The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Candor and Candidates

Previously: "The Genesis of a Plan" 

Can I come out to your place now? you text Sydney, as though you are the polite and thoughtful Jack Li and not Fake-Sydney's boss. Is Nicholas there?

Nicholas is working late, Sydney texts back a few minutes later, but you can still come out. As you're putting the minivan in gear, she adds, Will says I need to call you 'boss' followed by an emoji with its tongue sticking out.

You're glad the fakes seem to have most of their original personalities, but it does make them a little bit of a chore to deal with.

* * * * *

Even before you took his place, Jack had texted his mom to tell her he'd probably be out with friends until his curfew, but you stop by his house to change clothes, for it's turning chilly and will only get colder.

The Lis live on the western edge of town, not far from the country club, in a modest-sized home in a tidy cul-de-sac with broken, open fields on the other side of their back fence. In Jack's equally tidy bedroom—bed made, dresser clear, work desk cluttered only with two laptops, some ear buds, and a small French press and coffee mug—you change into fresh jeans, a green polo shirt, and white sneakers. You judge the effect in the mirror that hangs inside the closet door. Dimples deepen your cheeks as you grin at your reflection; your curved lids themselves resemble tiny smiles.

All in all, a cheerful face. A trustworthy face.

A face from behind which no one would see the curveball coming.

* * * * *

It's almost eight o'clock when you park under the blazing mercury lamps of the Monte Viso Mini-Golf and Go-Kart complex, up by the mall. You're late, because you lingered to plot and plan with Sydney even as you fielded a barrage of texts from friends trying to set up some Friday night fun. But Nicholas never showed up, so after talking things over with Fake-Sydney, you decided to gamble on using "live" recruits, not pedisequoses, to populate your Brotherhood.

If things go well tonight, you'll have picked out some more candidates for the scheme that you and Fake-Sydney have tentatively cooked up.

The rest of the party should already have arrived, but when you stride into the games room you find only two girls waiting. Genesis and Brianna Kirschke are perched at one of ancient, picnic-style tables, heads bent, thumbing away on their cell phones while vintage video game machines roar and rumble in the background. (Monte Viso is nothing if not retro.) You suppress a smile as Genesis grabs a fistful of popcorn from the tub at her wrist.

Brianna, who is sitting next to her, does a double take as you saunter up. She nudges Genesis. "Wendy and them are already back there," she says, jerking her head at the putting course on the other side of the bay windows.

"So why are you two hanging out here?"

"Waiting for you." Brianna dimples. "And Susie. Oh, and when I say Wendy and them—" She hesitates. "Parker and Kristina aren't coming."

"Yeah, Parker texted me." You can't help flinching as Brianna replies by showing you her pouty "sad face."

Jesus. It's bad enough that your best friend since elementary school has started seeing a lot more of Kristina than of you; worse that Kristina is another one of your close friends, so that it feels like two of your best friends are cheating on you with each other. Worst of all is that you really do resent it, no matter how hard you try not to.

And to have Brianna and everyone acting so freaking sympathetic, as though Parker really is betraying you, is just the cherry on the shit sundae.

You cover Jack's confusion by checking your own cell phone. "Dang, and I thought I was late. Was Susie busy with something?"

"No, she's just on Susie Standard Time." Brianna scoots over as you settle in next to her. "You know that."

"Ah." Yes, Susie Lekuawehe is notorious for being an hour or more late to every social engagement. "So what's the latest?" You nod at her phone.

"Tell her about Sydney," Genesis chimes in from the other side.

Brianna glances at her, then leans in toward you. "Aaron and Daniel are out on the speedway," she says. "And Naomi isn't." She gives you a knowing look over the top of her glasses.

"Oh my God," you reply. "Are Aaron and Daniel being gay with each other?"

Brianna starts a little, then pinches your thigh.

"You know what I mean. Don't you? Aaron and Naomi—"

"Yeah, I know. But it's only their second date, isn't it?"

"Well, it's going to be their last if Aaron doesn't—"

Genesis squeaks, loud enough to be heard over the electronic chatter of the game machines. You and Brianna glance over at her. But she keeps her face bent over her cell phone.

"Are we going out to the Warehouse when we're done here?" you ask in a loud voice. Genesis squeaks again.

Brianna gives you another knowing look from beneath her brows. But before she can reply, the front door opens and Susie Lekuawehe tumbles in, like a landslide.

"Oh my God!" she gasps. Her long, dark hair writhes about her shoulders like a living thing, and her heart-shaped face blushes with embarrassment. "You wouldn't believe the night I've been having! So after I got done texting with you," she tells Brianna after smiling briefly at you and Genesis, "I had to go next door to feed our neighbors' dog. You know?" She drops a jingling key ring as she juggles it, her cell phone, her purse, and a shopping bag all at once. "And I thought I'd clean up the yard a little while I was back there, because—"

What follows is like a three-way conversation with herself as she interrupts her own story with multiple asides and digressions, the upshot of which is that her neighbors' dog got loose but that was lucky because while retrieving it she met another neighbor who gave her a line on a charity she could volunteer for so as to add something extracurricular to her college applications.

But that's okay, that's just Susie.

She's not to everyone's taste, though, as you discover anew a little later, out on the course, when Naomi Batson sidles up to you. "Doesn't that girl ever shut up?" she growls in your ear.

The remark startles you a little. Not because someone objects to Susie, or even because it's Naomi—a very prim girl in the junior class, who plays violin in the school orchestra—who objects to her, but because Naomi had to traipse no little distance over in order to offer the objection.

You're playing in two foursomes, and Naomi was with the other group over by the sixteenth hole while you, Genesis, Brianna and Susie were still navigating the seventh. The other girls are already teeing up on the eighth hole while you're still trying to get your ball past the miniature windmill.

"She's got a lot on her mind," you reply as you tap the ball. It bangs off one of the sails, and you grimace.

"Will she explode if she doesn't let it out?"

You return her a faint smile. "You got something on your mind, Naomi?"

"P'teh!" She rolls her eyes and looks away. For a moment, you think she's going to stomp off in a temper.

But she doesn't. Instead, she says, "I just hate drama. You know?"

"Then you must hate being in the orchestra."

She does a double-take. "Why, what do you mean by that?"

"Nothing." You line up your putter for another shot.

"I don't pay any attention to any of that stuff."

"Good for you."

She holds her peace while you take another shot. This time the ball goes through, only to narrowly miss the cup on the other side.

Then she blurts it out: "Am I wasting my time with Aaron?"

You waste an inordinate amount of your own time lining up your final putt instead of answering right away. The buzz and whine of the nearby speedway—where Aaron Flood and his best friend Daniel Lujan are still making laps—fills the air.

"I don't know Aaron real well," you reply after sinking the putt.

"He's in the marching band with you."

"I'm in the color guard," you correct her. "And we don't all hang out together."

Naomi bites her lip and looks at the fence separating the golf course from the speedway. "The school is so full of jerks," she says, as though that's a relevant observation.

Even in the orchestra? you want to reply. Like Gary Chen and David Kirkham? Like roaches, they do manage to get into the most surprising places. But aloud you only say, "It's hard to find a good guy."

She does another double take, and instantly you regret your words. It's bad enough that you know what she's thinking, but if she actually comes out and says it—

"I'm being selfish," she says with a blush. "I'm sorry. I know it's tougher for, um, guys like you." She tilts her head, and inwardly you cringe. "So, um, is there anyone who—? I mean," she stammers, "I know there's Charles and Christian and, um, Alexander Peloquin, right?"

"I don't hang out with them either." You kneel to retrieve the ball from the cup. Like you said, the school is full of jerk.

"I mean, I've heard some guys talk about how, um, attractive you are," Naomi says. There's now a desperate edge to her prattle, and you don't dare glance at her, lest she shatter into a million embarrassed pieces. "Like ... Alex Sheehan?"

Now you do have to look at her, and find her flushed a deep purple.

"He was joking," you tell her, and point to the other side of the other side of the course with your putter. "They're waiting for you."

Naomi visibly flinches, and on mincing steps runs back to join the rest of her foursome.

But if she's done nothing else, Naomi has given you another name for your list of potential recruits: Jack Li himself.

Next: "Study Date of Doom" 

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