The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Sunday Dress Up

Previously: "The Straight Attitude" 

"We'll talk about it tomorrow, hon," you tell Alec. From the refrigerator you take a pitcher of tea. "Put this on the table, please?"

* * * * *

The dinner that follows is far more civilized than any meal at the Prescott household, though your motherly antennae quiver with subtle undercurrents that would escape most notice. After Victor says a short prayer over the meal (to which you append a quiet but fervent "Amen!"), for instance, you notice the twins thrusting their hands out in one synchronous movement to each draw out a drumstick, which they proceed to eat in unison, tearing off bites together and scooping up mashed potatoes together. You ignore the drill to concentrate on filling your own plate and passing pieces to the others, until you catch the twins surreptitiously wiping their hands (in unison) in their laps. "Riker, Micah," you say, "use your napkins please."

"Break formation," your husband adds as they simultaneously each pick up a napkin. They are so alike—narrow faces under dark eyebrows and dark buzz-cuts—that only members of the family can reliably tell them apart, and they like to play up their identicalness by performing synchronized routines. They have become almost spookily good at it.

"You boys get everything you needed at Academy?" you ask them.

"Yes'm," says Riker (you're ninety-nine percent sure).

"We had to go to White Fang, though," puts in Micah, "for socks."

"Uh-huh. I didn't know White Fang carried football socks. Alec, is that Eric?"

"No'm," he says, looking up from his lap. "I thought maybe it was." He takes his cell phone out from under the table and lays it screen down next to his plate. You decide to let it ride there instead of asking him to put it completely away.

"White Fang has tougher socks," Riker says. "We also looked at tents," he adds, and turns a sly glance over at his father.

"And fishing tackle and sleeping bags and water purifiers," Victor says. "Christmas is coming up, you know."

From there conversation turns to your asking if everyone has their homework done, and quizzing the twins on some history for an upcoming test. (You've no idea if they get the answers right.) Afterward, Alec clears the table and helps you wash and dry the dishes; Victor takes out the trash, and the twins run a quick cloth over the dining room table and a carpet sweeper under it.

You change into jeans and a sweatshirt after that, and the boys are in their rooms when you go back downstairs.

Victor is waiting for you in the little study just off the living room. He has a book in his lap, but he watches you from under lowered brows as you settle at your writing desk and put your feet (encased now in warm, woolen socks) in his lap. He shifts the book into his left hand and with his right kneads at one of your feet.

"What are we doing for Christmas?" you ask as you open up your laptop and navigate to the folder that has the novel Heather has been working on for the last six months.

"I was thinking we could go camping up in the mountains," he says. "Do some hiking, fishing, hunting, tracking."

"Do we need new gear?"

"Yes," he says after a fractional hesitation.

"I need fifty dollars for my mother," you tell him. (How easy and intuitive it is to tell him exactly what Heather would say!) "Whatever you want to do with the rest is up to you."

"You'll have more than fifty dollars for your mother," he assures you. "I'll parcel out some of the gear to the boys, they can give it to each other as presents."

"Leave them lee to make their own minds," you remind him.

"I will." He squeezes your foot, then returns to rubbing it as he reads his book. You settle in to try writing yours.

* * * * *

Or, at least, you pretend to. Maybe it's a limitation of the mask that it can't copy Heather's imagination, or maybe she really is blocked. Or maybe it's just not to your kind of book.

It's a sweet, Christian romance she's trying to write, with nothing steamier than some remembered chaste kissing and some longing glances between the cowgirl (recovering from a jilted engagement) and the Afghan vet she has hired to repair the barn on the ranch her daddy left her. But Heather been stuck at the twenty-five thousand word mark for a week now. It's time for her characters to do a little more, but Roman stubbornly refuses to unburden his banked desires upon Rebecca, no matter which room Heather pushes them into.

"What was your word count?" Victor asks when you finally give up and close the laptop.

"Peanuts." The word flies out with the viciousness of an eff-bomb.

"Maybe she needs a good lay."

You close your eyes and roll your head about on your neck. "It's not that kind of book."

"I was talking about the author."

You freeze, and peer at him from behind your lashes. "Tomorrow's Sunday," you remind him. "Boys sleep late."

"We could go for a drive. We haven't been for a drive in a couple of months."

Inwardly, you scuttle backwards. Outwardly, you let a smile tweak your lips. "The river?"

"Or a dirty motel." He presses his thumb into a tender place on the bottom of your foot, and you almost levitate.

"We'll send the boys on play dates tomorrow afternoon."

"Is that a promise?"

"Unless something comes up."

"Oh," he says with a grin, "I can pretty much guarantee that something is going to come up."

* * * * *

The next morning. "Riker? Are you ready?" you bawl into the house as you jam your feet into Heather Brown's best Sunday go-to-church-meeting shoes. "Yes!" two voices yell back. "Micah, how about you?" "Yes!" two voices call again.

You stand and give yourself a quick look over in the mirror. You've been up since seven-thirty, putting together a roast and vegetables in a crock pot for lunch, followed by showering and getting your hair done, your face made up, and your body dressed. You're in one of Heather's grandmother's old silk blouses—a well-preserved heirloom—of muted browns and greens and whites that's colored like autumn leaves fluttering in a silvery afternoon haze. Your heavy skirt—the hem halfway down the calves—is of blue wool, and you're wearing white silk hose underneath. After touching your curls and turning your head this way and that to make sure that they stay in place, you pull open the jewelry box to find a bracelet—something muted and understated. The phrase Vanity before the Lord runs through your head.

Wearing gaudy jewelry to church is probably the least of the sins you are about to commit.

"Alec? Are you ready?" you call.

"Yes'm! Putting on my jacket now!"

"But he still hasn't put his pants on!" one of the twins calls.

"Your dad's starting the car now!" you holler. You've no idea if he is, but it's Heather's diplomatic way of saying "Asses down, now!" which is what her mother used to say.

"Is Eric ready to go?" you ask Alec (a little breathlessly) when you meet him just outside your door. He is looking very trim and handsome in his navy-blue jacket and cream-colored slacks. He nods. "I didn't hear him come in last night."

"He came in a little after eleven-thirty."

"I didn't hear him."

"He made sure to be extra quiet."

You give him a sharp glance: there's just the faintest suggestion of a smirk on his lips.

"Well, twenty minutes before curfew or twenty minutes after, he's cutting it close. Riker! Micah!" You turn toward the stairs. "If you're not downstairs in three then you're walking to church and you're grounded if you're late!"

* * * * *

And yet you and Sydney are not struck dead on stepping into the South Creek Presbyterian Church. Is it because your acting is good enough to fool God? You sing lustily along with the hymns, drop an extra twenty into the collection plate, and nod along alertly to the sermon as though there's going to be a pop quiz at the end of the service. Afterwards, in the fellowship hall, you catch up with Heather's church girlfriends, exchanging news about family members—their triumphs and tragedies—and cadge a recipe for a low-calorie key lime pie off the pastor's wife.

At home, you cut up and boil potatoes for mashing, brown dinner rolls in the oven, and set out the roast and the vegetables. Lunch is taken with everyone still in their Sunday clothes. That's when and where the pop quiz is conducted, though you're the one who spring it against the kids by telling them to report on what got taught them in Sunday School. Eric wins extra points by gruffly announcing that Ms. Delahanty, who teaches the college-age class, is flirting with the Arian heresy. You ask him what the Arian heresy is, and he explains, but it rather goes over your head.

Then everyone goes upstairs to change into sloppy, Sunday afternoon clothes, with you putting yourself into clean, flannel pajama bottoms, a sweatshirt, and socks. Eric takes the twins over to the Athletic Fields to play with a football; Victor—forgetting his promise to ravish you—drives over to an Army buddy's house to watch a game on TV.

"Fuck me, but you were totally in character today, Will," Alec informs you when you're alone with him.

"I'm glad," you reply. "Except I'm not. I'm trying to 'burrow into her', like you said we should," you explain. "Trouble is, I feel like I'm just being her. You know? I feel like I need to dlo something that will—" You twist inside your clothes. "Change her. Start converting her. She's too much the goody-goody for this Baphomet business, Sydney."

His lips twitch "Know what we can do that'll do that?"

"What?"

He pushes you up against the wall and jams his tongue into your mouth.

Next: "Wand Work" 

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