Fashionably Late (54 page)

Stephanie didn’t know what to do. Here was Tangela, a real model and her idol, giving her advice and, for the first time, being really friendly with her. But Stephanie didn’t want to do this. Still, she was too ashamed to say so. And Tangela knew about her vomiting.

Tangela seemed to know everything. Did you get addicted if you only tried it, she wondered? Could it make you go insane? She once read about a girl who took drugs and jumped out a window. She’d thought she was a bird.

Was that coke or some other drug? And what if her mother found out?

What if Aunt Karen found out?

Tangela had gotten busy. She had tapped some white powder out on to l the hand mirror and had now cut it into thin lines. She took the hundreddollar bill and rolled it tightly. “All of us models use this,” she said. “How else do you think we stay so thin and manage to dance down those runways? I’m telling you they’re lying in those commercials when they tell you about the soda. This is the real thing.”

She took the bill and inserted one end into a nostril. It was so gross.

Stephanie was ashamed to watch, but she forced herself. Then Tangela moved the other end of the tube to the long line of powder and sucked it up her nose. God, it was disgusting! Like a vacuum cleaner.

Stephanie had never hung out with the drug crowd at school. She had been with the popular, collegiate kids, not the heads. And she didn’t even like drinking, plus there were too many calories in it. But when Tangela looked up at her and smiled, handing her the rolled-up bill, it was as pure a dare as Stephie had ever had and she knew that if she rejected it she would never be accepted.

Wincing, she inserted the little tube into her nose. It was wet, and that alone made her ready to throw up again. She wondered, for a terrified minute, if she could somehow fake sniffmg the coke, but the line clearly disappeared when Tangela had done it. Stephanie took a deep breath, then realized she would have to expel it to have room in her lungs to snort, and kneeled down to the mirror. Quick as she could, she sucked the powder up her nose, like a good little Dustbuster.

It stung, but not enough to make her sneeze. Right away she felt her heart begin to pound, and held out the roll to Tangela. Tangela smiled, took the bill, and snorted up the other three lines.

Stephanie stood up, feeling a little dizzy. She could feel the blood singing in her ears. The end of her nose tickled and she wiped it with her hand. She sniffed.

She felt a light beading of perspiration break out on her chest and forehead and upper lip. She pinched the end of her nose again. Her heart was beating more wildly, but she didn’t feel frightened. She was surprised to find that she felt good. Really good. And not scared at all. Tangela was still crouched over the table, doing something with the mirror. Stephanie walked to the window and looked out. This wasn’t bad.

She felt tall, thin, and important. She turned to the clippings about her lying across the bed. All of a sudden she felt as if she owned the world. She was the Waif of the Future and, in this moment, she knew she could succeed. She’d quit school. She’d make a lot of money. She could do anything. Best of all, the hunger that had gnawed at her stomach for so long seemedţat lastţto have disappeared. Stephanie realized that she was free. That she would never have to eat again, that she would never have to humiliate herself by kneeling over the toilet. She felt in control.

Meanwhile, Tangela had laid out another set of lines. Stephanie was surprised. What for? She had had enough. But Tangela laughed.

“Didn’t I tell you?” she asked. “Didn’t I give you the secret?”

Stephanie nodded.

Her mouth felt too dry to speak, but Tangela was making up for it.

“Have some more,” she said. “Have some more and afterward we’ll go out and buy some things. Then tonight I’ll take you to this bar.

Everybody will stare, they all know us now. Ebony and Ivory.” Tangela laughed, and this time the laugh sounded wilder. “We’ll be like Naomi and Linda. But younger.” Tangela handed the roll to Stephanie.

Stephanie knelt at the table and sucked up another line from the mirror. This time she didn’t mind watching as Tangela snorted the other four lines. For a moment, Stephanie wondered if you could overdose on this stuff. But then she felt her heart begin to pump again, even more strongly than before, and her blood once again seemed to sing in her ears. Tangela laughed, and Stephanie joined in, although she wasn’t sure why she was laughing. She just knew it felt good. Tangela was her friend.

“Last night everyone wanted to know where you were. Every place I went, they wanted to know where you were.”

Stephanie smiled. “That’s great. I wish I could have come, but my mother and my aunt…”

“Fuck your aunt. Big fat bitch. Just like my mother. I didn’t get coverage. I didn’t get on TV. I didn’t get the black dress. Whose fault was that? Bitches.” Tangela bent over the table, but this time she used the tiny spoon to lift some of the powder directly under her nose. She snorted from the spoon, but that left half a white mustache on the black skin under her nose. Tangela kept on talking. but her voice was lower now. Something about her boyfriend, and Maria Loper.

Then, “Fuck them,” she yelled, and Stephanie jumped. “Fuck them both,” Tangela screamed. “I’m prettier than that bitch. I’m prettier than you.”

Stephanie could see Tangela had broken out into a heavy sweat. Her eyes seemed huge, as if they were going to burst out of her head. The whites of her eyes seemed very bloodshot. Stephanie herself was dizzy.

“Are you all right?” she asked and put her hand on Tangela’s shoulder.

“Ssh,” Stephanie cautioned. “People will hear us.” Tangela twitched away and smacked Stephanie’s hand.

“Get away from me. Who the fuck are you?” she spat and walked over to the bed. She picked up one of the newspaper pictures. “Fuck you,” she said again. She crumpled the newspaper in her hand. “Spoiled ofay bitch!” She reached across to the rest of the papers and began to grab them, ripping and tearing them as she did.

“Hey!” Stephanie yelled. Her heart was beating even faster now.

Maybe Tangela wasn’t her friend. She felt a fear as total as the strength that had flowed through her only a few minutes before.

Tangela looked up at her. “Shut up!” Tangela cried. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Then Tangela crumpled into the corner at the side of the bed.

“What the hell is going on?” Defina asked, from the doorway, where she stood with a bellman who held a pass key. Stephanie turned to her.

She didn’t have a clue.

It was one of those perfect New York days, when you know the city is a better place to live than anywhere else in the world. Riverside Park sparkled, an emerald bracelet that lay along the silver sleeve of the Hudson. It was going to be a perfect day, Karen thought as she looked out of the long windows of her apartment. It was the day on which Cyndi, the mother of Karen’s baby, would arrive in New York.

They had all agreed that the girl would spend her last few weeks here and have the baby at Doctors’ Hospital. Karen had been eager to fly

it.

“The airlines won’t allow someone that close to labor to fly, and anyway she’d be uncomfortable with first class. She’s just a kid, a college student. She’s from a bluecollar suburb of Chicago. Don’t make her feel like she’s being bought. Comfort, but not luxury,” Sally advised.

So today Cyndi would arrive by Greyhound and Karen and Jeffrey would meet her at the Port Authority bus terminal on Forty-first Street and Eighth Avenue. Karen didn’t like to think about what the nineteen-hour bus trip had been like for Cyndi and her bladder, yet over the phone the girl had sounded not just cheerful but excited. Karen herself hadn’t been inside the bus terminal in twenty years, but it would only be for a few moments and then they would whisk Cyndi up to the Hotel Wales. It was a small, family-run hotel on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, close to Doctors’ Hospital and in an excellent neighborhood.

But not in their neighborhood.

Sally had advised against that, too. “Not in your neighborhood, not in your home. She doesn’t need to know your last name, exactly where you live, or where you work. Trust me on this, Karen. You don’t want the heartbreak of lawsuits later on, or a lifetime of letters begging for money or visits. She’s agreed to hand the baby over and never see it again. Believe me, it’s the best thing.”

Karen had felt a little chill run down her back. “But what if my child wants to find its natural mother someday?” she asked. “What if some time in the future the baby wants to know?”

“That’s different. Right now we’re talking about Cyndi, who’s an adult who’s making an adult choice. Your baby has no choice about being born or being adopted. Later on, as an adult, he can take steps to do whatever he wants.”

Cyndi was carrying a boy. The other couple, the ones who had passed Cyndi on to Karen, had insisted on prenatal testing, so they already knew the baby’s gender. Jeffrey didn’t seem any more excited about the idea of a son than of a daughter. More than anything else, he seemed involved in ironing out the myriad of details in the NormCo acquisition final contract. In fact, since they’d come home from Paris he’d seemed more than a little distant. And maybe he was upset about her trip to Bangkok with Bill, though he didn’t admit it. But Karen knew that lots of real expectant fathers felt distant from both their wives and the baby-to-be, and Jeffrey hadn’t had a lot of time to get used to the whole idea. She was counting on the fact that the reality of a son in his arms would engage his emotions.

The return from Paris had not meant a rest. Karen had the New York show to contend with. Now, Karen dressed quickly in a black dress with a jumper that layered over it. It had turned out to be one of her most successful styles from the Paris show. She surveyed herself in the mirror. Too severe? Too chic? She didn’t want to overwhelm Cyndi.

She tore the jumper and dress off and instead wriggled into her size ten jeans and a pearl gray cotton v-neck sweater. She put on woven brown leather Botega Veneta loafers and a matching shoulder bag. That was better. Simple, easy, and young without pushing it. She didn’t want Cyndi to be shocked at her age. Biologically, at least, she was old enough to be the girl’s mother, the baby’s grandmother. Karen shuddered.

Well, she was no older than a lot of late mothers in New York right now.

At the last minute, Karen pulled out a small chiffon scarf and tied her hair back. Cute. Casual. Just right.

Jeffrey walked into their bedroom. “Almost ready?” he asked. He was also in jeans, with a work shirt and a blazer in some kind of nubby cotton tweed. Very Emporio Armani. Also just right. “The car is waiting,” he warned, “and I don’t want the kid to have to spend any time alone in the Port Authority. God knows what might happen to her there.”

Karen grabbed her lip stick and they took the elevator down. Jeffrey reached for her hand. She had to put the lipstick tube into her back pocket.

“Cold hand,” he said.

“Warm heart,” she told him.

“Nervous?” he asked. She nodded, and checked her watch. Twenty-five minutes until the bus arrived.

“Have you been thinking of any names?” she asked.

“How about Genghis? According to you, it goes real well with Kahn.”

“Very fumy. Why not Attila?”

“No. That would only be good for a chicken. Attila the Hen.”

“Sometimes I don’t think you’re taking this seriously, Jeffrey,” Karen scolded.

“Listen, you pick a name. As long as it’s not Max or Ben or Joshua like every other kid under five on the West Side it’s all right with me.”

The Port Authority bus terminal was enormous, and not as dingy as she remembered it. It was a vast expanse of ceramic tile, and at this hour there were thousands of commuters scurrying across the big open space where all escalators seemed to be disgorging their suited businessmen.

The vagrants and homeless that must frequent the place were now, during rush hour, a lot less evident. “Sheep,” Jeffrey said with disgust. He was a snob, and looked down on commuters.

“Don’t be mean,” she said.

“Well, what would you call them?”

“Men Who Run with Briefcases.”

“Sounds like the companion volume to Women Who Run with the Wolves.”

She giggled. “Make it a self-help book: Men Who Run with Briefcases and the Women Who Love Them.” He laughed. Jeffrey had such a nice laugh.

They found the information booth and which gate would receive the Bloomington bus. It was an upstairs location, where they could stand on the tiled floor looking through big, dark glass windows onto an enormous series of parking ramps at buses that seemed constantly to be pulling in and departing. Karen checked her watch. Five more minutes, if the bus wasn’t late.

It wasn’t late. It was early. They watched as it pulled up and Karen felt herself struggling for breath. The thought of Louise came to her, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Please, don’t let me go through that again, she prayed. The doors folded back, the driver stepped down, and right behind him was a young, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with a belly so big that she looked ten months pregnant. The driver helped her off the bus. Even through the darkened windows, they could see the bright orange of her sweatshirt and the lime green and aqua trim on her Nike sneakers. But her face and expression were obscured by the darkness of the glass. The girl waved goodbye to some other people who disembarked, then she looked around her for a moment or two.

Karen felt herself clutching Jeffrey’s arm. “It must be her,” she said. “You go ask.”

Suddenly she felt shy. Shy to meet this teenager who was carrying Karen’s son-to-be. Jeffrey looked at her. “You sure?” he asked.

“Please,” was all she could say. And she watched as he walked through the aluminum doors and greeted the girl. She saw the girl nod and Jeffrey shook her hand and then the two of them walked over to the side of the bus where a tatty pile of battered luggage, mostly cardboard boxes and paper shopping bags, was being unloaded by the driver. The girl pointed to a gray-green Samsonite suitcase and a khaki dufflebag.