Beauty Hurts

by Rowan Hanlon

  Celeste watched as she sat down on the other chair beside Amy. “No on the Jacob Anvil,” she told her.

  “I thought we were going to do something different,” Liza said.

  “Not for that issue, we’re not,” she replied. “Get Dior or whatever. No newbies.”

  Liza didn’t even argue; she just conceded with a loud sigh and a nod of the head, as Celeste knew she would. It was, as always, Celeste’s way or the highway. So, it was Celeste’s way and Celeste quite liked that.

  “Well, I won’t push it,” Liza said. “That would be about as productive as trying to get a model to eat breakfast.” She stood to exit.

  “Wait,” Celeste said. “I want you to attend that Givens’ party in my place.”

  “When is it?”

  Celeste glanced at Amy who said, “Tonight.”

  “Tonight? Seriously?” Liza asked and threw her hands up in frustration.

  “Seriously,” Celeste said.

  “Okay, but you owe me one,” she replied and started to leave the room.

  “Oh, Liza?” Celeste called. “Don’t drink too much. It doesn’t look good for the magazine.”

  Liza stopped and stared at her with a mixture of hurt and annoyance. “Celeste, that was uncalled for.”

  “Was it?” Celeste asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Liza threw her a hateful look and left the room. Celeste went back to her computer.

  “If that’s all,” Amy said and stood. “I’ll get back to my desk.”

  Celeste nodded at her and Amy exited the room, passing by Kael who was just then knocking on the open door. Celeste looked up to see her, wondering what she wanted. Then, as always, she noticed her outfit—cropped black leather jacket on top of an oversized bright pink t-shirt which was tied off with what she would call a “vintage” woven brown leather belt. The black leggings were partially covered with very expensive black leather riding boots that went almost to her knees. Oversized gold hoops, lots of beaded bracelets and a vintage gold watch completed the look. Celeste shuddered. She hated the way she dressed.

  “Can I come in?” Kael asked as she entered the room.

  “Well, you’re already in,” Celeste told her, hoping she didn’t want anything. She just didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s problems right then.

  “Right,” Kael said and gave her a small smile. She stopped in front of her desk but didn’t sit down. “Anyway, I heard that Carla is going away for maternity leave soon.”

  This was news to Celeste. When did this happen and why didn’t anyone ever tell her these things? She shook her head and stared at Kael, feeling even more annoyance rise up in her. How did she get pregnant? And how old was she? This just didn’t make sense. She forced herself to give Kael a tight smile and say, as smoothly as she muster, “She is?”

  Kael nodded.

  Celeste felt herself freeze at this news. Why was it always someone else and never her? She felt like the girl who never got asked to the dance, even though she always had been. Why could she not succeed at this? She cleared her throat and tried to sound nonchalant, though the news of someone else’s impending pregnancy threw her off a bit, “When did she get pregnant?”

  “About six or seven months ago, I guess,” Kael replied flippantly. “She’s pretty big. You haven’t noticed?”

  Celeste thought about it. No, she just thought she’d gotten fat. Although, she had noticed she was eating more in the office, something Celeste loathed. She hated the idea of crumbs of any kind being on any surface other than a plate which should be on top of a dining table or a kitchen counter. It was just uncouth.

  “I almost wonder if she’s having twins or something, maybe even octuplets,” Kael said and laughed a little at her joke. When Celeste gave her a stony look, she straightened up and said, “I mean, I don’t know her due date or anything, but she looks like she’s ready to pop. I mean, she’s not yet, but she will be soon. At least it looks that way.”

  Celeste shook off all the feelings and said, “Oh. So, what is it? What do you want?”

  “Well, what I wanted to know is if I could possibly take over for her while she’s gone.”

  “Why? Do you hope she doesn’t return?”

  Kael was noticeably taken aback. “No! It’s not that. It’s just that I want to go more editorial and I think this would be a great opportunity to show Haute Woman what I have to offer.”

  “No,” Celeste said. “Stay in features.”

  “But I want a shot at another department,” Kael said, giving her a look like she could not believe how opposed Celeste was to her request.

  “And I’m saying no,” Celeste said, knowing why she was turning her down and the reason was that she was jealous that yet another person she knew was pregnant and going to have a baby and she didn’t know if it was ever going to happen for her. Kael was just the innocent bystander, a way to shoot the messenger. It wasn’t fair, but that’s how Celeste operated.

  They stared at each other for a long moment before Kael shook her head in confusion and irritation. “I just think I would like go to another department sometime.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon,” Celeste said, eying her with slight derision. “Just stay where you are right now.”

  “But I want to become an editor,” Kael said.

  “Are you saying you want my job?” Celeste asked, almost laughing at the imbecile’s ego.

  Kael was aghast for a moment, then sighed. “Well, yeah, I’d like to have your job someday—when you retire, I mean.”

  “When I retire?” Celeste asked and shook her head. How old did this little bitch think she was? Not old enough to retire, that was for certain. She stared her dead in the eye and told her, “That’s not going to happen anytime soon, Kael. I’m not that old. Now, get back to work.”

  Kael stared at her in disbelief. Celeste dismissed her with a shake of her head. Kael nodded at Celeste in frustration and backed out of the office. As soon as she was gone, Celeste looked up, then stared down at the place on the rug where Kael had been. She noticed the two indentions from the young woman’s boots and that annoyed her.

  And this was how Kael got on Celeste’s radar.

  * * * * *

  “I can’t stand that bitch!” Kael hissed. “It not like I asked to take over her job.”

  Victoria, her very pretty red-headed co-worker and after-work drinks buddy, stared at her. “Well, that’s true,” she said. “But you have to know that she is good at what she does. There is a method to her madness.”

  “Madness being the operative word,” Kael said and crossed her arms, fuming. She stared around her tiny office and became even angrier. It was just too small for one person let alone two. Just having a visitor was enough to make her want to run out and Victoria wasn’t even sitting down; she was just leaning against Kael’s desk because she didn’t even have space for an extra chair. It was just too claustrophobic. She had to get out of this office and into a better one and the only way to do that was via a promotion of some sort. She was being treated no better than an intern! And that pissed her off.

  “You got that right,” Victoria said and laughed.

  “She’s so old-fashioned,” Kael said. “That’s what she is. And she won’t even put a new designer on the cover! That’s stupid. People buy this stupid magazine to see new designers!”

  “Really?” Victoria said with a raised eyebrow. “I thought they just bought it to look at all the pretty pictures.”

  “Or read the articles,” Kael said and grinned at her.

  “Well, I am a staff writer, so I should like to think so,” she replied.

  Kael calmed down a little and laughed. Victoria was always so good at making her see the silliness of working somewhere like Haute Woman. While Kael didn’t believe she took her job too seriously, Victoria didn’t take it seriously at all. Sometimes Kael was jealous of that fact, too. Like, why couldn’t she just let things go
like Victoria did? Why couldn’t she just do her job, go home, have ridiculously hot sex with her handsome fiancé and then go to bed at night happy? She didn’t know. Well, she did. It was ambition. Kael was filled with loads and loads of unfulfilled ambition.

  “Oh, shit, what time is it?” Victoria said suddenly and checked her watch. “Don’t you have your engagement party tonight?”

  Kael stared at her for a moment in panic. “Fuck! I forgot!” She jumped up and then stopped, remembering something very important that she had forgotten. “Double fuck!”

  “What is it?”

  “I forgot to buy a dress!” she exclaimed then got an idea. “Do you think I could get something out of the closet?”

  Victoria seemed to think about it for a second then said, “Sure, just make sure to bring it back in mint condition.”

  Kael grinned. This was why she loved working for a magazine.

  A little later, Kael was living every woman’s fantasy—going through the closet of a major fashion magazine for an outfit. She went through the racks of clothes like it was a boutique, trying to find the perfect dress. She threw several things to the side before she came upon a gorgeous silver sequined mini. Well, it would be a mini on a model, but on her shorter frame, it would be a dress. Wow. W-o-w, wow. It was perfect and she was so glad she could fit into the sample size. She grinned and raced over to the shoes and grabbed a pair, then her bag and coat, before heading out to the elevator.

  Kael was just pulling on her coat and trying to juggle her big black work bag, the dress and the shoes when she dropped the whole lot. As she bent over to pick everything up, Celeste, who had been walking past on her way out, stopped in front of her, crossed her arms and stared down at her.

  Kael noticed her pointy, black and ultra expensive stilettos before she looked up at Celeste. She gave her a weak smile and said, “Oh, sorry,” as she stood. “I forgot to buy a dress for my engagement party. It’s tonight. I sent you an e-vite.”

  Celeste just stared at her.

  “You know, an e-vite,” Kael said, laughing slightly. “No paper, less carbon footprint kind of thing?”

  “I am aware of what an e-vite is, Kael,” Celeste said. “I just didn’t get it.”

  “Oh,” Kael replied. “Well, you can still come. My loft is in Tribeca and—”

  “No, thank you,” Celeste said, cutting her off. “But congratulations on your impending nuptials. I am sure you’ll be very happy.”

  The way she said it sounded like Celeste was actually wishing that she would never be happy and that creeped her out. But then again, there was something about Celeste that creeped her out. She could never quite put her finger on it, but something about the woman just wasn’t right. Never had been.

  “I just wasn’t aware,” Celeste continued. “That you were getting married.”

  Kael nodded vigorously. “Yeah, in June. Anyway, I know we’re not supposed to borrow things from the closet but—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Celeste said, cutting her off and glancing at the elevator as if she just wanted to be on her way home and done with this conversation. “Enjoy your party.”

  She turned and exited onto the elevator without even giving Kael the chance to ask her to hold it for her. Kael stared after her, wondering what her deal was. There was something in her demeanor that roused her suspicious. And the way she had “congratulated” her on her “impending nuptials” was cold as ice. But then again, it was Celeste and she was about as warm and fuzzy as a porcupine. So, Kael let it go and headed off to her engagement party.

  The Engagement Party

  The engagement party was in full force about an hour after it began. Pizzicato Five’s Twiggy/Twiggy/Twiggy Vs. James Bond was playing in the background not only because it was one of Kael’s fiancé’s favorite songs, but because it was such an obscure, good tune. It gave the already festive atmosphere a little bit of a hip edge. The theme was ironic Hawaiian and every one of the hundred or so guests were wearing leis. There were tikis everywhere and big, exotic looking plants. A long buffet table set up by the catering company was situated along the entire length of the over-sized loft, which was decorated in typical hipster meets downtown chic style. It was huge and filled with expensive furniture which was rustic, sometimes vintage, sometimes modern but ultimately cool—very Anthropologie. Kael had painstakingly decorated it with little help from her fiancé, who mostly just nodded with approval at whatever she wanted to do.

  The exotic foods the buffet featured were being gobbled up by the guests who also drank fruity tropical drinks out of coconuts topped with tiny umbrellas. Kael had planned the party for months, down to the last detail of the gift bags featuring dried coconut and dancing hula girls. Nothing had been overlooked, except for her party dress, which she’d forgotten to buy. But the sequined mini number she’d scored from the closet more than made up for that and everyone complimented her on her style. Yeah, she knew she looked good, having swept her platinum blonde hair up into a sixties style updo that was slightly messy yet so, so chic. And the retro cocktail ring—a huge, beautiful turquoise stunner borrowed from her future mother-in-law—only lent to Kael’s effortless but hip yet elegant style. There was a reason she went into the magazine world and that reason was because she loved fashion. She knew she was stylish and she knew she could be a trendsetter and some day, some way, it would be her ideas strewn across the pages of a glossy high fashion magazine. She hoped that magazine would be Haute Woman.

  But the magazine was the furthest thing from her mind right then. More than anything, she was thinking about her future husband who stood by her side, his strong arm encircling her waist. Every so often, his hand would give her ass a soft tap, letting her know that while the room was full of rich, beautiful, young and hip people, he thought she was the best of the bunch. She occasionally returned the favor as they stood at the front entrance of their loft and greeted their guests.

  Kael couldn’t help but smile up at all six-foot of her dark-haired, blue eyed dreamboat of a fiancé. Nick was the catch of a lifetime and how she’d gotten so very lucky to have caught him was still beyond her comprehension. Kael didn’t come from his Ivy-league background and she certainly didn’t attend the best boarding schools as he had. She’d never played lacrosse or even gone to a lacrosse game. A few years ago, she’d never even heard of his family name, Colquhoun, or their business, which had an “inc” at the end of it. But they were the upper echelon of society that not only ran a high-powered company, but even helped run the country, too. They were an institution with dark wood paneled country homes, penthouses in all the major cities of the world and vacation homes in the tropics that boosted well-worn wood floors just feet from sandy white beaches and sparklingly ocean waters. The good thing was, Nick was down-to-earth, didn’t have a snobby bone in his body—his mother had raised him well—and had a genuine infatuation and love for his young, modish and beautiful fiancée. While Kael thought she’d landed the man most women only dreamt about, he thought the same, and probably with even more resolution. They were a perfect fit, a prefect pair and looked forward to beautiful babies, holidays with a large, extended family and a bright, bright future together.

  “Oh, there you were!” Kael squealed just as Victoria entered with her boyfriend, Joe.

  “Hey, girl!” Victoria squealed as the two young women embraced. “You remember my boyfriend, right?”

  Kael smiled and held out her hand to him. “Of course. How are you, Joe?”

  “You can do better than that,” he said and pulled her into a deep, friendly hug. After a moment of this, he pulled back and put his arm around Victoria.

  Kael grew slightly embarrassed and laughed, then grinned at Nick, who smiled back, then gave Joe a curious look.

  “Love the retro music!” Joe exclaimed.

  “It was Nick’s idea,” Kael told him and nodded at Nick.

  Nick shook his head and said, “It’s not really retro. It’s Shib
uya-kei—Japanese lounge pop.”

  Kael stared at him then exclaimed, “God, you are such a dork!” Then she laughed and gave him a big kiss on the cheek before turning to Victoria and Joe. “But I love him!”

  Everyone laughed as Kael ruffled Nick’s hair and gave him another kiss on the cheek.

  “I just like music,” Nick said and shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “It comes with being so smart, I guess,” Kael told them, grinning. “Nothing gets past this guy.”

  Victoria and Joe laughed just as Nick’s parents, Muffy and John, entered the room. Kael saw them immediately and smiled, waving them over. She loved that while they were very upper-crust, old money types, they were still so down-to-earth they’d attend a faux luau. She also loved that Muffy’s jewelry room—yes, room—was always open to her.

  “Let’s get one of those drinks,” Joe said and pointed at a coconut.

  “See you later,” Victoria said as she and Joe headed to the bar.

  “Hello, soon to be in-laws!” Kael exclaimed and gave Muffy and John each a quick but firm hug. They hugged her back before pulling back and surveying the overcrowded and loud room.

  “Oh, my,” Muffy said and tossed her perfectly styled shoulder length blonde hair. “This is some party.”

  “We didn’t want a stuffy party at the Four Seasons, Mom,” Nick told her. “This is how we roll.”

  Kael cracked up at him. “‘How we roll’? Listen to him. All that hip lingo!”

  Nick blushed but grinned good-naturedly.

  “I’ve almost ruined him, Muffy!” Kael said and smiled at him. “He’ll never be the same. If you want him back, now is the time to take him home!” She looked back at Muffy and John then noticed, once again, that whenever they were around, no one ever interrupted them. She wondered briefly what it would be like to command that much respect.

  “Oh, and why should we do that?” Muffy said and beamed at Nick, obviously very proud of her only child. “He’d just slip out and come home to you.”