“Why do you think?” Jared smiled naughtily, raising one eyebrow in that maddening way of his that usually made Phoebe want to rip off his shirt and blindfold him with the scraps of fabric so that he could never, ever get away from her. But now, when all she wanted to do was connect with him on any other level but physical, it was just annoying.
“I wish,” Phoebe said quickly. “I have a lot of homework I have to finish before tomorrow.” Her cheeks flushed beneath her Nars Orgasm blush that flecked her pale skin with tiny gold particles. God, she hated lying—it always made her feel so dirty and compromised, not to mention an exact clone of her cheating, lying, scheming society robot of a mother.
“That’s cool,” Jared said, spearing another dumpling and popping it in his mouth. “What about the gala on Friday? You’re going with me to that, right?” Jared swallowed, wiped his hand on a purple linen napkin, and balled it up, tossing it onto the table, his actions betraying what his voice did not—that he was slightly irritated.
Phoebe twirled a strand of dark hair around one finger, as she tried to think of what to say. She was Jared’s girlfriend, right? Then of course she had to go with him to the biggest social event on the winter party circuit. Phoebe frowned, playing with the stirrer in her drink. Shouldn’t she want to go with him—and what did it mean that she suddenly kind of didn’t? That she couldn’t seem to stop herself from wondering if Drew was going, and, if so, who, exactly, he’d be bringing with him. It’s just a crush, she told herself. It’s like a fever—you’ll feel lousy for a few days, but then it will break. It had to. But what if it didn’t? And why was she suddenly so afraid?
“Yeah—of course!” Phoebe answered, looking up with a brilliant smile that felt about as fake to her as the rows of Louis Vuitton handbags littering Canal Street—otherwise known as fake bag nirvana for the bridge-and-tunnel set. Act normal, she told herself steadily as Jared reached across the table again and pressed his mouth to hers, the sweet-and-salty plum sauce mingling with the taste of his lips. Act normal and soon maybe it won’t be just an act, Phoebe silently reassured herself as she opened her mouth and kissed him back, determined now to get things between her and Jared back on track, and her heart back where it belonged.
british invasion
Casey leaned against the door of her grandmother’s apartment at The Bram, grateful to be home. The day had dragged on forever, and there had been no hope at all of concentrating in her afternoon classes at all after Drew’s little visit on the steps. Plus, as she was walking home, Darin had called to invite her to some fancy-pants party at the Guggenheim on Friday night, and, as usual, she had less than nothing to wear. On top of everything else, Meadowlark had suddenly turned into college central with everyone freaking out about the impending SATs—lunch hours were now routinely filled with practice sessions, tables littered with calculators and study guides instead of nail polish and the current issue of InStyle.
Casey didn’t know what was worse—having to balance her tuna salad on a Pearson’s book, or the fear that had begun to overtake her about the SATs in general. She’d never exactly been what you might call a natural-born test-taker—usually her palms got all sweaty and then she would promptly forget everything she’d spent the last two weeks trying to cram into her brain. And unlike the majority of Meadlowlark, Casey had two choices—get a scholarship or attend Illinois State back in Normal where her mother taught Women’s Studies, as children of tenured faculty members had the added bonus of free tuition. But the last thing she wanted now was to go back home—her life there now seemed like something that had happened to someone else entirely, like a movie she’d slept through without even knowing it. Which, of course, brought her back to the obvious problem of having nothing to wear to the gala . . .
Casey pulled her phone from her overstuffed black tote, and began to text Phoebe, her fingers moving quickly over the keypad. Even though Pulse had given her an ample amount of clothes, none of them constituted anything she could even think about wearing to a museum gala.
Darin asked me to the gala!—but no dress! Can u help?
Casey waited for the screen to begin to flash with Phoebe’s response, which it did almost immediately as Phoebe was, hands down, the fastest texter among The Bram Clan. Her phone should just be stapled to her hand, Casey thought, smiling. It would make her life so much easier . . .
Have just the thing. You like blue, right?
Casey nodded at the screen as if Phoebe could actually see her response. Blue, green, chartreuse—whatever. If she was borrowing it, she wasn’t exactly going to be picky about it . . .
“Casey Anne McCloy, is that you?”
Casey’s gray eyes widened in shock as her mother, Barbara McCloy, came striding into the hall wearing a long blue-and-yellow batik-printed skirt with a pair of navy thermal leggings underneath, and a yellow sweater that had clearly seen better days as the wool was unraveling at the bottom, dangling like strands of tangled hair. And speaking of hair, Barbara’s yellow mane, the exact shade and hue as her daughter’s, was scraped back in her signature bun, the strands pulled so tight that Casey was always afraid her mother’s eyes would someday be catapulted from their sockets only to bounce around the room like slightly squishy Ping-Pong balls. A pair of rectangular navy eyeglasses that Casey had never seen before sat on the bridge of her nose, magnifying her eyes, which were speckled and flecked like a blue-gray pebble.
“So, my prodigal daughter is finally home from the wars,” Barbara said with a tight smile, her voice clipped and annoyingly Anglofied as she walked over and enfolded her daughter in a hug. Casey’s senses were suddenly enveloped in the series of scents that always brought Barbara to mind: lavender talcum powder, spilled ink, and the musty, dusty tang of old libraries mixed with the intoxicating, comforting smell of ancient, leather-bound books. Barbara let go, holding her at arm’s length as her eyes traveled the length of Casey’s body, missing nothing, taking in her dark denim jeans and plaid trench, the pair of chrome Chanel shades Phoebe had given her, which neatly held back her mass of straightened hair. Her mother’s lips turned up in a half-smile before she spoke, her voice ringing out loudly in the foyer as she reached over and picked up a piece of Casey’s hair, holding it for a moment between her fingers, then dropping it like it was a dead bird. “And by wars, clearly I’m referring to the consuming frenzy, into which you have so obviously been recruited.”
“It’s just straightened,” Casey said nervously, snapping her cell phone shut and tossing it back into her bag, trying to blow off her mother’s fixation on all things fashionable—which meant, in Barbara-speak, all things evilly commercial. “And these sunglasses aren’t even mine,” she said, snatching them off the top of her head and holding them out for Barbara to inspect. “I’m just borrowing them,” she added as if that would make any real difference to her mother, who thought that Target was upscale, and that paying any more than thirty dollars for a pair of shoes meant that you should be promptly folded into a straitjacket and carried off to the nearest padded cell—pronto. “I thought you weren’t coming back until next week,” Casey said, her voice registering her surprise, but not, she hoped, her horror.
“I see we have a lot to talk about,” Barbara said dryly, putting an arm around Casey and leading her into Nanna’s cheery blue-and-white living room with its sheer white curtains and powder blue furniture—a space that always seemed vaguely nautical, and made her feel more like she was on a boat heading out to sea rather than sitting on a puffy, pale blue sofa in one of the most exclusive apartment buildings on the Upper East Side.
“How was school today?” Nanna shouted out from her armchair, her white hair the exact color of the pearls looped around her neck, shining in the rapidly receding daylight. “Break any hearts?” Nanna added, cackling softly to herself before pausing to sigh exasperatedly over the ball of yellow wool in her lap, holding up one of her silver knitting needles and pointing it at Casey in a way that seemed vaguely menacing—well, as menacing as a l
ittle old lady in a pewter gray twin set could possibly be. “Whatever made me think I needed to take up this nonsense in the first place?” Nanna muttered, dropping the needle to her lap and throwing the ball of tangled wool onto the floor, then kicking at the yellow mess with one of the many pairs of vintage black Chanel ballet flats she was fond of wearing. Nanna was forever taking up appropriately grandmotherish hobbies like baking and knitting, but strictly for show. When no one was looking, Casey knew that she often threw the tangled wool or the mess of horrifyingly burnt-to-a-crisp cookies right in the trash.
“So, why are you back early?” Casey asked again, ignoring Nanna completely. “I mean,” she went on hurriedly, sitting down and promptly sinking into the bowl of pale blue whipped cream that masqueraded as a sofa, “I’m glad to see you, but you had said you were coming back on the twentieth.”
“I had a change of plans,” Barbara said with a sigh as she plopped down next to Casey on the sofa, her newfound British accent making her sound like she should’ve been granting an audience to the Queen instead of a lowly commoner like her own daughter. “And I wanted to find out just what in God’s name you’ve gotten yourself into with this ridiculous TV program.” Barbara rolled her eyes, clearly both annoyed and wanting an explanation. Now.
“Well, I think I’ll take this opportunity to enjoy Alex Trebek in the privacy of my own bedroom.” Nanna grinned, standing up and kicking the wool out of the way with the toe of her slipper.
“Not so fast,” Barbara snapped, pointing her finger at Nanna—a move that stopped the diminutive white-haired woman in her tracks. “Care to explain exactly why you thought it was a good idea to allow Casey to do this without consulting me?”
“I did consult you.” Nanna blinked, her face expressionless. Casey recognized that look. It was the same expression Nanna wore every time she cheated at one of her bridge games.
Barbara laughed, her expression incredulous. “Mom, you called me after you’d signed the papers, just to let me know!” Barbara threw up her hands in exasperation before crossing them sulkily over her chest.
“Details, details,” Nanna cackled with a wave of her hand, then promptly turned on her heel and walked out of the room before Barbara could say anything else.
“I mean, you can’t be serious about this thing, can you, Casey? Shows like this are just hugely problematic on so, so many levels. Just look at the way you’re dressing already—it’s like watching a product placement circus,” Barbara said, her voice rising to a pitch that anyone who was born speaking with her new accent would consider to be extremely uncouth. “And let’s not even get started on the way they portray women! Do you really want to be one of those girls?”
Casey bounced up from the sofa and began pacing back and forth in front of the long windows that looked out across the park. It was totally the moment she had been dreading—and it wasn’t just the fact that Barbara was mad at her. It was the way that she—her daughter, her own flesh and blood—had been immediately turned into some kind of case study that was being subjected to the most scrutinizing academic analysis. She had been doing this as long as Casey could remember, starting on the night when her mother found her underneath the covers playing with a contraband Barbie by flashlight. Not that the young Casey had any idea what the Dominant Narrative was or what exactly bell hooks had said in that one essay, but she had hated being treated like the subject of a research paper then, and she definitely hated it now.
Casey stared at her mother, unable to deny how closely they resembled one another—the same yellow hair, the same gray eyes, the same stubborn demeanor. She knew from past experiences that it was important to remain calm, no matter how desperate and out of control she felt. It was bizarre—the minute Casey got around her mother, she found herself barely able to stop from acting out, from trying to define herself against the woman who’d raised her, to make it clear that they were nothing at all alike.
“Don’t do this, Mom,” she said slowly, levelly, holding her mother’s gray eyes with her own. “This isn’t your classroom; it’s my life. I want to do this and I like the way that it’s changed me. I’m not that sweaty mess of curly hair that was shipped out here from Illinois at the beginning of the year.” Casey stopped pacing and stood straight in front of her mother who still sat on the couch, looking strangely relaxed, probably due to the fact that she had sat through many a Casey McCloy summing-it-all-up monologue in the past. “I’m actually starting to fit in, which I even had a hard time doing in Normal of all places.” With that, Casey flopped back down next to her mother, exhausted from all of the emotions that had been welling up and getting all over everything, making an absolute mess of what had been an already emotionally messy day.
“I’m glad to hear that you’re fitting in,” Barbara said after a momentary silence punctuated only by screams from Jeopardy!—which was playing at a volume in the next room that could only be described as deafening. Barbara was beginning to sound more like a mother and less like a professor, the lines in her brow softening as she went on. “This isn’t the easiest place to do that,” she said, waving her hands around, pointing out the window. “But you just have to remember—and I’m saying this as your mother—to keep a hold of yourself, Casey Anne McCloy. And I know that you can do that.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Casey joked and she reached over to hug her mom, finally, truly glad to see her now that the confrontation was dying down. “And don’t worry, Mom. You don’t have to take any part in the whole thing—there’s no way I’m letting you anywhere near the cameras. The last thing I need is one of your diatribes ending up on national television.” Casey shuddered, the very thought making her feel almost queasy.
“I’ll just keep my diatribe to the paper I’m going to write—and don’t even think that you can stop me,” Barbara said smugly, pushing her glasses farther up on the bridge of her nose. “I can see it now, published in The Oxford Review or Critical Inquiry—Stepford Child: The Social Engineering of America’s Newest Reality TV Star.”
Casey blinked uncomprehendingly, her gray eyes struggling not to reveal the sense of absolute horror she was currently experiencing. That was literally the worst idea she’d ever heard, not to mention the most potentially embarrassing. “You have your dreams and I have mine,” Casey said weakly, curling her head into the space between her mother’s jawline and collarbone, just like she had when she was a baby. “But you’re going to have to come up with a new title—that one’s probably going to be longer than the article.”
“True,” Barbara said sleepily, her jet lag definitely starting to kick in as she closed her eyes and began to breathe evenly. Speaking of dreams, Casey wondered if she was even right: Did she have any left? If so, she wasn’t exactly sure what they were these days. At first all she’d wanted was to fit in with Madison and The Bram Clan, and that longing was like a constant weight in her heart that she seemed to carry around with her all the time, like a manhole cover strapped to her chest. Then, all she’d wanted was Drew—to finally have a boyfriend who was more than just a passing crush—and it was obvious how that had turned out. And now she wasn’t sure if it was safe to believe in dreams at all anymore. Maybe at the end of the day, believing that you really could get what you wanted was just too idealistic a notion in the relentless, dog-eat-dog world of the big city—or maybe she really was beginning to fit in to the Upper East Side scene . . . in ways she’d never even considered . . . and with consequences that made her almost glad that her mother, as annoying as she could definitely be most of the time, was suddenly back in town.
silver bells
Drew squirmed in the confines of his black Armani suit crossed with fine gray pinstripes, and tugged resentfully at the collar of his white dress shirt, surreptitiously smoothing the black-and-violet-flecked tie that was knotted around his neck like a noose. He hated wearing a suit—he always felt like he was being strangled, and the added torture of a tie only served to amplify the sensation that he was merely a few shallow b
reaths away from having his respiration cut off altogether. As uncomfortable as he felt all decked out like a prize pony, it couldn’t begin to detract from the happiness he felt looking around the interior of the Guggenheim, his favorite museum in all of Manhattan. His blue eyes happily swept over the brilliant white walls that curved around and around in the circular building, as he craned his neck upward to take in the aerial view of the upper floors that circled around like the outside of a beehive.
The Guggenheim, a refuge for some of the greatest modern art on the entire planet, had gone all-out this year. An enormous avant-garde ice sculpture loomed over the front of the room on a long, red metallic table, the frozen liquid crafted into the shape of a spiky winter tree sans leaves, its icy transparent branches reaching hopefully toward the sky. Huge aluminum Christmas trees were scattered around the room, their shiny silver branches aglow with tiny white lights. Clusters of tables were strategically placed throughout the enormous space, covered with silver tablecloths that sparkled in the whiteness of the building itself that seemed to encroach on everything in the immediate vicinity. Miniature solid steel cubes filled with white candles illuminated the centerpieces of pine garlands, silver acorns, and holly, red berries peeking out festively from the dark green leaves.
“So, how do you like NYU?” Drew asked, leaning a bit closer, and breathing in the scent of her perfume, which smelled almost exactly like the sweet scent of Coppertone mixed with a field of wildflowers—floral, weirdly almost salty, and yet comfortingly familiar.
“It’s okay, I guess,” Olivia said after a pause. She reached over with her long fingers and toyed with the crystal stem of the almost-empty champagne flute that rested on the table in front of her. “It’s harder than I thought it would be,” she added thoughtfully, flashing him a grin that seemed almost apologetic.
Elite 03 Simply Irresistible Page 16
