“I don’t know,” she said. “I have to change. . . .”
“I’ll wait for you out front. Black Escalade. Take your time.”
She pretended to think about it for a beat. Thirty seconds. Then she said okay.
Mallory found Alec waiting for her by the front door. She was carrying her beat-up Danskin duffel bag over her shoulder, and he took it from her.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” he said.
“What do you mean?” She looked down at her jeans and UGGs. Perfectly suitable for the car ride home. And she couldn’t wait to trade in her jeans for sweats. She was exhausted. Her post-performance high had evaporated like cheap perfume.
“We have the Baxter party tonight.”
“Oh, my God, I totally forgot!” She shook her head. “I can’t go. I’m just—I’m not dressed for it, and I’m not in the mood for a party. There will be so many people there. . . .”
“We can’t be no-shows, Mal. Not for them.”
Mallory had met Justin Baxter and Martha Pike through Bette Noir. The couple was well-known on both coasts for their lavish parties and connections in media and the arts. The Baxters were multibillionaires, thanks to Martha’s sex toy and accessory empire. Most famously—and lucratively—she’d invented the Pike Kegel Ball, a device to strengthen and tighten the vagina. While Martha didn’t invent Kegel exercises, she made them cool, sexy, and fun with accessories. And she was living very well because of it. Her handsome husband, Justin, was a huge fan of burlesque. Their private parties were notorious for performances by the best up-and-coming artists in New York and LA. Rumor had it that on more than a few occasions, movie stars and models had spontaneously tried their hands at burlesque at the parties, getting on stage and shedding their clothes.
The Baxters had, in a sense, given Mallory her start in burlesque; she had done her first performance at Justin’s birthday party in LA last year, when Bette met her girlfriend, Zebra, and bowed out of the lineup at his party so she could join Zebra on the start of her world tour. That was around the time when Bette quit the Blue Angel, and Mallory had only seen her a few times since.
She liked the Baxters, and she would always feel somewhat indebted to them for the chance they gave her to become Moxie. Alec was right—they couldn’t bail on the party.
“Okay, you’re right. But what should I do about my clothes? Should I go home and change?”
“We can’t go all the way back uptown and then turn around to go to Bond Street. It’s already eleven o’clock. You know what? Put your costume back on. They’ll love it.”
It sounded crazy, but he was right. If there was any place she could walk into on a random Friday night wearing a Marie Antoinette costume, it was the Baxters’ house.
“Okay. Give me ten minutes to get dressed again.”
Even though Violet took a half hour to clean off some of her body glitter and put on jeans and a simple black tank top, the Cadillac Escalade was parked outside, just as Ryan had promised.
He opened the door from inside the backseat, and she climbed in beside him. The driver was a beefy guy with a crew cut. He wore sunglasses even though it was close to midnight.
“Hey,” Ryan said. He was smoking a joint and offered it to her.
“No, thanks. So where are we going?”
“Well,” he said, taking a hit. “The Blue Angel was sort of the preshow for us. I’m meeting some buddies at the Slit.”
The Slit was a club on the edge of the East Village. It was a much trendier and more high-profile scene than the relatively underground Blue Angel, complete with velvet rope front door, bouncers, and a dress code. It called itself burlesque, but it was really just a high-end sex club. Violet had gone a few times. Most of the acts were borderline misogynist: girls sticking knives in their pussies or getting tied up and whipped by guys calling them whores.
But that wasn’t why she was going to say no tonight. Even when she was out with friends for a casual night, she had very little patience for sitting in an audience while other women were the center of attention. And that dynamic was out of the question for her night with Ryan Ellison.
“I’ll pass,” she said.
“What?” He looked at her like she had just sprouted a second head.
“I’m not interested.”
Ryan told the driver to pull over.
“What’s wrong? Are you offended or something?”
“No—not at all. In fact, if you want another show tonight, I can suggest a better one. Very exclusive. Very, very exclusive.”
They exchanged a look. It took a minute, but Ryan’s million dollar movie star eyes clicked with comprehension.
“Back to the Rivington,” he told the driver.
3
A
man dressed in a white tuxedo showed Mallory and Alec into the Baxter’s infamous art deco apartment at 40 Bond Street.
“Please remove your shoes,” he said. Mallory looked at where the man was pointing, and sure enough, there were racks of expensive heels by the door. It looked like the shoe department at Bergdorf’s.
Mallory and Alec removed their shoes and placed them on one of the racks. She felt strange in just her stockings, but was distracted from her discomfort by the sight of the giant “fishtank” hanging in the foyer. Bette had told her about this, but still, it was startling: it wasn’t actually a fishtank; it was a giant glass cube that housed a constant rotation of gorgeous young women. They lounged around inside, doing their nails or their undergrad homework or talking on their cell phones. Mallory found the concept incredibly offensive, but Bette had told her how much the Baxters paid the girls, and suddenly they seemed a lot less exploited. Tonight’s exhibit was a busty redhead wearing black yoga pants and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt from Barking Dog café. She was either watching a video or reading something off of her iPhone.
“Interesting,” Alec said.
Mallory shot him a look.
“What? Is it not interesting? I’m just stating the obvious. Jeez.”
Mallory looked around the room, taking note of the boldfaced names. Marc Jacobs. Jessica Szohr. Arianna Huffington. Graydon Carter.
And Billy Barton.
“Ugh, Billy is here,” Mallory said. Billy Barton was an affected, twenty-seven-year-old Manhattan trust fund kid who owned and published the men’s lifestyle magazine
Gruff
. Which made him Alec’s boss. “I knew we shouldn’t have come.”
“Please—just relax. I need to talk to him anyway. He left me four messages today that he has a great assignment for me, and every time I called him back his assistant said he was in a meeting. So let’s just make the rounds, I’ll talk to Billy, and then we can go.”
Justin Baxter, dressed in an impeccably tailored dark suit, noticed them from across the room. He excused himself from his conversation with a handsome, dark-skinned man she recognized as Dominick Monde, head of Tout Le Monde Films.
“Ah, let them eat cake!” Justin said, hugging her warmly. “Amazing outfit! Did you two come straight from the club, or are we lucky enough to be getting a surprise performance from the great Moxie, the Burlesque Ballerina?
“No performance tonight, Justin.” She couldn’t help but smile. He was handsome and charming and seeing him always reminded her of when burlesque was new and mysterious and unattainable to her.
“Come say hi to Martha—I know she’ll change your mind.”
“You guys did miss an inspired performance tonight,” Alec said.
“I have to get out more. Martha has kept me tied up.” Mallory and Alec exchanged a look. From what they’d heard about the couple from Bette, Justin might have been speaking literally.
“You go say hi to Martha—I’m going to catch Billy,” said Alec. Mallory nodded. Fine, let him deal with Billy. She couldn’t stand the way he talked down to them, like he was New York royalty and they were serfs in his kingdom.
Justin took her by the hand and led her through a crowded room toward the bar, where a petite blond woman was mixing pink cocktails and pouring them into champagne flutes. Waitresses flanked her with trays at the ready. Justin snapped a glass up and handed it to her.
“What is it?”
“Red velvet champagne cocktail. You’ll love it.”
She took a sip. It was extremely sweet. He was right—as she was someone who loved dessert more than drinks, it was perfect for her.
Martha spotted them and waved them over. She was stationed on a chair next to a long table covered with what appeared to be gift bags stuffed with pink tissue paper and tied with wide pink ribbons.
“You look gorgeous, as always,” Martha said to Mallory when she bent down to kiss her on the cheek. Unfortunately, Mallory could not return the compliment, as much as she would have liked to. The woman looked as unappealing as ever, with her overweight, pear-shaped figure, and stringy, brown hair, her sausage feet stuffed into orthopedic shoes. The contrast to her model-hot husband was always jarring. When Mallory had first met them, she’d assumed their relationship was purely a business transaction: he lived off her fortune, and she was squired around town by a hot piece of man-candy. But the more she saw of them, the more she realized they truly enjoyed each other’s company and shared a love of fine art, food, partying, and subversive sexuality.
“I love, love, love your costume!” Martha effused. “Please tell me you’re going to perform? We threw this little gathering together last minute, and I feel terrible we have no entertainment.”
“Oh, no, not tonight, Martha. I’m exhausted. I came straight from the Blue Angel.”
“Just a quickie—it will only take five minutes and will make the whole night! Justin, find her some music.”
“Guys, really, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I’m just not in the right headspace tonight.”
Justin and Martha exchanged a look.
“No pressure, doll. We just thought it might be fun,” said Martha.
“Okay,” Mallory said, eager to change the subject. “So what’s new in the world of vaginal optimization?”
“I’m glad you asked! Your party favor will answer that,” Martha said, reaching over and handing her a bag.
It was surprisingly heavy.
“What is this?”
“Open it,” Martha said, with unabashed glee.
Mallory lifted a weighty cardboard box out of the bag and opened it to find a wide glass pot filled with what appeared to be pink jelly.
“Strawberry jam?” she said.
“No! It’s for your vagina,” Martha said.
Mallory looked at her blankly and then examined the pot. The label on it read H
ONEYMOON
T
WO
.
“You coat the inside of your vagina with it, and the gel makes it slick and tight—and presto, you’re a honeymoon virgin again.” Justin said.
“Wow. This is really . . . inventive,” Mallory said.
“Not everyone makes the effort to Kegel,” Martha explained. “Or their muscles are so far gone, it doesn’t work. Regardless, I’ve come up with a quick fix. It’s not even on the market yet. I’m giving my guests tonight a preview. Or, a preslather.”
“Um, thanks,” Mallory said.
“I’m going to bring some by the Blue Angel for the girls,” Martha said.
“Okay—great,” Mallory said. Because what else was there to say?
She looked around for Alec, but the room was filling up with women, one more beautiful than the next. And, surprisingly, her outfit wasn’t the most bizarre in the room.
“Some interesting fashion choices around here,” Mallory commented.
Martha sighed. “I find it tedious, Honestly, Moxie, you can get away with it. You’re a performer. But most of these girls? Posers. They’re absolutely unoriginal. It’s Lady Gaga chic, and it’s so yesterday. But my husband finds them entertaining, don’t you, dear?”
“I have to admit, I do,” he said, kissing Martha on the cheek.
Mallory saw Dominick Monde heading their way with a pale, freckled brunette in tow. She knew it was time to make her exit.
“Well, it was great to see you guys. I’m going to find Alec and head out soon. It’s been a long night.”
They kissed her good-bye, made sure she had her gift bag, and told her to have Bette call them when she was back in New York. “Getting in touch with her and Zebra is like trying to get an audience with the Pope,” Justin said.
Mallory spotted Alec in the next room almost immediately. How could she miss him, standing next to Billy Barton, who wore one of his trademark, flamboyant, three-piece suits. Tonight’s fashion statement was a hunter green suit with matching green, polka-dotted tie. If he hadn’t been so handsome, with thick, dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, she doubted he would get away with his outfits—no matter how much money he had in the bank or how many magazines he owned. She could see the enormous, gold, Yacht-Master Rolex watch on his wrist from six feet away.
“Hey, Mallory. Nice to see you. You look fetching, as always.” He kissed her on both cheeks. “You’re just in time for the good news.”
“Oh, what’s that?” she said. Alec put his arm around her, but she shrugged it off. She was still pissed off about last night, and no matter how late it was getting or how spirited the party, she wasn’t ready to kiss and make up.
“I was just telling Alec I’m flying him to LA next week for a major interview.”
“Oh, yeah?” She glanced at Alec, but he was looking at Billy expectantly.
“Kendall James: our March cover story. She’s in the new Kathryn Bigelow movie coming out that month. Major score.”
Mallory looked at Alec. A year ago, he had been lucky to get an interview with Bette Noir, a New York burlesque performer. Now he was flying to LA to interview the hottest starlet in Hollywood? She hated to admit it, but she felt jealous.
“Are you serious?” Alec said, clearly elated.
“Serious as cancer, my man. So here’s your excuse to have a Kendall James movie marathon this weekend. Just to save you some trouble prioritizing which ones to watch first: she’s topless in the Ryan Ellison one.”
Mallory rolled her eyes. “I’m leaving,” she said.
“I’m leaving, too,” Alec said. “Billy, great score. I won’t let you down—
Gruff
readers will see a whole new Kendall James when I’m done with the article.”
“I kind of like the old, topless Kendall James,” Billy said. Alec laughed.
Mallory walked to the door.