The Elite (3 page)

“It’ll be fun, Mad,” Sophie said from behind her huge white shades. “And besides, why would you want to deny me the plea sure of doing a makeover—you know they’re practically my only reason for living!”

Madison sighed and closed her eyes, feeling the warm sun 1 7

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on her skin. She had bigger things to worry about than her so-called friends’ imminent adoption of some Midwestern, frizzy-haired loser. She couldn’t believe that she was so depressed already—and the year hadn’t even started yet! Everything should’ve been perfect—she was a ju nior now, and the year would surely be filled with parties, sweaty nights at Bungalow, Pangaea, The Box, and late- afternoon brunches at Pastis with coddled eggs, champagne cocktails, and freshly baked baguettes.

The trouble was, she thought she’d be doing those things with Drew.

The truth was, it had been the worst summer on record.

After spending three blissful weeks at her parents’ beach house on Martha’s Vineyard, lying on the beach breathing in the warm, sea- salt air, she had no choice but to leave the sun, sand, and breathtaking water views, and head back to Manhattan to repeat last semester’s En glish class in the most dreaded of activities—summer

school—where she’d spent her days

reading boring, depressing- ass novels like
Silas Marner
and
Great Expectations.
Adding insult to injury, the air conditioner in her dad’s Lincoln Town Car went on the fritz two weeks into the summer semester, and she’d gotten so dehydrated during the six- block ride to school every day that it was a miracle she didn’t come down with fucking heatstroke. And on top of ruining what should’ve been the best summer yet, having to repeat English—which was basically her mother tongue—was totally embarrassing. She wasn’t naturally smart like Phoebe or Sophie—not that she’d ever admit it—and if she didn’t study, she usually wound up in serious trouble. It 1 8

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had never been a problem before—being gorgeous
and
a Macallister, she could usually talk her way out of anything—but not this time.

Madison flipped on her stomach, burying her face in her arms, momentarily reassured by the scent of the Marc Jacobs Blush Intense body lotion coating her skin. When she was really honest with herself, she had to admit that her life had been a complete mess ever since that warm night last spring. Not that she’d ever confide any of this to either Sophie or Phoebe, but the night before Drew left for Eu rope everything between them went suddenly, horribly wrong. After two years of breaking up and getting back together, flirty text messages, making out on the floor of her bedroom, two years of lost calls and turning their phones off just for spite, they finally lost their virginity to one another—and it couldn’t have been more of a disaster.

The night had started off promisingly. Drew arrived at her apartment wearing a pair of crisp khakis and a white T-shirt, his blue eyes glowing in his chiseled face. As Madison stood in the doorway, her lightly tanned skin covered by a simple Theory sundress in white eyelet, her hormones went into overdrive—

all at once she wanted to drag him inside and burn his clothes so that he could never leave. She wanted to vote everyone else off the island of Manhattan
but
Drew.

When she regained what was left of her sex- addled brain, she noticed that Drew carried a wicker basket under one arm, a frosty bottle of Dom peeping out from beneath a white napkin. The air was balmy and warm, and the moon glowed with 1 9

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such ferocity overhead that it seemed to obliterate even the streetlights. They’d gone to the park and spread a blanket out on the soft spring grass, and Drew had produced one delicacy after another, feeding her Beluga caviar and homemade blinis, fresh buffalo mozzarella and cherry- red tomatoes strewn with dark leaves of basil. When she leaned in and licked extra virgin olive oil from his fingers, she wondered if Drew had lost his V-card yet, or if he was still extra virgin himself. And if somehow, he wasn’t a virgin anymore, would she just seem totally inexperienced to him? The thought made a lump of mozzarella stick in her throat and lodge there—making her cough like a lunatic, tears welling up in her eyes. Drew patted her on the back until she stopped, his hand lingering on the bare skin of her arms and shoulders. She felt a shiver run up her spine, and an almost overwhelming bolt of excitement run through her body.

Their eyes met and they kissed long and hard, and when Madison pulled back, she noticed that Drew was not only blushing—his cheeks burning with circles of pink—but that he was fiddling ner vous ly with the neck of the unopened bottle of Dom with one hand. Drew Van Allen,
ner vous
? She couldn’t imagine such a thing. Maybe he just needed to loosen up a bit.

“Aren’t we going to drink that?” Madison asked in what she hoped was a seductive whisper. Drew popped the cork with a sound that echoed across the park, and poured the foaming golden liquid into two crystal- stemmed glasses. But before she could hold up the crystal flute to make a toast, Drew had downed his glass in one long swallow and grabbed the cold 2 0

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green bottle for a refill, guzzling the champagne like it was liquid oxygen. “I can’t believe that after all this time . . .” Drew murmured, one hand stroking her hair.

“I know,” Madison said simply, shrugging her shoulders.

“But it feels . . .”

“Right,” Drew said, taking her hand in his and squeezing tightly, his blue eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

“Have you ever . . .” Madison asked, her voice trailing off into a whisper. She couldn’t believe how small and faraway her voice sounded, or how scared she was all of a sudden that he would say yes. Drew shook his head from side to side, word-less, as she moved in for another kiss, his lips locking on to hers like they’d been doing this forever—which they kind of
had
been.

When they finally made their way back to her apartment and stepped inside the cool marble elevator, Drew took her face in his hands and kissed her over and over, the ground falling away from beneath their feet as they breathed into each other’s mouths, her arms wrapped around his neck as she pulled him closer. Madison’s stomach dropped to her knees, butterflies swooping and dipping inside her. She couldn’t believe she was feeling this way. When Drew had transferred to Meadowlark in the middle of freshman year, at first she’d barely noticed him. Drew was just the dorkily cute guy who always looked like he was in dire need of a haircut, with the weird, artsy parents—until she saw him playing soccer one day in the park. Standing there bare- chested in the weak winter sunlight, his skin still tanned and slightly shiny with sweat, she 2 1

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found herself staring, stopped in her tracks, her mouth falling open. Who knew that underneath all those moose- infested sweaters he insisted on wearing there was a total hottie, just dying to get out? After that, the rest was easy—like everything else in her life. When Madison Macallister made up her mind about something, nothing stood in her way. Of course, it didn’t hurt that every guy at Meadowlark was dying to get in her pants. So when she asked Drew if she could borrow his notes from AP Algebra one day after class, he didn’t exactly run screaming from the room or anything . . .

In her bedroom, she lit all her Diptyque gardenia- scented candles, stripped down to her La Perla bra and thong set in cream- colored lace, and lay beside him on her white bed, ready to be de- virginized. She wondered if it would hurt, if it would feel anything like wearing a tampon, if she would bleed all over her spotless white comforter. Her brow wrinkled momentarily as she stared at the white bed the color of freshly whipped cream. Maybe she should’ve put some towels down . . .

When they began making out again, there was a kind of urgency in the air between them that she’d never felt before—she couldn’t seem to get close enough to him, she wanted to climb inside Drew’s clothes, inside his very
skin.
When it finally happened, she gritted her teeth against the sharp pain, and he smoothed her hair back from her flushed face, gazing at her intently . . . and then his expression changed completely, his face taking on a decidedly greenish cast as he leapt from the bed and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

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Madison sat up, pulling the sheet around her naked body, which all of a sudden seemed a little
too
naked, and listened to the unmistakable sounds of retching coming from behind the closed bathroom door.

Oh. My. God. This was not happening. Not to
her
. This moment was supposed to be perfect—like the rest of her life. Instead she was lying in her bed, naked, recently deflowered (Did it even count? He only put it in for a minute!), listening to her soon- to- be- ex- boyfriend flush their picture- perfect picnic dinner into the Hudson River. The next thing she knew it was morning, light streaming through the sheer white curtains covering the French doors that led to her private patio—and she was alone in the bed. Madison sat up and looked around in disbelief.

The bathroom door was open, the light still burning, but the room was empty. He was gone. She felt like Alicia Silverstone in
Clueless.
What happened? Did she stumble into a patch of bad lighting? Did her hair go flat? Except, unlike Alicia’s pseudo-boyfriend in the movie, Drew wasn’t gay. Well, at least she
hoped
not. But then again, hetero guys usually didn’t toss their cookies at the most crucial sexual moment of their lives, did they?

All day she waited for her cell to ring, checking her messages repeatedly, but as it got later and later her stomach began twisting into tight knots, and she knew—he’d left for Eu rope without calling her, without even trying to apologize. She ran-sacked her room looking for a note, anything to explain why he’d just left like that—there had to be a reason, right? Guys didn’t just stick it in and then vanish, did they? When she came up empty- handed, her heart sank in her chest.

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Later that night, over a platter of salmon nigiri, California rolls, and spicy tuna at Nobu with Sophie and Phoebe, her eyes kept filling inexplicably with tears. She spent most of the night running off to the bathroom, gently dabbing at her green eyes coated in Lancôme’s blackest black mascara with a hand towel as she tried not to break down in all- out sobs. She leaned on her elbows, looking into the slick surface of the mirror. Her hair was shiny and brushed back from her face, her skin clear, cheeks shimmering with the peachy- gold gleam of Nars Or-gasm blush. What was wrong with her? Madison turned on the faucet as a tear crept out of one eye, sliding down her flushed and powdered cheek. It was their first time—and he didn’t even care enough to make it beautiful.

“So, when are you going to hook up with the Drewster anyway?” Phoebe asked, screwing the cap back onto the polish and tossing it at Sophie, who immediately opened it and began stroking the fuchsia lacquer onto her shorter- than- short, bitten nails.

“We’re not
hooking up
,” Madison said decisively, though she felt anything but sure. When it came to her and Drew, all bets were usually off—then on again.

“I mean, how long can you possibly avoid him?” Phoebe wondered aloud as she lay back on her elbows, her luminous skin shining with a liberal coating of SPF 40.

“As long as I want to,” Madison snapped, burying her head more tightly into her arms, careful not to smudge the MAC

Lustreglass in Love Nectar coating her full lips. She sighed, 2 4

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breathing in the acrid scent of nail polish and the Clarins Self Tanning Milk Sophie used.

“He’s
so
the total package,” Phoebe said dreamily, adjusting her wide- brimmed straw hat to further protect her luminous, creamy skin.

“I know what
I’d
like to do with his package,” Sophie said with a giggle. Sophie’s whole problem was that everything she thought or felt was plainly visible on her open, heart- shaped face—whether she was happy or sad, if she loved or hated you, it was transparent as glass. It was one of Madison’s most and least favorite things about her. And right now, Sophie’s obvious lusting after her idiot ex- what ever was getting on her last nerve.

Madison sat up, stretched her arms over her head and pinned back her hair while pretending to laugh along, but inside she felt horrible—like she’d somehow slept through the annual sale at La Perla, or lost her favorite pair of silver Manolo sandals. Drew was supposed to be the one guy she could usually count on—so then why didn’t he stay and spend the summer with her? Why hadn’t they run away to Paris and left everyone behind to live in some garret on the Left Bank, surviving on nothing more than stale croissants and love? Why wasn’t he there now, apologizing? Not as if she’d even
consider
forgiving him at this point anyway.

Well, at least not right away . . .

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to

grandma’s

house

we go . . .

“Casey Anne McCloy! You’re finally here!”

Casey winced as she walked into her grandmother’s slightly cramped, two- bedroom apartment, sighing heavily as she let go of her suitcases, which promptly hit the hardwood floor like a series of gunshots. She absolutely hated it when anyone used her middle name. It was so outdated and weirdly Southern—especially when it was paired with her first name. Casey
Anne
. It sounded like she should be one of the fringe characters in
Steel Magnolias
. And Casey loathed most chick flicks—

she thought they were totally condescending.

“Right,” her mother would’ve snorted. “They’re
so
much worse than those celluloid nightmares from the eighties that you’re so addicted to.” What ever. Casey had perfected the art T H E E L I T E

of rolling her eyes and stomping off to her room whenever her mother started in with her feminist bullshit—and slamming her bedroom door loudly behind her for emphasis never hurt either . . .