Fair of Face

by Sienna Waters

  A look of darkness passed over Lynette’s face, but she said nothing, just nodded and walked away.

  ✽✽✽

  “You’re expected in the office.”

  There was a gleam of satisfaction in the assistant’s eyes. Kate was well aware of the fact that she wasn’t exactly liked around the magazine. And that was fine. She wasn’t here to make friends, she told herself. Still though, it would have been nice to have been able to ask the assistant what she was wanted for and to get an honest answer. She nodded in reply.

  The office. That’s what they called the vast expanse of space that Jeannie occupied. Crowded with shelves, littered with magazine covers, and with windows on all sides so that Jeannie could oversee both the city and her busy little empire inside. No one went into the office for good reasons. If Jeannie was happy with you, she took you to lunch. Kate sighed. Jeannie had seen her come in, there was no escaping this. She took a deep breath before she knocked on the door.

  “Ah, Kate, so nice to see you.”

  The tone did not match the words. Jeannie Tulane, editor in chief, was dressed in a suit so perfect it could have been painted on. She was tall, with unnaturally dark hair. Glasses framed her eyes, lines framed her mouth, and her neck was draped with a fine silk scarf, hiding the wrinkles that she was so vain about.

  “Take a seat.”

  Kate did as she was told, perching on the edge of an uncomfortably small chair. She knew that every eye in the office was on her, that they were all out there watching her through the windows. But she kept her gaze firmly on Jeannie. She wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of thinking this bothered her.

  “You’ve been here six weeks,” Jeannie said, leaning back in her own large chair. “And you’ve done some nice work. Not great work. But nice.”

  “Uh, thank you,” Kate said, confused.

  Jeannie steepled her hands in front of her, elbows on the desk, red fingernails glowing in the light from the window.

  “We were expecting more,” she said. “From your portfolio we were expecting more... innate artistic talent perhaps. Something better than nice.”

  Kate’s stomach started to turn, she could feel a flush creeping up her neck.

  “I understand that you’re getting used to a new place, a new studio, new models. I’m willing to give you a few more weeks to prove yourself,” Jeannie was saying. “However, there’s something that concerns me more.”

  She wasn’t going to show emotion, wasn’t go to let anyone see what she was feeling or thinking. She kept her mouth firmly closed, her eyes forward.

  “I’m getting reports that you’re... temperamental. Difficult to work with.”

  Kate bit her lip. Keeping her mouth closed was becoming more difficult. There was so much that she wanted to say. But she didn’t quite dare.

  “I understand, of course, that many artists are temperamental. You, however, are not an artist. You are a staff photographer. Whatever eccentricities you were able to get away with in California will not, as they say, fly here. I’ve had complaints from models, from production assistants, from the art director. You’re stubborn, uncooperative, and most of all, controlling. These are not characteristics that can be condoned.”

  And she could hold the words back no longer. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to apologize or to defend herself, but she couldn’t just sit here and take it.

  “I–”

  “No,” said Jeannie, leaning forward a little now. “I don’t want to hear it. I have no interest in any reasoning or justification. You are still in your probation period. I have not yet made a decision on signing your permanent contract. However, I will tell you that should your behavior continue as is then I will not be signing it at all.”

  She leaned back again, dark eyes carefully watching as Kate didn’t dare to say a thing. Kate was sweating, shaky, her breath was coming faster than she wanted it to.

  “I must say, I’m disappointed. I’d heard good things about you, Kate. I personally talked to models you’d worked with. And I’ll tell you something else, Nat Lee herself called me to recommend you. Obviously, a personal recommendation from a model that well-known in the business went a long way towards getting you this job.”

  And now Kate felt like the floor had moved from under her feet. Nat had done this. Nat had called here. Nat had recommended her. She closed her eyes momentarily, Nat’s face flashing into her head. She’d tried so hard not to think of her, so hard to focus on something, anything else.

  “You have nothing booked for tomorrow or Monday.”

  Kate’s eyes opened again.

  “No, I checked your calendar myself. I suggest that you take that four day weekend to decide what you want and change your attitude,” Jeannie said. “Do not come into the office. You have a lot of potential. If I didn’t think that, I would never have hired you. However, we will be parting ways sooner rather than later if you don’t buckle down and become a part of the team. Understood?”

  All Kate could do was mutely nod her head.

  ✽✽✽

  She had no idea how she got out of the office, no idea how her legs had carried her through the staring eyes, past the assistant, past the receptionists, into the lobby, out onto the street. All she knew was that now she was outside, her jacket wrapped around her against the chill of the New York autumn. Traffic honked and the air smelled of smoke and fall and fumes.

  Nat had got her this job. In every possible way. She’d sat for the portfolio, she’d advised on the pictures, she’d called the magazine editor. She’d done everything possible to get Kate the job of her dreams. She’d never even hinted at the call, never mentioned it. And now... and now Kate could hardly bear to think of her.

  She walked the streets, paving stones uneven beneath her feet. She’d done everything to forget Nat. She’d done what she had to, she’d told herself. She’d made her decisions. Lingering over them, examining them, analyzing them, would make no difference at all. So she’d tried to fill her head with everything else, anything else.

  But Nat was always there, just out of sight, just out of touch. Like a phantom limb, something that should be there, that almost was, yet wasn’t. She took deep breaths of the cool air. This was perfectly normal. Breakups weren’t supposed to be easy.

  There was a small news-stand on the corner of the street and something about it caught her eye. Her gaze strayed to the gossip papers, as it always did, both hoping and dreading seeing Nat’s face there. And yet again, she didn’t see Nat. But what she did see made her take a step back so fast that she bumped into someone walking behind her.

  “Sorry!” she turned to say, but the figure was already walking away muttering.

  Her hands shaking a little she picked up the top magazine that she could find examining the cover more carefully. Then another issue, then a different magazine altogether.

  “Hey, you buying or just looking?”

  Kate shook her head, put the magazines down and turned down her street pulling out her phone as she did so. She clicked on every site she could think of. But they all said the same.

  “Yo, watch where you’re going!”

  She bumped into yet another passerby. But she didn’t care, was too engrossed in the news. It was true, it had to be. Jake Allingham was out. There were pictures of him and Van on every gossip site she could find. And she couldn’t help but smile, couldn’t help but be glad for him. His grinning face, the way his eyes looked at Van. He’d done it, finally done it.

  Her small bite of happiness for Jake lasted long enough for her to get up the stairs and unlock her front door. Then her heart sank again.

  Boxes stood piled around the tiny living room, dirty glasses and plates on the bar separating the living room from the kitchen area. The couch was covered in clothes, shelves stood empty. Nothing was in place, the walls were bare. Six weeks and all she’d done was work, watch movies on the big screen TV, and sleep. That was it.

  She dropped her keys, shrugged off her ja
cket and collapsed onto the couch.

  What was her life coming to? She felt like her world was crumbling. She was alone, lonely. She was on the verge of losing the only job she’d ever wanted. She couldn’t even unpack a box of books. Next to the couch an old landline phone flashed with messages. Messages she’d never even bothered to listen to. Her life was falling apart.

  And the only connection, the only thing that hung all of this together, was Nat. Nat had tamed her, made her less controlling, made her a better person, a better photographer. Nat had got her the job she wanted. Nat, she could see now, Nat had been everything. And she’d turned her back and walked away.

  She was empty inside, a hollow shell that echoed whenever she thought. For the very first time she wondered if she’d made a mistake.

  “I should have tried harder,” she mumbled.

  She should. She should have tried harder to understand, tried harder to support Nat. Okay, so she didn’t agree with the lifestyle she led. But Nat was supportive enough of her dream that she’d called Jeannie Tulane for Christ’s sake. And Kate couldn’t even let Nat have what she needed. So she wasn’t out, so what? It wasn’t the end of the world. So she had an agent that planned her life, so what? Kate could win a battle of will against Brooks Lyon, she was sure of it.

  More than that though, so much bigger, looming and monumental in her head, was the fact that she, Kate Steinhauser, loved Nat. The feeling hadn’t gone away. It was still there glittering and gleaming at the bottom of her heart. Time hadn’t dulled it, distance hadn’t stopped its glow.

  And now everything was crumbling and without Nat to prop things up, without Nat as a foundation, she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to weep for it, wanted to cry and bawl and scream. Because she didn’t think she could undo what had already happened, couldn’t unsay the words that had already been said. And because she didn’t think she could do this anymore alone.

  The phone rang. The mobile, not the landline. Since tears wouldn’t come and the effort of trying to cry was just too frustrating, she decided to answer it, crawling on the floor to grab her jacket and finagle the phone out of the pocket.

  “Kate, Jesus, do you ever check your messages?”

  Kate looked over at the landline. “No.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you for weeks. I thought you were ghosting me. Are you alright?”

  Kate hesitated for a second. There was nothing Mel could do. Nothing she could say. Lying was easier over the phone.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Listen,” said Mel. “I’ve got news. But I’m not sure if it’s something that you want to hear or not. So just tell me if not and I’ll shut up, won’t say a word. It’s not in the press yet, God knows how Brooks kept it out of the papers. It’s about Nat.”

  The name drove a spike through her heart and her body felt strangely more alive.

  “What about Nat?”

  “Listen, I get it if this means nothing to you. But I thought you should know, at least know the truth before it hits the front pages, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Jake Allingham came out.”

  Kate’s breathing slowed a little. Was that all?

  “I know,” she said.

  “Yeah, but Nat didn’t exactly take it well by all accounts. I don’t exactly know what happened, I’m only piecing together rumors here, Kate. But she’s had some kind of break down, I think. When Jake came out she went off the rails. She went on a bender. Word has it that Channel Three has fired her already. And anyway, long story short, she’s in the hospital.”

  “Hospital?”

  “Drug-related overdose,” Mel said.

  But Kate was already picking up her jacket, already grabbing a bag from on top of a pile of boxes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  What the hell was she doing? What about her vows not to take part in this life? Her desire not to play a role in what Nat was doing? Her need not to be dictated to, her passion for honesty? The security line moved forward a step and Kate unbuckled her belt, pulling it through the loops of her jeans.

  She hadn’t thought. Hadn’t given it a second of hesitation. She’d grabbed her bag, her keys, her wallet and ID, and left the apartment, Mel still on the phone with her. And when she’d told Mel that she was headed to the airport, all she’d said was:

  “I’ll get as much info as I can. Call me when you land and I’ll tell you where to go.”

  Just like that. So simple. No judgment, no persuasion, not even a second of questioning Kate’s motives. It had all felt so right. It still felt so right.

  She got a plastic tray, dumped her belt, bag and keys inside it and pushed it along the conveyor belt. As she stepped through the gate the detector beeped and she got caught up in removing items until she was deemed safe. And then she was walking towards her gate. No, hurrying towards her gate, because the flight was ready to board and she didn’t want to miss it.

  “This is stupid,” she kept repeating to herself as she stepped on and off moving walkways. “So stupid.”

  Except it wasn’t. Not at all. Her first thought, her first glimmering glimpse of light when she heard the news was that she needed to be there. Was that Nat couldn’t do this alone, didn’t deserve to do this alone. And all the pieces had fallen into place. Her life was falling apart, Nat’s life was falling apart. And why? Because they didn’t have each other. Because they needed each other. She was sure of it. All she had to do was convince Nat.

  She had a window seat. The last-minute ticket had cost more than she could afford. She fastened her seat belt, her stomach still shaking. She had to do this, had to be there. If Nat turned her away, that was her right. But she had to try to fix all of this. Though God only knew what the solution was. Nat wouldn’t leave LA. Maybe Kate needed to leave New York. Maybe moving at all had been the mistake.

  No, not moving. Running away. Running away because things weren’t going the way she wanted. That’s what had happened.

  “You alright, dear?”

  Kate looked over at the elderly woman seated next to her. She almost smiled, remembering the old lady at the restaurant out in Santa Monica, the one that had advised her to see Nat as two separate people. Perhaps she had wise old women following her around, she thought. Not that it had proven particularly helpful if she did.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “You look nervous. First time flying?”

  Kate shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then what is it? You can tell me. A trouble shared and all that.”

  Her grey hair was swept back and wrinkles showed the shape of her face when she smiled. Kindly. Grandmotherly. Kate didn’t remember her own grandmother.

  “I’m just on my way to visit a friend,” she said. “She’s in hospital.”

  “And you’re worried about her.”

  “Worried about her and worried about how she’ll react to me showing up,” Kate admitted. “We had a fight and, well, I left town.”

  The lady smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about that dear. It’s not the fights that matter. It’s showing up that matters. Actions speak louder than words, you should know that by your age.”

  “I, uh, yes, you’re right. I know that.”

  “And take it from me, it’s those that do things without being asked, the ones that show up, the ones that expect nothing in return, those are the ones you keep in your life. Something worth remembering that.”

  “I think I’ve made mistakes,” Kate said quietly, leaning her head against the window. “And I don’t know how to undo them.”

  “She’s more than a friend this one?”

  Kate nodded and the woman patted her hand.

  “What is meant to be, will be. You can’t force love to happen. But on the same note, you can’t force it not to happen either. You go visit her. You show up. If you’re meant to be together, then that’s how it’ll end up.”

  Kate wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t see a solution to this. Not if Nat d
idn’t want her. And after what she’d said, what she’d done, there was a good chance that Nat wouldn’t even want to see her. But the thought of being there, seeing her face, feeling her touch, made Kate feel better than she had in weeks. It made her want to be alive again. Not the sad, work laden, movie watching life she’d been leading, but an actual life. It filled up the emptiness inside her, the thought of Nat, even just her smile.

  She closed her eyes, took deep breaths as the plane taxied down the runway. There was no turning back now. She should have said something when she had the chance. She should have told Nat that she loved her. Maybe it was too late. Her stomach wobbled again. She had no idea what kind of state Nat would be in. And she refused to think about it. Nothing could have gone that wrong. Please God, let nothing have gone that wrong.

  “Here you go, my dear.”

  The old lady was pushing something into her hand. Kate took it and opened her palm to see half a small white pill sitting there.

  “It’s a valium,” the woman said. “No point in you sitting here for the next six hours worrying about something you can’t change yet. And take it from me, you’ll need the sleep. Hospitals aren’t comfortable places to take a nap. You’ll want to be fresh when you arrive.”

  The promise of some sort of release was enough that Kate swallowed the pill.

  “Thanks.”

  The woman patted her hand again and Kate closed her eyes.

  She needed Nat. Just as much as Nat needed her. This job in New York, it was nothing. She couldn’t even do it without Nat to counsel her, to advise her. She was drifting into sleep, the edges of the world closing in on her. If Nat would have her she’d stay in LA. She’d abandon the job, the apartment, everything. As long as Nat was okay, as long as she wanted her back. That was her promise. Her promise to God, fate, whoever the hell was listening. Just let Nat be okay.

  ✽✽✽

  The rental car bumped along the street. Kate had a vague idea of where she was going. Mel had been true to her word, somehow managing to get hold of not only the name of the hospital that Nat was in, but what name she was checked in under. All Kate had to do was get there.