Lexa shows up at the peak of the festivities and clings to the celebrities like a stick-on bra at the Academy Awards. She’s changed into a black dress that shows every bone in her pelvis. People wince when they look at her. She accosts the white hip-hop star Trey, with whom, as I learned in the meeting, we want to do a feature. It’s Lexa’s job to make it happen. Trey cranes his head desperately, searching for an excuse to escape.
Lexa doesn’t look like she’s giving a second thought to the dead girls in the catering van.
Mainly to get away from Lexa, I agree to go to a private club that I’m told is for the rich and successful in the media and film industries. Middle-aged people plastered with brand-name clothing throng the sidewalks outside. We’ve lost Noë but have picked up two ravishing French girls (market editors) whom everyone calls “the twins,” though I don’t think they’re related. Our group of six cuts straight through the crowd.
“I have invitations here for all of us,” Annabel says, pausing at the velvet rope to dig in her bag.
“Come on in.” The bouncer waves us through without looking at the stiff squares of glossy paper. The jam-packed fifth-floor bar is James Bond swanky, gleaming, its darkness punctuated by pools of golden light. My coworkers head to the dance floor. I’ve had enough.
“I’m going to go,” I shout at Annabel.
“I’m a terrible dancer, too!” she confides.
Instead of letting me leave, she finds us one vacant seat to share at the bar.
As I get drunker, I’m getting more overtly upset. “What the hell is going on?” I ask her.
“What do you mean?” she asks. Her face is suddenly immobile, her eyes flat and hard.
“Oh, I don’t know. The deaths. The dogicide. It’s my first week of work and there’s a body count.”
Her eyes narrow. My heart goes dry and constricts in my chest, as if a cold, ghostly hand has wrapped around it and squeezed.
Annabel smiles. She must go to the same dentist as Lillian, because her china-white teeth and long incisors are similar. She wraps a hard, thin arm around my shoulders and squeezes closer to me on the chair. “You really shouldn’t talk like that.”
I’m steeling myself to ask her why, when she goes pale—paler—and sways on the chair, pupils hugely dilated. Her nostrils flare and she breathes in deeply, as if smelling a delicious aroma.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m just hungry. I need something to eat. It’s been too long,” she whispers weakly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She slips off the stool and pushes her way through the crowd with robotic determination. I’m concerned but uncertain what to do. If she needs to eat and then throw up, or binge on some particular thing that can only be consumed shamefully in the middle of the night, I don’t want to get in her way.
8
Like Death Warmed Over
I WAKE UP Thursday morning on top of the red velvet spread in my room at Victoria’s, still wearing my dress. My head throbs. Events from the evening before start filtering back to me…though I can hardly call it evening, since I was rolled out of a speeding black Town Car by Kristen Drane this morning just before sunrise.
“Darling, are you still in there?” My aunt’s voice penetrates my thoughts. What is Victoria doing up? She usually sleeps in. “What time is it?” I call weakly.
She flings open the door, dressed and looking perfect. “Darling, it’s eleven-thirty! I had no idea you were here until I heard a moan. Are you okay?”
I lurch off the bed. “I’m late!”
Fortunately, Lexa usually doesn’t show up until after eleven herself. Another memory slides into place. “Oh, no. I have to be at a meeting in half an hour.”
I’m already shimmying into my new pair of free jeans (carried from club to club last night in my trusty World Wildlife Federation canvas tote) and grabbing the first top my hand touches.
“Heels and lipstick!” Vic cries, dashing from the room. Seconds later she’s back with a pair of Jane Mayle stack-heel loafers and a tube of brick-red M.A.C. She brandishes the lipstick at me as I’m brushing my hair. “A girl your age makes any outfit fashionable by adding heels and red lipstick,” she proclaims. Vic’s eye is right-on as usual. The color flatters my hair and my pallor.
I air-kiss her on both cheeks, snatch my bag, and run.
Fifteen minutes later I’m in the Oldham elevator. I check the reflective door to make sure that my fly is zipped and my clothes are on right side out. I am hungry, thirsty, and my hair smells like cigarette smoke.
I’m still not wearing a bra.
Please, oh please, let Lexa not be here yet.
“Good morning, Miss McGraw. You do know how to make an entrance,” Felix needles. I catch him eyeing my Mayle loafers as if he knows how much they cost. He probably does. Me, I don’t want to know.
“Has Lexa come in?” I gasp.
Felix gives me a weird look. “I assume so,” he says. “She gets here before I do.”
“Oh.” I stop walking. “You don’t see her come in every day?”
He looks like he’s about to say something, then shakes his head. “I don’t keep track of people.”
Somehow I really doubt that. But there’s not much I can say.
To my incredible relief, the only people in the conference room when I walk in are Annabel—spiral notebook open and turned to a fresh page before her on the table—Rachel, and Nin. I take a seat next to Annabel, earning incredulous looks from the other two interns.
“Good morning,” Annabel says. “Do you feel like death warmed over?”
“I don’t feel bad,” I lie.
She doesn’t look like she’s suffering at all. Her hair is salon-blow-out smooth. She looks fresh and well-rested. Her midnight binge, whatever it was, has left no traces.
“Is Lexa here?” I ask.
“Not yet,” she tells me. “She’s probably just awakening.” If she notices my confused look, she pretends that she doesn’t.
“Kate, was that you at the Molecular Biology party last night?” Nin asks.
How in the world do they know already what I was doing last night?
“We thought we saw you in the background of a shot of Trey on PerezHilton this morning,” Rachel says. “But we couldn’t believe it. How did you get invited?”
Both of them are so jealous, they can hardly fake civility.
I can’t say I notice a difference.
“Were you at the party where the murders took place, too?” Nin asks.
Annabel glares at them, putting an abrupt end to the conversation.
James walks in, accompanied by Matilda. He’s wearing army pants and his hair appears to be damp—it seems I’m not the only one late for work today. I catch his eye for a brief, unreadable second and am struck with an almost uncontrollable urge to giggle. He winks at me and my stomach flip-flops.
Lexa follows shortly on James’s heels, smiling as if to a private joke. She takes out her BlackBerry, checks something, tsktsks theatrically, and sits down.
“Lexa, have you seen the tabloids yet?” Annabel asks her.
Finally, we’re going to discuss the murders.
Lexa smirks. “Patrick is so naughty,” she says. “I’m furious with him, simply furious. From that photo anyone could conclude that Luke and I are more than friends!”
Or maybe not. I guess two girls dying is less important to Lexa than getting her name in the paper. Her BlackBerry beeps again. She checks it, simpers some more, and then turns a threatening eye on us. “Of course, none of you would dare tip off the gossips that I’m checking my messages this morning.”
Nin nods, wide-eyed. Rachel looks hesitant. Annabel, on the other hand, has been scribbling notes. She raises her hand. “Which gossips should we not be tipping off, Lexa?”
Our boss chortles with satisfaction.
After a little more of this, we get down to business. “It’s time to pick the semifinalists,” Lexa tells us. “Annabel, I want you and
the interns to do the first cull. That means weed out the cows. Only thin girls are Tasty Girls. So make a special pile for attractive, thin…” She eyes me as if I might try to slip a fat one by her. “I mean very thin, girls.”
“This contest is going to make the careers of the next crop of young models,” Annabel gushes. “And they’ll have you to thank.”
Lexa pats her perfect roll of white-blond hair with a limp hand. “I think so.”
“I’m honored to be part of the selection process,” I add quickly. I’m catching on. Sorting young women by weight is a big step up from fighting with Rachel and Nin over cigarette-fetching privileges.
“Once you’ve kicked the fatties to the curb, I want you to read the ‘What Makes Me Tasty’ essays. I’m looking for people with inspiring personal stories. Find models who have emancipated themselves from their parents, or grown up in foster homes. Refugees from Third World countries. We’re looking for anyone who has shown that she’s overcome hardship.”
Since when did Lexa become a humanitarian? She must have the mother of all PR campaigns cooked up for this.
James clears his throat. “Shane is still worried about this,” he says. “Even with a great photographer, the girls need to look like models. Are you sure you want to be judging them based on criterion like personal history?”
Lexa gives him an evil, icy smile. “Very sure. Please tell Shane that I appreciate his concern, but that PR and Marketing have already signed off on this strategy.”
James shrugs. “He’ll do what you want, but he’s not responsible for the photos.”
“We have Giedra Dylan-Hall taking the pictures,” Lexa reminds him. “I assure you they’ll be a scream.” She turns to Matilda. “You’re doing the layout?”
“Yes,” the girl says, nervously.
“Wonderful. If it doesn’t do the pictures justice, I’ll know just who to talk to.” Her phone rings. She checks the display, murmuring, “Oh Luke, you naughty boy.” Then she turns to us. “I have to take this. Girls, I want a list of candidates on my desk by Monday morning. Dismissed.”
Lexa swans out of the room. James and Matilda, looking shell-shocked, follow her. On the way out, James’s eyes pass over mine impersonally, but nonetheless I feel that strange, magnetic tug of attraction.
The rest of us stare around the table at one another in disbelief.
“By Monday?” I ask Annabel.
“Most of the contestants are pretty good-looking,” Rachel says. “They’re aspiring models. I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to weed them out.”
“You have to know what to look for,” Nin says to her, condescendingly. “Think from the camera’s perspective.”
“I’m a writer! I don’t think from the camera’s perspective!”
“You guys,” I say, for once feeling as if we’re all on the same team. “The final application tally was two thousand four hundred and seventy-five. If half of them are disqualified on grounds of looks, we’ll still have more than three hundred essays each to read.”
Annabel is already doing figures on her pad. “Four hundred twelve each,” she says. “That’s assuming that we eliminate half of them today based on head shots and then divide the rest of it up for everyone to take home over the weekend.”
“How is that four hundred?” I ask. “There are four of us.”
Annabel smiles. “It is a huge honor for you guys to skim the applications first, pulling out the ones with the appropriate personal stories. I want each of you to pick twenty semifinalists and then I’ll narrow down the list for Lexa on Monday morning before the features meeting.” She sighs in a theatrical fashion. “I just do not get enough sleep.”
My stomach growls audibly and I clamp my hand over it, embarrassed. I still haven’t eaten anything today and I’m always extra hungry with a hangover.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” I excuse myself and dash for the elevator banks without sparing a glance for Felix in reception, who I’m sure would love to make a comment about me leaving the building a mere hour after arriving.
For the last three days, I’ve been getting my lunch at a nearby deli, the Plaza Gourmet III. It’s got a huge salad bar, a pizza station, and a depressing, fluorescent-lit windowless seating area in the back where I shovel in my lonely meal. I chose this deli specifically because I don’t wanted to run into anyone from work while eating. She eats! How déclassé! As I head in that direction, I call my dad on my cell. I’d planned to go back to Monticello for the weekend, and I want to let him know that it’s off. Instead, I’ll be reading essays written by wannabe models. I’m not going to mention the murders or any of the other weird stuff so as not to worry him.
“Dad. Did you know that green is the new black?” I ask him, jokingly.
“Hi, kiddo!” he says. “What did you say?”
“Green is the new black.”
“What? What’s that mean?”
“Environmentally responsible clothes are in. Or so they tell me around here.”
“I’m glad to hear it. How’s the new job going?”
“Sorry I haven’t called you.” I don’t know why. We’re usually so close. Actually, I do know why. Once we have time to talk, I have some hard questions about my mother. Questions I may not want to hear the answers to. “It’s going not-so-bad,” I tell him. “The editor-in-chief likes me for some reason.”
“I can imagine why she likes you,” Dan says. “You’re you. You’re smart. You’re a hard worker. Why shouldn’t she like you?”
“It’s not that simple in the fashion industry.”
But he knows that. He watched Eva go through it. Quickly I continue, “And my direct boss doesn’t like me but she’s growing to tolerate me.”
That is, she’s warmed up after she found out who my mother is. And there’s going to be some kind of item about it in the newspaper. I don’t want to mention that one to Dan, either.
“She’s assigned me to work on this big-deal contest, which is why I’m calling. I won’t be able to make it home this weekend.”
“Oh, honey, that’s great! I’m so proud of you. I knew you’d do well.” His enthusiasm is infectious. And despite my gloom, I can’t help but feel a little pleased.
“SO DO you think that Lexa really hooked up with Luke Wilson?” Nin asks late Friday evening. The three of us are still flipping through photos of hot teenaged hopefuls, figuring out which files to take home and read over the weekend—we’ve been at it for two days now. Annabel left the office long ago for a perfume launch party, and we interns are so tired and slap-happy that Rachel and Nin have started being friendly to me. I welcome it, since left to my own devices, I keep thinking about those two slain girls. Every strawberry-blond candidate reminds me of them.
I check to make sure no one is in the hallway outside our closet before replying: “Doesn’t seem plausible to me. Luke Wilson went out with Gwyneth Paltrow. Why would he want Lexa?”
“She’s an heiress,” Rachel says.
“I’m an heiress,” Nin scoffs.
I venture to offer more detail. “I saw her accosting Trey the other night. She’s very…affectionate. A picture taken at just the right moment could have made it look like they were groping.”
“Even if Luke had been gropin’ her,” Nin adds, “he wouldn’t be texting first thing the next day. She was sending those messages to herself.”
I laugh reluctantly. “I think you’re right.”
“There’s something wrong with her,” Rachel interjects.
My heart flutters. I agree with her.
“Did you know that she spends whole afternoons reading gossip sites? And while she’s reading she mutters to herself and her hands clutch at the air. Like this.” She mimes scary clutching motions.
“Stop that. You’re freakin’ me out,” Nin says, laughing.
I feel dissatisfied. This doesn’t cut to the heart of my fears. There is something wrong with Lexa, but it goes deeper than an addiction to Internet gossip. I con
sider bringing up the murders, but don’t. It’s been made abundantly clear to me that people around here don’t talk about such things. And I don’t trust Nin and Rachel enough to break the rules with them.
“This girl is interesting-looking.” I lift up the head shot of a sixteen-year-old from Waco, Texas. “She’s not thin thin but, like they say in the movies, I think the camera would love her.”
I have no idea what that means. I just happen to like her face.
“You heard what Lexa said,” Rachel cautions me. “Only super-skinny. Let’s not make her mad.”
She’s such a kiss-ass. I toss the Waco girl on the yes pile. “Maybe she’ll realize that we need some variety.”
Nin looks over. “I like her, too.” She smiles at me. “I like people with unusual faces. My agent always said I was too pretty for edgy editorial work.”
Rachel rolls her eyes. “Oh, poor you.”
Nin spreads out her hands. “It’s true. It’s a disability being this perfect.” Her tone makes it clear that she’s laughing at herself. I can’t help but laugh, too.
“Why didn’t you keep modeling?” I ask her.
Nin winks at me. “Power,” she replies. “Models don’t have enough power. And the photographers are all perverts.”
It’s at this inopportune moment that James Truax shows up in our doorway, slurping on a straw stuck into a plastic cup full of red liquid. I’ve been waiting for him all day. Waiting and hoping that our conversation at the Saks party meant something to him, too, and that he’d want to continue it.
“Are you maligning photographers?” he asks. He addresses the question to the room, but his honey-gold eyes rake over me and my body pulses.
How does he do that?
“Just tellin’ the truth,” Nin says. “What are you doing here so late?”
To my dismay, she’s not insensible to his charm, either.
Blood Is the New Black Page 9
