In Too Deep (25 page)

Madison poured the fragrant Lapsang Souchong tea into a thin, Spode teacup and raised it to her cranberry-glossed lips—courtesy of YSL—ignoring the tall silver tray of tiny cucumber sandwiches and perfectly plump petit fours iced in sugary shades of lavender and rose, and looked around at The Plaza Hotel’s freshly revamped dining room, sighing happily. When she was a little girl, she’d read the
Eloise
books over and over until their pages were stained and tattered, entranced by the antics of the precocious six-year-old who ran the lavish Upper East Side hotel as if it were her own private three-ring circus. After all, one of Madison’s most beloved games as a child was pretending she
was
Eloise and that her stuffed monkey, Binky (who’d been loved so hard that his fur was missing in clumps), was Eloise’s Nanny. Madison would sit on the floor of her bedroom, a Fisher-Price telephone in her lap, and make pretend calls to room service, ordering—in a voice that was already slightly imperious—a cup of tea for Nanny and two sunflower seeds for her turtle Skipperdee, “and charge it please. Thank you very much.” Ever since Madison was old enough to read, Edie would take her to The Plaza every December for a “girls’ day out,” which usually included a long afternoon tea with plenty of sandwiches and cake, and then a mani-pedi at Elizabeth Arden where Edie would proceed to pop Valium like a maniac, then babble nonsensically to Madison, the manicurist, the empty chair across the room—until Madison finally peeled Edie’s Amex from her wallet and handed it over to the receptionist—who’d most definitely seen it all before, many times over.

Even though The Plaza had been freshened up a bit, Madison was relieved to see that nothing had really changed—there were still the same opulent, enticingly fragrant bouquets of flowers on every available surface, still the same garden-themed dining room with its airy, muted fabrics, still the same oil portrait of Eloise that hung just off of the lobby, her small, mischievous face framed in softly glowing gold leaf. And December was the perfect time for a visit since the hotel was draped every holiday season, without fail, in sparkling-white fairy lights and sweet-smelling pine garlands. A huge Christmas tree sat in the center of the dining room, snow-colored lights twinkling merrily, red velvet bows and gleaming silver balls affixed to its towering branches. Coming to The Plaza with Edie for their holiday ritual was the only time Madison actually looked forward to spending time with her annoying and pharmaceutically obsessed mother all year long—until now.

Ever since Pulse had begun filming
De-Luxe
, a new reality show that was being touted as “a look inside the lives of the Upper East Side’s REAL Gossip Girls,” she’d barely had a moment to herself. Each day was filled with school, and then shoots that often stretched on well into the evening. Even now, the bright halogen lights shone in her face, making her sweat in a way she hoped wasn’t too obvious on camera. Mad bit her bottom lip and prayed that the droplets of sweat that were threatening to make their way out of her pores wouldn’t begin slowly rolling down her face. She wrinkled her brow as she remembered last week’s shoot on the front steps of Meadowlark, how they had been forced to pause constantly so the makeup artist could blot Casey’s disgustingly sweaty face.
At least I only sweat when there’s some obnoxious, nuclear-powered light in my face
, Mad thought, running the tip of her tongue surreptitiously over her teeth to be sure they were lipgloss-free. Casey was such a total disaster in every way possible that it was hard
not
to look good next to her on camera.

But if Mad had learned anything from seeing herself on tape, it was that the camera, with its sweeping, meticulous gaze, noticed absolutely everything. Not to mention the fact that
De-Luxe
had no script to speak of—not that it was a problem. If there was one thing that Mad knew she excelled at, it was inventing drama—and Madison Macallister practically had a PhD in creating her own real-life soap opera. But she had always assumed, much like everyone else in the world, that the reality shows on Pulse were completely scripted, so she’d been surprised when the producer, Melanie, had been so hands-off with their dialogue from the very beginning,

“Why the hell would we script it?” Melanie had barked the day Madison and Casey arrived at the Pulse offices to sign their contracts. Melanie pushed her tangle of red curls away from her pale face with exasperation before continuing, slamming her hand down on the table for emphasis. “Your real life is
better
than any crap we could make up!”

“Tell me something I
don’t
know,” Madison snapped, reaching over and grabbing the pen from Casey’s hand and scrawling her signature at the bottom of the stack of pages piled in front of them.

Needless to say, the late nights and the grueling schedule were really screwing with both her social life
and
her academic performance, which, as of late, had been less than stellar—not that she was all that worried about it. Madison’s problems, academic or otherwise, usually had a way of working themselves out—in her favor, of course. . . . There was also the added headache of having to see the insufferable Ms. McCloy both in and out of school on a goddamn daily basis. Actually, she wasn’t really
that
bad. . . . Madison shook her head rapidly, trying to wipe the thought from her brain. God, all this holiday cheer and ho-ho-hoing was really getting to her. Well, at least she hadn’t said it out loud. . . .

Madison watched as her mother, Edith Spencer Macallister, brought her teacup to her lips, her expert maquillage and freshly blown-out blond shoulder-length mane obscured by a cloud of sweet-smelling white steam. Edie had taken to the cameras like a debutante to couture, and, as a result, her face looked tighter and even more plasticky than usual—thanks to the increasing visits to her dermatologist’s office. Now that she and Antonio were officially an item, Edie, paranoid and random as ever, had decided that she needed all the help she could get in order to “keep up” with not only the TV cameras, but her younger man as well. To make matters worse, Edie had just embarked on some ridiculous detox diet where the only thing that would pass her seriously augmented lips for the next two weeks would be bottles of pee-colored lemon water mixed with cayenne pepper and maple syrup. The thought of it was enough to make Madison almost regurgitate her Lapsang Souchong over the spotless white tablecloth.

Actually, she didn’t know what was more nauseating—Edie’s diet, or the fact that Edie and Antonio, a gorgeous, Italian scout from Verve Model Management who had stopped Madison on the street in October, were now an item. Even though she’d decided pretty quickly that the life of a supermodel wasn’t for her, what made the whole thing even harder to take was that she hadn’t exactly felt the same way about Antonio. The night of Sophie’s sweet sixteen, he’d ended up going home with her mother, of all people. The thought was enough to make her gag reflex stop working permanently from bouts of constant dry heaving.

“Darling,” Edie beamed, placing her cup back onto its saucer. “I don’t want to ruin our time together today. But we do need to talk about something rather
serious
.” Edie’s smile was replaced by a worried look as the camera moved in for a close-up.
Crap,
Mad thought, exhaling loudly and looking down at her tea.
Here we go . . .
“I’ve spoken to your academic advisor at Meadowlark and your recent grades are completely unacceptable.”

Edie’s voice was suddenly as brittle as the icicles hanging from the tops of the buildings lining Fifth Avenue—and every bit as cold. The gold Kenneth Jay Lane bracelets lining her wrists jingled with a tinny, metallic sound as she waved her hands expansively for emphasis. “If you’re going to have even the
faintest
shot at getting into Harvard, you are going to have to step things up. And if you don’t,” Edie paused to dig in her beige Chanel tote for an amber-colored prescription bottle, swallowing a small, yellow pill before continuing, “then I’ll be forced to pull you from the show—no exceptions. You need to concentrate on your
future
for a change.”

Madison rolled her eyes and picked up a small pink cookie, biting down angrily.
Screw calories
. As the shiny icing broke between her teeth like crusted snow, Mad knew that as much as it killed her to admit it, for once her mother was actually right—she had been ignoring her schoolwork—along with most everything else in her cluttered, jumbled, seriously over-committed life. But it was kind of hard to concentrate on the pointlessness of world history or algebra when total stardom was waiting just around the corner . . .

“Edie,
cara
. There you are.” Madison whipped her head around at the sound of Antonio’s mellifluous Italian accent, her cheeks bulging with un-chewed pastry. Mad swallowed hard, brushing the crumbs from her jeans. This was clearly just what she needed—it was bad enough that her own mother had stolen her almost-maybe-potential-boyfriend right from under her nose, but did Madison really have to sit here and watch these two over-the-hill lovebirds moon all over each other in broad
daylight
?

“Antonio!” Edie trilled, holding out her cheek for Antonio to kiss as he slid into the chair beside her. “So glad you could make it.”

“Bella,” Antonio said softly, looking over at Madison, his dark eyes the color of the ultra-decadent chocolate truffles at La Maison du Chocolat. “So good to see you again.”

Even with a massive case of five o’clock shadow obscuring his chiseled jaw and wearing a rumpled, navy velvet blazer, Antonio was still annoyingly hot. Mad rolled her eyes and looked away as Antonio took Edie’s hand in his own, kissing it lightly.

“Oh my
God
,” Mad said as Antonio pulled himself away from Edie’s overly manicured paw. “Am I hallucinating? Edie, what is
he
doing here?”

“Well, I just thought that he could—” Madison cut Edie off by putting her palm in the air and raising one eyebrow in disbelief.

“Antonio?” Madison trilled sweetly. “Have you suddenly grown a vagina? Because we’re supposed to be having a
girls’
day out.”

Madison’s sweet smile turned into a satisfied smirk as she watched Antonio’s smile fade and his face become suffused with color as he looked quickly away from her gaze and over at Edie helplessly.
Don’t count on it,
Madison mused smugly as she watched Edie reach for Antonio’s hand again, grasping it firmly in her own, her heavily outlined eyes widening in disbelief.

“Just ignore her,” Edie said smoothly to Antonio, smiling widely as if a million-watt bulb had just been switched on in her brain. “Madison gets positively
insufferable
around the holidays.”

“It’s not the holidays,
Mom
,” Madison snapped, pulling her phone from her Cesare Paciotti black calfskin bag and checking for missed calls—if only to distract herself from the overwhelming sense of annoyance and anger that was making her blood boil like a steaming jacuzzi. “It’s the fact that you thought it was
appropriate
to invite Ricky Martin here to the one family tradition we have
left.
”

“Look,
cara,
” Antonio turned back to Madison and stared at her, his expression as neutral as Switzerland. “I do not mean to cause any problems between you both, and I certainly do not wish to be where I’m clearly unwanted.” Antonio stood up, pulling a pair of black Gucci aviators over his eyes.

“At least he can take a hint,” Madison muttered under her breath as she drained the rest of her tea, making a face as it was now ice-cold. As Antonio turned around to leave, Edie jumped from her seat and grabbed onto his arm. Madison’s mouth fell open as she watched Edie hanging on Antonio’s arm like a three-year-old in a bakery begging for more bon bons
. Desperate much?
Mad thought disgustedly as she rolled her green eyes and popped another heavily frosted petit four into her mouth. God, it was bad enough that Antonio was about a million years younger than her cradle-robbing mother, but did she have to make such an embarrassing spectacle of herself in public? Not to mention on
camera
?

“Antonio, darling,” Edie said, reaching up and twining her arms around his neck, “You simply
must
stay for a while. I won’t take no for an answer!” Madison watched in horror as Antonio smiled down at Edie then bent his lips to hers, brushing them lightly. When their lips broke apart, they stood there gazing into each other’s eyes like they were hypnotized.
Am I still here?
Mad thought in disbelief, her mouth falling open as she watched Edie lead Antonio back to the table and sit down next to him, reaching for the silver tray and popping a hunk of cake into his mouth while they cooed nonsensically at each other like a pair of demented, designer-clad lovebirds.

Madison crossed her arms over her C-cups and concentrated on staring at the brightly decorated Christmas tree instead of the slobbering make-out zombies in front of her. How much crap was she going to have to take before the humiliating fiasco that was her mother’s love life blew up in Edie’s face again? Ever since the divorce, her mother’s “relationships”—if you could even call them that—seemed to end as quickly as they’d begun—often with tears and empty bottles of Cristal strewn all over the lavish baroque splendor of the Macallister’s penthouse apartment. Christmas, which had always been Madison’s favorite holiday, was definitely canceled this year. Without her father it just seemed pointless. She hoped against hope that he might agree to stop by on Christmas day—just for a few hours. But any expectations she had were ripped away like discarded wrapping paper after his secretary informed her that “Mr. Macallister is planning a sailing trip to the South of France over the holidays, and won’t be back until the New Year.”
Probably with some nineteen-year-old
Penthouse
pet,
Madison fumed, brushing crumbs from her lap. Besides, even if she
were
bursting with Christmas cheer, what would she and Edie do anyway? Bake cookies and sing carols? Not likely.
Screw the Christmas spirit,
Madison glowered as Antonio looked over, shooting a weak smile in her direction.