The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

School Days with Sienna Goldman

Previously: "An Evening with Your New Best Friend" 

"I'll worry about the other girls tomorrow," you tell Andrea, and snuggle up closer to her.

* * * * *

"God, I don't want to go to school today!" Sienna Goldman exclaims as she clambers into the passenger-side seat of your car. "Fuck!" She shudders all over.

Maybe it would be better to say that she "bristles" all over. There's something kittenish about Sienna. The pert nose, the alert eyes, the slightly pointed ears, all of them set off by her bobbed hair. But if she's a kitten, she's one with a Goth sensibilities.

Though is she wearing fewer piercings than usual? You only have time for a quick glance before you pull smoothly back into the street, but you have the impression that there's less metal on her face than usual.

Perhaps it was a compromise she made with herself. You can no more imagine Kelsey Blankenship with piercings than you can imagine Sienna Goldman without them.

"I hate Tuesdays too," you reply as you steer north toward the interstate. It's the wrong way to get to school, but it's the fastest way out of Sienna's crack-house infested neighborhood. "I hate them worse than Mondays. It's like—"

Sienna interrupts you with a snort. She slumps in her seat, then suddenly rounds on you. "Oh, hey, sorry to hear about your granddad," she says, sounding not the least bit sorry. "Did he go fast, at least?"

You mull the question, puzzled less by the answer than the challenge of figuring out whether this is Kelsey letting herself shine out from beneath Sienna's mask, or it's Kelsey trying to act like Sienna. Kelsey, in your experience, only fakes an interest in other people's problems; Sienna, in Fatima's experience, usually is interested in other people's problems but can't be bothered to fake it when she isn't. "Fast enough," you reply.

"Sorry, I'm being a bitch this morning. Gonna be one all day, probably. God!" She rounds on you again. "Can you keep Jelena off me at school? Please?"

"Keep her off you?" you echo. "What do you—?"

"Keep her distracted, I mean. I don't want to talk to her, don't want to deal with her. She was all over me this weekend." She shudders again.

Fatima's equivalent of Spider-sense tingles. "All over you like how?"

"Like a rash." Sienna brushes her arm.

"Did she do something to you?"

Your scalp prickles harder as Sienna hesitates, and as you give her sidelong glances you have the impression she's struggling to overcome a reluctance to say something.

But she only slumps deeper in her seat. "She was just being extra creepy," she says. "And for me to say that about someone? Well, think how bad she must've been."

* * * * *

She refuses to amplify on or explain that last remark, although you as a good friend gently press her to share. At school, she insists on lounging by the tennis courts before class instead of hanging out near the theater wing, which is where you and she (and Jelena!) typically hang out. She has to stop by her locker first—dragging you with her—and you can't help but notice that on the way in she takes a quick peek inside Mr. Walberg's class.

That little detour—into the classroom where Kelsey Blankenship has her first period class—is enough to put you on alert for second period, where you and Sienna reunite for an English class. The two of you sit in the far back corner, and you watch out of the corner of your eye as Sienna elaborately busies herself with taking out and arranging her books and pens and paper. She is so concentrated on them that she doesn't even pause or look up as Kelsey Blankenship sweeps in.

You try not to stare.

You've seen Kelsey dressed up before, but today she seems to glow. She's in a black leather skirt and a royal purple blouse that—if Fatima's eye is to be trusted—is made of silk. Silver studs peek out from behind the long, carefully combed strands of her shoulder-length brunette hair, and a matching silver bracelet, like an armband, flashes on her left wrist. With a sweep of her hand she directs two of her flunkies—Brooke Galloway and Ricky Golia—into their seats. She doesn't take her own, though, but stretches over it to brush Dean Stratton (one of the scruffier members of the class) along the side of his face with a tapering finger. She gives him an open-mouthed smile and says something you can't catch; sweeps her hair back behind one shoulder to show your side of the class her profile; then, like a gymnast nailing a perfect landing, drops into her seat with her bag in her lap. She pulls out her own supplies, drops the bag beneath the desk, and settles back to twirl a silver pen between her fingers.

Sienna, you notice, keeps her own face ducked as she busily searches through her backpack for ... something that she fails to find before Mrs. Goretsky calls the class to order.

* * * * *

"Where you guys been?" Jelena Petrovic asks when she finds you and Sienna at a table in the cafeteria at lunch time. She drapes her hands on Sienna's shoulders. "I missed you third period."

You bite your tongue. Third period is the study hall that you and Sienna have together, and usually you take it in the back of the school theater, where you can quietly talk while watching the drama teacher, Mr. Wilkes, put Jelena and Charles Hartlein and the rest of the Advanced Acting class through their paces.

But today Sienna dragged you to the other side of campus, to the orchestra room, to sit very quietly in a corner with your cell phones while Mrs. Heinz conducted a music theory class with a dozen students. It was an odd choice, and you could only assume she picked it for its maximum distance from Jelena.

She's very snippy with her friend now: "We were trying out some new hangouts," snaps. Jelena freezes, then withdraws her hands, and moves around to sit on the other side of you. She nudges you, and gives you a knowing glance.

Sienna is kittenish, and there is something very cat-like about Jelena, too. Only she has the taut and coiled maturity of an older cat—a hunter and a stalker. She is dark and lean, but she's got a bright smile, and when it and her eyes light up it's like a spotlight has settled on her shoulders.

"Are we hanging out at Andrea's after school?" she asks you.

"I don't know," you say. You look between her and Sienna. "Maybe we should ask Andrea if—"

"Or we could all go out to the Warehouse," Jelena interrupts. "I could get K.C. and the others to go out there with us. We have that gig Friday night, and we should—"

"You can do whatever you want, Jelena," Sienna says, leaning heavily on the name. She puts her face into her tray and shovels up some more food.

Jelena nudges you again, then gets up and saunters over to the food line.

You glance again between her and Sienna, then drop your utensils to hurry after her.

"She's been pissy ever since Saturday," Jelena says as she pushes her tray along, picking up food.

"Do you blame her?"

"No. But I think we were all hoping for something more interesting from her than, 'My new life sucks and I'm gonna take it out on you guys'."

"Well, she hasn't been pissy with me."

"No?"

"Well, not so much. She does say she's sick of hanging out with you, though. Apparently, you've been hovering," you add as Jelena looks at you in surprise.

"I'm just trying to keep her from panicking." She glances back over her shoulder at Sienna. "But if you want to take over the baby-sitting duties—"

"I think maybe I should."

"Aw!" Jelena's exclamation, and the quick hug she gives you, catch you by surprise. "You're such a good friend, Fatima!"

"Bite me," you mutter back.

She snickers. "Uh huh," she says. Then she leans in close to murmur in your ear. "Andrea's told me all about how much you like the biting and the getting bit, Fatima," she says, leaning on your name as hard as Sienna had leaned on hers. "So when you get tired of Sienna, maybe you and I could go up to the Warehouse and—"

Her arm is still around your waist, and delicately she pinches the side of your hip.

* * * * *

"She did what?" Maria Vasquez asks you. Her eyes pop with astonishment.

School is over, but she has asked you to linger. You're in the corner of the eighth period classroom that you share with her. (Bizarrely, it's an AP science class. Fairfax would fit in there. But Maria? Really?) She asked you about your day, and listened with absorbed interest as you told her about the tensions between Sienna and Jelena, and looked impressed when you describe Sienna's studied indifference toward Kelsey in second period.

But now she's acting like you just threw a firecracker in her face, when all you did was mention the way that Sienna snagged Karl Hennepin at the end of third-period study hall, and talked to him with bright interest for a couple of minutes as he was leaving his music theory class.

"I said we hung out in the orchestra room third period," you repeat. "And she talked to Karl Hennepin afterward.

"That." Maria jabs you in the chest with a sharp fingernail. "What did they talk about?"

"I don't know. Nothing. Just, 'Hey, interesting class. Didn't know you were into music. Think I should take it, you know I play in a band.' Why?"

Maria compresses her lips until they vanish. "Because Karl is Kelsey's boyfriend," she says. "Her secret boyfriend," she emphasizes.

Then she gives you a speculative look. "Which might make him a good point from which to surveil both girls," she says.

Next: "Secret Boyfriend" 

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