The Accidental Diva

by Tia Williams

  Her parents were constantly trying to get her to chill out, relax, “live in the moment,” but she just couldn’t. Billie possessed some quality that made her push herself, harder and harder. When she was nine, the migraines started. Marie and James tried every natural remedy they could find, everything from acupuncture to aromatherapy rubs, but nothing worked. Finally, they buckled and took her to a neurologist. The neurologist told her she had to chill out, relax, “live in the moment.”

  When Billie was thirteen, she became privately fascinated by the way her features were coming together. While her parents were out, Billie would sit at her mother’s vanity and make herself up. She got really good at it. With makeup on, she looked so much like her mother it was frightening. Billie would pretend to be her. She’d say things like “Have anuthuh sherry, bey” to the mirror, and bat her eyes. Twirling a curl, she’d try to look sensuous and earthy. Then she’d cry, mascara running down her cheeks. She looked like her mother (she had even inherited her petite, busty figure), but she wasn’t her. She couldn’t do it right; she didn’t have that “thing.” She was stiff where her mother was liquid. This realization made young Billie feel awful—and even worse, dull. She knew she was pretty, but felt it was a waste because she didn’t have a pretty-girl personality. She had the personality of Alex P. Keaton.

  At school, almost all the boys had crushes on her, but they terrified her. She didn’t know how to flirt, so she developed a sort of cool, aloof look to scare them away. In high school, Billie was finally asked out by a well-dressed, smart boy named Grant. Marie and James were thrilled their Billie was emerging from her shell, and when Grant arrived to pick her up, James presented him with a condom. Grant took her to dinner at Red Lobster, where he began to cry all over his popcorn shrimp, as he confessed to her that he was gay. He’d asked her out because he wanted to prove to his father that he was a real man. Billie was mortified, but agreed to stop by his house to meet his parents. After that, she came to terms with being an unlovable virgin forever. At least she had brains.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Azucena del Sol event was being held to launch its new holistic skincare line, developed by Chinese herbologists. The magic ingredient in the cleansers and creams was crushed green tea leaves, the next beauty cure-all. In keeping with the Chinese theme, the event was being held at Double Happiness, a trendy, microscopic lounge down in the farthest reaches of Chinatown. Despite the Chinese association, it was a curious choice—a speakeasy for Williamsburg-bound artsy types, known for its after-hours seaminess.

  Billie rushed through the unmarked door and down to the underground entrance, ten minutes late, head pounding. Thankfully, the luncheon hadn’t started yet. At the double-doored entrance, a junior public relations girl gave Billie a spirited air kiss and a name tag. Billie Burke, Du Jour. After five years of countless name tags, Billie still got a private thrill at seeing her name next to that of the most prestigious fashion magazine in the world.

  Squeezed into the tight space were fifteen or so editors mingling with Azucena bigwigs amid tiny cocktail tables covered in green velvet. Each table was adorned with a basket crammed with green tea bags and the new products. Perched in front of each place setting were seating assignment cards, the names painted in careful emerald green calligraphy. Eastern music was whining softly in the background. Two Asian men in sparkly green cummerbunds wove through the small crowd, offering glasses of a clear green liquid.

  Billie entered the room and was immediately targeted by one of the sparkly men. “Iced green tea?” he offered.

  “Yes, thanks,” she said, taking the glass and a small sip. “Mmm!” She nodded for the man’s benefit. He looked at her blankly, as if to say, “I didn’t make the tea,” then smiled and moved on. Billie put on her party face and entered the throng.

  Billie had known most of these “girls” (as women in the beauty and fashion industries were called) for what felt like an eternity. Since there were only a fixed number of beauty editorial positions, and the only way to increase your salary was to hop from one magazine to another, most of them had worked together at some point. The ones who hadn’t saw each other often enough at events. Boyfriends, secrets, and clothes were exchanged freely. It was a sorority.

  For many of them, no one else in the world, besides each other, even really understood what they did for a living. Really, how could some honest-working doctor or teacher put a finger on the importance of dictating beauty trends? A typical day in the life of a beauty editor: Open more than a dozen packages from beauty companies, filled with their newest products. Put everything on a shelf in the “beauty closet” and survey the goods. Decide what’s worth writing about. Look for a common theme, like purple eyeshadows or perfumes that smell like food. Label these as trends. Throw extraneous products, or ones too ugly to photograph, in the “giveaway bin,” much to the excitement of the perk-less members of the features department. Simultaneously, edit articles for the current issue (three months in advance), write articles for the next issue, and generate ideas for the next-next issue. Disrupt the days with at least one event, assigning the less important events to the girls lower on the masthead.

  In the world of beauty editors, so many free products are tossed around, most of their bathrooms resemble Sephora. They’re groomed for free—manicures, pedicures, haircuts, facials, massages, the beauty gamut—eyebrows are pefectly arched, skin is flawless, laugh lines are BOTOXed. It’s impossible to tell what anyone’s real hair texture or color is, as everyone has a perfect blowout and golden highlights. Their uniforms are skintight Seven jeans, Jimmy Choo or Manolo stilettos, a flowy blouse by Chloé or Marc Jacobs, and a major bag—either by Gucci, Prada, or Fendi. They’ve all seen each other’s G-stringed asses at designer sample sales (invite only).

  None of them wear makeup.

  And only four are black. Besides Billie, there is Trina Stark, the veteran beauty director of Radiance (the pioneering magazine for black women that was launched in the seventies), her associate, Zoe Smith, and her assistant, Mimi Hamm. All of them stick out very unlike a sore thumb. They are fabulous, fabulous, every time they are seen, just in case anyone might think for a second that they can’t hang with this crowd. It is a subconscious relief to the others, who are happy to be spared the uncomfortable feeling of mingling with a girl who is not only black but all wrong.

  “Hiiii! Oh my God, where have you been?” said Vogue’s Kim Woods, who gave Billie an air kiss and a broad smile. She was a gorgeous redhead with a slight lisp. Kim had worked as the associate beauty writer at Du Jour back when Billie was the assistant. Paige had hated her speech impediment and made life hell for her. Once, in a department meeting, Kim was explaining to Paige why she thought the “new metallic nail polith thould be covered in Dethember.” Paige made a big show of wiping Kim’s spit off her Chanel cable-knit, and Kim disappeared the next day. She went on to have a solid career at Vogue, and was the beauty correspondent on cable’s Fashion Network (where her soft lisp went over big in a Melanie Griffith, baby-sexy kind of way).

  “I’ve been chained to my desk,” said Billie. This was her stock cocktail chatter line. “You know how insane it is over there.”

  “Oh my God, I know. How’th Beige?”

  “Seldom seen,” Billie said lightly.

  “Oh, honey, I know that bitch’s got you working your ath off.”

  Billie rolled her eyes in agreement but said nothing. She knew how easily gossip got back to people. Paige really could be a bitch, but she was a powerful, smart bitch, and over the years Billie had won her over. Paige either loved you or hated you, and if she loved you, the world was yours. If she hated you, she threw bagels at you and told industry execs you were a whore.

  Billie changed the subject. “Okay, so tell me you’ve picked a date, Kim. It’s been six months, already!” Kim loved to talk about her long engagement, and Billie knew this would
open the flood-gates. Now she could just nod and look interested without having to talk. Her head was killing her.

  “Oh my God, I know. But his mother’th an equethtrian and we have to plan around her riding thchedule, and you know I couldn’t care leth about her goddamn hortheth…” Billie clucked and shook her head, surreptitiously surveying the crowd. She caught the eye of Trina from Radiance, who saw that Billie was being talked to death and shot her a sympathetic look. Trina was chatting with socialite Pilar del Sol, creative director of Azucena del Sol.

  “A Du Jour and Vogue sandwich!” Billie and Kim were intercepted by Cosmopolitan’s Monica Van Arsdale, who’d just arrived. “My fucking wet dream. How are you, sweetie?” Monica gave Billie an air kiss, and then Kim. She was an aristocratic-looking brunette who liked to shock herself with her filthy mouth.

  “It looks like a leprechaun shat all over this room,” she said.

  “I know. It’th like, we get the whole green thing, already. And who dethided to do thith all the way down here when we all work in midtown?”

  “And Fashion Week, no less! We’re hardly in the office as it is.”

  “Thank God they sent a car,” said bored Billie for the second time that day.

  “The gift bag better fucking rock,” said Monica. It was standard to complain about the tackiness and inconvenience of these events. “Speaking of bags, I adore yours, Billie! I fucking hate you; you’re always so well accessorized.”

  “Oh, well, we do what we can,” she replied, mock-haughtily. Kim giggled.

  “How’s the tea?” asked Monica.

  “Nontoxic. Here comes the waiter.”

  “No, I can’t have tea or coffee for one week. I just had my teeth whitened.”

  “Really? Thmile,” demanded Kim. Monica smiled, and her teeth were indeed white. Blue-white.

  “It’s for a story on how to primp for your wedding. What do you think? I don’t look like Denise Richards, do I?”

  “No,” promised Billie. Fearless, freebie-loving Monica was always the first to try the new treatments. “You look incredible. Kim, you should do it. Not that your teeth aren’t white, but it’d be nice for your wedding….” The conversation was exhausting. Billie had tons of writing to do at the office, and this was a spectacular waste of time. And her head. To her relief, Pilar caught her eye and enthusiastically motioned for her to come over. Billie told the girls she’d be right back and inched her way over to the bigwig.

  “Billie!” cried Pilar.

  “Pilar!” cried Billie. Air kiss.

  “You look fabulous as usual. I swear, you just get prettier and prettier every time I see you. I could kill you! Couldn’t you just kill her, Trina?”

  “Never resort to violence, dear. How are you, doll?” The always classy forty-five-year-old gave Billie a kiss on the cheek, the first sincere gesture of the day. She always wore her auburn-streaked hair slicked behind her ears, showing a pair of formidable cheekbones. She glided, rather than walked. When Billie first had started out, Trina had taken her under her wing. She’d invited Billie to her palatial Westchester home, given her advice, and generally become a kind of mentor. Billie adored her.

  “Good, good. You know, busy as ever!” Billie tucked her hair behind her ear and tried to look fetchingly flustered.

  “I’m sure. You wrote almost all the beauty features last month. You little superstar,” gushed Pilar. “And how’s my Paige?” They’d known each other at Brearley, the tony private school on the Upper East Side.

  “Oh, you know, Paige is always good. She told me to give you a great big mwah, by the way.”

  “We must all have drinks sometime,” said Pilar. She paused and clasped her hands under her chin. “Oh, Billie, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see your name crawling up the masthead. And thank you for placing our All Day Long All Day Strong lipsticks in the July issue. That was huge. A really, really key placement for us.”

  Everyone wanted their products featured on the pages of Du Jour. “Please!” said Billie. “Don’t thank me, Pilar. The lipstick speaks for itself.”

  “No, Billie. You speak for the lipstick.” Pilar had her hand over her heart and spoke most emphatically. Earnest tears were in her eyes. Billie restrained an urge to yell, “Cut!”

  “How did you find the shows this week?” asked Trina, who clearly had to speak to keep from guffawing. “I’ve been kind of underwhelmed so far. But we’ve got Sam C. tonight, who almost never disappoints.”

  “The New York shows are really becoming pedestrian, what with all the junior lines launching,” said Pilar. “It’s really all about the London fashion week now, I think. That’s where the real creativity is, what with Galliano and that adorable Stella McCartney.”

  Just then, Alma Levy, the publicist for Azucena, asked everyone to take their seats. Billie was at a table with editors from Mademoiselle, Glamour, Elle, and Seventeen. As the sparkly men served the wonton soup, Alma introduced to the editors Dr. Wei Hung, the herbologist, who explained why green tea was the quintessential skincare ingredient. He then asked the editors to sample the products on their tables, while he discussed the technology that made each one so special. His accent was opaque. The editors spread cream and sprayed toner on their hands. They oohed and ahhed in ecstasy. They were all slightly embarrassed and overacting because they couldn’t understand a thing the doctor was saying.

  Then it was all over. No one had touched the spring rolls but Billie.

  They were each given a gift bag topped with a green satin ribbon, then said their goodbyes and filed out into the unseasonably warm September air to their waiting cars, which had been circling the teeming Chinatown block for the past hour. The beauty bunch had lots of package opening and article writing to do.

  Within the safe haven of the Lincoln Town Car, Billie let out a huge sigh. She looked at her watch. It was 1:30. It would take forever to go forty blocks uptown in the hideous lunchtime traffic.

  She dug around in her handbag for her migraine pain medication. Once she located the bottle of Percocet, she dry-swallowed a capsule and settled back into the noisy leather seat. She closed her eyes, breathed slowly, and waited for the familiar fuzzy-numbness to fill her head. She tried to relax, but couldn’t help reviewing her mental to-do list.

  She had to finish writing the profile on celebrity stylist John Barrett’s new salon for December. Then she had to look at Sandy’s Q and A with Bobbi Brown. Fuck, that would need lots of editing—Sandy was a competent writer, but she wouldn’t know a good interview if it exploded in her face. Most important, she had to remember to bring home the bag of fragrances for her January perfume roundup. The piece had to be perfect, because this year she wanted to win a FiFi, the Fragrance Foundation’s award for excellence. So she’d work on it at home, where she could really concentrate, instead of in the raucous office.

  Billie was very, very dedicated to her work.

  Billie also hadn’t had sex in five years. She was wound tighter than 400-thread-count sheets.

  She’d lost her virginity at Duke University. The second she stepped on campus, her life as she knew it in high school changed abruptly. Athletes! Football and basketball players were a world apart from high school boys. They were self-confident, smug, even. They had cars, muscles, and frat-boy attitudes. They were gorgeous and sexy and couldn’t care less about Billie’s whole aloof thing. These boys weren’t scared of Billie because they could get any pretty girl they wanted. Eventually, Billie fell in love with a tall football player with deep brown skin so smooth it appeared to have been mixed in a bowl. His name was Shawn and he didn’t care if she could flirt or not. He didn’t care, period. Quarterbacks were supposed to have a pretty girl on their arm. Shawn introduced her to things like tongues and orgasms, which distracted her from the fact that he could never remember her last name.

  When they’d been dat
ing a year and he didn’t know she worked for the newspaper, she started to get worried. When a local preteen delivered his child their junior year, she was horrified. Back to the books. She hadn’t had a boyfriend since then. Every now and then she went on a date, but nothing serious. The problem was, she wasn’t confident enough in her own appeal to approach a man. So she had to wait for them to approach her. And the men who did were the super-obnoxious ones that wanted a showpiece. She was used to being alone, so she stayed that way. And worked her ass off.

  Billie yawned. Her headache was ebbing away, and she was beginning to feel floaty-good. She realized she hadn’t opened her gift bag. She untied the ribbon and sifted through layers of green (Jesus!) tissue paper, and found a forest-green suede Fendi baguette. She was used to extravagant gifts, but this was ridiculous. A Fendi baguette handbag was, like, $750. Inside the handbag was a new Azucena cleanser, a fussily wrapped bag of loose green tea leaves, green laminated chopsticks, and a mah-jongg set. Incredible. Who thought of this stuff? She wondered if she could exchange the baguette for one in a different color, but that seemed tacky. The giveaway bin, maybe?

  Her fingers instinctively floated up to her throbbing temples. She yawned again, and returned to her mental to-do list. When could she sleep? Not until at least ten. She had to wrap everything up in the office by eight, and then walk the two short blocks to the Bryant Park tents. Here, the top designers were showing their spring 2000 collections (spring was always shown in September of the previous year, so editors had time to place the fashions in their magazines). She would skip the Sam C. afterparty and go to sleep. Vida would be very persuasive, but she’d have to be stern with her friend of almost ten years.