Chapter Text
“ Go long! Go long!
I want something better than you!
Go long! Go long!
I want something better than you!
‘Course I d--”
Clumsy with sleep, Maria fumbles her buzzing phone and eventually manages to hit the tiny ‘Stop’ button under the ‘Snooze’. Once her room is silent again, she flops onto her back with a groan. It’s 7:30 AM, which means she got five solid hours in. Not bad. Her bed is big and soft enough for her to stretch out her arms as if making a dry, luxurious snow angel, her phone lying haphazardly beside her pillow. “Welcome back to the world, Maria,” she murmurs to herself. The tall windows of her bedroom are covered with heavy velvet curtains, which she throws aside to breathe in the early sunlight. Outside and a couple stories below, a sleek black electric car is pulling out into the long driveway across their beautifully landscaped lawn; Uncle Georgiy is off to work.
A black satin chemise, lace-collared, falls cleanly against the long legs she shaved last night as she makes her way over to the antique vanity facing the foot of her bed. It’s only one of the many mirrors in her large and aesthetically particular bedroom, but it’s her favorite-- a family heirloom. In its reflection, she finds that some of her eye makeup from last night is still on, which is just fine. Her eyes are bleary, brown, and ringed with exhaustion.
First, she pumps some specialty foundation, paler than she is, from the dispenser on the vanity table and smears it over her face, watching the skin move like clay under her hand as she covers it. She then takes a half-empty eyeliner pen from one of the teak drawers and draws spiky lines like a doll’s eyelashes from her lower eyelid to accentuate the dark smudges already there, then adds a short, heavy wing to each eye that makes them look almost downturned. Next come dark, flared eyelashes, and she pencils her brows in an expressive black, then lines and colors her lips in black again, and contours her cheeks with a flick of the wrist. She doesn’t brush her hair-- she likes the way her pillows tease it up; it’s a little bit horror movie monster .
She gets dressed quickly, since it’s easy to put together an outfit when all your clothes follow the same color scheme and everything you wear is a statement. Her leather backpack is lined with silver zippers and spikes; she grabs it from its hook on the wall on her way out of the bedroom, and her skirt trails on the stairs behind her as she ghosts her hand down the banister of the stairs.
The rest of the house is far less gothic than her little wing, mostly clean art nouveau, always on the cutting edge of modernism. In the kitchen, Maria’s brother hunches over a bowl of cereal while their father fries eggs.
“Morning,” she greets Khan, settling herself on one of the tall stools next to his, and steals a raspberry from a little dish in front of him. He’s wearing a clean blue button-up, tucked neatly into his pants. It’s adorable.
“That was mine,” he protests in lieu of a hello, cutting her a resentful look.
She shrugs, popping the raspberry into her mouth. “Who are we picking up today?”
Victor turns around to see Maria. “Morning, pumpkin,” he says, though his eyes narrow slightly at her outfit, or as much of it as he can see over the kitchen island. “Is that what you’re wearing?” She rolls her eyes at him, and he turns back to his eggs.
“I’ll have a look,” Khan muses, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his texts. “Sticky says he wants a ride, if we can make it.”
“That isn’t too far, I suppose,” Maria replies. “We’ll have to get going soon. We’re driving the girls, too.”
“Why can’t they ever pick us up?” Khan grumbles.
“Because my car is the best, and I always drive,” Maria replies simply, taking out her own phone to scroll idly through one of her many feeds.
She’s distracted when her father taps the counter in front of her with the bottom of his frying pan before turning his eggs out onto a plate. “Are you going to get breakfast on the way?” Victor asks.
“Yeah, we’ll probably drop by that new drive-thru on 25th or something,” she answers, focusing back on her phone as she twists a lock of hair around two fingers.
“Are you going to get in trouble for dressing like that?” he follows up, almost as hard to deter as Maria is. He nods to her sheer lace top as if she can’t tell what he’s talking about.
“As if anyone would even try to mention it,” she replies dryly, without looking up this time. It’s true; once in sophomore year she was dress-coded for showing a bra strap too brazenly, and the resulting fallout-- including a week of intentionally outlandish clothing choices and a particularly rousing speech on a lunch table-- caused an emergency meeting of the school feminist club, student council, and administration. When Khan’s finished eating, he gets his backpack and Maria straps herself into six-inch platform heels, and the two siblings wave goodbye to their father.
Maria’s car is her baby, a carmine red Porsche Taycan 4S-- an 18th birthday gift from her boyfriend. Khan claims the passenger seat, which is already adjusted to his liking, and lets Maria dump her backpack in his lap.
“Will you help me practice driving again this weekend?” Khan asks as Maria navigates carefully along the driveway in reverse. A gated estate in a gated community; such is the elite bubble the Kains live in. Maria hates how the distance clouds her vision. “He offered, but-- I can’t stand the way he manages me.” Meaning Victor, naturally.
“It’s intolerable,” Maria agrees, looking from her window up to her rearview mirror. Once they’re on the road proper, she shifts into drive and turns on her music. “I’ll teach you everything he taught me, but I’ll try to be less of an asshole about it.”
Khan nods. “Are you sure this counts as music?” he teases, and she shoves him. A California morning, even in the dead of winter, shines bright against the gleaming doors of the Taycan as they race down the streets, just a couple miles over the speed limit. Homes quickly become smaller and less fantastical than the Kains’ mansion.
Their first stop is a blocky, fairly modern, reasonably nice apartment building. Maria gives two quick honks of the car’s horn, then rolls down the window as two girls come running out of the lobby. “Hey, freaks!” she calls to them, leaning out the window.
Anna Angel slides in first, setting her heavy-duty backpack on the floor at her feet and situating the layered petticoats of her dress in just the right way under her. Eva Yan stops outside the car as Anna gets in; says Eva, “Oh, Maria, your makeup looks nightmarish.”
Maria gives Eva a rare grin. “Thank you. I see you didn’t get a chance to change after the Juicy Couture photoshoot.” Laughing, Eva gets into the car, swinging her light drawstring bag in after her. As the door closes and her friends fasten their seatbelts, she says, “We’re picking up Khan’s friend Sticky, so put the middle headrest in.”
“We know Sticky,” Eva says, as if reprimanding Maria for implying they might not remember. Anna makes eye contact with Maria through the mirror and shakes her head in a subtle confession.
Once everyone has fastened their seatbelts, Maria nods into the mirror as she lifts her platform off the brake. “Who do you have today, angel?” she asks while Eva struggles to fix a square headrest into the back of the flat middle seat.
Anna’s eyes light up, and she unzips the novelty anatomically-correct heart-shaped purse that accompanies her everywhere to pull out a small doll with a frilly collar and red cheeks painted onto her porcelain face. “This is Aurora,” Anna says, lifting the doll up so Maria can see her in the mirror. “I got her from the vintage mall last week! Isn’t she darling? They call me when they get a new clown doll in, you know.”
“And I’m the nightmarish one?” Maria asks Eva, who has finished getting the middle seat ready.
“I like clowns,” Eva says with a shrug, then leans forward to tap the side of Khan’s seat. “Hey, how was skiing? Maria told us you had a lovely time.”
Khan turns in his seat to talk to Eva. “It was alright. I was just glad to be out of the house over the holidays. My father and I always fight when I’m home too much-- oh, and I’ve never been to Colorado before. You should have come, Maria.”
Flipping her turn signal on, Maria clicks her tongue. “As much as I liked skiing the one time we went, Anna’s aerial performance was simply can’t-miss,” she says, and reaches one hand back. Smiling, Anna reaches forward to wiggle the tips of her fingers against Maria’s.
“She was amazing,” Eva fawns. “She looked like she was flying! Maria can show you the video, Khan, it was breathtaking.”
“Did it go well?” asks Khan.
Anna’s smile widens. “Everyone liked it… not just Eva.” The two girls in the back laugh, and Maria smiles. “It was very well-received, I admit.”
Soon enough, she pulls up beside a small and well-loved house in a more industrial part of town, and once again lays on the horn. After a moment, the door opens and a yellow-haired boy of Khan’s age runs out, with a big backpack riding high on his shoulders and a brown paper bag held tight in one hand. Sticky climbs into the Taycan and squeezes himself uncomfortably past Anna to sit down in between the girls.
“Aw, did your daddy pack a lunch for you?” Maria mocks as she swerves into the street once again, letting Sticky fumble with the buckle of his seatbelt.
“I’ll bet he even left a note,” Anna jumps in, tugging at Sticky’s bag.
“You two are so mean-- and only because you don’t have good relationships with your own fathers,” Eva teases, helping Sticky get settled.
“And?” asks Anna. “You don’t even have a father.”
“Try to keep up the energy, Eva,” Maria agrees. Eva giggles.
“He did leave a note,” says Sticky at last, sitting back with his backpack on his lap and a neutral scowl on his face. “But it’s breakfast for all of you.”
“Oh, give it here,” says Khan, reaching back. Sticky takes two halves of a sandwich and puts them in Khan’s hand.
Maria holds her hand out, palm flat, and waits without taking her eyes off the road as Khan unwraps one triangle and gives it to her. Meanwhile, Sticky passes out muffins and mandarin oranges to Eva and Anna. “Did you ask him about Friday?” Maria asks once she’s taken a bite of her sandwich.
“Yeah,” Sticky says. “I had to listen to him talk about responsibility and how he’d rather I do it at home than somewhere else and all that, but he says it’s fine as long as we keep it to twenty people or less.”
“How exclusive,” Maria jokes, eyes flicking up to admire her makeup in the rearview mirror.
Eva’s eyebrows rise, her blunt fingernails digging into the peel of her orange. “Ooh, a party?”
“I believe I have some Grey Goose tucked away still,” Anna offers after she swallows. “Enough for everyone but the boys.”
“I’ll handle the rest,” says Maria. “Caspar, Sticky, choose some of your friends and we’ll make sure to keep it under twenty in total. Loath would I be to make a Kaina function non-inclusive of the underclassmen.”
Sticky sighs. “I think we’re going to be late,” he says, with a note of stress in his voice. “You drive too slow.”
“Don’t say that,” Khan and Eva react in unison. After another bite of breakfast, Maria smiles and steps on the accelerator.
When they reach the school, Maria pulls into a parking spot by the entrance that isn’t marked with a reservation, but that everyone implicitly knows to leave open for her. Sticky and Khan scurry out of the car and up to the school, but the girls hang back as Anna digs a comb out of her purse and runs it through her pale hair.
“If you’re going to drive so fast, would you at least close the windows? We don’t all relish in looking like banshees,” Anna remarks coldly.
“I’ve given up,” Eva admits, raising her hands to show that she’s no help to Anna. “That’s why I always wear a ponytail.” She bobs her head to the pop-rock anthem playing in her earbuds, as Maria turns the car off and scrolls through her notifications.
“You wear a ponytail because you’re a prep,” Maria corrects. Anna laughs and returns her comb to her purse. “Alright, first day back. Let’s roll.”
The three girls step out of the car at the same time, sling their backpacks over their shoulders, and slam their doors shut in tandem. This procession to the school doors has been practiced for two years, and none of them miss a beat. Eva follows Maria up past the front bumper of the car and Anna falls in beside Eva seamlessly. From the moment the car doors open, the eyes of everyone milling about the front doors are drawn to them, but few dare to make eye contact.
Two fellow seniors do meet their eyes, hanging around a stone banister, and the trio alter course just enough to swing past them without breaking formation. Andrey Stamatin straightens up as Anna and Eva trade places in the chevron, pulling Eva aside for just a moment to kiss her hello before he takes her hand and joins her on the trek up the stairs. Pushing his long hair out of his face, Peter Stamatin hops down from his perch to circle around behind the three girls and let Anna hook her hand through the crook of his elbow.
Maria shrugs off her backpack and holds it out imperiously for Andrey to carry for her, which he does. “I thought you were still in jail, delinquent,” she says by way of a greeting.
She can’t see him, but she knows Andrey’s raising his free hand in a demonstrative shrug. “Vlad bailed me out,” he replies. “Say what you will about him-- and I will-- but he loves to throw his money around.”
“Oh, doesn’t he,” she echoes, and tosses her head back to share a dramatic look with Peter.
When they reach the top of the stairs, the Stamatins step for a brief moment in front of Maria to open the double doors before her and let the girls through. Crowded halls part like oil and water before the three girls and their entourage. Six foot seven in her heels, Maria is godlike. Eva giggles on Andrey’s arm, which somehow dampens the high Maria gets from this ridiculous power. Still, they don’t stop until they reach their lockers, three in a row with Maria’s in the middle. The front of Eva’s locker is decorated with stickers and a whiteboard for people to leave her messages-- not the best idea, Anna warned her, and yet somehow the messages she finds are only ever adoring, and people will stop by to see if she’s left a note for the public. Anna’s locker is covered in fantastic drawings she and Peter did in permanent marker last year, of clowns and cartoon characters and colorful patterns. Maria’s locker is adorned simply with a row of black spikes under the vent. Inside she keeps books, a makeup kit, an umbrella, a black lace parasol, and a red dress for emergencies. A few folded notes, which someone has slipped secretively through the vent, are scattered on the floor, and Maria never bothers to touch them, although sometimes Eva or Anna will read through them for a laugh.
“You should show Aurora to Peter,” Maria says idly as she digs through her backpack, unpacking what she doesn’t need for class. “Peter, you’ll like this one. Her hair is adorable.”
“Did you get a new doll, Anna?” Peter asks, and Anna excitedly pulls out the little clown and begins to tell her friend the whole story. On Maria’s other side, Eva and Andrey are blatantly breaking the school’s rules against public displays of affection. Maria rolls her eyes.
“Good morning, Maria,” says a voice behind her, and a cruel smile spreads across her lips as she stops messing with her backpack. Deadpan, she turns smoothly around, and Eva and Anna’s attention is torn from the Stamatin twins to focus on the offense of bothering Maria.
“Dankovsky,” she says slowly, as if tasting it, as she looks the pale young man up and down and crosses her arms. “What drowned Victorian child dressed you today, freak?”
“Hello, Daniil,” Eva offers.
“I-- hello, Eva--” he says, adjusting his grip on the birkin bag he carries his books in for some goddamn reason. He isn’t nervous, just thrown off-beat by her interjection. His three-inch platforms only make up for half the height of Maria’s heels rather than making him closer to her height, which in turn makes his attempts at being condescending absolutely hilarious with the nine-inch difference between them. “I see you’ve been to Hot Topic again, Maria.”
“What are you going to do, diagnose her with a wandering womb?” Anna retorts. “You look like a nineteenth-century lobotomist.” Maria holds her hand up for a high-five in approval, and Anna follows through.
“Maria never buys into fast fashion,” Eva warns Daniil. “Everything she wears is vintage or locally made.”
He waves her off. “I was wondering if you’d heard back from Yale. I got my letter from Harvard three days ago, welcoming me into next year’s class.” The tone in his voice makes it clear his announcement, not the question, is the point of this conversation.
“So your father remembered to slip a twenty in your application envelope, did he?” Maria asks with a quirked eyebrow, altogether unimpressed. “I missed the early action deadline for Yale, so I won’t hear back for a while yet. Luckily, my sense of self-worth doesn’t hinge upon being accepted by soulless institutions.”
Dankovsky’s expression darkens. “You’re trying to shame me for caring about my future when you barely put a thought to your own. I do hope that by the time I’m a respected doctor, you’ve become more than a burnt-out trophy wife.”
“You may become a doctor, but I doubt you’ll ever be respected.” Maria slings her backpack over her shoulder and slams her locker shut. “Now why don’t you make like Percy Bysshe and get lost.” With that, she starts off down the hall, and Eva and Anna are quick to follow.
“Good one, Maria,” calls a dark-haired teacher from the nearby door of her classroom with the slightest smile. Maria pauses and waves loosely; it’s unusual to hear Ms. Ravel speak so loudly.
“I didn’t get it,” Eva admits to both Maria and their favorite English teacher.
“Percy Bysshe Shelley was lost at sea,” Ms. Ravel explains. “He was Mary Shelley’s husband.”
“They cremated him when his body washed ashore,” Maria adds with a dark smile, “but his heart didn’t burn, and Mary kept it for the rest of her life.”
“How awful,” says Anna, who already knew this.
“How romantic,” sighs Eva. “Thank you, Lara!”
Ms. Ravel shakes her head, dismissing the thanks. “Don’t be late to class, girls.”
The river of students once again parts before her as she and her friends say little goodbyes and separate. Peter falls in with Maria, riding her wake, and asks if the poetry club will be meeting today. She gives him a wink and a nod.