The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Old Special Friend Ploy

"Wait," you say. "Evie wants to be, uh, a guy?"

Marc snerks through his nose. "Well," he says, "Evie wanted to try things out as a dude, but—"

"How come?" You would think that, if anything, after getting shoved so rudely into Dane Matthias's mask, Evie would have a phobia about having a guy's body again.

"Ask her. But it was also just kind of convenient to do it this way, with Jack."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He brakes to a stop at an intersection. "So, you know, Evie wants to hang out close to us, me and Paulina. Especially Paulina. And Paulina said it might look kind of weird if Evie was a girlfriend of Hannah's hanging out with us so much, like it might look like whoever that girl was, she was coming on to me? You know?" He grins raffishly. "Anyway, that's what Paulina said." He shifts in his seat, spreading his legs, and you quickly turn away to stare at the road ahead when you realize he's trying to accommodate a spreading boner.

"And it would be kind of the same thing," he continues, "if she was one of, um, Marc's guy friends, like if she came in and was Austin or Marcos or one of them. Like he was, you know, coming on to Hannah."

"But you all decided that was the way to go."

"Well, yeah. It just made sense. You know, we couldn't go with"—he punches the accelerator, and the minivan jumps out into the intersection—"with her being, like, whatsername. Jelena."

"Jelena?" you echo.

"She's in Slow Fast Hazel?"

"No, I know who you're talking about. I just don't know what the problem is. Would be."

A pink flush creeps into Marc's still-tanned cheeks.

"Well, 'cos then it would it kinda look like, you know, her and Hannah were—" He bites on a smile and squirms in his seat. "You know, Hannah's kind of, um, affectionate. And free with it. And if her and Jelena started hanging out together all the time, even if I was there, you know, along—" His flush deepens to crimson. "People might think that they were, um—" He purses his lips and shuts up.

Frankly, you're not entirely certain what he's trying to say, but you make the crude surmise that he and the girls wouldn't want people getting the idea that Hannah and Jelena (who is out and open as a lesbian) were making out with each other.

You still don't see how it's much different if this "Jack Lee" is going to start hanging out with them. Won't people gossip about how he's trying to score with Hannah? But you decide that it's all just too confusing to worry about, and presumably they all know what they're doing.

So even when Marc says, "Of course, no one's going to make that mistake with Jack," you just nod and accept it.

* * * * *

Marc texts Hannah when you're parked in the driveway of her house—at least you assume its Hannah's house—and you wait to get out until she comes out her front door. After a quick "Hey" and a twinkle at you, she grabs her boyfriend by the bicep, pushes him up against the minivan, and gives him a series of quick, biting kisses. You have to turn away to hide your blushes—and your boner.

"You can go inside and wait," Hannah tells you during a break in the smooching. "Evie's in there. We're just waiting for Jack to show up."

"Think I will do that," you reply. Hannah makes no reply. When you glance back, her face is in Marc's.

You find Evie in a den, slumped on a divan, studying her cell phone with a worried frown. She looks up when you say "Hey" at her, then pales a little. "Hey," she gulps. "Is it, uh— Is he here?"

"Who? Jack? No. Just me and, uh, Marc."

"Oh." She rubs a palm on her pants leg. You both start at the sound of dishes clattering in another room. Evie mutters something that sounds like Hannah's mom, then looks back down at her phone.

"Are you going to be okay?" you ask her. "I mean, if you don't want to do this—"

"No, it's okay," she blurts. "I'm just nervous about ... doing it. You know."

It suddenly occurs to you, with mordant humor and some slight horror, that if anyone was eavesdropping, they'd probably think that she was talking about her going out to lose her virginity. You lurch forward to settle on the divan next to her. She shrinks away.

"Can I ask you," you say in a quiet voice, "how you got mixed up in all this? I don't mean," you hastily add as you feel yourself redden, "about the stuff with Dane and all. That— I mean— Obviously I know all about that." You almost feel yourself falling into pieces as Evie looks up at you with wide eyes. "I mean with—" You lick your lips. "Paulina and Bhodi and—what they're doing. Paulina told you about what Bhodi and his friends, and us, what we were doing?"

Evie stares at you without blinking, and her nostrils flare slightly.

"Yeah." She breathes the word so softly you hardly hear it. "She told me—the guys—you were helping them—doing the thing with the masks. Paulina was going to do it too, she said. So I—"

"Why did Paulina tell you? About it all?"

She reacts as though you slapped her. "Because she's my friend?"

"Well, yeah. But I mean, Lindsay is her friend too. Is she going to tell Lindsay?"

"Oh, God, no. Lindsay hates this stuff!"

"But you're okay with it? It just surprises me, is all," you continue as her jaw tightens. "After what, um— The thing with Dane."

Evie looks away. Her face is splotched with white and crimson, like a rash.

She doesn't speak for a very long moment. Then she says, so faintly you can hardly hear her, "I guess I wanted to get on the horse again?"

You don't know what to say in reply. It hardly makes sense. Get back on the horse? That's what you say when you fail at something you wanted to do, and Evie didn't want to get herself turned into Dane Matthias.

Before you can puzzle out a reply, though, the front door opens and Hannah gestures at you. "Jack's here," she says.

* * * * *

There's a cherry-colored minivan parked next to Marc's, but there's no sign of anyone else. But the sliding door of Marc's minivan is now open, and Marc hops out of it into the driveway. "Hey, he's in there," he tells Evie, jerking his chin at her.

"Is he—?"

"Waitin' for ya. Well, it'll be a couple of minutes before the first part's ready."

Evie shuffles up to the minivan, and leans in. You follow, to look in over her shoulder. There's a figure bundled up in one of the seats. He's dressed in jeans and a burgundy, long-sleeve shirt, and he has a thatch of coffee-black hair and olive-colored skin. There's something peculiar about the cast of his face, and it takes you a moment to realize that he's Asian.

"Who is this guy?" you ask Marc.

"Jack Li." He blinks. "You don't know him?" You shake your head. "Yeah, he's in the marching band. Color guard. You haven't seen him around?"

The only Chinese guy you pay attention to is Gary Chen, and that's because he's a drug-dealing thug it's best to stay away from. "I don't know a lot of people in the marching band."

"Huh. I thought everyone knows him at school, he's pretty sociable. That's another reason, I guess, we picked him out." He leans in to murmur in your ear. "Though, you know, not the main reason."

"But Marc and Hannah know him."

"Sure. We told him he was coming out to meet Chelsea. Hannah gave him a story about the cheerleaders wanting to do something with the color guard. Pfft!"

But you're not paying attention. Evie has clambered into the minivan and is sitting next to the unconscious Jack, studying his face closely.

"After, uh, she gets changed and stuff," you say to Marc, "maybe she and I can talk about someone I could be. Some friend of Jack's."

His expression turns puckish.

"Yeah, sure," he says. "You can hang out with me and Hannah too. And Jack's got lots of friends." Then he says, with a slight laugh, "Though not a lot of them are gay, I don't think."

That's a weird thing to say. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Oh nothing. Unless." He grins wolfishly and slaps you in the chest. "You wanna see what it's like playing for the other team."

You feel yourself blushing hard. "What other team?"

"Jack's team." His brow crinkles when you don't reply. "Jack's gay," he finally says.

* * * * *

Well, with that finally out in the open, he explains again the reasoning for picking out Jack Li as an alias for Evie. Besides Jack's being highly sociable, and Evie's inclining to try out a male persona again, Jack's orientation wouldn't cause any gossip if he latches hard onto Hannah, becoming her best friend, or even better of a friend than her boyfriend, Marc.

It does raise a question for you, though, about how to keep close to Evie in her new guise.

And aren't there some other goals that you should be helping out with?

That's all for now.

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