The Elite (14 page)

Not only did she have to figure out a way to be aggressive, but she had to do it in
French
. It wasn’t like she was so great at flirting in En glish in the first place—and En glish was her mother tongue! To make matters worse, Casey hadn’t exactly paid rapt attention during her French classes back in Normal—mostly she’d stared out the window, dreaming of the day when some ridiculously cute guy would make out with her after school in the parking lot, the ultimate campus hookup spot.

Casey smiled at Drew uncertainly as he closed his laptop, leaning forward, his elbows on the desk.

“ Voulez- vous parler avec moi?”
Drew said with comic exag-1 2 6

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geration, rolling his R’s around in his mouth like it was full of jawbreakers, sounding like a demented Pepe Le Peu.

“Bien sûr!”
Casey answered confidently. As long as they stayed at this kindergartenesque level of conversation, she could probably handle herself—even though talking to Drew in French felt really cheesy, like she should be wearing a beret, chain- smoking Gauloises, and carry ing a baguette.

“Que faites- vous cet après- midi?”

What was she doing this afternoon? Was he asking because he was just curious and making conversation, or was he actually asking her
out
? Ugh, was there some kind of bizarro rule that made boys so totally mysterious on a daily basis, even in French?
Be aggressive!
her inner Madison screamed out.
Don’t
just sit there like a schlub!

However uncomfortable it made her feel, she knew that she had to go for it—before she lost her nerve completely and ran out of the room. Casey leaned forward, feeling like a complete alien from the planet Don’t Date Me, and rested her hand on Drew’s arm, gently running her fingertips over his smooth skin.
“Quoi que vous faites,”
she answered, her eyes fixed on his face, her cheeks burning like she’d spent the day lying out in the park with no sunscreen.

Oh my God. Did she really just say: “What ever you’re doing?” More important, did she even say it right? Because he was looking at her like she was a total lunatic, then down at his arm, where her hand still rested. Casey grabbed his hand and turned it over so that the palm faced up, and with her favorite red pen, proceeded to write her phone number in large block 1 2 7

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letters on his skin.
“Telephonez- moi ce soir,”
she whispered in what she hoped was a sexy voice, feeling the sweat break out under her arms like it had been held back by a dam all this time.

Drew looked up, his expression uncertain and slightly queasy-looking, and then back down at the series of numbers penned onto his hand. He had asked for her number in the Dining Hall just a half hour ago—did he have too many lattes at breakfast or something? What ever was going on, he looked totally uncomfortable, and when he pulled away with a weak smile and looked down at his desk, Casey’s heart felt like it’d just been drop- kicked from the top of the Chrysler Building.

“S’il vous plaît ouvrez vos livres au chapitre l’un
.
”
Madame LeCombe’s voice rang out in the classroom, and Casey turned around gratefully, opening her French book to the first chapter and staring down at a picture of a young French couple en-twined on a bench at night, the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance. Casey stared dejectedly down at the page, acutely aware of Drew’s presence directly behind her, and of the way her skin was tingling like so many insects were crawling up and down her arms and legs. Casey looked at the kissing couple in the picture, and wished more than anything that her life might be even half as romantic as that of a couple of French teenagers.
Why can’t talking be as easy as a kiss?
Casey thought, as Madame LeCombe’s raspy three- pack- a-day voice crowded into her brain—along with all her uncertainty.

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after- school

special

Sophie s tretched her legs out on the over sized coffee-colored leather sofa in the oak- paneled St. John family room, absent- mindedly fondling the remote with one hand, a Diet Pepsi sweating in the other. The first day back at school always made her want to veg out on the couch for at least a few hours . . . or days. Anything was better than locking herself in her room to tackle the im

mense pile of homework she’d

lugged home in her Vuitton satchel. She was probably going to develop a hernia before she even lost her virginity . . .

Homework on the first day is so totally passé
, Sophie thought, switching over to MTV where Ludacris was jumping around with a bottle of Cristal in one hand, and a girl encased in the typical video- ho gear of tight, faded jeans and ridiculously J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

high stiletto heels in the other. The video slut’s outfit was a far cry from the Calvin Klein tank and Juicy shorts Sophie had changed into the minute she arrived home from school. Sophie studied the TV, pensively tilting her head back and down-ing the last of her Diet Pepsi as her father, Alistair St. John, walked into the room, followed closely by Sophie’s mother, Phyllis. Sophie sat up, folding her legs beneath her.

“What are you guys doing home so early?” she wondered aloud as her mother sat down across from her in a leather chair upholstered in varying shades of tan and cognac, and crossed her long, still- shapely legs. Her parents never came home this early. Phyllis St. John—otherwise known as the Upper East Side’s own Angelina Jolie—was on the board of directors of UNICEF and the Fresh Air Fund, and when she wasn’t busy saving the planet by orchestrating elaborate fund-raisers at the Waldrof- Astoria or the Ritz, she spent most of her nights at the French Culinary Institute, where she’d recently enrolled in a series of gourmet cooking classes. For her mom to even set foot in The Bram before nine P.M. was seriously weird—but not as strange as the fact that her father was currently standing in front of her.

Alistair St. John was a wildly successful real estate mogul whose career was largely built on the fact that his firm had “re-vitalized” the East Village, clearing out all the starving artists in the early nineties and erecting a series of ubermodern glass-and- steel apartment buildings. Her dad usually spent his days in complicated lunch meetings with Donald Trump, only to come home and immediately begin torturing her mother with 1 3 0

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just how gorgeous Trump’s new wife, Melania, was. But today her father didn’t look like he was in any mood for joking as he began pacing the length of the Bokhara rug in cream and beige that dominated the St. John family room, his salon-tanned forehead a mass of wrinkles no amount of Botox could smooth out.

“What’s going on?” Sophie asked ner vous ly, noticing the worried look on her mother’s face.

“We’ve got something big to discuss with you, Sophie honey,” her mother said, and Sophie noticed that her mother looked almost pale underneath her olive complexion and the deep tan she cultivated year round.
Oh crap
, Sophie thought, exhaling.
They got the last American Express bill
. She didn’t mean to go so over the top, really she didn’t. Okay, so she did go shopping almost every other day for the past month—but, then again, she couldn’t be expected to wear the same four bikinis every week at the rooftop pool at the Soho House, now could she? And that went double for her family’s house on Martha’s Vineyard, where she’d spent most of June and July mooning over Will, the cute townie who clipped their vast rows of hedges. Having a thing for the gardener was so
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
. Sophie had given a report on D. H. Lawrence last year in En glish class, where she’d argued that in the twenty- first century Lady Chatterley would’ve been known as a “playa,” and that anyone who disliked the book was an anti- feminist who liked to “playa hate.” Needless to say, it didn’t go over too well with her En glish teacher, Mrs. Williams, who looked like she could benefit from a lusty romp with the gardener herself . . .

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“Sophie,” her mother began in the World Peace Now! voice she liked to use when giving elaborate speeches, “you’re turning sixteen soon, and there’s something rather serious we need to discuss.”

At the mention of her impending birthday, Sophie felt herself relax. So
that’s
what this was all about—they probably wanted to talk to her about the party. Trouble was, the plans for that party were a done deal: They’d already hired one of the Upper East Side’s premiere event planners to take care of every last detail,
and
reserved space at Marquee. So, what else was there to talk about? Phoebe and Madison had already turned sixteen months ago, and Sophie thought she’d die waiting for the chance to upstage them. Ever since her sixth-grade En glish teacher had discovered Sophie plowing through the complete works of Jane Austen and recommended to her parents that she skip a grade, she’d felt out of step with the rest of her classmates in more ways than one. Watching Phoebe and Mad turn sixteen last year while she had to wait for a whole new school year to arrive had been completely unbearable. If she had known that falling for Mr. Darcy would cause this much trouble, she would’ve been sure to have kept Jane a secret and made
sure
her teachers saw her reading nothing but Stephen King—that way they might’ve even left her
back
a year, so she could turn sixteen before everyone else. Sophie wrapped her arms around her torso, hugging herself happily.

Maybe they were going to spill the details of her present early!

The corners of Sophie’s bow- shaped lips turned up in a smile as she pictured a silver Ferrari, a bright pink ribbon wound 1 3 2

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around its shining metallic hood parked out in front of The Bram—and the look of envy clouding Madison’s face as Sophie slid into the driver’s seat . . .

“. . . that’s why we waited to tell you . . . adoption . . .

biological mother.”

Sophie’s head came up like a hunting dog, and she stared at her mother uncomprehendingly. Phyllis smoothed down her Carolina Herrera beige linen pants, the thick gold Chanel cuffs on both wrists sparkling in the late- afternoon sunlight. Sophie noticed that all of a sudden it felt like she was breathing way too fast, and she put one hand on her heart to make sure it was still there, knocking around wildly in her chest.

“Tell me
what
?” Sophie said, feeling the tight muscle of her heart racing beneath her palm. “Adoption? What are you guys
talking
about?”

“Sophie,” her father said, his three- button silk suit looking just as crisp as when he’d put it on at five that morning, his dark beard neatly trimmed. “We adopted you when you were just six months old. Your mother and I didn’t think . . .” Alistair broke off, looking helplessly at her mother, his mouth opening and closing. Phyllis immediately rushed to fill in the gap, her voice hurried and ner vous.

“What your father’s trying to say, Sophie, honey, is that we didn’t think I could get pregnant again—after Jared we tried and tried and . . . nothing.” Her mother looked at the floor, and cleared her throat delicately. “So we adopted you. There was a woman in my acting class—we became friends and then she got pregnant . . .” Her mother’s voice trailed off and she 1 3 3

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stared down at the carpet, a pensive expression darkening her features.

“Since when were you an actress,
Mom
?” Sophie wondered aloud, feeling like her entire world had just messily imploded all over the living room rug.

“It was something I tried out before you were born,” her mother said. “I was never very serious—nor very good.” Phyllis looked up at Sophie pleadingly, her pain contorting her expression. “But your . . . Melissa—well, she was very good—

I think she knew even then that she was going to have a big career.”

“So she just . . . gave me to you?” Sophie asked slowly,

“like a fucking
sweater
?”

“Watch your language, young lady,” her father snapped, crossing his arms over his chest, clearly uncomfortable with the trajectory of the conversation. “Yes,” he continued, “she allowed us to adopt you—but there were . . . conditions.”

“What conditions?” Sophie demanded. She felt like the whole world had suddenly been tilted on its side, and everything in her once- normal life was now flipped completely upside down. Things were moving way too fast and her stomach turned over like a Rus sian gymnast on crank. She felt scarily nauseated.

“We promised your birth mother that, when you turned sixteen, we’d tell you that you were adopted—and that we’d allow her to meet you,
if
you wanted to,” Phyllis added ner vous ly, twisting the Fred Leighton diamond- and- emerald white- gold eternity ring Sophie’s father had surprised her with as a fortieth 1 3 4

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birthday present last month so relentlessly that her finger would probably come popping off at any minute, blood spurting out all over the carpet, which was worth more than most people’s New York apartments. “You certainly don’t
have
to meet her,”

she added, smiling hopefully.

“Why didn’t she want to keep in touch with me—or
you
?”

Sophie demanded, trying desperately to make sense of the thoughts flooding her brain like a monsoon. Her body felt at once both tingly and numb, and she had that pukey, sweaty feeling—like she’d drank one too many cappuccinos at lunch.

She stared uncomprehendingly at the TV as Jay- Z moved around a preening Beyoncé, throwing his hands in the air.

“She got busy with her career,” her mother said quietly.

“And we all agreed it would be best for you to have a . . . fresh start.”

“You agreed,” Sophie said woodenly, “without even asking me.” It was a statement, not a question, and as she sat there trying desperately to focus on what her parents were telling her, despite her obvious confusion, Sophie was aware of the fact that suddenly, all her past feelings of incompleteness made perfect sense. Her life was exactly like one of those stupid opti-cal illusion paintings they sold in mall in the suburbs—not that Sophie had ever been to the suburbs, much less walked the hideous confines of a mall—where a series of squiggly lines suddenly became a glowing silver dolphin if you looked at it the right way. And once you knew the hidden image was there, it was impossible to view the picture the same way ever again.