The Homecoming Masquerade

by Baum, Spencer

  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.

  3

  “Okay, 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 a
s 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.

  4

  The truth about Nicky Bloom was that she had no financial backers for her Coronation campaign yet, other than Jill. The truth was that, while there was a group of smart and powerful people helping her, none of those people were Washington insiders. None of them had the big money necessary for Nicky to win Coronation.

  The truth was that Nicky and Jill were in this ballroom under false pretenses. They were pretending to be normal seniors at Thorndike who were excited to wear their masks to Homecoming and eager to join the ruling class when they graduated.

  They were nothing of the sort.

  Jill and Nicky were members of the
Network, an underground movement dedicated to overthrowing the immortals who ruled Washington and the world.

  It was no accident that Nicky Bloom, the only child of a mostly unknown family from the Midwest, somehow won the open spot in the senior class, beating out far wealthier and more connected families who had been trying to get their daughters into Thorndike for years.

  It was no accident that Nicky Bloom’s father, a commodities speculator, hit on a winning streak in the financial markets that turned his family into the sort of power players who could come to Thorndike Academy. Neither was it an accident that Nicky’s transcripts, personal history, and entire digital footprint combined into the perfect profile for an incoming Thorndike student.

  The Network was behind all of this.

  Jill was the Network mole who made Nicky’s presence possible. Jill’s reports from inside Thorndike had been invaluable to the organization, which had come to see Thorndike and its sordid Coronation ritual as a problem that had to be solved. Because of Jill’s intel, the Network knew they had to seize on the opportunity presented by the death of Shannon Evans.

  They took that opportunity to get Nicky Bloom into the school so she could enter the Coronation contest.

  At first, Jill was displeased the Network was giving the big job to this mystery girl from who knew where. Hadn’t Jill earned the privilege of the big job inside Thorndike? Hadn’t Jill proved her mettle as an undercover operative?

  And in those first weeks of school, when Nicky was lying low, dressing like a total nobody, spending all her time with Ryan Jenson, Jill wondered if the Network knew what it was doing. She was worried if Nicky, as confident and sharp as she was, could really pull off the assignment they had given her.

  Now, mere moments after Nicky’s arrival at the dance, Jill understood and accepted. Nicky Bloom was amazing.

  Jill watched in awe as Nicky strutted across the ballroom with strength and confidence, perfectly oblivious to the stares and the silence. Nicky looked so ridiculously stunning, so completely transformed from the quiet new girl she had played those first weeks at school, that it didn’t matter if no one knew her, if she walked alone to the bar. She had an aura about her. Nicky Bloom was pure cool.