Free Homecoming Masquerade, The by Spencer Baum Page A

other really devoted
supporters are being left out. It starts with the after-party. By the way, I
heard that Jada Razor is going to be there. She’s giving a private concert at
midnight.”
    “Fuck me.” said Brian. “Jada
Razor? Well, this is just...this is just crazy. People should tell me the truth.
Yes, my mom and Kim’s dad have been talking, but I get to choose where the
prize money goes, not them. If there’s some mass movement going on, my mom
would want me supporting the girl who’s gonna win.”
    “Let’s dance over towards
Christine so you can partner with her next,” said Jill. “She’s going to pretend
like she doesn’t know about the party, but keep trying her. Tell her you’re
ready to ditch Kim. Tell her you know everyone is going to Nicky’s party and
you want in.”
    The music began to slow. Jill
raced Brian across the floor until they were right next to Christine Archibald,
a bottom-tier girl who would believe anything Brian told her.
    “She might deny it to the end,
Brian,” said Jill. “But I guarantee you she knows about Nicky’s party. She’s
supposed to keep it a secret from you. If you can’t get her to talk, just keep
your ears open tonight. You’ll hear the truth eventually. The place to be
tonight is the Hamilton, not the White House.”
    As the music came to a stop and
Jill separated herself from Brian, she caught the look on his face. Utter
confusion. What a buffoon.
    But he turned to Christine and
began the next dance, just as Jill had told him to. Hopefully, when Brian
starting blabbing about some secret rebellion against Kim, Christine would
believe it, and help spread the word.
    Jill turned to her next partner,
Jerome Lucero, and began to dance. A few steps in, she asked him if he’d heard
about the mass exodus from Kim’s party, about how amazing Nicky’s party
promised to be, and what he was going to do.

10
    N icky and Ryan had lapped the
floor twice without a word between them. Nicky wanted to open the conversation,
but knew she wouldn’t get anywhere with him if she pushed him into speaking.
Ryan wasn’t someone who liked to be pushed. So she waited.
    Eventually, he broke the
silence, saying, “I had no idea you were planning to enter the contest.”
    “I wanted to tell you,” Nicky
said, truthfully. “But it was important that nobody knew.”
    “You didn’t trust me to keep
your secret?”
    “No, that’s not it,” Nicky said.
“With you it was different. With you, I didn’t tell you because I was worried
it might mess things up between us.”
    “Well, here you are tonight
wearing black,” said Ryan. “I’d say things are messed up.”
    “You don’t want anything to do
with me anymore, do you?”
    “Nicky, I don’t understand why
you entered. It doesn’t seem like you at all. I never would have expected this.
I thought you were different.”
    It was heartbreaking to hear him
say the words. A part of Nicky wanted to take him outside right now and tell
him he was right, that she was different, that she was playing a character and
this was all an act.
    That the real Nicky hated the
immortals, but liked Ryan Jenson.
    Such a tricky little devil this
one had turned out to be. In the two weeks between the start of school and the
Homecoming Masquerade, Nicky’s primary objective was to cozy up to Ryan, to get
him interested enough that he would throw his tremendous wealth behind her. And
while it took Nicky a little bit to figure him out, once she did, she and Ryan
really hit it off.
    Ryan had no interest in social
status, gossip, or any of the other things that mattered so much to the
students of Thorndike Academy. He liked to relate to people in a more
substantive way.
    So Nicky had to become more
substantive. Unfortunately, real substance wasn’t something you could fake, so
she had resorted to playing herself. For two weeks, she and Ryan hung out every
day at lunch and after school, being themselves.
    Nicky loved it. A part of her
wished she