In Too Deep

by Jennifer Banash

  Casey stared down in disbelief at the face in the photograph, goosebumps popping up on her arms. “Melissa Von Norton’s your mom?” Casey looked up at Sophie, her mouth falling open. “I saw Playback in the theater five times last year!”

  “Me too,” Sophie said, staring down at the photograph, seemingly lost in thought, her fingers tracing the planes of her mother’s face. “I can’t believe I never noticed the resemblance—though I guess you never really go around looking for your own face in anyone else’s.” Sophie leaned back against the immense pile of pillows that were mounded up at the head of her bed. “My mom knows her—if you can believe that—they were in the same acting class together when my bio mom was just starting out. They were friends—a long time ago.”

  “Are you serious?” Casey asked, unable to keep the amazement from her voice. Casey looked into Sophie’s eyes, noticing immediately that they were the exact same shape and color as her biological mother’s—and that Sophie also looked dangerously close to crying. “Sophie, that’s just crazy,” Casey said softly, mostly because she just didn’t know what else to say. Casey sat there for a moment in the silence that had fallen over the room, winding a curl around her index finger, and wondering how it would feel to wake up one day and find out that your whole life had been a lie. Casey stared at Sophie, who was busily picking loose threads from her comforter, her face set in rapt concentration. She must be so lonely right now, Casey thought, reaching out to touch Sophie on the shoulder. Sophie jumped like she’d been burned by Casey’s touch, and gave Casey a weak smile. “So,” Casey said, removing her hand, trying to bring the conversation back someplace vaguely practical. “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?” Sophie took the folder back and closed it, tossing it to the floor.

  “I mean you have to call her or something!” Casey bent over and grabbed the folder off the floor and opened it again. “Or meet her. Isn’t there a number for her in here?”

  “No.” Sophie sighed, pointing an index finger at the bottom of the first page and tapping it with her nail. “Only an e-mail address.”

  “Then you have to e-mail her!” Casey exclaimed, grabbing the folder and walking over to Sophie’s MacBook, sitting down at her white lacquered, ultra-mod desk.

  “Hang on,” Sophie cautioned before Casey’s hands could so much as hit the keys. “I don’t even know if she wants to hear from me—much less see me!”

  “Then isn’t it time you found out?” Casey asked, turning to face Sophie, who had her arms crossed over her chest defensively. “Come on,” Casey said softly, reaching out and touching Sophie’s arm. “This is your mom we’re talking about—don’t you want to know her?”

  Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it, biting her bottom lip as she mentally weighed the pros and cons of making such a ballsy move. That was the thing about e-mail—once you let your words loose in the unruly world of cyberspace, you could never really take them back or, more important, delete them.

  “Does she want to know me is the question,” Sophie muttered, releasing the clip from her hair so that it fell down around her shoulders.

  “And why wouldn’t she?” Casey retorted. “You’re her daughter, aren’t you?”

  “I guess,” Sophie mumbled while inspecting her nails, neatly avoiding Casey’s eyes. Casey wasn’t sure exactly why Sophie was so hesitant to contact her mom—especially now that she was practically Hollywood royalty. Casey knew that if she was ever lucky enough to find herself standing in Sophie’s shoes, she’d be sitting on a plane, sunglasses on, faster than you could hum the opening bars of the theme from The O.C. “Come on,” Casey said decisively, running her hands over the mouse and waking up Sophie’s sleeping computer. Just as she opened Sophie’s e-mail, Sophie sighed, pushing her over on the chair.

  “Shove over and let me do it,” Sophie said bossily, strategically pushing her butt onto the chair so that Casey’s own butt cheek was suddenly hanging fleshily—not to mention precariously—in the air. Why does my butt have to be so big? Casey lamented silently, noticing the way Sophie’s entire ass fit neatly on the small space—along with Casey’s half-cheek. Sophie’s ass was so small that you could probably fit two of them neatly side by side on the matching white lacquer surface.

  “What are you going to say?” Casey wondered aloud as Sophie’s hands flew over the keys, her eyes focused on the white screen.

  Dear Ms. Von Norton,

  My name is Sophie St. John, and I have just been informed that you are my biological mother . . .

  “My sweet sixteen party is coming up, right?” Sophie said, her fingers still typing furiously. “I was thinking about maybe inviting her.”

  “Umm . . . Do you think that’s a good idea?” Casey asked, trying to be tactful. In truth, she really couldn’t think of a worse idea. Way to put pressure on the entire night! Not only did Sophie have to pull off one of the hottest parties of the year, she was going to meet her biological mother in front of four hundred of her closest frenemies? Throw in the fact that her mother just happened to be one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, and you had the potential for a disaster of epic proportions—kind of like Titanic, but on dry land, surrounded by couture . . . “And why aren’t you sixteen yet anyway?” Casey asked, changing the subject, her brow lined with confusion.

  “I skipped the sixth grade,” Sophie said with a shrug. “So I’m a year younger than everyone else. It’s totally stupid.” Sophie’s hands stopped dead on the keys as she turned to look at Casey. “So, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to invite her?” she asked nervously, catching her bottom lip between her white teeth. “I mean, it’s only the most important night of my life!”

  Exactly, Casey thought, groaning inwardly while trying her best to plaster an expression on her face that appeared both positive and supportive. “No reason,” Casey said quickly, hoping she sounded appropriately cheerful.

  “So, let’s do it,” Sophie said crisply, suddenly all business as she turned back to the screen, a determined expression on her face as she deleted what she’d written with a sharp click of her mouse, and started all over again.

  From: ssj@meadowlarkacademy.com

  To: starbaby@aol.com

  Dear Ms. Von Norton (Melissa? Mom? Not sure what to call you),

  This is a strange e-mail to write, and probably an even more random one for you to find in your inbox.

  My name is Sophie St. John, and I have reason to believe that I am your daughter. According to my parents—and the files from the Tender Care adoption agency on W. Fifty-seventh Street—you gave me up for adoption on November 3, 1991, in New York City, where I still live with my parents on the Upper East Side. My “other” mother has told me you were in her acting class, and that you were close friends a million years ago.

  There is so much I don’t know about my life, things I think only you can tell me. I’m turning sixteen in a few weeks, and I’d love if you’d consider coming to my party. I hope my asking doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable, but I’d really like the opportunity to sit down and talk with you—or, if that’s impossible, an e-mail would be a good start ☺.

  Sincerely,

  Sophie St. John

  lights, camera, distraction

  Drew was only twenty minutes into watching the footage of his interview with Alexis Anderson, senior at Meadowlark and total hottie, and he already wanted to scream. Why was every girl he interviewed so spoiled and self-obsessed? As he stared at the screen, he quickly became aware that the movie he had just begun making could very easily become feature-length. He had spent a few hours the day before interviewing Alexis in the living room of her parents’ Park Avenue apartment, which featured, among other things, fourteen-carat gold-leaf detailing splashed across the pristine, white moldings of the sixteen-foot ceiling. It was the kind of apartment where you couldn’t touch the walls; where some chairs were meant for sitting on and others where you just thought about how nice it would be to sit in them. I could just film the a
partment, no interview at all, and that could be the whole movie, Drew thought to himself as he stared at the glowing screen of his MacBook. But as Alexis offered up another picture-perfect sound bite about remembering to say thanks after receiving a brand-new BMW Z3 coupe and a Cartier watch for her birthday, he quickly scratched that idea—this stuff was too good to be true.

  Alexis was one of those girls that was so beautiful, so physically perfect that she seemed to exist in a completely different reality. It was doubtful that a single guy at Meadowlark didn’t harbor some illicit fantasy that involved Alexis and her lightly toasted almond skin, disarming blue eyes, and her totally slammin’ body. And that tooth. The tooth was, for some reason, the thing about Alexis that had always drove Drew’s libido into overdrive. She had one crooked tooth that jumped forward when she smiled in a way that would be undoubtedly ugly on any other girl, but on Alexis, it served as some sort of seal of authenticity, like the little bubbles in Venetian handblown glass, imperfections that somehow had come to denote the utmost quality—and demanded the highest prices. And that was the image that Drew had always had of Alexis—the most perfect, sexy, beautiful, and expensive senior at Meadowlark. But as he looked at her digital likeness on the screen in front of him, he realized that he would never see her that way again—that tooth meant nothing to him anymore. After all, the whole reason he’d broken up with Madison was that she was just way too caught up in all the UES drama that came along with being young, rich, and living in the city’s most desirable zip code. Even though Drew was pretty sure that Alexis was flirting with him all through their interview, the thought of dating her now was inconceivable. She was so egotistical and spoiled that she kind of reminded Drew of Madison on steroids—and if he couldn’t handle Mad’s own diva bullshit, hooking up with Alexis was totally out of the question.

  “I feel that I’m, like, totally aware of the privileges I have. I mean, I go down to the Village to go shopping sometimes and I see the way people live down there. It’s experiences like that that make me grateful for everything I have. And aware that there are other people that don’t have this stuff.” Alexis blinked rapidly onscreen as she responded to Drew’s question about the income disparity in the world. And while he, like so many other New Yorkers, certainly thought of Manhattan as the epicenter of the world—if not the entire universe—he had been thinking more along the lines of differences between socioeconomics in the United States and Darfur, not the Upper East Side and the Village. Is it really possible to be this completely uninformed? Drew thought to himself as he marked the time code for that clip in his notebook and then pressed play again.

  “I mean, poor people are just like you and me,” Alexis said enthusiastically—always the humanitarian. “They just have less money.” Drew rolled his eyes and hit pause. She was giving him so many priceless sound bites that he didn’t even know which one to choose anymore.

  “Drew, are you in there?”

  The booming voice of Drew’s dad, Robert Van Allen, was unmistakable, and Drew glanced at Alexis’s still face on the screen one last time before answering, tossing his pen down on the desk. “Yeah,” he called out, “come on in.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Robert said as he stepped through Drew’s doorway wearing a food-splattered white chef’s jacket and an ancient pair of ripped jeans, his knees poking bonily through the holes. Robert Van Allen was one of the most famous chefs in all of Manhattan, and his signature restaurants were continuously packed months in advance. After years of working back-breaking shifts, his dad was now mostly retired, and preferred to supervise from a distance rather than run his eateries on-site. But ever since the opening of his latest venture, Boudin, a Cajun-fusion restaurant, a few months back, he’d been coming home progressively later and later each night. “What are you working on?” he asked, sitting down on Drew’s rumpled bed, and pushing aside the plaid flannel Ralph Lauren sheets that were scrunched into a ball at the foot of the bed.

  “Just reviewing some footage,” Drew said, the frozen image of Alexis, despite the utterly ridiculous words that had just come out of her perfect, pillow-lipped mouth, still making his jaw want to drop. Like in a cartoon.

  “Reviewing some footage, huh,” Robert replied, following Drew’s gaze to the screen, “so that’s what they’re calling it these days,” he deadpanned. “Do you need me to leave you alone for a while,” he asked, fighting to keep a straight face. “This isn’t one of those live, online camera chat things, is it?”

  “No, Dad.” Drew laughed, clicking to minimize the window. “It’s for the movie I’m working on. You know, the one I was talking about with you the other day. About rich kids and our neighborhood and all that.”

  “Oh, that movie. I remember. How’s it been going so far? Are all of your interviewees going to look like that?” Drew’s dad asked, playfully knocking him in the shoulder with a loose fist. “That might not make this movie of yours very popular with that Casey girl.”

  “Actually, she’s been helping me out with this thing. She wasn’t along for Alexis’s interview,” Drew said, gesturing to the screen, “but she’s been working with me on the writing and is going to give me a hand with the rest of the interviews, too.”

  “That’s good to hear, Drew. Just keep an eye out for girls like Alexis here. If I’m not mistaken, you have a bit of a soft spot for the perfect, blond, model-looking type.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Drew shot back, a bit too quickly. He was in no mood for one of his dad’s heart-to-hearts—especially about girls. As much as he loved his dad, his advice was based on fairly obvious observations more often than not, and as a result, he was rarely the source of sage advice he believed himself to be. Especially when it came to girls. Which is exactly when he felt especially convinced that Drew needed the benefit of his experiences. Or train wrecks.

  “Does the name Madison Macallister ring a bell? You know, the girl that you’ve been dating for the better part of the last few years?” Drew’s dad quipped as he pulled the sleeves of the threadbare white chef ’s jacket he wore up to his elbows. He rested his bare arms on his knees, leaning forward. These were the telltale signs of an oncoming advice assault—it was his Let me tell you something stance. Drew braced himself. “What did happen with you and Madison? She never comes around anymore. And you’ve been spending an awful lot of time with that Casey girl.”

  “Stop calling her ‘that Casey girl,’ Dad.” Drew snapped, unable to hide his annoyance. “I know her name. You know her name. It’s Casey McCloy. And yes, I guess she might kind of be my girlfriend—or something like that. And, yes, Madison and I are history. And I just might like things better this way—that’s about as much as I can figure out right now,” Drew said, looking toward his dad, trying to get the facts out on the table and out of the way, hoping that they could get through this as quickly as possible.

  Robert leaned over even farther, balancing his elbow on his knee and wedging his hand firmly under his chin, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard the way he always did while mulling over something complicated. “That’s a lot of ‘guesses’ and ‘kind ofs,’ Drew. Doesn’t sound like you’re much too certain about any of this. And you maybe kind of think Alexis is really pretty and could sort of be your girlfriend, too, right?” His eyes lit up at the question mark, and the joy that this father-son-girlfriend-intrigue stuff brought him peered out from beneath the put-on air of somberness he tended to use during such conversations.

  Shit. Drew exhaled heavily, staring at his father’s expectant face. Drew realized there was going to be no getting out of this quickly—he was going to have to talk this one out with his dad, for better or for worse. “Yes, Alexis is gorgeous. So is Madison. But I think I’m tired of girls like that—girls that have everything and seem to be perfect. And I think I’m happier with Casey. She doesn’t buy into all the stupid he said/she said bullshit that Madison and Alexis—and most of the girls uptown—are so obsessed with. You know what I mean?”

 
“I know exactly what you mean,” Robert replied with a smile, leaning back against Drew’s pillows. “You know, that’s the way I felt about your mother when we first met. She was so beautiful and smart and so totally different from any other girl I’d ever known.” Drew’s mom was none other than Allegra Van Allen, a world-famous painter and art-world beauty. Even though they’d been married for over twenty years, his parents fairly panted with lust for each other on a daily basis. Ever since Drew was around six, he’d understood that when his parents disappeared into their room in the middle of the day to “take a nap,” that other secret, stickier things were probably taking place. While other kids at Meadowlark lamented their parents’ divorces on a regular basis, Drew felt smug and slightly superior in comparison—most of all, his parents’ obvious devotion made him feel safe, like everything was right in the world of Drew Van Allen.

  “Not that it made me give up on the other girls right away,” his dad went on, clearly lost in his own memories. “She made them seem so different, too . . . different from her. But in the end, of course, you know how it all worked out.” Drew’s dad slapped his knees with the palms of his hands, got up, and headed for the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.

  “Don’t feel like you need to rush yourself, Drew—you don’t have to have it all figured out right now. You’re a young guy—play the field and have fun—that’s what youth is for, you know.”

  Drew put his bare feet up on his desk and leaned back in his chair, his arms behind his head. “And you should know, right? I mean, since you’re so old and everything . . .” he answered back, a half-smile on his lips.

  “Proving once again that youth is definitely wasted on the young,” his dad retorted with a snort as he closed the door behind him.