Part 1 (2/2)
She checked Rowena's feet. They were a nine-and-a-half anyway. Rowena would never fit into those shoes even if Laura could find them.
”Take them off,” Laura said.
Rowena kicked off her shoes, but that made the dress three inches too long, and the gunmetal beads dragged on the floor.
”Shoot,” Laura hissed.
”Don't worry,” Rowena said and bolted to the exit. She plowed through two rows of sashaying stick-figures like a barrel rolling down a hill, holding up the front of her dress and whipping the fabric around so it took the light and stayed out of the way of her bare feet, which now looked intended. Laura decided Rowena was one giraffe who needed to be a rock star as soon as possible.
Laura was so delighted, she forgot that, as the designers, she and Ruby were supposed to follow the last model out. Jeremy, on the other hand, hadn't forgotten and pushed her onto the runway.
”No!” she said like her life was on the line, because she was suddenly sure that if she went out there, she would die of stage fright.
”I'll pull you right out there, kicking and screaming.”
”Ruby's in the bathroom. We have to skip it this time.”
”Ruby already had her moment on the runway.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pushed her out.
It was bright, which she knew from the run-throughs. But her eyes hurt as her pupils contracted, and when she looked back, all she could see was Jeremy's pale blue sweater. She turned, trying to s.h.i.+eld her eyes with her hand, but the lights were everywhere. She didn't dare look at the faces in the front row-buyers, critics, and ladies rich enough to use Fas.h.i.+on Week as a shopping spree. Laura nodded and wondered if they were disappointed at what they saw. Mousy little her.
At the same time, she felt relief. The show was done. All she had to do was bask in the warm glow of it and clean up the mess. It was over, and all the fighting, worrying, and sc.r.a.ping for every last yard of fabric was done. This was her moment, not to absorb admiration, but to relax before the impending crisis of the fabric orders.
But even the happy moment and grinding music weren't enough to cover the scream from the back room.
That put a damper on things. The music continued because it was on a loop, but the murmuring and some sympathy screaming went on even as Laura hightailed it to the back room. What had been a hive of activity four minutes before was an empty s.p.a.ce in a tent with the litter of cigarette b.u.t.ts, seven-hundred-dollar shoes, and wooden hangers all over the floor.
Ruby stood in the middle of the s.p.a.ce with her feet together and her hands balled into fists, screaming.
”What?” Laura barked, feeling the presence of models, businesspeople, and whoever else barreling into her.
Ruby pointed to the back of the back, where the bathrooms were. Laura bolted past rows of empty racks and piles of clothes she'd spent months working on. The crowd followed like rats scurrying behind a guy with a flute.
Ruby didn't join them; she seemingly had already seen enough of whatever there was to see back there and felt no need to see it again. Fine. Laura would kill the spider, trap the rat, or whatever had to be done, and the whole incident would be the talk of the town. Maybe it would overshadow Dymphna Bastille's age. Or lack of it.
The bathrooms were the most luxurious port-a-potties money could buy. They were trucked in, attached to the tents, and cleaned four times a day, which Laura knew because the fee was a line item on her books. The white tiles and granite sinks were spotless but for a sprinkling of face powder and a streak of purple eye shadow on the mirror.
As she turned her head, she saw that Ruby's shrieking wasn't over a rat or a spider, but over her new best friend, the model with the body to launch a thousand high-end lines.
Thomasina Wente was sprawled on the floor in a pool of foul-smelling vomit.
CHAPTER 2.
Not again was the first thing that went through her mind. Please, G.o.d, if you're out there at all, not again. Not another body. Not another series of interviews at the precinct. Not this again.
She picked up a hemat.i.te platform at her feet, then dropped it. The cops would want it exactly where it was.
”Overdose,” came a voice from behind her. Rowena had gotten in the door first, despite the fact that she wore a gown meant for an Oscar acceptance.
”Out!” Laura cried. ”Unless you're a paramedic. Out, out, out!”
”Pee!” Rowena shoved herself and the gown into the stall next to Thomasina and clicked the door.
Laura had no idea whether Thomasina was dead or not and wasn't qualified to make that determination. She poked her cellphone and realized her hands were shaking. ”I can't dial,” she said.
”Ruby was calling,” Rowena said.
Laura put away her phone and rubbed her eyes. She heard the toilet flush, and the door to the stall door opened with a clack. Rowena gathered her skirts and stepped out. She leaned over Thomasina. ”This is bad.”
”Just wait for the paramedics,” Laura said. ”Trust me. The police want everything where it is. If you spit when you talk, you'll mess up their scene.”
Rowena stepped back, holding the skirt of her gown above the floor, and leaned against the back wall, still as an oak.
”Do you think she's dead?” Laura asked.
Rowena shrugged.
Apparently, Thomasina was as popular with the other giraffes as she was with Laura. ”When the cops start asking questions, you shouldn't be so flip about it.”
Rowena cracked her gum, and Laura resisted the urge to hold a hankie under her chin. ”I'm not flip.”
Laura's conversations with Rowena usually warranted little more than yes and no answers, or short statements about one's ability to walk in a tight skirt. She never spent much time talking to giraffes; she didn't have the s.p.a.ce in her schedule. Ruby was the one who extracted gossip and news. Ruby was the one who'd brought Thomasina back into the fold after the model knocked her off a runway. Ruby not only tolerated, but embraced Thomasina's haughty affectation.
And Ruby was the one who tapped on the door. ”Can I come in?”
”No,” Rowena snapped.
Laura felt trapped in the tiny room with a dead giraffe and a rock star model wearing a matte metallic ball gown. ”Do you have a show after this?” Laura asked.
”Yes.”
”You ever string more than four words together?”
Rowena cracked her gum. ”Sometimes.”
Laura tried not to stare too hard at Thomasina. Lying down, her arms and legs looked even more like chicken bones. Laura tried to determine if Thomasina was breathing by watching her chest. There was no movement that she could detect.
”Lancaster's tomorrow?” Rowena asked.
There was a huge rooftop shoot at the Lancaster Gla.s.s building with Chase Charmain at the crack of dawn, before the tent shows started at ten o'clock. Thomasina had bent over backward to get it into her schedule for Ruby. d.a.m.n. The photos had a chance to get into Black Book, and there was her model, sprawled on the bathroom floor like a fistful of jackstraws. Getting a last minute replacement during fas.h.i.+on week who could fit into clothes fit specifically for Thomasina would be impossible. Except that she was stuck in the bathroom with someone who might be just the one.
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