The Elite

by Jennifer Banash

  “I think so,” Casey said tentatively. “Why?”

  “Are you sure you’re actually my child?” Barbara snapped. “Casey, love, she’s only one of the most important abstract expressionists in America!”

  “Then you should be thrilled that I’m going to a party at her house,” Casey said dryly. The vanilla frozen yogurt looked really good. Maybe she’d get a small cup as soon as Barbara was finished blathering on in her ear. With crumbled Oreos on top. There was nothing like treating herself to a small reward for surviving yet another conversation with her mother.

  “So I was wondering…” Casey paused, listening to the sound of her mother’s breathing. “I really don’t have anything to wear, and I was hoping I could use the emergency credit card to maybe get a new dress for to night.” Casey winced, closing her eyes as the line filled with silence. The quiet before the storm was never a good sign where her mother was concerned.

  “What’s wrong with the myriad of dresses you brought with you?” Barbara asked, her voice measured.

  “I’ve worn most of them,” Casey said hurriedly, “and the kids around here—”

  “You have a perfectly adequate wardrobe, Casey, love. And besides—” Casey heard the squeaking sound of a door opening on the other end of the line, and then a rush of wind. “—you need to learn that people like you for what’s inside—not because you play into their capitalistic vision by supplementing your already quite stunning wardrobe at every turn.” Barbara’s academic-speak was so annoying. It wasn’t like she was going to save the planet or anything by not buying a lipstick or a new dress. Casey rolled her eyes and tried not to accidentally press the END button.

  “Easy for you to say when your whole life is a college campus,” Casey snapped. “And stop calling me love!”

  “Sorry, love,” her mother said brightly. “It can’t be done. Do keep me posted though. Ta now!” There was a click on the line and then silence as her mother’s voice disappeared.

  Casey sighed and walked to the counter, ordering a small vanilla yogurt to go, relaxing visibly as the cool, frozen treat hit her tongue, melting in her mouth and soothing the fire in her head that trying to explain anything to Barbara always managed to produce. She should’ve known that trying to talk to her would be a mistake: Had she learned nothing from every conversation she’d ever had with her mother for her entire life before this moment? Casey spooned the creamy dessert into her mouth and walked to the door. The ten minutes she’d spent in the frigid air-conditioning had almost prepared her to face the steaming pavement again.

  Just as she was about to exit TCBY, a store directly across the street made her stop in her tracks: Le Nouveau Boutique: Designer Resale & Consignment. Wait…did that mean it was like a thrift store for rich people? Casey’s clothes-induced funk began to lift as she pushed the door open and crossed the street. Le Nouveau’s display window featured a constipated-looking mannequin dressed in a nubbly black-and-white Chanel suit, a vintage pearl-handled Gucci bag in one outstretched hand. Okay, this was definitely thrifting for the smart set. Even used, there was probably no way she could afford anything inside, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look around, would it? Besides, if she had to stand out on the sidewalk much longer, she’d melt into a sticky puddle of evaporated Lancôme Miracle perfume and L’Oréal texturizing spray…

  The inside of the store was cool and dark, and smelled vaguely like her grandmother’s closet. Rich people sure must like Chanel No5, Casey thought as she flipped through the racks, too terrified of the price tags to turn them over.

  “Can I help you?” a kind voice from directly behind her inquired. Casey turned around and smiled at a woman around Nanna’s age, a pair of bifocals hanging around a pearl-encrusted chain around her neck, dropping onto her exquisitely tailored white skirt suit. “Vintage Givenchy,” she said, winking one softly wrinkled brown eye and rubbing the lapel with one pearly polished fingernail. “I’ve had it for years.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Casey said truthfully. The woman smiled, exposing rows of teeth so white and perfect there was no possible way they could be real.

  “Well, enough about me,” she said, taking Casey by the arm. “What can I help you with today, dear?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Casey stammered, her cheeks flushing. “I was just looking around. I don’t really need anything right now.” As soon as the lie left her lips, Casey couldn’t believe she’d said it. But acting like you had more than you needed was definitely preferable to confessing how broke you were—especially in this neighborhood.

  “Nonsense,” the woman said briskly. “For instance this,” she said, pulling out a robin’s-egg-blue silk sundress with splashes of yellow flowers on the skirt, “well, it could’ve been designed for you!” Casey reached out and touched the soft fabric of the dress, swooning at the feel of silk on her fingertips. It didn’t even look like it had ever been worn, the fabric still crisp under her hand, the colors bright. Casey pictured herself walking into Drew’s undoubtedly palatial apartment, the silk swirling around her legs. As she fondled the dress, the price tag flipped over, and Casey was shocked back to reality. Four hundred dollars! For a used dress? Casey didn’t even want to know what it cost when it was brand-new…it might send her into sudden cardiac arrest.

  “It’s a Stella McCartney original, you know,” the woman said conspiratorially. “I can’t tell you who she is, of course, but the young lady who donated this particular garment comes from one of the most powerful families in Manhattan.”

  Whoop-de-do, Casey thought, removing her hand from the dress reluctantly. It really didn’t matter if Tinsley Mortimer herself had worn it—there was no way she’d ever be able to come up with the four hundred dollars to pay for it.

  “It’s lovely,” Casey said, swallowing hard, “but I really can’t.”

  “Let’s just try it on first, shall we?” The saleslady pulled Casey toward the row of dressing rooms at the back of the store, the dress thrown casually over one arm. What did these old ladies eat for breakfast, anyway? Steroids? The saleslady opened up a small cubicle with a gold key and hung the dress up on a hook screwed into the light blue walls. “Just come out when you have it on,” she said brightly, “and call me if you need any help.”

  What the hell, Casey told herself as she pulled her blue American Apparel tank over her head, kicked off her flip-flops, and stepped out of her jeans. The dress fell over her skin like water, and she smoothed it down with her hands. Damn you, mirrorless dressing room! Casey told herself as she opened the door and walked over to the full-length mirror on the adjacent wall.

  As she stood in front of the reflective glass, Casey had to admit that the saleslady was right—the dress fit like it was made for her. Casey turned around, looking at the back of the dress and bunching her hair in her hands to get it off of her neck. It wasn’t just a good dress: It was perfect. Just like the Nanette Lepore dress Madison had bought for her, this dress made her look like someone else—someone who didn’t worry about money, a girl who would probably attend the Ivy League college of her choice and wind up marrying a stockbroker. Casey frowned, twirling around so that the full skirt twirled out in a circle. Wait—did she even want to be that girl? As she stood there looking at herself, she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of deal with the devil she was making by trying to become a member of the most popular clique in school—maybe in all of Manhattan. But the dress was beautiful. It made her feel a little like Cinderella on her way to the ball. Yeah, right, her inner cynic snorted. Just remember: That joiner had to give the dress back at midnight—and the stupid coach turned into a pumpkin…

  “I was right.” Casey jumped as the saleslady snuck up behind her and adjusted the thin straps along her freckled shoulders. God, she hated her freckles—it was like constantly having an incurable case of smallpox. “It’s perfect on you!”

  “Yeah,” Casey said, surveying her reflection uneasily, “I love it, but…” Casey’s voice trailed off as she looked at the price t
ag dangling from underneath her arm. “But I can’t really afford it,” she said, meeting the saleslady’s eyes in the mirror. “I should’ve told you that from the start.” As soon as she said it, she knew that it was true. Why was she all of a sudden pretending to be someone else? What was wrong with just being Casey Anne McCloy? There was no way she was ever going to really fit in at Meadowlark anyway—or with The Bram Clan—so why did she keep trying? She was always going to fail. And, as much as she wanted to fit in, she wasn’t sure she wanted to become some kind of Stepford clone of an Upper East Side princess.

  “Thanks for letting me try it on,” Casey said, preparing to walk back inside the dressing room.

  “Not so fast,” the saleslady said, grabbing Casey by the wrist, her dark eyes shining with amusement.

  “I told you, really—I can’t afford it.” Casey glanced down at the chipped pink polish on her fingers.

  “Well, what can you afford?”

  “I, um…I can’t afford much at all,” Casey said, her face blushing with embarrassment at having to talk about being broke with such a put-together and kind old lady—not to mention while wearing such a dress. “I’d be hard-pressed to give you a hundred bucks for it…and I know that’s just not enough.”

  The saleslady smiled at her through the mirror and Casey could swear that she heard the gears in her brain cranking away. “Well, I’ll tell you what, dear. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Take the dress—it looks perfect on you and it would pain me to sell it to anyone else after seeing it on you. You give me fifty dollars for it now and then promise me—you have to promise—that you’ll come help me sort through boxes of donations sometime in order to work off the rest.” The gears ground to a halt and a new, bigger smile crawled across her barely wrinkled lips, content with having solved the problem. “So that’s that!” she cried, pushing Casey back into the dressing room before she even had a chance to think about the offer, much less muster any sort of reply. “We’ll wrap that beauty up and you’ll be on your way.”

  Although there was no mirror in the dressing room, Casey imagined that if she could see herself or if anyone were watching her, it would seem that, by slipping off the dress, she was becoming someone entirely different—a freckled, frizzed-out tourist from Nowhere, Illinois—a person that she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave behind entirely.

  It’s just a dress, she reminded herself. And an awesome one at that. She stepped into her plain-old outfit, threw the dress over one shoulder, and walked out toward the register, certain that she—Casey Anne McCloy—was going to look fantabulous at Drew’s party.

  meet

  the

  parents

  Drew leaned his elbows on the butcher-block top of the island that dominated the Van Allen kitchen, watching as his dad’s hands moved deftly around a ten-inch Wüsthof chef’s knife, reducing a pile of raw carrots to expertly cut cubes. Drew smiled, taking a sip of his Kir Royale as he watched his dad work, his hands a blur. It was so totally predictable. Even though his dad’s new Cajun-fusion restaurant was doing most of the catering, Drew knew that his father would never be one of those guys who left the kitchen drudgery to someone else. He was always sneaking in to rearrange piles of green, leafy salads, cutting perfectly executed garnishes with a paring knife, and helping the catering team dice huge bundles of root vegetables.

  “So, are you excited about to night?” His dad arranged a platter of baby lamb chops around a puddle of fragrant sauce on a bed of baby lentils, so that the entire plate resembled a bunch of flowers in bloom—or a gunshot wound, depending on how you looked at it.

  “Uh, yeah.” Drew rolled his eyes, taking another gulp of his Kir as the champagne bubbles tickled his nose, making him sneeze. He’d gotten hooked on the combination of champagne and black-currant liquor during a champagne-and-chocolate-croissant-soaked week in Paris this past summer. “I can barely contain myself.”

  His dad pushed the finished platter to the side and looked Drew in the eye, his gaze deadly serious.

  “Do I detect a note of sarcasm, Master Van Allen?”

  “Very perceptive,” Drew answered, leaning over and topping off his glass with the cool, open bottle of Dom on the countertop.

  “I’m sorry.” Drew’s dad cupped his ear with one hand and tilted his head, gesturing to the men working behind him who were stirring bubbling pots, and dicing onions. “Did you guys hear something?” His dad waved the chef’s knife around in Drew’s general direction, slicing the air and grinning maniacally. The caterers shook their heads, trying not to laugh.

  “That’s hilarious, Dad,” Drew deadpanned, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m shaking with laughter.”

  “Seriously, Drew.” His dad poured himself a glass of champagne, draining it in one gulp and wiping his salt-and-pepper beard with the back of his hand. “Isn’t there anything about to night that you’re even remotely excited about?” His dad motioned to the platters of hors d’oeuvres covering every available surface in the kitchen. “Or has all of this hard work been for nothing? You do realize that I’m wasting my golden years slaving away in the kitchen for your benefit, don’t you?”

  Drew shrugged his shoulders and finished his champagne. “Nice try, Dad—you’re barely in your forties. Since when does that constitute your golden years?”

  “I could go at any time!” his dad yelled out gleefully, twirling his chef’s knife in one hand, and attacking a bunch of spinach. “Aren’t the Macallisters coming to night?”

  “Don’t remind me,” Drew mumbled, popping a piece of prosciutto-wrapped melon into his mouth and chewing loudly.

  “What? Are you and Madison on the outs again? You just got back in town!”

  “I know,” Drew said morosely, swallowing the hunk of melon, which stuck like a lump in his chest. “That’s what makes it so tragic.”

  Drew’s dad smiled, the spinach reduced to neat, finely shredded piles. “You know, Drew, you come from a very artistic family.”

  “No, really, Dad?” Drew widened his eyes in feigned astonishment. “You can’t be serious.”

  “As a heart attack.” His dad brought the cutting board over to the sink and swept it clean with a damp rag. “Madison is gorgeous,” he mused turning on the garbage disposal, which promptly ate the collection of vegetable scraps like a hungry mechanical monster.

  “Don’t remind me,” Drew answered while rolling up the sleeves of his white Gucci dress shirt.

  “But she’s a little…boring,” his dad said thoughtfully.

  “Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to date her,” Drew snapped.

  “Maybe you need someone a little more…challenging.”

  “Trust me, Dad—Madison’s plenty challenging.”

  His dad turned around, wiping his hands on the clean chef’s towel he always kept draped over his left shoulder. Except to night it looked completely ridiculous, considering that he was wearing gray Paul Smith dress pants in a slightly textured wool, and a black dress shirt he’d had custom-made on their family trip to London last spring.

  “I meant mentally, Drew.” His dad threw the towel back over his shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe she’s just not creative enough for you.”

  Drew walked over to the fridge and got out another bottle of Dom, staring at the condensation on the green bottle as if the tiny droplets of water could somehow tell him what to do next. Maybe his dad was right—as much as he was attracted to Madison, maybe the only thing they really had in common at the end of the day was the fact that they were the couple that was most likely to couple. It wasn’t like they routinely sat around sharing their deepest feelings with one another, or engaging in heated debates about the upcoming presidential race. When he first moved uptown, the only thing that had made him feel like he even remotely fit in anywhere anymore was his relationship with Madison. Before that, every spare moment was spent downtown with his old friends—he wanted nothing to do with the people he saw every day at Meadlowlark. But the gi
rls were another story…and that, he could see now, was where this whole mess had begun. For a while, knowing that he was dating the most gorgeous girl in school, the girl every other guy in Manhattan dreamed about nightly, had been enough. Now, he just didn’t care.

  Besides, dating Madison made him feel like a character in some awful teen movie where everyone had perfect smiles and exceedingly shiny hair, got in to the Ivy league school of their choice without so much as breaking a sweat—stepping all over everyone else in their pointy stiletto heels in the process. There was no denying it—Madison had been a huge part of his life during the past two years, and he still really couldn’t imagine his day-to-day existence without her in it in some way. But that was the past. And try as he might, Drew couldn’t seem to block out that little voice inside his head that told him that Casey just might be his future. But if this thing with him and Casey was going to happen, he was definitely going to take it slow this time—if he’d learned anything from his experience dating the emotional tsunami that was Madison Macallister, it was not to rush into a relationship—or what ever it was they’d been to one another—so fucking fast. And one date does not a relationship make, he reminded himself as the doorbell sounded, shattering his thoughts.

  Drew’s dad looked down at the gleaming mother-of-pearl face of his Cartier Panther watch, his forehead wrinkling into a frown. “Whoever it is,” he said dryly, “they’re extremely early.”

  Drew heard the sound of his mother’s voice in the hallway, high-pitched and welcoming, and then the tap-tap of heels as the first annoyingly overpunctual guest approached the kitchen door. Casey walked into the bustling room wearing a sheepish expression and a blue dress splashed with yellow flowers that made her mass of curly golden hair shine in the light. Her legs extended long and bare from the silky fabric, and her face was brushed with just a dusting of powder so that her freckles showed through. All at once, Drew was filled with the impulse to pull her to him and lick the small brown dots that peppered her cheeks and nose—just to see if they were as cinnamon-sweet as they looked. Drew felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared at her, unable to pull his eyes away.