Elise Warren was getting ready for a date with one of those boring rich boys her father expected her to go out with—though none of them was as rich as she was, of course. She had her own spacious marble bathroom, attached to her large, elaborately decorated bedroom. Before she showered, she made sure her bedroom door and her bathroom door were both locked. Then she stuck her finger down her throat. She wanted to be as thin as possible for this date, even though the boy was boring. It was important to her to look perfect at all times.
She knew her parents wouldn't hear anything—they were downstairs in the conservatory having cocktails. It was a school night, but her father still wanted her to go out with this boy because he had important connections. And it was never wise to disobey her father. Not for a trivial thing like this date, anyway. She saved arguing with her father for important things. She was the only person who ever dared to disagree with him.
She showered and washed her hair with imported French lavender shampoo. She wrapped herself in a large fluffy towel and dried her hair with her new hair dryer—she got one every couple of months or so, whenever a fancier, more expensive model came out.
Then she strolled into her walk-in closet and picked out an outfit—tight jeans, prefaded, and a pink silk top that clung to her body. She went through her racks of shoes. Should she wear high heels or not? She tried to remember how tall this guy was—she had never gone out with him before, and he went to a different school. She didn't want to risk being taller than him, so she wore flats—Prada ballets, with a buckle, one of many pairs that she had—that matched the pink color of her top.
It took her about a half hour to do her makeup, with brushes and creams and unguents, all of them the top brands. She studied herself carefully in her three-paneled full-length mirror for about five minutes, to be sure everything was perfect. It was. She went downstairs.
She entered the conservatory, which was all floor-to-ceiling windows and huge tropical plants. Her parents looked up at her from the TV—they were watching a business report that her father followed religiously and her mother had to sit through because that's what her father wanted.
"Uh… do you think that outfit might be a little tight, dear?" her mother said.
"She looks great," her father said roughly. "It's the perfect outfit." Of course he wanted her to look alluring, so that the boy with good connections would like her.
Her mother couldn't argue. She looked back at the TV and took a sip of her drink, a cocktail in a stemmed glass garnished with an orchid.
Now that Elise was about to go out with a boy her father approved of, and he liked the way she was dressed, she said, "Could you please take me with you the next time you go to that building? Grand Diamond. Is that what it's called?"
Her father sighed irritably. "Why do you care about that place?"
She wanted to go to that "place" because a few weeks earlier, waiting in the car for her father to finish some business at Grand Diamond, she had seen the building manager. He was blond and rough-looking in a way that was very attractive to Elise. Then he had winked at her over her father's shoulder, and she had felt a thrill that no prep school boy's smile had ever given her. She was determined to see the man again. But her father's reaction wasn't good tonight. This wasn't the moment to ask him if she could visit Grand Diamond after all.
And then, just in time, she heard the sound of the boy's helicopter landing on the tarmac behind their house. "There he is. Gotta go," she said, and kissed her father lightly on the cheek, which she knew would calm him down. Then she headed for the big front door—she knew the boy would get out of the copter and walk to the front door to ring.
As she waited by the door, she thought about how far she should let him go in the back of his copter. Not very far, she decided; she didn't like him much, and her father would never know that she wasn't going to put any effort into impressing him. Not for this spoiled boring little rich boy.
She wanted someone much more exciting.
