Material Girls (31 page)

The expression on Ivy's face lingered only a moment, but I recognized it. It was the look I was sure I'd worn when I'd noticed Braxton and Olivia sitting together on the train. Pained eyes, a crestfallen mouth. I knew instantly that Ivy had come here unprepared to find Felix kissing another girl.

Her expression slid back into neutrality as the group turned around to greet her. I glanced at Felix, wondering if he had seen. He was looking at Ivy, but his face was unreadable.

“You came,” said Vivienne. As Ivy shook hands around the circle, I saw the plastic flower affixed to her wrist. My own was pinned to my lapel—it was the third day in a row I'd worn it.

When it was my turn to say hello, my heartbeat quickened. Ivy gave me a cool handshake. “Hey.”

It was hard to know what to say.
Sorry I kissed Felix
?
I should have guessed from our bathroom conversation that you had a thing for him?
“Thanks for helping out with the boycott,” I said instead. “We all watched the
Up & At 'Em
clip. That was so prime. It made all the difference. Thank you.” I meant it.

Ivy's gaze dropped to my pin. One side of her mouth broke into a little smile. “Design any chic looks recently?” she asked.

I gestured to the strike and laughed nervously. “I've been a little busy. But as soon as we get back to work, you're my first commission.”

Ivy brought her wrist to my clavicle so that the flowers glistened next to each other. “Nice,” she said.

I smiled. She moved on to Felix and shook his hand quickly without meeting his eyes.

“So, we'd love it if you could say a few words . . .” Vivienne led Ivy over to the podium steps, relaying instructions. She spoke into the microphone to call for attention and began her introduction. The protesters who realized the pop star was in their midst began to yell and whistle.

Across the street, I noticed something strange. A group of kids—preteenish—were walking along the sidewalk. They quickly and neatly grouped themselves in a rectangular formation the length of the block and about four bodies deep. They faced the design house.

“Who are they?” I asked Felix. He was standing next to me.

Felix squinted at the crowd and frowned. “No idea.”

“Another one of Vivienne's projects, you think?”

He shot a glance at Vivienne's back and shrugged uncertainly.

Ivy took the podium. A full minute of cheering followed. Repeatedly, she put up her hands to stop it, but I could see she was enjoying the attention.

In the midst of the noise, I moved closer to Felix. “Ivy likes you, you know,” I said pointedly.

I had caught him off-guard, and he shifted his stance. “What can I say? I'm pretty irresistible.”

“Felix.” I didn't smile. “You guys knew each other when you were little. I can tell there used to be something there. And she's
Ivy Wilde.
”

“So what? You're
Marla Klein.
” Felix turned to me. “Look. I was never more interested in someone than I am right now. Eva's okay, but she spent too long as a corporate puppet.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “You blow me away. There's no comparison. Believe me.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle. I threaded my fingers through Felix's and listened to Ivy talk about her decision not to buy any more Torro-LeBlanc clothing while the workers were striking. “I actually think she's pretty great,” I said.

“. . . and one of your own designers created my new look. Marla Klein? Come up here.” As Ivy turned back, I dropped Felix's hand. A bit guiltily, I made my way toward the podium. Ivy made room for me on the raised platform, and I stepped up beside her.

“Marla called me and told me about the stuff that goes on here,” Ivy announced to the crowd. She articulated her words perfectly. She was obviously a pro at press appearances. “I'm with you guys. You've got to break free and get what you want!” She paused for cheers. It did surprise me that Ivy was showing such aggressiveness. She sounded a little like Vivienne.

“Also, I heard you think Adequates should be able to have jobs people are usually tapped into?”

Ivy was looking at me for confirmation. “That's right,” I said quickly, thinking back to Felix's speech from the day before. “We think there shouldn't be such a divide. If someone's good at a job, that person should be able to do it. That's what our makeover is all about.”

“I agree. It should happen everywhere, in every creative industry.” Ivy moved her gaze from one news camera to the next until she had stared down every lens in the vicinity. “Together, we are going to change things!” Ivy grabbed my right hand with her left and held it high in the air.

I felt weightless. This was happening. We really were going to win. I gripped Ivy's cold hand tightly.

Four CSS agents in gray dress uniforms and sunglasses jogged up the steps toward the podium. They surrounded Ivy, wrenching her hand from mine and shoving me aside. “You're coming with us, Miss Wilde,” I heard one of them say in a low voice.

“No,” said Ivy, struggling in their grasp. Her bag fell from her shoulder.

“Yes,” said the man, securing her. The four surrounded her in a diamond and jostled her down the stairs and away from the crowd. They were gone before the cheers had stopped.

As I stooped to pick up Ivy's handbag, a booming voice filled the air.

“EMPLOYEES OF TORRO-LEBLANC.” It was Adele. Powerful speakers amplified her voice. I glanced around but caught no sight of her. “PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE CHILDREN ACROSS THE STREET.”

Slowly, the strikers swiveled around. I stared at the wall of kids. Felix appeared by my side with a worried look.

“We have selected these potential employees from the second tier of our most recent Tap list,” Adele continued. “They were just below the cut. All of them are now prepared to begin work as drafters and patternmakers, sifters and selectors and judges. We will train them.”

I looked at the serious young faces. They probably thought they had caught a lucky break. I felt sick.

“It's them or you. Your choice. As of this moment, all of your contracts are terminated. If you log in and check them, you will find this to be true.”

Swiftly, Felix tapped his Unum face. He nodded at me.

“There is one way to reverse the termination. Return to work today and register with your floor director. If you are registered by the end of the day, you will be welcomed back. If not, one of these children will take your position. Either way, tomorrow morning, we will once again be a fully functioning design house.”

My heart sank.

“Finally, as an added incentive, we have decided to select a new Superior Court. Every employee is now eligible for one of the nine seats. We intend to recognize hard work and talent where we have seen it in the company. How quickly you return to work at the end of this announcement will be taken into consideration.”

“It's the same old structure!” Vivienne flew to the podium and shouted into the microphone. “Marla resisted them, and so can you!” But I heard the edge of desperation in her voice. The workers' faces looked uncertain, as the temptation hovered in the air.

“One final thing. There will be no more organizing. We have enlisted Corporate Security and Surveillance troops to secure our building and grounds indefinitely. At five o'clock, they will remove you from the premises.

“Thank you for your time. We hope many of you will continue to work at Torro-LeBlanc.”

Instantly, a security presence encircled the perimeter. Resembling a colony of beetles, these CSS troops wore gray combat fatigues and black helmets with chin straps. They carried nightsticks. Two of them pulled open the heavy doors to Torro-LeBlanc and stood on both sides of the entrance, holding them. The glass cases with their garbed mannequins glittered silently from inside the marble lobby. No one else could be seen.

For a moment, no one stirred. Across the street, I watched a light wind flutter the children's clothes and hair. I felt I ought to say something but found my mouth had gone dry.

“Hold fast,” Vivienne ordered from the podium.

The first movement came from nearby, on the steps. Her head cast down, a familiar figure advanced toward the mouth of the building.

“Dido, what are you doing?”
I cried.

“I'm sorry,” Dido said, turning her head slightly. “But I could be a judge, you know?” She shrugged and gave a sad half smile. In shock, I watched her disappear into the building.

More of the strikers followed, one straggling after another, their faces heavy with defeat. “They got us,” one mumbled to me as he passed by. I saw Vaughn meander his way into the building without meeting my eyes. The block of strikers that remained kept glancing over at the children, as if trying to make up their minds.

“Torro-LeBlanc!” Vivienne suddenly screamed from the podium. “You may think you own us, but we will never be your slaves! You stole our childhoods, but you cannot take away our humanity!”

She barreled down the steps and grabbed a long wooden broomstick out of the hands of one of the strikers. Ripping off the attached banner, she shoved her way to the line of troops. With a cry, she swung her weapon down on the shoulder of one of the officers and began bludgeoning him over and over.

Chaos erupted. A ring of troops closed around the fight, and soon the crowd was pushing in all directions and yelling.

“We've got to help her,” I said. As a herd of strikers dashed up the steps, I fought my way down, Felix at my heels. Around us, suddenly, handcuffs glinted like tinsel in the crowd. The troops were cuffing the wrists of the protesters, even as they kicked, even as they insisted they were trying to go back to work at Torro.

I gave Felix a panicked look.

“Come on,” said Felix. “We're getting out of here.”

We ran.

Ivy was alone.

The back of the urban utility vehicle into which she'd been thrust had no door handles on the insides. There were no window controls either. She ran her hands over the smooth leather and metal. She found it strange, as if it were a space capsule instead of a car.

She'd figured Fatima or Jarvis would eventually show up at the strike and bring her home. The four CSS men, though—had Jarvis sent them? Why? They'd handled her so roughly, digging their fingers into her upper arms as they steered her away. Two were sitting up front in silence. She had watched the other two enter a vehicle parked behind the one they'd put her in. It was now driving behind them.

“Where are we going?” she asked the men for the third time. No answer. Though he had on sunglasses, she thought the driver was eyeing her in the rearview mirror.

Idly, she fiddled with her seat belt shoulder strap. She didn't have her purse or her Unum or even one nymph for company. No placidophilus pills, either.

It had been prime, though. To stare down those cameras—so many of them, all focused on her—and talk about breaking free. To stand up for Constantine and tell everyone that Adequates matter too. To be filmed without worrying about someone from Millbrook spending money on something she was wearing. To hold the spotlight, on her own terms. What a high.

But then—Felix and Marla. Felix swinging Marla around, kissing her, holding her hand. Ivy's mood plummeted. She'd reinvented herself and broken up publicly with Clayton for Felix. And he didn't even care.

She wondered why she didn't want to crush Marla in her palm, the way she wanted to crush Lyric. She did, a little. But love wasn't the same as fame. When someone took your love away, you couldn't fight back. You couldn't force it to happen. You just had to watch it go. And it hurt so much.

She blinked back the tears from her eyes.
Think about the cameras,
she told herself.
They loved you.

The vehicle twisted and turned through city streets and finally pulled up in front of a curb. Ivy peered out the window. She recognized the Warwick Records building.

She'd been to her record-label headquarters only once before. It was the day the court at Warwick had approved her solo album deal. She'd entered the top-floor conference room wide-eyed, shaken Miles Jackson's hand, and sung for him there and then, a cappella. Then he'd asked her to answer some questions about herself as if she were giving an interview. “You've got it, girl,” he'd said afterward. “Warwick is going to make you a recording star. Are you ready?” She'd replied with an eager yes and signed her contract.

The agent in the passenger seat emerged from the vehicle and opened the rear door far enough to put his hand through. He grabbed Ivy's wrist tightly and swung the door open the rest of the way. “This way, Miss Wilde,” he said, unclipping her seat belt with his free hand. “There's no point in trying to run.”

Ivy hadn't been planning on running, but the man's words made her nervous. Why would she need to run? Or was it just that she'd bolted once outside the Pop Beat studios and they didn't trust her?

She swung her legs out of the back seat. The man, joined by another from the vehicle behind him, escorted her into the Warwick Records building.

By some miracle, Felix and I
made it to his apartment complex. We'd elbowed our way through the mob without getting arrested and sprinted all the way there. We ignored the crowd glued to the TV in the common room and headed for his bedroom. Now, sitting on Felix's bottom bunk, I kept glancing toward the locked door.

My mother had left four messages on my Unum. Shaking my head, I'd silenced the device and tucked it away. I could face the lectures later.

We stayed until it grew dark, talking about the stunning turn of events. Speculating about what had happened to Vivienne. And Kevin and Randall and Gwen and Neely. And cursing out Dido. Felix paced back and forth in the narrow room like a wolf. He stopped only when I caught his hand. “You're making me nervous,” I said.