In Too Deep

by Jennifer Banash

  “Hey!” Sophie called out as she approached. “God, am I glad to see you, Pheebs. Everything’s a complete disaster, my mother—”

  Phoebe look at Sophie, wordless, a sheepish and slightly terrified expression moving over her heart-shaped face, her dark eyes darting from Sophie to the shadowy figure standing against the wall. Sophie could see that Phoebe’s bright, magenta lip gloss—which had been perfectly applied at the start of the evening—was now hopelessly smudged in one corner. She’d clearly been getting up close and personal with whoever was lurking in the shadows. Sophie squinted her eyes and moved closer to the shadowy lump half-hidden behind Phoebe, the shock registering in her eyes as she came face-to-face with a figure that was scarily, horrifyingly familiar.

  “Jared?” Sophie demanded as her pulse quickened, her blood boiling like lava in her veins. “What’s going on?” Sophie turned to Phoebe, feeling like everything familiar and safe had just been ripped away from her in the last twenty minutes. First her own parents betrayed her—and now her brother, too? At least we’re keeping it all in the family, Sophie thought bitterly. This was like some bad acid trip. Could someone have spiked her champagne or something? Try as she might, there seemed to be no other explanation for the total randomness that she was now experiencing. “Phoebe?” Sophie stared at her best friend, her gaze murderous.

  “Sophs,” Phoebe said quickly, regaining some of her composure, “it’s not what it looks like.” Sophie narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “I mean it is . . . but it’s not like we wanted to lie to you, it’s just—”

  “No, that’s fine, really,” Sophie said, cutting Phoebe off before she could get another word in, her voice like ice. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone lies to me. Why should you be any different? But I guess that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Sophie went on, a tear escaping her right eye and sliding down her cheek before she could stop it. “That I thought you were different. I thought you were my friend.”

  “Sophs, listen.” Phoebe’s face crumpled along with her composure, and she extended her hands, trying to grab onto Sophie’s arm, her eyes pleading, her expression mirroring the one Sophie had seen and subsequently ignored in Phyllis’s eyes earlier that evening. And as Phoebe’s hands reached out, Sophie backed up rapidly, smacking into a disco cowboy wearing a pair of metallic gold leather chaps.

  “Don’t touch me!” Sophie yelled putting out her own arms in front of her to ward Phoebe off. “Don’t talk to me. Just leave me alone.”

  “Listen, sis, you need to chillax,” Jared said as calmly as if he’d been languidly waxing his surfboard for the last ten minutes. He threw his head back, shaking the hair from eyes covered by chrome aviators, and straightened the bottom of his ridiculously retro beige Members Only jacket. “Let’s just go and sit down and we’ll—”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me right now,” Sophie screamed, tears streaming down her face, streaking her gold shadow and liner. “And that’s not even seventies!” she yelled, pointing at his jacket. “It’s eighties!”

  Before either of them could say another word Sophie spun on her heel, almost toppling over completely before she righted herself and tore off into the crowd. Just get me the hell out of here, she prayed silently as her eyes darted from side to side, looking frantically for the exit. As she pushed through the gyrating crowd on the dance floor, a familiar voice came over the sound system. Sophie turned and looked up at the DJ booth. Melissa Von Norton stood there, a microphone in her hand, beaming down at the crowd.

  “Can I have your attention, please? I’ve brought a very special gift for the birthday girl—my dear daughter, Sophie!” The crowd gasped, turning around en masse to face Sophie, who stood there as motionless as a wax figure. “Will everyone be so good as to follow me outside?” Melissa said with a twinkle in her eye as the crowd rushed toward the front door of the club like someone had announced that Zac Efron was standing directly outside, on the pavement in front of Marquee, completely naked. That would give a whole new meaning to curbside service, Sophie thought as she moved numbly through the crowd, ignoring the constant chatter that surrounded her, feeling as totally and completely alone as she ever had in her entire life.

  Instead of a naked teen sex symbol, a brand-new black BMW convertible was parked at the curb, a bright pink ribbon wound around the hood ending in a garish, glittery bow. As Sophie stood staring at the car like it was a dinosaur that had somehow crawled its way back to the island of Manhattan, Melissa came up behind her, resting one peach-manicured hand lightly on Sophie’s shoulder, and pressing the shining silver car keys into Sophie’s palm with the other.

  Sophie stared down at the keys in her hand, resisting the urge to gouge them into the soft flesh of her arm, the roar of the crowd seemingly miles away as she looked up uncomprehendingly into her mother’s face. This time—though the resemblance was clearly still there—she saw none of herself reflected back in her mother’s placid, empty green eyes. “I don’t drive,” Sophie said woodenly, shoving the keys back into her mother’s hand, and shrugging off her touch with a brisk shake of her shoulders. “But you wouldn’t know that about me, would you? Because you’ve never been around.”

  “Sophie, I . . .” her mother began with a worried smile, looking nervously at the flocks of photographers that had gathered around them like birds.

  “You what?” Sophie snarled, letting the anger and disappointment she felt wash over her in what felt like an emotional tidal wave. “You came here to use me as a photo op—that’s what.” Sophie’s eyes darted around the circumference of the crowd and rested on Madison standing there. Stop, she mouthed, rolling her eyes for added emphasis. But Sophie felt like she’d gone too far already, that stopping, or even slowing down was completely out of the question, not to mention impossible.

  “Sophie, that’s not true,” Melissa said firmly, reaching out and grabbing onto Sophie’s arm. “I came here for you.”

  “You came here for this!” Sophie yelled, pulling away from Melissa’s grasp as if her mother’s touch burned through the fine silk of her jacket. She pointed an index finger accusingly at the rapidly popping flashbulbs, the crowd pushing in for a better look, her murky green eyes red and wet. “And you can have it.”

  Sophie turned and ran, her legs moving as fast and as hard as she could. She ran like someone was chasing her, like her life depended on it, turning down the city streets, her heels clicking against the still-damp pavement from the rain shower that had sprinkled Manhattan a few hours earlier, her arms moving in time with her breathing as her nose began to run and the fedora flew off her head, twirling once in a gust of wind, then smacking against the windshield of a yellow cab with a barely audible thud.

  one big happy family

  “Drew, wait ! ”

  Drew ignored his father’s voice, picked up the pace, and kept walking, his hands shoved into his pockets, his head down to hide the tears that had sneaked out from the corners of his eyes. When he didn’t slow down or answer, his father began to run, and Drew heard a rush of footsteps on the pavement as his dad fell into step alongside him, breathing heavily.

  “Listen,” his father said breathlessly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to crouch deeply, bending over at the waist, his white jacket pulling tightly over his slightly rounded stomach. Robert Van Allen was still carrying around one too many pounds from his days working as a chef—too many slivers of foie gras and spoonfuls of cream-based sauces had somehow found their way around his middle over the fifteen years he’d worked in the kitchen. The guy couldn’t even run half a block and he was having an affair? Drew thought, looking at his father with undisguised disdain.

  “Drew,” his father said, once he’d regained his breath, his face red and sweating, “we really need to talk.”

  Ten minutes later, Drew found himself regarding his father stonily from his perch on a cracked and peeling leather barstool at O’Malley’s, a faux Irish pub a few blocks from Marquee. The air was hazy with smoke, and hi
s dad raised his hand in the air, signaling for a refill of the Glenlivet on the rocks he’d just downed in a few easy swallows. Drew scuffed the toe of his vintage Converse high-tops against the sawdust-covered floor, angling his body as far away from his father as he could possibly get without getting up and moving to another seat.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” Drew’s father asked, looking over at his son, his brow lined with worry.

  Drew shook his head and looked away—determined not to look back. “Water’s fine,” he said, his voice tight, his hand circling the rim of his glass. Drew still couldn’t believe what he’d just seen back at the club. He had the happiest parents in all of Manhattan, didn’t he? Whatever his dad had to say couldn’t possibly explain why he’d been having an affair with Phoebe’s mom, of all people. He’d never had even one nice thing to say about Madeline Reynaud. Drew had heard his dad complain that Madeline was a bourgeois, stuck-up snob more times than he could count—and now he was dating her?

  And adding insult to injury was the mind-boggling fact that Drew’s mother, Allegra Van Allen, happened to be an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist. Not only was she talented, she was also witty, intelligent, and still unbelievably beautiful. What more could his father possibly want in a woman? How could he not love her anymore? Drew wondered, his mood darkening even more than he thought possible. Their seemingly happy relationship was now a total and complete mystery to him. As he sat there silently contemplating his rapidly melting ice cubes, Drew couldn’t stop himself from wondering the obvious: Had they been faking it all these years?

  “Do you love her?” Drew blurted out, taking a sip of his ice water, hoping the cold liquid would cool him off enough so that he could be rational.

  “Who—Madeline?” Drew’s father chuckled as if the question were totally preposterous, picking up his full glass from the bar and knocking it back in one swallow. “Of course not.”

  “Then, why?” Drew asked, now more confused than ever. Why would his father risk everything—his home, his family—for some woman he didn’t even love? It didn’t make any sense.

  “Listen, Drew. Of course I love your mother—of course I do.” Robert Van Allen turned to his son, putting his empty glass on the bar with a sharp click. “But we have an . . . arrangement.”

  “What kind of arrangement?” Drew turned to look at his father, needing at last to see his face. His dad was always the person Drew went to when he had a problem, the one person Drew trusted implicitly—and he was a liar. As complicated as his dad wanted it to be, the truth was that it was plain and simple. His father had lied to him all these years.

  “Your mother does as she wants—and I do the same. Usually discreetly and without the intrusion of TV cameras,” his father said with a grimace.

  “So, Mom . . .” Drew’s voice trailed off into nothingness. The sounds of the pinball machine in the back of the bar suddenly seemed very loud, the smoke hanging in the air chokingly thick.

  “True intimacy,” his dad began, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard thoughtfully, his blue eyes focused on Drew’s face, “is letting another person see you completely—faults and all. I’m not perfect, Drew—far from it—and I’ve never been able to be completely faithful to any woman. But your mother accepts me anyway—and we’ve made it work all these years.”

  “That’s what you call making it work?” Drew said slowly, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “Sorry, but I don’t see it,” Drew said, pushing his melted ice away and folding his arms over his chest—more for protection than anything else. Drew felt like he was going to shatter into a million sharp pieces if his father said even one more word.

  “You’ll see what I mean someday, Drew,” his father said knowingly as the bartender refilled his drink. “You’re just like me, you know.”

  Drew flinched at his father’s words, the anger that he’d tried to stuff back inside him rising to the surface and spilling out before he could put it in check. “I’m nothing like you, Dad.” Drew stood up and faced his father head-on. “Nothing.”

  Robert stood up from the table, reaching out for Drew’s shoulder, trying to comfort him, trying to calm him down. Drew’s own arm snapped out, on its own accord, knocking that instinctual fatherly gesture aside as if it had been a shove, a punch. Drew felt as if his head were in the oven at one of his father’s restaurants, a lump of meat being broiled with a flash of incendiary heat. His pulse thudded behind his eyes and he stepped forward, not knowing if he should run, scream, punch his dad in the face, or if he should sit back down in the booth and never stand up again. Robert’s eyes looked soft, worried, when he looked into them—trustworthy eyes, the eyes of his dad. Robert reached out again and grabbed onto Drew’s shoulder, pulling him forward.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “you shouldn’t have seen that, shouldn’t have found out this way.”

  Those words, the unbelievable reality of the cheating father they referred to, stood in such sharp contrast to the feeling of those familiar arms around Drew’s shoulders. It was so tempting to believe those arms, to believe that what he saw, what he now knew, changed nothing. But the last thing Drew wanted right then was for his father to be right. He was nothing like him. Nothing, he repeated to himself, breaking away from his father’s embrace. He stepped back and looked up to see his father’s face wet with tears. He turned his back and walked toward the door.

  Nothing.

  But somewhere deep inside a voice rose up inside him, a voice so quiet Drew could almost pretend he hadn’t heard it at all. More than anything, Drew wanted to shove that little voice back inside him, hold it down, and suffocate it with a pillow. That smug, irritating, inquisitive little voice that wondered if maybe, just maybe, his father was right after all.

  there’s got to be a morning after . . .

  Madison awoke amidst the snowy perfection of her white Porthault sheets and Siberian goose-down pillows plumped like whipped cream beneath her head, her green eyes opening slowly as she surveyed the clean, modern perfection that was her room. She placed her hands behind her head, the events of the evening flooding back into her brain. God, what an unbelievable fustercluck, she thought, shaking her head from side to side on her pile of pillows as she remembered Sophie’s tear-streaked face as she ran down the block and out of sight.

  The night had gotten worse from there on. Antonio completely disappeared at some point in the evening—presumably with Edie in tow, which made Madison feel like she might just barf up the seventy-two or so glasses of champagne she’d managed to pour down her throat last night all over the snow-white rug covering her bedroom floor. That Antonio could possibly prefer decrepit Edie to her was not only unbelievable, it was also kind of nauseating—which wasn’t exactly helping her hangover . . .

  As she was contemplating whether to order some fruit and a bagel from Mangia, or stick with black coffee and Tylenol, her bedroom door swung open, and Edie entered the room clad in a midnight blue silk La Perla robe, her crimson pedicure shining like rubies against the white carpet.

  “Rise and shine!” Edie trilled, walking over to the row of large windows behind Madison’s bed and flinging the heavy, white silk drapes open, flooding the room with sunlight. Madison growled unintelligibly, shoving her head under the pillow.

  “I hate you,” she said crankily, as her mother plucked at the pillows covering Madison’s matted blond hair, pitching them softly to the floor.

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Edie said cheerily. A little too cheerily, Madison thought suspiciously as her mother sat down on the edge of the bed, crossing her smoothly waxed legs. Edie was always a total nightmare in the A.M. If she was in this good of a mood before she’d even taken her morning Valium, then something must’ve happened last night to make her very happy indeed. I really am going to throw up, Madison groaned silently as she curled on her side, trying to get as far away from Edie as possible without actually getting out of bed.

  “I had a long ta
lk with Antonio last night.” Edie dreamily ran a hand through her silky blond bob—even at the crack of dawn, her mother’s hair was predictably perfect. It was completely infuriating, kind of like Edie herself. “And I want you to know that I’ve thought long and hard about it, but you’re a Macallister—there’s no way I’m going to let you parade yourself down a runway.” Edie’s blue eyes widened as she reached out, patting Madison’s leg beneath her comforter. “I don’t want you to end up like some common hotel heiress with a sex tape before you’re twenty-two, and your own revolting perfume they won’t even sell at Saks!”

  “Whatever.” Madison moaned, pulling the comforter up around her shoulders and wishing Edie would just disappear. “I don’t want to model anyway.”

  “Well, thank God for that!” Edie said with relief, standing up and pulling the tie of her robe more tightly around her minuscule waist. “Now I have to get back to bed.” Edie giggled, covering her mouth with one hand like a schoolgirl. “I’m not exactly alone—if you know what I mean!”

  Madison sat up in bed and glared at her mother, wishing she had a bow and arrow she could shoot at her—or a gun. Wasn’t it bad enough that Edie stole Antonio from right underneath her nose? Did she have to bring him home and rub the whole thing in her face, too? “Get out of here!” Mad yelled, picking up a pillow from the floor and lobbing it across the room where it struck Edie squarely in the face.

  “Was that really necessary?” Edie replied in a voice so syrupy that Madison almost wanted to drag her mother down to Serendipity and throw ice cream on top of her. “Some people have no manners,” Edie continued, kicking the hurled pillow out of her way as she opened the door, stepping out into the hallway. “No manners at all . . .”