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But as she headed back to Jared’s dressing room to wait for him to get back from his production meeting, she realized there was a new confidence in her step. Michael had been right. For the first time in her life, she felt completely, absolutely pretty.

 

 

 

 

A
s Emily walked from the limo-service car into Teterboro Airport, she immediately spotted the XTV crowd in the windows, all in some designer version of half undress, waving wine bottles and champagne glasses and laughing in a way that was intensely visible. Part of her longed to be with them, to have a glass of wine and join in some sensual oblivion in which everyone used fucking like kissing on the cheek, as the basic unit of affection. It was the way she always felt; then she would feel a deep reticence that kept her on the outskirts of that scene. Only a few times, on particularly drunken or miserable nights, had she fully entered into the spirit of Babylona’s menagerie. Those times had been deliriously fun while they went on, but left her feeling lonely and exhausted the next morning. Now she dawdled, waiting for the group to head out through the security check before going up to the doors. She was too preoccupied to feign hilarity right now.

The basic problem was Ralph, or Ralph’s silence. They had had two weeks of perfect communion, in which they had gone so far into their shared insanity or heaven—or whatever the right word was for being more in love than anyone had ever been before—that they had even begun to make serious plans about moving in together. Then he’d gone to visit his daughter two days ago, and dropped off the face of the earth. For the first day, she’d just assumed that he hadn’t had a moment alone. She woke up on the second day with the awful conviction that she would never hear from him again. Ten hours later, she was ready to assume that she’d been right.

Ralph had decided that his daughter’s welfare was more important, that he couldn’t risk turning Valerie against him altogether. Any other explanation she came up with felt contrived and flimsy. The worst part of it was, she couldn’t blame him. All their plans, she realized now, had avoided the twin issues of Valerie and Ilana. Ralph hadn’t wanted to talk about Valerie at all. When the subject came up, he said that they could worry about that later. He had said something like, “I’m working it out.” And Emily had been all too ready to let it go. She hadn’t wanted to think about it because, in the end, she knew what it meant.

Worst of all, Valerie was going to be on the plane. She would have to spend the eight-hour flight in a tiny cabin with Valerie, pretending everything was all right.

She made herself focus on an airplane coming in to land, the lights surreally bright against a dimming sunset, the silhouette of the plane dark and ominous.
I’ll get in the plane and I’ll have a drink. I’ll sit with Jared. I’m going on vacation to a castle with all my friends.
Still, there was a weight of tears behind her eyes, and she picked up her suitcase again, deciding to go for a five-minute walk.

At that moment, the glass doors to the check-in area opened and Friselle Belesci came out in a black silk gown split up to the hip, carrying a massive tumbler full of white wine. Her beauty was, as always, slightly jarring to Emily; the tragic blue-violet eyes and slender body were so at odds with her salty personality.

“I thought,
You look like you have an unhappy secret
,” Friselle said in her lilting Italian accent. “So I asked Michael to cheer you up. When you get on the plane, you will see he is trying to cheer you up. It will be very funny.”

The tears pricked at Emily’s eyes. She said, “I’m okay.”

Friselle laughed delightedly. “Oh, lies. I love lies.”

“Okay, I’m terrible. I don’t know.”

“The man is not worth it, whoever he is. You know why?”

Emily shook her head, the motion freeing a tear from one eye.

Friselle said, “Because he is a man, which is the same as a woman, which is not worth your tears. I am a woman and I tell you for a fact.” She put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Come along with Friselle. I will carry your luggage and you can drink my wine. Then you’ll see Michael trying to cheer you up. It will be ridiculous.”

Emily let Friselle take her suitcase and accepted the tumbler of wine, though she didn’t really feel like drinking. “Thanks. I can’t imagine Michael cheering me up.”

“Oh, he will promise you more money in your contract. I bet you. The man has no ideas of life.” Friselle led the way into the airport. The airport lights blinded Emily slightly, and she followed Friselle with a feeling of utter passivity, as if she were a tiny child who had no idea where she was being taken. In the same spirit, from time to time she took a sip of wine, and was surprised at how good it felt to be drinking. Friselle was gossiping in her musical drawl: Lila and James were threatening to marry, so Babylona was in a foul temper with everyone, while Jared was terribly altered by being in love—“It is awful. I cannot stand the stupid eyes in his head. Awful.” Finally she said, in the same careless tone of enjoyment, “And Valerie is not coming on Air Force X with us. It is a big mystery.”

Emily stopped dead. “What? Valerie’s not coming to Germany?” Her heart was pounding; what could it mean?

Friselle looked at her speculatively, swinging the suitcase against her dainty shins.

“Oh yes, she is coming. But she comes by herself,” Friselle said. “She has Michael buy her a first-class ticket. I think something planning in the witch’s unhealthy brains.”

Zaza climbed the steps up to the plane’s open flank with a feeling of dizzy unreality. She still didn’t know whether to feel dread or excitement about the trip. On the good side: it would amount to a vacation in the Alps, in a castle no less, with Jared. It would be their first really public outing; although many people at XTV knew they were a couple, no one had actually seen them together. And although she couldn’t exactly picture it, she felt certain meeting his friends (the same friends whose decadence had driven him into his thrice-damned “taking it slow”) would be incredibly fun.

On the bad side: From his descriptions, she knew that those friends would start fucking one another before the plane left the ground. If she had been alone, she might have been alarmed at the prospect at first—then joined in. With Jared there, she felt somehow that it would be intolerable. She would want to join in
with him.
What would those people think if they knew that her boyfriend still hadn’t fucked her?
Did
any of them know?

Her high heels—another gift from Jared—were teetering on the slick metal steps. She had to grip the railing firmly, watching where she put her feet. So she was startled when she heard Michael Tyler’s deep, pleasant voice addressing her from the open door of the plane. “Hello, Zaza. I’ve been deputed to take you to your seat.”

She paused a few steps below him. To the right, through the open door, she could see the main cabin of the airplane, where an impromptu dance party was going on, despite the absence of music. One girl had already stripped to the skin and was preserving an absolutely serious expression while Javier poured a glass of wine carefully down her forehead, aiming the stream into her open mouth. Catching sight of Zaza, Javier waved, and the stream diverted into the girl’s ear, making her scream and jump away.

Zaza waved nervously and looked back at Michael. “My seat? We have assigned seats?”

“
You
have an assigned seat, doll. Come with me.”

She mounted the last few steps, immediately imagining being put into the hold like a dog—she would shiver through the flight in a wire cage, away from the glamorous fun. Of course that couldn’t happen, not literally. Perhaps it was just a sort of coach class for nonstar people? She followed him past a velvet curtain, which he pulled shut again behind her. Then he stopped at a little door and knocked lightly on it. There was no answer. He opened it and gestured for her to go inside.

She stepped inside; the compartment must have filled one-third of the passenger area. There was a fully stocked bar to one side and a pair of armchairs to either side of it, with seat belts arranged neatly across them. The far wall of the space was the opposite side of the airplane, with a row of windows showing the landing strip, now bathed in the last rays of sunset. In the center of the room was a king-sized bed, and Zaza knew without asking that it was the famed airborne water bed that featured in so many XTV legends.

“Just wait here,” he said before he closed the door on her. “Don’t worry; everything will be all right.”

And he was gone. She went immediately to the bed and tried it with her hands. Sure enough, the surface gave and the water underneath undulated beneath her palms. She sat on the edge of the bed and lay back as hard as she could, making the waves flow back and forth underneath her. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and shut her eyes.

Jared arranged this,
she thought.
It must be that. We’re going to make love for the fi rst time here. In midair.
Immediately, she became certain that the plane would crash before they could actually have sex. Perhaps she could get him to do it before takeoff ? But she was being ridiculous. . . . She made herself stop worrying and focus on the idea of Jared coming in . . . taking off her clothes . . . taking off his clothes . . .
sexual i ntercourse!

At that moment, the door flew open. Zaza sat bolt upright, lost her balance, and fell back, floundering, into the wildly rolling bed. In that split second, she realized Jared wasn’t coming. This wasn’t his idea. She wasn’t going to have midair
sexual intercourse
at all
.

The person in the doorway was Babylona, who now shut the door behind her and said quietly, “Lovely to finally meet you, Zaza. You look so
shockingly
like your mother.”

As she entered the aircraft with Friselle climbing the steps behind her, Emily was met by a smiling Michael Tyler, who immediately said, “Emily! You look more gorgeous than ever. When you have a minute, I have some good news about your performance bonus.”

Emily felt Friselle poking her from behind and heard the other woman’s low, husky laugh.

“Oh,” Emily said sweetly. “That’s great. I really need the money, because I’m thinking of leaving XTV.”

Behind her, Friselle said, “Don’t tease the man. Also, I’m cold out here.”

Emily took the extra few steps up into the aircraft while Michael scowled at her forbiddingly. As Friselle joined her, dropping Emily’s suitcase inside with a sigh of weariness, Michael said, “We’ll have to look at your contract. I think next year’s scheduling is already advertised, and the sponsors have bought some time—”

“Oh, leave this alone,” said Friselle. “The woman doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

“I do,” Emily said.

Friselle shrugged and said, “I can’t help this situation. She drinks my wine and she bites the hand. Young people are coming to nothing nowadays.” She stalked off into the main cabin, letting her gown slip off her shoulder and onto the floor to reveal her lovely nudity while the revelers inside cried out, “La Belesci! Friselle! Wine for
la maestra
!”

Michael said to Emily in a tired voice, “Let’s talk about this in Germany, if you’re serious. I have to do Valerie damage control on this flight.”

“Valerie damage control?” Emily said weakly. “What happened?”

He sighed. “Four different men are expecting to fuck her in Schwanzwald.
I
don’t mind if she wants four men to fuck her, but I think our viewers will think it’s a little over the top for a girl’s first time.”

Emily almost said something about Ralph, but Michael’s exhausted expression stopped her
.
She bit her tongue and just smiled sympathetically before grabbing her suitcase and going to find Jared.

She spotted him sitting in a little row of seats at the back of the plane, his head ducked, obviously trying to ignore the melee. He looked grim and haggard. Dodging her way through the crowd, she headed toward him. By the time she got to him, she had acquired a glass of punch, a lei, and a pair of boxer briefs that had been handed to her by an already drunken Javier (or was it Jorge?) with the words, “Keep these somewhere safe, my love. Annabella is threatening to eat them.”