Jennifer Banash - The Elite

the

ELITE

jennifer banash

THE ELITE

the

ELITE

jennifer banash

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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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 authors 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.

All rights reserved.

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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 grandmothers 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: 1-4362-2318-0

[1. Interpersonal relationsFiction. 2. WealthFiction. 3. IdentityFiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y. )Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.B2176Eli 2008

[Fic]dc22

2007052060

welcome

to the

big apple

Casey McCloy pushed through the revolving glass doors of The Bramfordan exclusive high- rise apartment building in the Carnegie Hill district of Manhattans 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 shed remembered to wear a hair tie on her wrist

where she clearly needed itnot packed away in her stupid J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

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 Bramfords 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 conciergejust in case you needed someone to make your dinner reservations at Per Se, or pick up your dry cleaninga 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 childrens 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.

T H E E L I T E

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 ner vous ly and smoothed down the white mini shed 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.

Im here to see Nanna Casey felt her cheeks turning bright red at the mention of the pet name shed 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 terribleit just wasnt particularly glamorous. I mean, Mrs. Conway, she said more assertively this time, trying her best to pretend that shed 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 didnt. Shes my grandmother.

I think shes on the seventh floor? Ugh, she thought, pushing her hair back with one hand, why am I so ner vous? And, more important, why do I have to sweat so much? Shed always hated the summerespecially 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 mous-tache. 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.

J E N N I F E R B A N A S H

Just take the elevator up to 7. Shes in apartment 7C. Ill buzz her and let her know youve arrived.

Thanks. Casey sighed gratefully, dragging her suitcase and violin across the floor, hoping that the delicate instrument hadnt 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 wouldve been nice to show up somewhere looking cool and put- together.

On the plane shed sipped a glass of orange juice, her white Isaac Mizrahi sunglasses from Target covering her eyes, imagining her new life in Manhattan, where surely shed be as pop

u lar 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 Womens Studies at Illinois State and she couldnt understand how her womb had produced Casey, who wouldve 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 understoodher 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 mallor the exclusive boutiques that lined Normals small downtown area.