Chapter 9
“Are you serious?” Brian asked. “You really think this new girl has a chance?”
Brian Kingsbury was the biggest guy in school, and the best athlete. He was a black belt in karate and taekwondo. He studied mat wrestling with an Olympic gold medalist. In the summers, he went to Thailand to train with a kickboxing guru. As such, Brian was the favorite to win at the Brawl in the Fall fundraiser in two weeks.
“I think Nicky Bloom has more than a chance. I think she’s going to win,” said Jill. “Everyone’s talking about her. You should think about getting to know her. If you win the brawl, you’ll have to donate your prize money to one of the girls wearing black.”
“Not if I win,” he said.
“Oh, silly me,” Jill said with a giggle. “When you win. Of course you’re going to win.”
Brian didn’t smile or otherwise acknowledge Jill’s vote of confidence. To him, her prediction wasn’t a compliment, just a statement of truth.
He was a cocky bastard.
“Everyone keeps asking me about the prize money,” Brian said. “And I tell them all the same thing. Just wait and see. I’m not in anyone’s pocket. I’ll give the money to whichever girl has the most to offer me.”
Clearly, Brian loved all the attention he got as favorite to win the brawl. He really wanted to believe that he was a free agent, that once he had the prize money in his pocket, he would contribute it to the campaign of whatever girl was best to him. He didn’t like to think of himself as being just another lackey for Kim Renwick.
But he was. The Network knew it, Kim knew it, and most of the school knew it. Brian’s mother was a White House attorney who was as corrupt as anyone in town. She had sold her son’s pending victory to the Renwicks many years ago. The prize money for Brawl in the Fall would be seven figures large, and it might as well be in Kim’s ledger already.
Such a shame too. Jill had watched the boys play rugby on the north lawn after school last spring, and saw firsthand what a beast Brian was. He was bigger, stronger, and more agile than any of the other boys, including Nicky’s pick to win the brawl, a quiet kid from New Hampshire named Marshall Beaumont.
“People are infatuated with Brian’s size,” Nicky had said to Jill in a meeting over the summer. “But size and strength only get you so far. Brian doesn’t have any fire in his eyes. He’s been groomed since birth to win the brawl, and that’s exactly the problem. Fancy weight rooms and afterschool wrestling practice do not make a fighter. All it will take is one good punch to the gut, one bit of real pain, and Brian will go timid.”
Nicky had put Marshall Beaumont on her list of targets tonight, which was wasted effort as far as Jill was concerned. Fortunately, Nicky wasn’t dancing with Marshall right now. She was dancing with Ryan, and looked to be having a great time.
Despite the borderline dreary getup Nicky had put together for herself those first two weeks of school, she had managed to strike up a relationship with Ryan right away, as was the plan. Those weeks were harder for Jill than she thought they would be. She didn’t enjoy watching from afar as Nicky flirted with her ex. She didn’t like hearing the briefing report about Nicky’s successful lunch dates with Ryan. And even though Jill knew that Nicky was only doing her job (doing it well, in fact) she couldn’t help but feel a little ill whenever she saw them together.
Jill and Ryan were together for thirty-eight days during freshman year. They were the thirty-eight craziest, most blissful days of her life. Then Ryan dumped her for no good reason and had given her the cold shoulder ever since.
Ryan said they had to break up because he had some personal things to work out and he was sorry. When Jill pressed him on this, she got nothing. Whatever it was he had to work out was a total mystery, which of course drove Jill batty wanting to know.
And that’s when things got ugly. Her attempts to get him to talk just made him more distant. He started pissing her off. The last time Jill spoke with Ryan was in the freshman parking lot at school. That conversation had ended with Jill calling Ryan an asshole and walking away.
Jill hadn’t had a boyfriend since. Ryan too became a total loner, which was odd, considering that he was the best-looking guy in the class. Jill had lost track of the number of girls who tried to make a play for him. His long wavy hair, his deep, dark eyes, his strong chin, broad chest, and killer smile – when you combined this with his mysterious and brooding manner, Ryan was too good to resist.
But he always turned them away, and over time, they all came to hate Ryan. Too-good-for-us Jenson was what they called him. Be glad that asshole dumped you, is what they said to Jill. What a jerk.
It was all so strange, and despite her best efforts to move on, Jill spent most of freshman year wondering what happened, and most of sophomore year dealing with the anger that came from the fact that she’d never know.
Was it another girl? Probably not. Despite months of online and real life stalking, Jill had seen no evidence that Ryan was with another girl. Was it something Jill had said or done? Maybe. If Ryan would just talk to her, she might have known. Was he gay? He did say he had some personal stuff to work out. If he was gay that would be a comfort to Jill, to know it was nothing to do with her. She kind of wished this was the answer.
But she knew it wasn’t. The way she and Ryan were with each other during those thirty-eight days – he most certainly was not gay.
And if there was any doubt left at all as to Ryan’s sexuality, his response to Nicky’s advances these first two weeks of school had squashed it.
Not that Jill cared about any of that now. She and Ryan were ancient, irrelevant history, so old it was practically from a former life. Hell, she should be thanking Ryan. It was his betrayal, the frozen tone of his voice when she tried to get him to talk to her, the complete lack of personal decency and simple human kindness on his part that convinced Jill the world was broken and needed to be changed. Already, Jill had been feeling like there was no one at Thorndike who understood her. When Ryan pushed her away, he sent her right out of polite DC society and into the Network.
Now Ryan was dancing with Nicky, and they were laughing like best buddies. What an ass. For years, a part of Jill thought, or maybe hoped, that the real Ryan was hiding underneath that mysterious outer shell, that he would come back around again and open up to her one day, and she could help him sort out whatever was troubling him.
But the way he took to Nicky was proof that he had no need for Jill. Sweet, seductive Nicky Bloom, who could just ooze sexy whenever she wanted, walked right up to Ryan on the first day of school and made him smile. Barely a week went by and they were little besties, going to lunch together every day, and now giggling as they danced around the ballroom at Homecoming.
Pathetic. Ryan Jenson was totally pathetic, and Jill was glad for the opportunity to play him. Ryan would give enormous sums of his family’s money to Nicky, she would win Coronation, the Network would kill Sergio, and Jill and Nicky would disappear in the night. Good riddance to Ryan Jenson and everybody else at Thorndike Academy. Jill couldn’t wait.
There was, however, some worry in the Network about how Ryan would react upon Nicky’s surprise entrance in a black dress. Would he still be interested in Nicky even after she entered herself in the Coronation contest?
Watching the two of them dance, their foreheads together, their beautiful white teeth gleaming in the soft light of the ballroom, Jill could answer that question.
Nicky looked up for just a second and caught Jill staring. Jill turned her gaze back to her own dance partner.
“Are you even listening to me?” said Brian.
“Yes,” said Jill, a total lie. Brian had been talking for awhile now, and Jill hadn’t heard a word of what he had said.
“Everyone’s all high on the new girl tonight, as if she even had a chance,” Brian said. “Seriously, how does that girl think she can possibly raise enough money to come out of this alive? Is she even having an after-party?”
Maybe not, Jil
l thought. Nicky might be over there with Ryan, making him laugh, continuing her perfect night, but it all was for naught if Jill didn’t figure out how to get this after-party cooking. Annika, Jenny, Mattie, Vince – had Jill done enough to get them to bite the bullet? Would they really be brave enough to betray Kim Renwick?
Jill had done everything she knew how to do. She had become friends with Annika and her gang. She had started the rumor about the secret consortium behind Nicky Bloom. She had made it known that Nicky’s after-party was at the Hamilton and that Jada Razor would be there. Now, according to the plan, Jill just needed to dance and let the rumor mill do the work for her.
She felt like she should be doing more. Watching Nicky Bloom work, seeing the ease with which Nicky manipulated Ryan, got him to smile and talk to her and be interested in her – Jill wondered if she was good enough to hold up her end of the deal. If the Network had two undercover agents in this ballroom who were as skilled at manipulating people as Nicky was, the whole class would be theirs already.
But they only had one Nicky Bloom. One Nicky Bloom, and one Jill Wentworth.
It angered her to think about it. At one time not too long ago, the entire Network was enamored with Jill and the work she was doing. She was the superstar operative at Thorndike Academy, who not only could spy on the other students, but could hack into their computers. The world was going to be saved, and Jill was the one who was going to do it.
Then Nicky came along.
“We’ve got this operative, she’s going to blow your mind,” was what Gia had said to Jill about Nicky. “You have laid the groundwork for something huge, Jill. With your work, we might be able to put our new operative in the school with you, and hit the immortals where it hurts them most.”
It bugged Jill that her great achievements were merely “groundwork” for Nicky Bloom, superspy extraordinaire. It bugged her that she had become another supporting cast member whose only purpose was to set things up for Nicky Bloom to come in and save the world.
It bugged her because it was true.
Nicky was everything Gia had promised, and more. Nicky’s assignment was to create such an incredible first impression that the senior class was willing to accept her as a viable candidate within two hours of seeing her in a black dress. It was an absurdly difficult assignment, and she was nailing it.
Jill’s job, in contrast, was simply to riff off Nicky’s success, to get the word out about the after-party in such a way that everyone wanted to ditch Kim’s and go to Nicky’s.
She felt like she was doing a lousy job. She felt like she belonged in front of a computer screen, and should leave the real work, the work that landed you in the arms of Ryan Jenson, for Nicky Bloom to do by herself.
“She is,” said Jill.
“She is what?” said Brian.
“You were asking about an after-party,” Jill said. “Nicky is having one. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“Where did you hear about her after-party?” said Brian. “I was just asking someone and they said they didn’t know.”
“Then you weren’t asking the right person. Believe me, it’s everywhere. After that little confrontation where Nicky told off Kim, everyone wants to know where her party is. I was standing over next to Isabella and Chelsea earlier tonight, and they couldn’t stop talking about it.”
“Really? Isabella and Chelsea?”
“That’s right,” Jill lied. She hadn’t been anywhere near Isabella or Chelsea at any time since the masquerade began.
“Where is the party?” asked Brian.
“At the Hamilton. She’s rented out the whole nightclub on the top floor.”
“The whole club? She’s not going to have enough people to fill up the whole club.”
“But she is,” said Jill. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We’re all ditching Kim’s party, but obviously we’re not telling her.”
“You’re being serious, aren’t you? You’re really going to Nicky Bloom’s party rather than Kim’s.”
Jill nodded. “The new girl is where it’s at. No one else is going to tell you though, because they think you’ll rat us all out. We know your family’s already committed whatever money you have to Kim, including any prize money from the brawl.”
“How does everyone know that?” Brian said, anger in his voice.
“Listen, I’m just telling you this as a friend. I don’t want you to be stuck in Kim’s corner after everyone else has left. There’s a big movement going on here tonight. We’re all ditching Kim and we’re going with Nicky. Only you and Kim’s 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.