Face Value (20 page)

She took another slug of champagne. The waiter hovered.

“But now I’m sounding bitter, and I don’t mean to be. It can still be a great job, you know, it’s what you make of it. I love the spontaneity of being in TV, anything can happen, you still feel like—you know—a reporter! What story are you working on right now?”

“Well . . .” Should she trust her? She’d been talking to her for five minutes, if that, but the champagne was sending warm, friendly vibrations through her body, telling her that it was time she had a friend in the business, that it wasn’t good to be on her own, and maybe she needed a confidante, someone to run her stories by, like Lianne or Tania from
Maidstone Bazaar
. As someone who had poured so much energy into her work, it wasn’t the social friends Kate was missing—the ridiculous sex stories from Lise, or even the recent rubbish from Jean-Paul, cute as his accent was—but the work colleagues that were lacking. Working on a story that was either a potential career-wrecker or a potential career-maker with nothing but her own judgment for company was a solitary affair. She had tried to share the story with Clarissa when she’d got back, but hadn’t felt able to discuss it. Everything was running late and Clarissa had had to dismiss the hairdresser and makeup artist who had been waiting to get to work on her. Kate had only had time to change her dress and rush out to the dinner. L.A. was too small a world; Vivienne might know someone who knew JK, and she couldn’t afford to let Patty’s secret be exposed via gossip. But she did seem different, she was warm, funny, kind. . . .

“I’m working on a story about—”

“Oh, hold on, looks like you’ll have to tell me another time.” Vivienne nudged her gently as a suited PR fellow with a square jaw and bright white teeth announced politely yet forcefully:

The women stood up, giggling, the champagne softening any inquisitive journalistic urges in readiness for a pleasant talk from . . .

And there he was. It was only last night that she’d seen him, but it might as well have been years ago, for all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. JK3 was still tall, blond, handsome, with a naughty glint in his eye and an impeccable dress sense, but she couldn’t have seen through him more clearly had she put him on an operating table and opened him up. She wanted to walk out, but she had to be cool, couldn’t draw attention to herself, let alone betray her insider’s knowledge or betray Patty. If she just sat here quietly, she was sure she could get through the speech, the dinner, without having to talk to him, although he might have checked the guest list and seen that she was here.

“Kate Miller, are you here?”
he shouted triumphantly, with a flick of his blond hair. Oh, God. She smiled weakly, just as the suited PR who had introduced him came rushing over and thrust a microphone under her mouth.

“Er, yes.” What the hell was he up to now?

“Speak up,” whispered the PR.

"Yes!”
The microphone screeched as her mouth practically swallowed it.

“Ladies, beauty queens that you all are, tonight I am dedicating my speech, this little talk, to the inspirational Kate Miller!”

How could he, the little shit? What could he possibly talk about? Her throwing up in the fountain? Running away in the middle of the night? This couldn’t be happening! But it was. Vivienne Fox suddenly jumped up, clicked her fingers, and had two men Kate hadn’t even noticed before hurry over from the side of the room with TV cameras. A bright light was turned on her. She could hear a whirring as the cameras started rolling. Oh, my Gaad, as Clarissa would say.

“Okay, so some of you won’t know who Kate Miller is . . . but I know you all know who I am, and let me just say this now: don’t worry, tonight’s little talk is going to be just that—little, short, and to the point—because I have one very focused message for you! Let me start by saying that after years in this profession, I still have a reputation for enhancing the natural beauty of women and empowering them. Empowerment through beauty has always been my life’s work! In much the same way as Michelangelo would craft pure beauty from a slab of rock, I craft pure beauty from a slab of flesh. I sometimes see myself as perfecting what God didn’t have time to finish. Well, he’s a busy man these days!”

There were muffled laughs from the audience; sadly, it seemed to come without so much as a trace of irony. She assumed a stiff pose, which she hoped would come across as one of general composure.

“But yesterday, a cute, really cute English girl came to interview me from
Darling
magazine, and can I just say”—everyone turned once more to look at Kate, who, had she been able to gaze back instead of staring transfixed ahead of her, would have noticed that some of the gazes were tinged with more than a hint of jealousy—“this is what beauty is all about!” To her horror the audience started laughing. “No, I’m serious! I mean, look around you! We’ve all started to look the same, and we surgeons and you beauty editors need to take some responsibility for all that! Look at the blow-dries, the Botox—and sure, I know
none
of you here have it!” (He chuckled.) “But look! We’re all so goddamn perfect these days. But actually what makes us different anymore? What sets us apart? Kate’s got that look—she doesn’t have the perfectly spaced cheekbones, the cutesy upturned nose, the don’t-kill-me-I’m-Bambi wide eyes! She doesn’t even have the blow-dry, or the inflatable bosoms! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking my work, or your work, I’m just saying, I think we’re on the tip of a new trend here, and let me tell you, it’s the way my work is heading. I think this season it’s all about . . .
imperfect perfect
!”

Everyone started clapping. From nowhere a music system blasted out the instantly recognizable voices of Prince and Sheena Easton singing "U Got the Look.” A curtain was raised to reveal a board with images of Kate. There was her sitting in the waiting room at JK3’s; her pacing about in his office; her on the phone to Lise, laughing; even her in the powder room fixing her hair at JK’s party! Somehow he had managed to take pictures of her via his security cameras!

JK3 stepped down from his podium and started walking around to Kate, who was still speechless in total horror. For the first time since she’d arrived in the States, Kate understood the meaning of an expression she’d regularly heard bandied about in New York: “Only in L.A.” But before she could even process her thoughts, things began to move rapidly around her. Beauty editors, those same women who had been casually trading gossip over the champagne, sprang into action and gathered around her, notebooks and Dictaphones drawn like pistols in the Wild West. Vivienne, the woman on her left, beckoned to the cameras to turn to her, and, after counting herself in, started reporting, her whole persona transformed from cynical inebriated hack to tireless professional, now speaking into the cameras with seamless, champagneless, ease.

“It took one young Englishwoman, the new beauty director from
Darling
magazine, to shock the entire fashion and beauty industry of the United States, according to the top surgeon to the stars, John Kingsley the Third,” she began. “And she’s here with me now! Kate Miller, what do you have to say to JK3’s announcement, a surprise I’m sure, at this beauty editors’ dinner in honor of Face-Off, the international plastic surgery convention here in L.A.?”

Kate couldn’t speak. She tried, but nothing came out, although she could feel some movement in her face as her cheeks glowed steadily redder. It didn’t seem to matter; Vivienne spoke for her:

"This new beauty reporter has only been in New York and Los Angeles for a few weeks, but already she’s made a big impression. JK3 loves her look because it’s different, natural, somehow bringing a touch of reality to a world that’s become a little too perfect. Some might say that telling a beauty editor she’s less than perfect—JK3 singled Kate out for not having the Botox or blow-dries that dominate our world—might be perceived as a backward compliment, but in this beauty-obsessed industry, it seems the editors are taking his comments the only way they know best: at face value. Kate Miller could be the best thing to hit America. This is Vivienne Fox, for CNN’s
Backstage and Beautiful
.”

Vivienne smiled, pleased with her performance.

“Kate, thanks! That was great!” She turned to the camera crew. “Make sure you get some shots of JK3 and of the other editors, then we’ll file it for the breakfast show. How do you feel about being the new look of America, Kate?”

“I’m sure she feels just fine, don’t you, Kate?!” said JK3, who now stood beside her and clinched her shoulders with his arm. He was wearing a rock-starry cocktail ring, she noticed. A garnet the size of a chestnut: it alone would probably pay for Patty’s face to be corrected.

A blow-dried, Botoxed beauty editor jostled by her shoulder. “Kate, do you mind if I have a quick word? Clover Bute, from
FashionWeek International
.”

“I . . . don’t really have anything—”

“To say?” said JK. “Hey, shy girl, I meant every word, you know. Ask Aurelie, she’ll tell you. I’ve been going on about you all day to anyone who’ll listen!”

“Is this a romantic as well as a professional association?” asked Clover Bute from
FashionWeek International
, notebook at the ready.

“Puh-lease!” said JK. “I never mix the two! Kate’s my muse, aren’t you, Kate?”

“I . . .” She couldn’t speak. What could she say? Suddenly the room felt unbearably hot. She could see thirty little gold-padded chairs dancing in circles as thirty skinny blow-dries thrust their Dictaphones forward. She felt JK’s arm circle her waist tightly as her knees, then the rest of her body, gave way.

sixteen

“So how is our imperfect perfect today?” It was Alexis on the phone. It hadn’t stopped ringing all morning; even from the relative fortress of the photographic studio Kate had not been immune from the attention. There were some callers Clarissa could fend off, but some—such as Alexis, and a very persistent Jean-Paul—that she couldn’t. Clarissa herself had pronounced the incident—with a wry smile—highly amusing, and said that with the right marketing, Kate might be on to something.

“What do you mean?” asked Kate, looking more like imperfect-imperfect today. She hadn’t slept well, and had been woken up at 6:00 a.m. by Clarissa, informing her that she was on CNN if she’d like to turn her TV on now. Sure enough, once she’d blazed her way through the hundreds of channels on offer via her remote control, there was Vivienne Fox, JK3, and herself. They looked the consummate media professionals they were; she on the other hand looked confused and at times sullen, then, when she realized the cameras were on her, bordering on insane.

"Y’know, your own cosmetics line, a chat show, your autobiography, well, that’s what I’d do if I was in your position anyway. ”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“No, really. You have no idea! Honest to God, the PR from last night—by the way, she’s thrilled with the publicity you’ve generated for the conference, did you see those flowers she sent you? She told me that as soon as JK3 had finished talking about you, the powder rooms were bursting with all these beauty editors scrunching up their hair in an effort to make it look less, y’know, perfect!”

She started emptying a huge black bag with hundreds of flesh-colored G-strings onto an ironing board.

Kate couldn’t help but smile to herself. What a weird world this was. Yet why not! Maybe JK did have a point after all. She’d been thinking herself before—on Rodeo Drive—how everyone here did look the same. Maybe she was a breath of fresh air, as one report had described her. Even Alexis seemed pleased.

“Well done, Kate, not easy, but you pulled it off. Very clever move,” she had said, as if Kate had engineered the whole CNN report herself. “And can I just say, it’ll do wonders for the surgery supplement. Advertising is looking into pulling it forward by a couple of issues. Might as well capitalize on the publicity. Do you understand what that means, Kate?! It’s phenomenal, never happened before. It means you’re upstaging Fashion!”

"That’s great, Alexis! Really great.” She hadn’t a clue what she was talking about but as long as Alexis was happy . . .

“Of course it means I need your copy in, like, yesterday. Cynthia’s got you on the flight home tomorrow morning. You can e-mail me the copy tonight.”

She was gone.

The studio was a cavern of white, so bright that any specks of dust were transformed into fairy dust floating through the occasional sunbeams that lasered their way from window to floor. There wasn’t much furniture. A couple of low-slung sofas slouched insouciantly in the corner like a pair of baggy bottomed jeans on some L.A. dude. A long white lacquer table was laid with fruit, bottles of mineral water, and discarded lattes. At the other end of the cavern was a dressing room. Mirrors with blue daylight bulbs interspersed with bright white lightbulbs caught everyone’s passing moods, except the model’s. Her expressionless face didn’t seem to be doing moods this season, but then, Kate figured, she wasn’t being paid for smiles until the camera was on, so why should she?

The point of the shoot, Kate had briefed the team upon arriving at eight this morning, was to convey the idea that natural is best. This was met with a look of blank incredulity, as, argued the hairstylist, everyone knew that natural was far from best. Whoever did well through looking natural?

“Actually, that’s not true,” butted in Clarissa. “Did you see CNN this morning?”

"Thank you, Clarissa, I’ll handle this now,” said Kate. “So, obviously I’ll be saying that we can all make our natural selves look a little better thanks to the use of hair products and makeup—she nodded generously in the direction of the respective artistes at this point”—“but for now, we have a girl who is incredibly beautiful, naturally, and I’d like to shoot her with as little as possible on.”