Throwback Thursday was one of Imogen’s favorite things about Instagram. After Tilly introduced her to the concept of posting a vintage shot once a week she began searching the boxes she kept under her bed for old tear sheets and Polaroids taken backstage at Fashion Weeks and photo shoots over the past twenty years. On Monday she found the perfect picture – a vintage shot, probably twenty years old, of Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista sipping champagne in a bathtub.
The photograph was worn at its glossy edges, one corner ripped cleanly across. In it, the women are giggling. Naomi is covering her face, an eight-carat diamond on her slender finger, crossing over the top of her lips. Christy is half hidden underneath the other women, only a sliver of her beautifully imperfect face peeking through. Half of the photo is a tangle of long legs, unclear where one body ended and the other began. Imogen had taken the picture in a suite at the Ritz after the couture shows in Paris. It was the perfect moment captured with a Polaroid camera and would have been so much more famous if it had been taken today, but before the Internet only a select few people had ever seen this private moment. Imogen snapped a photo of the old picture with her phone and posted it as she sipped her macchiato at Jack’s before heading into the office. ‘One word: SUPERS. #ThrowbackThursday.’ Imogen smiled. She had cracked this whole Insta-shizell game.
‘Such a fun Throwback Thursday, Imogen,’ Natalie, a lovely wisp of a WASP blogger, wearing a cream cable-knit sweater with patches of leather at the elbows on top of teensy black leather leggings and pointy mules, said as she wound her way through the rows of desks.
‘Big thanks, darling. I can’t tell you how much I adored those girls. That was such a fun day. Pop into my office later and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Buzzfeed just reposted it!’
Imogen opened her eyes wide with surprise. ‘Oh my! Is that a good thing?’
‘It’s a great thing. I am sure it will be picked up everywhere. So if it’s okay with you, I’m going to post it on our website.’
‘Of course it’s okay. Let’s make sure we get that traffic.’ Imogen was almost completely positive that she had used the word ‘traffic’ in the right context there. She held up her hand for a high five. Natalie looked at it in confusion for just a second before earnestly going in for the hand slap. Other members of the team looked up from their previously stony silence and smiled at the interaction. Imogen felt a little lighter than she usually did walking through the office. Today would be a good day.
She could see Eve standing at her desk wearing her Google Glass, her eyes furiously darting between her computer screen and her iPhone. Thankfully she didn’t glance up as Imogen walked past, too intent on whatever she was working on. Settled in at her own desk, Imogen checked her Instagram. Her #ThrowbackThursday had 9,872 likes, which was 9,800 more likes than anything else she had ever posted. That Buzzfeed knew what it was doing.
Imogen’s phone pinged. Before she even opened it, Imogen could tell it was part of a group text.
It was a collage of four pictures. In one there were two hands clinking champagne glasses. In another a vase of three dozen or so white roses. Then a close-up of an enormous princess-cut diamond ring and in the fourth there were Andrew and Eve kissing, her left hand touching his cheek in a way that made her diamond perfectly catch the light.
Andrew had proposed to Eve. Eve was marrying Andrew. Eve was marrying Imogen’s ex-boyfriend. Those three thoughts raced through her head before she had time to process that Eve had just sent a photo collage of her engagement to her entire address book. She heard squeals from a contingent of girls over near Eve’s office. Imogen knew she should go over there. The staff would surely judge her if she didn’t, but her legs felt like lead. Since the day she met Alex she hadn’t given a thought to who Andrew would date after her, except that she pitied the poor girl who came next. Andrew was a man she was sure would never completely change, no matter how successful he became, how high an office he achieved. And yet, it was Andrew she now felt protective of. It wasn’t jealousy; it was the nagging feeling that Eve had done this specifically to annoy her. She couldn’t let that idea bubble too close to the surface and she most definitely couldn’t say it out loud to anyone, since it made her seem incredibly self-important. Perhaps this had nothing to do with her. Eve had a thing for powerful older men and Andrew was exactly that. Andrew liked young, clever women. New York City was filled with both of those kinds of people. Either the universe had played a grand trick on her when it brought this couple together or it had somehow been engineered by Eve to make her feel exactly like this. She shook her head and breathed in through her nose. She had waited too long to go in there and shouldn’t wait any longer. Reaching into the mini fridge in her office, Imogen pulled out a bottle of vintage pink Dom Pérignon sent over by Marc Jacobs when she returned to work. About fifteen girls were crowded into Eve’s office admiring her ring.
‘I told him I wanted a giant diamond,’ Eve was telling the girls. ‘It’s my insurance policy. He can’t back out after getting me a ring like this.’ Eve laughed the loudest at her own joke.
Imogen stood outside the glass wall and popped the cork, making sure she pointed it away from Eve, despite the dark thoughts lurking in the back of her mind.
‘Cheers, darling. It looks like we have something to celebrate.’
Eve’s look of surprise pleased Imogen. She had not expected her to come over, had expected her to pout. Imogen was so glad she hadn’t given her the satisfaction.
‘I don’t know if we have proper champagne glasses, but I am sure we can find something to toast Eve and Andrew with. And what a lovely collage you made, Eve. I certainly hope you shared that across our social networks.’ The smile was starting to pain her face, but she managed a joke anyway. ‘And are our readers able to BUY IT NOW?’
‘I did share, Imogen,’ Eve replied shortly, twisting the ring on her finger. ‘I somehow doubt that most of our readers could afford a ring like this, but that isn’t a bad idea. Maybe I’ll put up a few knockoffs.’ She remained taken aback, as if she expected Imogen to club her with the champagne bottle next. She seemed disappointed, like she wanted Imogen to attack.
‘I am going to check the kitchen for some cups.’ Imogen gave a wink to the crowd. ‘No one tweet that we are drinking at the office before ten a.m.!’
Four people tweeted that they were drinking champagne at the office before ten a.m., but Imogen didn’t pay it any mind. She kept going through the motions of being pleased for Eve.
At noon Eve called everyone into the conference room. She placed both palms down on the conference table and Imogen could tell by the way she kept moving her hand around that she was trying to find the perfect angle to achieve the maximum amount of light glinting off her diamond.
‘I want to thank everyone for all of the congratulations this morning,’ Eve started. ‘I can’t say this was really a surprise. I had been expecting this to happen for a few weeks now. I mean … I practically picked this thing out myself. And so I decided to find a way that this wedding can benefit all of us. Andrew and I plan to get married in a month. Literally … one month. I mean … can you even? “How is she going to plan a wedding in one month?” is what I know you’re thinking. “Is she crazy?”’ Eve twirled her index finger clockwise around her right ear in the universal sign for insanity.
‘I assure you I am not nuts. I have a plan. We are going to live-stream my wedding on the Glossy site. How cool is that? Everything that the readers see during the wedding will be available for sale on the site, from the bridesmaids’ dresses to the guests’ dresses and even my dress! They can buy everything right then and there. Can you imagine how cool it will be for a girl sitting at home in Wisconsin looking at her computer screen to feel like she’s a part of a fancy black-tie New York City wedding and then be able to buy a version of anything that she sees? I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but this is just absolutely genius.’
Imogen was trying to think of something to say. It was genius, completely self-aggrandizing, but Imogen had to admit that it was smart – the kind of stunt that would get the app a ton of publicity. Sure, Eve might be criticized by some folks in the media, but this wedding would get her a ton of attention. It was the opposite of what Imogen had wanted on her wedding day.
She and Alex eloped to Morocco and said their actual vows in front of Bridgett and Alex’s brother Geno in the most romantic hotel in the world, La Mamounia in Marrakech. She’d never seen a more handsome man than her future husband, wearing a pale blue linen suit she’d borrowed from Ralph, looking like he belonged in a summer fashion campaign. She walked toward him down the aisle in a beautiful foam-white silk bias-cut dress with skinny spaghetti straps, a design by her friend Vera Wang. On her feet she wore super-high silver sandals and her only accessory was a small diamond ring in an antique art deco setting belonging to Grandmother Marretti. The day was heaven on Earth.
But then, to please her mum, Imogen agreed to a second very small, very intimate London church wedding with about forty of her mother’s friends and neighbors present in a tiny old Chelsea church with ivy-laced walls and a fantastically jolly vicar.
You could see her mother’s house if you craned your neck around the corner.
Imogen was secretly delighted to be able to wear her wedding dress twice. Massimo and Bridgett brought bags and bags of confetti. Her favorite shot of the day was in black and white, confetti everywhere, she and Alex with smiles as wide as the church doors. She didn’t need that picture on an Instagram account. It remained clear and in focus in her mind.
Just tea and sandwiches followed. Alex’s parents joined them, but the rest of his family had absolutely no interest in making the six-hour flight from Queens to London. The real celebrity of the day was the cake, a meringue with whipped cream, covered in whole strawberries. It was Imogen’s dream cake and they spent more on it than they did on the rest of the wedding events combined. For twenty minutes it was the most beautiful cake Imogen had ever seen, five tiers of meringue clouds topped with the ripest strawberries that England had to offer. Everyone oohhhed and ahhhhed over the cake and then turned to take photos of the bride. When they looked back the cake had collapsed inward on itself as if it had been siphoned through a black hole. There was a reason that strawberries don’t top meringue cakes. The acid from the fruit makes the entire thing unstable. Though the cake melted into itself before the newlyweds could cut their first slice, it didn’t stop them from eating it like soup from bowls.
Smiling at the memory, she saw Eve frown in her direction.