Work for Hire

by Margo Karasek

  This was what I expected to find in Monique’s workspace. The closet—if that was the right name for such a warehouse of high fashion—must’ve rivaled those at any major magazine. Hell, with its mahogany floors, Persian rug and climate control—I noted this as I took in a cool breath of air—it rivaled the grandeur and opulence of any five-star hotel. In fact, Xander was stuck in a virtual Taj Mahal.

  But where, I thought as I scanned the room, was he?

  “XANDER?”

  I stepped inside the closet. Julian, who had awoken for the occasion, followed, the locksmith at his heels.

  We stood, all unmoving, all uncertain what to do next.

  “All that effort, and the place is empty? Isn’t that something?” The locksmith, head shaking, spoke my very thoughts.

  I swiveled to look at him; I didn’t need those thoughts vocalized. You can go home now, thank you, I wanted to say. But that seemed rude. And the man looked determined to stay, to see the whole business through with us, even if it was close to four a.m.

  But as I turned, a bundle—a lump of furs and dresses—in the corner caught my eye. I walked towards it. It was just big enough, and was so out of place in the otherwise pristine space.

  I squatted and reached a hand toward it.

  “Xander?”

  The lump moved.

  A mop of black, disheveled hair emerged from the pile of mink, silk and cashmere.

  “Tekla?” Xander rubbed his eyes and ran his tongue along his upper lip. “Yo. What are you doing here?” His voice was hoarse from sleep.

  I sat back on my hunches and exhaled. He was fine—a little pale, with bloodshot eyes—but otherwise okay.

  “Looking for you,” I said and gave him the bottle of water I had taken along with me. After sixteen hours, he had to be thirsty.

  Xander took a big gulp.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  Xander glanced away from me, towards Julian and the locksmith.

  “Fine, I guess,” he said, and turned to refocus on my face. “But I hate Gemma … ”

  “Didn’t you hear us?” Julian demanded from behind me, cutting off his diatribe. “We’ve been banging away on this door for hours.”

  “No,” Xander grumbled. “I finally fell asleep.” He indicated his makeshift bed, the wrinkled pile of Monique’s designer duds.

  “Great,” Julian said, and he reached down to help me up. “Let’s get out of here so we can all get some rest.” He walked towards the door.

  The locksmith moved to get out of his way, and went around the island, toward the corner diagonal to Xander’s.

  “No! Don’t go over there!” Xander screamed out after him.

  Julian paused mid-stride, surprised by the sudden outburst, but the locksmith kept on walking.

  Then he looked down at the floor.

  “Man, that’s nasty,” the locksmith complained, covering his mouth and nose and stepping back.

  I turned back to Xander, and considered his suddenly red face.

  “I had to go,” he mumbled miserably. I still didn’t understand. “At first, you know, it was just pee,” he continued. “But then I got really thirsty, and there was water in the flower vase. But it was kinda funky, and it gave me the runs. There was nowhere else to go.”

  Oh. No bathroom. Obviously.

  “Ahh,” I searched for something to say that wouldn’t further embarrass Xander, or me. Bodily functions were a whole different category, one I didn’t particularly want to explore. “Don’t worry about it, Xander. You had no choice. I’m sure your mom will understand.”

  “MON DIEU! MON DIEU! Mon Dieu!”

  Monique stood in the center of the closet, her face pale, her kohl-lined eyes big and dark, her black hair slicked back in a low bun and her lips bright red—the vibrant scarlet the only touch of color in an otherwise colorless complexion. A black coat draped from her shoulders. It framed the clinging black cashmere pullover sweater and slacks. Her long fingers toyed with the huge diamond ring on her left hand. Nothing on her person—not even a single hair—was out of place. Clearly, even a missing child coundn’t ruffle Monique’s perfect image.

  At five o’clock in the morning, Monique looked stunning, like a glamorous Hollywood goddess from the thirties or forties, ready to step on set.

  She made me—in my old jeans and beat-up sweater—feel like plain Jane.

  I rolled my shoulders, trying to dislodge the sudden sense of physical inferiority.

  Monique and Gemma had arrived at the townhouse just minutes before.

  But unlike her mother, Gemma was rumpled, her clothes wrinkled, her hair undone, her eyes skirting from her mother, to Julian, to me, and to Xander, then back again.

  The locksmith was long gone. Monique had dispatched him with a single glare, the same one she now aimed squarely at Gemma.

  And Gemma, in turn, looked scared.

  “It is ruined!” Monique, her words heavily accented, wailed. “All of this,” she indicated the stacks of clothes and rows of shoes with a vague hand wave, “is now trash!”

  Trash? I eyed the perfectly undamaged dresses. She had to be kidding.

  “Ahh, they look fine to me,” I offered.

  Big mistake. Monique turned on me like a panther about to pounce on her next meal.

  “‘Trash,’” she repeated, her tone one of pure disgust. “You expect Monique Lamont to wear clothes that have, that have … ” she stammered, searching for the right English term, “ … been pooped on?! No!”

  Pooped on?! My jaw dropped. The woman was crazy. Granted, Xander’s accidents were … unappealing. But, all things considered, they weren’t that bad. And understandable.

  Xander had shat in one corner, on the hardwood, as far away from any actual shoes and dresses as his confined surroundings permitted. He had been downright considerate, and no doubt a little soap and water would clean things right up. Moreover, the air conditioning had long ago vented out the worst of the stench.

  Plus, wasn’t Xander her son? It wasn’t like some stranger had broken in and defecated on her best dress. No, it was her child; the same one she must’ve changed at least one diaper for at some point in the past. So, really.

  And hey, I wanted to point out to Monique, you should be happy. Your son, the one you left behind, was okay—a little worse for wear, but otherwise healthy.

  “All these are handmade, one-of-a-kind pieces designed especially for me by Monsieur Nicolas Ghesquiere himself,” Monique moaned. “Works of art. They are irreplaceable. Irreplaceable! How can I ever face him and explain what happened? That my son went all over his original creations. It is so embarrassing. No. Monique Lamont cannot stand such embarrassment.”

  “We can arrange a professional cleanup,” Julian informed her, breaking through her tirade. “It shouldn’t be too hard. They have these crime-scene cleaners that specialize in biological matter. And I can bring in people to re-sand the floors and repaint the walls.”

  “Re-sand and repaint! Êtes vous stupide? How does that solve the problem?” Monique dismissed Julian and his suggestions with a snarl. “Would you fix the Mona Lisa by repainting the Louvre?” she bit out contemptuously.

  Julian shrugged. It’s just clothes, his face seemed to say.

  I had to agree.

  Of all the things Monique could have gotten mad with Xander and Gemma over, her reaction to this offense was wholly out of proportion, especially since she didn’t sound too concerned with Xander’s plight and the suffering he had undergone. And a bunch of bags, shoes and dresses did not a da Vinci make.

  Monique stalked over to Xander.

  “How can you do something so dégoût?” she demanded. “Don’t you know to hold it in?”

  Xander stared through her and said nothing.

  I could barely manage to do the same. The boy was the victim of his parents’ neglect, not the perpetrator here in any sense.

  Next, Monique zeroed in on Gemma.

  “You,” she grabbed Gemma by the
hand. “You evil, evil girl. Fille mauvaise. You did this to me on purpose!”

  My mouth, the one I just managed to shut closed, popped open again. By what convoluted logic had Monique arrived at this conclusion?

  “You did; don’t lie about it,” Monique snarled as she snatched Gemma’s shaking head by the chin. “Your jealousy knows no boundaries. It is not natural for a girl to hate her mother so.”

  Jealousy? Hate? The woman was undeniably insane. If she actually believed what she spoke, she didn’t know her daughter at all. Jealousy and hate? More like blind adoration and hero worship.

  “And why?” Monique raved on. “Because I’m more beau than you’ll ever be; because I’m thinner, taller, more famous; because people actually care about me!”

  Oh God. I whipped my eyes towards Gemma just as Monique’s words slashed through her like a knife slashes through flesh. And the girl bled. With each word, with each additional insult from her mother, she lost more and more color. How could Monique not see? How could she not care?

  Stop! I wanted to shout. But I stayed silent, a stupefied bystander who knows danger is coming, but is too afraid or too shocked, too paralyzed, to step in and prevent the carnage. And Monique kept on going, blindly, angrily, carving away at the very marrow of Gemma’s self-confidence.

  “Well, you win!” she yelled. “Victoire! You want to be me? You want my things? Take them! Take them all, and see if they fit your … your pudgy body. And if they don’t, give them to her,” she indicated me, “or to any other charity, I don’t care. Or put them out on the street. But don’t you ever talk to me again! I will never forgive you for this. Never. As of today, Monique Lamont has no daughter,” she declared and glided out of the closet, leaving the carcass that was Gemma in her wake.

  CHAPTER 24

  “IS MONIQUE serious?” I whispered to Julian after we tiptoed out of the tomb that was now the Lamont townhouse.

  “Probably not,” Julian answered. “She’s really pissed, but she’ll get over it. The clothes are too expensive to throw away. Besides, she wouldn’t let just anyone,” he said as he winked at me, “run around in one-of-a-kind Balenciagas.”

  “No, I mean about what she said to Gemma—about disinheriting her.”

  “Oh that,” Julian scoffed. “Probably not. Stephen won’t let her. Don’t worry about Gemma. She’ll still have all her worldly comforts. Daddy’ll make sure of it.”

  I looked at him, once again the stupefied bystander. That’s not what I meant and you know it, I hoped my face read.

  “Look,” Julian sighed in acceptance, “knowing Monique, she’ll probably ignore Gemma for a couple of weeks. Or months. She is extremely fond of her closet,” Julian snickered. “And then she’ll get over it. Eventually.

  “Actually, it and all the goodies inside are the most important things in her life, so it might take a while. But eventually I’m sure she’ll start talking to Gemma again. Don’t you worry your adorable head with the Lamonts any more than you absolutely need to. They’re not worth the headache.”

  I nodded. He was right, of course. Gemma and Monique’s feud wasn’t really my concern. Still, how could a mother hold a grudge like that in the first place? Not speaking to her daughter for months was insane—just ask my mother.

  Julian glanced down at his wristwatch and whistled.

  “Six in the morning! I hope you’re getting paid well for this,” he said. “I’m going to bill Monique a doozie. Come on,” he said as he grabbed hold of my arm. “Let me get you home.” He hailed a yellow cab, and we were fortunate to get one: the morning rush was just starting.

  “McDougal and West 3rd,” he informed the cabbie who came to a screeching stop in front of us.

  I sank back in the taxi’s seat. With the drama of the night finally over, the adrenaline had worn off and I could barely keep my eyes open.

  “No, wait!” I popped back up in the seat as an unpleasant reminder crept through the fogginess that was my brain. The brief! it screamed. “I can’t go back to the dorm yet. I left all my schoolwork in Brooklyn, at my parents’ house. I have to go there first.” Last night, leaving the brief behind had seemed the better option. I had hours and hours to get back to Brooklyn, but who knew, with all the commotion, where I would misplace the pages if I took them along with me. And, well, I didn’t want to lug around the computer either.

  “Brooklyn?” The cabbie turned around and glowered at Julian and me like he would rather show us the door than drive us anywhere.

  “Yeah, Brooklyn,” Julian, thankfully, glowered back. I didn’t have the energy for another confrontation, especially with a New York City cabbie. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Yeah, man,” the cabbie complained. “I just come from Brooklyn. Don’t need to go there again.”

  “Well, dude,” Julian said, “you picked us up, and as long as our dollar’s green … ”

  The cabbie mumbled for a while, complaining under his breath, while I dozed away, unable to decipher his words. Julian dozed next to me, occasionally running his fingers along the knuckles of my hand resting on the seat between us. And when he did, I smiled. We passed thirty blocks in this peaceful contentment until, through my cracked eyelids, I could just see the Williamsburg Bridge and Brooklyn beyond it.

  Then the taxi stalled.

  “Car broke,” the cabbie said when he turned about, his face wreathed in apologetic smiles.

  “What?” I asked, completely unable to grasp his meaning.

  Julian had no such trouble. “You lying bastard,” he chimed in. “The car was working fine before you heard ‘Brooklyn.’”

  “No, mister,” the cabbie said as he wiggled the key in the ignition. “See, it won’t start again. Sorry. You have to get out now. That will be $22.50.”

  “You must be dreaming,” Julian said as he yanked open the door and stepped out. “You don’t drive us to Brooklyn, you get squat.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, finally regaining my ability to speak. “You can’t do this. It’s illegal. You can’t discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age or travel destination. I can report you to the Taxi and Limousine Commission for this, and you’ll be in lots of trouble.” The man obviously needed a legal education and I would happily give him one. “See?” I said as I pointed to the passenger’s bill of rights plastered to the door, then to the cabbie’s picture ID taped to the Plexiglas partition, as mandated by law. “All I have to do is report your name and ID number here, and they can suspend your taxi license.”

  “You pay me now!” the cabbie yelled after Julian, completely ignoring me. “Or I call the police!”

  “Go ahead and call them, you asshole,” Julian retorted, pulling me out of the cab after him, before I could jot down the cabbie’s personal info—not that I was going to do anything with it anyway but, still, it was the principle of the thing—and slammed the door shut behind us.

  The cabbie flipped us the bird and sped away in a perfectly working vehicle.

  Well.

  “What now?” Julian chuckled. “Want to try another one?”

  I wished I could share his good humor.

  “No,” I said, barely controlling the pout that wanted to break free. Bested by a cabbie … “I’ll take the subway.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Julian laughed, clearly enjoying my discomfort, “we’re kind of far from the nearest station.”

  I looked around. He was right. We were steps away from the bridge, but the nearest train was a hike away. So I caved and tried hailing another taxi. What seemed like hundreds whizzed by us, but none stopped at my extended hand, their “occupied” or “off duty” lights on full display.

  I glanced at my watch. It was 6:45. I had more than two hours to make the round trip. And my father would definitely drive me back straight to the dorm.

  “I’ll walk to the train,” I decided. “Thanks for your help,” I said to Julian, then hesitated. I doubted he would willingly brave the distance with me, and goodbyes could be so awkward.
“I guess I’ll see you later?”

  “Oh no,” Julian responded, not missing a beat. “I insist on taking you home, one way or another. What kind of a gentleman would I be if I let you leave alone after our wild night together?”

  Ahh. How sweet. Sort of. But then I did pout, especially after a vision of my mother glowering at Julian and me, together in the wee hours of the morning, suddenly tangoed into my head. I could just imagine what she would make of that spectacle.

  “That’s not necessary. Really. I’ll be fine on the train. I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

  “Afraid I’ll scare your parents?” Julian flashed his pearly whites so wide, his dimples looked ready to burst. Damn, but he was cute. “Don’t worry, we can skip the introductions. Let’s just say we’ll share a train ride home. My place is on the way anyway, so it’s really no problem. And I could use the protection. All those single ladies on the train scare me.”

  Well, when he puts it that way, I thought, my good humor restored.

  We walked to the station. The train towards Brooklyn was almost empty. I knew it would stay that way until the evening rush, when the mass that was crowding the Manhattan-bound side now made its commute home after a long workday on the island.

  “Tired?” Julian murmured into my ear as I let my eyelids droop closed.

  “No.” I smiled and opened my eyes again. “Thinking.”

  “About?” Julian said, smiling back.

  “Whether you made any progress in finding out who destroyed the digital backs.”