug at your shirt. "I noticed you decided to update your look."

"Yeah. It's getting me a lot more attention," you hurriedly add before talk can die away again, "than I'm used to."

"You hear from any of those girls you danced with?"

Your breath comes in labored gulps. "Yeah. I didn't hear from Kristy, though. I don't think."

"Were you looking for one from her?"

"I don't know. There were so many—" You take out your phone and start to scroll through it. No new texts have come through, since you've been too paralyzed with astonishment to reply to any. In fact, you're too paralyzed to respond when Stephanie snatches the phone from you and starts scrolling through it herself.

"Whoa," she murmurs. "You're popular."

"Famous," you mumble in the back of your throat as you recall the word that Blake Whosists applied to you.

"And you didn't get one from Kristy. I already knew that. But you can talk to her tomorrow. In person." Her eyes get very hard as she holds your gaze in hers. "What are you gonna do about the rest of these?"

It all seems to turn loose at once. Your guts slump in what feels like a landslide, and you fall across the table. "I don't know, Stephanie," you whisper. "I've never had anything like this happen before!"

* * * * *

She listens with a marvelous mix of sympathy and sternness as you stammer out your confusions. "I don't know what to do with these, uh, girls," you confess. "Most of them I don't even know! And what do they want from me?"

"They want to get to know you," she replies. "You know that. You're not that clueless."

"I'm just not used to it!"

"I get that too. Better get used to it though, fast. And you're not gonna leave 'em hanging, are you? Not if you don't want them thinking you're a dick."

"I don't want that!" you gasp. "But it's already been, like, two days."

She grunts. "That's easy to explain. You tell them your parents confiscated your phone on account of you came home smashed. Then you tell them how much you loved seeing them and that you want to see them at school."

"There's so many of them!"

"You always gotta have something to whine about, don't you, Prescott? Here, lemme help." She lays your phone next to hers, and scrolls through your texts while tapping something into hers.

As she works, she continues to probe you with questions. "How many of these girls do you know?"

"Hardly any. Most of them I don't even know their names!"

"Then most of them probably only know yours. Don't worry, they're more scared of you than you are of them. What about Kristy?"

"I dunno. What about her?"

She looks up. "How well do you know her?"

You can only shrug weakly. "I know who she is. She's on the basketball squad with you, right?"

"Sure. But you know her name and you know that much about her? Which is more than you know about—" She checks your phone. "Becca Daly?"

"I never heard of her at all."

"Right." Stephanie falls silent as she scrolls and taps. "You been watching her for a long time? Kristy, I mean?" she asks when she resumes.

"Well, not like I'm a stalker," you protest. She cocks an amused eyebrow at that. "Um, when Eva asked me if there was someone I specially wanted to run into at the Warehouse, and she suggested Kristy, I—" You break off at the puzzled expression Stephanie has turned onto you. "What?"

"Eva suggested it?" She listens with growing puzzlement as you relate the background of your attendance at the Warehouse: How Eva invited you out, and suggested that she arrange for Kristy to be there for you if you were "specially interested" in her. But she only says "Huh" when you're done, then adds, "So you weren't especially interested in Kristy?"

"Well, I was after Eva mentioned her. Before that I wouldn't have—" You swallow the word dared.

"Well, be sure to talk to her tomorrow. You have to talk to these girls too. Like I said, if you don't want to want them to start calling you a dick." She taps her phone, and your own phone dings with a received text. "I'll walk you through it," she says as she turns your phone back toward you.

She's arranged the names of the girls who have texted you or tagged you on x2z in a series of lists. "These girls I don't know," she says of the longest list. "You'll have to text them back yourself, try to figure out who they are, find them at their lockers or something. These girls"—her finger trails down to the next list—"they all hang out together. Maybe you can meet them as a group or something." She flashes you a cold smile. "Maybe you'll get lucky, maybe you'll get some new friends. Same with these girls and these." She points to the next two lists.

Her finger hovers next to Lane Overstreet's name. "I'll leave it to you if you like this kind of thing." You blush. "Last one is Dorothy Harmon," she says.

"Who?" you ask.

She smiles again, and again it's cold. "Well, that answers my next question." She scrolls through your texts and stops at a photo of you in a beanbag chair with a girl huddled up tightly in your lap. "Her."

You gulp. "Oh. No, I don't know her."

"You could have fooled a lot of people. Including her. Jesus, Will, how wasted were you?"

"Pretty fucking wasted."

"Well, that one's up to you too. Just be nice to her." She checks her phone, which has dinged, and makes a face.

"This is a good place to break, 'cos I have to go," she says as she stands up, but she pauses long enough to give you one of the hardest and most penetrating stares you've ever received. "They're really throwing you in the deep end, though."

"Who? What deep end?" Again, you are shot through with the kind of paranoia that Keith has been peddling at you.

Instead of answering, she jabs you in the shoulder with a hard finger. "We'll have another party Friday night, don't know where yet, but I want you there. Ditch the Warehouse if anyone asks, you don't wanna go there too often." She chews on her lip, then jabs you again. "And we're gonna have a study session Wednesday night at the library. You're gonna be there too."

"I am?"

"Sure you are." Her expression, without losing its flintiness, turns puzzled again. She hesitates, then softly mutters "Sure you are" again before turning to go.

* * * * *

Back home, you follow Stephanie's advice and start sending out replies to the girls who had texted you, all variations on a theme: great to tlk to u, sry late gting back my dad took phone away all wkend bc i came home WASTED ysday morning, how r u?

Most of your replies vanish without eliciting anything back—at least, not for the moment—but some spark conversations. You have a short back-and-forth with Jamie Bornholm, of the swim team, who proposes hanging out after school Monday to do your calculus homework together. (You share that sixth period math class with her.) You're non-committal (but tell her "like to!") on account of "some guys" are already trying to set up something for Monday afternoon. Not that they are, but you want insurance just in case you decide there's a better off than Jamie that comes along.

You like Jamie, you suppose, but you're more intrigued by Kyra DaSilva, who claims to be a cheerleader at Eastman High. You talk to her about Eva and Jessica and Cindy, pretending more intimacy with them than is perhaps warranted. She doesn't invite you to meet up with her, but you have the impression that she would meet you if the invitation came from your side of the table.

You're trying to extract yourself from a tiring conversation with someone named Patricia Bloch—who is either a prattling airhead or a freshman; you can't tell which—when you get a text from a surprising source: Cindy Vredenburg.

Doing a vid w carlos n mike, she says. Do it w me? Tmrow at 430?

* To continue: "The Very Busy Monday" 

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