Blood Is the New Black

by Valerie Stivers

  “Sounds epic,” I say gamely. “But if I don’t have to be there till eleven, I’ll see you in the morning, right?”

  “Hardly, darling. I’m a late sleeper.”

  AFTER STERLING leaves for the airport and my aunt flits out for the night, I’m left alone in the gorgeous, rambling apartment. I poke my way down the red hallway, gingerly opening doors, looking for a room that might have a TV in it. Eventually I find what I recognize to be Victoria’s study. I was in here once a few years ago while she wrote me out a check.

  I’m drawn, unwillingly, to the wall where she’s hung framed photos. Most of them are of her and Sterling in locations of jet-set leisure. Boating on the Irrawaddy River in Burma, posing with sherpas in Bhutan, strolling on Isle de la Cité in Paris, where they have a second home. But there’s a section of photos of family, and within that, a large one documenting my mother’s career. Here’s Eva, modeling one of the first professional sample dresses for her Eva 4 Eva line. It’s the mid-nineties and her hair is cut in long, soft layers. The dress is in the lingerie-slip style, made from paper-thin silk. Eva sewed on the bias, which is difficult to get right, especially with slippery fabric, but her creations were always perfect. She could pattern-match along the seams and not waste a scrap. Wearing the dress, standing outside on our front lawn, she looks happy.

  Those were the early years, back before she became consumed by her career. There are photos of her riffling through the racks in the first store to stock Eva 4 Eva, snapshots of her at home sewing bridesmaids dresses for Vic and Sterling’s wedding—and a tragic one of me as the flower girl at same. At thirteen, I was already grown to my full five feet nine inches.

  Even in photos, you can see the changes in Eva. As success came her way, her smile got tighter and a groove appeared between her eyebrows. She’d started “playing the game.” She had to go to Fashion Week twice a year in New York. Then she had to go to Paris, London, and Milan, too. She got an advertising budget and had to oversee her own shoots, often on location in European cities. She had less and less time for her family.

  Until she didn’t have any time for us at all.

  A couple of years after Eva left home, I went through our house, took down all the pictures of her, put them in a box, and stuffed it in the back of my closet. I can’t do that at Victoria’s, of course, but I resolve to avoid this study where they’re hanging. I ease away and shut the door after me.

  I eventually find a home-theater setup with a wall-sized screen, but watching it by myself seems too lonely—so I call Sylvia.

  Sylvia Rand and I were inseparable at school. We lived together since our sophomore year at Brown and were the kind of friends who can generate news for each other between falling asleep at night and meeting for breakfast in the morning. After graduation last year she moved home to L.A. to take a job as a stylist assistant for cheesy E! Network makeover shows. I did what seemed responsible and moved back to my home-town, where my EMT job awaited. The separation has sucked.

  “Aii, asshole!” she says, in lieu of a greeting. She must be driving. “Sorry, honey. Are you at Victoria’s?”

  “I am.”

  “Take lots of pictures for my graphic novel.”

  “I will.” Sylvia, a pudgy, dreamy girl with a face whose prettiness she doesn’t appreciate, has been painstakingly illustrating this dark masterwork since school, though with the job she doesn’t have much time anymore. The novel is a vaguely sadomasochistic tale of angels and demons in a fancified version of the Roman Empire. I’m not sure of its sales potential.

  “I was just thinking about you,” she says. “Have you read every fashion magazine cover to cover this month? Plus all the Web sites? Because Nico”—that’s her boss—“says Lillian Hall is notorious for reading every publication before anybody else. There are stories about her being out all night during Fashion Week, going straight to work, and still, without picking up a paper, knowing what was in all the trades. She plucks it from the ether, like one of those cell phones that knows to reset itself at daylight savings time.”

  “Don’t you hate it when your cell phone is smarter than you are?”

  “Honey, always.”

  “I’ve also been asking around about Oldham,” she continues. “People call it ‘the Evil Empire’ and the building is ‘the Dark Tower.’ ‘A bad thing?’ you ask yourself? Not at all! It’s the most glamorous publishing company in the world. They pay well. But they also like to fire people in publicly humiliating ways. It’s a rite of passage.”

  What have I gotten myself into?

  “I’ll try to skip that rite.”

  “Honey, you’re going to do great. Now tell me what you’ve decided on wearing….”

  3

  Ice in Her Veins

  A FEW BLOCKS from Oldham Inc., I start to sense that something isn’t quite right.

  When I first set out from my aunt’s place to walk to work, the New York City morning bustle provided a pleasant diversion from my gut-wrenching nervousness. I even took a picture for Sylvia with my phone—a Tasty billboard, proclaiming THE MORE YOU SHOP, THE TASTIER YOU ARE! But closer to the office, I notice the icy stares from other women. They check out my face, my body, my clothes, all with a look that says, I’m judging you, but don’t think I give a shit. I catch someone’s eye. She stares without acknowledging me, as if I am a channel she’s watching—a boring one. I walk past rows of waiting taxis, vendors hawking the New York Post, and quilted silver carts selling coffee, doughnuts, and fried-egg sandwiches. Every few minutes a different tall, thin girl in an unbelievably chic outfit sweeps by me, put-together blondes in ladylike, knee-length black pencil skirts or skinny black trousers with heels. A variety of high-collared, cap-sleeved cotton blouses are on display. As are gym-enhanced female biceps and icky toe cleavage. At the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, I look up, and up, and up…until dizziness threatens. I’m staring at a towering, black-glass structure that can only be Oldham’s headquarters. “The Dark Tower” is apt.

  What am I doing here? I feel ice in my veins, a stab of pure fear.

  Followed by a stab of pure self-consciousness.

  I really, really don’t want to go in there.

  Last night, after hanging up with Sylvia, I decided that if I was going to work at a style magazine, I should express my style. My collection of Eva’s sample dresses provided possibilities, and after looking at those old family photographs, I was ready to cut something up. For my Tasty debut, I’ve chosen a silk sheath dress with a red-and-white print reminiscent of an Arab kaffiyeh. Eva’s version was floor-length but I’ve chopped it to be thigh-exposingly short, and cinched it with a wide fake leather belt. I matched it with a pair of cruelty-free cloth shoes, and a red velvet ribbon tied around my wrist. I look…very different from everyone in the vicinity.

  Was I totally insane?

  I approach the building, feeling all eyes are on me. These blond clones will turn as one and strike me dead for violating dress code. I stop short at the mountain of black glass’s revolving maw and step to one side. I’ll just gather my nerves a bit. Hurrying toward me is a woman in her late thirties, who looks realistically imperfect and stressed out. Her blond hair is in a sloppy ponytail, and she clutches a thick, disorganized stack of papers against her chest with the same hand that’s holding her iced coffee. The papers are sliding. I leap forward to help her. She springs away, obviously terrified of me. The papers slip out of her grip, pinwheeling in the breeze across the flagstone plaza.

  “Oh, shit!”

  “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!” I say, crouching down (carefully, because of the short skirt) to gather some of the papers. “I just noticed that your papers were sliding and I thought I should help.”

  “An act of altruism at Oldham Inc.?” the woman says. “You must be new.”

  “Brand. Spanking.” I admit.

  Together we scramble after the loose papers.

  “It’s my first day in a sense, too,” s
he says. “I’m just coming off maternity leave—for my third child, if you can believe that.” She seems to check me out for the first time, then adds, “No offense, but you don’t seem like the Oldham type.”

  How could she tell?

  “I know. It’s a long story.”

  “Oh?” she says, and takes the last of the papers from me. “Well, good luck!” And she disappears through the revolving door.

  Maybe people here aren’t so bad.

  A gazelle-like blonde gives me the once-over, and actually laugh-snorts right to my face as she walks by.

  Scratch that. These girls are going to be monsters.

  I wait outside for another few minutes as the river of blondes turns to a dribble—people arrive at work very late here, but I guess ten-thirty is the cutoff. Then I step into the belly of the beast. The lobby is a shining obsidian expanse of polished stone, humming with activity. There’s a newsstand, a café, and lots of fit, tooth-whitened people standing around chatting. At a central podium, a scrum of security guards oversees the entrances to two banks of elevators labeled 1–25 and 26–50. Regular employees cruise confidently through the barriers, waving a plastic card at a sensor. Outsiders like myself line up self-consciously at security to plead our cases. I find myself afraid to catch anybody’s eye, paranoid I’ll be recognized—by whom and for what I have no idea.

  Fortunately, I am on the day’s list and am issued a temporary pass without ceremony. I try to hold it in my hand but the guard insists I stick it on my clothing. Thus branded, I ascend to my new office.

  The elevator doors open on the thirty-seventh floor into a space lit the glowing white of a near-death experience. Giant billboard-sized replicas of Tasty covers adorn the walls. I scuttle past the gaping void of Jessica Simpson’s exposed navel, up close the size of a manhole cover. The less said about Keira Knightly’s bulging, man-sized teeth, the better. By the time I hit reception, I can feel the naked fear of all the job candidates, hopeful fashion designers, and freelance writers who have waited here, shivering on the immaculate white leather furniture, rehearsing their speeches in their heads. “Hi?” I say to the attractive young guy sitting at a low-walled desk in the center of the space. My voice squeaks upward with uncertainty, turning “Hi” into a question. I try again. “HI.” A little loud, but it will do. “I’m Kate McGraw. I’m a new intern here to see Lexa Larkin.”

  The receptionist—he’s wearing a Fake London T-shirt and nail polish—introduces himself as Felix, checks some lists, spins a strange occult-looking carousel, and informs me that I have paperwork to fill out.

  “It will be just a second, don’t you worry,” Felix says, rummaging through a filing drawer. He’s smiling, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, which are wary. He digs up a packet of forms thick as September Vogue and hands it to me.

  “Sorry,” he says, “Human Resources isn’t totally computerized yet. You’d think since they’ve been around since the dawn of time and…” He trails off. “Never mind, I talk too much.”

  “Oh, not at all.” I wonder what he’s worrying about. “But can I take these with me and return them later today? I’m supposed to be in the eleven A.M. meeting and it’s ten to eleven now and I’ll never get this done in time.”

  Felix looks dismayed for me. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “But they are sooo strict around here. I don’t dare let you through those doors if you haven’t filled out your paperwork.”

  I sit down and start writing as quickly as possible. I need addresses of the past five places I’ve lived, phone numbers of former bosses, the date of my last physical and much, much more. I’ll never finish it before the meeting. Suddenly I’m sweating again despite the air-conditioning.

  “Could you call Lexa Larkin and let her know that I’m here at least?” I ask him.

  “Sure! Of course!” he cries. He punches a few numbers and then hangs up, making a rueful face at me. “I’m sooo sorry,” he says. “They must all be in the meeting already.” Is he secretly gloating?

  A very un-Tasty-looking delivery man walks in, wheeling a handcart stacked with coolers. “I’ll be right with you,” Felix tells him, managing to smile and give me a get-lost vibe at the same time.

  Twenty-five minutes later I thump the stack of papers—completed to the best of my ability—on the desk.

  “Great,” he says, without looking at them. “I’ll walk you in now.”

  Into the middle of a meeting? “That’s okay. I don’t want to interrupt. I’ll wait,” I say.

  Felix takes my arm in a steely male-polished grip and starts walking. Heartbeats later he flings open a door, announces, “New intern Kate McGraw,” and literally shoves me into a room full of people. Angular, black-clad people clustered around a massive table in rows of chairs three deep. All heads turn toward me. I have never been so aware of my bare thighs or the freckles thereon.

  “Miss McGraw,” says a petite, glossy-black-haired woman at the head of the table. “Attending the editorial meeting as an intern is a privilege. Be on time.”

  Lillian—for it is she, Lillian Hall—fixes me with a stare. It feels as if time has stopped and it’s just the two of us in here and for a second I go completely cold, just like I did when we met before. I bob my head. I could not possibly speak at this moment. In her element, she’s even more beautiful and ethereal-looking than I remembered. She has two tapered, ebony pincers of perfectly straight, shoulder-length hair, that alabaster skin, and those brilliant eyes. She seems ageless, like a movie star at her peak.

  A no-nonsense-looking blonde who sits next to Lillian smiles blandly. I recognize, with horror, the woman who dropped her papers downstairs, to whom I admitted that I’m not really the Oldham type.

  Lillian and everyone else is staring at me. What is this, humiliate-the-late-new-girl day? I want to curl up and hide inside my stupid minidress. After a long silence, the blonde takes pity on me and motions toward the back of the room.

  “Take a seat.”

  I stumble past numerous stiletto-clad feet and sink into an empty chair.

  The meeting continues. I stare at my lap. Blood pounds in my ears. There’s a mortifying chance I might cry. I knew that I would suffer if I ever dipped a toe into the poison reflecting pool that is the fashion industry. I saw what happened to my mother. How could I have been so stupid?

  Around me, they’re discussing violence in fashion shoots.

  “A little blood on the clothes, yummy models, a crime-scene-tape bow. I’m really seeing it.”

  “Blood-spattered is a trend!”

  “Adorable! Love it!”

  “Cute! The bows are inspired.”

  “But we have to be careful.”

  “We don’t want to become a scapegoat for teen violence.”

  “Instead of death, what about an afterlife theme for this portfolio? We’ll have the models wear angel wings on the grounds of a castle, meant to represent heaven—”

  “Enh, wings are so cliché.”

  After a while I overcome my feelings of disgrace and begin to peek around.

  Lillian is wearing her jawbreaker rings and a rigorously tailored, high-collared black suit jacket, the first few buttons undone to show an almost sexy amount of bare skin. She makes everyone else seem too dowdy, too fussy, too cheap, too something. I don’t notice I’m staring until she’s suddenly staring back at me. And my blood freezes. Again. What is it with this woman? I mean, it’s pretty cold in this room—the staff members who are sitting in the outer rings are clutching their sweater bras and shawls—but this is different.

  Just before I break free of her arctic gaze, she smiles at me—at least I think she does—revealing bride-white teeth. Sharp ones. Sharp like “My, what sharp teeth you have, Grandma.” It happens so fast I can’t be sure I didn’t imagine it. The smile. The teeth. Even the staring contest. I must have imagined it.

  Taking only the quickest of glances, so as not to make eye contact with anyone else, I scope out the room. Though not as gorgeous as Li
llian, everyone is either classic-pretty or so well-groomed that looks don’t matter. Particularly striking is a Persian-cat-faced woman with a British accent. She has a puffy, white-blond updo and oversized black glasses and wears a plunging black V-neck that sets off her bony sternum like plastic wrap on a chicken breast. Really, she’s so skinny I’m concerned for her heart rate.

  My eyes are also drawn to a waify girl with huge, almost buggy gray eyes who looks younger than I am, but sits around the table in the inner circle. She’s ostentatiously taking notes and nodding in agreement when Lillian or the Brit speaks.

  A piece of paper appears on my lap. I do a quick reconnaissance to make sure no one is looking, and unfold it. It says, “Are you fashionably late?”

  I turn my eyes toward my neighbor. Sturdy, pale, with rumpled dark hair. Wearing army pants, he’s probably in his late twenties.

  I flip the piece of paper and write, “Ha.”

  He plucks the note from my fingers and balls it up. I take another quick glimpse at him, getting an impression of intense, deep-set brown eyes. Then I force myself to look away and ignore him for the rest of the meeting.

  This is hard, but not as hard as it might be, because the next topic under discussion is something called the Tasty Girl Contest. My ears perk up. Victoria mentioned that I would be working on a contest.

  “What’s the status?” the brisk, preppy woman I ran into downstairs asks the room at large. “Are we running this in October?”

  It’s only June, but the staff is already sewing up October.

  “It’s been a brilliant success, darling. The readers quite fancy it. We have more than a thousand entries,” the British woman replies. “Annabel knows the details.”

  “Two hundred and sixty-six logged and twelve full mail buckets waiting to be sorted,” Annabel, the young, officious girl, jumps in.

  “And, remind me, what is this little contest?” a statuesque black man sitting on Lillian’s other side asks. He’s wearing an inside-out blazer, sewn so the seams and the linings show—probably Dutch, Central Saint Martins grad, circa 1995—over a monogrammed white shirt that reads SLS. While talking, he doodles on a tablet with a lavender V5 pen.