The Elite (6 page)

Drew walked down Park Avenue, nodded at Enrico, the doorman standing at the curb in front of his building, and pushed through the revolving glass doors, the sweat drying on 4 6

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his back with the sudden blast of frigid air. He only started flirting with that Casey girl to make Mad jealous, but the more she talked, the more he found himself actually
liking
her—the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, the way her blond hair hung in ringlets around her open, rounded face.

And he really felt like he should help her out, being the new girl and all. Drew still hadn’t gotten over how much his life had changed when his family moved what was really only a few dozen city blocks. He couldn’t imagine what the culture shock would be like for someone coming from any farther away.

Coming here from Brooklyn would be like traveling to Mars.

At least he had gone from a seven- figure Soho loft to a seven-figure Park Avenue penthouse—it was the crown moldings and the mind-set that was different up here. And she was cute.

As the elevator made its way silently up to the thirty- fifth floor, he couldn’t help but wonder what she looked like underneath that skirt and weird floaty top she’d been wearing . . .

Drew shook his head, exhaling loudly as the elevator doors opened to a long cherrywood hallway. Why did he have to be so sexed- out all the time? When he really thought about it, there were probably about ten minutes out of the entire day where he
wasn’t
thinking about seeing some random girl naked.

When Drew stepped into the entryway of his parent’s apartment, he was hit with the pungent, unmistakable smell of curry, and the sizzling sound of grilling meat reverberated through the sleek, modern living room decorated in shades of cream and white. The couch was Eames, and a white, plastic 4 7

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ultra- mod Egg chair sat in one corner, a pair of hidden speakers nestled inside its red, cocoonlike interior. Drew could remember hiding inside the dark, cozy space when he was six, The Beatles’ “Blackbird” streaming though the speakers. Splashes of color were everywhere—in the primary- colored shards of pot-tery his mother had brought back from her trips to Southeast Asia and Morocco, the large, op art circular turquoise- and-white rug covering a large expanse of the polished floor.

The room’s focus were the floor- to- ceiling windows that brought in waves of light at every turn, and, of course, the much- coveted view over Central Park, the Empire State Building off in the distance, framed by the Van Allens’ enormous, wraparound terrace. When his family had first moved to the Upper East Side a little over two years ago, Drew would stand out on the terrace for hours, marveling at the view and waiting for dusk, that magic time when the sky would soften in shades of crimson, violet, and tangerine, and the lights on the Empire State Building would switch on, bathing the top in a shining glow of light—red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July; red and green on Christmas Day; plain red on Valentine’s Day; and electric blue on the anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death.

Since the big move uptown, these colors had been the way Drew marked the passing seasons of his life, and nothing rep-resented Manhattan more strongly or iconically to him than that mythic steel spire.

“Drew, is that you, honey?” his mother’s high voice sang out, reverberating off of the apartment’s enormously high ceilings. From the way her voice echoed, and the sound of 4 8

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Miles Davis’s
Seven Steps to Heaven
, he could tell that she was in her studio again, getting ready for her next big show at the Mary Boone Gallery.

“Yeah,” he yelled, throwing his keys down on the Lucite-and-glass coffee table covered with glossy cata logs of his

mother’s work. Suddenly he was fucking exhausted. He stretched his long arms over his head, yawning loudly.

“Well, come in when you have a minute,” she called out over the music, “I want to show you this new piece I’m working on.”

His mother’s huge abstract paintings and collages covered the walls, lit softly from above by tiny spotlights that brought out the rough brushstrokes in the thick, brightly colored paint she often used—swirls of magenta and aqua, yellow the color of buttercups, lime green and violent fuchsia. Drew didn’t pretend that he exactly understood his mother’s work, but he did admire it. When she tried to explain her paintings, often times she’d get exasperated, throwing her hands in the air as he asked her repeatedly what exactly a certain piece
meant
.

“Stop
thinking
so much!” his mother would exclaim, laughing impatiently and gesturing toward the large, brilliant canvas. “Concentrate on how it makes you
feel
instead. Drew, baby, your whole problem is that you
think
too much—about everything. It’s a painting, not a math problem!”

He had to admit that she probably had a point.

Even if her work was beyond his decidedly third- grade artistic sensibilities, he knew enough about art to deduce that his mother was talented. After all, they weren’t exactly handing out 4 9

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one- woman shows at MoMA to every Upper East Side house -

wife with a paintbrush and a flair for color. In her twenty- year career as an artist, Allegra Van Allen had had two such shows, to be exact—not to mention countless gallery exhibitions in Eu rope, Asia, and around the world.

Drew walked over the high- gloss cherrywood floors, for-getting, as always, to kick off his dirty Adidas running shoes, and followed the mouth watering scents into the kitchen. His dad, Robert Van Allen, stood at the huge, stainless steel Viking stove, flipping the contents of a cast- iron skillet up in the air with a practiced turn of the wrist. His dad wore a pair of jeans so faded they almost looked colorless, with a black T-shirt.

A clean, white kitchen towel was thrown over one shoulder.

Even though his dad was in his early fifties, he still looked the same as he had when Drew was nine—black hair shot through with gray, and a craggy face dominated by a closely clipped salt- and- pepper beard.

Robert Van Allen had started out a kid from Bensonhurst, who wanted nothing more than to cook for one of the top restaurants in Manhattan. Self- taught, he worked his way up at Jean Georges in a meteoric rise from line cook to grill man to saucier to head chef—all in a dizzying three years. After a four- year stint as head chef at Balthazar, he made a fortune opening a series of restaurants dedicated to providing the Bistro comfort food he loved—French country classics like steak frites, Dijon chicken, and steak tartare—at unbeatable prices. Now, he considered himself mostly retired, and, when he wasn’t managing his restaurants or dreaming up new menu 5 0

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items, he liked nothing better than to putter around in their kitchen perfecting some new culinary masterpiece.

“The prodigal son returns!” His dad spoke without even turning around, intent on the meat sizzling away in the skillet.

“True dat,” Drew said, opening the stainless Sub- Zero fridge and rooting around inside. Predictably, it was so ridiculously packed that you could never find anything—not that he knew what he was looking for exactly. All he knew was that he hated curry, and he was fucking starving
. An iced tea bought at
a deli does not a meal make
, he thought, pulling out some weird leafy vegetable he didn’t recognize and zeroing in on a snowy round of goat cheese drizzled with truffle oil.
Score.
Now if he could just dig up some bread, he’d be in business . . .

“I hope you’re not planning on eating that.” His dad gestured at the cheese with the black plastic spatula he held in one hand, “because I am concocting an Indian feast that would make Ghandi
weep.
”

“You know I hate curry,” Drew muttered, opening the pantry. He was on a single- minded search for bread—preferably his dad’s amazing whole grain bread. He had no time to debate the suck- value of noxious spices. Give him some stinky cheese, some crusty bread, maybe a little red wine and he’d be happy for
weeks
. “And besides, Ghandi was on a hunger strike—he’d probably eat
anything
.”

His dad snorted loudly, turning back to the stove and poking at the chicken sizzling in the pan. “Maybe you weren’t aware of it,” he said, covering the pan with a heavy lid, “but I am redefining the entire
concept
of South Asian dining even 5 1

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as we speak. A radical step forward in the world of haute cui-sine is taking place right now in this very apartment . . .” His dad pulled out a crisp
baguette de campagne
from a cabinet hidden beneath the im mense kitchen island and threw it down on the butcher block countertop. “. . . And you’re telling me that you’re just not
interested
?” Drew thought he could make out the beginning of a smile peeking out from beneath his dad’s beard as he grabbed the bread from the counter and broke off the tip, smearing the crusty loaf with truffle- infused goat cheese deliciousness. Yum.

“Yeah, Dad,” Drew mumbled after he’d taken the first bite,

“that’s
exactly
what I’m telling you.”

“I
thought
so,” his dad said triumphantly, sliding the mass of brightly colored chicken parts reeking of curry onto a large, oval serving platter. “Well, don’t come crying to me later when you realize your mistake.”

“Don’t come crying to
me
when you get food poisoning from that mess,” Drew smirked, gesturing toward the chicken with the end of his bread. Drew grabbed a knife from the bam-boo cutting board and sliced the baguette down the middle lengthwise, then spread the bread thickly with the entire round of soft, fluffy cheese. He reassembled both halves together like a monstrously large goat cheese Subway sandwich. All he really needed was this sandwich, a nap, and he’d feel like a human being again—maybe he’d even figure out what to do about Madison.

“Oh, by the way.” His dad arranged two portions of chicken on plates with scientific precision, then grabbed a 5 2

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squeeze bottle so he could arrange the accompanying bright yellow sauce in little squiggles and swirls that decorated the plain white china like one of his mother’s paintings. “We’re having a welcome home party for you two weeks from today—

you know, just you and a hundred of your closest friends.

Boudin is doing the catering.”

“Great.” Drew took a huge bite of baguette and rolled it around in his mouth. This was just what he needed right now.

He couldn’t have been less stoked if his underwear was on fire.

Even the fact that his dad’s newest Cajun- fusion restaurant was doing the catering did absolutely nothing to cheer him up.

“Do I have to be there?”

“What do
you
think?” Allegra Van Allen swept into the room in a brown and blue batik- printed caftan and a haze of the Egyptian Musk she always wore. A thick stack of gold bangles jangled at her wrists, and bronze, Roman- inspired sandals were laced up her tanned ankles. Her black hair hung loosely down her back, and spots of magenta paint dotted her forearms like measles. From far away, his mother looked about twenty- five, but when you got up close, the small lines feathering out from the corners of her eyes couldn’t help but give her real age away.

“I’m an
artist
,” she was fond of proclaiming loudly at parties when the subject of Botox came up, “not a socialite.”

Technically she was kind of both, but Drew knew better than to argue with his mother—she usually won.

“I think I’m horrified,” Drew said, shoving more bread into his mouth, his jaws working furiously.

“Well, get over it.” His mom smiled as she swung open the 5 3

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refrigerator door, pulling out a frosty bottle of Blue Moon lager and prying the top off with a bottle opener, the muscles of her forearms flexing.

“Who did you invite, anyway?” Drew muttered, shoving the rest of the sandwich into his mouth in one huge, greedy bite. “The whole Upper East Side?”

“Basically.” His mom grinned, her blue eyes sparkling as she grabbed two frosted mugs from the freezer and poured the beer. “And some of Soho, too.”

“Great,” Drew said glumly. This was
just
what he needed right now. “Did you invite the Macallisters?”

“Did you manage to kill
all
your brain cells in Amsterdam?”

His mother’s brow wrinkled as she feigned confusion. “Of
course
I invited the Macallisters! Don’t tell me you have a problem with that—not after all the time you spent with Madison last spring.”

“What’s going on with you two, anyway?” His dad picked up the plates and moved into the bright yellow dining room, placing them down on the long cherrywood table where the Van Allens ate nightly—when they all happened to be home, which wasn’t very often.

“I don’t know.” Drew sighed, swallowing hard and running a hand through his hair.

“You don’t know, huh?” Drew’s dad said, wiping bits of yellow- tinged coconut milk off his hands with a dishtowel. “I know what it’s like to not know, Drew. It’s tough not knowing, but if there’s anything that can help you out, it’s the advice of a guy like me who knows what it’s like to not
know
.”

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Great
, Drew thought.
Here we go again
. Drew could feel his mother’s eyes lock on him the instant his dad began to speak and he knew that if he were to look over, she would be sipping at her drink intently, trying to hide her laughter behind the glass.

“Now, before I met your mother, Drew, when I first came to New York I knew this girl named . . .”

“Marissa?” Drew half- coughed, half- laughed.

“Her name
was
Marissa,” his dad said with surprise, sitting down at the dining table and picking up his fork. “How did you know that?”

“Because you’ve told us this story a million times, maybe?”

His mother burst out laughing, stabbing her chicken with a fork and releasing a cloud of curry- scented steam in the air.