Neutral Mask

Part 4

The next week, Connie met up with Jazz after school, linked arms with him in full view of God, Van, and everyone else, and marched him to Ms. Davis’s classroom, where drama club met.

A ’whipped man is a happy man, Howie had intoned, but ’whipped nonetheless.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Jazz grumbled.

“I’m very persuasive.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Don’t pout,” she told him outside the classroom and pecked him on the lips. “Just watch today. We’re doing neutral mask exercises.”

“What’s a—”

“You’ll see.”

Inside, the fifteen other drama clubbers all stared as Connie and Jazz entered, hand in hand. She had known them for less time than Jazz had, but she was sure she knew them better. And the teacher in charge of drama club—Ginny Davis—was only in her second year teaching, so she hadn’t been there long enough to form an opinion of Jazz. It was the perfect way to ease Jazz into the real world. Connie was supremely, sublimely proud of herself.

“Jasper!” Ginny cried. “I am so thrilled to see you here! When Connie told me you’d be joining us, I was so excited. When we do the spring musical, I know you’re going to be perfect.”

Jazz looked at Connie as though to say, “What the hell have you gotten me into?” then grinned and said, “Well, thanks, Ms. Davis, but—”

“Ginny,” she corrected. “After hours, it’s Ginny. Now, let’s get started, everyone! Who wants to go first? Jasper, you can go next week with the second group.”

Connie leapt at the opportunity to do her neutral mask performance first. She’d been prepping all week.

It was a simple enough exercise—on the surface. She wore all black. Ginny handed her a stark white mask with an utterly blank expression—eyes not too wide, not too narrow; mouth a straight line. Connie handed Ginny a flash drive with some music on it. For the exercise, Connie had to be completely silent, her face hidden by the mask, her body neutered by the black clothing.

Using nothing more than her body language and the music she’d chosen, she had to, as Ginny had put it last week, “show a transformation from one state to another.”

Connie stood in the center of the room. The chairs and desks had all been pushed back, and everyone sat in a circle around her. She deliberately ignored Jazz; she had to focus.

She signaled Ginny to start the playlist she’d assembled on the flash drive.

Music started. Funereal. Somber. Connie slumped her shoulders forward and mimed a trudge. As the music continued, she tried to shield herself from above with an arm, warding off imaginary rain. Trying—and failing—to blot out misery.

Acting wasn’t just about pretending. It wasn’t just about trying to fool the audience. In a way, you had to fool yourself, too. She had rehearsed this over and over, and she knew she could pull it off.

The mask was neutral, but beneath it, she was not. Live your emotion under the mask, Ginny had told them. Project through the mask. Make the mask come alive to us.

She grimaced. She stared. She pouted. She tried to force her emotion through the dead, white wall between her and the world.

She paused. The music change was coming any second now. She needed to time this properly.

She reached out for the rose.

It wasn’t really there, of course. There was just the linoleum floor of Ginny’s classroom. But she made herself believe that a wild rose was growing there, that this was a field, not a school, that rain was battering her, wind buffeting her. If she believed it, she could make the drama club believe it, too.

She crouched down by the rose, stooped and bent over it, cupping her hand to protect it from the fierce rain. Again, the mask was neutral, but she was not. She allowed her face to express caution, then surprise.

Tilting her head this way and that, she explored with her eyes every facet of it, every petal, every glistening drop of rainwater clinging to it.

She willed the mask to reflect the delight on her own face.

And now...the change.

The music shifted. Connie pretended not to notice at first, still fascinated by the rose. Then, as the music became more and more upbeat, Connie craned her neck up and around, gazing at the sky. With infinite slowness, she unfurled herself, rising to meet a sky no longer clouded, but now radiant with sunshine, as the music swelled to a triumphant crescendo.

She held her pose for a beat as the music faded. Ginny clapped and everyone else joined in.

“Excellent, Connie!” Ginny said. “Brava!”

She whipped off the mask and finally made eye contact with Jazz. He was clapping, too, worrying the corner of his mouth at the same time.

When the club meeting ended an hour later, they walked out to his Jeep together.

“I have to do something like that next week?” Jazz asked.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, though she was not entirely sure. Throwing Jazz into the deep end of the pool and trusting that he would figure out how not to drown had seemed like a good idea at first blush. She didn’t want to make his sense of isolation even worse, though. “I’ll help you, if you want,” she added.

He shook his head. “No, that’s okay. I’ll come up with something.”