The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Dish Best Served Cold

Previously: "What Goes Up Should Come Down" 

"If we're going to take down anyone, I want it to be Geoff Mansfield."

Your declaration is met with stares from the other girls.

You're all meeting again up at the storage complex—the only place in the city where this collection of long-legged cheerleaders—most of whom are supposed to hate each other—can meet without it looking weird. But after everyone but Chelsea (who is chronically late) was spread out on the floor or draped over the furniture, you didn't waste any time announcing that you wanted to talk some more about "taking someone down" as a new group project. Jessica had looked like she was about to speak, so you blurted your idea out first. "Mansfield," you repeat in a growl.

Cindy—your friend Keith—is the first to react. She groans and covers her face. Jessica looks miffed, maybe because you darted in ahead of her, while Eva looks confused. "What have you got against Mansfield?" she asks.

Jessica nudges her. "Lisa."

"What? Lisa who?"

"Don't be an airhead, man. That's Philip's job."

"Fuck." Cindy glares at you. "Don't be petty, man"

"I'm not being petty! Don't tell me he doesn't deserve to be taken down a couple of notches," you continue, turning to the Garners. "You guys hang out with him. At least, that's what I've heard. What someone's heard about the Garners," you correct yourself, for in the heat of the moment you can't tell if the memory is one of yours or one of Jenny's. "Fucking insufferable twat."

Maria frowns at you. "Will," she says, "is there some personal motive in selecting Geoff Mansfield as a subject for this, ah, experiment?"

"No!"

"Yes," Cindy says. "Geoff stole Will's girlfriend," she tells Maria. "At least, that's the way Will tells it. Everyone else says Lisa wasn't even dating him, she just spent most of the summer standing in the neighborhood of where he happened to be."

You bridle so hard you nearly split your skin open.

"Mm," Maria says. "I don't much like this whole idea of trying to downgrade someone's reputation, and if we're doing it because one of us feels personal spite—"

"I'll tell you why we should do it," Jessica announces, to your surprise. "Because we should be trying to get Will into Kelsey's group, and we can't do that while Geoff is in with them."

Eva squints at her fake sister. "What?"

"Mike, I told you, stop being such a fucking blonde."

"We're all being blonde in that case," Maria says. "You're going to have to explain yourself, Carlos."

But instead, Jessica bends over to whisper urgently in Eva's ear behind a cupped hand. Whatever she has to say, she says so much of it that Cindy turns to you and says, "I can't believe you want to do this, Will."

"Like I can't believe you wanted to do that thing to Javits," you retort. "Don't be a fucking hypocrite, man—"

"I'm not being a hypo—"

"You wanted to tear Seth down. And that's after you did worse than that to him, you turned him into a fucking beta of himself. I just want to teach Mansfield a lesson, and that's a lot less—."

"I didn't turn Javits into a—! That was just something we had to do!" Cindy yells back. "On account of—"

"The fuck is going on in here?" someone says from the doorway. You look up to find Chelsea Cooper making a face at the assembled company.

"We're having a discussion about—" Maria starts to say, but—

"No, look, here's the plan," Jessica interrupts. Eva grins and claps her hands to silence everyone else.

"We're going to get Will in with Kelsey and her friends," Jessica says. "They're, like, a really exclusive bunch, right? Country club and all that. So if we can get Will in with them—"

"That's the project for our old betas," Maria patiently reminds her. "These betas." She rests a slim brown hand atop her bosom. "For our second betas—"

"I'm getting to that! Thing is, there's no way we're getting Will in with Kelsey's group as long as Mansfield hangs out with them, on account of the bad blood between them over Lisa."

"You're not getting Will in with them, period," Cindy snorts. "Buncha stuck-up—"

"We can if Kelsey and her friends are our betas," Jessica says with a note of triumph. "And that's how we take Geoff down too. We use them to boost Will and also take Geoff down!"

An awestruck silence settles over the room. At least, you feel yourself awestruck into silence, and it feels like the others are too. Into that silence, Jessica pours out the rest of her plan.

"So Kelsey and Amanda and— I dunno. Some of the others. They become our new betas. Will starts attending Kelsey's Saturday-night parties, going out with their study groups, sitting in with them at lunch and before classes, all that. And at the same time Geoff starts getting cold-shouldered, pushed aside. Snotty remarks and social posts. Two plans, coming together." She twines her fingers together to illustrate. "One goes up, one comes down."

Doubt still shows on Maria's face, but it's a thoughtful doubt. Cindy also looks skeptical as she casts you a glance, but to Jessica she says, "Could Kelsey and them start inviting me and Seth out?"

"Sure, that would be—"

"Then I'm in," Cindy declares.

Maria looks around, and seems to realize that everyone, except maybe Chelsea, has bought into the idea. When she looks at Chelsea, the head cheerleader says, "Whatever, my dudes. Just don't ask me to trade in these boobs."

"Don't you want another beta?" Eva asks.

"Don't need one."

"Well," Maria says, and she folds her hands. "I guess that's settled. But whatever we do to Geoff, I want it to be subtle."

Sure, you think. Subtle like a mule kick to his nuts.

* * * * *

The rest of the session is taken up with brainstorming candidates for betas. Carlos practically lunges for Kelsey—"She's the bossy-boots who throws the parties"—and it dawns on you that he likely endorsed your idea because it will give him a chance to move in behind her face—another way of getting back at her for whatever she's been doing to him. Mike is almost as quick to claim Amanda Ferguson, Kelsey's best friend, for himself.

But after that, things bog down.

Keith, of course, already has his second beta in the form of Seth Javits, and Josiah has already declared that he will be Chelsea and no one else.

That leaves you and Philip needing assignments. But though he has acquiesced in the plan, Fairfax is only lukewarm to the names that Carlos and Mike rattle off: Olivia Byrne, Brooke Galloway, Rachel Burton, Deanna Showalter, and Hannah Westrick. And they veto Philip's own suggestion that, as Kendra Saunders, he could help Chelsea spread malicious online gossip about Geoff: "Josiah's already got that covered," Carlos says. "If we want to do that."

But you're not enthusiastic about their suggestions either, and the session breaks up with a decision to make those decisions later, maybe after Mike and Carlos have adopted their new identities and gotten a better lay of the landscape.

As before, you leave the studio with Keith wrapping Cindy's arm in yours. "Deanna's the best of the bunch they suggested," he tells you.

"She's not my idea of sexy."

"I think she's sexy."

"You think every girl is sexy."

"Yeah, I really dig having no standards, makes it easy finding girls to jerk off to. But seriously, you should totally do this next bit as Deanna. Think of all the bitchy stuff you could spread about Mansfield."

"I thought you hated the idea of me doing that."

"I don't hate it," he protests. "I just you're lame for still being hung up on Lisa. But if you're going to fucking do it, dude, do it right. Do it as Deanna."

* * * * *

Deanna is a notorious gossip—a fact that Jenny knows even better than you—and you could do Geoff a lot of damage by being her. As Jenny, you've got her first period for Concert Choir, and you spend some time the next morning eyeballing her. She's a pale redhead with snowy shoulders and bosoms, long hair that she likes to fiddle with, and a breathy voice. But you have to fight your way past Jenny's native dislike of her to recognize that Deanna is actually rather pretty, and to acknowledge that's she's also pretty popular. Besides taking down Geoff, she could also be help in boosting yourself.

* * * * *

Eva has a quick, alert look on her face when you catch up to her third period in the library. "What did you think of those names?" she asks as you pull out the chair next to her, but she looks past you as she speaks.

"What names? The ones Jessica texted me this morning?" You woke to a mysterious text from the other Garner: how about kim or martin?

"Of course them! For your other beta." Still she is gazing past you with an anxious expression.

"Oh." Dur. You glance back to see what so interests her, then realize she's probably on the watch for Audrey and Rachel. "I don't know," you say. "Martin Gardinhire? Is that one you mean."

"Sure. He's Geoff's best friend, you know. You could do him a lot of damage from behind Martin's face."

"And Kim ... Walsh?"

"Jenny," Eva says waspishly. "My sister would tell you that I'm supposed to be the blonde. Yes, Kim Walsh."

Kim is the school council president: a serious, studious, conscientious sort, not the kind to go around sabotaging friends. Again, like Martin, she would be an unexpected blind to strike from.

Rachel and Audrey breeze in just then, and the rest of the period is taken up with math problems and more innocent forms of gossip. By the time bell has rung, though, you've made a decision.

Next: "A Side Quest Before the Main Quest" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"