Masks Chapter 41

Chapter 41

*Before…

I look at her. “We can come with.”

She looks nervous. “You guys don’t have to.”

I look at her and slip over and give her a hug. “Hey it’ll be okay it’ll give everyone two targets instead of like one.”

Mary Jane says. “Three, safety in numbers from the whole parental scrutiny thing, cause that happens when they start talking.”

She bites her lip and she nods. “Okay.”

I smile my own little shaky smile. “Besides I kinda gotta go, I want to kind of have people like actually meet me before Halloween.”

“What’s going on with Halloween?”

“Uhm…I’m coming out.”

Okay Becky’s jaw drop was worth it.

*And Now...

It doesn't take too long for us to get our stuff ready and Dad’s getting a box of things from Mom to take over to Becky’s house and it’s preserves and some pumpkin stuff and Dad tosses in a package of bacon and a thing on unopened cheese and there’s even an actual pumpkin and Mom opts out of going because her and Aunt Els are still a little lit.

But it’s one of those things that my parents do a lot and that’s bringing stuff as gifts to other people. I know that Mom has made pies and a loaf of bread at least once for every one of our neighbors and I know we do like gift basket stuff for them at Christmas too.

Those are usually pretty fun times too because they’re gotten so they return the favor and we all kind of band together when there’s snow storms and help out and stuff. That’s actually pretty fun when we’re all doing that and then someone starts bringing out hot goodies like cookies or hot chocolate.

Plus even though I’m still well off and still kind of young I make money shoveling too with like doing sidewalks and the front walks and sometimes paths to like oil tanks or to a shed and it adds up when you get like toonies and fives and sometimes tens.

Anyways it’s like I said doing stuff for others and stuff is so a Mom and Dad kind of thing. I think it’s got to be because when they were younger they didn’t have a whole lot of stuff and they kind of like to spread the good around.

I kind of want to be that kind of person too.

It’s why I slip my arm into Becky’s and I smile at her because she’s seems sort of nervous and I know I’m nervous too but right now it just feels like it’s more about being there for her than with my stuff going on even if in truth I’m going to her house as myself in a sort of getting outed thing and…you know it’s worth it because she just sort of gets this smile that’s there in her eyes and it gets bigger when Mary Jane slips her arm in on the other side and we all get into the back of the pumpkin and Dad drives us over.

It’s not a long drive really but I get why when we get there and that’s because Becky’s house is actually a mobile home trailer.

Now don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with living where you have to live but really to be honest some people are kind of shitty about stuff and there’s that whole trailer park thing that comes from this especially since we did actually drive into a mobile home court and all. Seriously some people would just see this and be like all kinds of weird about it and stuff.

Or like Elizabitch and be an unrelenting punt about it.

Oh a punt’s not like the whole sports thing instead it’s a person that acts like the living personalization of the feeling of getting kicked in the weehoo…a punt.

Becky’s looking at us as we’re pulling in and there’s almost a winch there in her eyes and I squeeze her arm a little. “Hey it’s cool.”

“No…not really…your place is cool.”

Mary Jane says. “I lived in a mobile home before I came here a lot of people did houses are like really, really freaking expensive out west.”

Becky gets this like oh look on her face.

Even Dad says. “My grandparent only ever had a mobile home and back then they were anywhere this nice actually.”

She’s blushing. “Sorry you all it’s just…not everyone’s as cool about it especially at our school.”

I kind of nod. “Well we’re your friends Becky no matter what. We don’t care about that stuff.”

She has this really big smile on her face as we get out and we help her get her bike off of the roof racks and we all take a second and we walk to the side porch that they use for the front door or the main door. It’s like not a bad neighborhood really since Becky doesn’t lock her bike up and it’s not like I’m looking around and seeing junk everywhere or like barrel fires.

But I get the unease Becky’s got there’s two public schools for us and there’s the one that we go to and it’s newer and it’s nicer and stuff and then there’s the other one…. That one where the kids that lived on the other side of the tracks went to so to speak.

I think Becky commutes or walks to the bus stop to go to our school.

She lets us in and says. “Mum, Dad Uhm I brought friends over!”

I look down the hall and I see a woman poke her upper torso around the end of the hallway from what seems to be the kitchen? “Oh…well…well we weren’t expecting company…”

Oh yeah she has that oh crap I didn’t clean the house or hide the daily stuff that my mom gets on her face.

Dad steps in. “I offered to drive Becky home and my daughter and my niece wanted to come so I thought it might be a good idea if we all met anyway since our daughters are friends.”

She’s doing the brain not yet working blink and Dad holds up the goodies. “My wife sent wine.”

She suddenly smiles. “Oh well in that case…where is she?’

“She and her sister were helping the girls with their English homework and they got on poetry and that turned into talking about college which turned into her being too tipsy to come over.”

“That tipsy?”

“Well not too bad but with it being both her and her sister it was kind of a bit much she thought for meeting you all for the first time.”

She actually moves and she comes down the hall and I know her from somewhere? Oh…wait she…I think she works at the movie theater here in town at the mall.

She looks at the stuff dad has and she slips by us and she comes out with a shirt. “You girls want a soda?’

Me I’m like…Yay girls! “Uhm no thank you.”

She motions for us to follow but she rushes down the hall to the kitchen and living room section and I hear her saying. “Here put a shirt on.” In a rushed whisper and there was definitely a guyish rumble-mumble going on there.

Becky’s looking like she’s embarrassed and I look at her and shrug. “I’ve all brothers this isn’t a big deal.”

“Yeah but your brother’s are actually kinds cute.”

Oh Yarf.

“No…no, no, rocketfulls of nope to the moon nope my brothers are not kinda cute.”

“I think they’re cute.”

“You…” And I point at her as we’re walking down the hallway. “…have not lived with them and haven’t had the great joys of life with twin boys having a as gross as we can eat so our poo smells super bad and our farts peel paint so no…and worse.”

“Worse? What would be worse?”

“The shower.”

Becky gives me this huh look.

I look at her. “Fifteen or twenty minute showers.”

She’s still not…I move my wrist.

She gets this look of revulsion on her face. “Eeew…eeew they don’t…do they?”

“What other scenario do teenaged guys go through a box of tissues each in a week and you go to use the garbage and their baggy of used…”

M.J. Adds. “Yeah that’s not snot.” And she does this gagging gesture.

Dad’s staring at us like why are you talking about this here?

Becky’s mother looks back at him and she grins. “It’s okay no shocker here I was the only girl in a house with two older brothers.”

She actually looks at me sympathetically.

We get to that sort of mixed room it’s like a captain’s kitchen that has a table nook in one corner with a counter and cupboards behind it like a sort of china hutch thingy and then there’s a wall that is more a place for the fridge and the stove and on the other side of that the sink with more cupboards and past all of that is the living room which is like that end of the trailer that you see with the big picture window and all.

I see her dad getting up from a recliner chair and he’s not what I was getting in my head as like the image…not that I had an image but it’s still kind of that whole expecting a mullet and him to be holding a beer thing. Instead he’s in track pants and bare feet and he’s got short hair and a nicely trimmed mustache and bit of beard going on or like a heavy scruff.

And he’s actually kind of cute ish?

He kind of looks like The lead singer from Train with shorter hair and scruffier but he’s got that sort of look.

And he must do like physical work because he’s got some real muscles on him.

He looks at Dad and they guyshake and there’s that tactile Guylepathy going on between them as they’re doing whatever mysterious thing that Men do when greeting and accessing other men.

I’m like lost about that because hockey or not all I’ve ever really been every able to do is like fake it.

And almost like he read my mind…Becky’s Dad looks at me and then at my dad.

“I thought you just had boys.”