Homecoming Masquerade, The (2 page)

Now, as Jill and Annika stood in
the ballroom, nine o’clock approaching, everyone thought all the girls wearing
black had been accounted for.

There was Kim Renwick, the
daughter of notorious Washington lobbyist Galen Renwick. The odds-on favorite
to win, Kim got a round of applause when she burst through the doors wearing a
black dress.

Five minutes after Kim arrived,
Mary Torrance, the blonde bombshell daughter of a high-powered lawyer from
Atlanta, showed up in black. Ten minutes after that, Samantha Kwan, whose
parents were both executives at Ventigen Corp, arrived in her own black get-up.

And that was it. Three powerful,
popular girls had put themselves out there and would compete for the crown. The
other girls who might have entered, girls like Serena Snow or Terri Weingarten
or even Annika Fleming – they all were here and were not wearing black.

Only Jill was aware that one
girl from the senior class was still missing. But Annika was curious.

“I’m sorry,” Annika said to
Jill. “What was that? You have something to tell me about Nicky?”

Jill took a deep breath. She had
a lot to tell Annika about Nicky, but she needed to make it brief.

“Nicky’s not here yet,” Jill
said.

Annika looked at her like she
was crazy.

“What?”

“Annika, there’s a group of us,
of families...we don’t want Kim to win but we knew her father would skewer us if
we crossed her out in the open.”

“You’re saying that Nicky hasn’t
shown up yet?”

“My parents are part of it,”
Jill said. “It’s kind of like a secret club. We want you to join. I know you’d
love to see Kim go down.”

Annika held up her hand and
spoke in a slow, deliberate voice. “You’re telling me that Nicky is about to
walk through that door wearing—”

She didn’t get to finish, for as
she was about to say the words, the front door opened one last time, and Nicky
Bloom stepped inside. She was wearing black.

N
icky stepped into the ballroom
with all the swagger of an immortal.

The entire senior class of
Thorndike Academy, ninety-nine masked faces in all, stopped what they were
doing and stared at her. The gleeful pre-party chatter having come to a sudden
halt, those who had something to say now spoke in frantic whispers, leaning in
close to one another, spitting out short sentences, trying desperately to
figure out what they knew about Nicky Bloom.

Watching them whisper, Nicky
thought of one thing they
didn’t
know. They didn’t know she could read
lips, and understood what everyone was saying, even those all the way on the
other end of the ballroom.

Who is that?

It’s the new girl.

There’s a new girl?

She got Shannon’s slot.

The new girl wore black?

Does she know what she’s
doing? I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.

Kim is going to crush her.
She won’t last a week.

She barely moved to DC last
summer.

Oh my God, Kim is gonna be so
pissed.

Who is she again?

What do you think Kim’s going
to do?

That last question came off the
lips of a pudgy kid from Florida named Norman Gayle. He didn’t have to wait
long for an answer, for out of the stunned silence in Renata’s ballroom came
staccato, angry footsteps. Kim Renwick had burst from the crowd, her sharp,
Italian heels stomping her forward, the look on her face one of absolute fury.
She marched into Nicky’s path, the rest of the ballroom giving her a wide
berth. Nicky kept on moving, knowing it was important not to show fear. As she
and Kim approached one another, the whispers stopped and the only noise in the
ballroom was that of shuffling feet as everyone jockeyed for a position to
watch.

They met in the center of the
ballroom and stood face to face.

“Good evening, Kim,” said Nicky.

“You’re dead, New Girl,” Kim
responded.

Kim was a near-perfect specimen
on this night, looking slender and toned in her custom-made gown. It was a
strapless A-line with see-thru features on the sides, its black fabric a sharp
contrast to Kim’s ivory skin. Her shiny black hair was pulled back in a tight,
wet look that gave a severity to her presence. She looked like a winner. Her
mask was black silk with gold highlights and was narrow as a blindfold. Her
shoes were custom-made heels with diamond-studded gold straps.

Having turned eighteen two days
prior, Kim was the oldest of Nicky’s three competitors for the crown. Of those
three, Kim was the only one who mattered. She was everything money could buy.
Expensive tutors, personal trainers, a rigorous skin-care regimen that began at
birth, and a culture of high manners pounded into her since before she could
speak. She was popular at school and around town not because people liked her,
but because they feared her. They feared her whole family.

“You act...threatened, Kim,” Nicky
said. “Do you feel threatened?”

Kim smirked and let out a
don’t-make-me-laugh sort of sound. It was an aggressive, ugly noise. It might
as well have been a “yes” to Nicky’s question.

“Don’t worry, Kim,” said Nicky.
“The best girl will win, I’m sure.”

“How dare you,” Kim said, almost
whispered. “How dare you think you can just march into this ballroom and—”

“Fuck you, Kim Renwick,” Nicky
said. The ballroom gasped in response.

It was a line Nicky and her
advisers had debated about for weeks.

On the one hand, it was a phrase
that almost everyone present wished they had the guts to say to Kim. There were
people in the ballroom that had been under the heel of Kim or her father since
before they were born, but knew they could show nothing but deference lest they
or their families became the next target of the Renwick war machine.

On the other hand, it was
vulgar, and not in the spirit of Homecoming. They were in an immortal’s
mansion. There was decorum to be followed. Dropping the F bomb here...well...it was
just something you didn’t do.

In the end, Nicky decided that
the reward outweighed the risk, and she came into the night knowing she would
deliver a Fuck You to Kim at the first available moment. Hopefully she hadn’t
misjudged. The crowd all around was so stunned that she couldn’t tell. Were
they happily stunned or were they offended?

Either way, the look on Kim’s
face was worth it, and made Nicky think she’d chosen correctly. Those who were
truly put off by Nicky’s vulgar language would never have supported her anyway.
Nicky was counting on the fact that many of these students secretly despised
the formal etiquette of Homecoming, because, really, when you thought about it,
the whole thing was just absurd. While a hundred high school seniors traipsed
around inside at a formal Victorian masquerade, Renata Sullivan and the other
immortals were out in the yard, doing disgusting, unspeakable things to
innocent people. Yes, the students and their families at Thorndike condoned
this behavior outwardly, but a part of them had to recognize the disparity. Why
was it okay for the immortals to behave like wild animals in the woods while
everyone else had to be the model of civility? Why was it okay for Renata to
have this fabulous mansion anyway? She already had the eternal existence of a
vampire. Wasn’t that enough?

They were questions that no one
dared speak aloud, which of course only heightened the guilty pleasure of it
all. Nicky had said the F word in Renata’s mansion, blatantly violating the
code of conduct. Secretly, the other students would love her for it. At least,
that’s what she hoped.

“Excuse me,” Nicky said,
stepping around Kim the way one might walk past a stranger in a crowd, or
around a telephone pole.

“You know there’s no turning
back now that you’ve worn black, don’t you?” Kim called after her. Her voice
was cracking with anger. “You’re going to lose, New Girl, and there will be no
place for you to hide!”

Nicky kept on smiling as she
walked to the bar, and in her mind, she put a checkmark next to the first item
on the night’s long to-do list.

“O
kay, what was that you were
trying to tell me about Nicky Bloom?”

Annika’s voice was a mix of
shock and bemusement, the initial surprise still with her, but her ultra-cool
demeanor already taking over.

“It’s a secret,” said Jill. She
said the words quietly, but not too quietly. In a gathering of students this
hyped-up and confused, the words, “It’s a secret,” were like a magnet that
pulled on every nearby eardrum, and Jill saw that she already had the attention
of Mattie Dupree, Jake Castillo, and Jenny Young.

As had been planned.

Mattie, Jake, Jenny, Annika –
these were Jill’s people now. It had taken a lot of patience and months of
work, but Jill had pushed her way into this group and was friends with all of
them.

She didn’t dislike any of them,
but she didn’t really like them either. To her, they were means to an end. They
were children from families that were wealthy enough to make a difference in
the Coronation contest, but not so wealthy that Kim Renwick had pointed her
tremendous resources at getting their support. If Nicky Bloom had a chance of
winning the Coronation contest, Mattie, Jake, Jenny, and most especially,
Annika, had to be the early adopters, the first members of the senior class to
pledge their support to Nicky rather than Kim.

That was why Jill had befriended
them. That was why she was speaking with them now. Months of schmoozing, of sending
inane text messages, of going to lunch together and listening... good grief the
listening! Mattie and Annika in particular could talk for hours if they had a
good listener. That was why they were so happy to become best buds with Jill so
quickly. Jill just showed up in their lives one day and let them talk and talk
and talk and talk.

But now it was their turn to
listen.

“I knew Nicky was going to wear
black tonight,” Jill said quietly. “But I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone I
knew. I’m not supposed to be talking now.”

“What were you trying to tell me
about your parents?” asked Annika.

“I shouldn’t have said
anything,” said Jill. “It’s the wine. I got excited about the night.” She
looked up and caught Mattie, Jake, and Jenny with her eyes.

It was unusual for Jill to be
the focus like this. Her ability to listen had been invaluable to the Network.
Not only did Jill have the patience to hear out the long soliloquies of these
girls, but she also had a unique ability to pull out the important information
from the noise. She could find the little hints in someone’s voice that might
become rumors that might become gossip, and she could put those snippets
together into the larger picture. It was the same ability that made her the
best hacker in the Network. She found that human conversation wasn’t that
different than computer code. Both arrived at a larger meaning one discrete
line at a time.

It occurred to Jill that her
propensity to listen rather than speak might be why she was getting so much
attention at this moment. It was so rare for Jill to be the one talking – she
must have something important to say.

“Come closer and I’ll tell you
guys, but you have to promise with all your hearts to keep this a secret. I’m
only telling you because you’re my best friends, but, seriously, you could ruin
everything if you don’t keep it quiet.”

It took only a second for all of
them to huddle close enough that Jill could speak in a whisper.

“Have you ever thought it was
odd that Nicky got the open spot, even though there were lots of more qualified
applicants out there?” asked Jill.

“Of course we’ve wondered that,”
said Mattie. “Everyone has. Senator Bryce’s daughter was on the list to get in.
There was a girl from the Saudi royal family, too. It was weird that Nicky got
in.”

It was more than weird. Nicky
Bloom was from Chicago, the only daughter of a family completely unknown and
unconnected in Washington. Her parents were rich, but they were new money, not
the sort that normally found its way into Thorndike.

“Here’s the thing,” Jill said.
“Nicky got in because there are lots of us
who got her in
, if you catch
my drift. There’s a revolution happening here tonight and Nicky Bloom is going
to lead it. Powerful families, both of current students and of alumni, arranged
for Nicky to be here and are backing her in secret. These are people who will
do anything to keep Kim Renwick from winning Coronation, but know better than
to defy her openly.”

Jill saw nods of their heads,
looks of understanding in their eyes. Kim Renwick was the favorite to win this
contest because her father was as powerful as a human could get in Washington.
Only the immortals held more sway in this town than Kim’s father, and even they
deferred to his judgment from time to time.

Kim’s father, Galen Renwick, was
a Congressional lobbyist by trade, but everyone knew his true profession was
“Dirt Digger.” Galen was masterful at unearthing the little skeletons that
lurked in every closet, then using the threat of those skeletons to drive
behavior. That ability to drive behavior made Galen Renwick into a king, or at
least a king-maker. Galen cast such a long shadow over Washington that few
other families dared even enter Coronation against his daughter for fear of
upsetting him.

But even as people deferred to
Galen Renwick, they muttered amongst themselves their anger and frustration at
how he did things. This was a city where the largest egos in the world came to
collide, and all of them had to bow their heads before the mighty Galen
Renwick. It was demeaning to all of them, and, given the opportunity, there
were hundreds of people in Washington who would love to take down the whole
Renwick operation.

“Nicky Bloom made it all the way
to Homecoming in a black dress and Kim Renwick never saw it coming,” Jill
continued. “That in itself is already a big win for her. You guys know what
trouble Kim and her dad have gone to in order to have only three competitors
this year, right?”

“I can only imagine,” said
Mattie, inviting Jill to tell her more.

“Let’s just say that a certain
Senator who fled Washington in a child porn scandal had eyes on the Coronation
contest,” said Jill. “He had a daughter who was our age and he wanted her to
enter, even though Kim’s father advised against it. He tried to cross Galen
Renwick and got run out of town.”

“Wasn’t that scandal, like, ten
years ago?” said Jenny.

“Shows you how long the Renwicks
have been preparing for this night,” said Jill. “And how improbable it is that
someone like Nicky made it here at all.”

“Kim doesn’t have complete
control over the contest,” said Jake. “She wasn’t able to keep Mary and
Samantha out.”

“Mary and Samantha were the
approved entrants as far as Kim was concerned,” said Jill. “She knows she can
beat both of them with ease. She let them enter so she’d have someone to beat.”

Jenny shook her head. “So what
if Nicky got in the door wearing black? That’s just step one. Now she has to
raise a ton of money. How’s she going to do that without any connections?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,”
said Jill, trying to be patient with Jenny, who was an exceptional ditz. “My
parents are part of a secret consortium that is going to ensure Nicky has lots
of funding. Lots of other Thorndike families are in it too but the plan is that
no one is going to make themselves known as supporters of Nicky until it’s too
late for Kim to stop us. I’m breaking the plan by telling you guys, but I think
it was a mistake for the consortium to leave you out.”

“Damn right it was a mistake,”
said Jake. “Why weren’t we included? I would love to—”

“The consortium is a small group
of really wealthy families,” said Jill, allowing the truth to set in and sting
a little. While everyone at Thorndike was fabulously wealthy, some were more
fabulous than others.

Despite her extraordinary social
skills and ability to capture an audience, Annika’s family was in the rank of
millionaires, not billionaires. Her father made his fortune as a televangelist
and then swung his money and support into a successful campaign for the
governorship of Oklahoma. Mattie Dupree came from a family of Washington
lawyers and had a grandmother who was a justice on the Supreme Court, but none
of them had wealth that crossed the hundred million mark. Jake’s dad was a
former Secretary of State. Jenny’s was a Congressman.

All of these people were rich,
but not rich enough to make a run at the Renwicks. Jill’s family, in contrast,
had a net worth in the billions, as did a few other families at Thorndike.
There were people in the ballroom who had enough money they could swing the
entire contest one way or another if it came to that, and their decisions about
who to back carried a lot of weight. The fact that Jill was speaking about
backing Nicky Bloom was significant, and her friends knew it.

“You’re saying we weren’t rich
enough to be invited to the party,” said Jenny.

Jill allowed her eyes to drift
downward in an act of penitence, as if the net worth of her father was a
terrible sin, and she nodded her head. “If I had it my way, you all would have
been invited to the meetings, but it’s the parents who are calling the shots
here. I’m just telling you now because you’re my peeps and I don’t want you to
get stuck backing the wrong horse.”

My peeps?
Jill thought.
Ick.
Where did that come from?

“You don’t actually think Nicky
Bloom can beat Kim, do you?” asked Jake.

“The consortium’s going to wait
until the last possible moment. They want to make sure Galen Renwick doesn’t
have time to put together one of his blackmail operations, but when the
moment’s right, they’re going to pledge enough money to Nicky that it will be
hard for Kim to pull this off.”

“Holy shit,” said Jake.

“Holy shit is right,” said Jill,
“but here’s the deal. You guys have a chance to get in on the ground floor.
Nicky’s going to win this thing, and she’s going to be just like any other girl
who’s become immortal. She’s going to remember the people who helped her get
there. She’s having an after-party tonight at the Hamilton. I guarantee she’ll
remember the people who chose to go to her party rather than Kim’s.”

Just over Mattie’s shoulder,
Jill saw Kim Renwick looking their way, no doubt wondering what this little
huddle was in the far corner of the ballroom.

“We need to quit talking now,”
said Jill. “And remember, this is a huge secret. I’m risking everything by
telling you guys, but I couldn’t stand the thought that you were being left
out.”

Jill tried to put some emotion
in her voice, as if the telling of this story was an act of love.

“But if you blab,” Jill
continued, “I’ll deny everything I’ve just told you. This plan only works if
it’s a total secret. Some of us will raise some eyebrows when we go to Nicky’s
after-party tonight, but other members of the consortium are going to remain
incognito until later in the year, when the time is right.”

“Got it,” said Mattie. “Your
secret’s safe with us.”

“Yeah, thanks for sharing,” said
Jenny.

“No problem,” said Jill. “You
guys are like family to me.”

She gave one more look over the
group before they parted ways, and headed to the bar feeling pretty good about
how that went. But she couldn’t help notice that one person from the group had
nothing to say about Jill’s secret. Annika Fleming, the leader of this motley
crew, and Jill’s primary target tonight, had been completely silent once Jill
got going.

Hopefully, Annika was quiet
because she needed time to process what Jill was saying, and not because she
had any doubts. Jill knew that Annika’s bullshit detector was notoriously good.

Hopefully, Jill had pulled it
off, and Annika’s silence meant she was taking it all in, pondering the implications,
getting ready to get on board.

Hopefully, it didn’t mean Annika
was skeptical. For, as much as Jill had rehearsed, as many people had helped
her craft the story she just told, there was no denying one simple fact.

The story Jill just told was complete
and utter bullshit.