Dead is the New Black (34 page)

“You’re going to do great.” Laura meant every word of it.

“I wish Michael was here.”

Then, the lighting changed, the music got serious, and it began. The giraffes quieted and plastered what they considered smiles onto their faces. Jeremy watched the front rows from the back to see who was taking notes and when.

Ruby cleared her throat repeatedly. “How do I look?” Her hair was slicked and black, in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. White powder dusted her cheeks, and her black eyeliner was at least a quarter of an inch thick.

“As freaky as the rest of them.” Laura guided Ruby to her rack and helped her out of her shirt. “Just be beautiful, okay? It’s what you’re good at.”

“Really?” Ruby seemed truly moved by her statement of the obvious.

Laura helped her into a fourteen-inch miniskirt and the dotted Karen cardigan with the neckline that had
preppy slut
written all over it.

“I’m falling out of this thing.”

Laura responded by pushing her toward the exit. Jeremy glanced at her, pulled her cardigan open to give her a disheveled, got-lucky-last-night sort of look, and threw her to the wolves. Behind Laura, the giraffes stood in stone silence, and Ruby walked. She walked like a normal girl with a little extra swagger. No stomping, no serious swaying, as if she had decided not to imitate the giraffes at all.

“Oh, my God.” Laura put her hand over her mouth.

“I see it,” Jeremy said. “The left.”

Laura had forgotten to buckle Ruby’s left shoe. The gold buckle slapped her ankle with every step, and the strap dragged on the stage.

“She’s going to fall flat on her face.” Laura suddenly regretted putting Ruby in such a position, stolen boyfriends or not. But her poise carried her and, though Laura could only see her sister’s back, the smiles of the people in the front row told her Ruby wore her most infectious grin. “No, she’s going to be all right.”

When Ruby reached the end, she paused and turned, soaking up the love of the flashing cameras. The giraffe before her returned, and Thomasina Wente walked out like she was stamping out lit cigarettes. Ruby turned, smiling and looking as though she were having the time of her life. In that second, Laura felt nothing but pride and warmth for her sister.

Thomasina strutted ahead, momentarily blocking Laura’s view of Ruby.

Ruby smiled at the nosebleed section and waved, looking generally delighted. As Thomasina moved out of Ruby’s way, Jeremy groaned a little, and Thomasina’s bony elbow jutted out just enough to catch Ruby’s rib cage. Between her precarious shoe situation and her inexperience, Ruby lost her balance, pirouetting on the flat part of her loose shoe and twisting out of it.

Laura ran toward the klieg lights to catch her sister, but Jeremy grabbed her forearm and held her back. She was forced to watch Ruby drop like a diver in an open pike position, right into Pierre Sevion’s lap.

Thomasina, for the first time on any runway, in any show, smiled.

As Ruby’s outfits were the last of the group, the music paused like a punctuation mark, which gave everyone a chance to look at Ruby, akimbo on Pierre Sevion, being hauled upright by a laughing Hortensia.

Sevion brushed himself off, while Ruby straightened her skirt. Then, Sevion gave Ruby a double kiss and offered his arm like a courtier. She took it, and he escorted her back up to the runway, a flamboyant gesture that sent the audience into waves of applause.

Ruby waved, blew a kiss, and trotted back to the dressing room with a shoe in her hand, just as the first giraffe went out with the new group. Laura gathered her into her arms and pulled her back to her rack.

“You okay?” Laura scanned her for bruises or abrasions and found none.

“I’m good. That was fun. Even the falling part.”

“You did what they all dread, so it’s out of your system.” Laura pulled Ruby’s skirt down and tossed it aside. “And that woman is such a bitch. I’m leaving a pin in her pants next season.”

“That detective’s in the audience.” Ruby pulled off her cardigan and slipped into the Hannah dress, a shoulder-to-toe leopard skin sheath guaranteed to be an ex-husband killer. Ruby slid her hands over her sides. “And this feels awfully nice. You’re good at this.”

“Thanks.” Laura dragged her to the stylists table for a touch-up. Her phone buzzed and, seeing Ruby was in good hands, she looked at the caller ID. It was Cangemi, but she couldn’t pick it up in the middle of a show. He’d just have to wait until it was over.

Ruby went back to the line, in front of Thomasina, who Jeremy was in the process of tearing a new rectum in sotto voce. Laura caught the words “childish” and “petty.” Gorgeous, she might have been. Rich, she might have been. But she’d tried to damage his business, and for that, there was no forgiveness. If rich beautiful women were a threat to Laura, okay. But Thomasina was out of the picture.

Ruby walked. Laura had made it a point to tie both shoes tightly, and she was rewarded with a drama-free walk down the runway. Thomasina cut her a wide berth when they crossed, and Laura’s only fear was that Ruby would try to retaliate.

“You sent Thomasina down crying?” she whispered to Jeremy. “Her mascara’s all messed up.”

“They all saw what she did. It’ll satisfy their sense of justice. And the pictures of her face will be on the cover of everything.”

He’d made her cry for the drama. Because with such a short show, he needed space in the papers. Still a jerk, Laura thought, even though she wanted nothing more than to see Thomasina cry. She peeked out in the space between Ruby’s return and Thomasina’s walk back to them and glanced over the audience for Cangemi.

She saw Sheldon instead. “He’s out?” she whispered to herself. Jeremy must have seen him, too, because he froze like a stone. Laura squinted to see, and found he was sitting next to Shonda Grovnitz, the owner of Centennial. She leaned over and whispered, “Thick as thieves, aren’t they?”

Jeremy, appearing worried and distracted, looked over at them a second longer than normal. “Childhood friends,” he said. “Gracie couldn’t stand her.”

“Laura!” It was Ruby. Laura headed back to the rack and helped Ruby get the leopard number off and get the Amanda gown on.

“Mom,” she called out, and Mom appeared with pins still sticking to a little fabric tomato on her wrist. “Help me with this thing.”

Together, they laid out the white gown as Ruby slid into the crinoline. It was surely the dream wedding gown she had always envisioned, but without the douchebag to go with it.

“Did you see Sheldon?” Ruby asked, as Mom did a final adjustment, and Manny did a last blitz on her makeup.

“They probably can’t place him in the freight elevator that morning. Too bad.”

“Olly has a good memory.” Laura stiffened when she felt Jeremy behind her, breathing in her ear.

“There’s a lighting change before she goes on. Don’t let her go too early.” He put an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek before slipping away. Ruby and Mom looked at her, and she felt prickly heat on her face.

“We’d better make sure those shoes are on right.” She double-checked the snaps for security.

Ruby said, “I wonder who they placed in the elevator, then.”

Laura tapped the side of Ruby’s foot to let her know she was prepped for the walk. Laura decided to think about it tomorrow, or later at the after-show party. At the moment, she had to get her sister on the runway in a twelve-pound gown. She held the trail and walked behind Ruby as any straggling giraffes looked at her from the corners of their eyes. They were too good, too perfect, and too envious to look at her directly. Getting looked at was their prerogative, not hers, and none of them conferred the privilege.

Ruby obviously couldn’t have cared less. She made her way to her exit in her crocheted, silk, gorgeous thing, holding up the sides, wearing it as though it had been made for her.

Jeremy wasn’t at his post under the SMILE! sign, so there was no one there to tell her when to go out. The last giraffe came in from the runway and nodded at Ruby before disappearing into the back. Ruby stepped forward, but Laura held her.

The theater lights dimmed.

“I think there’s a lighting thing,” Laura said. The lights came up again in stark white, which at the time was meant to highlight Noë’s black skin, but there was nothing to do for it now. “Okay, go.”

Ruby went out in her beautiful white gown. Her crinoline crackled, and her shoulders swayed with the pure joy of being watched in that gown. She spread her arms wide, unrolling her fingers, presenting herself in all her glory, as she wanted to be. Angelic. Even though Laura could only see her back, with its shimmery crocheted beading, she knew her sister was smiling.

Mom patted Laura’s shoulder. “Good job.”

Laura absently put her hand in her pocket and found a folded piece of paper. She opened it and read, “Meet me at the office,” in Jeremy’s tight block writing. He must have slipped it in her pocket when he kissed her. Of course, it hadn’t been just a bit of unmotivated affection. Everything with Jeremy was motivated.

Ruby finished her walk and headed back, waving and blowing kisses the way a real model never would. No, a giraffe wouldn’t know how to have that much fun, and Laura wondered if this could be the collection she and her sister had together. She was tired of pouty models and people who took themselves too seriously. It was only clothes, and there was no reason it couldn’t be fun. It seemed as good a vision as any, and one that would certainly be different from anything else out there.

Behind Laura, the giraffes gathered, all sulk and self-importance. Every show had a final walk, where the models came out and the designer followed for his applause. But Jeremy was nowhere to be found, and God only knew where Carmella was. Laura wanted nothing to do with it and, in the seconds before Ruby returned from the runway, she left.

The show had gone on. Let them all sort out the applause.

CHAPTER 34.

On her way out, Laura managed to avoid Cangemi, who was pushing his way through the reporters and hangers-on outside. Seconds later, she got a text from him.

—
Don’t avoid me
—

She shut her phone.

The line for cabs out of the park stretched around a corner, and even though it moved quickly, she didn’t want to keep Jeremy waiting. Across the way, David stood by Sheldon’s limo. Laura ran over to him.

“I need a lift to the office.”

“You’re joking.” But he saw from her tension and shifting feet that she wasn’t. “You put the owner of this car in jail, and now you want a ride in it?”

“I know what he was doing that night, when she was killed.”

David raised an eyebrow. “This should be good.”

“Sheldon and Gracie weren’t fighting about Jeremy. He knew about Jeremy, and he didn’t care. I mean, it’s not like his nose was clean. But Gracie told him about the counterfeiting and asked him to litigate it, and then he got pissed at her for making that possible because she wouldn’t allow a lower-priced line with Jeremy’s name. He went to see Shonda about it and stayed the night. But he didn’t want to say that right away, because he didn’t want to expose Shonda, so he gave the poker club excuse.”

A voice came from behind Laura, from the back seat on the other side of the car. “You act like I didn’t love my wife.” Sheldon leaned over so he could see her.

“Did you?”

“Get in here, Mouth.”

Laura slipped into the rear-facing back seat. Shonda Grovnitz sat next to Sheldon, facing front. She wore a boring navy polyester suit that fit her barrel frame a little too well to be from her store. David closed their door and slid in next to the driver.

Sheldon crossed his legs and arms. “That wasn’t bad for a patternmaker. We don’t give you guys enough credit for brains.” The limo moved out of traffic, past the lines of people waiting for a cab. He turned to Shonda. “Have you met Mouth?”

“I’m Laura Carnegie.” She held out her hand.

Shonda took it and said, “Oh, how nice. My father knew Dale.”

Sheldon piped in, “No relation, Shonda. Laura’s a patternmaker and amateur detective. She’s good at one of those things. At the other, she stinks.”

“Nice to meet you, Shonda. I’m sorry I broke into the back of your store yesterday.”

Shonda waved off her apology. “That Carmella caused me all the trouble. She told Gracie those lies about labels in our back room just to get her own business. That’s when it all started. A real conniving bitch.”

“What about you, Shonda?” Laura asked. “You telling me every Galliano jacket in your store is real? My sister got an armful of stuff the other night that was dicey, at best.”

“I’m not saying mistakes aren’t made, young lady.” The look she got from Shonda was pure hate.

“Are you taking me to the office?” Laura asked. They were going to be out of Central Park in a moment, and Laura didn’t want to end up on the East Side.

“I want to ask you something first,” Sheldon said. “Why didn’t you take that contract?”

“I knew since you wrote Jeremy’s contract, there was no way it was going to be any good for me. You needed me to at least finish the production patterns if the whole thing went to Sin-Ton or IWU. After you cut me loose, I was probably going to wind up owing you money or something.”