The Elite (18 page)

“Nonsense,” Madison purred, instantly slipping back into sex kitten role and pulling Drew in for a kiss. “You just
got
here.” Drew tried to move away, but her arms snaked around his neck and held on tight. She was smiling and she was gorgeous, her tanned skin glowing in the moonlight, but for the first time he knew that it wasn’t really enough. It was as 1 6 4

T H E E L I T E

picture- perfect a movie moment as he could’ve hoped for, but Drew couldn’t deny the fact that it just didn’t feel right.
What
are you doing?
the sex- crazed voice inside him called out.
She’s
the hottest girl on the Upper East Side
—
maybe all of Manhattan
—

and you’re leaving her out here on the
sidewalk?

Guess so,
Drew thought, shifting his weight uneasily, and trying to avoid her green- eyed gaze.
Maybe I’m an idiot,
he thought, looking down at her long, tanned legs and perfect, light pink pedicure.
Okay, I’m
definitely
an idiot, but idiot or
not, I don’t think I can do this anymore
.

“Really, Mad, I’ve got to go.” Drew said as he pried her arms from his neck and broke away. Without another word, he turned and began to walk very briskly toward home. He didn’t dare turn back.

1 6 5

mani, pedi,

meltdown

Sophie leaned back on a pile of burgundy and gold silk pillows at the Jin Soon spa, and sighed luxuriously as a tiny Asian woman with chopsticks protruding from her sleek, dark hair placed Sophie’s feet into a basin of warm milk, the scent of raw organic honey drifting across the room. Sophie always felt so relaxed the moment she walked in the door of the tiny salon with its walnut woodwork and gleaming silk, earth- toned pillows and fabrics. The salon was so soothing that she’d probably still come even if the experience was less than amazing—luckily for her, the pedicures were to die for. Besides, Sophie always did some of her best thinking during her weekly mani/pedi while her hands and feet were being massaged with honey and essential oils—and this Saturday was no exception.

T H E E L I T E

Sophie flexed her toes in the hot, fragrant milk and perused the selection of polishes, her hand hovering over OPI’s Her Royal Shyness, a light, iridescent pink that looked completely fabulous with a tan and strappy sandals. The weirdest thing about being adopted was how
not
weird it was. Even though the news had been hard to take at first (Okay, that was an understatement), when the word
adopted
fell from her mother’s lips, all the disconnected puzzle pieces of her life suddenly fell into place. In a way it was strangely liberating: She didn’t have to worry about fitting into her crazy family anymore because they weren’t actually her family at all, not biologically. Not that she was speaking to any of them at this moment anyway . . .

The bell on the front door tinkled softly, and Sophie looked up to see Phoebe standing in the doorway wearing a Miss Sixty jean skirt with a Free People orange tank shot through with gold thread, a stack of gold bangle bracelets climbing halfway up her bronzed arm. Phoebe’s face lit up when she spied Sophie lounging against the cushions in the back of the room, and she raised her hand, waving happily, her brown eyes shining.

Come over
, Sophie mouthed, waving back.

’Kay
, Phoebe mouthed back, holding up one index finger in the air while conversing briefly with the receptionist, a thin Asian woman dressed head- to- toe in black linen.

As Phoebe crossed the room, Sophie wondered if she should tell her about being adopted. So far she hadn’t told anyone—

until today, she really didn’t know how she felt about it herself.

1 6 7

J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

Her feelings seemed to change every five minutes, and whenever she thought about meeting her biological mom, her thoughts raced like a socialite in the depths of a cocaine binge. Besides, she wasn’t sure that she wanted Madison to find out yet. And Phoebe’s only real fault was that she couldn’t keep a secret to save her life—either she came right out and told Madison everything, or she was such a bad liar that Madison figured it out, wheedling and whining it out of her in a matter of minutes.

“Hey!” Phoebe said brightly, leaning over to air- kiss Sophie on both cheeks. When she leaned in, Phoebe’s shiny, dark hair fell across Sophie’s face, and Sophie could smell the familiar scent of Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue—Phoebe’s signature perfume. “I
thought
I might run into you here.”

“Well, duh!” Sophie laughed as Phoebe plopped down beside her, pulling off her tangerine Kate Spade ballet flats as Sophie pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I only come here every Saturday!”

“True dat,” Phoebe muttered while choosing her polish, finally settling on The Thrill of Brazil—a hibiscus red that brought out the caramel tones in her tanned skin. “Which pedi should I get?”

“I’m having the milk and honey.” Sophie sighed, closing her eyes as her feet were patted dry with a soft terry towel.

‘I always get that one,” Phoebe said, shaking the bottle of polish vigorously and holding it up to the light.

“That’s because it’s the best,” Sophie said smugly as lavender and vanilla essential oils were massaged onto the soles of her still slightly damp feet.

1 6 8

T H E E L I T E

“Maybe I’ll get the Summer Oasis,” Phoebe mused as she looked at the list of ser vices on a white, laminated card near the pedicure station. Another tiny Asian woman came out from the back, sitting down at Phoebe’s feet and smiling. Sophie wondered if they somehow manufactured them in a storage room or something. They reminded her of the set of Rus sian dolls her father had brought home for her on his last business trip to St. Petersburg, one fitting snugly inside the next.

“So what are you doing here?” Sophie wondered aloud.

“Didn’t you just get a pedi on Tuesday?” The bracing scent of mint and cucumber wafted over as Phoebe immersed her feet in a basin of spring water and fresh cucumber slices and mint leaves.

“Yeah,” Phoebe said, leaning back on the burgundy cushions, “but I really wanted to get out of the house.” Phoebe frowned, bringing her hands up to her temples, massaging her head with her index fingers and closing her eyes.

“Why—what’s going on?” Sophie asked, turning her body to face Phoebe. Well, as much as she could with her feet in someone else’s hands.

“Nothing,” Phoebe muttered. “You know—the usual.”

“Are they fighting again?” Sophie asked tentatively as the first sweeping strokes of polish were applied to her toenails.

She knew that Phoebe’s parents weren’t exactly enjoying a second honeymoon recently. The last time she’d hung out at Phoebe’s place she could hear the Reynauds arguing halfway down the hallway before she even rang the doorbell. Not that she could understand what they were saying anyway, as they 1 6 9

J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

fought both lightning fast and in French. When she’d asked Phoebe about it, Pheebs brushed the whole thing off with a curt, “Don’t worry about it,” and turned the music up in her bedroom to deafening levels, drowning out the sound of shouting.

“When are they not?” Phoebe said with a sigh. “Don’t say anything to Mad, but it’s getting really bad lately.”

“I won’t say anything,” Sophie promised, trying her best to look sincere. Although she felt bad for Pheebs, she knew that if Madison asked her point- blank about the Reynauds, Sophie would probably crumble under her unrelenting stare. And, besides, what fun was it hearing other people’s darkest secrets if you couldn’t ever repeat them? Which was exactly why she wasn’t going to tell Phoebe anything about her own completely screwed-up family . . . not yet, anyway.

“So what’s going on with them?” Sophie asked as a shiny topcoat was brushed onto her now pearly- pink toenails.

“They just fight all the time—and I really hate that Bijoux has to hear it.”

Sophie smiled, picturing Bijoux’s round face covered by tiny Versace aviators. “Your sister is
such
a brat.”

“Oh, please—it’s not like your brother would win any prizes for Sibling of the Year either.” Phoebe threw Sophie a look that matched the skepticism in her voice, arching one dark brow as they broke into a mass of giggles.

Sophie rolled her eyes in agreement. “I know—having him home again is a total nightmare.”

“Why did he get kicked out of Exeter anyway?”

1 7 0

T H E E L I T E

“Knowing Jared, he probably got the headmaster’s wife pregnant or something,” Sophie snorted, holding her feet up in front of a tiny, whirring fan. “Or failed Algebra.”

“It’s so weird,” Phoebe mused, “I haven’t seen him in, like, two years.”

“Lucky for you. I have to see his dumb ass every day—and it killing me. How does everyone expect me to adjust?” Sophie whined, crossing her arms over her chest. “I mean, he’s been gone forever, and I’ve had the place practically to myself. Now he’s back, throwing his stinky kicks everywhere, calling me

‘bra,’ eating all my food, and, worst of all, cluttering up the apartment with his stupid surfing magazines. I didn’t even know he could
read
.”

“Ugh,” Phoebe moaned as her feet were enveloped in a soft towel and rubbed dry. “You’re right—it sounds like a nightmare. I officially have no right to be complaining about
anything
. I’m sorry to break it to you, babe,” Phoebe said archly,

“but your life is a total disaster.”

“I know it,” Sophie mumbled, slipping her feet into those delicate paper sandals that were the telltale sign of a girl post-pedicure. She knew that Pheebs had been joking, but she found herself wondering if her life really
was
a disaster right now . . .

and if it might just be getting worse. The fact that she was adopted certainly answered a lot of questions on her current home front—but what about that other home she had somewhere, the home of her biological mother? With the way things were going lately, why would meeting her bio- mom actually change anything? And what if things just got even
worse
? Even 1 7 1

J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

if she met her real mom, that didn’t mean they were guaranteed to get along just because they happened to dip into the same gene pool. Plus, she’d be the weird girl with two moms now.

Instead of the boring, totally normal family life she’d always thought she had, she’d have this bizarre, fractured family. If she met her bio- mom and they did get along, her life was bound to turn into a made-for-

TV movie, where she’d see her real

mother once a month on Saturdays or something. And what if her real mother wasn’t even single? Then she’d not only have a new mom, but a new stepdad, too . . . Sophie sighed, looking down at her gleaming toes. She could barely handle the family she had—what made her think she’d do any better with a new one?

As Sophie sat there waiting for her toes to dry, a weird prickly sensation came over her, and goosebumps sprung up on her bare arms and legs. As much as she wanted and needed to think positively about the whole situation, and as much as she hoped that her real family would make her feel like she finally fit in, Sophie couldn’t help wondering if finally belong-ing somewhere might just make her feel more like an outsider than ever . . .

1 7 2

love . . .

and

other

bodily fluids

Casey s tepped through the revolving door s of the Guggenheim Museum, rolling around twice before finally stumbling out into the frigid air of the lobby. She hated revolving doors with a passion. The only purpose they served, as far as she could tell, was to make her feel even more gawky and uncoordinated than usual. Casey looked up, taking in the gently sloping floor and multilevel, all- white interior, which spi-raled up like some sort of bizarre wedding cake. The museum was so cold, clean, and modern that Casey felt like she was encased in ice as she walked to the ticket counter, pulled out a twenty- dollar bill Nanna had slipped her from the back pocket of her much maligned, pink Abercrombie skirt, and handed it to the cashier.

J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

The Guggenheim had one of the largest collections of modern art in the world, and, amazing as the permanent collection was, Casey wasn’t exactly kung- fu fighting with the revolving doors on that par tic u lar Saturday afternoon due to her undying love for all things artistic. She was there for two reasons. The first reason had to do with her mother calling her last night, specifically to inform Casey of the Kiki Smith retrospective opening today. When Casey had seemed less than enthused, the conversation had degenerated into Barbara screaming that it was her feminist duty to go and get some culture instead of hanging out with a bunch of brainless, bobblehead dolls, wasting her time on manicures, pedicures, or holistic, new- age enema cures. Casey didn’t know what was worse—the echo on the transatlantic line, the weirdly Madonnaesque British accent her mother seemed to be developing, or the headache Barbara’s diatribe instantly produced in her skull.

“You’re less than ten blocks from the greatest modern art museum in the world!” Barbara had shrieked as Casey held her phone away from her ear so that she wouldn’t go sponta-neously deaf. “Take advantage of it!” And after a glamorous morning spent eating dry cereal out of the box and moping around the apartment, taking in some art didn’t seem like such a bad idea. After all, it wasn’t like she had any other exciting options . . .

The second—and most important reason—was that Nanna’s apartment had been infiltrated by a gaggle of bloodthirsty old bats who probably were, at this very moment, gambling like a pack of drunken sailors on a twenty- four- hour shore leave.

1 7 4

T H E E L I T E

From the moment Nanna’s weekly bridge game with “the girls”

began, Casey knew that she needed to flee the scene ASAP. “The girls” weren’t exactly girls at all—but a decidedly unruly group of blue- haired old ladies who promptly took over the apartment with the force of a tsunami—and were, unfortunately, all about brewing endless pots of tea, munching on chocolate chip cookies from Dean & DeLuca, and asking a ridiculous number of embarrassing questions.