by Amina Akhtar
“Because she’s practically a child, and someone had to clear her out of the way.”
“Whatevs.”
Maybe she was right. I could have left Mulberry there to die in the hallway in front of my desk. Everyone stepping over her, ignoring her until she finally rotted away. The weak didn’t survive here. The weak didn’t belong. Mulberry wasn’t one of us. She had to go. I needed to be more like Sarah if I wanted to survive, if I wanted upward mobility.
“Maybe you’re right. But I felt—”
“What, bad for her? Come on, Anya, you’re not doing her any favors. She’s going to get fired anyways.”
I nodded.
“What’s with you? Why are you covering your ears?”
“What? You don’t hear that?”
“Uh, hear what? Stop being so freaky. God, Anya, it’s amazing we let you work here. You’re such a weirdo.”
I dropped my hands and smiled. Flashed teeth. Everything was fine. I was fine. Nothing to see here. “You’re so right about Mulberry. What a fucking weakling.” I sat down.
“Duh,” she replied, the telltale sound of her filing her nails coming through over the buzzing. I was not a freak. I was not a freak. I belonged here. I was one of them. Mulberry was weak. I had to show that I belonged.
3
Sarah popped up over the cubicle wall when I arrived the next morning. “Oh my God, did you hear?”
“No, what? Did someone wear last season’s Alexander King?” She didn’t laugh at my joke.
“God, no, this is serious. They found Mulberry.”
“About time. Where was she?” Celia’s assistant had vanished the afternoon before. From embarrassment, probably. I popped a piece of bagel in my mouth, a move that Sarah’s eyes followed. I stopped chewing and casually spit the offending carbs into a napkin.
“How can you put that in your body? Don’t you know what gluten does to you? It attacks your system. It’s like poison.”
“That’s not how it works—”
“That’s exactly how it works. Dr. Shinasky told us, and she never lies.”
“Dr. Shinasky isn’t even a real doctor.” She wasn’t. She worked at Sarah’s gym.
“Wow, I’m just trying to save you. Besides, do you really need carbs?” She eyed my waist. Shit. She was right. I had the new diet to start. There was a diet meeting on my calendar today.
“Right, you’re right. Anyways, Mulberry?”
“She was in some computer closet. Can you believe it?”
“Doing what? She doesn’t know anything about computers.” My heart was pounding in my ears. Act normal, Anya.
“No, she’s, like, dead! They found her with those stupid shoes bashed into her head. The police are coming, and the dead-body people are here!” She meant the medical examiners.
I paused. One. Two. Three. “Shit, is this actually happening?”
“Yes! The police want to talk to us, Anya.”
“Oh.” I hated talking to the police. They asked too many questions. And if you didn’t answer correctly (or even if you did), they took you away. And then you had to live with crazies and criminals until you aged out. They never believed that shit just happened. Friends caught on fire. People died all the time. It’s not a big deal.
“Are you worried?” Sarah asked.
“I’m just upset about Mulberry,” I replied breezily. “I mean, how brutal. Also, like, did someone do that to her? Or did she fall and hit her head? No, that wouldn’t be possible, even for her. Someone . . . here maybe? So . . . what does that mean?”
“Oh, shit. O-M-G.” Nothing could get her to actually say “Oh my God,” not even the thought of a killer on the loose. “You’re right. Holy shit. We should do something. You don’t think the police will, like, search our bags, right? I mean, not without a warrant?”
“Uh, I don’t think so. Why, got some extracurricular items in there?” I grinned to show I was cool, just like her. Drugs didn’t bother me.
“No! I mean, maybe. Whatever.” Sarah paced around our cubicles.
“I doubt they’ll search anything. Just relax.”
“Wow, W-T-F Thursday, man.” And then she took a selfie, captioning it just that. She didn’t offer to take a photo with me.
“I’m going to see if I can take a selfie with the body. Maybe the shoe’s still in her head!” Sarah bounded off. I shrugged, getting up to follow. After all, if Sarah did it, then it was fine. No, it was chic.
* * *
The computer closet was a narrow cupboard in a small hallway next to the supply room. It was filled with old keyboards and monitors, along with some outdated and ugly La Vie merch. The only people who went near it were the IT guys. Today, the tiny hallway was packed with people. Uniformed police officers; some guy with a camera and a bright flash snapping photos; La Vie girls forming a semicircle, fake tears rolling down their faces. I saw Sarah and pushed my way next to her at the front of the gawking line.
“Holy shit,” I managed to say.
There she was, sitting in yesterday’s YSL leather mini and Balmain tee with one shoe on, one bare foot hanging out, crammed into a space barely wide enough to hold her. The other shoe was in her head. Not on it, but actually in her face. Smashed in so hard, her nose was gone. I suppose the weird heel mechanism helped it stay lodged where it was, but still—wow.
I had tried to make it look accidental. With a girl as clumsy as Mulberry, you could get away with a lot, but it still didn’t look right. No, it was pretty obvious someone had done this to her. Stupid Anya. Always rushing to get things done. Take time, slow down, I chastised myself. But I hadn’t been able to get the look she’d given me out of my head. She felt bad for me. For me! Ha, that was a riot. The more I thought about it, the more enraged I became. It was like one of those crimes of passion deals. I had to very passionately show her that her pity wasn’t welcome.
So while everyone was at lunch yesterday, I went to Mulberry with some computer closet questions. She cheerfully led me to the small space. Dr. M always says to seize opportunities. And hello? She hadn’t even screamed. But she did ruin my dress. Blood was such a bitch to get out of silk. Still, she’d gone without a fight. Typical Mulberry. She was weak, just like Sarah said.
I’d done it, I killed her, but it didn’t feel like I had. You know that feeling? Like when you unplug your flatiron but then aren’t sure you did? I remembered killing Mulberry and changing my clothes. But it all felt so far away from this moment with Sarah so close to my side.
Sometimes it felt like I was sleepwalking through life, and what I did (or didn’t do) was a vague blur I couldn’t put my finger on. But that’s normal, right? Maybe my meds were messing with me. Anyway, Mulberry was dead. She’d never pity me again. That’s all that mattered.
“Death by accessories,” Sarah muttered. Was she going to tweet that?
“Killer shoes,” I whispered back. She giggled.
“Fashion victim,” she practically cackled, snapping a photo before the officers shooed us away.
“Ladies, we need to speak to anyone who worked with Mulberry and saw her yesterday,” one police guy said. He was wearing a suit, so he must have been a detective. Detectives always wear suits. At least, that’s how it worked on Law & Order SVU. This guy was no Elliot Stabler, but damn if he wasn’t hot. He looked like a Calvin Klein model. No, beefier. Like one of the Chanel models. (Karl totally liked some muscle on his guys.) I could stare at him all day.
“Sarah and Anya probably saw her,” I heard someone pipe up. It was a girl in credits. You know in magazines when there are those impossible-to-read captions listing the clothing pictured and where to buy them? Those are credits. It was some unlucky girl’s job to do them for each issue. This girl was dressed in the identical outfit Sarah wore the day before.
“Fuck,” Sarah said under her breath. “Yep, we’re here!” Bright, perfect teeth flashing. You could practically see the sparkle bouncing off her pearly whites.
“Great, let’s go somew
here to talk,” Hot Detective said.
“The small conference room is available,” I offered. He looked me in the eyes. This was one of those detective tricks, those moments where they test your mettle. Younger Anya may have fallen for some of them, but I was smarter now. I was not taking the fall for Mulberry. God he was really hot. It was shallow and lame, but a pretty face can do almost anything. Look at Sarah. She practically got away with murder all the time.
I blushed and stammered. He had really intense green eyes. “I-I mean, we can go there.”
“Easy, Anya, don’t melt into a puddle.” Sarah laughed. I could kill her.
I smiled and led them both to the room.
“Can I get you a drink or something, Detective . . . ?”
“Hopper. And no, I’m fine. So you’re—”
“Sarah Taft,” Sarah interjected. She was easy in these situations. So calm. I needed to be more like her. Bounce the hair, smile, beam. She never got rattled.
“That would make you Anya.”
“Anya St. Clair.” I practically mumbled it.
“Anya’s our social reject.” Sarah laughed again. “So, Detective, what can we tell you?”
“When did you last see Mulberry von Gratz?”
“Well, yesterday when she tripped and fell and Anya dragged her away.”
Was she trying to make me look guilty? WTF, Sarah? This was not how BFFs behave. I wanted to smash her face into the glass conference table to shut her up. Teach her a lesson. Now I had to tell everyone what really happened. Detective Hopper’s green eyes turned to me. Did you know that only 2 percent of the world has green eyes? This man was a fucking rarity staring at me.
“You dragged her away?” he asked.
I sighed. “No. Mulberry was wearing those vintage Marc Jacobs shoes and couldn’t walk in them. She tripped and went flying in the hall near our desks—and just lay there. For, like, ever. And you just can’t do that here. If you trip, get up. If Celia saw her like that, she’d be fired.” My explanation had to make sense, right?
“Oh, so fired,” Sarah chimed in.
“So I made her get up. I told her to stop crying and get back to her desk.” Later I bashed those ugly shoes into her face. Nobody pities me. “I think she went to the bathroom or something to pull herself together.”
“Did you see her after that?” I shook my head. “And where did you go after?”
“I came back to bring Lauren White, the publicist, into Celia’s office. That’s what Mulberry was supposed to do before she fell.”
“And can anyone verify that?”
“Oh, I can. I was there,” Sarah said, smiling.
Okay, I wouldn’t smash her face in. Maybe I’d just give her a bad haircut. And then keep her hair for a wig. I imagined myself with Sarah’s perfectly highlighted locks. I looked amazing—in my head.
“So did anyone see Mulberry after she went to the bathroom?”
“I wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest. I don’t think I saw her later, at least I don’t remember seeing her. Maybe she was too embarrassed by how she acted and knew she was going to be fired so she hid in the ladies’ room? Celia hates it when assistants act out.”
“God, she so does.” Sarah couldn’t resist.
“Did Celia find out about the scene in the hall?” A lock of his dark-brown hair—it was nearly black, but, really, no way could it be black-black. Was he that perfect?—fell in his face. I wanted to touch it. Smell it. Make tiny dolls with it. Shit, what if he and Sarah had perfectly cheekboned babies together? The hair on their kids alone would be world changing.
“Maybe?” I shrugged. “Lauren could have told her about it in their meeting.”
“Did anyone have it in for Mulberry?”
“That idiot?” Sarah snorted. I elbowed her in her ribs. “Sorry, it’s just that she wasn’t very bright, and it’s not like she was going to work here for long. None of Celia’s assistants do. They all leave. No one’s ever lasted a full year.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, Celia’s kind of tough to work for. She usually just fires you, and if she doesn’t, you quit,” I said. “But Mulberry was hanging in there, sort of.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a model?” Sarah said suddenly, pouring on the charm.
“Uh, no, but thanks, Ms. Taft.”
* * *
The talk around the proverbial water cooler (a.k.a. the green juice delivery bag) was that no one could believe what had happened. Surely there had to be security camera footage of it. (“Wait, no, they only film the hallway with the fashion closet,” Dalia reminded us.) And was Sarah going to post that photo she snapped?
“Oh, God no! I was just curious. That’d be so gauche.”
“But how hot was that cop? What did he want with you guys?” Evie asked.
“So many questions, right, Anya?”
I nodded. “Ugh, that was so annoying. I can’t believe you asked him if he was a model!”
“No, I said he looked like one. Whatevs, he did.”
Dalia laughed, Evie filed her nails. An uncomfortable silence grew. We all scrolled through our phones.
“Hey, Sarah, I thought you weren’t posting that photo?” I asked.
“I’m not, why?”
“Because it’s up. And come on, the hashtag?” #FashionVictim. It was funny when she said it, but on Instagram? Tacky.
“I didn’t post it! Take it down! Someone help me!”
“W-T-F?” I gasped. “It’s been reposted and faved like a thousand times. You’re in such deep shit.” This was better than smashing her head into a table.
“Seriously, that is messed up, Sarah,” Evie clucked. “What if her family sees that?”
“God, for real,” Dalia added.
“I didn’t post it!” Sarah yelled. “Fuck this, I’m getting a mani.”
The day passed in eerie silence after she left, which was more than welcome. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, avoiding the Murder Hallway and police tape. That’s what we were calling it now. Celia spoke with the police from her home on East Sixty-Second Street. Apparently it was all “too much” for her, and she was taking the rest of the week off.
Everyone assumed the murderer was someone from the messenger service.
“They, like, hate us!” Evie moaned to us when Sarah came back. (Her nails were pink and silver.) The only reason people thought that was because most of the guys weren’t white. The unspoken—and spoken—racism of magazine land, where the masthead was all pretty white girls and the support staff was everyone else.
“Jesus, you’re so white, it hurts,” I said.
“Thanks!” She was that white. Her skin was the color of curdled cottage cheese. But Dr. M always said to pick your battles, and this one wasn’t going to be won.
“Whatever, I just don’t think anyone from the messenger center did it. It has to be someone who knew Mulberry.” I watched Sarah’s face. I wanted to impress her. She looked concerned.
“What do the police think?” Evie asked.
The police. They’d asked us all the questions, but they never offered us up any info. I needed to change that. I needed to know what they knew.
“Let’s go get froyo from downstairs!” Dalia suggested cheerfully.
“Um, that’s all sugar and chemicals. We’re organic now,” Sarah chastised.
I nodded. “Green juice?”
“O-M-G, totes.”
* * *
If it bleeds while wearing designer shoes, it goddamned leads. The news of Mulberry von Gratz’s demise didn’t take long to spread. It wasn’t that people were particularly devastated by her death; it was just such a juicy story. A beautiful, rich kid dead? Murdered while working at a fashion magazine? “Fashion Victim!” was splashed all over the New York Post the next day, along with a story about how awful the death was, how beloved Mulberry was, and all that bullshit—including a mention of the cold fashion bitch who Instagrammed the body.
Social
media got in on the effort, and #PrayforMulberry was trending in New York, Ibiza, and Biarritz (where she’d gone to school). I almost choked on my coffee when I saw that one. A bit too late to pray for her, guys. #FashionVictim was also trending. Twitter was full of vicious bitches. No such thing as too soon in this business.
And all this because Mulberry wanted to pity me. She wanted to show she was better than me. Pity means people look down on you. Well, I showed her. That weakling. She was so damn useless. She couldn’t fetch anything. And that’s what assistants did. They fetched. Coffee. Shoes. Xanax. Whatever we needed. She could have gone on to be anything: a stylist, a consultant, a trophy wife. But she gave up in that hallway.
Sarah was right. Mulberry was a weakling. Sarah was always right. I’d done this for her. She had to love me now. I flashed to our police interview. Sarah telling the detective details about me. Her hair was shining even under the fluorescent lighting. (Maybe I should get a wig.) Sarah had to love me. BFF meant loyalty. She would have to learn that. I’d have to teach her. Help her.
Too bad about Mulberry’s shoes. They were cute, in a conceptual way. And now, no one could ever wear them without thinking killer shoes. Maybe I did the world a favor?
4
Mulberry’s funeral was held a few days later. It had the same solemn air as before a major fashion show. Hushed chatter, lots of pinched faces. Mulberry hadn’t received this much ink for anything while she lived—unless the mother-daughter spreads from when she was a toddler counted.
Everyone dressed in their best event attire. Fashion event, not normal event. I even wore Alexander McQueen, this season. (Sarah laughed at me. “You don’t have to be so damned goth!”) The entire event went off without a hitch, except for the police presence. They stood out in the crowd, their suits rumpled, the pant legs too long. (Why don’t men use tailors anymore? Even a cheap suit looks chic when fixed up.) The lone exception was Detective Hopper.
I felt his eyes on me throughout the service. Shit. Anya. He knows. I was bracing myself to be led away in cuffs, a scene in front of the entire industry. (Seriously, everyone showed up to Mulberry’s funeral. She really would have thanked me.) When Detective Hopper made his way over to me, I started to hold my wrists out. He shot me a puzzled look.