“And you are…?” asked the ice-cold voice as I lingered nervously in the door frame.
“Kira. Your intern. For the summer,” I replied, shuffling back and forth like a three-year-old who had to pee.
“Ugh, I always forget what day you people start,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I swear, sometimes this intern program is more trouble than it’s worth!”
Was it too late to switch to boring fact-checking?
“S-s-sorry” was my tepid response.
“We are a magazine, not a forum for education!” she huffed. “But no matter. Maybe one day you’ll be running this place!”
I smiled hopefully.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA,” she wailed in piercing hyenalike laughter, her head thrown back. I guess she had been joking.
“Have a seat,” CeCe Ward finally said, looking me over and gesturing to an extremely uncomfortable-looking steel stool. Behind CeCe was a wall of model cards, five-by-seven-inch glossies with sexily posed women featuring their agencies’ logos in the lower-right-hand corner: Ford. Wilhelmina. Elite. The models’ names were in bold in the lower-left-hand corner: Esmé. Lila. Eugenia. Zxykasmir.
Face after beautiful face, the girls were at the top of their game, booked in the editorial pages of Skirt to be shot by the best photographers in the world. And all day, and often into the night, CeCe Ward had to stare at them. No wonder she was bitter.
“All right, you can start by sorting the new model cards,” said CeCe with a sneer. She opened her crocodile Hermès Kelly bag and unzipped a compartment, retrieving cigarettes. She put a finger to her lips as if to say “shhh” and lit up. I knew smoking was strictly against the rules, but I had no choice except to sit in her clouds of smoke while sorting the cards into piles: blondes, brunettes, redheads, and parts models—for when we did shoots of just legs for shoes or hands for rings, etc.
“Is it true there’s some butt model who makes like fifty grand a shoot?” I asked, trying to make conversation as CeCe puffed away.
“What’s that expression they have in Europe? Children are to be seen, not heard,” she sneered. “It’s like that here.” She patted my head and walked out, extinguishing her Satan stick in an ashtray right next to me. Great. So much for my big learning experience. I was starting to think my summer was turning out to be a wash. I had walked away from making thousands folding shirts at Anthropologie in Philly to making zero in New York at this unpaid internship while being treated like a zero at the same time.
After opening two hundred something envelopes, I was elated that the lunch hour was upon us. There was usually so much work that Gabe had been told no one really left for lunch except the Trumpettes, and that the food was cheap and low-cal in Hughes Hall, the cafeteria for Hughes Publications.
The all-glass dining hall was like something out of Star Trek— podlike sitting areas encased in glass for privacy so groups could have private convos while their fabulous clothes were on display. The aisles were like catwalks with beneath-the-floor lighting, rendering them mini-runways for the beautiful people to stroll en route to sitting down with their salad.
My friend Cassie and I always used to joke about what a nightmare it would be to slip and fall during lunch in our high school caf. But in retrospect, a tumble like that in front of dumb jocks and pom-pom toters was little league. To take a spill here and wipe out in front of everyone—now that would be horrifying beyond words.
Gabe and Teagan got gourmet salad bar spreads while I waited in the quesadilla line. When I finally got the goods, I nervously walked down the lit aisle and surveyed the scene, spotting my roommates in a pod by the window.
“Hi, guys,” I said, overwhelmed. “This place is crazy.”
“I know, sticks on parade, right?” joked Teagan.
“Hey, whores!” laughed Richard, who came over with a liter-size Diet Coke. “I’m plopping with you for a sec. How ya holding up, new girl?” he asked me. “Is CeCe a freak or what? She’s living proof that not all the nuts are in the nuthouse.”
I smiled, and before I could give a response, James came waltzing over.
“Hey, guys, can I crash your table? Our whole staff seemed to go out today. Nothing like bailing when we’re on deadline,” he said, shaking his head.
“Where’s the Dapher?” Richard probed.
“Out with Jane and Cecilia, at some new Ian Schrager hotel café.”
“Oooh, you mean C-Level? The one with the ginormous fish tanks with merpeople swimming in them? Awesome!” gushed Gabe. “I just read in The Village Voice that it takes like two months to get in there.”
I labored with my plastic knife and fork to get a soggy bite of quesadilla and not look like a total slob, all the while imagining Daphne and her clones delicately wielding custom chopsticks to pluck a perfectly rolled piece of sushi off some merman’s ripped abs.
“So how are you guys doing?” asked James. “Kira, you’re with CeCe, right? How’s that been so far?”
Heavens open, clouds part, angels sing their soprano chorus: He remembered my name! And who I worked for. I was officially on the radar. Wait—Kira, you effing idiot. He’s with the billionaire pixie owner of the pod, the caf, and the building you’re sitting in! The flaxen-haired nymph who dines not at Daddy’s dumb caf for worker bee drones but at the hardest place to book a table in the city! Pull the rip cord on the parachute back to earth.
“She’s…something” was all I could lamely muster.
“Her intern hazings are fabled,” James said, laughing. “But I bet you can handle it,” he added with a warm smile.
“I hope.” I shrugged. “I’d be psyched for the Genevieve West gig, though. I think I’m going to toss my hat in the ring for that.”
“You go, girl!” said Richard, patting me on the back. “Go for it! Why not?”
Gabe and Teagan were quiet. Uh-oh. Things could get really dicey if we had to go head-to-head for the internship. But I had no choice. I was here to learn as much as possible, and it’s not like Gabe and Teagan were my best friends from childhood. I took a deep breath.
“Are you guys trying out for it?” I asked, trying to be casual. “I just figured you’re really in the thick of it then and could learn a ton. I don’t know…I probably don’t have a shot but—”
“I’m not trying,” said Gabe. “I love Warren, anyway.”
“Me, neither,” added Teagan.
My body relaxed. It was terrible but I was glad that there were two down, which meant less competition for me.
“Plus…” Teagan continued, looking at James carefully. “It’s kind of stiff competition.”
I stared at Teagan, who locked eyes with me, and I knew what she was saying in the unspoken subtitles: Teagan did not want to mess with the boss’s daughter. Clearly, Daphne was the queen bee—even Alida walked on broken glass around her—so no way would Teagan or Gabe rock that boat. Or should I say yacht. No matter how hard I worked, no matter how little Daphne did, everyone assumed she’d get the job. That was how it worked.
I was suddenly getting the picture: Daphne Hughes got anything and everything she wanted. Whenever she wanted it. But you know what? Not this time. No way. I wanted that internship, and I was going to get it.