So Pretty It Hurts bwm-6

by Kate White

  But then a picture of Devon from an issue a year ago this past November suddenly snagged my attention. She was striding along the street in SoHo with her coat flopping open. Over her photo was a slug that asked, “Isn’t that a bump?”

  I had to admit she did look pregnant—but I’d worked long enough at Buzz to know that things in photos weren’t always as they seemed. For instance, someone’s breasts could appear enlarged or their nose slimmed, but it was due to the angle of the camera, not plastic surgery. I rolled my chair over to Leo.

  “See this photo,” I said, shoving the page in front of his face. “Can you get me other shots from that same day?”

  “There are lots better shots for your story, you know. I mean, she was just shopping that day.”

  “I don’t need it for the layout—I think it might be significant for another reason.”

  “Yeah, okay. Give me a few minutes.”

  While he searched, I left a message for one of the top eating disorder experts, whom I’d made a note of during my Internet search on Sunday. I also checked online for pieces that simply mentioned Devon. When she first burst on the scene eighteen years ago, she was referenced frequently, particularly in articles about pop culture. She was heralded for her haunting beauty but also criticized for propagating the heroin chic look. Initially she seemed just naturally scrawny, but about two years later, when she was eighteen, there were rumors of anorexia—and the photos seemed to back it up. But within a year or two, she seemed to have a handle on the problem.

  “Here you go,” Leo said about ten minutes later, handing me a batch of photos he’d printed out.

  There weren’t many shots from that day—apparently just one roving paparazzo had captured her during her SoHo shopping spree. But what was remarkable is that she looked pregnant in every single picture.

  I wheeled my chair back over to Leo.

  “Do me a favor, will you? Tell me if you think Devon Barr could possibly have been pregnant at this moment in time.”

  “I’m a gay man,” Leo said. “I try not to think about anything that goes on down there in a woman.”

  “I’m not asking you to take a Lamaze class with me, for God’s sake.”

  He sighed and flicked his eyes over the photos.

  “Well, I don’t think she looks so pregnant someone is going to get up and give her their seat on the subway—if Devon Barr ever even took a subway—but there does seem to be a noticeable protrusion there.”

  Jessie, who’d just hung up the phone, slid her chair over and asked what was going on. After I explained, she took one of the photos from me and studied it.

  “Maybe it’s just belly bloat—from PMS,” she said. “Some women really get a paunch there.”

  “This is more than I can bear,” Leo moaned. “I feel like I’m in a Midol commercial.”

  “You know who would know?” Jessie asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  She meant the team who worked on Juice Bar, the hardcore gossip section in Buzz. Under Mona Hodges, the section had been particularly venomous, often running unattributable quotes. Nash had toned it down just a hair, but it could still be cruel. The whole magazine was filled with gossip, but this was the ugly rumor stuff. Let me put it this way: If you ended up on their radar and they determined that your life was worth covering, you were almost better off going into the Federal Witness Protection Program.

  I’d already made one enemy on the Juice Bar team, so I decided to target another member of the squad, an unctuous, preppie guy named Thornwell Pratt, who had chatted me up a couple of times lately. I was never sure if he was being flirtatious or just thought I might have info he could use.

  After grabbing a cup of coffee I popped over to the Juice Bar area. It was toward the back of the floor, far away from the bullpen, as if the work they did required grade-nine security clearance or gave off a toxic odor that needed to be contained as best as possible. I would have expected to find Thornwell with two phones to his ears, but he was just sitting at his desk staring off into space, with his elbows on the table and his too-small chin in his hands. I imagined a caption above his head: “The Day the Rumors Stopped.”

  “Hi there,” I said as charmingly as possible, hoping to detract attention from the fact that with my matted, unwashed hair, I looked about as good as a yak.

  “Well, don’t we have a big story this week,” Thornwell said, leaning way back in his chair. He had the prep thing going today—blue-and-white-striped shirt, sleeves rolled; khaki pants.

  “Yeah, pretty incredible story, isn’t it? You never covered Devon much, right?”

  “Not really. She was actually a bore for someone so self-absorbed. She never talked to the press, and she tended to date B-level people. There was that one little drug bust at Heathrow a few years back, but that blew over pretty quickly.”

  “I was checking out some pictures of her from last November, and I noticed she looked pregnant in one. We even implied it might be a baby bump. Anything to that? I mean, could she have been pregnant at the time?”

  He studied me with an amused, superior air and then shook his head slightly, as if my approach had involved a blunder of judgment on my part. I suddenly flashed on the scene in Silence of the Lambs in which Hannibal Lecter scolds Clarice for becoming too eager in the interview after doing so nicely at the start.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I might have some information. But we’re not real generous back here, Bailey. When we offer anything up, it’s always quid pro quo.”

  “I’m not opposed to a barter arrangement,” I said. I was tempted to add, “As long as it doesn’t involve you and me in a bar together.”

  “Scott Cohen.”

  “What about him?” I asked, more than curious but trying hard not to show it.

  “I’ve been holding back on running a blind item on him until I score a tad more information. You just spent the weekend at his house. What can you tell me about him?”

  “What kind of item?”

  “Now, now—I asked first. But I will tell you that it has nothing to do with how he runs his record label. It’s of a more personal nature. So what was it like to be his houseguest?”

  I wondered if it had anything to do with Scott’s fondness for threesomes, but I certainly wasn’t going to spill anything.

  “Nothing leaps to my mind, but let me mull it over. I’m sure when the dust settles about Devon’s death, something may come to me.”

  He looked at me without answering for a minute, his pointer finger pressed against his mouth. I was about to invoke Nash’s name, but finally Thornwell leaned forward in his chair, a signal, I thought, that he was ready to talk.

  “How long is this so-called mulling-over going to take?”

  “Come on, Thornwell,” I said. “I said I’d try to think of something, and I will—after I get my story out of the way.”

  “And what was your question again?”

  “Devon Barr. Do you think she might have been pregnant last year?”

  He smiled malevolently.

  “I don’t think,” he said. “I know. Devon was as preggers as the day is long.”

  Chapter 9

  Despite the fact that I had seen the photos with my own eyes, the answer still caught me by surprise. For one, Devon hadn’t seemed at all like the motherly type; plus, and more importantly, she clearly hadn’t had a baby. Just a few months after these photos were taken, she was photographed in various spots with Tommy, her tummy flat as a board.

  “How do you know for sure?” I asked. “As you pointed out, she wasn’t a blabber.”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly get a note from her doctor,” Thornwell said, “but for starters she confided to someone in her inner circle last year that she wanted a baby and she wasn’t going to wait around for the right man to make it happen.”

  “That’s not proof that she actually went ahead.”

  “There was a report, which we couldn’t confirm, that she’d
been seen leaving a fertility clinic. Right after that, she reportedly canceled several big modeling assignments. But here’s the real proof: no drinking or smoking. Devon never stepped out in the evening without enjoying five or six chardonnays and a pack of Marlboro Lights. Suddenly she gives up booze and stops smoking, except for the occasional drag on someone else’s cigarette.”

  “If you were so sure, why didn’t you run an item?”

  “It was pretty clear she’d had a miscarriage.”

  I did a quick calculation. A miscarriage must have occurred between November and February, when the shots of Tommy and Devon hobnobbing together began to surface.

  “So when does a little human tragedy get in the way of a Buzz exclusive?” I asked.

  “We’re not monsters, you know, Bailey,” he said. “Want to hear what really annoys me? People fuck up their lives, we report it, and yet for some reason, we’re the ones that end up being despised.”

  “So in this case you decided to be real nice and keep the info all to yourselves.”

  “It was—if you can believe this—actually Mona who decided we shouldn’t run it. Someone told me Mona once had a miscarriage herself and didn’t want to go there. I think she thought it would jinx her somehow.”

  “Any idea who the father was?”

  “Nope. And my guess is that Devon didn’t either.”

  “Are you saying she had a one-night stand?”

  “Possibly. She wasn’t dating anyone that we know of at the time. But I’m thinking more along the lines of artificial insemination. All the best girls are doing it these days. And would explain why she was seen at a clinic.”

  “Any idea why she’d want a baby? She didn’t seem like the type.” I was still having a hard time wrapping my arms around the idea of Devon raising a kid.

  “Haven’t a clue,” Thornwell said. “Maybe someone told her it was the new fashion accessory. You know—hotter than a Birkin bag.”

  “But—”

  “Bailey, I’ve already been far too generous,” he said, scooting his chair closer to the desk. “And plus I have work to do. Someone very, very big is about to get the boot from her scumbag boyfriend.”

  I wandered back to my cubicle, through the cacophony of closing day at Buzz, mulling over Thornwell’s revelation. It was a surprising tidbit to have learned—but in the scheme of things, what did it really mean? The pregnancy had occurred months ago. It hadn’t been successful. And it didn’t appear as if Devon had been all that grief-stricken. Based on her smoking and drinking at Scott’s, it also seemed clear that she’d had no immediate plans for restarting her baby-making efforts.

  Of course, the experience may have stressed her out and even eventually contributed to the relapse of her eating disorder. But if someone had murdered Devon, it was hard to imagine that her pregnancy had played a role.

  Plopping down at my desk, I saw that the message light on my phone was on; it turned out to be the eating disorder expert I’d left a message for earlier. I quickly called her back, praying not to end up with her voice mail again. Luckily an assistant picked up and put me right through to her.

  “Isn’t Buzz one of those celebrity magazines?” she said coolly. “How could I possibly help you?”

  “I’m doing a story on the model Devon Barr—who died early Sunday morning. There hasn’t been an autopsy yet, but she’d lost weight lately and she appeared to be avoiding food. There’s even evidence that she may have been taking syrup of ipecac.”

  “Oh, dear, how tragic. I’d heard she died, but that the cause was still under investigation.”

  “I know you wouldn’t be able to make a diagnosis from a description, but does the fact that she was avoiding food and using ipecac suggest she was suffering from an eating disorder?”

  “You’re right—it would be unprofessional of me to diagnose someone like that. But speaking generally, those are indications of an eating disorder.”

  “Bulimia?”

  “No, anorexia nervosa,” she said.

  “I always thought it was bulimics who vomited.”

  “You said she was avoiding food. Individuals with bulimia will eat a huge amount of food and then throw up to keep from gaining weight. Anorexics, on the other hand, starve themselves by eating very little. But because they are morbidly fearful of gaining weight, they may also exercise compulsively, take laxatives or diet pills, or purge. Ipecac is an emetic. It stimulates the central nervous system and the stomach, causing the person to vomit.”

  “If Devon Barr did have an eating disorder, she could have died from it, correct?”

  “Again, speaking generally, you most certainly can die from an eating disorder. Anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates of any psychotic condition—a significant number of people eventually die from it.”

  “From heart failure?”

  “That’s one possibility. People who are anorexic frequently have a disturbed electrolyte imbalance—they’re not ingesting enough potassium, for instance—and that can lead to arrhythmia and cardiac arrest. Heart failure is even more likely in those who use drugs to stimulate vomiting or bowel movements. I can’t believe they still sell ipecac. It’s certainly not recommended anymore by pediatricians for poisoning emergencies.”

  “This is kind of a crazy question. Is there a particular reason why someone would try one method over another to reduce their weight—vomiting versus laxatives, for instance, or diuretics?”

  She didn’t answer right away, and until I heard her clear her throat quietly, I wondered if she was still on the line.

  “You can’t use this in your article, all right? It will only give people ideas. But someone can actually become addicted to throwing up their food. Dopamine is secreted in the brain when you vomit, which creates a feeling of euphoria. A girl tries it once, and then can’t stop.”

  Wow. That hadn’t turned up in any of the articles I’d read online.

  “Suddenly there are two demons at work,” she continued. “There’s not only the need to lose weight but also the desire to repeat the rush vomiting creates.”

  “You’ve been very generous with your time,” I said. “Just one more question. If someone suffered from an eating disorder years ago but had appeared to recover, why might it suddenly be triggered again?”

  “There’s a high recidivism rate with anorexia. Stress can trigger it again. Or feelings of low self-esteem.”

  I wondered what had been going on in Devon’s life that could have helped restart her eating disorder. Heartache over her breakup with Tommy? Trouble with Cap? Disappointment about not getting pregnant again? I flashed again on the scene of Devon crying by the woods. Had something been scaring her for a while?

  After signing off, I phoned Beau, explained that I’d be burning the midnight oil and would call him tomorrow. Then I put the pedal to the metal. I checked with art once more on the final layout, reviewed a bunch of Web sites to make sure there were no updates on Devon, and finally pounded out my article.

  Once I’d forwarded the piece to the deputy editor, I stretched my legs and then read the e-mail from the PR department, explaining what they had in store for me on Thursday. I would be doing the Today show and a ton of other media.

  Nash asked for a couple of tweaks with the story, and I didn’t end up leaving the office until 2:00 a.m. Though Jessie could have bailed earlier, she hung around, partly out of solidarity. When we were finally out in the nearly deserted street, standing in front of the town car she was taking home courtesy of Buzz, we hugged each other tightly. Further south, the lights of Times Square still gyrated.

  At that hour of the morning the drive from midtown to the Village took practically no time. After heaving my duffel bag into the living room, I yanked off my boots and jeans and crawled into bed with my sweater still on.

  I woke around nine the next morning, with my head aching slightly and my wrist still sore from my tumble. Gingerly I swung my legs out of bed and pulled on pajama bottoms. As I waited for coffee to
brew, I plopped down in my home office—a former walk-in closet—and checked out a few Web sites just to make certain I wasn’t out of the loop on anything. The press had scrounged around everywhere for quotes on Devon—there was even a comment from the waxer who’d allegedly done her monthly Brazilian—but they’d turned up nothing of real interest.

  I was now really in a waiting game. The autopsy had either been performed last night or was scheduled for this morning. And though a full toxicology screen would take days, even weeks, the police would surely issue some kind of preliminary report by the end of the day. Unless the results were totally ambiguous, I might at last know whether Devon had died from natural causes—or if she’d been the victim of foul play.

  With coffee mug in hand, I located my phone to call Beau. I was yearning for a real conversation with him—and for the chance to see him. Since we’d started dating exclusively a few months ago, the most we’d ever been apart was three days, so this had been a real stretch. Though I’d only spoken to him for a couple of minutes yesterday, I’d sensed, as I’d indicated to Jessie, that our Sedona tiff was behind us. And that was a total relief. Earlier in the fall, I’d had to make a big romantic choice—between Beau and an actor named Chris Wickersham—and I’d never for a second regretted my decision. I felt enchanted by Beau—by his passion and creativity and slight air of mystery. But I was getting in deep, and I needed to be sure he was really committed.

  “So you’re up,” he said, sounding really happy to hear my voice. “I was dying to call you but didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I’m a little frayed around the edges, but the adrenaline rush is helping.”

  “I checked out your Web story. Pretty incredible.”

  “Maybe even more incredible is some of the stuff I didn’t put up there. I can’t wait to fill you in.”

  “How about doing it at dinner tonight? I was thinking since you’d had such a rough weekend, I’d pamper you and cook dinner.”