The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Party and Postlude

Previously: "Prelude to a Party" 

Ricky is in the den with a cigarette lighter when you emerge from the bathroom, and he awkwardly extends it toward you. You pick up a new joint—you put the other down where you forget—and the tip crackles as you inhale.

"Thanks babe," you murmur as you draw a thick waft of smoke down into your lungs. It's warm and pungent, and seems to lightly stroke and tickle the base of your brain. Loathing the gesture, but knowing it has to be done, you give him a quick nibble on the ear. "Love you lots."

Like hell you love him.

But you're lounging with him on some cushions, tucked inside a loose and sprawling embrace, when Kelsey comes in. "Well," she says with a bright, sharp smile. "Aren't cozy as two bugs in a rug.

You buzz into Ricky's ear: "Told you she was being a bitch." Kelsey can't have heard, but she gives you a narrow smile before bending over to rearrange some of the cushions whose earlier placement by her you had patiently corrected.

More voices herald the arrival of the main body of partiers: Martin with Brooke; Brent Pruitt; Rachel Burton and Olivia Byrne in sheer party dresses and their hair done up; Anthony Kirk, dressed like Ricky in a polo shirt and shorts, but looking much more dapper and athletic (and bronzed; he's a golfer); and Geoff Mansfield and Lisa Yarborough.

You can spare the latter two only a brief glance before you have to turn away. Why does it hurt so much to see them with his arm around her hip?

They've brought the food up with them, not only the stuff you brought but other snacks—deli meats and expensive cheeses, mostly—that is far higher toned than the usual chips and shit. Everyone gets settled, and Kelsey turns on the TV. She navigates it to a movie: something in black-and-white, in a foreign language.

Not that anyone pays any attention to it, not even Kelsey. It's only there for mood. Instead, after everyone has settled in—you can't help noticing that Anthony has chosen Olivia for company on his cushion tonight—they all take out their cell phones and start scrolling through them.

So do you. So many social media sites to keep up with. So many memes to find and comment on and like and share. So many tweets to read and expostulate over. So many videos to watch with pursed lips and arched eyebrows. On the TV, a man in a soiled suit and a woman in a beret argue with each other in French while pacing the sidewalks beside a damp, cobblestone street; in the den, the air grows hazy with marijuana smoke and the grumble of muttering as people share their cell phones with each other.

You don't realize how badly you're buzzed until you find yourself wondering how that cat in the gif can eat so much.

It's looping, you think. No it isn't. It's a different cat, different cats eating the same food the same way. No, it's the same cat, I've just come back to it again. What was I watching between now and the last time I landed on it? I landed on it before, didn't I? I remember seeing it before. I've been watching it and watching it. I've seen this cat before, doing this. When? A couple of years ago? How many cats look like this one, a big fluffy calico cat, with hair draping off it like yarn. It would come away in fistfuls if you pulled at it. What an empty face it's got.

Why am I looking at it?

Your eye travels to the bottom, to text embedded with the post: Lisa Y.

You blink at it. Lisa why. Why Lisa? Why. It does look like Lisa, the cat. Fluffy and dumb, dumb and fluffy. You stare at it, then lift your heavy head to blink at Lisa, who is canoodling with Geoff. Dumb and fluffy, fluffy and dumb.

Oh my God.

Something toothed, like a lamprey, attaches itself to the side of your neck. "Uchh," you mutter and push Ricky away. He says something, and someone else says something back as you heave yourself onto tottering legs. A hand steadies you until you find your balance, then you stumble off toward the door.

Water on your face doesn't clear the fumes. It only sharpens the sensation of time ticking and catching and lagging, second by second, as you hang on to the edge of eeh sink. Oh God I'm here. Oh God I'm here. Oh God I'm still here. Still here, oh God I'm still here.

It's Ricky who rescues you from this gif-like loop after who knows how long, pulling you you back into the den. You grimace as he gropes at you, but you're too tired and distracted to stop him. At some point, though, you cease to be aware of what's going on around you, though the darkness that falls about you is as lagging and stuttering as the wakefulness you left.

* * * * *

Your head is full of smoky, acrid fumes when you wake, but that's exhaustion, not hangover. Most of the others are moving already. Well, if not moving, they are awake: sprawled across cushions and blinking slowly behind drooping lids; hunched with their heads in their hands; curled up in with their faces in their knees. It's Kelsey as usual who whips them all into motion. She doesn't actually fetch a broom, but her screeching whine—"Come on, guys"—could scour the grime off a dirty saucepan.

All the boys roll up and out the door, taking most of the garbage with them. Lisa leave too Rachel, so it's just you and Olivia and Brooke left behind with Kelsey. She taps furiously into her cell phone while you and the others strip off slept-in clothes wrap yourselves in some terrycloth robes from her closet. Then you all troop downstairs and out through a small side door, where a narrow, shady sidewalk guides you to the Blankenship bath house. There, over the next hour, you girls alternate cold showers, hot steam rooms, and rehydrating bottles of sparkling water taken in a plant-stuffed atrium. No one talks much, and even the cell phones are put away.

By ten o'clock you're feeling human again—human dress out in the fresh clothes that Amanda leaves at Kelsey's, and to put on some makeup, and to start sniping at each other.

"So you and Anthony sure got on good last night," Kelsey says as you and she and Olivia hunker in front of her vanity mirror. (There's only room for three, so Brooke—poor, rake-thin Brooke—has been banished to the bathroom, though she is listening with the door open.) "You need to be careful of him, you know."

"No, Kelsey," you sigh, "she doesn't know."

"Tch." Kelsey gives you a look in the mirror. "She's not clueless."

Olivia says, "We were just, you know ..."

You sigh again. "No one was paying attention, so no, Olivia, we don't know."

She mutters something in the back of her throat. Kelsey says, "Well, so long as you're not counting on anything, you can have whatever fun you want with him."

"You hear that, Brooke?" you call out. "Kelsey's giving Olivia permission."

Kelsey drops her lipstick to glare up directly at you. "Maybe someone should be in charge of giving you permission."

You know what she's alluding to, but don't give her the satisfaction of showing a reaction. Instead, you ask Olivia, "Is there anything wrong with Brent?"

"No," she stammers. "Why—Why are you—?"

"No one's interested in Brent," Kelsey says. "Except maybe Martin."

You can picture the look of hurt that must have just flashed over Brooke's face.

Talk lapses, long enough for you to drop your powder into your bag and to tug at the very short hem of your very tight dress—navy blue, silk—and to toy with teasing Olivia with something like It's too bad Michael on the swim team has a girlfriend when Kelsey forestalls you: "I guess Geoff and Lisa have stopped pretending."

"Pretending what?" You feel your heart in your throat.

"So who's pretending now she doesn't know what I mean? You spent all night staring at them."

You were? Now your pulse does race. Did you do anything else out of character? "I don't know what I was staring at," you insist. "I was pretty wasted."

Instantly, you regret the words—they sound like a weak and desperate excuse to cover up an admission. Kelsey's smirk tells you that's exactly how she reads them.

Olivia says, "They looked to me like they were, you know, into it."

"Exactly. Lisa and her whole 'virginal' thing." Kelsey snorts. "I swear, Geoff was this close to dry humping her."

Your stomach turns over.

Kelsey likes to dress as a wild bohemian—this morning she's in a jean skirt stitched over with microbeads in an Anasazi design—but she long ago became transparently predictable, especially to a good friend like Amanda. The morning after a party is when she declares what behavior has pissed her off and who is going to get the business. Olivia will be one of them. Geoff and Lisa will be another. You could almost pity them.

And you almost do, until you arrive at the country club for the usual Sunday brunch with most of the kids from last night. Rachel Burton has shown up as well; but Lisa has church.

Oh, and Ricky is there too, of course. Your skin crawls as he lays his hand on your waist and walks you into the club.

As was said, you could almost feel sorry for Geoff and Lisa, until your party of ten is sitting out on a patio overlooking the river, at a table covered with a crisp white tablecloth and decorated with a crystal bowl filled with flowers. For you're seated directly across from Geoff, and the longer you watch his smug face and listen to his horsey, superior laugh, the greater the temptation you feel to use this identity to amplify whatever misery Kelsey has planned for him.

Next: "Some Backstory on Amanda" 

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