Blood Is the New Black

by Valerie Stivers

  Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1 Clothes to Die For

  2 Gargoyles

  3 Ice in Her Veins

  4 A Fight to the Death

  5 Thirsty

  6 Hot, Young Blood

  7 A Finger on the Pulse

  8 Like Death Warmed Over

  9 One of Them

  10 Relative Notoriety

  11 The Queen of Suck-up

  12 Fashion Victim

  13 Special Delivery

  14 Death Is the Most Fabulous Makeover

  15 Tasty Girl

  16 A Blood Donor

  17 A Dead Zone

  18 I’d Rather Die!

  19 Really, Really Juicy

  20 At Stake

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  WITHOUT THE DEAR friendship and creative collaboration of Farrin Jacobs, whose book-editing jobs I’ve been living vicariously through for years, Blood Is the New Black would not have existed. Farrin and Joe Veltre at Open String Productions are responsible for the book’s conception and have been delightful and patient throughout the process, and I appreciate all their help. Also, thanks to Allison McCabe at Three Rivers Press for her dedication in editing, and Heather Proulx for running logistics.

  In addition to the professionals, I’d like to thank several friends who went above and beyond in helping me finally finish a novel. Miranda Purves read the manuscript, provided much-needed moral support and made her trademark charmant suggestions at the darkest hour. Zoë Wolff, my favorite editor, rightly felt that Kate really ought to be more freaked out than I’d originally written her and gave much other useful advice. Without Jeff Howe’s vigilance and care, the book would have been later than it already was. The multitalented Dr. Kay Hooshmand-Parsi answered all kinds of amusing questions on slash wounds and bloodless bodies for me, and Olga Frolova was instrumental during some early plot discussions…in Russian. Of course, the biggest thanks of all goes to my husband, Ivan Isakov, who has been endlessly cheery and supportive, who was always willing to discuss and advise, and whose favorite book this is.

  Also thanks to my parents, Sam and Marilyn Stivers, who have been wonderful, as always, and cancelled not one but two European vacations to accommodate my writing schedule. And spaciba for their understanding to my dear in-laws, Yuriy and Mila Isakov, and friends John and Julia Quinn, whose New Year’s 2007 trip got covered in Blood.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my editors-in-chief—none of whom are remotely vampires. Dominique Browning at Mirabella instilled in me a sense of the magazine world’s glamour and was the model for Kate’s bedazzlement by her boss. Cyndi Stivers (no relation!) at Time Out New York is the inspiration for Lillian Hall’s miraculous abilities with the red pen. And Lamar Graham at CondéNet taught me—when I was but a green delinquent—how to write. May they all avoid Nolita dressing rooms and live to a ripe old age.

  Prologue

  I’M CROUCHED UNDER a desk in the assistants’ bullpen. I know they know I’m in here. I’m sure they can smell me or sense me or whatever it is they do. I knew working at Tasty might suck, but I didn’t expect that to be true in a literal sense. I mean, vain I was ready for, but vampires? I’m starting to get goose bumps, like the first time I could feel someone watching me from behind the copier. The faint footsteps I heard earlier are coming closer. Right about now, the clack of stilettos is pretty much the scariest sound I’ve ever heard. I’m not exactly sure which vamp those stilettos belong to, but I’m sure they’re headed my way.

  I have the stake. I have nowhere else to hide. There’s only one thing to do.

  Wait for her to find me.

  1

  Clothes to Die For

  DARLING, YOU REMEMBER Lillian Hall. You met her last month when you were in New York with me. Remember? In Bryant Park? The one who took such an interest in you? Well, I just bumped into her in Milan—she was staying at my hotel, which I thought odd because the editors are usually at the Ferragamo, but that’s beside the point. I could hardly believe it myself, but she offered you an internship at Tasty.”

  My heart drops. I clearly remember Lillian Hall—a cold, gorgeous, acerbic woman who scared the crap out of me.

  “You are familiar with Tasty, yes? It’s the hottest young women’s magazine in America. Lillian Hall took it over and re-launched it six months ago. The circulation has gone through the roof,” my aunt rattles on without pause. Her telephone manner is rapid-fire at the best of times.

  I used to have a theory that my aunt Victoria arranges things for me out of guilt, because she knows where my mother is and isn’t telling me. But now I try not to think that way. I try to think of her as a woman who married very well later in life, chose not to have children, and regrets that a little.

  “This is my last summer before med school. Are you honestly suggesting that I drop everything and get a job at a fashion magazine?” I ask. “Wouldn’t that be flighty of me?”

  “Believe me, darling,” Victoria says, “you are in no danger of being flighty.”

  I don’t quite know what to feel. As my aunt well knows, fashion and I have a long, tortured history. My mother, Eva, was a designer, and her successes and failures in that field led our family to…well, where things ended up.

  With Eva being who she was, I grew up sewing. And I still do frequently go all Pretty in Pink and knock out a sundress or repurpose a thrift-store find into something original. I’m also more aware of the world of high fashion than most twenty-three-year-olds with no money, living at home with their dads, and taking the MCATs are. I jest. I’m completely, obsessively aware of the world of high fashion. I moon over unaffordable brands like Alberta Ferretti, Thakoon, Mint. I love how Zac Posen constructs his garments. I respect how the folks behind Martin Margiela deconstruct theirs. And I think Marni makes clothes to die for.

  However, I’m not going to follow in my mother’s footsteps. I want a career where hard work guarantees you a job, safety, respect. Where you’re in no danger of being called “contrived” or “out-of-step” in the newspaper. Where you don’t spend all your time trying to impress a bunch of shallow bloodsuckers.

  “I’m flattered,” I tell Victoria. “But there are lots of people who would…enjoy that environment more than I would.”

  There is a long, chilly pause during which I remember that Victoria pays my student loans.

  She sighs. “This kind of opportunity doesn’t come twice. Oldham Inc.—that’s the media empire that publishes Tasty—gets hundreds of résumés for every position. And they don’t even look at them. A rich plum like an Oldham internship is only achieved through connections. Lillian noticing you was kismet.”

  It was eerie, actually. Victoria had taken me to a benefit dinner in Manhattan—she’s a society dame; her every bite raises money for something—and on the way out of the Bryant Park Grill we crossed paths with Lillian, a small, delicate, lugubrious, black-haired woman with skin so translucent, it immediately had me pondering medical conditions. Victoria knew Lillian because Victoria knows everyone. She said, “Darling!” Lillian said, “Darling” back in a tone faint with ennui. Diamonds and rubies glittered on her trim white hands. My aunt said, “This is my niece, Kate McGraw.”

  And Lillian said “Oh?” and proceeded to stare at me so keenly and for so long it became awkward. I was wearing my own design (blue-flowered, mini, adapted from a fifties housedress), but that didn’t seem to be the point of interest. Under those icy blue eyes I felt cold and small and somehow…hunted. Then—and this is the weird part—she gripped my chin with her hand, said, “I’ve been waiting forever to meet you,” and swept past us in a
blast of icy air.

  “I think she must have confused us with someone else.” Victoria looked bemused. “I don’t know her all that well.”

  And there it rested, until today. Now my aunt starts turning the screws. “You’ve never validated your aesthetic skills or your creativity because of my sister’s dreadful behavior. I understand that. But once you go to medical school it will be too late. I wouldn’t want you to feel unfulfilled for your entire life and not know why….”

  Me neither. “I already have a life plan,” I say. “I did premed at Brown. It’s too late.”

  “Plans are made to be canceled.” Victoria is not your usual mother figure.

  “I’m the wrong style of person for that job. I wouldn’t have anything to wear.” I didn’t just say that!

  Victoria senses victory. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. The clothing you make for yourself is quite cute.”

  “Right now I’m wearing a dress made from a pillowcase.”

  “You’ve done something fabulous with it, I’m sure.”

  “I live in Monticello, New York. I work as an EMT. I witnessed the Jaws of Life being used last night.”

  “Then you’re ready to step fearlessly into the jaws of death, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you’d let the complexes your mother has instilled stop you from doing something you really, secretly want?”

  She’s manipulating me, and it’s working.

  I close my eyes. “Does this internship pay?” I ask.

  “You get a stipend. And moreover, since it’s in New York, I was looking forward to you coming to live with me for the summer. It would be lovely to spend a little time together.”

  She can’t know that living with her was a teenaged dream of mine. A long-held, secretly cherished desire. Even had it been possible, I couldn’t have done it because the years of the millennium were a rough time for my dad. I needed to stick around the house to keep an eye on him. But Dan McGraw is doing much better these days, and I am somewhat of a free agent.

  Just like that, she’s got me. How much damage can one summer do?

  2

  Gargoyles

  TWO WEEKS LATER, in early June, a yellow taxi deposits me, two huge army duffel bags, and a rolly suitcase with a sewing machine in it on the pavement of West Seventy-second Street. In front of me looms a tall stone building encrusted with gargoyles.

  I’ve arrived at Aunt Victoria’s.

  The New York City heat and humidity are postapocalyptic. My hair—a salon blow-out of freshly hennaed auburn locks—is sticking to my neck. I’m sure I’ve already sweated off my pricey berry-stain cheek coloring. The makeup, the hair, and my short crimson manicure are all attempts to get in the groove for the new job. Too bad I’m still gawky, pale, flat-chested, and have many of what my new employer would no doubt term “figure flaws.” I feel visually wrong every time I come to New York.

  My duffels are stuffed with every semi-decent thing I’ve sewn for myself in the past few years, plus some Eva 4 Eva sample dresses my mom left behind. They’re so heavy I’m forced to drag them between two parked cars and onto the sidewalk. I’ve stopped to rest when a man in livery dashes out of the building and hefts them for me, informing me that Mrs. Rogers had told him to be on the lookout.

  I’ve been here before, and I’m familiar with the doorman concept, but it never ceases to intimidate.

  Of course, around here a doorman is the least of my worries. Victoria’s husband, Sterling Rogers, is a real-estate developer, and they live in a spectacular, split-level, floor-through penthouse with a wraparound terrace and moody views of the Manhattan skyline. This vast, sprawling apartment is decorated mainly in charcoal gray and black, with spot-lighting to pick out the museum-quality art, the rare orchids, and the framed prehistoric teeth and jawbones that Sterling makes a hobby of collecting.

  The elevator door dings and opens directly into the stunning living room. A wall of glorious air-conditioning rolls over me, and I delight in the miracle of evaporation while digging in my pocket for a five for Miguel, the doorman. I hand it to him, wincing with uncertainty. Do you tip doormen?

  “Bellissima! Welcome! You’ve survived the bus station!” my aunt cries, gliding out from another room.

  I’ve insisted that my living expenses this summer will come out of my savings. Thus, the bus into the city, where I then had to splurge for the taxi.

  Victoria, as always, looks glamorous. Her hair is stick straight, dark brown, and bobbed; her lipstick bright red. Both emphasize her angular face. She’s always been the tall, severe beauty to my mom Eva’s girl-next-door.

  “Hi, Aunt Vic.” I hug her. “You look charmant!”

  See. I’m practicing.

  “Thank you, dear. But a young woman should never compliment an older one on her appearance.”

  “Why not?”

  “It only serves to emphasize the difference in their ages. And most women will think you’re mocking them.”

  Victoria is famous for her pearls of un-maternal wisdom. My best friend, Sylvia, fascinated by socialites in general and my aunt in particular, writes them down in a notebook.

  Victoria takes my clammy hand in her cold one. “Come say hello to Sterling, dear. He’s off to Japan this evening.”

  Her husband is a tall, gloomy, silver-haired man with large ears and a slight stoop. I suspect there was a pituitary imbalance somewhere in his past. Sylvia, who has seen a picture, says he looks like Count Dracula. It’s true but mean, since Victoria is crazy about him.

  My memories of my aunt from childhood are of somebody with problems. My mother thought Victoria was always dating the wrong men (and sleeping with them too quickly, if I dare to read between the lines). And then, boom, Victoria met Sterling and overnight became fabulous and started dealing art. I get the feeling that she knows how lucky she is, and is always grateful for it.

  We find the apple of her eye in the master bedroom, arranging a silk handkerchief in the pocket of a made-to-measure blazer. British, I surmise, by its slanted side pockets and a flash of bottle-green lining. Vic kisses him and straightens the hanky.

  “Kate,” Sterling says, giving me a plate-sized hand to shake. “You must be excited about your internship. Victoria tells me it’s quite prestigious.”

  “I can’t wait.” I give it all the enthusiasm I can muster. I’m not sure excited adequately describes my feelings. I’d go with anxious or terrified.

  “Lillian Hall is an acquaintance from the Seventh on Seventh benefits,” Sterling continues. “They use one of our buildings as a party space. She’s a wonderful woman. Razor sharp.”

  “She seemed focused,” I say, recalling how Lillian’s pale, android-blue gaze raked me from head to toe. It’s true that I could almost feel Lillian noticing that I’d gone for a dress with a waist, while everyone else that night was wearing “baby means business” tents, trapezes, and bubbles.

  “Lillian is exceedingly clever,” Victoria agrees. “I hope you’ll have a chance to watch her in action, though I can’t imagine she’ll spend much time with the interns.”

  “Speaking of time, dear…” Sterling taps his watch. Victoria and I retreat from their bedroom.

  We head down a red-painted hallway hung with Fuseli sketches, turn left at the museum display cases filled with shark teeth, and open a carved Chinese door.

  “We’re putting you in the William Blake room,” Victoria says. She winks at me. “In his youth, Sterling was a prescient collector.”

  Behind the door is a medium-sized room done in the same Gothic-Asian aesthetic as the rest of the apartment. The walls are black; wooden-slat blinds cover the windows; a spread of red velvet blankets a low platform bed whose side tables are vintage Chinese hatboxes topped by orchids in bloom. Over the bed, hanging in a pool of light, is a watercolor of a harried-looking man with a flowing white beard, holding his arms imploringly up to heaven.

  Luscious.

  “Will it do?” Victoria asks. “We have the other guest room I could
put you in.”

  “This is wonderful,” I say. “Very dramatic.”

  “I’m so glad you like it.” She smiles at me. “Please don’t open the blinds during the day. Glare is bad for the art. You won’t mind terribly, will you?”

  “Of course not.” I’m secretly disappointed. I’d been looking forward to enjoying the views.

  Vic helps me to drag my bags in and start unpacking. Actually, she unpacks while I loll like a teenager on the red velvet spread and let her.

  “I won’t be back until late,” she volunteers, “so we should run through the schedule for tomorrow.”

  “We’re not having dinner together?” I’d imagined that on my first night in the city we’d do something stereotypically urban like ordering in Japanese.

  “Oh, you know how clients are!” she says airily. “Tomorrow you’ll be reporting to Lexa Larkin. She edits the society pages and does most of the celebrity wrangling for Tasty. Unofficially, she’s in charge of buzz. And she’s running a contest at the moment that she needs help with.”

  My heart sinks a little. Buzz? As a noun?

  “Usually, you’ll start work at nine-thirty in the morning, but for tomorrow Lexa has asked that you arrive just before eleven o’clock. That’s when they hold their Monday features meeting. You’ll be able to jump right into a room full of fashion elites.”

  Victoria pauses for a moment to hold up a sky-blue silk top made from a Vintage Vogue pattern. “This is a good color for you,” she says. “It goes with your eyes.”

  She puts it on a hanger, front and center in my new closet, where she’s placing the items she particularly likes, organized by color. Like the rest of the women in our family, she has a good aesthetic sense.

  “I don’t know the exact address, but you won’t be able to miss the building. It’s two fifty-story towers of black glass just off Columbus Circle—they look like they’ve been twisted and fused together. Rem Koolhaas designed them for the Oldham family in the late nineties. There isn’t a more impressive corporate headquarters in Midtown. You’ll love it!” She beams at me.