Dietland (33 page)

“Julia?” I said through the bathroom door.

“I'll be out soon,” she said. It seemed as if she was crying. “Leave me alone.”

The sound of her vomiting filled me with sadness. I couldn't listen.

No one knew the whole story, but Marlowe and Verena had given me enough fragments about Julia to piece together a narrative. Each of the five Cole sisters had her domain: There was Julia at Austen Media; the eldest sister, Jacintha, was powerful in the entertainment division at NBC; the youngest sister, Jillian, was an executive at one of the largest advertising agencies in the country; Jessamine was the New York–based assistant of a legendary Hollywood director; and Josette had worked her way up to a senior position at Calvin Klein. Each sister had a network of spies and informants, small but well selected. Most of the informants were lower-level employees who had never heard of the Cole sisters; they sent their information through intermediaries.

What Julia and her sisters were doing with the information was a matter of debate at Calliope House. Julia had said different things to different people—“You must know your enemy before you can defeat them” and “We're going to bring them down from the inside.” It was impossible to know whether she was simply delusional.

Thanks to Marlowe, I'd learned more about Julia's Austen exposé. As the manager of the Beauty Closet, she had her tentacles spread throughout the Austen empire—“the one thing they all need is makeup,” she'd said. The people at Austen were convinced she was one of them. She sat in on meetings with magazine editors and television producers, secretly recording their conversations and meetings, which were often peppered with racist and sexist innuendos. She filmed the secret party where Austen editors fêted the elderly French scientist who'd invented cellulite. She was there when they dreamed up new problems for women to worry about, such as the day they coined the term “tit slide” to refer to the way that women's breasts move to the side and look flat when they lie on their back.
Avoid tit slide with these helpful tips!,
the cover of one Austen magazine had announced. She participated in the company-wide meeting at which editors created a fake evolutionary psychologist named Dr. Sapphire Liebermann, who “worked” at the University of Arizona and would be quoted in Austen publications stating that it was natural for men to cheat and for women to be overly emotional and like the color pink. “Dr. Liebermann” was Austen's top expert for months, but when a New York publishing house offered her a book deal, she tragically “died” in a rock climbing accident. One time, Julia even discovered an editor masturbating with tubes of lipstick in the Beauty Closet, which inspired the title of chapter seven: “Fucked by Revlon.”

Julia said her book would blow them all away. She said it would be like a bomb taking down the Austen Tower.

After recovering from her binge and purge, Julia found me in my bedroom at my desk. She crawled onto my daybed and opened her massive handbag, pulling things out and placing them on the mattress in front of her—a pair of black high-heeled shoes, a hairbrush, and her phone, which she had claimed was in a landfill. Last, she removed a gun. The silver metal caught the reflection of the sunlight through the windows as Julia set it on the bed. She made no mention of it, but kept digging in her bag until she pulled out a roll of breath mints. “Finally,” she said, placing a mint on her tongue. “Would you like one? They're the bulimic's friend.”

“Why do you have a gun?”

Julia picked it up as if it were a toy. “It was a twenty-first birthday present from my father. Every Cole sister receives a gun on her twenty-first.”

“Do you carry that around with you?”

“Not to work anymore, since the metal detectors appeared. It's a police state there and getting worse. Ever since Stanley Austen's name appeared on that Penis Blacklist—ever since he became
penis non grata
—he's been on a rampage.” She removed another mint from the roll. “You're full of questions and I know why. You're suspicious of me because of
her.
”

At last.

“I know you want to talk about her, but I already told you everything I know.” Julia stretched, appearing ready for a nap.

“You haven't told me
anything.
”

“I didn't come here to talk about Leeta. I need to ask you for a favor.”

“Forget it.”

“But—“

“Not interested.” I turned to my laptop. Three new messages from Kitty's readers dropped into my inbox, announced with a
ping
. I read them, pretending Julia's eyes weren't burning into me. I'd been waiting to talk to her for so long, and now that she was here I was straining to ignore her.

“I see what's happening,” she said. “You want me to woo you.”

I flashed her an irritated look. “I want you to stop being so full of shit and just talk to me for once. Leeta was important to me. I'm worried about her.”

“My, my, it's not just your clothes that have changed. Love the tights and boots, by the way.” Julia sat cross-legged on the bed, the straps of her tank top slipping down her shoulders, revealing the roses and thorns tattooed on her chest. She made no move to pull up the straps, but pointed to my wall, where I'd pinned the newspaper photo of Leeta. “Take that down and we'll talk. I don't want her staring at me.”

I did what she asked, placing the clipping on the desk so that Leeta was only staring at me.

“I have many interns in the Beauty Closet, but only a couple
special
interns, if you know what I mean,” Julia began.

“Spies.”

Julia bristled at the word. “They're
interns.
”

I tried not to look at her chest, at the lack of breasts. “I know all about the exposé you're writing. That's why you need spies.”

Julia didn't appear to be upset that I knew at least one of her secrets. “I have to trust my interns completely. I trusted Leeta right from the start and look where it got me. This whole thing has been disastrous.”

“How did you meet Leeta, exactly?” I had never been clear on their origins.

“She was an intern at
Glamour Bride.
I knew she wasn't one of them. She'd come down to the Beauty Closet to pick up supplies, and the way she talked and dressed, her whole attitude, gave her away.” Julia continued, explaining that Leeta confessed she was at Austen to spy. She'd moved to New York after finishing college in L.A. and was considering graduate work in women's studies, focusing on the media. She thought an internship at Austen would give her firsthand insight. “She was sneaky and I liked that,” Julia said. “I told her what I was doing in the Beauty Closet, and when I invited her to be my intern, she said yes immediately. A person isn't good at finding out secrets unless they have secrets of their own. She obviously had many.”

Julia crushed another mint with her molars. “I enjoyed working with her at first. I told her about Calliope House and she read Verena's book and then Marlowe's. I sent her to spy on you, but then things changed right after that.” She found Leeta sobbing in the concealer aisle. “She told me she just found out that a young girl she knew had been raped, that she had jumped in front of a train. It was a horrible story, but the names Luz and Soledad meant nothing to me then. She flew to L.A. for the funeral and I didn't see her for a while.”

“You knew about Leeta's connection to them all along?” I shouldn't have been surprised. Julia had clearly been lying when she said she knew nothing about Leeta's life outside the Beauty Closet. The rest of us had only recently learned about Leeta's friendship with Luz and Soledad, but Julia had known for much longer.

“I didn't know their connection was significant until later. When Leeta went out to L.A. for the funeral, this Jennifer stuff hadn't even started yet. Weeks passed before Luz's and Soledad's names surfaced in the media in relation to the Dirty Dozen, and by that time Leeta wasn't even working for me anymore.”

“Why did she stop working for you?”

“She finally returned from L.A., but she was never the same. She acted strangely, almost haunted. She knew about my undercover work, and her erratic behavior worried me, so I told her that her services were no longer required. She handed in her Austen badge and I never saw her again. Well, not until her face was plastered all over the news. What a shock that was. My business is secrecy, yet I managed to find the one intern in all of Manhattan who would become an international outlaw. You could not make this up.”

“When did the police come to you?” I wanted to see the timeline in my head.

“They showed up after her roommate tipped them off. I confirmed that Leeta had been my intern, that she no longer worked for me and I had no information about her activities. I never mentioned Luz. I did not want to become further entangled in this mess.”

“You lied to the police.”

“Yes, so? They figured it out on their own. I knew Leeta hadn't done anything wrong. That roommate of hers is probably a liar.”

“Then why would Leeta run away? That's what doesn't make sense.”

“Who knows?” Julia uncrossed her legs and reclined on the bed, resting her head on my pillow. “I'm tired,” she said. She rubbed her gnarled toes back and forth on my bedspread. “I swear, I should get disability for having to wear those horrible shoes to work.”

I finally had her in front of me, but she was trying to wriggle from my grasp. “
Julia.
”

“Hmmm?” Her eyes were closed.

My inbox pinged again, announcing four new messages. She asked what I was working on and I explained about my new project. If this was a day for answers, or at least partial ones, it was a good moment to ask her why she had wanted the spreadsheet months ago.

“I wanted to test you. I needed dirt on Kitty for my book and thought you might be a useful source, but I didn't know if I could trust you.”

“So you're not going to do anything with the email addresses?” I was on the verge of relief.

“I didn't say
that.
My sisters and I collect all sorts of information. We have no plans to use the email addresses now, but we can never know what might be useful in the future.” She yawned, arching her back and sucking in air dramatically. When she deflated onto the bed, she said, sleepily, “Leeta took a copy of that spreadsheet,” as if it were an afterthought.

I placed my hand on my chest. “
What?
”

“Don't worry,” she said, glaring at me through one eye. “No one will trace it back to you. If anyone finds out, I'll say I gave it to her.”

“What's she going to do with the addresses?” I was protective of Kitty's girls.
My girls.

“Maybe Jennifer's army is looking for new recruits.”

“You said you didn't think Leeta was involved.”

“What I think is that you should stop obsessing about Leeta. I know she mesmerized you—she was like that, she had a certain magnetism—but she's gone now, who knows where.”

“Forget her?” I could never forget the girl who woke me from my sleep. Even if I'd wanted to, her face was everywhere. “Did you know she's on a T-shirt?”

“Some of the editors at Austen have the book bag,” Julia said. “Now listen: I need to ask you for a favor.” She sat up and began searching through her bag again, which contained even more items. She pulled out a silver hard drive, which fit into the palm of her hand.

“What I'm about to say to you—actually, everything I've said to you today—is top secret. Do not breathe a word to anyone, okay?”

I nodded in agreement, but I was still stuck on the fact that Leeta had a copy of the spreadsheet. I had her red notebook and she had something of mine.

“You know about my exposé, so that saves me the trouble. This hard drive contains what I've been working on for years. At this point it's mostly detailed notes and sketches. There are also audio files, scans of secret documents, surveillance photos, contact information for my sources, everything. Plum, are you listening? This is important.”

I looked up from the floorboards. “I'm listening.”

“I want you to write the book.”

“Me?”

“It is entirely possible that something might happen to me,” she said, pausing for a moment. “I've thought about it and talked it over with my sisters and we think it's best if you write my exposé of Austen. You worked at Austen. You know what it's like there. I think you're the right person for the job. Besides, I hate writing.” She held out the silver hard drive, but I didn't take it. “The book will have both of our names on it,” she said. “I already have an interested publisher.”

“Back up. Why do you think something might happen to you?”

“The police could discover that I lied to them. What if they think I'm lying about other things? If they arrest me, they'll confiscate my computer, everything. Or maybe Jennifer will blow up the Austen Tower. Think of all those floors collapsing. I would be crushed to death in the Beauty Closet.”

I pictured the Austen Tower aflame like a birthday candle. “That's a ridiculous thought,” I said, but maybe it wasn't. “Julia, please tell me what's happening.” She didn't reply. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and watch her ringlets flail around until she begged for mercy.

“I feel uneasy, that's all. I wish you wouldn't be so suspicious of me.” Her hand remained extended, the silver hard drive in the space between us, forbidden fruit. I looked from Julia to the hard drive, then reached over and plucked it from her palm.

“Thank goodness,” Julia said, reclining again. “I can relax knowing you're on board. If I become incapacitated, those cocksuckers at Austen will still get what's coming to them.”