“Ouch.”
“If you don’t want to get pricked by the pin, you have to hold still.”
It’s lunch at Mountain Vista. Tommy and I are in the Clothing room and I’m fitting him for a new English-cut, gray wool suit he plans to wear to his parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary. It’s turning out better than I expected.
I’m relieved I have something to do. I took me all of three seconds to wolf down my NutriNation-friendly lunch. The apple slices, cheese cubes and almonds are swimming around in my stomach wishing a candy bar would come visit.
“Shouldn’t you match this to my eyes or whatever?” he asks, running one hand through his curly hair.
I’m kneeling on the floor in front of him. “Stop. Moving. And your eyes are brown. You want to wear a brown suit?”
“Isn’t that what women always do—match everything to their eye color or whatever?”
Snorting with laughter, I say, “Most people have one of, like, four different eye colors. Fashion is going to get extremely boring if fabrics only come in brown, blue, green and hazel.”
He groans. “Never mind.”
I crane my neck to look at him. My stomach turns over a couple of times. “This color is perfect. You look perfect.”
The moment is sort of tense and his face is turning pink. I hunch back down and keep working.
Once I get over the initial awkwardness of dealing with things like inseam measurements, making menswear is fun. Unlike when I drape my flowing skirts and dresses, stuff for guys is constructed and precisely tailored. It’s sort of like suddenly becoming an architect after spending years as a painter.
“I saw you talking to my nemesis today,” I say. Since last week, Kennes Butterfield’s been trying to beat me to class to get my seat next to Tommy.
“Hardy, har,” he says, checking his phone and shaking free the pin I’m inserting.
There’s something off about his response.
I stop hemming Tommy’s left pant leg and glare at him. “I’m not kidding, Tommy. She took my seat in the Gareth Miller preview. I’ve been working at SoScottsdale for over a year, and that was the first real opportunity I’ve gotten. And, thanks to her, I’ll never meet LaChapelle and talk to him about Parsons.”
“Come on. It was a long shot in the first place. And you got her kicked off the plane. So, don’t you think you two might be even now?”
Tugging the pant leg down hard, I resume pinning, paying less attention to whether or not I stick him. “Sure. Her crushing my lifelong dream is exactly the same as me making her wait two extra hours at O’Hare.”
He doesn’t answer, so I add, “Did she mention she called me Cankles?”
“Um. Yeah. That’s not cool, but she’s under a lot of pressure,” he says with a sigh. “Her parents got divorced. Then her mom moved her out here. She really feels the need to impress her dad with all this new blog stuff.”
“She told you all of this in between the segments of Mr. Smith’s lecture on the Viet Cong?”
He shakes his head. “She has independent study for third hour too. In the library. You think you’ve got it bad. Just imagine if Jameson Butterfield was your father.”
I take his advice and imagine the life of luxury that Jameson Butterfield’s 500-million-dollar mobile-phone fortune must buy. “I’m picturing it. And it doesn’t look so bad from where I sit.”
“You of all people should know that having a famous parent isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Through clenched teeth, I say, “She. Called. Me. Cankles.”
“I’ll talk to her, okay?” Tommy says. “Get her to apologize.”
Perfect. Just what I was going for. Tommy spending more time talking to Kennes.
I’m done pinning the cuff of the trouser and Tommy steps behind the modesty screen to put his real pants back on. “Want to hang out after school? My dad’s got the pinball machine working again,” he says.
My face relaxes. “Thanks. But I have to go to SoScottsdale after school. Then I’m pulling the swing shift at Donutville. We’re on for Friday, right?”
Back in his jeans, he says, “The Star Party at the Riparian Preserve. Wouldn’t miss it. Hey. What did Kraken say about the doughnuts?”
Bob Kraken owns Donutville. He’s known for being pretty cheap. But he likes Tommy and approves of his attempts to get the kids from church into astronomy. There are a bunch of ten-year-olds from Christ the King meeting Tommy for the open house, and the plan is to bribe them with free sugar.
“He said I can stop by around four and pick up anything left over from the morning. And Steve said he’d make extra stuff so that there would definitely be leftovers.” Steve is an old coot of a baker who dislikes the rules as much as I do. He’s my compatriot in arms at Donutville.
“Great.” Tommy and I leave the Clothing room together. The click of the door conceals a growl of my stomach.
After school, I make the twenty-minute drive to the blog office.
Technically speaking, working at SoScottsdale is my last class since I get independent study credit for the work I do there. I’m required to be in the office five hours a week and do whatever work they assign. Every once in a while, Marlene has to fill out a bunch of paperwork for the school.
The first thing to know about SoScottsdale is that it’s not actually in Scottsdale. The rent is too expensive, so Marlene has the office set up on the Tempe-Scottsdale border in a small business park off Hayden. She has an ongoing war with the post office. Mail to the office takes an extra day because Marlene lists Scottsdale as the blog’s official city.
When I walk in, I’m already pissed. No one has said boo to me since my shitty weekend trip to NYC. Terri’s at the reception desk on the phone. I blur by Brittany’s and Shelby’s desks, and they aren’t there. They’re interns too, but they go to Mesa High.
Marlene is in her office staring into space. Waiting for me.
“You’re my best contributor,” she says before I can even take a seat in the chair opposite her. There’s a series of bulletin boards lining the walls covered with pictures of the season’s looks along with similar items from local boutiques. Other than that, this isn’t a fashionable office. The walls, the carpet, everything is gray. The boring metal desk could have been rented from anywhere.
“Have you been getting my emails? My voice mail messages?” Marlene hasn’t spoken to me since I was locked out of the preview.
“Things have been out of control around here,” she answers. “Terri’s just back today and then...”
I ignore all of this. However busy Marlene has been, it’s impossible to believe she couldn’t manage to send a single text or email or to pick up the phone.
“I always send glowing reports to the school.”
“Some horrible hobgoblin took my seat at the G Studios preview,” I say. “And even worse, she seems to want to go all Single White Female on me and take over my entire life.”
Her gaze darts back and forth. “Close the door,” she says.
My heart sinks a bit as I get up to do this. I notice Marlene looks great. She’s lightened her long hair a shade, making it closer to platinum blond, and is wearing a pleated skirt that is either one of the best knockoffs I’ve ever seen or from the brand-new Proenza Schouler collection. You’d have to drop at least a grand to get a piece like that.
“Roger left me.”
“What?” I ask. I hate to say it, but my first instinct is to wonder what the hell Marlene’s husband has to do with the fucked-up situation in New York.
I’m lucky that Marlene interprets my confusion as shock, because worrying about seeing the latest designer clothes when someone is telling you they’re headed for divorce court is kind of jerky. “It was sudden,” she continues. “Left me. For our dental hygienist of all people.”
“Oh. God. I’m sorry. How are your kids?” Marlene has two kids in college, both at expensive East Coast universities.
She shrugs. “They were less surprised than I was. I guess I didn’t want to see it coming.”
Marlene stares into space again and then keeps going. “I’m worried. About finances. I won’t have Roger’s income. Tuition payments are coming due. Starting this website was my dream. But I didn’t think there was much of a choice. Last week, I sold it. I sold SoScottsdale.”
Light bulbs are going off in my head. “To Jameson Butterfield?”
Her shoulders tense and she frowns. “Terri told you?”
I snort. “Please, Marlene. I can put two and two together. It was his ‘dumber than a sack of hair’ daughter who took my place in New York.”
Marlene folds her hands on her desk and relaxes. “Butterfield’s been buying micro sites in emerging markets. B-Mobile wants to create a friendlier image, so they’re trying to advertise in different ways.”
“Probably a good plan considering they’re being sued by the federal government for antitrust violations,” I grouse.
“Yes. Well. He thought SoScottsdale might be a good medium and could also give his daughter an opportunity to develop some business acumen.”
Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Kennes wants my BFF and my job? “The only thing his daughter is going to develop is a case of varicose veins from wearing heels that are so disproportionate to her height.”
Marlene cocks her head and shifts into stern boss mode. “Cookie, you’re my best contributor. I hope you like working here and feel that your experience is helping to prepare you for college and for your future career. I don’t want to lose you. But if you force me to choose between you and Kennes Butterfield, I have to choose her. And that’s not personal. That’s me doing what I have to do to take care of my family.”
I truly hate it when people tell you something’s not personal. All it means is that they don’t want you to make them feel bad for doing something really shitty to you personally. I glower at her.
“I know you and Kennes got off on the wrong foot. But I promise, she’s not so bad. Give the new situation a chance. She’s going through some tough times at the moment. It’s not easy having the secrets of your parents’ marriage on the cover of OK! magazine.”
This is the second time in one day that I’ve been asked to sympathize with someone who’s had every opportunity handed to her on a silver platter. I’m one heartbeat away from telling Marlene to take this job and shove it.
But she says, “We’ll have a bigger budget and I’ll try to think of a way for you to get back to New York. Mr. Butterfield’s PR people have much better connections than I do. I’m going to do everything I can to get you to another event.”
A carrot. A bit of hope. A tiny little chance I could make it to Parsons.
Marlene gets up, opens her office door and motions for me to go into the conference room. “Hey, everybody. Cookie’s here,” she calls out.
When I enter, Kennes is already in the room, sitting at the head of the long black table. It’s the two of us alone for a second. “Cookie, huh?” she says with a smirk. “What, was Doughnut already taken?”
Before I can formulate a response, Shelby and Brittany come in. From the expressions on their faces, it’s clear they don’t know about the sale. Terri takes a seat and Marlene stands at the front of the room to make the announcement.
When Marlene introduces Kennes as the new “associate editor” of the site, I’m pretty thrilled that my own revulsion is mirrored on the faces of everyone else at the table. Marlene makes a few more boring remarks about how this is the dawn of a new era, and then we’re back at our desks.
The interns all share an area we call the bull pen. We’ve squeezed three computers, towers of magazines and even a small coffee maker into a U-shaped cubicle. It’s cramped but kind of cool. Sort of like a fort of fashion.
I sit down and can’t, for the life of me, figure out what Shelby and Brittany are even doing. Brittany is inserting a pencil into the electric sharpener for a second, removing it and comparing it to other pencils laid out in a neat row on her desk. Shelby is on the phone. She listens to the phone, types a bunch of stuff on her computer and then listens some more.
“Um... So?” I prompt.
“So, Kennes is setting up her office,” Brittany spits out, like she’s been waiting for a while to get this off her chest. “She says neatness is next to godliness and needs all her pencils sharpened to the same length.”
“No. Way.”
Shelby presses three on the keypad to pause the message yet again. “I would kill to have that job. I’m transcribing her voice mail. She got all these messages from people in her family and wants me to type them so she doesn’t have to listen to them herself. If I have to hear one more old lady say, ‘I’m so proud of my little sweetums,’ I’m going to throw up everything I’ve eaten in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Wow,” I say with fake sympathy. Inside, I’m delighted they hate Kennes as much as I do.
“How much would I have to pay you to back over me with your car?” Shelby asks. She wraps her thick brown hair into a top knot and resumes listening.
“Enough to pay for my legal defense at least,” I say with a grin.
I’m logging in to my computer as something lands on the desk with enough force to make the coffeepot vibrate. There she is. Kennes in her size-two distressed jeans and halter top.
It’s a bit of a stalemate since she’s waiting for me to say something to her. But I’ve got all my energy invested in keeping myself seated in my chair and not jumping up and head-butting her.
“Marlene says you need this for the post.” She doesn’t offer anything in the way of introduction, nothing to acknowledge what has happened. “And I jotted down some notes. Go ahead and work that into a couple of blurbs and quote me in the piece.”
On the desk, she’s dumped copies of pictures she took with her phone, a few scraps of fabric and an array of cocktail napkins from different bars with her notes on them. What strikes me right off is that everything in her notes is totally and completely wrong. The girl probably needs a personal shopper to keep track of her shoe size.
The other thing is that the clothes in the pictures are fucking phenomenal.
Kennes got to see them and I didn’t.
I pick up one of her napkins, holding it by one corner using my thumb and forefinger. “Ah, so, for the record, you want me to quote you as saying these dresses have cap sleeves when they actually have kimono sleeves? And that those shoes are wedges when they’re really platforms? Should I include a key to your terminology? Like, today on SoScottsdale, we’ll be referring to dogs as cats?”
Brittany lets out a single snort of laughter. Kennes’s eyes narrow and she pushes an empty cup in the intern’s direction. “How ’bout some more coffee, hon?”
Brittany turns her back on Kennes and refills the cup with a dramatic eye roll.
With her mug in hand, Kennes wobbles back to her office on the Gareth Miller heels I suspect she hijacked from the preview. She calls back, “Just email the story to me by tomorrow, Cankles, so I have time to approve it before it goes live on Wednesday.”
Brittany stares back down at her pencils, letting her blond hair fall in front of her face. The three of us don’t talk for a while.
Later on I’m doing my homework in my room. For English class, we’re studying the story of Pandora’s box. In retaliation for receiving fire from Prometheus, Zeus gives Pandora a beautiful box full of all the evils in the world. She opens it, inflicting suffering and even death on mankind. In class, we’re talking about how people always blame women for all the misery in the world.
But there’s something else in the box. Hope.
What does it say about life that the gods considered hope a misery?