Jet Set
Carrie Karasyov & Jill Kargman
Contents
Chapter One
Imagine a school with endless gilded hallways that rival…
Chapter Two
“These are the West Stables, where you can board up…
Chapter Three
The blood slowly ran out of my face.
Chapter Four
I awoke to the sound of a violin. As my…
Chapter Five
“You’re late,” said the man in a brusque German accent…
Chapter Six
“Um, this seat is saved,” said Antigone, putting her hand…
Chapter Seven
I walked down the hall toward Sofia’s room and was…
Chapter Eight
The next day, after lobbing steady shots at Sofia in…
Chapter Nine
I brought Sofia into my room, and we both sat…
Chapter Ten
Over the next few days, I steered clear of discussing…
Chapter Eleven
“So what high school has a white-tie thing, anyway?” I…
Chapter Twelve
As the three-hundred-year-old grandfather clock in the dorm hallway struck…
Chapter Thirteen
The thrill of victory wore off at about three in…
Chapter Fourteen
That Saturday after hoofing it on the court in scrambles…
Chapter Fifteen
I wore the blue dress anyway. And guess what? It…
Chapter Sixteen
I could hardly contain myself when I got to the…
Chapter Seventeen
Club Platinum had dark banquettes all around the perimeter of…
Chapter Eighteen
A few days later, Antony called me for brunch, and…
Chapter Nineteen
“So are you with Antony now?” asked Iman, her arms…
Chapter Twenty
I awoke to the sound of a little ping from…
Chapter Twenty-One
That night, while the gals hit Club Platinum, Sofia and…
Chapter Twenty-Two
I was nervous. I mean, sweating bullets. It was our…
Chapter Twenty-Three
“There is something about that here,” said Sofia, pulling out…
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was reeling, chest throbbing, head aching, and brow perspiring.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After our third shared bottle of Coca-Cola to wash down…
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next few days were the worst in my life.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I waited until I heard the last door close. I…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I know you’re mad, but we have to work through…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Antony valiantly fought to retrieve me from my wallowing state.
Chapter Thirty
The next afternoon at tennis, Coach Sachs ran through the…
Chapter Thirty-One
Oliver walked me all the way back to my dorm,…
Chapter Thirty-Two
Practice went well. It was weird, a whole different vibe,…
Chapter Thirty-Three
The trio blew out of my room, on an Oliver…
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Okay, so we owe you an apology.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I was stressed about Oliver. Why was he being weird?…
Chapter Thirty-Six
But I didn’t get a chance to see Antony the…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
There had been a lot of flux in the friendship…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Hurry up! You’re gonna make us late!” snapped Antigone, who…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Oliver was friendlier at practice the next morning. He said…
Chapter Forty
I was perusing the racks of leather-bound notebooks embossed with…
Chapter Forty-One
It was the night before my match and my heart…
Chapter Forty-Two
When I rolled over the next morning I thought I…
Chapter Forty-Three
So, after my graveyard-in-a-box debacle I exhaled and gave in…
Chapter Forty-Four
The tradition was to walk through a receiving line, where…
Chapter Forty-Five
Back at the table, the main course was being served.
Chapter Forty-Six
I wandered gingerly down the solitary footpath in my heels,…
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Other Books by Carrie Karasyov & Jill Kargman
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Imagine a school with endless gilded hallways that rival Versailles. A chandelier-filled dining room with a painted ceiling that echoes the Sistine Chapel. Thirty-foot-high arches as you walk into the mahogany library. Priceless collections of rare books and illuminated manuscripts. Art worthy of the Louvre. Marble from the rarest quarries. Picture a majestic castle nestled into a lush green mountainside next to a glistening river, and inside it students hailing from around the globe.
It ain’t Hogwarts, people. It’s my new school: the elite Van Pelt Academy in Switzerland. And while there aren’t wizards, wands, or dragons, there is plenty of magic—the storied history of generations of royal alumni, a network of global power hatched from friendships struck at age fifteen, and an air of mystery that shrouds this private school that is, without a doubt, the Who’s Who of the world.
My classmates are a kaleidoscope of the world’s aristocracy. The son of a Russian coal tycoon, the daughter of the deposed king of Italy, an Indian princess, a Texas oil billionaire’s son, the son of an Arab emir, a jewelry house heir, a fashion empire scion, and so on. I don’t know how to say the phrase “over the top” in Latin, but if I could, I would have nominated that to be the school’s motto. Families had decorators flown in during the summer to design their children’s rooms before September’s arrival day, which was today, my first day of tenth grade. There were personal porters with piles of Vuitton steamer trunks, safes on dollies, and standing garment racks (lest the couture frocks get wrinkled accordion style in a suitcase).
Do I sound bitter? I wasn’t, hand to God, I swear—I knew I was truly blessed beyond measure to be here. I just felt a tad pauperish given the illustrious backgrounds of my fellow students. Take the school store, for instance. Yours may have pens, paper, letter sweaters, the like. We had a huge glass-domed room like a London gallery, filled with booth after booth of satellite stores—a mini Chanel, Versace, Vuitton, Tiffany (and others I had never heard of)—all with bursar billing so some dynastic darling could scribble her signature, charge a fur vest to Daddy, and be off to enjoy her new purchases. So, as you can tell, it’s not your normal institution. I mean, New England prep schools may be fancy, but they don’t have 300-count sheets or maid service. Or room service. Or dry-cleaning service. If you went to some ivy-covered Massachusetts institution and you happened to get hungry late at night? It’s called a vending machine, people. Van Pelt has a leather-bound hotel-style menu in every dorm room, listing every food you could ever dream up. Too bad there wasn’t much I could afford on it…. I was offered a small monthly stipend with my full scholarship, but it wasn’t enough to keep me afloat in this Monopoly land. People don’t even bother to lock their doors here because they’re all so rich, why would they need to steal anything? Safes are provided for all the royal jewels, of course.
Let me clarify how I fit into this picture. My dad is a lifelong milita
ry man, which means my family has constantly moved from place to place. But I have always been the Good Girl who did what she was told and adapted seamlessly. Being the dreaded “new girl” at school wasn’t actually that bad for me; I generally thrived in academic environments, and I always had the structure of a team sport with my tennis playing. Killing on the tennis courts has been a huge feather in my Nike visor.
I had just started ninth grade when I knew I couldn’t move again. I desperately wanted roots. I had been playing scholastic hopscotch too long, and my parents had promised me that I could go away to boarding school…if I could get myself a scholarship.
I browsed catalogs for schools in the United States dotting the Eastern Seaboard from Connecticut to New Hampshire. But something about being so far away from my family kept me from filing my applications and writing my essays, which wasn’t like me. I’d never been much of a procrastinator and had gotten straight As, geek style, pretty much since they started giving grades, albeit in check-minus/check/check-plus form. I knew this would be a huge decision, and I was agonizing over where to apply when I was walking down the street in my most recent hometown (Munich) and bumped into the older sister of a friend from my school in Spain. She had just graduated from Van Pelt and raved about it with stars in her eyes, saying wistfully those years had been the best years of her life.
Hmm…a boarding school where I could stay for three straight years and be on the same continent as my family? I knew of a few in England but they were all single sex and supposedly all legacies. Intrigued, I logged on to the website to register my request for an application. I was emailed back a password for the private pages of the website so I could surf the myriad images of Prince William look-alikes dressed formally for class and brandishing stacks of old books, even switching to the famed Gstaad campus for the winter term, where instruction is in the morning so students can ski in the afternoon. For real. How many schools in the world switch campuses midyear to accommodate choice slalom time? One. Mine. Yeah…crazy.
But what really attracted me was the image of row after row of tennis courts. They had cement courts, they had clay courts, but most important of all: grass courts. The rarely seen nature’s courts were the definition of high maintenance, with thrice daily mowings that made a golf course look overgrown. In all my life I had never played on grass. It had been a dream of mine, and I couldn’t imagine going to a school where they would be readily available to me. I was sold. My parents were sold, my dad especially, who was determined that I get a top education and go to a top school. He thought Van Pelt was a great idea. I just needed to sell the school.
After slaving over my not one, not two, but three essay questions and fine–tooth combing my lists of extracurricular interests and aspirations, plus culling recommendations, school transcripts, and standardized test scores, I sent in the almighty application packet, which rivaled the phone book in thickness. I applied for financial aid and corresponded with the tennis coach who came to watch me in a tournament. Luckily I played the match of my life and—presto!—weeks later I received a hand-delivered acceptance letter on a calligraphy-written scroll! Maybe the other applicants hailed from schools where that kind of grandiose gesture was par for the course, but all I’d known were metal lockers and fluorescent-lit hallways—not manicured lawns and parchment mailings. I was euphoric and convinced that my years of adapting chameleonlike to school after school would help me fit in, even though I had so little in common with my glittering classmates—or at least the alums who graced the Van Pelt site.
It was only when I arrived that the nervous pit in my stomach did a flip. You know, the whole “be careful what you wish for” idea? I had wanted so badly to stay in one place for the next three years and not jump around, but now I couldn’t imagine what I was thinking. I was throwing myself into the highest echelons of society that only about .5 percent of the world enjoy. In theory, I could see myself pictured in the brochure for the school—studying with them, playing tennis with them, on the lunch line with them. But in practice, would I really be able to socialize with them? They had rules that I had no idea about. How could I have thought it would be just like transferring to a school on another army base?
Okay, okay, it was only my first day. I had to remember to stay positive. And to breathe.
Chapter Two
“These are the West Stables, where you can board up to three of your horses. Additional horses have to be kept at the East Stables, which is such a drag! But you’ll be happy to know that they have finally made the complete transformation to organic horse feed, so now we don’t have to worry about our babies anymore!”
“Um, I actually don’t have any babies,” I said.
“Don’t have any babies! You poor sweetie!” I couldn’t tell if the crisp English accent was sarcastic or not.
I was being guided around campus by Sofia Glenn, a member of the Golden Key Club (a group responsible for showing new students the ropes) who had been assigned to give my tour. (I was to refer to her as my “Sister Advisor,” and she was to refer to me as her “Apprentice.”) She was a confident, striking blonde whose chic British tone and modelesque bod immediately made her seem older, though she was a sophomore like me. The difference was she had freshman year at Van Pelt under her belt, which made her an expert compared to my newbie self. I followed Sofia obediently around the school, passing girls clad in full riding garb, right down to suede britches and chocolate brown velvet caps that, it appeared, they wore whether or not they were on a horse. Sofia had filled me in on some general campus information on the ride to the school, and continued her dialogue on our tour. She was nice, but I could tell I was probably tour number three or four of the day and it was a bit by rote.
“Yes, I guess it’s a bummer. I would love to learn how to ride, but I bet I’m hopeless,” I confessed, pulling my light brown hair into a messy ponytail. Every kid I saw looked so polished. Note to self: look a tad less rolled-out-of-bed-ish.
“But I hear that you are a crackerjack on the tennis court,” said Sofia.
I reddened. “Really? Who told you that?” I asked quickly.
“Word travels fast,” she said, shrugging, and started down a winding path. “Everyone here is someone. You’re the tennis star.”
Huh? It’s not like I was walking around in all whites toting my racket.
“I mean, I guess I’m a good player…”
“You must be,” said Sofia with confidence. “No one here is mediocre. Everyone either has an extreme talent or…” She trailed off and looked away at the rolling verdant hills.
“Or?”
“Extreme wealth,” she said, staring at me evenly.
“Right.”
I still couldn’t decide how open to be about my situation. Should I pretend to be like them or be self-deprecating and admit I was just a meager scholarship student? I didn’t want to lie, and I didn’t think everyone deserved the right to know my financial background, so my plan was just to try and fit in as much as I could without hiding or volunteering any information.
“Nice eyes,” Sofia said, looking so intently into my pupils it was as if she could see my brain, X-ray style. I thanked her sheepishly, noticing that her eyes were even bluer than mine. I couldn’t quite get a read on her.
As we exited the stables, Sofia explained the way Van Pelt worked. “The school has about five hundred students, but each grade is divided into ‘sectionals’—basically classes. You’ll be seeing a lot of the people in your sectional. You’ll be assigned to the same tables at our dinner events, you’ll have group meetings with them, and you’ll have away trips with them. Basically you’ll get really sick of them,” she said.
I nodded. Great. I could only hope I got cool people in my “sectional.”
We continued on through our tour, skipping only the ten-foot hedge labyrinth and the boys’ dormitory wing (called Le Chambord). Finally it was the moment I’d been waiting for. I’d seen the pictures, but even in person I was astounded by the
tennis facility. They had enough courts to host every single grand slam. I couldn’t wait to get out there. I could tell that Sofia was eager to continue, but I made her linger a little more in the tennis center, where they had state-of-the-art equipment like aerodynamic ball throwers and computers that analyzed your every stroke. After a quick peek into the plush “locker rooms,” replete with massage tables and massage therapists standing by (with buffet or your choice of aromatherapy oils), we ended up back on the floor of my dorm. I was eager to plop on my bed and digest everything, but Sofia continued to lead me down the grand arch-ceilinged hallways.
“Let me show you the lounge,” she insisted. “Wait till you see this.”
The “lounge” was more like a viewing room with plush chairs, plasma televisions, and a bartender waiting to take orders. There were three pretty girls comfortably ensconced on the sofas, chatting furiously in French.
“Hey, ladies,” said Sofia, motioning for me to come inside. “This is Lucy Peterson, our new classmate. Lucy, this is Antigone, Iman, and Victoria.”
“Hello,” acknowledged Antigone curtly.
“Nice to meet you,” I murmured. These were my classmates? They looked so much older! Yikes. Antigone had sleek jet black hair down to her ass and heavily lined eyes, and she was clad in so many designer logos it made my head spin. Iman was gorgeous, with skin the most wonderful latte brown and giant hazel eyes. Victoria had dirty-blond hair and what appeared to be a perpetual scowl. I noticed her give me the once-over and then glance away.
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