Neutral Mask

Part 5

Much to Connie’s surprise, Jazz didn’t ask for help in the ensuing week. She had assumed that his casual dismissal of her offer had been teen boy bravado, a testosterone-driven inability to accept assistance, especially from a girl. She waited for him to break down and call for help.

But even though they’d seen each other in school every day that week, gone to a movie on the weekend, and spoken on the phone several times, he’d never so much as mentioned his upcoming neutral mask exercise. Connie yearned to ask him about it, but some mulish part of her refused to be the first to capitulate on this. Let him ask for help before she offered it.

He never did.

They walked together to drama club, Jazz dressed in a black turtleneck and black jeans. Connie ached to ask if he was prepared, if he had any last-minute questions, if he needed any advice, but if he was going to be all stoic and tough-guy, then she could be hard-core, too.

Aaron Plummer went first, miming a decent enough moment of a baseball player hitting a ball that seemed to be going over the wall...only to fall short at the last possible instant. He was followed by three more, and then it was down to the last two—Jazz and Eddie Viggaro. Jazz had managed to avoid his turn so far, but Ginny wasn’t about to give him a pass.

“Jasper. Looks like you’re up.”

A part of Connie felt sorry for him, but she also knew that this was—by and large—a supportive group. Ginny would have it no other way. This was the best possible place and manner for Jazz to learn to start trusting people.

Jazz said nothing. He simply handed an old iPod to Ginny, then—instead of standing in the center of the ring as everyone else had—walked to the farthest point in the room, near the door. For a moment, Connie thought that he might just keep going and disappear into the corridor, but he stopped. Turned. Ginny plugged the iPod into her speakers.

He slipped on the mask.

The entire room fell silent. Which was nothing new, really—they’d been silent for each actor so far—but there was something different about this silence. It was the silence of a caught breath. The silence of trying not to breathe at all.

Jazz signaled Ginny, then stood ramrod, arms at his sides. There was something about him, all in black—

Is that how his father dressed when he would stalk—stop thinking like that, Connie!—

that made him fearsome and sexy all at once, and Connie went woozy for a moment with the dichotomy of it.

In perfect synchronization, Jazz took a step forward as the iPod made a single beep.

Not music. Just a beep. Followed by another. And another. And another, as Jazz slowly made his way to the center of the room.

It was a heartbeat, Connie realized. A heartbeat measured in EKG tones, as Jazz came closer.

Suddenly—again, in perfectly rehearsed synchronization—Jazz clawed at his own chest as the faux EKG went wild, its synthetic beat racing wildly. The mask betrayed nothing, preternaturally and cruelly calm in counterpoint. What was going on back there, Connie wondered. What was happening right now in his eyes, to his lips, his cheeks, his brow?

Connie bit down on her lower lip as Jazz staggered against the audio coronary, his body bucking and jerking as he dropped first to his knees, then flat on his stomach, his cloaked face turned toward Connie, who could find nothing of him in the expanse of the mask.

Jazz had transformed all right. From living to dead.

The class had applauded Connie’s neutral mask exercise, as well as many of the others. At the very least, at the conclusion, Ginny had said something, thanking the student, offering a comment, teeing up the next exercise.

But no one spoke. No one moved. Not even Ginny. Everyone stared at Jazz, lying on the floor, so completely and so convincingly—

He’s just pretending, she told herself. He’s just acting. He’s fine. He’s not really dead. He’s not—

Then why is he lying so still? How can he be lying so still? It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. Should someone do something? Should I say something?

It couldn’t have been more than ten or twenty seconds, but it felt as though years had passed in shocked silence as Jazz lay there.

Connie could bear it no longer. She opened her mouth to speak, but just then, the iPod fired a pebble through the windshield of quiet, spiderwebbing it.

Beep!

A single beep. A pause.

Another beep.

The index finger on Jazz’s right hand spasmed.

Beep!

His whole hand trembled. His leg shook.

Beep!

The rhythm building now. Still bradycardiac, but building now, as Jazz—slowly, weakly—gathered his strength. He managed to get one hand flat on the floor and lever himself into a partial crouch, leaning on the other elbow.

Beep! Beep!

Stronger heartbeat now. Blood rushing through veins and arteries. Connie imagined she could hear the lub-dub, lub-dub of Jazz’s heart through his rib cage, his chest muscles, his flesh, that black turtleneck, and the seven or eight feet of empty air between them.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Jazz finally stood, at first shaky, his legs trembling, his whole body threatening to collapse under its own uncertain weight, but then—just before he fell—he rediscovered his balance, and the EKG spun up into a victorious rhythm as Jazz thrust both fists in the air as though in conquest.

Connie realized tears had gathered and now threatened to spill down her cheeks. She rubbed at her eyes to eradicate them.

“Jasper,” Ginny said in a slightly strangled voice, “thank you very much.”

Jazz pulled off the mask, and nodded as though he’d been complimented on his shoes.

“Thank you very, very much,” Ginny said, and went silent, and everyone stared at Jazz in the center of the circle.

She finally cleared her throat, a dream-woken sound, and said, “Eddie? You’re last. Jasper, please give—”

He held out the mask to Eddie, who looked like he totally—totally—did not want to take it.