The Carlyles (3 page)

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Jack Laurent stuffed her pointe shoes in her regulation pink School of American Ballet dance bag, ignoring the other dancers drinking Vitamin Waters and flirting with the Fordham freshmen gathered around the fountain outside Lincoln Center. This year, Jack was in the prestigious internship program, in which she would take several classes a day in hopes of being selected for performances with the company. She had been dancing for most of her life, and it came as naturally to her as breathing. But today, she’d been half a second behind the music. For the first time, ballet had seemed hard, and Mikhail Turneyev, the internship program director, had noticed every single one of her missteps.

As she walked across the expansive marble plaza, Jack noticed a spot of blood from a blister staining the powder-blue suede Lanvin flats she’d bought at Barneys just this morning.

“Fuck,”
she murmured. Angrily, she pulled off her shoes and threw them in a trash can.
Thud.

One man’s trash is another’s treasure.

She slid her feet into the faded blue J.Crew flip-flops she kept in her bag for when she got a pedicure and sat on one of the low stone benches flanking the reflection pond opposite the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. She glanced at her Treo and saw that her father had called three times while she was in class. She’d consented to bimonthly lunch dates with him at Le Cirque, where he would ask her about school and dance and pretend to care about the answers, but, as a rule, they never called each other just to chat. He wasn’t even aware she’d left the Paris Opera Ballet School of Dance early, and she did not feel like getting into it.

Jack was the unplanned offspring of Vivienne Restoin, the celebrated French prima ballerina, and Charles Laurent, the sixtysomething former American ambassador to France. Vivienne had gotten pregnant when she was twenty-one, and, as she was so fond of reminding Jack, sacrificed her dancer’s body—and her career—for her only daughter. They’d left Paris as a family when Jack was only a year old, but her parents had divorced after a few years in New York together. Her dad had later remarried (a few times) and now lived in a town house with his new wife and the stepbrats in the West Village. Jack pulled out her pack of Merit Ultra Lights, lit one, and exhaled with a dramatic sigh.

“I thought you were giving those up this year.”

Jack whirled around to see her boyfriend, J.P. Cashman, strolling toward her. He was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a neat, pink Brooks Brothers button-down. In his hand was a dog-eared copy of
An Inconvenient Truth
. He’d just come back from an expedition to the South Pole with his real-estate tycoon father, who was trying to ward off a slew of bad publicity by championing the environment. Jack quickly stamped out the cigarette with the heel of her flip-flop. J.P. hated that she smoked, and she usually tried to refrain in his presence, but how was she supposed to know he’d surprise her after class? And didn’t she deserve a teeny-tiny break when it was technically still summer?

“Hi, beautiful.” J.P. pulled her into him and she gripped his strong back as they kissed. He tasted like ginger candy. He rested his hand on her fleshier-than-usual hip.

While taking classes at the Paris Opera, she’d developed an addiction to the pain au chocolat from the bakery down the street from her dormitory.

“Want to grab lunch?” J.P. asked, easily snaking his arm around her waist. She stiffened under his touch, feeling like an extra-plump sausage in a pink leotard casing.

Moving from a size zero to a two is
such
a tragedy.

“As long as it doesn’t actually include food,” Jack agreed, leaning against J.P. They walked hand in hand down Broadway toward Columbus Circle. The streets were crowded with families soaking up the last weekend of summer, and the air felt thick and hot.

“So,” J.P. began, gallantly slinging Jack’s bag over his shoulder, “after the expedition, I was able to connect with this Columbia professor who’s working on sustainability, and I’m actually interning—”

“J.P.?” Jack interrupted. “You didn’t tell me I look pretty.” She knew it might sound pathetic to someone else, but J.P. always told her she looked pretty when he saw her. It was always the first thing out of his mouth and what Jack loved most about him.

Self-centered much?

“Yes, I did. I said, ‘Hi, beautiful.’ That’s the same thing,” J.P. responded, hardly looking at her as he held open the gleaming glass door of the Time Warner Center.

True, Jack reasoned. She hated to demand a compliment, but ever since she’d been kicked out of the Paris Opera program for drinking muscadet alone in her dorm room, she’d been feeling a little shaky. She’d come home early and spent the last two weeks at her friend Genevieve’s sprawling Maiden Lane compound in the Hamptons. Drinking Tanqueray gimlets on the beach hadn’t been a bad way to end the summer, but feeling off during class this morning had brought back the memory of her Paris embarrassment and left her feeling raw.

They took the escalator up to Bouchon Bakery, the casual bistro on the third floor, and sat at a table overlooking Columbus Circle. Cars were backlogged in the traffic circle, and tourists lounged around the fountain at its center. Now that she was back with J.P., Jack felt her old confidence returning. So she’d have to eat salads for a few weeks and spend a few extra hours a week in the studio. Who cared? The most sought-after boy in New York loved her. They were all but destined to get married, live in one of his dad’s luxurious buildings, and take fabulous vacations to rest up from their equally fabulous lives. And in the meantime, maybe this year was finally the year they would do it.
It
it.

That’d be one way to burn calories.

The sound of Tchaikovsky’s
Nutcracker Suite
erupted from Jack’s pink ballet bag. She pulled out her phone and looked at the display. Her father again. Jack grimaced and pressed ignore
.

“Who’s that?” J.P. asked, taking a bite of the grilled cheese sandwich a skinny, goateed waiter had just set down on the table. Jack could feel her stomach growling.

“Charles.” Jack shrugged and grabbed a fry off his plate. One wouldn’t kill her.

“When was the last time you talked to him?” J.P. frowned.

Jack wrinkled her freckled nose. Just because J.P. was close to his own father and had gone on a freaking summerlong father-son Antarctic expedition, he assumed everyone should have the same type of jovial cross-generational relationship. J.P. was perpetually positive, which Jack loved, because it balanced out her tendency to freak the fuck out if someone got her order wrong at Starbucks. Now, though, she wanted his enthusiasm directed toward
her.
They could start by sitting in one of the luxurious leather seats in the screening room of the Cashmans’ apartment, watching
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
or some other ridiculous French film and taking off one article of clothing every time someone lit up a fresh cigarette.

She grabbed another fry. Just thinking about J.P.’s hands on her body made Jack hungry.

Um. Doesn’t she mean
horny?

“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered across the table, dragging her fingers across his tanned upper thigh, pleased when she saw his brown eyes widen excitedly.

Check, please!

R
’s Enchanted Evening . . . or Not

Rhys dove into the tiled twenty-five-meter pool in the basement of his parents’ town house on Eighty-fourth between Madison and Park. He propelled his body through the blue water, slicing it with his strong arms in a desperate attempt to sober up after an afternoon spent drinking with the new guy, Owen Carlyle.

Aren’t you supposed to
drink
water to sober up?

Rhys felt seasick as he stopped to take a break at the other end of the pool. It didn’t help that the pool was decorated with distracting hand-painted Italian folk art tiles depicting starfish, kelp, and octopus. He felt like he was drowning in some developmentally delayed five-year-old’s finger painting.

He glanced at the large, fogproof clock above the teak doors that separated the pool from the rest of the basement fitness center. Seven thirty-five. His girlfriend, Kelsey, was supposed to come over at eight, and they hadn’t seen each other since June. He’d been in Europe all summer, visiting the Welsh estate that had been in his father’s family for generations and spending most of his time at the local pub with his cousins or heading to London via private jet to watch soccer games. Kelsey had been at her Orleans home on the Cape. They had talked on the phone, but less frequently than Rhys would have liked. Between their different schedules and the time difference, they’d kept missing each other—she’d always call when he was asleep; he’d always call when she was at the beach or sitting down to dinner or just not
there
. Now that they finally had the chance to be together, Rhys really didn’t want to be drunk.

He ducked his head under the water and began a fast butterfly. As his strong arms knifed into the water, he got into a rhythm and began to feel better. Butterfly was his favorite stroke because it was both powerful and tender. You had to work with the water and against it at the same time. He’d always thought it was kind of similar to sex.

Not that he would know.

For the whole summer, all Rhys had been able to think about was his and Kelsey’s end-of-year promise: as soon as they saw each other again, they’d make love for the first time.

Make love?
Oh brother.

Rhys and Kelsey had known each other since they were in the same highly selective kindergarten class at All Souls on Lexington. Even then, he’d asked her to be his Valentine, a moment Lady Sterling had caught on tape and replayed every February 14 on her show. They’d begun dating seriously at the beginning of ninth grade and now, like jazz music and red wine, they belonged together.

Tonight, he sort of hoped he wouldn’t have to say anything. They’d be so excited to see each other it would just . . . happen.

“Anyone here?” a voice called out through the steamy air. Rhys stopped mid-stroke, surprised to see Kelsey standing in the doorframe. She was early. She was beautiful. Just seeing the way the delicate gold Me&Ro anklet he’d given her hung from her tan ankle made him feel like he was about to burst.

“Hey.” Kelsey stepped toward the side of the pool, her tan arms wrapped around her chest. Rhys pulled himself up from the ledge and grabbed her in a huge bear hug. Her hair smelled like apples.

“Rhys! You’re all wet!” she giggled, her face breaking into a sunny smile that showed her slightly crooked teeth.

“Sorry about that.” He stepped back and picked up a towel from a nearby bench, knotting it right below his slim hips.

“It’s okay,” Kelsey conceded as she wrinkled her slightly upturned nose and planted a delicate kiss on his lips. She stepped back and wrung out the hem of her knee-length dress. “How are you?”

“Good,” Rhys murmured. “I mean, now I am.” Or at least, he would be soon. He had two bottles of Cristal chilling in his bedroom that he had taken from his banker father’s large stash. And he knew it was cheesy, but he had also gotten two dozen Sterling roses from the florist shop on the corner as he was coming home from the park.

Nothing like drinking forties to bring out a guy’s romantic side.

“Race you?” She raised her eyebrow suggestively, like she knew a delicious secret. Rhys had forgotten how infectious her enthusiasm was. He hated those girls who pretended to be too cool for everything, and Kelsey was the total opposite: everything from
The Starry Night
at MoMA to a Jacques Torres caramel made her smile.

Kelsey bounded up the wide stairs to the main floor of the Sterling town house, which was built with broad, oak beams that made it seem more like an Old English manor house than a mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. All of the furniture was heavy and dark and utilitarian, rescued from various castles throughout Europe, making it look blandly austere, even in the daytime.

As they raced up the wide, red-carpeted stairs at the center of the living room, Rhys couldn’t tear his eyes away from Kelsey’s athletic, freckled calves and the easy swish of her dress. He said a silent prayer that his mother wouldn’t hear them. The last thing he needed was to get into a lengthy conversation about teen trends that would invariably be part of the back-to-school segment on
Tea with Lady Sterling
.

Teen trend: losing your virginity on a bed of rose petals from the bodega on Seventy-ninth and Madison.

He beat Kelsey up the stairs and catapulted into his bedroom suite on the third floor. Quickly he lit the white Bond No. 9 candles he’d bought for the occasion and cued Snow Patrol on his Bose iPod SoundDock. He had just dimmed the lights as she slid through the doorway.

Down boy!

“God, no wonder you’re such a good swimmer. Those stairs are a workout,” Kelsey sighed dramatically, pretending to wipe sweat off her high forehead. Rhys nodded, but was too distracted to smile. Normally he loved her goofiness, but now he wished she could be a little more serious. She surveyed the dim room.

“What’s going on?” Her blue eyes darted from the petal-covered bed to the sound dock to the candles on the windowsill. Rhys quickly pulled the curtains so the summer sunset didn’t peek in. It suddenly seemed a little too over the top to try to have a romantic night together when it was still so light outside. “What’s all this for?”

“I missed you.” He ran his hands through his still-wet brown hair, then awkwardly let them fall back to his sides, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. It was weird just standing there in his bathing suit while Kelsey was fully clothed. It felt dirty, somehow. He wished that his brain didn’t still feel so foggy, and that he hadn’t gotten so drunk when he was hanging out with the new kid.

“I want to show you how much I love you,” Rhys continued, pulling her to him and kissing her. As his lips brushed against hers, the line replayed in his head.
I want to show you how much I love you?
Was that totally cheesy? He suddenly noticed that the water from his bathing suit was puddling on the walnut floor. He hoped it didn’t look like he’d peed himself.

Nothing’s sexier than a good set of Depends.

“That’s sweet.” Kelsey pulled away and sat on the king-size sleigh bed. She pulled her knees tightly to her chest. “Remember when we used to have sleepovers in first grade and your mom would always pull the curtains and pretend it was midnight when it was really only like six o’clock?”

“Let’s talk about that later,” Rhys whispered, kneeling next to her on the bed. He gently kissed her bare shoulder blade as he inched the strap of her dress down her shoulder. Maybe the setting
was
a little too over the top. It was sort of nice with the sunlight pouring in. Kelsey smiled mysteriously and Rhys felt his insides flip-flop. He moved to kiss her collarbone and then her neck, and finally her lips. It was happening. It was finally happening.

There was a loud tapping noise on the door.

Rhys pulled back a little, but he could still feel Kelsey’s hot breath on his cheek. “Hello?” he yelled cautiously.

“Rhys, darling, is Kelsey here? I thought I heard her voice.” It was the strident voice of Lady Sterling, complete with a touch of an English accent, even though she’d been born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, and not Greenwich, U.K. Rhys wondered if she knew what they were doing, or about to do.

“Yeah, Mom,” he mumbled, pulling the towel back around his waist and shaking his head. His mom adored Kelsey. Luckily, the feeling seemed to be mutual. If it wasn’t, Kelsey never complained. It was one of the many things he loved about her.

“How lovely!” Lady Sterling’s voice went up an octave in the actressy way it did when she was in front of the cameras. “Well, I would love to see you both in the solarium for tea. I’m anxious to hear your thoughts for the back-to-school component of the show tomorrow,” she trilled from behind the door.

“Sounds great, Lady S!” Kelsey called back. She smoothed her sundress and hooked her wavy, butterscotch candy–colored hair behind her small ears.

Lady Sterling’s heels clicked away, growing softer as she made her way down the staircase. “We should go down there.” Rhys shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry. Are you mad?”

“No,” Kelsey said, getting up from the bed. “It’s okay. Another time.” She swooped over to the recessed window and blew out a candle. “I’ll go entertain your mom. You can meet us when you get changed,” she added, kissing Rhys on the nose.

Rhys blew out the remaining candles as Kelsey shut his bedroom door. Was it just him, or did she not seem that upset at the interruption? He walked into the adjacent bathroom, turned on the water, and let the steam overtake the room. Maybe it was all in his head. He
was
still sort of drunk, after all.

Maybe. But you know you’re in trouble when there’s more steam in the bathroom than the bedroom.