Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money Read Online Free PDF Page B

what
that is?”
    “Not exactly. It sounds cool, though. Dad
said it.”
    “Well, I’m not one,” I thought, then
qualified it. “Yet. I’m not one yet. But I’m thinking on it.”
    “Great! If you decide, you can tell me what
it is. Meanwhile, dad sent me down here to tell you to come
upstairs.”
    “I’m being summoned?”
    She laughed. “No. Sorry. I didn’t say it
right. Dad and Tasya are having some people over and he sent me
down here to invite you.”
    “You going?” I asked, curious about who
might be there.
    “For a while. Corby is coming to pick me up
in a while, though.”
    “Corby?”
    “Boyfriend person.” She looked me over
carefully. “The party; it’ll be casual but nice, you know.”
    I looked at my track pants and sweatshirt
with a grin. “This is casual.”
    Jennifer laughed. “No, that’s undressed.
There’ll be, like, boys and everything. You know: boys your age.
Half an hour or so, ‘k?” She pushed herself off the chair. “See
ya.”
    I stressed ridiculously over what to wear,
which was, in itself, a happy diversion. I knew what to wear to a
gallery opening in Soho or for dinner at Balthazar. I could put
together a wardrobe for a weekend in the Hamptons quite easily: not
that I’d done it so often, but I would have known what to wear. But
a barbecue at the Malibu home of a famous director? This was new
territory.
    I decided to follow Jennifer’s lead: good
jeans and a cutaway top, though not as cutaway as hers had been:
some things are best left to 17-year-olds. Soft little sandals on
my feet and my hair loose around my shoulders. LA enough, I decided
when I surveyed myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the
bathroom door.
    The big deck above my apartment had been
transformed since I had crossed it earlier in the day. Lit torches
illuminated strategic corners, bringing the velvety night alive
with golden light. Music echoed from the house and filled the air.
People had already begun arriving and were arranged around the deck
in little groups, standing and chatting, or sitting on various
types of comfortable-looking patio furniture, drinks in hand. Even
though it was early spring, the night was mild. I settled in to
enjoy my first Malibu party.
    Tyler was holding court from the center of a
big-ass barbecue. The barbecue part itself would have done well by
a professional chef: huge, stainless steel and commanding .
But Tyler’s barbecue was an entertainer’s special. It had a
conversation pit built around it, where people could sit and chat
with the chef, sip their drinks and taste any newly prepared
tidbits he saw fit to offer. With Tyler at the barbecue, you had
the impression that the place where he stood was a stage, the seats
around him a little amphitheater: the director where you might
expect to find an actor.
    “Madeline!” he said when he saw me, sounding
genuinely pleased that I’d joined them. “Glad you could come.”
    “Thanks for inviting me. That’s an amazing
barbecue, Tyler. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “I had it custom made a few years ago,” he
said, looking pleased and faintly self-conscious at the same time.
“It’s the same old story: When I was growing up in Colorado,
everybody had a better barbecue than my family did. Ours was rusty
and old-fashioned and terrible. But I loved barbecue. And I
resolved...” he spread his hands out, indicating the barbecuing
beast at his disposal.
    “You’ve arrived,” I said firmly, with a
smile. Understanding.
    He grinned, at once sheepish and proud. “I
have. And now you have, too. Let me introduce you around.”
    I was the new kid, and there were a lot of
them, so the names soon melded together, especially since, by the
time we’d done the rounds, more people had arrived and mixed
themselves up with the ones whose names I was trying hard to
remember. I saw a few familiar faces, but they looked smaller to
me. Diminished in person — looking oddly normal — when I’d gotten
to