Chapter 7
The clock struck nine and the musicians on the stage raised their bows. A slow-moving, already drunken muddle of students began to form itself into two lines, one for guys and one for girls. Nicky took her place on the far end of the line, finding a table against the wall on which to set her wine goblet. When everyone was in place, the orchestra began the first notes of a Beethoven minuet. The two lines approached one another to break into couples and the formal dance began.
As was the case with everything at Thorndike, ritual and tradition dictated all facets of Homecoming. The dance always opened with a Beethoven Minuet. On this night, it was from his String Trio in E flat. For the first two dances, everyone was on the floor. It wasn’t until the third dance that people were allowed to sit out. When they did sit out, they were expected to congregate at the bar and give generously to the tip jar as they drank.
Polite conversation with one’s partner was allowed, but Nicky’s first dance partner, a tall, burly fellow named Vince Weir, had nothing to say on their first tour of the ballroom. Nicky took advantage of his silence to get a good look at the place. She and Jill were the first Network operatives to get inside Renata’s mansion. Although a raid on the mansion was not planned anytime in the immediate future, the higher-ups in the Network would want a report on the place to keep on file. Nicky took careful mental notes of what she saw.
The ballroom, like the outside of the mansion, had a Greco-Roman flair to it. Marble pillars on the edges matched the enormous columns of the front entrance. Large mahogany doors lined the walls, leading to who knew where. Maybe the mansion beyond those doors was a more livable space of human-sized proportions. Maybe there was an alternate entrance that allowed Renata to skip this massive ballroom every time she came home.
Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe Renata liked to come home every morning to visual proof that she was among the wealthiest people on earth. There certainly was enough opulence on display to remind her. The walls, the floor, the molding, the dual staircase in the back– all were made of shiny white marble. Nooks with life-sized statues filled the walls, their edges lined with gold. High on the walls sat a collection of paintings easily worth millions, and these weren’t even the most prized pieces in the collection. Somewhere behind one of those mahogany doors was a private art gallery, with Picassos, Rembrandts, Van Goghs and others, the greatest works of art in all human history, stolen away from humanity to be viewed only by those Renata deemed worthy to see them.
Nicky’s dance partner mumbled something.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” Nicky said.
“I said, wow, right out of the gate I get a girl wearing black.”
Nicky smiled at him.
“Nicky, right?” he said.
She nodded. Pretending to know nothing about him, she asked for his name.
“Vince,” he said.
Vince Weir, only child of a Vegas real estate tycoon with the same name. The words from the briefing book rang in Nicky’s mind. She imagined them spoken in Jill’s quiet voice. Participated in junior football, basketball, and wrestling leagues growing up, now a member of Thorndike’s boxing club. Has a ‘friends with benefits’ sort of understanding with Mattie Dupree, even though she’d like something more.
It was that last part that was of the most interest to Nicky. According to Jill, Mattie was desperate for Vince to treat her like a real girlfriend, rather than a makeout partner, and was known to follow Vince around like a little puppy. If they could get Vince to attend Nicky’s after-party, then Mattie would come along as well.
“It’s nice to meet you, Vince,” Nicky said. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“Tell you something? Like what?”
“Whatever comes to mind.”
“I’m in the boxing club,” he said, or rather, boasted.
Nicky gave his bicep a friendly squeeze. “I’m not surprised,” she said.
Despite his enormous stature, Vince was graceful on his feet, and when they changed direction and spun at the end of a stanza, Nicky sensed him suck in his stomach and flex his chest muscles.
“I didn’t expect you to be wearing black tonight,” Vince said.
“I didn’t want anyone to expect it,” said Nicky.
“You’re pretty bold for someone who squeezed into a spot left behind by a dead girl.”
There was a phony bravado in Vince’s voice. Behind his mask, Nicky saw his eyes darting around, as if scared to look at her face.
“Some things are just meant to be,” Nicky said. “I was meant to be here tonight, wearing black. Maybe you were meant to dance with me.”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Vince. “Did you know anything about your competitors before you just showed up in black? Do you know how connected Kim’s father is?”
“I know how much everyone in town hates him, just like we all hate his daughter.”
Vince raised his eyebrows.
“You know it’s true,” Nicky said. “Kim has everyone so scared that they won’t say a mean word about her, but I know you hate her. I know you’d love to see someone else win. That’s why I entered.”
“But none of us even know who you are. What do your parents do?”
“My dad’s good at investing,” Nicky said, following her script. “And I’m tired of talking about myself. I want to hear more about your boxing club.”
“Don’t you know about the boxing club?” Vince asked, in the tone of voice one might use when speaking with a child. This was a guy who grew up being a bully and didn’t know how to interact with people any other way.
“I know a few things,” Nicky said, “but I want to hear an actual boxer tell me all about it.”
Not one to let an invitation to brag go to waste, Vince spent the remainder of the dance telling Nicky about the history of the boxing club at Thorndike, how it had become a way for the athletes at the school to participate in Coronation through their “Brawl in the Fall” fundraiser, how Vince had earned the right to be one of the fighters in the brawl.
Nicky listened intently to every word, all the while pulling herself closer to Vince, acting the part of the girl infatuated with the jock.
“If you were smart, you’d bet on me at Brawl in the Fall,” he added. “A lot of people are picking Brian to win, just because he’s big. But I’ll tell you something. Brian’s slow and kind of soft. I expect to win that event.”
The Network already had a plan for that event, and it didn’t involve Vince at all. But Vince didn’t need to know that.
“Maybe I already know this about you, and I expect you to win too,” Nicky said, quietly. He was too tall for her to whisper in his ear, so she pulled in close and allowed her breath to tickle his neck. “Maybe I positioned myself in line so I would have the first dance with you. Maybe I thought you were someone I should get to know.”
As they continued the dance, Nicky pressed her body right up to Vince’s. She allowed her right hand to roam up and down his back, climbing as high as his neck where her fingers toyed with his hair. When the music began to slow, Nicky slid her hand all the way down Vince’s back. On the final note, she pressed her body right up against his, and gave his butt a friendly squeeze.
The music stopped. Vince had a goofy grin on his face.
“Aren’t you supposed to bow at me?” Nicky said.
“Oh…yeah,” said Vince.
Totally flustered, he leaned forward in a clumsy, awkward motion.
Nicky knew why he was having trouble with a simple bow. She had felt it when they squeezed close together.
And she checked the next item off her to-do list. Vince Weir was now officially curious about Nicky Bloom.
The musicians went straight into the Viennese Waltz and Nicky turned to her new partner, a broad-chested boy with thick brown hair and dark, penetrating eyes. With those eyes, he looked at Nicky like a connoisseur checking out a work of art. The edges of his mask hid under the curtain of his hair, as if l
ost in the shadows, and this effect only heightened the beauty of his eyes.
“Hello, Ryan,” she said.
“Hello, Nicky. Shall we dance?”