Perfect, Mad thought, leaning over the table and grabbing the frosty bottle of sauvignon blanc in the center of the table, pushing away the nauseating gargantuan floral arrangement of roses, Casablanca lilies, and freesia that made her feel like she was choking on toxic floral fumes, and poured herself a hefty glass. Goddamn flowers, she thought, swallowing wine like it was Evian, sucking up all the goddamn oxygen in the room. She’d heard this buildup before from Edie. It could only mean one thing—that ravioli boy was moving in. Well, if that happened there was just no way she was going to deal. She’d get an apartment at the Plaza before she’d ever agree to share the same living space with Edie and her Boy Wonder.
“Madison?” Edie inquired quasi-testily. Mad could tell that she really wanted to raise her eyebrows, however the Botox injections were definitely making it a no-go. “Did you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Mom,” Madison snapped, refilling her glass to the tippy top this time, and raising it to her lips.
“Cara,” Antonio said smoothly, his tanned face flickering in the glow from the lit ivory candles in the sterling silver candelabra placed on the cherrywood sideboard. “I have asked your mother if she would do me the honor of becoming my wife.”
Madison felt her wineglass slip through her fingers and heard it shatter against the polished parquet floor, the sound reverberating loudly in her ears. Maybe it was just the lights in her face, the camera that hovered across the room, but she thought she’d heard Antonio say that he had asked Edie to marry him. Madison looked down at the spilled wine, which was now rapidly forming a slick puddle at her feet. Clearly she was hallucinating—maybe she’d sprayed her Frederic Fekkai sculpting spray too close to her face this afternoon . . . Whatever the reason, this had to be some kind of misunderstanding—because if it wasn’t, she was rapidly going to lose what was left of her fucking mind.
“And of course I accepted!” Edie squealed, leaning over and nuzzling Antonio’s cheek with her overly powdered nose, blind to Madison’s obvious shell shock. Edie turned back to her daughter, her face glowing in the candlelight. “So, we’re thinking a June wedding, though that may not be enough time to book St. Patrick’s or the Plaza, but I did meet the most fabulous wedding planner at that reception at the Waldorf last weekend, and I was thinking that maybe we could . . .”
Unable to stand even a moment more of this nonsense, Madison leapt from her seat, pushing her chair back so hard that it made a horrible scraping sound, probably gouging out large pieces of parquet. “You CANNOT be SERIOUS!” she screamed in a voice that sounded as though she was being strangled to death by a python. “You’ve only been divorced from dad for a year—not even!” Madison pointed at the sparkling diamond on Edie’s left hand. “You’re still wearing the ring, for God’s sake!”
“Darling,” her mother began in that tone of voice that Madison absolutely hated—the eminently oh-so-reasonable lilt that made her want to claw her own skin off. “I’ve spoken to your father, and he’s all for it.”
“Of COURSE he is,” Madison yelled, her hands clenching into fists. “He’s probably relieved not to have to pay your Bergdorf’s bill anymore!”
Madison could feel the air moving faster and faster through her lungs, and her head began to feel light and dizzy, like it was about to become untethered from her neck and just pop off and begin floating across the room like a sick, bloated balloon. If this didn’t just stop—if everything didn’t stop, she was going to pass right the fuck out, face first into Edie’s two-hundred-dollar flower arrangement, and then she was going to kill someone. Antonio as her stepfather? This was so not happening.
“Madison,” Antonio said, getting up and pushing his chair back. “We were hoping you would be glad for us, no? Don’t you want your mother to be happy?”
Madison paused, literally shaking with rage as she pondered the question. “NO!” Madison slammed her hand down on the table, causing the flower arrangement and the candles to shake precariously. “Why should I when obviously she doesn’t care about my happiness. If she did she never would’ve divorced my father! And she certainly wouldn’t be contemplating marrying some guy fifteen years her junior! You’re not Demi Moore, you know,” Madison snapped, pointing an index finger in Edie’s direction. “Even if you did fly all the way to Austria to have that revolting, leech-infested beauty torture.”
A month ago, Edie had read an article crediting Moore’s ageless good looks to a series of bizarre treatments she’d had done in Vienna, where live leeches were attached to her body and encouraged to bite in order to “detoxify the blood.” Needless to say, Edie had booked a flight quicker than you could say “mental delusion.” Edie’s face drained of color, the skin turning the greenish white of a corpse. She looks like a dead thing, Madison thought as she watched her mother struggle to remain composed. A corpse in a Valentino gown.
“Madison, dear,” Edie said carefully, pausing to gulp from her glass of wine, “I only want what’s—”
“What’s best for me?” Madison snapped, cutting her off before Edie could finish her thought. “Really, Mother,” Madison said, her green eyes filling with frustration and tears, “you don’t have the first clue.” Madison looked around the room wildly, her green eyes unfocused with angry tears, remembering all too late that the cameras were in fact still there, the lens recording all of her epic family failures. Broken family with screwed up parental units wasn’t the part she’d signed on to play when she’d agreed to this nightmare of a show. She was supposed to be perfect, goddammit! And that meant on-screen and off. It wasn’t fair—the insulated, totally unreal world of television was supposed to be the one place where everything worked out perfectly at the end of the half hour . . . including her current mess of a life.
If she had to stay in that room for another moment, she’d either start full-out sobbing, become psychotically violent, or puke, and none of these options were, as far as she was concerned, even remotely acceptable. Madison bolted from the room, throwing her chair down as she went, the sound of the heavy wood and soft damask hitting the floor in a rush of air filling her with a fleeting moment of satisfaction. Madison swung the door to her room behind her roughly, relishing the sound of the wooden frame splintering under her ministrations, and sank to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them with both arms, too angry and helpless to do anything other than begin to cry silently, her green eyes squinted shut, her head falling to her chest like a broken flower.
ménage à trois
“So, what are you up to this weekend?”
Darin Hollingsworth shook his shaggy black hair from his angular face, and pulled his Brooklyn Industries black bomber jacket closer to his skinny frame, wrapping his arms around his body as he kicked one red Converse high-top against the stone steps that lined the front of Meadowlark Academy. Casey looked over from her perch on the step adjacent, both waiting and wanting to feel the rush of butterflies she’d experienced the other night at Southpaw. But no matter how hard she concentrated, the only act her stomach was currently engaged in was digesting the half of a toasted poppy seed bagel she’d managed to wolf down this morning before running out the door to school.
Ever since she’d left Madison’s last night, she’d been feeling totally confused. She’d lain in bed last night well past two A.M. watching the patterns the streetlights made glowing faintly yellow across the ceiling, the mournful sounds of Kate Walsh’s Clocktower Park set to repeat on her iPod. If Mad honestly wanted to become friends, then Casey knew that she had to really try to put her feelings for Drew—whatever they were—out of her mind. Darin’s cool, she told herself as Kate droned away in her ears. But no matter how many times she repeated the words in her head, she couldn’t help but feel like she was trying to convince herself, to talk herself into feeling something that she didn’t know if she actually felt for Darin. Still, what better way to try to distract herself from the whole Drew dilemma then by hanging out with the shaggy-haired, black-clad indie wonder? Except tha
t it wasn’t quite going as smoothly as she had imagined . . .
“I’m not sure,” Casey said, trying to come off breezy and carefree, hoping simultaneously that he’d ask her out and drop the subject altogether. Casey stared out into the bustle of the street, sunlight blinding her gray eyes, the very last of the fall leaves skittering down the sidewalk, a dry, brown dance in a sudden gust of wind. It was one of those absolutely perfect winter days before the first snow blankets the sidewalks, before the freezing rain and gray patches of slippery ice. The air was bracingly cold and the sky a breathtakingly clear and perfect blue. The yellow awning of a Sabrett’s hot dog cart glowed brightly in the sunlight, and the mouthwatering scent of grilled hot dogs and salt-encrusted hot pretzels made Casey’s stomach begin to growl, reminding her that half a poppy seed bagel wasn’t exactly rocket fuel.
Casey blew on the surface of her milky Earl Grey tea and wished she’d remembered to grab a sleeve so that she wouldn’t be searing third-degree burns onto the skin of her palms. She was so nervous already from what she, ummm, wasn’t feeling that she didn’t think she could remotely stomach coffee this morning. “My mom’s supposed to be coming into town this weekend, so I’ll probably have to stick pretty close to home.”
“Oh,” Darin said, an obvious note of disappointment creeping into his voice. “That sucks. But I guess you’ll be pretty glad to see her, right?” Darin reached into his dark gray Timbuk 2 messenger bag covered with chipped buttons and peeling, brightly colored stickers of The Kills, Portishead, and The Strokes, and began rummaging around at the bottom, his face marked with concentration.
“Well, yes and no.” Casey laughed, bringing her lips to the edge of the cup, then backing off when she felt the heat still radiating off the surface in waves. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—I love her, you know? We just don’t always get along.” Casey shuffled her navy ballet flats against the stone, wondering why her conversations with Darin didn’t have the same excitement, the same manic pull as her conversations with Drew, why she didn’t feel a force field of static electricity crackling between their bodies, why blue sparks weren’t showering the air between them. Was it just chemistry, the fact that her particular chromosomes and pheromones were hopelessly attracted to his? Casey exhaled, releasing a cloud of white smoke into the air and shivered beneath her kelly green cardigan and the Tommy Hilfiger black wool coat on which she’d spent all of her allowance for the next two months. Placing her cup carefully down on the steps, she wrapped her arms around her knees for extra warmth, her jeans doing little to alleviate the cold kiss of the stone steps on the backs of her legs.
“Yeah,” Darin said, after a long pause, “it’s not like my dad’s going to win the award for Father of the Year anytime soon.” Darin gave a short, uncomfortable laugh, pushing the hair from his face, his eyes flashing momentarily with unspoken anger.
Casey nodded, biting her bottom lip, racking her brain for something to say that might make Darin feel better, but coming up empty-handed. After all, it wasn’t as if Barbara was such a stunning maternal presence either . . . Just then, Drew walked out of the front doors and started down the steps, a cup of coffee in one hand, dark sunglasses masking his face, wearing a black pea coat, a white-and-black boldly striped wool scarf swinging jauntily around his neck. At the sight of him, Casey felt her pulse begin thudding like a bass drum, her heartbeat abnormally loud in her ears. Shit, her inner dating Nazi lamented woefully. Now he’s going to think you’re with Darin!
Well, aren’t I? Casey shot back silently, blushing and forcing herself to not only tear her gaze away from Drew’s hotness, but to redirect her obvious lust to the boy sitting next to her. At the sight of Casey and Darin huddled together on the steps, Drew stopped in his tracks, his gaze beneath the dark shades seemingly locked on Casey, and exhaled heavily, resuming his trajectory down the stairs. Was he looking at me, Casey wondered, getting slightly hysterical as Drew approached. And, more important, after what happened between him and Madison, do I still want him to look at me?
Really, her inner dating Nazi said with no small degree of contempt. Is that even a question?
“What’s up, guys?” Drew descended the steps, stopping at the bottom and turning to face Casey and Darin, doing that aggressive chin tilt that boys loved to use to punctuate a verbal greeting—or sometimes even in place of one.
“Mr. Van Allen,” Darin said breaking into a grin, “what is UP?”
“Not much,” Drew said, reaching out to slap hands with Darin, his dimples winking adorably in his lightly stubbled face as he smiled back, his dark, slightly messy hair shining in the sunlight. Casey watched Drew and Darin interact, fascinated as always by the bizarre, impossible to decipher boy code of meaningless questions and violent slaps guys routinely inflicted on one another. “What are you guys up to?”
“Just kicking it with Ms. McCloy here,” Darin said, angling his head toward Casey.
“I see,” Drew said, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other, a movement that Casey couldn’t define as being either anxious or a step away from violence. It reminded Casey of her first day in New York, when she’d met Drew in the park while in the midst of being verbally patted on the shoulder and stabbed in the back by Madison Macallister—a routine she was now fully familiar with. At the time Drew had said something about observing the girls in their natural habitat, like they were wild animals. Sitting there on the steps, she felt more like she was watching male hyenas interact on some Discovery Channel or Animal Planet show than being with two of her boyfriends. Or, umm . . . friends that just happened to be boys.
“You got anything going on this weekend?” Darin asked, the same grin still on his face, his right foot tapping quickly and repetitively against the steps. “Any big plans?” Darin reached out and put one pale hand on Casey’s knee, his skinny fingers curling around and squeezing tight. Casey flinched at his touch, quickly pulling her leg away from his territorial grip—one that she wasn’t exactly certain he was entitled to. But am I really the one who gets to decide, she asked herself, feeling more and more like some arbitrary prize being silently battled for—but for the sake of the battle alone. She’d had just about enough of these safari wildlife politics that had suddenly popped onto these gray stone steps on a New York winter day, and she was just about to leave when her own animal instincts were aroused by the sound of Drew saying her name.
“I don’t know. No big plans, really.” Drew took a sip of his coffee, the steam fogging the lenses of his sunglasses almost immediately. “What about you, Casey?” Drew gestured with his cup in Casey’s direction, the coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim. “You have anything going on?”
Casey’s boy-talk translation skills were becoming seriously overtaxed. She stared at Drew wordlessly, unable to decipher what he meant by the question, or think of anything to say in return. Did Drew just ask her to do something this weekend? Did he kind of sort of maybe ask her out on a date? Or was she just hopelessly deluded? The bigger question, of course, was why she even cared—Drew had slept with Madison less than a week ago. That should’ve put any speculation about what Drew was or wasn’t asking completely to rest. But whatever he was up to, Casey couldn’t help but notice that it had certainly gotten the butterflies in her stomach flapping their wings almost psychotically, giving Drew serious points against Darin in whatever game it was they all—herself now included—seemed to be playing.
“Uhhhhh . . .” Casey stalled, feeling at a loss as to how to form the correct response, wanting to make sure that she said all of the right things. She was starting to feel like she needed to give up on French and study boy-speak for her language requirement. It was amazing how nuanced and inane it could be at the exact same time. “I’m not sure yet,” she managed to stammer, feeling disoriented by the fact that she couldn’t see Drew’s eyes behind the dark lenses he was wearing. Drew nodded his head slowly, contemplatively, then took a sip of his coffee. What was he thinking? Why were boys always such an unfa
thomable mystery?
“Cool,” Drew said, nodding his head slowly.
“Yeah, sounds like everyone has an exciting weekend ahead,” Darin said sarcastically, with a small, short laugh.
Drew pulled back the wool cuff of his coat, glancing at the chrome Tag Heuer on his wrist. “I’ve got to get to class, guys. I’ll catch you two around,” he said, hitching his messenger back up on his shoulder.
“Good call, my man,” Darin replied, standing up from the steps, “I’ve got to run myself. Oh, and Drew, if nothing comes up for you this weekend, there’s this new power-pop type-o-band from Brooklyn called Get to the Chopper playing out in Greenpoint if you want to check them out—I think I’m going to make the trek out there myself. They’re supposed to be rad.”
Casey looked on in disbelief, her mouth opening in a small, surprised O shape, as Drew walked away, his black-clad back getting smaller and smaller as he made his way down the curb and stopped at the hot dog cart, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. Had this all ended with Darin and Drew making plans? Or was it just a front, a ruse—more passive-aggressive boy-battle bullshit. She had absolutely no idea. But she had gone from feeling that she figured into both boy’s weekend plans to feeling pretty certain that it was going to be a weekend of Law & Order reruns and black-and-white cookies with Nanna for her.
slipping and falling
Drew grabbed Olivia Johansson’s red mitten-clad hand, and tilted his head back, looking up at the enormous Christmas tree that towered over the ice rink at Rockefeller Center like a fragrant, benevolent angel, the colored lights adorning its wide-spread branches twinkling softly in the brisk night air as his feet glided smoothly across the slick, frozen surface of the rink. The rink was teeming with skaters wrapped in cashmere coats and puffy down jackets, wool hats pulled low over cold ears. At the far end of the rink, five or six young boys swaddled in enough winter clothing to kill a small child attempted a game of hockey, passing a black puck around the ice with their curved wooden sticks—much to the obvious dismay of the other skaters.
Elite 03 Simply Irresistible Page 14
