Elite 03 Simply Irresistible

by Jennifer Banash

  As much like home as the comfortingly dilapidated café felt, his reasons for being there that day were totally, completely surreal, making him more than a bit nervous. Drew was certain that Phoebe was very practiced at this type of thing—meeting up with Madison or Sophie to drink concoctions of coffee, sugar, milk, and whipped cream with long-winded names and talk about the sex lives of friends and enemies alike, Drew’s own name probably having popped up a fair number of times.

  But even with all of her practice, Drew had a feeling that Phoebe would be a bit out of her element as well. These were their parents’ sex lives they were going to be talking about, and just the very thought of that topic, of having the words parents and sex in such close proximity made Drew feel a little queasy. Weren’t parents supposed to stop having complicated, not to mention illicit, sex lives after having children? Weren’t they supposed to stop having sex at all, full stop? It was extremely uncool that his had continued to do so. Drew could only imagine the amount of psychotherapy he would need down the road in order to deal with it. And on top of everything, the whole thing was making him realize that wanting to be just like Woody Allen was a really bad idea, which just made him more pissed off. That this was the way that his life would resemble the films he loved was making him consider the possibility of picking a new favorite director, a fact that would tell anyone who knew him well that Drew was in way over his head.

  Drew looked up from his cup just as Phoebe walked in the front door, bringing a cool blast of winter air along with her. Phoebe was dressed in a red-and-black plaid skirt, black tights, and a white dress shirt under a black wool vest. The entire ensemble made her look like a Young Republican as imagined by Anna Wintour.

  “Hey, Pheebs,” Drew said as she walked toward the table. “Been hanging out with the Pro-Lifers or something? You’re looking very Red State chic in that getup.”

  “Which state is the red one?” Phoebe said with a look of confusion and she slumped down in the chair across from Drew, throwing a black bag into the booth next to her—a bag so huge and unwieldy that Drew wouldn’t have been surprised to find a small child nestled within its voluminous folds.

  “Never mind,” Drew said, laughing slightly to himself. “Where’d you come here from?”

  “A meeting with the Nazi college counselor that my mom hired.” Phoebe pushed her mass of dark, silky straight hair off her shoulders with a grimace, her pale cheeks flushed from the cold air. “No matter how many times I see her, she insists on spending the first half hour telling me that I should’ve been making plans for college since I was practically in diapers. She should see the outfits I was wearing then—those zip-up jersey cat suits with the hood and the sewed-on socks were hideous. How was I supposed to be making decisions about college when I was clearly incapable of putting an outfit together? Not to mention the fact that at the time I wanted to be Rainbow-fucking-Brite when I grew up. I can’t believe my mother actually pays this woman.”

  “Wow,” Drew said, sipping his coffee and smiling at Phoebe’s rage. “Sounds like a nightmare. So what does she do? Read drafts of your college essays and stuff?”

  “Ha. If it were only that simple,” Phoebe said with a snort. “It’s more like she reads my life like it’s an essay, making and enforcing any changes she damn well pleases. It’s worse than having a mother, believe me. It’s like she wants to build a brand-new, Ivy League Admissions Counselor-friendly Phoebe robot, and another robot named Madison with the exact same reading list and extracurricular activities.”

  “Madison is in on this thing?” Drew asked, his stomach doing a strange, quick jump followed by a long, slow roll upon hearing her name, his caffeine-shaky hands quickly coating with a fine, cold film of sweat.

  “Yeah, uh, I guess my mother got her mom convinced of this woman’s cloning powers or whatever. But we don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to,” Phoebe said quickly, as the waitress walked over, pencil stuck behind her ear like wooden jewelry.

  “I’ll just have a latte,” Phoebe said as the waitress hovered expectantly before stomping busily away. That was one of the things Drew loved about this place. There was no ass-kissing at Uncommon Grounds. It reminded him of the coffee shops downtown that he used to hang out in for hours before his parents moved to the Upper East Side—otherwise known as the robot factory.

  “Why would I have any problem talking about Madison,” Drew said defensively as soon as the waitress became vapor, crossing his arms over his favorite navy Triple Five Soul hoodie with the ink stains on the right sleeve. “You can talk about her all you want.”

  “I just thought that, well, after lunch today . . .” Phoebe’s voice trailed uncomfortably off. She looked down and immediately unwrapped her napkin and began playing obsessively with her silverware.

  “Don’t they want you to have, like, personality?” Drew said hurriedly, changing the subject before Phoebe had time to bring Madison back up again. “I always thought that admissions applications were about showing yourself as an individual, setting yourself apart from everyone else. Wouldn’t being exactly the same as someone else on paper actually hurt your chances of getting in?”

  Phoebe let Drew’s rudeness slide, perhaps understanding his not wanting to talk about Mad and not wanting to have to admit to that fact. “If by showing your personality you mean the right amount of hours volunteered at all the right charities, then yes—college apps are all about personality,” she said with an ironic smile. “But if by personality you mean expressing the emotional reaction you had to a Radiohead CD, then it’s State Schoolville for you, Drewster.”

  “Not like anyone would care at this point. My parents are apparently too busy fucking strangers to pay much attention to me and my future,” Drew said bitterly, momentarily forgetting that “strangers” just happened to include Phoebe’s mother. Whoops. Open mouth, insert Puma. He probably could’ve handled that a lot more gracefully, much like everything else in his train wreck of a life.

  “Hey now,” Phoebe said, “I don’t think my mom exactly counts as a stranger. And count yourself lucky—my mom manages to find the time to sleep around and continually harass me about college at the same time. At least you’re getting something out of your dad’s cheating.”

  “So . . .” Drew said slowly, unsure how he actually felt about saying the dreaded words aloud, “I guess you heard.”

  Phoebe nodded, dipping her head down mid-nod and keeping it there, her eyes focused on the swirly pattern on the Formica tabletop.

  “The way he explains it, it’s not cheating. He and my mom have an understanding.” Drew picked up his cup and took a greedy sip of lukewarm coffee, wanting the caffeine rush. “What kind of bullshit is that? An understanding? This isn’t the ‘Modern Love’ column in the Sunday New York Times. Parents are supposed to be responsible and put together and preferably not screwing other people’s parents. Isn’t getting married and having kids a way of saying that you’re done sleeping around? Don’t you have to admit that to yourself to even go through with it?”

  “In a perfect world, I’d say, yes, definitely,” Phoebe responded carefully. “But in a perfect world, people who get married are in love with each other, and generally make each other happy. And when it comes to my parents, that’s definitely not the case.” The waitress sailed by, dumping Phoebe’s latte on the edge of the table, foam sloshing over the edge of the glass. “You know,” Phoebe mused, pulling her drink toward her and resting her hand on her chin, a thoughtful expression animating her delicate features, “if she wasn’t my own mom, I probably wouldn’t even blame her for it.”

  “How can you be so blasé? I mean, these are our families we’re talking about, Pheebs.” Drew pushed his coffee away out of frustration, the need to have something to do with his hands consuming every muscle on his lanky frame.

  “I know,” Phoebe said quietly, after a long pause, her eyes meeting Drew’s and holding them. “Believe me, I’m aware of that. Did you hear that my dad’s moved out?
”

  “No shit?” Drew said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice, and feeling immediately ashamed of the way he’d been acting. God, maybe Madison was right—he really was kind of an asshole sometimes. Things may have been less than perfect in the Van Allen household as of late, but at least there had been no talk of anyone moving out. Well, at least not that he knew of . . . “Wow, Pheebs,” Drew said, swallowing hard, “I’m really sorry—I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, well,” Phoebe said, her dark eyes filling with tears as she looked away and pretended to be fascinated with the bustle currently going on outside the window, her eyes scanning the busy sidewalks teeming with people, like her life depended on it.

  “How’s Bijoux taking it?” Drew asked gently, not sure what to say, or do, next. Everything he said seemed like a potential hot spot, or trap, and he was worried, as always, that without meaning to he would inevitably say or do the wrong thing.

  Phoebe grabbed her napkin and wiped her nose, then looked away from the window, her eyes meeting Drew’s again with a look that could only be described as angsty. In that moment, Drew couldn’t help but notice how incredibly lovely Phoebe was. Even with her red nose and rapidly reddening eyes, even with her face full of despair, or maybe because of it, her hair was dark and glossy, her skin so pale and luminous it seemed almost incandescent. Or maybe it was just the fluorescent lighting . . .

  “I don’t know,” Phoebe muttered, taking a sip of her latte, her full red lips covered with foam before she licked it off with the tip of her pink tongue. “She’s six, you know? She doesn’t really get it. Beebs just runs around asking ‘Where’s Daddy, where’s Daddy’ all the time—and no one knows what to say to her. Including me. Especially me.”

  “That’s got to be tough,” Drew said, pushing his hair back with one hand. “Is there anything I can do to help you out? I mean, I know I’ve been a bit of a righteous asshole since you got here, up on my high horse about relationships and everything. I mean, do you want to, like, talk about it? I’m a pretty good listener when I really try.”

  “It’s okay, Drew,” Phoebe said, laughing a little, then glancing away before looking back at him, her dark eyes wet with moisture and mirth. “It was nice to just be able to tell someone that it happened. I think that’s all I can really do right now—it’s all too new and terrible to actually try to wrap my head around. But really, thanks for offering. It means a lot.”

  Drew felt another pang of intense attraction as Phoebe spoke. There was something about seeing a girl at a moment when she was totally vulnerable, her guard down, that had always fascinated Drew. It might happen in the midst of a heavy make-out session or at a more emotional moment like the one with Phoebe, but it was a time when he felt that he could really see the person for who they were. Sometimes, he was terrified of what he saw in girls when it happened, but seeing Pheebs be so totally open made Drew feel both curious and excited. He wanted to know that person he saw in those short few seconds. He wanted to make out with her and see if he could bring back that look again, to see if it would be the same. And if it wasn’t, that’d be totally fine, because he really just wanted to make out with her. Kind of bad. This is Phoebe, he told himself. Get a goddamn grip on yourself—she’s practically your sister, not to mention the fact that she already has a boyfriend. Well, Drew mused, trying to calm his racing pulse, it wasn’t like Phoebe’s mom didn’t have a husband, but that hadn’t exactly stopped Drew’s dad or anything . . .

  Drew smiled and lifted his cup of coffee. “Here’s to getting all of our sleeping around out of the way before we get married,” he said, trying to wipe all illicit thoughts from his brain and replace them with friendship and caffeine. Phoebe smiled and clinked the edge of her porcelain coffee mug against his. “And to be completely honest with you,” Drew went on, a light flush running across his face, “I hope that between now and whenever I get married, that sleeping around and working out whatever shit I have to becomes a whole lot more about a good time and not the screwed-up emotional mess it’s been so far.”

  Phoebe looked straight at him, smiling over the lip of her cup. “Sounds to me like maybe you’ve been sleeping with the wrong people.”

  guess who’s coming to dinner . . .

  “Madison, darling! We’re all waiting!”

  Madison shuddered as her mother’s voice rang through the echoing space of the Macallisters’ penthouse apartment, the low rumble of Antonio’s voice layered directly underneath it like honeyed icing on a cake made of rocks and jagged pieces of broken glass. She was looking forward to this dinner about as much as a rectal exam performed with a whirring chainsaw—actually, the exam might even be preferable to the torture that currently awaited her at the dinner table. When the Pulse producers had called earlier, saying that they wanted to “drop in” for some final footage of a “typical” family dinner, Madison didn’t have the heart to break it to them that the only tradition in the Macallister household was the regularity with which Edie downed her various cocktails and prescription drugs.

  And once Edie found out that their evening meal was about to be immortalized on camera, she sprang into action—calling out to The London for takeout, which she then directed the maids to arrange artfully onto the Macallisters’ own Spode plates so the food would look “authentically” homemade, and popping out for a quick blowout at Elizabeth Arden. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the pool boy—Madison’s newest nickname for her mother’s jailbait boyfriend—had, of course, been invited. Madison walked over to her full-length mirror, which took up most of one sparkling white wall, and freshened her lip gloss, running the wand of Chanel Glossimer in Spark over her already red, glossy lips, smacking them together loudly and making a kissy face, then sticking out her tongue at her own reflection and crossing her eyes hard until her image was replaced with absolute blackness.

  As soon as she walked into the formal dining room—a room that was only used on special occasions—the brightness of the lights that Pulse had set up smacked her in the face like a wet towel. God, those fucking lights were so bright they were practically deafening . . . and what was worse was that they showed every little imperfection—not that she had many, but still, they made her nervous. It was about the equivalent of someone shrieking in your face for a good ten minutes without stopping. Melanie, the red-haired producer, hovered at the far end of the room, fussing with a pile of black, snakelike cords she was desperately trying to tame into submission.

  Edie was seated at the table wearing a floor-length, black Valentino gown with wide gold stripes that she’d ordered from Paris in September after the fall collections premiered, her champagne blond mane tumbling artfully around her shoulders, a glass of vodka sweating in one hand, the ice cubes rattling against the fine crystal like tuneless music. A six-carat pink diamond that Madison’s father had given her for their tenth wedding anniversary sparkled on her finger, winking in the candlelight like a mirage. Antonio stood behind her, leaning over the back of the chair to whisper in her ear, his lips inches away from her flesh. Just watching this spectacle made Madison’s appetite run to Siberia—permanently.

  “There you are!” Antonio intoned triumphantly, his voice more purr than exclamation. “Cara,” he said walking over to her, looking almost too gorgeous in a black Prada blazer with fine gray pinstripes, a dove gray dress shirt, and dark gray Gucci pants with a slim black alligator belt strung through the loops. “You look perfect—as usual.” Madison tried not to grimace as he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, the scratch of his stubble sandpapering her skin, his cologne enveloping her in a blanket of lemons and musk. Ugh, it was so annoying. Why did he have to still be hot? Why couldn’t the very fact that he had ditched her for her own mother totally negate all possible thoughts of his hotness? In fact, why couldn’t he be vaporized from planet Earth altogether, along with all the other guys she never wanted to ever lay eyes on again—or, at the very least, banished from the island of Manhattan . . .

  “Mad
ison, come and sit next to me,” Edie said in her best Mother of the Year voice, holding her arms out in front of her. Madison rolled her eyes and disentangled herself from the Italian Stallion, glaring at him before walking over to the table and plopping ungracefully down in one of the crimson damask chairs that Edie had ordered from Paris, kicking the heel of her black ballet flats in time to the pounding in her head, and crossing her arms over her C cups. Why did just being in the same room as Edie and Antonio give her a massive migraine? Migraine? Madison thought silently, yeah, right. It was probably a goddamn brain tumor . . .

  “Madison,” Melanie yelled out, sounding totally exasperated, “we’re going to start filming now, all right?” Melanie blew her curly red hair from her face, and pushed up the sleeves of her puke green American Apparel long-sleeved thermal tee.

  “Whatever.” Madison rolled her eyes, too annoyed and exhausted by the events of the past few days to really give a shit how she came across on film tonight. They’d probably edit everything to shreds anyway . . .

  Antonio sat down next to Edie, resting his arm over the back of her chair. Like clockwork, they immediately began cooing and making disgusting baby noises at one another like a pair of complete and utterly mindless sex zombies. Ugh. Mad’s stomach lurched toward her mouth. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to hurl all over her mother’s favorite lace tablecloth—the one that she’d had commissioned from a couple of nuns in some convent in Switzerland. Go figure.

  “Madison,” Edie began excitedly, “Antonio and I . . .” She reached over, taking Antonio’s bronzed hand in her own, gazing adoringly up at his face as if he was personally responsible for sending the sun around the earth each day. “Well.” Edie turned back to Madison and blushed girlishly, giggling. “We have something to tell you, dear. Big things are on the horizon!” she chirped in an irritatingly cheerful voice.