So Pretty It Hurts bwm-6

by Kate White

  I wondered if Chris would return my call if I left a message for him now—he had been pretty miffed when I’d told him about Beau. I wondered, in fact, if he even had the same cell phone number. The way his career was going, he’d probably already had to change it two or three times to keep the riffraff at bay.

  So I was kind of shocked when, after I punched in the number I had for him, his voice announced, “It’s Chris, leave a message.”

  “Hi, this is Bailey,” I said. “You’re probably less than thrilled to hear from me, but there’s something you could help me with, and I’m hoping you’ll return my call. Thanks.”

  I left my number, too, just in case he’d angrily purged it from his phone.

  Another shocker: he called back just fifteen minutes later, while I was brewing a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  “You’re probably the last person I was expecting to hear from today,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Thanks for calling back. I wasn’t sure if you would—you know, considering everything that happened.”

  “Come on, Bailey. I can’t begin to repay you for what you did after Tom died. I wasn’t happy when I last saw you—but I still owe you.”

  “I love your show, by the way. And you’re really terrific in it.”

  “The hours are generally brutal, but needless to say, we’re stoked it’s a hit. So what exactly do you need my help on?”

  He was being perfectly pleasant, but he was also making it clear he wasn’t interested in chitchatting with me.

  “I’m working on the Devon Barr story—I’m sure you heard about her death. I desperately need information about the modeling business. I wouldn’t have bothered you but I’m in some serious hot water at work, and it could get worse.”

  “If you don’t get the story, you mean?” he said. There was a trace of cynicism in his tone. Chris had never loved the fact that I worked for Buzz.

  “I wish. But that’s not it at all. Devon Barr’s mother has accused me of trying to extort money from her. I’m trying to figure out why she’s saying that.”

  There was a pause. Was he weighing my words? I wondered.

  “I’m in the middle of something this afternoon, but I have to be uptown later for dinner with a producer,” he said. “It’s about a movie I could end up doing during our hiatus. I’ll have about thirty minutes before then; I could meet you somewhere. Are you at your office?”

  “No, I’m at home. I’m persona non grata at Buzz for the moment. Can you meet me at the coffee shop in my building?” It didn’t seem smart to ask him to come to my apartment. He might take it the wrong way.

  “Sure,” he said. He promised to be there at seven fifteen. That would give me time to reach Beau’s place by eight.

  I felt even more keyed up when I disconnected. On top of everything else that was going on, the idea of seeing Chris again tightened the big fat knot in my tummy. He was funny and caring and absolutely gorgeous, and despite how crazy I was about Beau, I still felt a weird connection to Chris. When I watched his show, particularly the episode in which he’d kissed a murder victim’s grieving sister, it had been hard not to reminisce. I’d thought about his amazing body. And what it had been like to have that body next to me in bed.

  Deep down, I wondered, did I have some ulterior motive for wanting to see him? I immediately chased that thought away. Chris was more familiar with the modeling business than anyone I knew.

  At around five, as the sky was darkening, I phoned Nash, figuring it would be a good time to find him in his office. His assistant Lee, probably the oldest person at Buzz by about fifteen years, answered and asked me to hold. Though she was polite when I announced myself, I detected a trace of pity in her voice. There was no pity in Nash’s voice, however, when he finally came on.

  “What’s up?” he asked, almost curtly. Not a good sign.

  “I was just checking in, seeing if you’d learned anything.”

  “About?”

  “About why Devon’s mother made up that story about me.”

  “It’s still being investigated,” he said.

  “But how? Wouldn’t you want to see my cell phone records to prove I never called her? I can provide them.”

  “I can’t go into specifics, Bailey. You must know that.”

  As I hung up, I realized the cold, hard truth. He didn’t have faith in me. I’d busted my butt for him for over six months, breaking stories, generating buzz about Buzz, but he didn’t feel he really knew me or was sure he could trust me. My whole body suddenly felt like a big tub of Jell-O.

  I tried to distract myself by jotting down a few questions to ask Chris. While I scribbled, trying to fight off a new groundswell of anxiety, Scott finally returned my call.

  He started with the same curt “What’s up?” that Nash had snapped at me. Obviously a call from me these days was about as welcome as a rat sandwich.

  “I’d love to grab a few minutes of your time,” I said. “Some details have emerged regarding the weekend that I think you ought to know about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Can we do it in person?” I said. “I could swing by and see you tomorrow?”

  “Oh, I guess you Buzz reporters have to be concerned that your phones might be hacked by other tabloids,” he said sarcastically. Then a sigh. “All right. But I don’t want to meet at my office.” He suggested a place called Café Euro on Fifty-seventh and Seventh at eight the next morning.

  I still had an hour to kill before Chris arrived, so I poured a glass of wine and took a steaming hot bath. Rather than helping, the mix of heat and alcohol only made me lightheaded and kick-started a headache that had been threatening all day. It also churned my thoughts up even more. What a big fat ugly awful mess I was in, I realized as I lay with my head back, staring at the flickering flame of the candle I’d lit. I began to wonder if Landon was right, that for the professional part of my problems, I needed a lawyer. But hiring a high-priced Manhattan attorney would seriously leach my savings.

  No, I was going to have to clear my name with detective work, and that meant heading out to Pine Grove on Saturday. Certainly I wasn’t going to learn anything by confronting Sherrie Barr. She’d clam up fast, and if Nash found out I’d approached her, my ass would really be grass. Instead I’d have to play the spy and hopefully discover who Sherrie seemed closest to.

  Of course, even when I proved I wasn’t guilty—and I would prove it—the revelation wouldn’t erase the fact that Nash had failed to trust me or lend me his support.

  Though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make any special effort for Chris’s visit, once I’d heaved myself out of the bath, it only made sense to change for the night—I’d be heading over to Beau’s place after Chris left, anyway. I threw on clean jeans, a navy blue V-neck cashmere sweater, and my riding boots. Nothing special, nothing that suggested I was harboring impure thoughts. Though I felt a twinge of guilt as I headed down to the coffee shop on the ground floor of my building.

  Chris arrived right on time, and after a moment’s hesitation, I stood up halfway and we kissed each other on the cheek. His appearance caught me by surprise. On one level he looked the same: green eyes, thick brown hair, that beguiling cleft in his chin, great body. But there was a difference. He exuded a whole new level of confidence than when I’d last seen him. Not that Chris had ever been tentative, but he held the space around him now as if there was nothing that could undermine his self-assurance. So this is what happens to you, I thought, when you become an overnight sensation playing an investigator with the New York City medical examiner’s office, and every girl you meet wants to jump your bones.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” I asked.

  “No, I’d better just do coffee,” he said. “I really need to be out of here by about seven forty-five.” He shrugged off his brown leather jacket—not unlike the one he’d worn in Details—and laid it next to him.

  After we ordered, I cut to the chase. I quickly described the weekend at Scott
’s, my theory about Devon’s death, and how my career was now in jeopardy.

  “It kills me to think of you in such a jam, Bailey, but what could I possibly do to help?”

  “One of the guests last weekend was Devon’s booker, and it’s possible Devon was upset about something he was doing,” I said. “From what you know, is there anything a model booker could do that might tick off one of his clients?”

  He leaned back into his chair, thinking. Because of the worried look on his face, I couldn’t help but flash back on the night in mid-September when he’d stood in my living room, experiencing the full impact of the news about the death of his close friend Tom. We’d hugged each other in consolation, and moments later we were tearing each other’s clothes off.

  “Well, the thing that makes you angriest with a booker is when he—or she—doesn’t seem to be working hard enough for you,” he said finally. “Bookers always concentrate the most on their major stars, and it’s easy to get short shrift if you’re not in that league. Of course, bookers would like to make money off everybody, but they only have so much time and energy, so they tend to focus on the models with the clearest potential. Devon was a superstar and a real priority for the agency. But she wasn’t getting any younger, and her booker’s attention may have been slipping a little as he concentrated on upcoming girls—the ones who would make big money tomorrow.”

  “I wondered about that. Anything else? Anything not aboveboard?”

  “Most of the bookers I worked with—and remember, I was never some supermodel—were great to deal with. But I do remember there was one guy in my agency who was there one minute and gone the next. The rumor was that he’d gotten caught skimming money from the agency somehow, and he was booted out on his ass.”

  “Any idea how he was doing it?”

  “No. I actually probed a little because I was curious, but no one knew anything. Most of the guys I worked with weren’t exactly rocket scientists.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Jason something. I’d call the agency for you, but they’d probably clam up and deny the whole thing to me.”

  We spent the next minutes catching up—Chris answering my questions about Morgue, me answering his questions about my book. Finally he checked the time on his iPhone.

  “I probably should split now,” Chris said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. I think the bottom line is that there must be opportunity for some hanky-panky, because at least one booker tried it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’ve given me something to think about.”

  There was an awkward moment as I wrestled with my coat. One of the sleeves was partially inside out, and as I tried to punch my arm through it, I realized I looked like someone writhing in a straitjacket. Not a sight, I realized, Chris would ever be treated to on dates with hot young starlets styled flawlessly by Rachel Zoe. Because by now, those were surely the girls he was dating.

  As we made our way to the front of the coffee shop, a female customer, clearly recognizing Chris, went bug-eyed at the sight of him.

  “I guess you get that a lot now,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he said. “People sometimes insist we met at a party when they don’t realize they actually know me from the tube. It’s not a pain yet or too intrusive. But all it would take is one date with someone like Blake Lively or Jessica Biel—and my life as I know it would be over.”

  “Or one of the Kardashians,” I said, smiling.

  “Excuse me for not inquiring about your love life,” he said after a few moments, “but I’ll spare myself the torture.” We were outside now, on the sidewalk in front of my building.

  “Chris, you could have anyone in the world you wanted.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he said, smiling ruefully. “But you’re the one who knocked my socks off, Bailey.” He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek again, but more tenderly this time, placing one hand on my shoulder as he did.

  “If I think of anything, I’ll call you, okay?” he said.

  With that he sprinted toward Broadway. I watched as he flagged down a cab and slid in effortlessly.

  And then I heard my name called. Startled, I spun around. To my utter shock, Beau was standing behind me.

  “Wh—what are you doing here?” I stammered. He was wearing a long camel-colored overcoat and a brown scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “It’s almost eight o’clock,” he said with frustration. “We agreed to meet now.”

  “But I thought I was coming to your place,” I told him. I realized suddenly that we had never really nailed down the details.

  “Whatever,” he said dismissively. He seemed pissed, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. “That guy there. Isn’t that the actor you were seeing?”

  “Um—yeah, it was,” I said, faltering a little. “I needed his help—with my story on Devon. And finding out who’s been trying to sabotage me.”

  “His help? Let me guess—did he and Devon know each other as members of the Big Hair, Small Brains Association of America?”

  I almost laughed—at the absurdity of the comment and Beau’s obvious distaste for Chris—but I didn’t, which was a good thing. That would not have helped matters. And I could see that help was what I needed.

  “Well, you’re partially right,” I said, trying to sound cooperative. “Chris used to work as a model, and I need information about modeling agencies.”

  “And you had to have him up to your apartment to discuss it?”

  “No, we were in the coffee shop. And he just dropped by for a minute, Beau—on his way someplace else. It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal. Is that right?”

  “That’s really funny,” I said, starting to feel a swell of anger. “I’m not supposed to mind when a girl you used to screw in Turkey calls and suggests you meet up, and yet you seem irritated by the fact that I spent thirty minutes with someone who could help save my job and my reputation.”

  I had a head of steam going now, like I was Joan of Arc trying to make my case on horseback to a legion of French soldiers. To my embarrassment, I sensed that Bob, the evening doorman of my building, was watching us out of the corner of his eye.

  “Isn’t it really just more payback, Bailey?” Beau demanded. I’d never seen him look so annoyed. “Like your taking off for the weekend just because I had to be out of town.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Something absurd is going on here. But I’m not the one responsible.”

  With that he turned on his heels and strode off angrily, the back panels of his coat flapping in the cold night air. I just stood there, not knowing what the hell to do. For a brief moment I felt a temptation to take off after him, but I then overrode the urge. I didn’t like how Beau had managed to turn the tables so that our spat tonight had been about some totally innocent activity on my part—excluding my flashback to the night I ripped Chris’s clothes off—rather than his fling with Abigail, the dig-site slut.

  As I slunk into the lobby of my building, Bob offered a rueful smile. I wondered if he sometimes went home and yammered to his wife about me over a cold Bud. “There’s this girl in the building who seems nice enough, but no sooner does she get into a relationship with some guy than she’s picking a fight with him on the curb.”

  In desperation I thought of pounding on Landon’s door, but it wasn’t fair, considering his head cold, to subject him to more pathos about my love life. I thawed a chicken cutlet in my microwave and cooked it halfheartedly to within an inch of its life. A few times I felt an overwhelming urge to call Beau, but I fought it off. Why should I be the one trying to make things right?

  At eleven I considered hitting the sack, but I knew it would be pointless. I could already envision the horrible bout of insomnia that lay ahead of me tonight. A thought suddenly snagged my brain. This might be a good time to reach Tommy. He hadn’t answered or returned my calls, but at this hour I might catch him off guard. From what I remembered from the weekend, he
was nice and loose as midnight rolled around.

  I was right. He answered hello with the deafening sounds of live music and bar yell behind him. And, surprisingly, he didn’t seem to mind hearing from me now; that was a nice change of pace.

  “I’ve been wondering how you were doing,” I half shouted.

  “Well, ain’t that sweet of you to be concerned,” he shouted back.

  “I’d love to get together and talk—I have some information I’d like to share with you.”

  “Is that right?” The music had subsided and been replaced by the sound of a car zooming by. Wherever he was, he’d managed to step out onto the street, away from the epicenter of noise.

  “It’s about Devon. I think you’ll want to hear what I’ve learned.”

  “No time like the present.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said there’s no time like the present. I’m at the Living Room. A dude I know is performing here. Why don’t you mosey that cute little butt of yours down here?”

  I knew the Living Room. It was a bar on the Lower East Side, known for showcasing emerging bands in the back room. I’d been there a few times over the years, but not lately. The Lower East Side, once a ghetto for European immigrants in the 1800s, was now a hip area filled with wine bars, boutiques, and trendy restaurants, and it tended to attract mostly twenty-somethings. At my age I now felt like I needed to obtain special clearance to go down there. But that didn’t matter tonight. I was anxious to see Tommy and promised to be there within thirty minutes.

  I left on the jeans and V-neck sweater but added a black leather jacket. I also swiped on black eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss, hoping it would assist in the extraction of info.

  I figured it would take a while to find Tommy in the dense crowd of the bar, but when my cab pulled up, he was standing out in front with the smokers, dressed in just a T-shirt and black jeans, sucking on the last of a cigarette. From the look on his face, he appeared to have a nice buzz going.