Neutral Mask

Part 6

On their way out to Jazz’s Jeep, Connie had to ask. She couldn’t stop herself.

“You’re sure you’ve never acted before?”

Jazz started to speak, stopped. Shrugged. Started to speak again. Shrugged again.

“Not really,” he said at last.

“Because, Jazz, that was…I don’t even know where to start.”

“It was just a thing.”

“Ginny was gobsmacked. She could barely talk.”

“No one applauded. It couldn’t have been that good.” He said it without recrimination, as though the lack of response were merely factual, not a personal snub.

“No one applauded because they couldn’t remember they had hands after that.”

“You’re overstating.”

“Not by much.”

“I have to admit. I’m sort of curious what Howie would think of all of this.”

She chuckled. “You don’t have to wonder—just tell him about it.”

“It’s not the same as having him there.” And for the first time since she’d met him, Jazz seemed wistful. Regretful.

She felt bad for not liking Howie. For that brief fantasy of shredding him with her nails. She resolved to make an effort. In spite of his leering and his flirting-with-offense rambling. It mattered to Jazz, so it mattered to her.

“He really is your best, best friend, isn’t he?”

“Pretty much my only friend.”

Connie shrugged. “Not anymore,” and leaned in to peck his cheek with those coveted lips.

Jazz kissed her back and then leaned in for a longer one, bringing up one hand and running it through the carefully braided cornrows draped down behind her ear. She jerked away from him, tossing back her beaded braids.

“Whoa!”

“What?” He seemed panicked. “What did I do?”

“Here’s an important lesson for you,” she said. “Don’t touch my hair. Never touch my hair.”

“Why not? It’s just hair.”

“No. It takes a hell of a lot of effort and product and money to get it right. It’s not like white girls’ hair where they can just wash it and blow it out and tie it back or whatever. It takes foreverto get it right. So don’t touch it.”

“Got it.”

“Unless I’m wearing it natural. Then you can touch it. But that will never, ever happen.”

“So don’t touch it.”

“So don’t touch it.”

“You have beautiful eyes,” Jazz said.

Caught off guard, Connie blinked rapidly and nearly stuttered in response. “They’re just brown,” she said.

“They’re beautiful.”

“No. Blue or green or even, like, yours, hazel, but brown is just boring. It’s—”

Jazz cocked his head to the left, and something deliciously cold tiptoed up her spine.

“Boring? Are you kidding me?” Without asking, without preamble, he touched his thumb and forefinger to the flesh of her left eye socket, gently holding her eye open. Connie couldn’t tell if the liquid heat that pulsed through her heart was fear or lust, but she realized she didn’t care. She could only stare into Jazz’s eyes, those hazel whirlwinds, coruscating flecks of gold and gray, threaded through with darker shoots like the veins of leaves gone autumnal.

“There’s a gentle blend to them,” Jazz whispered, his voice now low because he was so close that she could feel his words. “They’re not just brown, Connie. They’re deep. They’re unchanging and warm, like someone took everything about you and distilled it down into these whirlpools of—”

She lunged at him, grabbing him by the shoulders, and smashed her lips to his.

She was no longer in control of herself. Her heart was. Her soul was. Or maybe her hormones—she didn’t know and didn’t care. She just knew now, in this moment, that Jazz was hers and would be hers and had to be hers.

Or...no. That wasn’t true. Maybe she’d realized it in this moment, in this beautifully sinfully hot kiss, but it had come true in Ginny’s classroom, during Jazz’s neutral mask exercise. She’d fallen in love with him then. Wholly.

No one could produce something so demonstrative, so passionate, so alive, and be a soulless killer. Parents passed down much to their children, true, but she couldn’t believe they passed down madness. The children of alcoholics often never touched a drop of alcohol, for fear they would also fall into a bottle. Jazz, too, would never hurt anyone. She knew it. He would spend his life avoiding even the opportunity to harm someone, for fear of lifting his eyes to a mirror one day and seeing Billy Dent staring back at him.

They broke the kiss. Jazz gasped for breath.

“What was that for?”

“For liking my eyes,” she said, and went into his arms, putting her ear to his chest and finally hearing his strong, strong heart.

“We really should be going,” he murmured. “I should get you home. And my grandmother—”

“In a minute,” she said. She did not relish that eventually she would have to tell her dad that not only was she in love with a white boy, but that he was the son of the local psychopath to boot. Let them have this moment. This respite. The parking lot of Lobo’s Nod High School could be their safe haven for now.

He held her for a while, and then she pulled back and gazed up at him.

“What was going on behind the mask?” she asked. “I have to know. The whole time you were acting, I wanted to see your face.”

Jazz stroked the pads of his fingers along her cheek. She fell into his hazel eyes. He said:

“You did.”