The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Schools of Fishiness

Previously: "Like You Know What You're Doing" 

First thing, after off-loading books, is to find a restroom to change in. You knew Dana's parents would pitch a fit if you went in dressed the way you wanted, so you are wearing two layers of clothes.

The first restroom you check is crowded to bursting with freshman and sophomore girls, jostling to get at the mirrors with their makeup cases. So is the second. By the time you look into the fourth restroom, you've given up on privacy, and content yourself with a stall while the girls outside shove and scratch at each other for a position at the sinks.

Off comes the floppy sweatshirt, and with it the heavy skirt that draped past your knees. You fold them up, and exchange canvas sneakers for black, high-heeled shoes. You pull at and straighten the filmy, red silk dress that falls just to the middle of your thighs, and cinch the pencil-thin black belt that marks your tight stomach off from your hips and ass. With a hair brush you adjust your hair as best you can without the benefit of a mirror, and you use your cell phone to check out the look when you're done. A pleasant shiver rattles every nerve in your body as you scope out the body and dress you've given yourself, and admire Dana's high cheekbones and oval face. And you feel the glances in the halls as you stride off to first-period Calculus.

Whitney Hoang—already in her desk—flinches and groans as you slide into the seat in front of her.

"Oh, God, Dana," she moans. "This is Monday! What are you saving up to wear on Friday?"

"Oh I was just thinking," you gaily reply, "that today's the first day of the rest of my life. So I decided to make it good. Besides," you add in a low growl. "I hate Mondays. I'll turn every dirty trick I can to make it go better."

"Way to make the rest of us feel worse," she pouts.

You try not to wince at her self-pitying reply. Whitney is pudgy all over: pudgy thighs, pudgy ass, pudgy face. She's got a huge bosom, but no contour between it and her hips. But she does have a boyfriend, so it can't be a real handicap. You change the subject to him, to ask what she and Dennis did this weekend. Talk swerves when another friend, Melissa Swenson, slides into the chair across from Wendy, and swerves again when David plops into the chair across from you.

Then it's derailed completely by Lisa Rickover, who comes over to squat in the aisle in the midst of your group. "Hey, so anybody got any news of the weekend?" she asks.

You blink at her: It's like having double vision.

Lisa Rickover is the hatchet-faced girl with the blonde bob you talked to at Joshua Cheswick's party last weekend, when you and Chelsea went out in costume. She struck you then as intelligent and sharp-tongued. Now, with Dana's eyes and memories, you see her as one of the key members of the "Rumorati," a group of girls who scoop up and disseminate gossip like a wet-ware version of the internet.

"I stayed in this weekend," you reply when the others shrug.

"That sounds like a news flash," Lisa says. She rakes you from ankle to neck with her sharp gaze, and you can tell she's trying to find a way to fashion your ensemble into a news item: Dana is all dressed up today, you think she's showing off for a guy? maybe; or Dana was slutting it up in a short dress this morning, maybe she's getting desperate.

"Wanna hear about our study session at IHOP yesterday?" You reach across to grasp David by the wrist. He pales, then reddens when you add, "Me and David held hands under the table while doing our homework."

"That's so sweet," Lisa retorts with an acidic smile. She returns to her own desk. As you glare at her back, you notice that Melissa is looking very ill.

* * * * *

You find out why on the way to AP French IV, which you also share with her. She says nothing as you push your way through the halls, but just outside Madame Leclerc's classroom she quails and pulls you aside. "Look, were you trying to cover for me, last period, with Lisa?" she asks.

"Cover for you how?"

"I mean—" She gulps and glances around the hallway, the whites of her eyes showing with terror. She leans in close to whisper. "Did you hear about my weekend?"

"No." You grab her by the arm with a premonition of horror. "What happened?"

She squirms, then tugs you out the nearby exit, where the cold wind's rustle can help smother your conversation.

"You didn't hear anything?" Melissa asks. "Nothing?" she presses when you shake your head. She bites her lip and hesitates.

"Okay, I was out at the Warehouse last Friday," she sighs.

"The Warehouse!" you exclaim. Only once has Dana been to that infamous party spot, and you've never been yourself. You can hardly picture Melissa—sweet, innocent Melissa—at one of its debauched raves. "What were you—?"

"I went to hear Slow Fast Hazel," she says, sounding miserable. "I went with Liam and Kelly, some other people. Anyway—" She sniffs. "I wound up dancing with Adam Karter." She turns a terrified, pleading face toward yours.

You blink. "So?"

She gives you a look. "You don't think that's bad?"

"Adam's danced with lots of girls," you assure her.

"But we didn't just dance."

Now a pit does form in your stomach. "What did you do with him?"

"Well, we sat together, and we wound up kind of— Um." Her eyebrows peak and she fumbles with her hands. "Got kind of physical?"

You heart skips. "How physical?"

"Eww! Not like that!"

"Well, if you don't tell me—"

"You want me to paint a picture? Show you a selfie?"

Now you gasp. "You took a selfie? Of you and him—?"

"No!" She rolls her eyes. "Look, our tongues touched. Okay? Does that tell you enough, or—?"

"No, that's enough. And no, I didn't hear anything about it. Why are you freaking out?"

Her mouth twists into an ugly shape, like an open wound. "Don't you think it makes me sound, like, a slut or something?"

You stare at her. Melissa has great clouds of fluffy, copper-colored hair, and the eyes of a fawn. She's one of the most trusting and naive girls in the senior class. Even Dana has more scars than she has.

"Look, Adam Karter is a man-whore," you start to say.

"I know! So what does that make me, if he—?"

"It just makes you another, I dunno, notch on his belt. Look, don't worry about it!" You squeeze her arm. But then another thought comes to you: "Has anyone been talking about it? Online, I mean? Instagram or x2z or—?"

"I've been too scared to look."

The bell rings.

"I'll look around," you tell Melissa. "And I'll listen. And you know, if Lisa didn't ask you about it last period—"

"Do you think she was fishing?"

"Well, she was fishing for something. But it didn't look like she was fishing for something to do with you." You pull her toward the door. "I suppose I can talk to one of her friends."

Melissa clutches at you. "Oh, God, don't!"

"I mean—" You pry her fingers off your shoulder. "I'll talk to them about something else. And if they want to know about you and— Well, then they'll probably ask me. Won't they? Because we are friends, Melissa."

Melissa only mutters in reply. She flinches just as you cross the threshold into Madame Leclerc's classroom.

Alyssa Randal—head cheerleader, and the self-appointed head of the Rumorati, looks up at you from her desk. Her eye is alert, and you can't help noticing that she watches Melissa very closely as she shuffles across the front of the room to her desk.

* * * * *

Your promise to Melissa notwithstanding, you find it a hard subject to broach with anyone. Few of your friends are much interested in gossip, and it's hard to find a way to bring the subject up. You make a quick scan of social media over the lunch break, and find that someone did post pictures of Adam and Melissa making out in a dingy booth. The comments are ugly, of course, but there aren't many of them, and they're at least as nasty about Adam as they are about Melissa. Picking up Joe's sloppy seconds, is their general tenor.

And, just before last period, Melissa is able to bring you the glum confirmation that people are talking about her and Adam. "I heard it from Ursula," she sighs. That would be Ursula Jensen, the would-be mystic who waited on you at Besandwiched; Melissa has been tutoring her in French. "She came out and asked me about it. What am I going to do?" She gulps back tears. "If Lisa and them get ahold of it—"

You try to assure her that it will be alright, that even if the Rumorati do anything with it, it's all just chum for them, and they'll be on to something else not forty minutes later.

But it's food for thought last period, in your World Literature class. Karter shares it with you, as does Joshua Cheswick, the guy whose party you and Chelsea crashed last weekend. You watch Adam out of the corner of your eye. He's an interesting fellow, quite the successful flirt despite his ragamuffin appearance. He's good at it, the way some people are just naturally good at playing musical instruments, or at sports.

You have that new memory strip to try out. At least, you suppose it's a memory strip. If it is, it could be useful as a way to score a copy of someone's brain. Of Karter's, for instance. Or Lisa Rickover, to find out what she knows. Maybe Ursula, since she's into magic?

David, who is also in the class, leans over: "I heard Sarah talking to her friends. They're going to hang out at your place after school. You wanna head someplace with me and Caleb, get away from them?"

Next: "Of Two Minds About Almost Everything" 

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