Elite 03 Simply Irresistible

by Jennifer Banash

  “Drew, honey, I’ve had an absolute epiphany! I’m getting the most fabulous ideas for my next series over here,” she gushed, pausing breathlessly to gulp at the glass of Bordeaux Drew knew was clutched in her hand. The line was eerily clear—Drew could hear the sound of her swallowing, the workings of her throat as she drank the ruby red liquid, then the clinking of crystal on a bedside table as she placed her glass down. “Maybe I’ll go over to Paris for a week or so after this, just to see what kind of monkey scrawl is passing for art in France these days . . .”

  As she rattled on, Drew could almost see his mother’s long, tanned fingers waving in the air, punctuating her sentences the way they always did when she was excited or nervous. In any case, by the time Drew hung up it was obvious that it was just going to be him and his dad for a while longer at least—rattling around their huge-ass apartment, trying not to bump each other the wrong way . . . and failing miserably.

  And speaking of bumping, Drew jumped as an elbow suddenly knocked his shoulder from behind, sending his arm flying forward and his cup falling to the floor where it shattered, coffee sloshing everywhere. “Goddammit,” Drew muttered under his breath as he bent down and began to pick up the shattered, jagged pieces of porcelain from the wet tile, trying to block out the muffled giggles coming from the freshman table to his left. It seemed like everything in his immediate vicinity lately—from families to cheap cups—was totally incapable of remaining in one piece.

  But Drew’s annoyance rapidly disappeared as he found himself looking into a pair of eyes so deeply, enormously blue that they appeared almost violet. A girl stood there in front of him biting her full bottom lip, which was rosy and pink—but in an unglossed, natural way. Her dark hair fell almost to her waist, setting off her creamy skin and sharply arched brows, her violet eyes full of apologies.

  “Oh my God,” the girl said, awkwardly shifting her weight from one booted foot to the other. “I’m such a klutz.” She pointed shyly at Drew’s shattered cup, a tentative smile hovering at her lips. “Can I maybe buy you another?” Drew felt his anger melting away into horniness as he stared at her, taking in everything from the glossy leather of her brown riding boots, which were tucked into faded jeans, up to her chocolate brown, short leather trench that tied snugly around her narrow waist.

  “Sure,” Drew said when he could finally speak, his face breaking into a grin—the first he’d even remotely attempted in weeks, his face stiff and unused to the stretching sensation of his flesh. “But only if you agree to sit down,” Drew deadpanned. “It’ll be safer that way.” The girl laughed, her impossibly pink lips parting to display rows of straight, white teeth as she slid into the red leather booth across from him.

  “I’m Olivia Johannson,” she said, smiling shyly, her face flushed. Her skin reminded him of the roses he’d seen at the botanical gardens last year—their fragrant satiny petals were the exact shade of Olivia’s perfectly pink cheeks. “Terminally uncoordinated college freshman. And you are?” She waited expectantly as the waitress approached, an irritated expression on her tight, pinched face as she placed a new cup down in front of Drew, grumbling under her breath as she stomped off, presumably to get a mop.

  “Drew Van Allen,” Drew said as he reached out and took Olivia’s small, soft hand in his own, wondering if his train wreck of a life was finally taking a turn for the better.

  rewriting history

  Phoebe wrapped a long strand of glossy, cocoa-colored hair around the tip of her gold Montblanc pen and stared out the window at the traffic blurring by in the light rain that coated the clear glass, her dark eyes darting from side to side as she followed the motion of a yellow cab streaking wetly down the street. Phoebe wrenched herself away from the window and looked down at the blank pages of her history midterm, which were spread across her desk like a thick, white fan. She wondered how she was ever going to concentrate long enough to answer even just one question about the Crimean War—much less twenty of them.

  Lately, Phoebe couldn’t seem to focus on the pages of anyone else’s screwed-up history but her own. Jared had texted and called so many times last night that Phoebe finally let out an exasperated scream and threw the phone across the room, where it landed on the impossibly deep, round, white shag rug in the middle of her bedroom floor, the blinking screen staring at her accusingly. And, weirdly enough, the quiet that crept over her body and over the staggering stillness of her room felt somehow worse than the buzzing and ringing that had so distracted her just moments before. All she wanted was to speak to him. To press TALK and hear Jared’s low voice in her ear—and she couldn’t.

  Ever since that awful moment Sophie had found her canoodling in that corner with Jared at Sophie’s own sweet sixteen party, Sophie had barely acknowledged her existence, and for the first time ever Phoebe didn’t know what to do to make up for it, or how to even remotely fix things between her and Sophie. She’d been running around behind her best friend’s back and lying about it to her—to everyone. Wasn’t it bad enough that Phoebe’s own mother was having some disgusting, tacky affair with Drew’s dad? Phoebe shuddered, closing her dark eyes briefly, the thought making her dizzy. It was totally unbelievable. And Phoebe knew that the one thing she never wanted to do was to emulate her mother, Madeline Reynaud, who, in her expert opinion, was nothing more than a cheating, home-wrecking excuse for a parent who was more concerned with shopping, facials, and her own self-gratification than she was with Phoebe and her little sister, Bijoux, who was only six and utterly destroyed by the recent turn of events.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Bijoux had begun shrieking every night as Phoebe was trying to get the squirming, screaming bundle of energy that was her sister into bed. “When is Daddy coming back?” Bijoux yelled, smacking Phoebe on the arm angrily with a tiny hand, her small, red face on the verge of tears. Every night since her father had walked out the front door with a bulging suitcase, Phoebe had heard Bijoux across the hall, crying and snuffling herself to sleep, and the sound broke what was left of her heart in two. And now that her father had moved out for good, the Reynauds’ expansive apartment in The Bram seemed to echo with a resounding silence that made Phoebe unbearably sad whenever she walked through the front door, her heels clicking on the marble floors and echoing throughout the empty apartment. With her father gone and her mother’s carefully crafted fa çade more impenetrable than ever, Phoebe found herself feeling lonelier and more adrift than she’d ever been in her life . . .

  Phoebe pulled back the sleeve of her Reyes chocolate satin shirt with a huge, silky bow at the neck, and glanced at the mother-of-pearl face of the Cartier Panther watch adorning her wrist, the gold links gleaming in the light. Her stomach growled noisily and insistently beneath her plaid wool jumper in shades of brown, cream, and burnt orange. The only time of day Phoebe usually looked forward to with excitement and relief had suddenly become almost unbearable—it was like there was an enormous pink elephant in the Dining Hall, stuffed into a tiny purple tutu, and nobody wanted to talk about it. Phoebe knew that today’s lunch hour would be like every other since the party—Casey would stare at her plate and try her best to make small talk while Sophie would intermittently glare at Phoebe while shredding her salad into minuscule green slivers with the sharp tines of her fork. Even Madison, who was usually poised and unflappable, seemed both bemused and uncomfortable lately.

  When she was being honest with herself, Phoebe knew that Sophie had every reason to completely hate her, but Phoebe also knew that she really was trying like hell to do the right thing—even if it was too little too late. It had been beyond hard to keep avoiding Jared, but breaking up with him before the party had been the right thing to do. Every time she looked into his blue eyes, or his number flashed across the screen of her phone, it had made her feel so horribly guilty she could barely stand it. Still, every time she closed her eyes, she couldn’t help seeing his face, smelling the salty, citrus scent that clung to his skin that always seemed to be kissed by the summer sun—e
ven in the blast of frigid December wind that had recently begun flying down the city streets. But no matter how badly she found herself wanting Jared with every pore of her skin, every fiber of her being, no guy was worth losing one of her best friends over. There had to be something she could do to make Sophie come around . . .

  Enough is enough, she muttered under her breath, placing her pen down on the desk and grabbing her phone from her bronze Gucci hobo from the Hysteria collection, her fingers pecking out the words she’d wanted to say but been too afraid to utter out loud for over a month now.

  Can we talk?

  she wrote, holding her breath as she pressed SEND, her hands shaking. Phoebe waited nervously, watching as the screen remained blank. There was always the possibility that Sophie might not answer at all—it wasn’t like she owed Phoebe any favors or even the courtesy of listening to her litany of apologies. The screen of her phone flashed brightly, and Phoebe’s heart sped up in her chest like a motor coughing and sputtering as she looked down and read Sophie’s curt reply.

  About what?

  Phoebe sighed, her confidence deflated. Crap. This was going to be harder than she’d thought. Not that she’d expected Sophs to welcome her back with tears and an armful of flowers as a peace offering or anything . . . Phoebe was all too aware of the fact that if anyone should’ve been bringing anyone a bunch of expensive, out-of-season hothouse blooms, it should’ve been her. Phoebe took a deep breath, tried to ignore the tension in the room and the sounds of frantic scribbling all around her, and attempted another note.

  I miss you, Sophs . . . and I’m really, really sorry.

  Phoebe winced slightly, exhaling as she pressed SEND. Why did telling the truth always make her feel so vulnerable? And it was the truth, after all. She did miss Sophie—she missed her every time she slid into her chair across from her best friend at lunch and saw the vacant stare that wiped out Sophie’s delicate features, hardening her usually sunny expression into a jaded mask. She missed the way Sophie’s eyes sparkled mischievously when she was excited or happy. She missed spending whole afternoons trying on crazy felt hats with feathers and Stella McCartney dresses at Barneys. But most of all, Phoebe was sorry. She was sorry she’d lied about something so important, so full of regret that she felt nauseous whenever she caught sight of her own reflection in the mirror, her pulse racing as she blinked rapidly in disbelief and looked away. Who exactly had she become? What kind of person dated her best friend’s brother and lied about it?

  Me, I guess, Phoebe thought miserably as tears welled up in her dark eyes. Whoever she had briefly become, Phoebe knew that she didn’t want to be that manipulative, secretive girl ever again—and she was going to do whatever it took to not only make things right, but to banish that girl from her heart forever. Please, Sophs, she thought, closing her eyes and gripping the phone tightly in her hands, please let me make it up to you.

  Phoebe opened her eyes just as the screen glowed brightly again, and her rapidly beating heart, buoyed by a combination of happiness and relief, jumped in her chest as she read Sophie’s reply.

  K. Talk 2 U later.

  multiple choice

  Madison gnawed obsessively on the end of her pencil, the bitter taste of graphite filling her mouth as she reached out one hand to touch her new chocolate brown locks, which fell in a dramatic sweep to her shoulders, her eyes deeply green beneath a sheaf of dark bangs that angled sharply over her left eye, while simultaneously admiring her new Christian Louboutin cognac-colored leather boots with wooden platforms that were tucked into a pair of distressed Just Cavalli jeans. It was going to take forever to grow these stupid bangs out once she was sick of them, but who cared as long as she looked fabulous right now—which, predictably, she did.

  Maybe she’d even keep this look for her college interviews next year—it made her look more . . . serious in a hot, Angelina Jolie-esque sort of way. All she needed was a private plane and a burka, and she could promptly begin importing infants from the Middle East, hiring a legion of nannies to look after them at her sprawling Upper East Side compound. I wonder if Dior makes burkas, Mad thought, dreamily staring into space as she pictured herself standing in front of the U.N. dressed in a black Chanel suit, one lone tear rolling down her discreetly rouged cheek as she clutched a sparkly gold medal to her chest . . .

  What the hell does U.N. stand for anyway? Madison thought, wrinkling her brow and looking back down at her French midterm, silently lamenting the fact that even though she’d been in class for at least twenty minutes, the thick sheaf of papers cluttering her desk was still almost completely blank. Madison sighed heavily as she gnawed even harder on the end of her pencil, leaving deep gouges in the wood with her perfectly even white teeth. Ugh, why did she ever decide to take French in the first place? It wasn’t like she was going to run off to Nice with a hot guy anytime soon, which, as far as she could tell, was the only reason the French language would prove to be even remotely useful in her life. And after the recent Antonio fiasco, truthfully she’d had enough of Euro hotness for a while. Lately, every time she walked through the front door of her apartment, she was faced with the horrifying sight of Antonio and Edie gazing into each other’s eyes as they sat drinking flutes of Cristal in the Macallister’s overly decorated Louis XIV-esque living room, or feeding each other bites of roasted sea bass Edie had ordered in from Babbo while making ridiculous, disgusting baby noises into each other’s moony faces. Barf. It was almost enough to make her get on a plane to Dubai and put herself up for adoption . . .

  Madison removed the pencil from between her caramel-glossed lips, leaned her elbows on the desk, and distractedly ran her hands over the arms of the Balenciaga ultramarine wool blazer with a fluffy fox fur collar Edie had brought home last week and left on her bed—no doubt as some kind of peace offering. “Dream on,” Madison muttered under her breath as she picked up her pencil again and began doodling a series of ornate Chanel double-C’s in the margins of her exam.

  But even if there wasn’t a hot Euro stud in her near future, at least she had her date with Drew tonight to look forward to. Well . . . sort of. Drew had never exactly been Mr. Sunshine in the first place, but ever since Sophie’s party he had been moodier than usual, moping around Meadowlark’s hallways like someone had just told him that Woody Allen, his favorite filmmaker, had finally dropped dead from chronic hypochondria.

  Madison moved on from Chanel double-C’s to Gucci horse bits, heavily shading a fairly large, elaborate symbol in the white space provided to answer question number five. Ce n’est pas un Gucci handbag, Madison thought to herself, feeling a deep desire to walk straight out of the classroom and into a cab. Barneys, stat! She finished the doodle, lifting the pencil to admire her handiwork, noticing that the ends of the beloved emblem looked like a pair of mirrored D’s. Très jolie, she thought smugly, the smile fading from her face as she thought back to that awful night last spring before Drew left for the summer in Amsterdam.

  Madison had nearly worn a Gucci dress on that unen chanted balmy spring evening—the night of their ill-fated attempt at losing their respective virginities. Afterwards, she’d briefly obsessed as to whether things would have gone better—gone anywhere except to the bathroom to puke—if she hadn’t made that last-minute change. She hated when she even remotely entertained thoughts like that—it was beyond ridiculous to think that the wrong choice of clothing could alter the course of your entire sexual destiny. Superstitions are for Birkenstock-wearing, granola-eating Upper West Siders, Madison thought, sneaking a peek at Drew, who was sitting to her left and was presently bent over his midterm, scribbling furiously as his dark hair flopped, as always, into his blue eyes. How the hell can he even see, she wondered, shaking her head in amusement, much less answer these ridiculous fucking questions ?

  While only a matter of months had passed since that embarrassment of a date, it seemed like an eternity ago—a feeling that was easily justified by the amount of French she had obviously failed to learn. She had s
tarted and ended a career as a model and was shooting her first reality TV show—her life was so totally different now that she might as well have had a baby, moved to London, and converted to Judaism. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea—Jewish moms are so hot right now . . . However, she drew the fucking line at studying Kab balah. Maybe she’d get one of those red string bracelets all the celebrities were wearing lately and just call it a day . . . But no matter how things had changed in the world of Madison Macallister, Drew, apparently, had remained the same. Well, not completely the same—there was the whole Casey nightmare, not to mention his recent dark-and-tortured-soul stage. Maybe the new Madison—brunette, former model and soon-to-be reality TV star extraordinaire—could achieve what the old Madison, as fabulous as she was, could not.

  Madison shifted in her seat, crossing her legs encased in tight denim, a strange, tingly sensation spreading through her limbs. Instead of being annoyed by Drew’s girly moodiness the way she normally would’ve been at any other moment, for some reason it struck her as kind of . . . hot. Or maybe she just needed to lose the technicality that was her virginity before her vagina became as obsolete as pay phones on Manhattan street corners. Or, her inner pragmatist whispered bitchily, maybe you’re only interested in what you don’t have, and, until Ms. Annoyingly Normal got her claws into him, didn’t want. “Touché,” Madison whispered under her breath, a smile turning up the corners of her lips, delighted at her own witticisms. Her inner monologues were so amusing, she sometimes wished she could broadcast them to the entire class. Madison shifted in her chair, crossing her left leg over her right and throwing her mass of newly darkened hair over one shoulder. Whatever was going on in the depths of her Cavalli jeans, maybe tonight she could kill two birds with one stone—get Drew back AND enter the realm of womanhood. Dammit, it wasn’t fair. If anyone deserved a virginity do-over, she did . . .