Chapter #20Conspiracies by: Seuzz   You toy with picking up the phone and calling Blackwell, but you chicken out at the last moment. It will be hard enough facing him on Monday.
Instead, though it is only late morning, you call up Yumi and bully her into coming out to the house. Once she's inside you twitch the mask off the golem; it's a pain getting the thing upstairs and then getting her clothes off it, but you don't want to have to argue with Blackwell's golem; it doesn't have to obey you, and the Yumi mask carries her distaste for you.
Once you're dressed out as Yumi you take stock of the situation. You are supposed to hook up with Jenny and her gang for a picnic at the park, but her cell phone is also showing messages from Lin and the Garner twins. You also have to plan out tonight's switch-off, including who you will seize. You call your doppelganger and have him come over to the house.
"This is gonna be real tricky," you tell him. "I have to get a mask onto a new person, get that mask off you and onto them, get their mask onto me. I have to dress and you'll have to get dressed again, and we're going to have to do all that and split before the real Yumi wakes up."
Will blinks. "Maybe we ought to practice," he suggests. "Do some drills here, up in the bedroom. That old golem of Blackwell's could double as your new victim."
"That's an idea," you admit. "But I'm not dressed up like I'll be at the party. We're just going to have to wing it. Wear something easy and sloppy to get into and out of. Those baggy shorts and a pullover. The Margaritavilles, no socks."
"We're doing this at the party?" he exclaims. "They'll never let me in!"
"I'll get you in. But when you get there, linger outside until I give you a chirp on your cell phone. For now, I need you to housesit. If Blackwell calls, pretend you're me as long as you can and take a message. Then call me."
"Anything I need to know?"
"The less you know what's going on, the better."
* * * * *
The messages from the cheerleaders say that they want to get together to talk about Cindy, so you call Jenny and ask if she wants you to collect gossip or meet at the picnic.
"I'd kill for the gossip, Yumi," she says, "but to be honest, this picnic is about putting you and Paul next to each other. He'll kill me if you don't show up."
"I'll probably kill you if I do show up," you retort. "How could you set me up this way?"
"I'm not setting you up," she plaintively insists. "Paul just wants a ... a situation where you will pay attention to him."
"That counts as setting up." You sigh and press a knuckle into your forehead. Yumi's own instincts are torn between being the nice girl and seeing these friends, and bailing out because she doesn't want to have to deal with Paul. You realize you get to cast the tie-breaking vote.
"I'm going to have to cancel with you, Jenny," you tell her. "I don't have the energy to deal with Paul, and besides, this Cindy situation needs dealing with."
"You can't do this," Jenny wails. "It's not fair to Paul."
"What happened wasn't fair to Cindy. There will be lots of times for me to make nice with Paul. Just trust me." You snap the phone shut.
"Don't tell me it sucks having a rich and complex social life at the top of the food chain," Prescott smirks from the next desk over.
You stick your tongue out at him and stretch out a finely shaped leg. "It does suck, but it has its compensations."
* * * * *
You dash over to Lin's house, which is where you're to meet her and Eva and Jessica. It's best not to leave an electronic trail for the kind of discussion you think is going to unfold.
"If we stick together, there's four of us," Jessica says redundantly. "Chelsea has Maria and Gloria in her corner, naturally. Kendra, probably. Anybody know what Michelle is thinking?" Michelle Estrich keeps largely to herself and is easily the least popular girl in the bunch. She is on the team only because Chelsea finds her so pliable.
"She'll side with Chelsea," Eva predicts. "It's the easiest thing to do."
"Then if Cindy doesn't quit, it's five to five." Jessica frowns.
"Are we sure Kendra is on Chelsea's side?" Lin asks.
"They're best friends," you point out.
"Like Patterson and Lynch are best friends," she retorts. "If we told Kendra we want her taking over—"
"Kendra's worse than Chelsea," you say. "We'd be best off with Maria running things."
"Oh, like, would I have to make decisions and stuff?" Jessica crosses her eyes and imitates Maria's dippy airhead tone.
"She's a lot smarter than she lets on," Lin says. "She'd make it six to four, and if she brought Michelle and Kendra along—"
"It would be eight to fourteen," you sigh and fall back on the floor. "Don't forget Gordon and his posse. Chelsea would just get them to hit Sagansky on her behalf."
"What if we got Cameron and the football players on our side?"
"They don't give a crap, and they're not gonna cross Gordon when he wants something bad enough."
"But if even five of us threatened to quit if Chelsea didn't quit as captain—"
"She'd kick us off and get five replacements," Eva says. "You've seen the ones she keeps teasing with the chance at a slot. I think the administration wants some juniors and sophomores on the squad anyway."
"Then we're screwed," you say sadly.
"No, Cindy is screwed," says Jessica. "We never had this conversation and have always supported Chelsea one hundred percent," she adds sarcastically.
* * * * *
The main reason you wanted to talk to these girls, of course, was because you wanted to see what was up with Cindy—Lucy Vredenburg's younger sister. You don't want to waste your new mask on a girl who is being crushed under social humiliation, and whose sister is probably about to die to the world. But getting close to Cindy might be a way of getting clues about her sister. The obvious entrance there would be through her now ex-boyfriend, Seth Javits. Seth has the added attraction of being in the tier just below Black, Patterson, and Lynch in the school pecking order.
That's what you're thinking about late in the afternoon when you go home to get ready. It's a big party, so you dress up carefully, though with an eye toward the need to make quick changes. You start with a long bath with lots of scented soaps and oils and do your hair up with a trace of glitter and frosting. You do a lot of work on make up and on fingernails and toenails, clipping and buffing and sanding and shaping and painting and decorating. When you're ready, you slip on thong panties and a tight-fitting sleeveless one-piece dress that doesn't even reach the middle of your thigh. You also forgo a bra, which would excite the boys more if Yumi had a more ample bosom. To keep your mom from noticing, you drape over it a much more demure sweater and a skirt that sweeps well below your knee.
"You'll never fool mom with that get up," Yumi's older brother, Mokichi, says when he sees you pass between the bathroom and the bedroom. "I'm a guy and even I can tell you're wearing fake clothes over your real ones."
"Stop undressing me with your eyes, you perv," you retort as you brush past him.
You're about ready to go when Will calls from the house. "Blackwell just called. He said that one of Lucy's girlfriends called him and was asking about Lucy. She's not answering her phone."
"How did this girl get Blackwell's private number?"
"Beats me. But he gave me her number and I'm supposed to call her."
You scratch your nose and think. You know nothing about Lucy's private life; Javits is at least two degrees removed from it and retreating rapidly. This girl is apparently deep in the confidence of Lucy and Blackwell, if she has Blackwell's private number, which would make the acquisition of her memories, at least, highly desirable in the circumstances. But she will have no connection to Westside, which makes her a tangent to your real plans.
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