The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Mind and Muscle

Previously: "Face Facts" 

It's a day of small but pleasant surprises for you, mostly to do with the people who come up to talk to you. Most of them are girls following up on the text messages they sent you on Saturday, and you feel yourself glinting at them as you chat and promise to "catch up" with them later. A few are guys—wrestlers and football players—who are checking in on you the way Blake did to see how you're doing; these guys you also make vague plans with for hanging out.

The only real unpleasantness comes last period, when you're jolted by a hard-edged "Will!" when you saunter in to Astronomy.

It's Stephanie, and her eyes are gem-hard. Yet she doesn't frighten you, no more than Erik Carstairs frightened you when he grabbed you by the back of your neck in the hallway and asked how the fuck you were doing. "Hey, yeah?" you reply as you go over to her desk. Your limbs dangle loosely at your side.

"You not get my text or are you just blowing me off?"

"Huh? Oh, jeez!" You pinch the bridge of your nose: Stephanie was one of the girls who texted you Saturday with a request to meet up with you on Sunday. "Last minute thing came up Sunday afternoon," you tell her, "totally blew all my plans outta the water. I haven't been able to catch up with anybody since then."

"Uh huh? Like what?"

"I had to go out and meet Eva and Jessi—"

You physically flinch at the rush of Marc's memories: Eva and Jessica and Stephanie playing at your house from the time they (and you) were all eight years old. You chasing Stephanie and her chasing you; getting into soccer because of her; playing soccer against her and your sisters; feeling disappointed when she dropped soccer for basketball. So strong are the impressions—

Particularly the one of Stephanie tripping and falling on top of you in a grassy field while you were kicking a ball around in the ninth grade. The feel of her body resting on yours— The scent of her hair and skin— The warmth in your cheeks— The rush in your shorts— The embarrassment of trying to talk to her afterward.

—that for a moment you are Marc David Garner, and you quail at the implication in your smile that you were off fucking around (and maybe fucking) your sisters.

"—Uh, Jessica," you stammer as you grab control of your mind and personality again. "And Cindy and her sister," you add.

"Uh huh. So are you going to blow off Kristy?" Stephanie's eyebrows go up, and a canine shows in her smile.

Kristy? Oh, shit! Kristy Suffolk, who you danced with at the Warehouse after your friends set it up with you. And she's a friend of Stephanie's!

"No, I'm not blowing her off," you stammer. (Marc's personality is of no help; he's not the kind to blow off girls, and the Marc Garner inside your head is as embarrassed as you are.) "I was talking to Eva and Jessica about her. Uh, you know." You jerk your shoulders in a shrug.

Stephanie's eyebrows lift even higher. "Oh?"

"Sure. Um. I'm not blowing her off."

"Well, don't take long before talking to her, or she's gonna think you are blowing her off. So will I," she adds.

You can think of no retort to that that won't make you sound like an asshole, so you smile tightly at her and nod and retreat to your own desk.

Kristy Suffolk, you think. If Keith can't get things worked out with Cindy, then Kristy would be your second choice for a girlfriend.

* * * * *

You don't send her a text, though. You do send Blake a text—you got his number from him in the English class that (it turns out; you never paid much attention to the other side of the room) you share with him—telling him something came up and you'll talk to him tomorrow about "stuff." It vexes you a little to give him what feels like a blow off: It would be way cool and really boost your cred if you started hanging out with the football guys. But Eva came and found you during your seventh period study hall to say that Philip wants everyone out at the storage unit immediately after school.

"Keith and Josiah have gone up to the university to keep an eye on that professor, try to delay him if they can," Philip explains when you and Jessica and Eva are inside the studio. You drove the girls out, which is an echo of someone else's life, for Marc is usually behind the wheel when the triplets drive to and from school. "The rest of us will hit his place." To the girls he says, "You got the masks? I'll finish them up while you two change." He's already divested himself of Lucy's mask and is dressed in floppy, extra-large shorts and t-shirt. He gestures you to follow him into the other bay, where Carlos has his exercise equipment.

"I assume you'll want to put on Marc's mask," he says as he pulls two bluish masks from Eva's backpack. "It's over there." He points to the workout bench, where two other masks are sitting.

"Who else have we got?" you ask.

He looks up in surprise. "Seth for one," he says. "And Josiah got us a copy of Gordon, and Mike got us a copy of Jeremy Richards."

Jeremy? Yych! He was a friend of yours in middle school, before he turned into an asshole. You don't have to ask how Josiah (as Chelsea Cooper) got a copy of Gordon Black (Chelsea's hulking boyfriend), but you do ask how Eva got Jeremy, and why. "They went out a couple of times," Philip tells you. "Mike pretended he wanted to get affectionate at lunch."

Double yyyycchh! "Lemme have Gordon's mask."

"How come?"

It was instinct that moved you, and it takes you a moment to find and articulate your intuitions.

"Gordon's the biggest guy in school, right?" you tell him when they come. (Black, the captain of the basketball squad, is six-and-a-half feet of hard muscle.) "I got Marc's brain in me. He'd know how to use Gordon's body if we got into trouble, which would make him the best one to drive that dump truck around." You shrug. "No offense, but I'm not sure the rest of you do."

Philip's eyes widen. "That's ... actually a really great point." He hands you a mask. "I think this is Gordon's. There's some workout clothes in that bag over there." He points to a paper sack. "I went shopping today. I hope they're big enough for Gordon's frame."

* * * * *

"Those shorts don't leave a lot to the imagination," says a guy who looks like Marc Garner as he eyes you with a skeptical glance. The shorts you're wearing do ride quite high on your tree-trunk thighs.

"Shut up man, before I kick your ass."

Marc looks up to meet your gaze. It won't put a crick in his neck, but he definitely can't look you in the eye.

It's funny, looking down at Marc Garner and Seth Javits from the top of Gordon Black's long legs and brawny torso. It's like standing in a cluster of twelve-year-olds; or as if they (and the rest of the world) had got hit with a shrink ray. You assume that Gordon knows how to move his bulk around a world that is built for people considerably shorter than him; for you and Marc Garner, it's like walking around in a theme park for short people. Jeremy, though, is close to your borrowed body in height; and looking him in the eye is a little like being back in middle school with him, before a growth spurt led him to think he could have a career as a jock and a jerk.

At least the guy wearing his face hasn't got Jeremy's personality. The others probably think it's a mercy you've borrowed Marc's cheerful personality and not Gordon's brutish one.

And who is beneath which mask? You are pretty sure it's Philip in Marc's mask, Carlos in Seth's, and Mike in Jeremy's, but you're not certain. And for the sake of "security," Philip insists that you call each other only by the names that go with your external faces. So:

"Gordon, are you going to be able to drive?" Marc asks.

"I can fit in the cab. Fuck, Gordon drives a VW Bug."

"I don't mean that. You're going to have to go barefoot." No one's shoes will fit either Gordon's or Jeremy's giant feet, but Jeremy has got his feet into the one pair of flip-flops that Philip thought to buy.

It doesn't really matter to you, so you accede when Seth volunteers to drive. After locking up the storage bays, you all go outside. The other three get into the cab of your truck. You swing yourself up and into the bed.

Halfway down Twentieth Street, Marc taps at the back window and points: Lay down, he mouths. Gordon is pretty damn recognizable, so it's a good idea. You sprawl out on the bed and watch the overcast sky sliding by.

So you've no idea where you are when the truck shudders to a stop and the engine shuts off. All you see when you sit up is a wall and a vacant lot with some trees on the other side of it, hiding another house from view.

You vault over the side of the truck and follow the others as Marc takes the lead. (Your borrowed "Marc" persona finds it a little spooky to see himself from the outside—his sisters are twins, not him—but you put a lid on those feelings.) The top of the wall is above even your eye level, but you can make out the second story of a square-built villa rising up over it. You come to a wrought-iron gate; Marc fiddles with the handle and pushes it open. It squeals faintly.

The yard beyond is completely dead: dirt instead of grass, and empty flower beds. There's a lone tree at the corner of the house, and a stone shed. You mount the porch. As Marc puts a key to the front door, you do a double take at the doorbell.

It's mounted inside the ravening mouth of an ornamental wolf's head.

Next: "The House of Professor Blackwell" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"