"You wear a mask for so long you forget who you were beneath it." - Alan Moore
Summer 1997
Lacey puckered as she painted her lips with Ravenous Red, then rubbed them together and surveyed the job she'd done on her hair in the mirror. A crystal-clear butterfly clip held back a small blonde tress on each side of her head.
Perfect.
"I could have done that for five dollars," she heard Ariel from behind her on the bed. "And I could even have gotten them straight."
Lacey furrowed her brow as she leaned in to examine the clips closer.
"Psych!" Ariel giggled. "They're fine."
Lacey sighed. "I said you could stay in here for ten minutes, Ariel, and they're up. So go find something to do."
"I thought you wanted me to sit here all night and wait till "Foolish Games" comes on the radio so I could record it on tape."
"Right." Lacey examined her appearance one more time before standing up from her vanity. "And you only get the five dollars if I come back and find nothing out of place, got it?"
Her little sister rolled over onto her back, sighing. "I told you, I don't want any of your junk. And what time are you coming back?"
Lacey shrugged. "We'll see."
The truth was, her mom had told her to be in by midnight. But she knew her mother would be fast asleep by nine thirty, so what did it matter?
"You're really going to a party at Eden Hall?" another voice cut in from the doorway, a little higher than Ariel's.
Halen, the tattletale. Hopefully she would be asleep by nine thirty, too.
"Not at Eden Hall, but at the house of an Eden Hall student."
"I thought they lived in dorms," Ariel piped up.
"Not all of them. Some still live with their parents."
"Will there be drinking?" Halen whispered.
"No! Of course not," Lacey lied.
"Are you going with Max?"
"Oh my gosh, guys, the questions! Yes, with Max. Who else?"
"Oh. I just… well, I don't like him," Lacey's little sister wrinkled up her nose. "He never smiles, and he doesn't talk to us."
"Plus, he always wears those stupid sunglasses in the house," Ariel piped in.
"He's shy," Lacey defended. "Something neither of you guys knows anything about." She made chattering hand gestures at her sisters. "Anyway, it's going to be cool. No drinking, no smoking. But I gotta go."
"You look like a Barbie doll," Halen beamed, following her down the hall.
Lacey couldn't help but smile at the compliment. "Make sure Ariel doesn't rearrange the stuff on my vanity. Or write another 'message' for me on my mirror with lipstick."
"Of course," Halen grinned sheepishly for her twin, then stared after Lacey as she opened and shut the front door quickly.
There was no point bothering Stuart and Mom with goodnights. It would just waylay her, and she already felt irritable from the butterflies in her stomach.
Getting invited to parties was nothing new to Lacey, but the illustrious Eden Hall Academy invitation certainly was. It was Labor Day weekend, and students from all over the map were filing into the prep school's dorms to prepare for the upcoming school year. The Fall and Winter sports teams, specifically the JV and Varsity hockey teams, had already returned and were settling in to begin practices. Fall semester was officially starting, and Eden Hall held a party each year on the last weekend of August to commemorate the end of summer. However, no one from the other area schools was ever invited unless they were either very popular or dating someone very popular. In Lacey's case, she might have never been invited to an E.H. party were it not for dating Max Shipley.
Max played hockey for their own Robert C. Driskell High School Rockets-the precinct's leading varsity team, bested only by Eden Hall's Mighty Ducks. Lacey only hoped her boyfriend wouldn't take advantage of his invitation to get drunk and start trouble with any of the rival hockey players. As much as Lacey hated to admit it, the twins were right about him. He wasn't terribly endearing, sometimes not even to her. But he was hot, and they usually had fun. Isn't that what it's about when you were in high school?
Just as Lacey shut the door behind her, Max peeled around the curb and came to a halt in front of her house. Lacey walked as quickly as platform heels in grass would allow, but stopped short just before jumping in the passenger side.
Under the streetlight, she got a good look at the car he was driving-a 1975 Lincoln Continental. It was all she could do to keep from clenching her fists to feel her nails digging into her palms.
"What?!" Max huffed. "Not like I wanted to drive my brother's junker tonight. Especially around all those rich preps, but I need a new transmission. If you don't wanna be seen in it, then-"
"No… Max, it's fine," Lacey forced herself beyond the moment, reminding herself to breathe. "I thought I'd forgotten something, but nevermind." Lacey forced herself to move, opening the door quickly and jumping in. She slid over beside Max, trying not to pay attention to the all-too-familiar dashboard or any of the rest of the interior.
Her nausea worsened in the face of the memories that were spilling in sideways.
Mindfulness, Dr. Hemby, her childhood therapist, had always emphasized.
Lacey swallowed and took another deep breath, reaching out to adjust Max's A/C settings. She had to have air even if she didn't want to touch any part of this car.
You're sitting in Max's brother's car-not His. You're going to a party. Stone Temple Pilots is on the radio, not Frankie Valli. You smell musty hockey gear, not cigarette smoke. You're okay. Open your eyes in 3… 2… 1...
"So where's Colin? Wasn't he riding with us?" Her eyes shot open and she attempted to re-engage, deflecting Max's curious glance. Not that she enjoyed spending time with Max's dweeb of a friend, but she needed a quick escape.
Max looked over, grinned, then turned his eyes back to the road as they pulled out onto the freeway. "I told 'im to ride with Todd tonight. You and me need to talk."
"Talk?" Lacey couldn't stop fidgeting and reached to turn the radio down.
"Yeah. About my birthday. And what, you know, might happen..."
Lacey sighed. "Yeah. I do know. I know how quickly you forget that we discussed this, and I told you already that it isn't happening till homecoming."
Max's hands tightened on the steering wheel tensely. "Lacey, come on. Tell me why a couple months will make any difference."
"I'll just be more ready," she snapped, feeling testy. "And besides, you promised you'd never push me to do this." Lacey used to blush when discussing with Max their big plan to lose their virginity to one another before they graduated. But now, she only felt annoyed when he mentioned it, which was a lot.
"Hey, who had the idea about The Wisteria Inn?" he shot back. "I believe the words used were 'I want the candles, I want the lingerie, I want the works." So that's all I'm trying to do here-get it planned out for us, okay? And it just makes sense to do it on my birthday. We won't have to worry about being out so late before we can sneak away. I can get the whole night slated off for us. If we wait till after homecoming, there's the dance, there's all the pictures, it's at least midnight before we would get to go anywhere."
Lacey could feel her face grow hot. Sure, she'd romanticized the whole thing before, even though she'd talked to enough of her friends to know the first time was rarely that phenomenal. But lately, her old words about the whole thing had just felt naive-particularly after a girl she knew had recently dropped out of school, pregnant. Lacey was already on birth control to help regulate her cycle, but she knew the pill wasn't foolproof. Did she really want to take a chance like that?
And with Max?
She and Max had met formally through Davy at a pregame party at the beginning of last year's hockey season. Lacey had worked hard the first two years of high school to completely reinvent herself, and she'd experienced a measure of success. She'd taken her hair from mousy brown to champagne blonde, now perfectly straightened with her large barrel curling iron every morning; had received a department store counter makeover; and had updated her wardrobe piece-by-piece. This was all funded by babysitting money she'd determined to spend on nothing else. She was fed up with being "Loopy Lacey" in middle school, especially after having borne the brunt of a particularly cruel prank by the boys in her eighth grade class, that she swore she would make them live to regret it.
And she had. She could feel the stares accumulating when she walked proudly by the lockers on the first day of her freshman year at Robert C. Driskell.
But being pretty and popular with the boys had come at a price: the girls she'd gotten close to in previous years had become so resentful of her transformation, so jealous of and angry at the new Lacey, that they'd walked away and never looked back. Their company at lunch and P.E. during those tumultuous middle school years was what Lacey missed the very most in high school. She was sorry none of them understood the sudden change, but knew they had no idea what it had been like for her all those years since her kidnapping in fourth grade, which had triggered a case of what the psychiatrist had deemed "severe trichotillomania." It caused her to bite her nails until they bled, often when she was unaware, and pull giant chunks out of her hair during the most difficult spells. She'd also suffered from night terrors and blinding flashes of heat that she couldn't always disguise in front of the other kids. So Lacey had finally decided that, however much she'd have to suffer in private, she would no longer allow herself to feel powerless in public. And the confidence boost had worked, plus maybe her job at the cat shelter four days a week. She barely had the spells anymore, and when she did pull, she made as much of an effort to do it on the underside of her hair as possible.
"Loopy Lacey" was a thing of the past.
Meanwhile, in the midst of her loneliness, there was Max. She'd been smitten at first with his tall, broad form and the way he smelled faintly of car grease from his dad's mechanic shop. There were phone calls that lasted all night long, makeout sessions that fogged up the windows of his car, and weekend dates he'd gone out of his way to make romantic. It had been on such a date that they first made their plan for homecoming night. At that time, Lacey had still been giddy over and infatuated enough with Max for butterflies to hatch in her stomach at the very thought of experiencing one of the most important nights of her life with him. But now…
… Well, she wasn't sure what had changed. Was it his temper? The arrogance and bravado that had once made him so irresistible, but now just made him obnoxious?
"Let's just talk about it later. We don't have to have it all figured out tonight."
Max sighed and mumbled, "Whatever."
They drove for twenty minutes in silence until they reached the suburbs of Edina and were surrounded by houses so big and grand that if Lacey hadn't felt intimidated to be coming here before, she surely felt so now.
"The guy's name is Calloway, and his parents are out of town. Todd knows him better than I do," Max finally explained as they pulled up in front of a sprawling Mediterranean-style home, each and every room lit up from the outside. Lacey could hear music as she emerged from the car, though not as loud as she'd expected, doubtlessly because no one would want the cops called on a boisterous house party being thrown by unsupervised teens.
Once they reached the sidewalk, she could practically feel the difference in the atmosphere. The cars parked around them were mostly Maseratis and BMWs. The kids who roamed the well-manicured lawn wore polo shirts and khakis or vests and sleek pencil skirts.
We're not in Kansas anymore, Lacey unwittingly thought. She glanced down at her own outfit-a lavender peasant shirt with flared Levi's and platforms-and suddenly felt self-conscious. She reached up and fingered her choker, wishing she'd looked at her hair one more time in the rearview mirror of the car.
"Hey." Max slid an arm around her waist as they walked. "You look good. More than good. Who're you trying to impress, anyway?" He leaned in for a kiss as they approached the front door. "Huh?" He moved his face in closer to her.
Lacey gave a forced smile and obliged him quickly.
"Oh," Max drew back when she did, looking disappointed. "So that's all I'm gonna get?"
"Lipstick," she reminded him, shifting the bag on her shoulder.
Max turned back to the door, letting out a noisy sigh. Evidently, she'd really put a damper on his spirits tonight. She knew it for sure when, after he entered the house, he disappeared into a sea of people almost immediately.
Not that this was anything new. Max regularly forsook her soon after entering a party to go hang out with his hockey buddies, but those were parties at their own school. Lacey knew no one at Eden Hall, and therefore, was left with nothing to do but stare around, being pushed this way and that by the crowd that roamed through the darkened room carrying drinks and swaying drunkenly to The Notorious B.I.G.
Of course, aside from not knowing anyone here, this precisely fit the template of every other high school party. As Lacey wandered from one room to the next in search of Max, or at least a corner to duck into that wasn't taken up by a couple making out, she saw all the familiar things: the red solo cups, the keg stands, the miniskirts, the glittery eyeshadow…
And suddenly she just felt bored and restless…
When she'd been a freshman or a sophomore, she imagined the life she'd come to lead now, as an upperclassman dating a hockey star, to be the most glamorous thing a girl could achieve. But was it? Why had she ever thought that?
Even more disturbing to Lacey was: why was she suddenly thinking this way? She was tired of Max, of parties… what would be next?
Her mind began to drift toward her little sisters at home. What if she just hitched a ride back there and played monopoly with them for the rest of the night? The way Max had completely ditched her, he deserved to be abandoned like that.
If she went now, she could-
"Hey heeeey!" The drunk loser a couple of feet from her crossed the room in three giant, wobbly steps. "Banksie!"
Lacey rolled her eyes and started to turn away until she caught sight of who had just appeared in the doorway along with a handful of other people: Adam Banks.
She'd kept loose tabs on what Mr. Banks' son had been up to the last few years. He'd started playing for the Ducks when they were nothing more than an upstart team coached by a lawyer pulling community service. His phenomenal talent was part of what had taken them from a losing track record to becoming formidable competition. After they'd defeated the Hawks and then went on to compete for the U.S. in the Junior Goodwill Games, the team was granted a hockey scholarship to play for Eden Hall. That was the latest Lacey had heard, but she recognized him now by his striking features, so familiar, yet sharpened over the last six years of adolescence.
"You finally came!" the boy who had approached Adam swung an arm across his shoulders. "Take a picture, folks!"
Adam winced, then laughed and pushed the boy's arm off. "You know I don't have time for this stuff. Practice and training and all."
"Well, you're here now, right?"
Lacey studied Adam from several feet away, finally jarring herself back to reality and turning away from him. N'Sync began blaring over the stereo system just a short distance from her, emitting a chorus of boos from some boys, and Lacey moved away quickly. There were still times when loud music or noises made her feel like reaching up and pulling out a fistful of her hair. The urge made her skin crawl.
Heading into the kitchen, Lacey was offered a bottle of beer from a grinning guy pulling a new six-pack out of the fridge. She took it, popping off the cap with the bottle opener on the counter. From there, she wandered into the hallway, marveling at how quickly Max had gotten lost. She issued a plastic smile to a girl she knew from her school coming out of a bedroom with a guy she'd never seen before.
Feeling a little overwhelmed by the suffocating closeness of party guests, Lacey found a door to the outside and took it. She stumbled out into the cool night air, taking a few deep breaths. After her head managed to stop spinning, she found a stone bench in the garden to collapse onto. Taking a few more sips of beer, she looked around and came to realize just how lonely she felt. It wasn't Max's absence, necessarily. She could actually feel her loneliest around him.
To distract herself from the negativity train thundering through her thoughts, Lacey took her mind to the Cat's Cradle.
She'd happened upon the cat shelter totally by accident one day earlier in the year while walking home from school a different way than usual. She'd found herself strolling down a short strand of shops on a street she'd all but forgotten, when she saw an older woman donning a spunky side braid standing outside, writing with chalk on the stand-up sign. As she came closer, she saw what was being written:
Three tabby kittens, 3mo, have shots.
The woman looked up at Lacey and smiled as though she'd known her for years. "What a pretty vest!"
"Oh… thank you." Lacey glanced down at her brown and blue striped vest, then back up. "You have kittens?" The question fell from her lips. Looking into the windows of the building behind the sign, she caught a couple of pairs of feline eyes staring back at her.
"Yes! We sure do," the woman beamed, eyes crinkling in a way that reminded Lacey of a warm grandmother. How she wished she'd known her own. "Those are a couple of our more docile cats who aren't up for adoption. We just let them roam around and welcome visitors. That one's Fred," she pointed to a sprightly-looking cat with perked ears. "Then, there we have Gracie Mae." The other was a grey, long-haired cat who blinked lazily at Lacey from her perch.
Lacey smiled at them, approaching the window and tapping very lightly with her fingernail in greeting.
"Do you have cats of your own?"
Lacey shook her head. "My mom and little sisters are all allergic."
"Would you like to come in and meet mine?" the woman, who later introduced herself as Alice, inquired brightly.
And so, Lacey began to walk home past the Cat's Cradle every day. She would often step in to spend time with the cats kept there in large, roomy kennels, and before she knew it, she was officially hired at fifteen hours a week to help care for the animals-perfect timing, as her mom had just told her she needed to be putting some serious thought into finding a job.
"They all need love and a chance to get out and roam around, but there's only a couple of us on staff to give them those things," Alice had told her one day. "Don't let cats fool you, dear. They're self-sufficient, but still affectionate and crave petting. And you'd be the perfect one to help us here."
Soon, Lacey wished she could just live there at Cat's Cradle. It helped her think a little less about herself, and it served to drive out the dark memories that still skulked along beside her everywhere she went. At last, Lacey had found her safe place. And caring for cats was something all her own, the way Max had hockey and her mother had Stuart.
Lacey began to take more frequent sips of beer without realizing it. Before she knew it, she'd nearly downed the entire bottle, and, unaccustomed to drinking much, began to feel a little loose. She knew her mother would never believe she occasionally drank beer at parties. It wasn't something she even necessarily felt good about… it was honestly just a mindless thing to do while holding mindless conversations with mindless people.
After a while, she stood up again, feeling considerably more relaxed and ready to find Max. The promise of Monopoly with Ariel and Halen warmed her.
Close to the French doors leading from the garden back into the house, Lacey noticed a barrel she'd witnessed various people use as a garbage can. She walked toward it and was about to chuck her beer bottle into the barrel just as she heard The Wallflowers taking over the radio from inside. From the sound of it, the entire house was rocking out in unity to "One Headlight." It was a thunderous, overwhelming sound, and Lacey wasn't sure she wanted to be in the middle of it. So she just stood next to the barrel and waited for the song to end, taking a couple more sips.
She remained there awhile, just gazing up at the starry sky, until she heard rustling on the other side of a nearby hedge. Lacey began to back away before stopping short, hearing two voices.
"Okay Banksie, here's what you asked for."
Banksie? Adam Banks?
Lacey stood as still as she could, leaning closer to the hedge so she could hear the exchange above the din of the house party. What followed was the sound of paper rustling. She wondered if it was money.
A laugh followed. "Oh yeah. Scoring dope for rich kids. I've found my jam. You know, if the pain's that bad, why don't you smoke some pot?"
"Tried it," the other voice, presumably Adam, replied hurriedly. "It doesn't work. Just give me the Percocets."
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold onto your balls, dude. Let me count these beans again."
"Oh come on, I brought exactly what you told me to."
"Here. Twenty pills. That enough until tomorrow?"
"Yeah, of course," Adam scoffed. "Twenty pills ought to last me a couple weeks. I'm not looking to get hooked on anything, I just need to keep the pain under control. Coach is starting to put stuff together."
Lacey wrinkled up her nose, feeling disappointment surge through her veins. Adam Banks was a good guy-she'd believed that from her youth. So what was he doing buying pills from some random dealer at a party?
And Percocets!
So much for him turning out to be such a prince, such a variation from the average dumb jock she mostly encountered. Lacey knew very little about street drugs, but she did know about Percocets. She knew they were highly addictive pain pills that athletes were always trying to get ahold of for sports injuries. This was apparently the situation here. But why didn't Adam go to the doctor and get something prescribed?
Hearing that the rave inside was over now, Lacey headed back for the French doors, but in her clumsiness, she hit her foot against the barrel and couldn't regain her balance, crashing into it. The glass bottles clinking around inside made a deafening noise in the night air.
"Great," she muttered. Trying to stand up on platform heels was no joke.
"Hey! Who-?" From around the other side of the hedge, Adam dashed out, slowing down as he caught sight of Lacey trying to pull herself off the ground while still holding her beer bottle. "Hey, are you alright?" He came over and leaned down to help her back up.
"Thanks," she replied as she finally steadied herself, tossing her hair over her shoulder to try to regain some dignity.
Just behind Adam, she caught sight of a shady figure in a ball cap and hoodie taking his opportunity to slink away from behind the bushes.
"Thank you," she repeated, feeling bold all of a sudden. "I just tripped, but I'll be okay, I think. Unless you have a Percocet I could take?"
Adam froze for a moment, blinking. "What?"
"Those Percocets. You know, that you scored behind that bush."
Lacey caught his eyes flash under the garden lights. He was close enough now for her to make out the faint dusting of boyish freckles across the bridge of his upturned nose.
He took a step backward. "How much did you hear?" Adam paused for a moment then said, "Nevermind. It isn't any of your business."
"If something's wrong with you, you should go to a doctor instead of buying pain pills illegally. You could become addicted to them like half the hockey players I know are," Lacey warned. She had a feeling he was about to bolt, so she tried to be quick and concise.
But he lingered, lifting his razor-sharp brows. "I'm not letting myself get addicted to anything, trust me. And anyway, I don't have to explain any of this. I don't even know you."
Lacey shook her head, feeling more than a little disappointed in this boy she had spent years building up in her mind. She turned to walk back inside.
"Hey, listen." Adam swung around in front of her before she could open the door, his demeanor softened and more pleading. "Whatever you heard…can you just…I mean…" he trailed off. "What can I do to buy your silence? I have money. Really. I don't want anybody else finding out about this. I could get kicked off my team, and that would tank-" he broke off for a moment, "... everything. Just name your price."
Lacey frowned, remembering years ago how her mother had warned her about people who thought everyone came with a price tag-people like Adam Banks and his dad. "Sorry, this may come as a surprise to someone like you, but I can't be bought like that."
"God," he closed his eyes, looking sickened. When he opened them again, he was clearly desperate. "I need you to tell no one about this, okay? No one. Least of all Shipley."
She hesitated. "Why would I tell Max?" A shock surged through her. "I thought you said you didn't know me."
"No, I don't know you. I mean yeah, you're Max Shipley's girlfriend-everybody knows that. So just… don't tell him, alright?"
Lacey paused. So she was known to him only because of dating Max, not because of the past. Finally, she let out a deep breath. "It's your own business, so whatever. I'm not saying anything. But... just tell me, why are you getting relief this way? You know it's wrong."
"Like I said, it doesn't matter," Adam's defensiveness returned. "Just forget you ever saw me out here. And speaking of illegal activities, should a sixteen-year-old be drinking beer?" He grabbed the nearly empty bottle from her hands and chucked it into the barrel before pushing past her.
"Uh, seven…. teen…." she called after him, but he didn't wait for an answer.
Okay, so maybe she shouldn't be drinking, but buying and selling Percocets was illegal for good reason.
"Hey babe," a sunglassed figure lurched out at her from the French doors after Adam passed through to the inside. It was Max. "How you doin? Say, it's starting to get lame around here. Wanna go with Brandy and Todd to the lake? Oh, and Colin might string along."
"Actually, no," Lacey replied firmly. "I just want to go home. You can drop me off there on the way."
"What?! Ah, come on! Why not?"
"Because I'm not as drunk as you, that's why not." Lacey wrapped her arms around herself. "And this time of night, the lake will be freezing cold."
Max stared at her for a long time, face falling. "Know what, Lacey? You're no fun anymore. Seventeen going on seventy. Whatever, let's go."
Lacey followed him wordlessly, heading back through the house without taking the hand he offered her as they walked.
Close to the front door, they passed Adam. He was rubbing the back of his neck, eyes darting around nervously. When they caught hers, he held her gaze for a moment, pleading silently.
She kept eye contact for just a moment, before heading out the door.
