The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Confidence Artist

Previously:"A Plot Twist for Caleb Johansson" 

Jenny Ashton isn't a font of information, exactly, but she and the others tell you enough about Sydney McGlynn to make clear what an insanely lucky son of a bitch your best friend is to have her glomming onto him as a tutor.

She moved to Saratoga Falls over the summer, runs the tl;dl, so this is her first year at Westside. She was a cheerleader at her last school, on a squad that actually went to national finals or something. She missed the WHS cheerleader tryouts at the end of summer, or maybe she skipped them because she just wasn't interested in being a cheerleader anymore. She's not super sociable, but she's got some friends. And she's taking a lot of AP classes.

Gorgeous, athletic, smart ...

And she wants to be tutored by Caleb? What did Johansson ever do to deserve winning the lottery that way?

You ought to be happy for him. But he was never happy for you (it seems now as you think back) when you and Lisa were going out. (And you don't care what Lisa says now, you totally were dating over the summer!) And though you don't want to mess things up for him—and least, not yet—you don't see any reason that you can't share in his good fortune.

Not when you can be him to collect some of it.

* * * * *

We should get together after school, you tell Caleb at his locker just before last period. My treat. He agrees to meet you at the Starbucks on the far side of town—"In case we want to hit a comic book shop after," you explain. When school ends, you follow him in your truck at a distance until you confirm that he's not heading home.

Then you shoot south, in the opposite direction.

First you stop at your own house, just long enough to gather up the foul-smelling clothes that you stole from him. Then you race over to his place. There's not enough time to change into his mask, so you sneak in through the back door in your own form. Your phone buzzes with a text from him while you're in his bedroom grabbing fresh shirts and pants from his closet. had t stop my hoise cot by mom b thre soon, you text back. He replies with a rolling-eye emoji.

Well, fuck him then. You make a third, unplanned stop at the school basement—to teach him to cool his heels patiently—where you drop off the new batch of clothes and check on the fire. (It's still burning.) Only then do you make the leisurely drive out to the Starbucks.

You're just turning into the parking lot when he texts to tell you that he's taken off and will see you later, if at all.

* * * * *

"Christ, it's not my fault!" you insist when you lure him back out that evening after supper. "My mom—!"

He only glowers at you over the top of an Ultra Mocha Frappacino with five shots of caramel (at a dollar-fifty apiece) and one of their Cinnamon-Rolls-as-Big-as-Your-Head. You're at The Crystal Cave, one of the kookier (and more expensive) coffee shops in town, and as per your promise you are paying for his food as well as your own smallest-size Colombian coffee.

Naturally, you're in a sullen mood, but so is he. "So what's this about?" he demands. He tears off a shank of the cinnamon roll and pops it in his mouth without offering you any.

"Why does it have to be about something? Aren't we friends?"

"Sure," he says. "You're not mad at me too, are you?"

"Why would I—?"

"'Cos everyone else is." He glowers.

Right. Everyone else is mad at him because a guy who looks like him went around borrowing and stealing money, and acting like a fucking jackass at parties where he wasn't invited. "Well, I'm not."

"Are you here to tell me something?" His eyes narrow. "You got, like, a message from people? People got something they want to say to me," he seethes, "and you've been elected to fricking-fracking tell me?"

Wow. He's in a much worse mood than you were expecting. You wonder if he had words with Tilley or Ioeger or someone this afternoon.

"No! I want to talk to you about that girl in English, that's all."

"What girl in—? Oh," he catches himself as your jaw drops.

"Oh fucking yeah! Sydney McGlynn! You ever talk to her before?"

"No." He squirms and glances away. You suppress a smile: He's probably getting a boner just thinking about her. You certainly are.

"Have you texted her? Talked to her?"

"Yeah, I texted her. Set up a—"

"Lemme see!" You claw at his chest. "Come on, man!" you yells as he flinches. "I wanna see how you did it! Please!" You sprawl over the table. "I bet you were real cool about it. I wanna learn from the sensei, learn how to text a fucking sex goddess when she—"

"Fuck you!" He blushes over his frown, but he also looks pleased. "All I said was— Well, here!" He slides his phone to you. "I just played it cool, you know," he goes on as you frantically scroll through his texts. "Set a time for a tutoring session, like it's a business. You don't wanna come on too strong—"

Yeah yeah. You let him natter on stupidly while you sear the back of your eyeballs with his text to her, her reply, and her contact info. As he said, it's all very business-like. They will meet tomorrow evening at the municipal library to study together for the weekly calculus quiz.

"What are you going to say to her tomorrow?" you ask. "In class."

"When am I going to talk to her in—?"

"In your calculus class! Jesus, you're not just going to ignore her! You've gotta talk to her in class, keep the lines open!"

He blushes furiously. "We'll keep the lines open at the library."

"Dude!" You grab his wrist. "This is your chance! This girl, she's like—!" You grapple for an analogy, then give up: Sydney McGlynn is one of a kind. (Certainly there can't be another like her who will ever approach Caleb!) "Well, this is your chance! You gotta grab every moment you got!"

"Fine." He pulls free of you. "Okay, I'll go over to her in math class and I'll say, um, hey, see you tonight? Well, what else am I supposed to say to her?"

You've no idea, actually. When you try to imagine yourself in his place, what would you say to Sydney McGlynn?

Then, as you imagine yourself in Caleb's place—as you actually visualize yourself walking into his calculus class—a wonderfully wicked idea comes to you.

* * * * *

Caleb didn't want to do it, and it took all your persuasive powers—and the most vividly hellish picture you could paint of what a fantastical fool he is in danger of making himself into—to talk him into it. Even then, when you woke Tuesday morning, you were sure he was going to back out, so you drove unannounced to his house to pick him up. He was haggard and angry on the drive up to the university, and he didn't want to surrender his phone when you sprang that part of the plan on him at the last minute. "I'm not that bad of a fuck up," he whined. "I can talk to girls—"

"Yeah, anyone can talk to a girl," you sneer as you pushed him out of the truck in front of the university library, where he has agreed to spend the day instead of going in to school. "You just don't know how to talk to a sex goddess like Sydney McGlynn." At those words, he turned red and green and purple and white all over. "Trust me," you assured him. "I'll be the one to text her so you won't even risk fucking that up."

"The fuck? What makes you think you can text better than me?"

"'Cos I'm not a nervous wreck like you are."

Is he a nervous wreck? He better be, after all the work you put into undermining his self-confidence so that he'd skip school rather than risk seeing Sydney before their big date and say the wrong thing to her.

You'll have to say something to her, you assured him. And just think of all the stupid-as-shit things you'll probably wind up saying, and all the stuff you should say but are too stupid-as-shit to say. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and hock a fat loogie into her face.

So he's going to skip school, and on his behalf you'll send her a text saying that he has a medical appointment that is keeping him from calculus but confirming he'll see her at the municipal library that evening. In the meantime, he can use his time away from school to hone his math skills for the tutoring session.

So now you've got his phone, his clothes, a copy of his face, and the whole school day to rearrange all his plans with her.

You park in the farthest corner of the student parking lot and quickly change clothes. Then you cram yourself own into the passenger-side foot well and put his mask to your face. You're cramped and hurting when you awake, and your head pounds as you clamber back onto the truck bench. You do a double-take in the rearview mirror and grimace at Caleb's face: What a dork. Big nose, protuberant lips, tightly-curled rug of hair. He looks like Mark Zuckerberg's idiot little cousin.

But he's got a date tonight with Sydney McGlynn, and at the thought of that a shit-eating grin spreads across your borrowed face.

Except he won't. Survey says she'll have it with you instead!

Next: "The Substitute Student" 

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