The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Meeting Mackenzie

Previously: "Pick-Up at the Warehouse" 

"Yeah, I guess I can talk to the guys about doing something tomorrow," you tell Mackenzie. She smiles at that, which is nice.

You hope she'll still be smiling tomorrow when it turns out that you have not set anything up with them.

* * * * *

You talk a little more with her and Corinne, about classes and teachers you've had, and mutual friends, and what you like to do outside of school. It bothers you a little when Mackenzie lists "shopping" and "thinking about shopping" as two of her favorite activities. You probably shouldn't be thinking ahead to when she's your girlfriend, but you can't help worrying that she could turn out to be the expensive kind, who expect lots of little gifts.

More awkward still is the moment when your cell phone buzzes with a text from your mother: Are you on your way home? You make a face at it and put it away.

But it's like Mackenzie read it with x-ray vision. "Was that your mom or dad?" she asks. "Do you need to go home?"

"Uh—" You gape.

"I need to go home too," she says. She glances back over at Corinne. "Are you gonna stay?"

"I'll stay awhile," she says. "I can get a ride back with someone."

Mackenzie smiles at you, and shoves lightly against you. "Give me a ride home?" she asks. "If you're leaving too?" You stagger to your feet.

"Why do you have to leave so early?" you ask her when you're outside and can talk in a more civilized way.

"I'm sorry if I'm taking you away," she says. She glances back at the Warehouse. "But if I stayed, I'd have guys hitting on me and stuff." She seems to stumble, and she brushes her shoulder lightly against yours. "I don't want that."

"Well, I'm not coming back," you blurt out. "So it's okay to leave."

"You scared of having girls hitting on you?" Mackenzie asks with a lilting laugh. You feel your face start to burn. "I'm sorry we're cutting things short, but we can pick it back up tomorrow. What do you think you and the guys will be doing?"

"I dunno," you stammer. "I'll have to talk to them."

"Well, do. Text me when you find out. But don't call me, at least not before one o'clock." She groans pleasurably. "I like to sleep in on weekends."

The picture she has accidentally given you, of her curled up in a soft bed, dressed in soft linen pajamas, with her head spread out over her pillows, is instant wank fuel for you.

* * * * *

You're half-an-hour past your curfew when you get home, but you don't suffer for it, for you texted your mom back to say you were coming home but that you needed to drop a friend off first. Church the next morning is deeply annoying, especially because you keep thinking ahead to one o'clock, when you can text Mackenzie about doing something. And you distract yourself all through the services by plotting how to keep her to yourself without baldly refusing to invite anyone else along.

It's a little difficult, though. Dean texts you an invite to meet somewhere, and you have to delete it. Then, at two o'clock you pick Mackenzie up and point your truck toward the college.

She is dressed even more provocatively today, on a Sunday afternoon, than she was last night at a party spot. She is in another, but different, tie-dyed t-shirt, but this one binds more tightly to her body, almost as though it has been sprayed directly onto her skin. And she has ditched the pants for a very short pair of cut-off jeans and flip-flops, showing off the entire length of her legs. These are tanned and toned, and when she catches you staring at them you are able to honestly ask her if she does gymnastics or if she even used to be a cheerleader. She laughs at that.

"Oh, I just exercise, I guess," she says. "Except I don't overdo it. I use my mom's exercise bike. I'm not coordinated enough to do gymnastics." She leans over to grin at you. "Thanks for telling me I could be a cheerleader, though."

Even though she's dressed down, you're glad that you dressed up. It was a bit of an agony, for you weren't sure whether to, or to what extent. You remember how Mackenzie dressed last year, in tight jeans and blouses, with her hair brushed out nice, and it made you feel ashamed to show up in her company wearing sloppy cargo shorts and a t-shirt. But of course you didn't want to put on your church clothes, or a sweater. You compromised with a long-sleeve denim shirt and jeans, but it feels very plain.

Almost the moment she's in the truck she asks where you're meeting the others, and what you're doing, but you put her off by saying that you had a hard time getting anyone else to commit. "I finally told them I was going to be at the The Crystal Cave. We like to hang out there anyway," you continue the baseless lie, "so there's a really good chance that some of them will come out. And I can keep pestering them until some of them do show up." The Oh she says in reply sounds mildly disappointed.

* * * * *

You're not sure why you chose The Crystal Cave, except that it's relatively cheap and there is good parking near it. You ask her if she's likes it, and she says she's only been there a few times. Usually we go to The Milagro Beanfield Warehouse, she says, which causes you to internally wince, as that's the really expensive coffee shop in town. But she doesn't seem to mind your choice.

But she got on her phone to text while you were driving out, and as you are parking she announces that a couple of her friends will be joining you. This is a disappointment—you won't have her all to yourself—but also a bit of a relief, as it means she might not notice when none your own "friends" don't show up; and you recognize that you might actually want that buffer. But she stops you going into the coffee shop, saying that Corinne had said something about going somewhere else first, and so the two of you wait on the sidewalk outside the building.

"We've known each other since we were freshmen," she says when you ask if Corinne's an old friend of hers. "It's funny," she adds with a laugh. "We hated each other at first, 'cos we were both interested in the same boy." She grins at you, as though this is a situation you could identify with. "But then he started going out with another girl. So we got together to hate her instead." She seems to think this is funny, though it strikes you as a somewhat cruel basis for a friendship.

She then asks you how long you've known Dean and his friends. You reply that you've known them for a few years. But you also start to texture the misleading impressions you're giving her by confessing that you've never been "really tight" with them. "Mostly it's pretty casual with us."

Two other friends show up before Corinne does, as you're waiting: a guy and a girl. The girl is Hispanic, with a bright, almost sneering smile and an arrogant eye, and a great mane of luscious hair that cascades over her shoulders and down to her elbows. The guy with the brawny arm around her waist is in a muscle shirt, and he walks chin out with a cocky strut. Her you don't recognize; him you remember from Westside, though you thought he graduated.

Turns out he did. The girl is named Xiomara; the guy is named Drake; and they are going out even though he's now a college freshman. But the bluff but narrow look he gives you, and the way he settles his arm protectively around his girlfriend, remind you of the asshole-jocks still in high school with you.

You're still talking out front of the cafe—well, the girls are gossiping with each other; you are listening to them; and Drake is shifting his attention between them and you—when Corinne comes bustling up.

"Hey, why aren't you waiting inside?" she asks.

"I thought you said you needed to go someplace first," Mackenzie says.

"Yeah, I just need to go into the book store," she says, for Arnholms' Used Books shares the same building with the cafe. She holds up a plastic bag. "My mom gave me some paperbacks to trade in for credit."

"We can go in with you," Mackenzie says. She looks to you for confirmation. You shrug even as Drake snorts.

He and Xiomara go into the coffee shop while you and the other two girls go into Arnholms'. Corinne marches up to the counter with her books. You and Mackenzie join her.

Ted Arnholm, who was at his workstation in the corner, comes over to take care of Corinne. But as he glances over her books, he does a double-take at you with a frown. You return his stare with one of your own.

Then his eyes pop.

"You!" he snarls. "You were in here last week, bought something from us, we had to let it go for pennies on the dollar!"

"Uh—" You are too taken aback by his attitude to say anything else.

"Yeah, that was you." He marches back to his work station, where he digs through one of the little drawers, and returns with a white card that he holds out to you.

"The previous owner, he came in the next day, raised holy hell trying to get it back. Said it got sold by mistake, was even promising a lawsuit if we didn't produce it for him." He snorts. "Of course we didn't have it anymore. But he left his card. He'll buy it back from you, if you want to sell it."

"He wants it back?" you squeak.

"He'll buy it back, so don't let him buffalo you with any nonsense about 'misappropriated property' or anything like that. The thing is yours. Oh, and if you'll take my advice," he adds, "you don't sell it to him unless you screw two hundred dollars from him. At least!"

"Oh my God," Corinne asks you when you're leaving the bookstore a few minutes later. "What the hell was that all about?"

That's all for now

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"