Miller’s people have pulled out all the stops. I guess they must really be worried I’ll make him out to be the anti-Christ.
I ride in a fancy limo to the Refinery Hotel. The driver makes a point of telling me to have anything I want from the minibar. He tells me three times.
Finally he shakes his head. “You pretty girls never eat.”
My right eye starts to twitch. “When Gareth Miller rides in a limo do you think he eats?” The rest of the drive is pretty quiet.
The Refinery is an opulent palace of white marble and maple paneling. It looks like only cool Swedish people should be allowed to stay in the rooms. Piper hangs around in front, standing underneath a glass overhang, trying to fold a black umbrella. One awesome thing about this trip is that it’s also an opportunity to hang with my BFF.
“You made it!” she calls.
“You look great.” I point to her hair. “You’ve gone a bit darker.”
Piper nods. “Yeah. I’m trying to pull off Dannii Minogue. And, of course, I’m wearing a Cookie Vonn original.” She gestures toward her outfit like a game show model. She’s paired her platform heels and jeans with a sweatshirt I made. It’s my own pattern of distressed retro rockets inspired by the TWA Moonliner rocket I saw that one time Grandma took me to Disneyland.
Piper is my muse.
Hubert de Givenchy had his Audrey Hepburn. Calvin Klein got a decade of inspiration from Kate Moss.
I have Piper, who’s bold and beautiful and brainy. Someday, when I have my own brand, I hope girls like Piper will be standing at department store cash registers buying armfuls of my stuff.
The first year or so after Fairy Falls, Piper was pretty much the camp’s poster child. It was like she lived to eat lettuce wraps and read Runner’s World magazine. I’m sure somewhere in Wyoming, Mr. Getty was probably shitting himself with excitement at the thought of getting a new testimonial for the camp brochure.
She lost fifty pounds.
And then.
Her weight loss totally stalled. She got down to twelve hundred calories and exercised so much that she was even doing calf raises on the school bus. We Skyped twice a week, and I don’t think she cracked a smile in six months.
One day during a video chat, she leaned in close to her screen and said, “I’m a size twenty and I’m going to stay that way. I have become a Giver of Zero Fucks. I’m going to do what I want to do and be happy.”
And then she did.
My attention snaps back to a guy standing on the sidewalk. He starts to say something. “Hey! Are you from—”
Piper pulls me through the hotel’s sliding glass doors before the guy can finish saying Australia. We both roll our eyes. Piper gets this routine a hundred times a day.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I say. “Can the guys at Columbia get any studying done with you around?”
She laughs, revealing rows of teeth set straight by her orthodontist dad. “I wish you were there. Remind me why you’re at ASU again.”
“Because it’s free. And I’m broke,” I say. But Piper knows all this. At ASU, I’ve got a full ride. I know she’s giving me the opportunity to vent about my mom, but I already spent enough time thinking about Mom on the plane. So I tease her. “Remind me why you’re pre-law again?”
She pushes her dark, chunky bangs out of her face. “The way you say pre-law. Like it’s a naughty word or something. Someday when you’re a powerful designer, you’ll need someone to sue all those jerks who make knockoffs of your handbags. And you need to hurry up and get famous so I can sell this jumper on eBay. Pay off my student loans.”
I check us in. The whole process makes me feel like such a, well, grown-up. They ask if I want the bellman to bring up our suitcases. My mind races with questions about tipping and conversation etiquette. I mumble something and leave the counter.
Piper and I drag our own bags to the black elevator doors. “You ready for a wild night on the town, girl?” she asks. We make our way down a long hall. Our room is enormous, with more maple panels on the walls and oversize white pillows on the beds.
Trouble is, neither of us is really all that wild. Piper spends most of her free time watching Law & Order reruns and reading biographies of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I’m usually home on Saturday nights prewashing my fabrics or learning to program my new embroidery machine.
Piper flips open the hotel information binder. “There’s a restaurant here. Parker & Quinn. Gourmet burgers. I guess you can watch the chef make them.”
I flop back onto the thick white comforter of my queen bed. “Great. I get to watch someone cook food I can’t eat.”
She rolls her eyes at me and flips to another page. “Okay. What about this? The Refinery Rooftop.”
I lean over her shoulder. “It’s a bar.”
“I have my fake ID,” she says. “And look. You can see the Empire State Building.”
We decide to go. I mean, we’re nineteen, we’re alone in New York and our room’s secured to Gareth Miller’s credit card.
Piper’s right about one thing. The view is amazing. Light from the Empire State Building beams through the terrace’s glass roof. It’s a whole building, a complete structure that seems to be saying, You can do it. You can get where you need to go.
And for somebody, sometime, this rooftop probably is romantic. Round lights are strung from iron posts and candles flicker on the long, wooden tables. But it’s Saturday night and the place is littered with middle-aged sales people discussing deals. And off in one corner is Roberta’s fiftieth birthday.
We take a couple of seats at the bar. Piper orders a lemon drop martini and I have a Diet Coke. She starts to argue but I hold my hand up. “You know I never waste calories on alcohol.”
“I wouldn’t call it a waste, Cookie,” she says with a wan smile.
I snort. “I would. I mean, I haven’t had a Dorito in two years. If I’m going off the wagon, send in the Cool Ranch, please.”
Piper stares at me. In the orange candlelight, her eyelashes cast long shadows down her cheeks. “So this is it, right? You’re finally going to meet Gareth Miller? Meet the man behind the door?”
I pause, struggling to come up with a way to explain the total weirdness on the flight. “Actually, I already met him. I guess his private plane broke down. He sat next to me. Got on when we stopped at DFW.”
She leans forward and slaps my arm lightly. “And you’re just now mentioning it! Tell me everything.”
I shrug. “There’s not that much to tell. I mentioned the blog. The interview. He asked about my mom.”
Piper bites down on her lower lip. “So, awkward?”
“A little.”
She replaces her worried expression with a leer. “Was he totally hot?” I break into hoots of laughter as she wiggles her eyebrows up and down.
Two guys sit near us at the bar, having a loud conversation that carries over ours. “—like it’s my fault she’s stuck in the back office. The senior analyst job involves travel,” the one nearest Piper says. “You think I can send that gal to Wuhan? The last time I sent a fat lady to China, the client’s daughter asked for tips on how to get her pet rabbit to gain weight.”
“Oh. Ouch. Cold,” the second man says, taking a long sip of a tall beer.
I realize Piper and I have both stopped talking and are watching the men in horror. I try to get a conversation going again. “So did you go to that seminar on the different kinds of law? Any thoughts on what kind of lawyer you want to be?”
Piper smiles. It’s actually more like a Cheshire Cat grin. “Yeah. There are a lot of cool branches of law. In fact—”
“—and I told her. Get rid of that candy dish on your desk. Hit the StairMaster once in a while. Then come back and talk to me about a promotion,” the man goes on.
We stop talking again. I check out the guy’s suit. I don’t understand people, but I totally get clothes. It’s an Ermenegildo Zegna. Navy. Two button. Wool. Easily $3K. This guy. The way his graying hair has outgrown its haircut but his shirt’s been recently pressed. Careless wealth. Easy power. A dangerous combination.
“Yeah,” Piper says, loud enough that it catches the attention of the douchelords. “We learned about this thing called employment law where I can sue rich assholes who won’t give promotions to fat women.”
Mr. Navy Suit turns to Piper. “That’s not illegal,” he says, glaring at her.
“Yet,” she replies, pronouncing each letter sharply and returning his glare with equal force.
The man drops a hundred-dollar bill on the counter and leaves the bar.
The bartender approaches us with another round and we order some food. Piper gets a burger and I ask for a chicken Caesar salad with the dressing on the side.
I grin at her. “I think you just chased a multimillionaire executive out of a swanky restaurant. You really are my hero.”
She snorts with laughter as a waitress arrives with our plates. I watch in envy as a bacon cheeseburger is slid in front of Piper. The corners of the cheddar cheese melt and drip. I force myself to get busy removing all but the five croutons I’m allowed to eat from my salad.
Piper doesn’t bother to pretend her burger is anything other than completely delicious. “You know, you could have a cheeseburger too, Cookie.”
“Not on the plan,” I say, poking at my bland chicken, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“If your plan is causing you to make that face, I think it’s time for a new plan,” she says.
“We can’t all be Givers of Zero Fucks,” I say.
“Yes, we can.” Piper scoops up a few seasoned fries.
I glance at the Empire State Building. “If it weren’t for NutriNation, I wouldn’t even be here. Let’s face it. There’s no way NutriMin Water would’ve sponsored my blog if I didn’t use their product to lose weight.”
She grabs my bag from the back of my chair and rifles through it.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “What are you looking for?”
“Your crystal ball? Or maybe the multiverse goggles you use to see alternate dimensions. They must be in here, right? I mean, otherwise how could you really know for sure what would happen if you made different choices?” she says.
I grab my bag. “Oh, so it’s all just in my imagination? You heard those two guys. Fashion is even worse. Fashion is where they take thin people and call them plus-size models. Where they refuse to dress fat celebrities for events and say that size-six women are fat actresses.”
Piper takes a sip of her drink. “Yeah. There’s fat-shaming everywhere. But it’s up to us what we do about it. I mean come on, Cookie. You’re going to design plus-size clothes but not be plus-size? You’re gonna live your life like you’re terrified of a fucking cheeseburger?”
“I’m not afraid to eat a cheeseburger,” I say. I’m not totally sure this is true, so I keep going. “And I hate to break it to you, but in fashion, I am plus-size.”
She frowns at me. “Well, I’m going to be the best lawyer on this or any other continent, and I’ll sue any fat-shamer who tries to stop me.”
“We can’t all be you,” I tell her.
“We can be whatever we want.”
Piper is totally wrong. In fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. A cackling villain who kidnaps puppies and turns them into coats would be more popular in the world of fashion than a fat designer. But I hardly ever get to hang out with Piper in real life and I don’t want to waste our time arguing. I change the subject to Columbia, and we spend the rest of the meal joking about Piper’s awful new roommates.
We charge our meal to Gareth Miller’s corporate Amex and go down to our room.
I crawl into bed and turn out the lights but can’t relax. I imagine the five croutons I ate are having a fistfight in my stomach. I toss and turn. I think again and again of Gareth’s dark, brooding eyes as he says, I think I’ll enjoy that very much.
“Have you heard from Tommy?” Piper whispers from the other queen bed.
“No,” I say, trying not to think too much about this.
“And that’s not a problem for you?”
“No.” It’s pathetic, thinking about the time he kissed me. He made his choice, and there’s no going back.
“He’s a wanker anyway.” Piper turns in her bed a few times and fluffs her pillow. “Night, Cookie Vonn.”
I dream of a world full of Dorito-trimmed Christmas trees and curly-haired Ken-doll boyfriends.