Blood Is the New Black

by Valerie Stivers

  When Reese leaves, the silence in our closet-slash-office is thicker than Pringle cashmere. I glance at my coworkers. Rachel is pink with anger. Nin looks depressed. They’ve both dressed up, in case a last-minute invitation came through.

  “It’s nespotism, pure and simple,” Nin snaps.

  I’ll assume she means nepotism.

  “Alrighty, then,” I say. I look into the garment bag. The dress is made of light blue taffeta and has a jewel-encrusted burlap string wrapped around the waist. I love it. “I guess I’ll just go put this on.”

  ANNABEL AND I rush through the great vaulted hall of Grand Central Station. Noticing my craning neck—the misty-blue, star-spangled ceiling in here is really incredible—she wraps a conspiratorial arm around my waist. “It’s a nice place, isn’t it?”

  I’m over-awed. Most kids who grow up upstate start taking the train into the city in their teens, but Eva’s growing fascination with Manhattan made me shun it.

  “I never expected it to be so beautiful,” I confide.

  “The longer you live here, the better New York gets. Imagine flying along the tops of buildings. The gargoyle’s-eye view of the Upper West Side is incredible.”

  She hadn’t struck me as the fanciful type. To be polite I say, “That sounds amazing!”

  Beaming, she squeezes my arm. “You’ll see.”

  I’m both flattered and uneasy by her new-best-friend act. It will be interesting to see how we get along over the weekend at my dad’s house. I’ve already tried to talk her out of coming with, to no avail.

  We step into Carnivoré, Lillian’s favorite steakhouse, which, I have just learned, is located off the main concourse. Big slabs of bloody sirloin seem like an odd choice for a plastic surgery fund-raiser. For the moment, the guests are crammed into the bar area for cocktail hour. The dining room—a sea of white-clothed tables with huge flower arrangements—is still roped off. The place is ear-splittingly loud and choked with the intermingled scents of perfume, product, and cigarette smoke. Annabel snuggles closer to me and whispers, “Smile.” I manage to get my mouth closed just in time for the barrage of flashbulbs that goes off.

  “Why do they want my picture?”

  Annabel rolls her eyes. “The junior paparazzi guys take pictures of everyone. They sort out who’s famous later.”

  We thread through the crowd. Annabel whispers a litany of names to me. The magazine’s newfound cachet since Lillian took over (and changed the name from Shop Girl to Tasty) has brought NYC society out in force, and Annabel has a keen eye for celeb spotting. She points out a pair of New York–based filmmakers, a supermarket magnate whose private jet is America’s premiere party scene, and Lindsay Lohan—though that one I would have gotten on my own. LiLo is leaner, smaller, and more lizardy-looking in person. I can’t help but stop to stare. And then I see James, camera in hand, walk up to her and say something in her ear, one hand on her bare arm. Lindsay giggles and lets him take a couple of shots.

  “Kate! Come on!” Annabel pulls me by the arm. “We have mingling to do.”

  Disturbed, I push after Annabel. Lillian is seated across the room in a deep circular banquette. “Why isn’t she mingling?” I say directly into Annabel’s ear. “She shouldn’t be sitting in a corner.”

  “She’s depressed.” Annabel waves her hand dismissively. “Sometimes she tries to leave these things early, which is a disaster from a PR perspective. Anthea Ferrari called Lauren about it last time.”

  My heart goes out to Lillian. Maybe I should go talk to her.

  I duck under an upraised catering tray, trying to get across the room. The party is packed, however, and I find myself separated from Annabel, stuck behind two women, one of whom is wearing shorty pajamas stamped with the Louis Vuitton logo.

  “Over a decade in the public eye and she hasn’t changed at all!” one is yelling to the other.

  “She looks exactly like she did in the early nineties!” the other one agrees. “I always thought it was airbrushing but it isn’t!”

  I peer over their shoulders to discover that they are talking about Kate Moss, who is just a few feet away, scowling and puffing on a cigarette.

  “Paris Hilton doesn’t age, either,” the shorty-pajamas girl observes. “And neither does Nicole Kidman. Celebrities are so lucky.”

  I use my elbows to squash by these two into an area of the bar that seems even more crowded than the first. A woman with elaborate medusa-like loops of black hair bellows to her male neighbor, “It wasn’t just the atelier. There have been four suspicious deaths at Barneys this year—”

  “Not four! Two! And they were suicides. Young women driven to despair by the price of shoes.”

  “I heard that someone went into the dressing room in Eveningwear, put on an Yves Saint Laurent ball gown, and slit her wrists. There was blood everywhere.”

  “That was a shoot, darling. Someone is pulling your leg. A maverick stylist did it for W—and Barneys got stuck with the bill.”

  A perspiring waiter forces his way through the crowd, holding a tray high above his head. I take my chance, following on his heels until at last I reach the table where Lillian is sitting, propped corpse-like in a corner with a blank expression.

  Kristen, Shane, and several other editors whom I vaguely recognize cluster around her, trying to seem lively. Reese Malapin hovers nearby, watching the senior staff with the oddest expression on her face—half-loathing, half-longing.

  Feeling nervous, I walk up to the table. I’m not sure how I’ll create an invitation to sit down if everyone ignores me, but fortunately Lillian notices me. “Make room for Kate,” she says, signaling the people on the end. “I have big plans for her. She’s my latest.” I squeeze in on the end of a booth, wondering what kind of plans, and latest what. (And feeling rather pleased that I’ve scored a seat at this table.)

  “Kate,” Lillian says, “you know Shane Lincoln-Shane, our art director.”

  Beside Shane is the hip-hop star Trey, who saves awkwardness by introducing himself, though of course I already know his name.

  Lillian continues smoothly, “This is Noë Childs, the beauty editor.”

  I say hello and murmur that we’ve met to Noë, who isn’t wearing her painted-on freckles tonight.

  “Kate and I go way back,” Kristen Drane says when it’s her turn for the introduction. From the looks of her blond mane, you’d think she hasn’t bathed in days—very Marc Jacobs ad (the designer, not the dog, of course).

  The French twins are named Josephine and Mary-Catherine (Marika). They nod in acknowledgment of me without doing something as egregiously friendly as actually speaking.

  A waitress arrives to take our order.

  “Another round of Bloody Marys for the table,” Lillian commands.

  The fabulosity index is so high I’m having a hard time breathing. Or maybe it’s all the illegal cigarette smoke indoors.

  I catch sight of James through the crowd once again. This time he’s talking to a tall girl with thick, bright-red shoulder-length hair and what’s known anatomically speaking as a great rack. I don’t like the easy way she touches him as they talk.

  The waitress returns, carrying a tray laden with pint glasses of red drink.

  “Do you know what the secret ingredient in a Carnivoré Bloody Mary is, Kate?” Lillian asks. “Fresh blood.”

  The waitress puts one down in front of each of us.

  “Blood. Ha-ha.” Is she kidding?

  My coworkers slam down their cocktails like hardened alcoholics. Seven pairs of kohl-rimmed eyes swing toward me. My untouched drink takes on new significance as a hot commodity.

  “Try it, Kate,” Lillian says. “I think you’ll like it very, very much.”

  I seize my Bloody Mary and drink. It burns going down. “I can’t even taste the blood,” I announce.

  My coworkers find this hilarious. With a drink inside me, I start to feel confident—or foolish—enough to leap into the conversation.

  “People in the
crowd are talking about the fashion murders,” I say to the table at large. “I guess there’s been one at Barneys.”

  Dead silence falls at the table.

  I’m regretting opening my mouth when Trey breaks the ice.

  “I hear they found this girl backstage at Joe’s Pub, and she was all bloody and shit.” He nods, looking satisfied.

  Shane speaks softly but nonetheless his voice cuts through the ambient noise. “It’s all the violence in fashion shoots these days. We seem to be sending the message that it’s chic to go on a rampant killing spree. Which, of course, will bring us unwelcome publicity.” His tone is pointed.

  “Don’t you think you’re blaming the victim?” one of the twins—I’ve already forgotten which is which—asks. “Fashion people are the ones being murdered.”

  “I didn’t think there was such a thing as unwelcome publicity,” Kristen Drane jokes.

  “These murders bring suspicion on everyone,” Shane says, looking at Lillian. “I’ve worked hard to get where I am. I do not want it all destroyed by the actions of a disturbed individual.”

  Lillian scans the crowd, not seeming to pay attention. “People are murdered in New York every day,” she says. “There aren’t any ‘fashion murders.’ Just simple murders. It’s nothing for us to worry about.”

  Noë jumps in quickly to agree with Lillian. “Fashion can be somewhat self-centered. Maybe it’s not even about us.”

  Lillian sighs, as if the conversation is infinitely boring. “Kate,” she says. “Go tell that young man from Photo to come over here and get a few pictures of us.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  I know perfectly well who she means.

  “James, of course,” Lillian says. “Handsome young man. Brown hair. Lavender button-down.”

  Lillian thinks James is handsome? She knows what he’s wearing?

  I find him without difficulty. He’s aiming a camera the size of Manhattan at some girls sporting the “robot” look. His cheek is dark-stubbly and the lightweight, lavender cotton shirt covering his just-right, wide-but-not-too-wide shoulders is creased and untucked. He looks insanely hot.

  “Hi,” I say. “Lillian wants you to come over and take our pictures.”

  “Kate!” he says warmly. “How did you get in here? Let me see this dress!”

  “They borrowed it from Marni for me,” I say. “I’m a seat-filler.”

  “Let me get a photograph.” He stands back from me a few feet and shoots from the chest, without lifting the camera. “One more.” From a pocket, he unearths a digital camera and takes a few snaps from different angles, never looking through the viewfinder. “The digital ones are for me.”

  Why does he want a picture of me?

  “Can I see?” I ask.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Girls want their photos to be pretty. But I’m not trying to take glamour shots.”

  “Trust me,” I say, “I don’t expect to look pretty.” And then I regret it, because he probably thinks I’m fishing for a compliment.

  I take the camera. Every shot is a super-close-up. Half of my face. My arm and part of my torso. The hem of my blue taffeta dress, thighs, and knees. The random framing captures equally random parts of other people in the crowd, including, in one, a slice of the redhead I saw him talking to earlier. “I love how you get the feeling of the crowd,” I tell him.

  “Thanks,” he says. “It’s something I’ve been working on.”

  I smile. He smiles back at me and there’s the sense of both of us wanting to say something else. Then he slips past me toward Lillian’s table, briefly resting his hand on my waist as he does so.

  FOR THE sit-down dinner, Lillian is at a table with celebrities, as befits her rank, and I’m in social Siberia, as befits mine.

  On one side of my place, marked by a card with a whimsical cartoon scalpel, is an empty chair. On the other is a down-to-earth-looking lone brunette wearing an Indian tunic-dress, almost definitely made by child slave labor, but I’m betting she didn’t think about that when she bought it. Three empty martini glasses line the table in front of her.

  I order another Bloody Mary from a passing waiter.

  “Do you have a light?” the brunette asks me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’m probably the only person in here who doesn’t smoke.”

  “I’m Beverly Grant. I’m a researcher. And you’re Kate McGraw, the new chew toy.”

  Aunt Vic says a woman should never respond to anonymous correspondence, electronic winks, or insults from drunks. I turn my head to watch as a boisterous party of four, talking amongst themselves, takes seats on the other side of the table from us.

  “I’ll bet you can’t wait to be made into one of them,” Beverly says, and takes a big slug of her martini.

  I shrug and smile. I wish that seat on my left weren’t empty. The name card says Gary Elders. I wish Gary would turn up so I’d have someone else to talk to. But whoever he is, Gary must be at a better party than ours tonight because he hasn’t shown by the time the waiters bring around the first course. Beverly and I sit uncomfortably side by side without talking to each other. Then she turns to me. “I saw you give me that fashion-bitch evil eye when you walked over here, but you know what? Whatever. I don’t care about your standards.”

  My standards? Who am I, Diana Vreeland?

  I should know better than to try to reason with a drunk and belligerent person—but I can’t help myself.

  “I was looking at your top and wondering who made it because Indian tunics like the one you’re wearing are usually made in sweatshops. I always wonder if people know that when they buy them. I’m sorry I gave you a look. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “You care about shwetshops,” she slurs.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Me too. I care, too.” She pushes her bleary-eyed face into mine. “You’re okay. I like you.” She wraps an arm around my neck and repeats, “I like her,” to the table at large. No one pays any attention to us.

  “Waiter!” She grabs a passing attendant and orders another martini.

  “Are you sure you want that?” I ask.

  “Never been more sure of anything. I’ll tell you a she-cret. I’m scared shitless. That’s where Mr. Martini comes in.”

  She focuses, with difficulty, on me. “Have you noticed,” she asks, “that there is something very wrong with our coworkers? Something not right with the glamorous inner circle you’re becoming a part of? They don’t eat. They drink only crimson fluids. They’re skinny, pale, nocturnal, glamorous, look great in black. What are they?”

  “Models,” I say, and laugh.

  She doesn’t look amused.

  The penny drops. “Oh, are you talking about that StakeOut stuff?” I ask her. “I don’t think that’s funny.”

  “It’s not meant to be funny. Itsh all true.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. Though she doesn’t sound like she’s kidding.

  She’s leaning in close to me now, and her voice has dropped.

  “You seem nice, even if you are their new best friend. So I’m going to tell you something I shouldn’t.”

  I wait. It worries me that Beverly is starting to sound more sober.

  “Lillian Hall is a vampire. She came over from Europe, and she brought most of the staff with her. They are all dead. They are all hundreds of years old. They kill people to remain eternally youthful. And when they meet somebody new who they want in their club, they kill her by sucking the blood out of her body, and then they do some kind of presto-chango and turn her into a vampire, too.”

  She takes a slug of her drink. “Think about it. Have you ever seen them eat? Or drink anything that’s not blood-based? Or use the toilet? I can promise you, no one has ever taken a piss in the executive bathroom.”

  I don’t know what to say to her. She has access to the executive bathroom?

  “I’ve been doing research. I’ve discovered a string of un
explained deaths plaguing people in the fashion industry. People get sick and pale. Their hair and skin become fragile. Sometimes they develop strange cravings for inedible objects like clay and paper—”

  “It’s called pica,” I say absently. “It’s a sign of acute anemia. And also spoon nails, when the person’s nails invert and turn into tiny spoons.”

  She keeps talking without indicating that she has heard me. “The other stuff all makes sense now, because these sick people are the vampires’ prey.”

  I feel light-headed. A slug of the Bloody Mary only increases my disorientation. I don’t believe in the vampire theory for a second. Beverly Grant, unfortunately, is cracked. It’s amazing to me that even in modern times people come up with quasi-sensible mythologies to explain medical mysteries.

  “How incredible,” I say aloud.

  “You don’t believe me?” she asks.

  “Well, no,” I admit.

  “Okay, look.” Beverly lifts up her long dark hair to expose her neck and collarbone area. “When those bloodsuckers you think are your new friends bite you, they get you here”—she indicates her neck. “And sometimes here, here, or here.” She taps her wrists, the spot where the deep blood-bearing veins run across the stomach, and the great saphenous vein in the groin. “The reason that I’m drinking all these martinis—the reason I’m so scared—is because I think someone on staff knows I’m onto her. I am in perfect health. And you saw that I don’t have any marks on me. But if I turn up like that little dog—yes, I know all about it—you’ll know what’s happened.”

  Beverly is swaying in her chair and we haven’t even reached the dessert course.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you.” I put my arm around her shoulder and try to be reassuring. “Besides a hangover, that is.”

  “You don’t think so?” she asks. “I’m scared. I think they’ve been monitoring my e-mails. And sometimes, at night, I feel like someone is following me.”

  “I definitely don’t think so. And tonight I’ll put you in a taxi.”