The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Michael Duncan's Day

Previously: "Swapping Out Players" 

"Well, you know, I think," you stammer. Your chest tightens, as though loops of steel are being drawn around it. "I think it should be up to you who, uh ... Yeah, who you pick." Your voice quavers. "I mean, I know, it's tough. You don't, uh, really know a lot of the guys in the senior class, right? Except for, uh, some of the girls on the soccer team?"

"Mm-hmm," Evie says. "I don't think I want ... there."

"Did Paulina talk to you about what she and, uh, Bhodi, what they're ... doing?"

"Yeah."

You can't help gulping. "Well, it's good for you that Paulina's picked Hannah, right? Doesn't she, Hannah, kind of make things hard for you on the soccer team?"

"Yeah. But, you know, that won't be a problem after, um—"

"Yeah."

You're shaking all over by now. Part of it is the stress of tiptoeing around a subject that Evie seems loathe to address directly. Part of it too, you realize with a start, is how much Michael Duncan himself doesn't like talking about it. The thought, This is really wrong! keeps ringing in your head.

But, stumble by stumble, stammer by stammer, you work it out with Evie. She will wait for her friends to make the switch, and then she will consult with them and maybe with you too, to pick someone out of a pool of candidates. When you hang up, you are trembling so hard you have to go for a run around the block to get the shakes out of you.

* * * * *

There's a hank of toast jammed between your teeth as you hurl yourself out the front door the next morning with your backpack bouncing off your shoulder blades. You throw it and yourself into the car, resettle the cap on your head, and pound the accelerator until the sedan reluctantly comes to life. You jackrabbit backwards out of the driveway, and tear off toward the school. You're going to be late if you don't make up for it with green lights.

Except for the fact that you're driving a sedan and not a pickup truck, it's almost like your old life again.

You woke to the alarm on your cell phone, and nursed a hard erection during the snooze period before you woke yourself up. Then, remembering where you were, you hurled yourself into the shower where you soaped and washed down a body that is only a little scrawnier than your original. You let your thatch of bushy hair—darker and not as stiff than your real hair—air dry as you jumped into narrow-hipped jeans, a rag-like t-shirt, a gray hoodie, and ratty sneakers. You shoved books willy-nilly into your book bag, and pounded into the kitchen to grab a quick bite and money for the cafeteria before your mom could yell at you a third time that you were going to be late. There's a traffic jam at the entrance to the Westside student parking lot, and you testily slap the sedan's console with a flipper-like hand as you wait for the other tardy students to squeeze through the entrance and pour into the lot like a wave of cold pancake syrup.

The other big difference is that Michael, despite being the kind of total nerd and goofball who takes real classes (including three AP classes), has a lot more friends than you ever did.

* * * * *

"Oh my God!" You throw your head back in a hard whinny, and kick at the desk in front of you. "So when she poured the M&Ms out, I was like, You know those little pellets that rabbit leave in their cages? You know, like after they eat?" You snort back a wad of snot. "And I point down into the bowl, and Julie's like, Eww! and she hits me!" Your legs jerks and you kick the desk again.

It's fourth-period AP English, and you're in a study circle with friends and classmates: Lucas Mack and Madeline Miller; James Randolph and Karen Beecher. You're supposed to be talking about Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," but you're regaling them instead about what you said and did at stuck-up Julie Eckler's party last weekend.

In the next circle over, Lindsay Cho gives you a dark look. Well, that's to be expected. She wasn't happy last period, in Speech class, when she discovered that her idiot partner was now her boss and that she had to do whatever he told her.

"Oh, wait wait wait." Lucas grins. "You know what next time you should do? You know those party mixes with like with those brown things in them? Like croutons?" He slaps his open palm over his face to control the laughter that's welling up. "You ever notice how much those things look like dog food? Like the dried pellet kind?" You guffaw and stomp the floor. "So next time you need to take a baggie of—"

"There's not going to be a next time," Madeline retorts, though her face is shining pinkly with laughter. "She's not ever gonna have you out to her house again."

"I'll just hitch a ride with someone else," you chortle.

James, a lithe blonde on the JV basketball squad smiles, though his expression is a little tight. "Maybe we should get back to the book?" he says.

"Oh, thphbt! Mz. Goretsky's off getting hammered in the teacher's lounge. Yo! Here!" You signal the other side of the room, where Matthew Adams and his group are tossing a crumpled-up ball of paper at each other. Matthew hurls it over and it goes wide so that you have lean almost perpendicular to catch it with an outstretched arm. You pop it over to James. "See if you can sink a three-pointer, man."

He clucks his tongue, but straightens up in his seat, calculates the distance and trajectory, and drops the crumpled ball into the metal basket. "Whoop!" you cheer, and slap him with a high-five.

* * * * *

You have Evie for two classes, but you don't get a chance to talk to her, being occupied with other kids, and when you sidle up to her after last period, to ask what she's going to be doing after school, she tells you that she's waiting to hear from Paulina. "Cool." You rub your nose. "Well, um, if you need me, my help or just to talk, let me know." She tells you that she will.

That leaves you at a bit of a loss, but you cover it by hooking up with Lucas and Madeline and some other kids at the McDonalds after school, where you share a mess of fries, some burgers, and cell phones. You have to be careful about showing your own phone, though, after Caleb texts to tell you he's transporting blank masks and supplies out to Bhodi's house. But that's all you hear from anyone, and you soon forget all about him and Evie and everyone else when you and a dozen other kids form a caravan up to the mall for mini-golf and go-kart racing that lasts until ten o'clock.

The next morning, though, you wake to a text from an unexpected source.

Marc Garner.

* * * * *

Marc's face is cherry red as he grins back at you. His eyes glint and the gelled spikes of his hair bristle. He squirms and twists in the booth across from you, like he's trying to wriggle out of his clothes and skin.

What's he got to be so squirmy about? Probably it's because his girlfriend is snuggled up close to him. And though he's got his fingers twined up as he leans forward on his elbows, Hannah Westrick has her hands under the table. She grins at the side of his head as he gasps and stutters and chokes.

It's after school and you're at a McDonald's again. Of course, you were surprised to have gotten a text from Marc. For as far as you know, he doesn't even know that Michael Duncan exists, and you weren't expecting him to get acquainted with Michael quite so fast.

"It was Gabriela," Marc gasps. He arcs his back and blinks rapidly as his grin turns even stiffer and glassier. "She, uh, called up Hannah last night and— Nngh! Went out to see her. She had, uh, Paulina with her." He hiccups, sort of. "And then, after that, she— Hannah, you know." He snorts and chokes. "She called up Marc. 'Cos—" A spasm runs through him, and he blinks a sudden wetness from his eyes; but his grin widens and brightens even more. "So they got together. She got in his lap. And. Jesus." He looks up at the ceiling; his Adam's apple bobbles hard in his throat.

"Where was Bhodi when all this was going on?"

Hannah has to answer for her boyfriend, who has gone rigid as he saws a hole in the ceiling with his grin. "We were out at the river," she tells you with a sly, sidelong smile. "Bhodi was in a car a little ways down. Then he got in the minivan with us, and then he—" She makes some move under the table, and Marc levitates a couple of inches. "Then he got into Marc, and Marc got into me. Didn't you, stud?"

"Uh huh," the captain of the soccer team squeaks.

"Right," you say. You really want to follow it up with, I didn't come out here to watch you jerk your boyfriend off under the table, but instead you ask her about Evie.

"We've been thinking about that, talking about it. We'll let you know."

So why am I here talking to you? you want to shout.

As if reading your mind, Hannah asks, "Where were you thinking about going? After Michael here?"

You've not thought about it. You've been waiting for other decisions.

Maybe you should talk to these guys about it.

And about how Evie might fit in with your plans.

Next: "Other Kinds of Replacement" 

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