The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Party Crash

Previously: "Girls, In and Out of Character" 

Well, it always had been the plan to replace Kelly O'Brien, right? So it seems like a no-brainer to tell Sydney, "Let's get Kelly out here."

She blinks at you. "But what about Bridget?"

"You can keep playing Bridget."

"But I don't—"

"Calm down, it'll be okay. If Kelly's mask works, then I can help you manage as Bridget. We can hang out together, I can answer your texts—"

"And you're okay with that? With the being-a-girl thing?" Her brow furrows.

But you have to be okay with it, don't you? "Hand me Bridget's phone," you tell the girl who looks like Bridget Atwater. "I hope Kelly doesn't think there's anything weird about coming out to your house."

* * * * *

She is inquisitive—whats going no? she asks—and you have to pretend to beg when she tells you she's not real keen on showing up to any party at Sydney McGlynn's house, but you persevere while being evasive. You can almost hear the exasperated grumble behind her final reply—Fine whts the adress?—and you have to wipe a film of sweat from your forehead. It surprises you that it was such hard work getting her out to a party at a senior girl's house.

"You better get your pedisequos up here and tell her what's going on," you advise Bridget. "Oh and—" She turns from the doorway at your interruption. "Maybe we'd both better have a talk with it when it gets up here," you lamely conclude.

Fake-Sydney perches patiently on the corner of the bed after Bridget-Sydney has summoned her up from the den, where she was lazing away watching Netflix. She listens with an amused smile as her mistress tells her that Kelly O'Brien will be along shortly, and that she is to bring the girl upstairs to be replaced. And the smile stays fixed on her lips even as her eyebrows arch when Sydney asks you what else there is to talk about.

"Tell her she needs to leave me alone," you explain to your girlfriend. "The real me, not the, uh, pedisequos we make of me."

"I know what you want, Will," the pedisequos says. "I'm not a dummy." Then she laughs. "I mean, I guess I am, sort of, but I'm not an idiot."

You feel yourself blushing as the "dummy" twinkles at you. "So we're all clear, then?"

"No," she says. She leans back on the bed and points her foot at your crotch. "What are you going to tell your dummy to do with me?"

Now your face is burning, not least because you can feel Bridget's eyes locked onto you. "Well," you stammer, "I'll tell it that, uh—"

"We'll tell it something after we've got it made," Bridget interrupts with brisk dispatch. "Will, darling," she continues as she grasps you, "I know we already made a copy of you, but you think maybe it needs an update? I'd hate to have to explain to it all the stuff that's happened since—"

She thrusts the mask of your own pedisequos into your hand and propels you toward the bathroom door.

You pause on the other side after she's shut it, and listen. But you can't make out any words, only Bridget's husky voice and Sydney's more silvery one. So you give up, lay out on the floor, and balance the mask over your face. Your own name—WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT—glares down at you from its inner surface.

You make a face of your own, then lower the mask so as to renew another of your faces.

* * * * *

Kelly is a long time in coming, so long that you text her again to find out what the wait is about. were coming, she replies. "We're" or "were"? you wonder. On our way, she replies when you ask when she'll be out.

But that just raises another question: Who is we?

The dreadful answer comes about twenty minutes later, when a beat-up sedan pulls up and two figures climb out. You have to guess that the girl is Kelly. But you know who the guy is.

"Shit," you exclaim as Blake saunters up alongside his sister.

Bridget joins you at the window. "What's he doing here?"

"Guess she had to get a ride. Oh, God damn it! What if he figures he was invited to this 'party' too?"

"Take it easy, Will."

"So what are we going to do? We don't even have a party going, not like we told 'em!"

"Well, that's how we'll get rid of them," Bridget says. She dashes for the bedroom door. "I better get hold of my double before she—"

But even as you run out onto the landing, you hear a doorbell, an the creak and swish of the front door opening. "Oh, hi!" Fake-Sydney cries out. "You must be Kelly! And—"

You and Sydney grab each other as the pedisequos momentarily falters. "Blake? Are you two related?"

"Kid sister." That's Blake talking, in his soft, resonant baritone. "So you're having a party?" He sounds puzzled.

You shove Bridget, knocking her halfway down the landing. She grabs the banister and glares back up at you. You shovel at her with your hands, telling her to get downstairs, but she just freezes in place.

"Trying to," Fake-Sydney is saying. "Maybe. Pizza party for the softball team. It was Maggie's idea. Girls only."

You and Bridget exchange wide-eyed glances.

"Oh. Well, I couldn't make it anyway, I gotta work tonight. Why are you hosting the thing if it's Maggie's idea?"

"Just doing my part."

"Well, what time's it supposed to run to?"

"Why, does your sister have a curfew?"

"Eleven. I don't, though. I'll be out at the Warehouse till seven. You know, if you feel like coming out after things wind down here."

"I'll talk to Will about it. We're gonna want to do something after."

You almost shit yourself, and the thunder in your ears is loud enough that you don't hear Blake's reply. You grab the banister when the door shuts, but the next voice you hear is Fake-Sydney's. "Well, come in, Kelly. I guess Bridget's busy upstairs."

Bridget flies up the stairs at you, and you backpedal down the hall with her. You almost trip over each other as you scamper back into her bedroom.

But once you're inside, you push her back toward the door. "Get out there and talk to her!"

"I don't know her, Will!" she hisses back.

"You don't have to! Just go out and talk and get her in here!" You lunge for the last of the blank masks you brought. "You can fake it for five seconds!"

Bridget turns green, but stumbles back into the hallway. You catch your breath, and shift the mask from hand to hand as you dry your palms on the front of your shirt. Your heart jackhammers in your chest, and you jump at the sound of an engine turning over in the driveway below.

Then you wheel at the voices in the hall: "Oh, hey, you're finally here." "Sure, where's everyone else?" "We're, uh, still getting things organized." "You didn't tell me it was a softball thing." "I didn't? Heh, well, I guess it just sort of slipped my mind." "How can it slip your mind when—?"

Two sophomore girls come round the corner with Fake-Sydney trailing behind. Bridget has a ghastly grin riveted to her face. Kelly O'Brien looks vexed and confused.

You throw yourself at her, brandishing the mask.

Four bodies bang together, making a kind of "Kelly O'Brien sandwich" as you all tumble to the floor. "Get off!" someone groans as you try to untangle yourself from all the limbs.

Downstairs, a door slams and a voice calls out, "Hello?"

"Great, that's my mom," Fake-Sydney grunts as she pulls herself to her feet. "I'll go downstairs and distract her. You can all thank me for my presence of mind later."

Bridget flashes her a dirty look, then gestures you over to help. Together, with you taking her feet and Bridget taking her hands, you haul Kelly into the bedroom and shut the door.

"You'll have to go out the window," Bridget says as she catches her breath. "My mom doesn't let me have guys up in my room."

"But I have to change into Kelly!"

"After that, I mean! Your pedisequos will have to go out that way." She shoves you lightly. "Come on, get changed."

"We have to finish up Kelly's mask."

"I'll finish that, Will, just get out of your clothes!" She pushes you back into the bathroom—a room you're getting quite familiar with.

And as you pull off your things—a job which takes all of ten seconds—you wonder if Sydney isn't actually coming under the influence of Bridget's mask. She might say she hasn't got the memories from it, but she's acting a lot less like herself—as is easy to tell because there's another Sydney walking around to compare your girlfriend to.

But you're smart enough not to say anything when there's a soft knock ten minutes later, and Bridget peers in. You're squatting on the far side of the room with your knees up under your chin, but your clothes are on the sink by the door. She says, "Hey," takes the clothes and sets a mask down in their place. Not until she's closed the door do you scramble over to pull it down.

KELLY NICOLE O'BRIEN.

The name flares at you in letters that seem to float above the grayish inner surface of the mask. You gnaw your lip.

Well, this is it. The moment you were aiming for. In all the excitement and confusion of the afternoon, though, you've lost your sense of anticipation.

So it's almost with a shrug of the shoulders that you settle back against the wall and push the mask into your face.

Next: "The Kid Sister" 

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