The Elite Read online

  THE ELITE

  the ELITE

  jennifer banash

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Banash.

  Excerpt from In Too Deep by Jennifer Banash copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Banash.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  BERKLEY® JAM and the JAM design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Banash, Jennifer.

  The elite/Jennifer Banash.—Berkley JAM trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When Casey McCloy moves into her grandmother’s exclusive New York City apartment building for a year, she must decide if she is willing to give up herself to be part of the most popular clique at the prestigious high school where she will be a junior.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-2030-6

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Wealth—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y. )—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B2176Eli 2008

  [Fic]—dc22 2007052060

  Contents

  welcome to the big apple

  cruel summer

  to grandma’s house we go…

  casey strikes out

  home sweat home

  better late than never…

  sibling rivalry

  boys…they’re not just for breakfast anymore

  shut out and shot down

  you’d better shop around…

  games people play

  it’s a different world than where you come from…

  little white lies

  the gentle art of conversation

  after-school special

  back to basics

  owner of a lonely heart

  date night

  skipping dessert

  mani, pedi, meltdown

  love…and other bodily fluids

  keep it in the closet

  baby needs a new pair of shoes

  meet the parents

  strangers in the night

  green-eyed monster

  the big blowout

  seven minutes in heaven

  welcome

  to the

  big apple

  Casey McCloy pushed through the revolving glass doors of The Bramford—an exclusive high-rise apartment building in the Carnegie Hill district of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and stepped inside the cool, gray marble lobby. Casey stood in the middle of the enormous space and looked around slowly, her yellow hair twisting down her back in corkscrew curls that, as usual, went every which way with a life of their own that bordered on psychotic. Shitshitshit. Casey sighed in exasperation, dropping the battered blue Samsonite suitcase she held in one hand, a black, beat-up violin case in the other, and pushed her hair out of her face, wishing for the millionth time that she’d remembered to wear a hair tie on her wrist—where she clearly needed it—not packed away in her stupid suitcase. She craned her neck, mouth open, taking in the elaborate colored glass atrium above her head that sparkled in the afternoon sunlight, and streaked the gray, marble floors with splashes of green and gold.

  The Bramford’s stately marble-and-glass lobby was as hushed and silent as a church, the quiet broken only by the high-pitched, slightly musical pinging sound the elevator made as the gleaming steel doors at the far end of the room opened, and the clicking of stilettos on the marble floor as well-dressed women in clothes that probably cost more than every article of clothing Casey had ever owned in her life combined passed by, leaving an intoxicating spicy scent in their wake. To Casey it smelled like the blooms of rare, hot house flowers mixed with the buttery-soft smell of leather, and the crisp, green scent of new hundred-dollar bills. Not only was the interior posh and sophisticated, but Casey knew from her relentless Googling, that The Bramford practically defined Upper East Side excess, with amenities that included a twenty-four-hour doorman and concierge—just in case you needed someone to make your dinner reservations at Per Se, or pick up your dry cleaning—a state-of-the-art fitness center with rows of the latest gleaming machines, an Entertainment Lounge on the first floor, featuring an adjacent, heavily landscaped outdoor garden, and, last, but not least, a children’s playroom, where Prada-and Gucci-clad mothers could drop their children off before heading off to their weekly appointments at The Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon for manicures, pedicures, hot stone massages, and salty seaweed wraps.

  “Can I help you, miss?” Casey jumped as an older man in a red-and-black uniform approached, his blue eyes kind and crinkled. Casey smiled nervously and smoothed down the white mini she’d bought at the mall specifically for the trip. Her thin, light pink American Apparel tank that had seemed so sophisticated back home in Normal, Illinois, now stuck to her damp flesh and resembled a rag her mother might use to dust the furniture.

  “I’m here to see Nanna—” Casey felt her cheeks turning bright red at the mention of the pet name she’d had for her grandmother since she was old enough to talk. And, speaking of talking, was that actually her voice reverberating off the crisp, white walls of the lobby? She sounded so totally…Midwestern. Not that being from Normal was so terrible—it just wasn’t particularly glamorous. “—I mean, Mrs. Conway,” she said more assertively this time, trying her best to pretend that she’d lived in Manhattan all of her life. Casey wiped a hand across her brow, trying her best to sound like she actually knew where she was going, which, of course, she didn’t. “She’s my grandmother. I think she’s on the seventh floor?” Ugh, she thought, pushing her hair back with one hand, why am I so nervous? And, more important, why do I have to sweat so much? She’d always hated the summer—especially August. Even her feet were sweating in her new baby-pink Old Navy ballet flats. The doorman nodded, his lips turning up into an amused grin under a bushy gray moustache. He placed a large, wrinkled hand on her shoulder, and pointed toward a bank of shining silver elevators at the far end of the lobby.

  “Just take the elevator up to 7. She’s in apartment 7C. I’ll buzz her and let her know you’ve arrived.”<
br />
  “Thanks.” Casey sighed gratefully, dragging her suitcase and violin across the floor, hoping that the delicate instrument hadn’t been reduced to kindling during the long, bumpy trip. She felt totally rumpled and gross, her shirt sticking to her back in the humid, late August heat. Just once it would’ve been nice to show up somewhere looking cool and put-together. On the plane she’d sipped a glass of orange juice, her white Isaac Mizrahi sunglasses from Target covering her eyes, imagining her new life in Manhattan, where surely she’d be as popular and sophisticated as Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, her favorite movie of all time.

  “But the sexual politics are completely outdated!” her mother would shout whenever Casey put on the DVD for the trillionth time. Barbara McCloy was a professor of Women’s Studies at Illinois State and she couldn’t understand how her womb had produced Casey, who would’ve loved to have been teleported out of her own curly-haired unglamorous world, and into the body of someone a lot more exciting. Not that her mother understood—her mother truly believed that making a fashion statement amounted to wearing long hippie skirts in hideous batik prints, and was always trying to get Casey to buy her jeans at Wal-Mart instead of the department stores at the mall—or the exclusive boutiques that lined Normal’s small downtown area.

  And when Barbara won a grant to do research at some fancypants university in London for her first book, Casey jumped at the chance to move in with Nanna for a while. Staying with her dad was out of the question—since the divorce three years ago, he’d moved to Seattle to take a position at an up-and-coming dot-com that had recently folded, leaving her dad out of a job. “More like dot gone,” her mother had snorted after he called and broke the news a month ago after dinner.

  Casey sighed, feeling the sweat coating her limbs. If she were suddenly catapulted into the body of someone truly glamorous, she’d be wearing a tight, sparkling dress, her hair shining in the New York sunlight, men following her down the street like dogs, tails wagging. Instead, she had a juice stain on her skirt, and her hair was full of snarls and sticking out every which way from her sweaty head. Even her bare legs felt grimy—like she’d been rolling around in the street instead of walking on it.

  The elevator arrived with the chiming of bells, and the doors opened to the sound of high-pitched giggles. Three girls stood in the elevator clutching towels and tote bags looking cool, sophisticated, and decidedly bored with it all—the three most beautiful girls Casey had ever seen.

  “I mean, she looked totally fug. What was she thinking wearing that tutu? I mean, hello, its Bungalow 8, not a ballet recital!”

  “Totally!” The girl with the black hair giggled, and with that the three grabbed each other’s bare arms and stepped out of the elevator, which closed with a loud ding behind them, announcing their arrival to everyone in the vicinity. If nothing else, it was clear to Casey that these girls positively needed an audience.

  A platinum blond wearing a white bikini top, a short, pink mini, and hot-pink Tory Burch Reva ballet flats stood in the middle, flanked by two girls—one with jet-black hair, the other a sandy, honeyed blond. The girl with the dark locks wore a pair of cutoff True Religion jeans with her metallic blue bikini, and when Casey looked down, she saw perfectly pedicured toes peeking out from the silver Coach flip-flops she’d been molesting for ages at the Coach factory outlet on her uber-rare trips to Chicago. With her gleaming hair and peaches-and-cream complexion, she reminded Casey of the drawings of Snow White in the storybooks of her childhood—the hair dark without being alternative or gothic, and lips as red as cherries in the snow. As a finishing touch, huge chrome sunglasses covered her fine-boned face.

  The other girl had hair as honeyed as her skin—which shone against the bright yellow bikini top she wore. Her hair, streaked with golden highlights, was cut to the shoulders, bangs sweeping across one pale blue eye, obscuring it completely. A thin, white sarong was draped across her waist, and a gold anklet shone on the burnished skin of her ankle. Her arms and legs gleamed from a liberal application of the Nars gardenia-scented bronzing oil Casey always slathered on herself liberally at Sephora, but never bought—considering it was almost fifty dollars a bottle.

  The platinum blond in the middle was, quite simply, the most beautiful girl Casey had ever seen outside of the pages of magazines like Vogue or Elle. As shocking as her hair color was, it somehow looked natural, with no roots, and none of the brassiness that usually went along with a severe bleach job. Her face was a perfect long oval, and her green eyes glittered like hard pieces of jade over cheekbones that were sharp enough to cut glass. She looked a little like Carolyn Bessette, Casey thought, taking in her long legs, and flawless golden tan—if Carolyn Bessette were still alive and walking the streets of the Upper East Side…

  “She’s a walking fashion violation.” The dark-haired girl giggled, rummaging in her white patent leather Kate Spade tote distractedly, her voice high and sweet. “She shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house—much less go to Bungalow.”

  “Its absoludacris,” the honey-haired girl quipped, swiping a MAC lip gloss wand across her already pink, sticky lips. “The doorman must be smoking crack again or something.”

  Casey cleared her throat and looked at the floor, trying to be as invisible as possible—as if that was ever going to happen considering she was standing right in front of them. She swallowed hard, conscious of the sweat running down her back. The platinum blond fixed her green eyes on Casey and looked her slowly up and down, her gaze catlike.

  “Visiting?” she asked coolly, taking in everything from Casey’s flushed face, to her stained white mini, and cheap pink ballet flats. “Because you definitely don’t live here.”

  “Actually, I do…now,” Casey blurted out, placing her bags down on the floor and pulling the straps of her tank up on her shoulders. “I’m staying with my grandmother for a while.”

  “Where are you from, anyway?” the dark-haired girl asked, sliding her sunglasses down over her eyes.

  “Normal, Illinois,” Casey said proudly, straightening up slightly and throwing her shoulders back. Normal might not be glamorous or sophisticated, but it was home—the only home she’d known for the past sixteen years.

  “Is that really a…place?” the honey-blond girl asked slowly, her forehead furrowed in concentration.

  “Look,” Snow White said with an amused grin, pointing at her friend with the honey locks—who looked awfully confused. “She’s trying to think!”

  “Where’s Illinois, anyway?” the honey-girl mused, completely unfazed by the dark-haired girl’s comment, checking the time on her black iPhone. “Isn’t it near Nebraska or something?” Without missing a beat, the dark-haired girl and the platinum blond cracked up, grabbing each other’s arms for support, wiping tears from their eyes with perfectly manicured fingertips. The honey-haired girl glared at them with her bottle-glass green eyes, then turned back to Casey, her expression softening.

  “I am so bad at geography,” she said apologetically, “I barely know where I am at all times.”

  “You can say that again,” the platinum blond snorted, rolling her eyes and shifting her weight from one foot to another, anxious to get outside. “So,” she said, regarding Casey coolly with eyes like electric-green ice chips. “Are you?”

  “Am I what?” Casey asked nervously, acutely aware that she was sweating so hard that droplets of perspiration were likely to start rolling down her forehead at any moment.

  “Normal,” the blond said with a tight smile. The other two girls had stopped fidgeting, and were listening to their conversation so closely that Casey thought they might be holding their breath.

  “I guess so,” Casey answered uncertainly.

  “I would imagine that being…I mean living in Normal would be awfully pedestrian,” the blond said with a sly smile. Casey’s brain scrambled to keep up with the blond’s sophisticated banter—had she just been insulted? She couldn’t be totally sure.

  “I’m Casey,” she s
aid, holding out her hand, attempting to navigate the conversation back to safer, less shark-infested waters, remembering too late that her palms were basically an ocean of sweat.

  “I’m Madison Macallister, the blond said with an air of imperiousness—as if Casey should’ve somehow known. “And this is Phoebe Reynaud.” The dark-haired girl smiled, exposing rows of brilliantly white teeth. Madison pointed one French-manicured finger at the girl with the honey-colored hair. “And that’s Sophie St. John. Welcome to The Bram,” she added—almost as an afterthought. The honey-girl waved one hand happily, then attempted to push a heavy sheaf of hair from her left eye.

  “Oh my God,” Madison snapped, grabbing Sophie’s thin wrist. “STOP that!” Madison looked apologetically over at Casey. “We finally got her to grow her bangs out like Nicole Richie, you know—pre-pregnancy? But she keeps fidgeting with them. It’s so annoying.”

  “I can’t see anything like this.” Sophie sighed exasperatedly. “I feel like a cyclops.”

  “You do have another eye, you know,” Phoebe giggled, “and besides…”

  “BEAUTY IS AGONY!” all three yelled out at once, laughing hysterically and slapping each other’s hands in high-fives.

  “She’s just being a baby.” Madison pointed at Sophie with one slim, polished finger. “It’s not like she wasn’t prepared. I mean, we made her wear the cutest Christian Dior eye patch for two weeks before she even got her hair cut.”

  “I don’t even look like Nicole Richie anyway,” Sophie mumbled.

  “Not with that ass,” Madison added slyly. “From the back you look more like…Beyoncé.” Sophie blushed deeply, and Casey noticed that she was now holding her tote bag directly in front of her lower half and biting her bottom lip.