Sweet Muse

by Ava Cummings

  Fidgeting with the cuticle of my left middle finger, I cast my head down to my hands and retreat into my own private safety zone, tuning out the shouts and shoves, hoping to make my way to the front of the line in due time.

  “Starr!” Startled, I look up.

  “Anna! Hey, girl! What are you doing waiting in line? Come with us!”

  Max, Bella, and Fabio are next to me. Instantly, Bella links her arm through mine and pulls me out of the line. I squeeze her arm and smile—relieved to see a familiar face. As wild as these three may be, their genuine warmth comforts me, and I’m happy to have made what seems like a few new friends.

  Max, with his confident swagger, long dreads, and slick Euro-style suit, herds Bella, Fabio, and me through the crowd up to the velvet ropes. He and the bouncer hug like old friends; Max whispers something in his ear, and the velvet rope parts before us.

  Inside, a wall of heat hits me like a tsunami: a stale humidity created by too many bodies moving in one place. A former railroad freight terminal, with the original train tracks actually embedded in the main dance floor, the Tunnel is cavernous. Women in booty shorts and bras dance in cages suspended from the ceiling, as throngs of people move like one giant amoeba on a packed dance floor.

  Max leads us up to the VIP room overlooking the masses on the main floor. The hostess seats us, and the drinks start flowing. A steady stream of beautiful people approach Max, shaking his hand and chatting him up like he’s the mayor.

  Like a hopeful child, I look around for Damien, but it’s a sea of slicked-back hair and expensive suits. My heart sinks a little. As I silently berate myself for getting hung up on a guy I don’t even know, Max taps me on the shoulder. He nods down at his hand, where there’s a tiny mound of white powder.

  It would be so easy to just reach my hand out, making that loose fist the way Bella taught me.

  But I shake my head and wave off his offer.

  “C’mon, Starr, we’re partying. It’s the Versace after-party. This place is hot!”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I give him my most genuine farm-girl smile.

  “When you’re with us, you party, girl. This is New York style. This is how we roll,” he says, nodding his head, as his dreads swing about. Max fully embodies the energy of this city. He gets people moving, doling out his positive, unencumbered vibe to everyone in the room.

  He pushes a bump on his hand toward me, and smiles, as he sways in his seat to the music. In the dim club, surrounded by thumping music and flashing lights, I’m totally removed from reality, and the possibility that anything could happen is overpoweringly sexy. Like a drug itself, the feeling of possibility lures me toward it and the sense of freedom, even if false or fleeting, that it would provide. I reach out for Max’s hand.

  Then the pounding bassline pauses for a microsecond. Although barely even a beat of silence, it’s enough for a sliver of clarity to shine through. I push Max’s hand away.

  As I take a sip of my drink, Max moves away and hands Bella and Fabio each a little white pill. They pop them into their mouths and swallow them down. Max leans over, handing me one.

  “What is it?”

  “X, girl. Totally pure.”

  Bella leans over. “It’s my last night here. I fly back to Milan tomorrow. I need you to party with me tonight!”

  The lure of being part of their exclusive club is intoxicating. I’ve always wanted to feel like I belong, to be one of the popular kids. In high school, I was well liked but always fighting to keep up.

  “Have you ever done it?” asks Bella.

  I shake my head no, silenced by my insecurities—scared they’ll decide they don’t like me if I turn it down. Part of me wants to let the drugs remove me from reality like they did last night, giving me a respite from the crushing weight of my job and the tape that constantly runs in my head, recounting all the things that are wrong in my life. I have every reason to do it, I rationalize to myself, what with everything that happened today. Maybe this is the price of admission into this crowd.

  “Oh my God, you have to, then. It’s the most fun ever—total freedom!”

  “Come on, Starr. Come party with us,” Max says, laughing with Bella.

  “I have to pee first. Dying,” I say and jump out of the banquette. I need a moment.

  Walking through the cavernous club, I pass a maze of rooms, each with its own theme—a Victorian library that looks chill, an S&M dungeon full of young guys with vinyl pants and pierced nipples, and the trippy “Lava Lounge,” splattered floor to ceiling with neon paint that glows under black lights, looking like one of Jackson Pollock’s famous paintings on steroids, blown out to cover a room, including all the furniture.

  I continue in search of a bathroom. As I round another corner, I see a girl lying on a dingy green pleather couch, covered in a sheen of sweat, eyes closed, head lolling back and forth.

  People stream by without noticing or stopping—too caught up in the drama of their own worlds.

  “You okay?” I lean down, putting my face level with hers.

  She sort of comes to but is clearly on the edge. I flag a guy walking by and plead with him to get her a glass of water.

  “Where are your friends?”

  She shrugs. “Lost them.”

  She looks like she’s just out of college—this could just as easily have been me. It hits me that all my hopes could vanish in an instant, with one pop of a pill or bump of coke. My mind reels back to my conversation with Max and Bella. I put a misplaced trust in them just because…what? Because they’re higher up the New York food chain?

  “You took too much of something. Do you remember what it was?”

  After a long pause, she says “X,” her voice weak, as she drifts in and out of consciousness like an engine on the fritz, intermittently starting up and shutting down.

  Water. It’s all I can think of. When you’ve had too much alcohol, it helps, and she’s sweating and hot to the touch. I would want someone to do the same for me.

  “You need to drink water. Got to rehydrate. We’ll get you some in a sec.”

  She nods her head almost imperceptibly.

  “Are your friends still here?” I ask, looking around in hopes of seeing someone nearby or heading our way with help.

  Another shrug.

  “Do you live in the city?”

  She nods. “Upper East Side.”

  I keep talking to prevent her from slipping into unconsciousness—asking where she’s from, what she does, what she had for dinner. Anything to keep her with me.

  Finally, the guy I’d flagged down earlier comes back, carrying two big glasses filled with ice water. Hallelujah! I could kiss him.

  “Thank you!” I reach up, take a glass in each hand, and give him a big smile, letting out a small sigh of relief.

  “Gotta get back with my friends. But good luck,” he says before rushing off.

  For the next ten minutes, I make the girl on the couch take sips of water, until she’s drained both glasses.

  Even in the unbearable heat of the club, goose bumps pepper the skin of my arms. Finally, the girl starts to sit up.

  “You one of Eric’s friends?”

  “No…I found you here, looking not so great, when I was on my way to the bathroom.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You needed a hand.”

  “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come by.” She moves to get up and sinks down again. “Gotta get in a cab…get home.”

  “Here, put your arm around my shoulder. Let’s share a cab.”

  I look over my shoulder, back at the VIP room. Through throngs of people, I make out Bella standing on the banquette, dancing wildly. All around me, I see more people with glazed expressions.

  I turn around, hoist the girl up, and walk out, with her stumbling alongside me.

  “Thank you again so much,” she says.

  I help her into a cab and climb in after her. I didn’t get a news story tonight, but I decide t
hat I’ll get in to work extra early tomorrow morning and go through the images, and pull a fashion story together to pitch to Bernie.

  “I’m gonna pay it forward,” says the girl lolling on the seat next to me. “I swear. The next time I see someone in need, instead of just walking by, I’m going to stop and help.”

  A shiver runs through me. She was a sign, a warning. I refuse to become another casualty of New York City—one more young, innocent country girl who comes here looking for success but gets in with the wrong crowd and finds that her story ends there.

  I’m going to make it here, I tell myself, just like Aunt Sylvie. I want to make my mark. I want to be…significant.

  5

  The Playboy

  I’m the first to arrive at Michael’s, and the hostess leads me to the table. Me—I’m having lunch where media moguls rub shoulders with publishing insiders over delicately poached salmon and enormous Cobb salads. So I don’t get seated at the notorious “Table One,” but it’s smack dab near the center of the room.

  Swallowing down a large serving of nerves, I manage to eek out an order for a Diet Coke from a very nice waitress. A guy at the table crammed in next to me shoots over an annoyed look, and I notice my foot’s been tapping in methodical nonstop motion. I nod an apology and look around expectantly, surveying the scene and hoping no one else from Celeb is here to report back to Bernie.

  Twenty minutes go by, and I guzzle several more sodas and check my watch for the millionth time. I sneaked out of the office while Bernie was having her weekly lunch in Ty Oldenhouse’s office. I’m clear for now, but if I’m not back in my seat by 12:59 p.m., exactly thirty-nine minutes from now, she will have a clinical breakdown.

  Bernie was not happy about the Versace party. I managed to pull together a “Long and Lean” fashion trend story from the pictures—all the stars wore floor-length gowns. Her response was barely lukewarm.

  My insecurity grows with each passing minute, to the point where I convince myself that meeting the infamous editor of The New York Reporter’s Page 10, the city’s premiere gossip column, was all a massive mistake. I’d met him at a movie premiere the previous week. Well, “met” might not be wholly accurate; “stalked” is more like it. But I used my honest farm-girl charm to work myself into Daniel Woodward’s good graces. He’s famously slimy, with a reputation for hitting on young editors, but I figure I’m tough, and this could be my break. Working for him would officially make me a real reporter.

  It takes all my willpower to stop myself from chewing my fingernails. To keep my hands occupied, I take out a printout of the story I’m working on and start editing it, telling myself I’ll wait another ten minutes.

  Just after 12:30, Daniel blasts through the door. In a light gray bespoke suit and crisp white shirt, he has a certain aristocratic handsomeness. He’s in his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a strong jaw and cheekbones, almost too perfect. He breezes over, every inch the suave and debonair media mogul.

  He leans in to give me the double air-kiss, and I can smell his cologne as he presses his lips against my cheeks. I’m slightly taken aback but return the gesture, doing my best to keep my nerves in check and not knock over my drink or accidentally grab the tablecloth. I wonder if people are eyeing us, taking mental notes, and if I will walk in to Celeb in twenty-nine minutes to a big “You’re fired” from Bernie.

  “Hi, Anna. So sorry I’m late. Closing the section, and something came up. I got here as quickly as I could,” he says as he sits down.

  He smiles at me, looks into my eyes, and holds my gaze for a beat too long.

  “Hi, Mr. Woodward,” I manage to get out. My mouth has completely dried up. I reach for my soda, keeping my hand steady.

  “Come on, Anna. It’s Daniel.”

  “Hi, Daniel,” I say, as if following orders, smiling pleasantly.

  “Great dress,” he says. “Bernie always does hire the hottest assistants.” He shakes his head.

  An awkward pause ensues—awkward for me, anyway. I wish he’d look up at my eyes. My dress is not that low cut.

  “So, how do you like working for Bernie?”

  “It’s great. I’m learning so much from her. She’s tough, but I can handle it. And she can write a headline like no one else.”

  “Like no one else?” asks Daniel, teasingly.

  “Let me correct myself,” I say, smiling, conceding the point. “Like no one except you.”

  “Okay, you got the requisite nice stuff out of the way. Be honest, Anna. We’re off the record here. Bernie is tough to work for. She runs the place like a factory, and she’s always changing the lineup at the last minute.”

  “Honestly, I like the pace of it all,” I say. Even if we’re off the record, my comments could end up as a blind item in tomorrow’s column. All the gossip columnists who hang out here operate on a very loose set of values. “Does she have her moments? Yes. But we all do. I know she has a lot of enemies, but she hired me. Gave me my first break in publishing. I’m forever indebted.”

  “When you put it that way…Well, without her, I would never have had this lunch with you, so maybe I’m indebted to her, too,” he says, flirtatiously.

  “I suppose so,” I say softly, looking down. I thought this was a job interview, of sorts, and he keeps leering at me like I’m an Easter ham just pulled from the oven.

  We quickly scarf down sandwiches and have yet to talk about a job. He says that one of his nightlife reporters has to drop by to get an assignment from him. He apologizes, but explains that there’s a hot tip he needs to look into for tomorrow’s column. Booking a meeting over our meeting? As I try to recover, feeling like the dirt on the bottom of his shoe, I see a tall, shaggy-haired hottie in a blazer stride over to our table. My breath hitches and my hand flies to my mouth when he pulls up a free chair and sits down.

  “Jesse, this is Anna Starr, Bernie’s latest addition. Anna, this is Jesse Martin, my prized night crawler,” says Daniel.

  “Hey, Anna,” says Jesse, with a casual, self-assured air, as though he knows me already. “I’ve heard your name. I know Chelsea Peters over at Celeb and Brendan Thomas, your photo editor. We went to Andover together.”

  I knew it. He had prep school written all over him. A pang of envy lurches through me. To come from that world—where a map of connections is laid out for you and there’s an instant camaraderie of shared experience and background—eases every interaction.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to gather my wits. Sweat starts coming out of every pore and I fidget in my seat. I can feel heat rushing up to my cheeks and know that they’re red. “I’ve read your stuff. Nice item on that banker last week and his affair with his daughter’s best friend—who happened to be a guy! I don’t know how you managed to get that one.”

  “All in a day’s work, milady,” he says, in a mock English accent, cocking his head and raising one eyebrow. This guy is cocky. Devastatingly cute, but so cocky.

  Daniel sees someone he knows at a nearby table and excuses himself to say hello.

  “Hey,” Jesse continues. “Are you going to the Von Buren party tonight? Gonna be a good crowd, and his shindigs are always crazy—great fodder for news items. You should come.”

  My spirits soar. I’ve always wanted to go to one of William Von Buren’s parties. They are legendary—and the hardest invite to get in the city. But this guy is a complete stranger, and he’s just shown up at my lunch with Daniel out of nowhere.

  “I can’t,” I manage to squeeze out, waffling. “I have to, umm…”

  “Wash your hair?” Jesse says, laughing. “Don’t be scared of us old news boys. We don’t bite—not hard, anyway,” he says, as he continues to laugh.

  Nerves and confusion win over, and I lose all sense of the right thing to say—or anything to say, for that matter.

  “You seem like the kind of girl who likes a challenge,” Jesse says, trying a different tack. “I’m going to dare you to go out with me tonight. I’ll personally guarantee you tha
t it will not only be the most fun you’ve ever had, it will also be good for your career.”

  “Well…” I start to say. But I can’t refuse a dare.

  “I’m no stalker,” he assures me. “We’ll meet up beforehand and grab a drink, then head over to the party. When it’s over, I’ll put you in cab back home. Even your mom would be okay with that.”

  “Sure,” I say, trying to keep cool while doing backflips inside. “I mean, yes, I’ll go with you.”

  “Great,” says Jesse. “I’ll meet you at Bar 212 at 10 p.m.”

  “And I dare you to be on time,” I fire back. Two can play at this game.

  We talk shop for another couple of minutes. Daniel rejoins us and briefs Jesse on his assignment as he pays the bill. As we walk out, I say goodbye to Daniel and Jesse awkwardly. Newspapers are old-school holdouts, still run by curmudgeonly newshounds who all run in the good old boys’ network. I decide that Page 10, even if Daniel is interested in hiring me, is not the place for me.

  “See you tonight at 212—and I dare you to find something to wear that’s sexier than that dress,” says Jesse, playfully, flashing me a devilish smile, as he looks me up and down. My God, the gall of this guy is over the top.

  6

  Taking Flight

  To save money, I leave extra time to take the subway. When I arrive at 212 just before 10 p.m., Jesse is already there. My stomach clenches as I take him in, and my hand flies up to my mouth. His hair is still slightly wet and slicked back, his olive skin looks golden, and those Red Tab jeans hang low on his hips in that perfect way.

  “I guess I lost,” he says, playing dejected, as I pull up a stool next to him at the bar. “You’re wearing something hotter than before.”