The Elite (5 page)

“Sure. Thanks,” she said, reaching for the drink and immediately taking a large gulp, then nearly spitting it out as the rum burned its way through her throat. She had never drank much hard liquor before—she didn’t really like the taste of it, or the way it went all burny down your throat. In fact, the sum of her drinking experience had consisted of bottles of Boone’s 3 6

T H E E L I T E

Farm and sips off of 40- ozs handed to her by cute boys at bon-fires. “So do you have, like, fake IDs or something?” she said after recovering from the shock of the rum. “None of my friends in Normal had fakes—you have to go to Chicago to get one—but we’d sometimes get older boys to buy beer for parties and stuff . . .”

“Come on, Casey,” Phoebe said, cutting her off. “When you’ve had a rack like Madison’s since age thirteen, you don’t
need
a fake. Fakes are totally for fugs.”

“Oh . . . fugs. Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Casey said, desperately wishing she hadn’t blown it again. Could she say nothing right? And Sophie didn’t look like she was going to throw her any more lines—she was too busy digging through her white quilted- leather Chanel tote, trying to find her cell phone, which was beep- beeping a muffled, high- pitched rendition of

“Sexy Back”—something Casey clearly needed to bring a bit of herself if she was ever going to compete with The Bram Clan.

“That was Drew,” Sophie said, having found her metallic gold phone and spoken into it for only a matter of seconds,

“He’s headed over to say, ‘What up?’ ”

“Kill me,” Madison said with less emotion than a cadaver, pulling her shades down and covering her eyes. “And I was honestly beginning to think that I wouldn’t have to deal with his Aberzombie- ass until Monday.”

“I know—it’s like a miniature herd of embroidered moose make their home on the clothes on his back. He should win an award for animal conservation or something,” Sophie said, carelessly tossing her cell in the general direction of her bag.

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

Casey rearranged herself so she could oh- so- casually drape her arm across her thigh, covering up the formerly tiny moose emblazoned on the hem of her skirt that now seemed larger life. Obviously, the A&F stuff would have to go, too.
I’m
going to have to burn my entire wardrobe
, she thought with no small degree of horror. She looked up from her doomed skirt to see a tall boy with thick, disheveled brown hair and blue eyes shot through with red standing behind Madison’s head.

Casey couldn’t help but notice that he had the most adorable dimple in his chin, and that the arms poking out of the sleeves of his T-shirt were golden and faintly muscled.

“Observe,” he said mockingly in a terribly rendered Australian accent, “as the rare species of
Uppereastsidiusgirlius
basks in the sunlight of their natural habitat.” He squatted down to pull of Madison’s sunglasses. “Like dolphins with their love of sex, these are one of the only species of mammals that hunt men and buy clothes
for plea sure.
”

He wore Diesel jeans and a fitted white T-shirt, a brown leather bag slung over one shoulder; a hip, modern James Dean for her Natalie Wood with a perm and a decidedly—and unfortunately—more spindly figure. It was lust at first sight.

“Drew,” Madison said, coolly turning her face away in order to keep her sunglasses in place, and as she did so Casey got the feeling that behind those dark shades Madison hadn’t even opened her eyes to recognize his presence. “When are you going to learn that trying to get a rise out of me is
never
going to get me interested in the, ah- hem,
rise
you get from seeing me in a bikini.”

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T H E E L I T E

Drew nodded to Sophie and Phoebe, and began to speak again, sans accent, as his eyes meet Casey’s, completely imper-vious to Madison’s insults: “I didn’t learn much Dutch on my trip,” he said, “that is, except for one phrase:
Hallo, mooi
meisje
.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Phoebe.

“Hello, beautiful.”

“Drew,
get over yourself,
” Madison half- screamed as Sophie and Phoebe laughed. But Casey just sat quietly, feeling the shame of her Target faux pas slip away under a wave of giddy delight, for he was still looking straight at her—the pickup line, as pathetic as it might have been, was for her, not Madison.

“So, Madison, who’s your new friend?” Drew asked after managing to steal her sunglasses and cover his own eyes with their gigantic frames. “Do these make me look more Chelsea?”

he added, as Phoebe and Sophie giggled helplessly.

Madison’s perfectly tan veneer was beginning to crack under the barrage of Drew’s playful jabs. From listening to only a few minutes of their banter, Casey could tell that Drew knew how to hit all of her buttons, while Madison’s image of absolute perfection was tarnished by the fact that she didn’t know how to hit any of his. But they did have chemistry—that was undeniable.

“I’m Casey,” she chimed in, “Casey McCloy. I just moved in with my grandmother at The Bramford.” Great. Why did she say that? She sounded like she was five years old and rolling around in a playpen, a sippy cup in one hand and a pacifier in the other.

3 9

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

“Well, welcome to Manhattan. Would you like a private tour?” Drew said, raising one eyebrow.

“What did you have in mind?” Casey quipped, completely shocked by the fact that she was
flirting
with Madison’s pseudo- boyfriend. Was it the mojito? The noxious cloud of spray tan floating around her head and into her nostrils? It had to be something.

“I’ll start by showing you around school on Monday and we’ll go from there,” Drew said, taking off Madison’s glasses, perching them on her head, and standing up to leave. “And now we leave this pack of
Uppereastsidiusgirlius
,” he whispered, again in the Australian accent, as he slowly backed away toward the cement pathway, “and what an
incredible
encounter it has been.”

The four girls remained silent until Drew was out sight.

But the silence was decidedly different than the hush that fell after the Target bikini incident. Madison had lowered her sunglasses, but in spite of the way they masked her expression, Casey could positively feel Madison’s eyes burning holes in her shirt from behind the smoky lenses.

“Well
somebody
would like to get him some Normal,”

Sophie said after what had seemed like hours.

“Yeah,” Phoebe chimed in, slipping a white cashmere tank from TSE over her head. “And no Abercrombie
anywhere.

Guess he’s over it.”

“Casey,” Sophie said, grabbing her arm and squeezing excitedly, “he couldn’t keep his eyes
off
of you. He was com-4 0

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pletely adorkable!” She turned to Madison, smiling slyly. “I mean did you see him, Madison?”

Madison sat in stony silence. Her face behind her huge sunglasses was impassive, and all at once, Casey’s pulse began to race. Madison delayed her responses for so long that it gave the impression that she was—as always—the one leading the conversation, the one in charge. And this subtle reminder was making Casey massively uncomfortable. She took a deep breath in and let it out, furiously searching her pink Coach wristlet for a hair tie—just to have something to do.
Great
, she thought,
I’ve
only been here one day and I’ve managed to alienate the most pop u -

lar girl in school.

“Sure I saw him,” Madison said, the words slowly slipping out of her lusciously curved lips as her gaze slowly traveled the length of Casey’s body, taking in the Express tank and Abercrombie skirt. “Drew’s had a thing for slumming every since he lost me.”

Casey froze, her head coming up like a startled deer, her cheeks growing redder by the second. God, she hated the fact that she blushed when she was embarrassed—it made it so easy for everyone who cared enough to look to know just how she really felt. And what she felt right now was the sting of humiliation.

“Oh come on, Madison,” Sophie said, coming to her rescue. “Like it or not, she’s a Bram girl now. And as long as she is, she’ll have to look the part. I only have one word for you, girls: Make over.”

4 1

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

“Totally
,
”
Phoebe replied, “I mean, with hair and clothes like that, she’ll be eaten
alive
at Meadowlark.”

Am I even still here?
Casey asked herself, pretending to contemplate her pale knees while wishing the ground underneath her legs would simply open up and swallow her.

“Phoebe, honey, I’m afraid you’re confused: We’re the only ones who do the eating around here,” Madison clarified with a smile, the sun glinting off the sharp points of her perfectly polished white teeth.

4 2

home

sweat

home

Drew walked home through the par k r ubbing his eyes , totally jet- lagged, and still stunned to be back home after almost three months. The tall steel-and-granite buildings and the delis on every corner felt totally surreal—like landing on another planet. He could walk in any store on the block right now and buy what ever he wanted. Being back in the land of modern con ve niences felt strange after being in Eu rope for three months—where they didn’t even believe in
ice
. But he did miss waking every morning to the slightly muddled and musical sound of Dutch coming through his window.

Every morning he would lie in bed for a few minutes, his mind already racing as he tried to follow along with the broken bits of conversation he could hear from the streets below while J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

debating which museum he should visit that afternoon, and whether he should go to Lisbon or Copenhagen the following weekend. Having decided on a plan for the day and maybe one for the weekend, Drew would walk down to his corner café for an industrial- strength espresso and a marzipan- stuffed S of flaky, buttery pastry. If all else failed, he knew he could run away from New York, school—his whole fucked-up life—and go back to being anonymous. Drew sighed, running his hands through his dark, tousled hair (now standing on end from his overzealous application of Bumble & Bumble Sumotech this morning), mentally replaying the scene in the park, the glacial look in Madison’s green eyes when she finally removed her shades. He’d definitely blown it—again.

Drew ducked into a deli, walked to the back, and pulled a Snapple peach iced tea from the fridge, holding the icy bottle to his forehead for a moment before moving to the counter and throwing down a pocketful of loose change. “Hey!” the Ira ni an guy behind the counter yelled as Drew ambled toward the door. “This no real money!”
Fuck
. Drew sighed and walked back over to the counter. What was he supposed to do with all these leftover Eu ro pe an coins anyway? Eat them? Throw them in the boat pond at Central Park? The cashier glared at him, shoving the pile of change across the counter with an exasperated grimace. Drew dug in the front pocket of his pants until his fingers closed around two crumpled singles. He pulled them out and slapped them down on the counter. The cashier snatched up the wrinkled bills, glared at Drew, and threw the cash in the drawer.

4 4

T H E E L I T E

When Drew stepped back out into the sunlight, the humidity hit him like a slap in the face. Why did Manhattan have to be so goddamn hot in the summer? And why did Madison have to look so sexy in that microscopic bikini? On the plane to Amsterdam, he’d had all these fantasies about the way his summer would surely pan out. He’d closed his eyes and pictured himself hanging out in smoky cafés with gorgeous, slightly mysterious Eu ro pe an babes who smoked endless Gauloises and flirted shamelessly with him over coffee, their red lips leaving behind precise crimson imprints on chipped porcelain cups. It would be just like
Before Sunrise
—one of his favorite movies. He’d buy a Eurail pass and meet his own Julie Delpy somewhere outside of Budapest, the landscape flying by the sun- dappled train window in a blur of green and brown. They’d exchange heated glances in the dining car over a lunch of awful, overcooked steak, and tolerable red wine.

In actuality, his trip turned out to be more like
Hostel
. All the girls he met were definitely gorgeous, but totally fake—

they only seemed to be into him because he was American.

One French girl begged repeatedly to visit him in New York, and when he said “maybe,” she then asked if they might be able to walk to the Grand Canyon—as if this were even remotely possible. She also seemed convinced that America was the Wild West, and asked him countless times if everyone carried guns and wore cowboy hats. And the Dutch girls he met had never even
heard
of Woody Allen, his favorite filmmaker of all time. Just thinking about it depressed Drew beyond belief.

4 5

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

When he first saw Madison lying there on the grass in the park—a spot they’d sat in countless times talking about school, parents, their futures, and each other, he didn’t know what to say. Her green eyes were hidden behind those enormous sunglasses that every girl rocked these days—the kind that usually made you look like a mosquito. But Madison just looked . . .

hot—and totally distant. He’d broken into that stupid Australian safari routine because he just didn’t know what to
say
.

Before he left for Eu rope, he’d thought that if he put enough distance between them, the awkwardness of that night would fade into the past like a bad dream, eventually morphing into something they could someday joke about—like everything else. And the only way he knew how to deal with uncomfortable situations was by making stupid jokes or walking away.

Why did he have to be so good at both?

That night in the park, she was so beautiful he could hardly stand it—he thought he might jump out of his skin if he didn’t get to touch her. If only he hadn’t blown it by drinking so much. But when she whispered in his ear that she wanted him in her bed, he started shaking and couldn’t seem to stop. It was highly embarrassing. He thought the champagne would help, but it just made things even worse. What the hell was wrong with him anyway? He’d had a chance that every other guy within a hundred- mile radius would’ve killed for—and he’d totally blown it.