Hostile Makeover (14 page)

“Okay, consider your message delivered. I’ll think about it,” she said.

“You’re lying, right?”

“Yep. No photo. No way.”

“Well, then, I’ve done my job.” He unfolded himself to a standing position. “Let me know when Mac succeeds in pressuring you into knuckling under. We can do it at the studio I share with Tate. He’s teaching me all the glamour-photog tricks. I promise, you’ll look like a movie star.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Or we can just select one of those Forties hairstyle shots we did last month.”

“That was a weak moment,” Lacey said. Stella had talked her into trying a different 1940s hairstyle every day for a full week to see what would go best with the Gloria Adams gown for the Fashion Museum gala. Mac thought it would make a nice photo feature, and a way to turn the fashion tables on his pet fashion reporter. His style sense was lacking, but his editorial-imperative senses were keen.

“How about the one with the snood?”

“Over my dead body. Go back to your dark kingdom, Hansen.”

“Your wish is my command.” He bowed theatrically and strolled off. Hansen waved at Felicity as he passed the food editor in the hall.

Felicity returned from a long lunch to her desk across the aisle from Lacey’s, and sat down to do whatever it was she did to produce her food column. She looked up at Lacey with her strange, blank blue eyes.

“I heard the terrible news that your car was stolen.” Felicity was oozing with faux sympathy. “I am so sorry, Lacey. Your poor little sports car,” she said in a tone that made it perfectly clear that she felt the universe was merely evening up the score between them.
One minivan, one Z. Love all.

“I appreciate your kind words, Felicity.”
Why don’t you just shut up?

“Perhaps it’s for the best, after all. It was getting kind of long in the tooth, wasn’t it?”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”
Bitch.
“I’m sure when your minivan blew up, you realized it was all for the best. It was getting a little broad in the butt, wasn’t it?”

Felicity slammed the drawer shut. “That explosion was meant for you!”

“Because they thought you were me! Fancy that. How on earth could that have happened? The amazing resemblance? Or maybe because you were nibbling on my beat like a mouse on a stolen cookie?”

Felicity jumped up from her seat, grabbed her coffee cup, and marched out in speechless fury. Mac passed Felicity on his way over to see Lacey.

“Are you two squabbling again?” He glared at Lacey.

“Are we breathing?”

Mac looked toward Felicity’s desk for today’s sweet and fattening offering. “It’s not going to work, Smithsonian. I am not separating you. Learn to play nice. This is the LifeStyle section, and the girly beats go together.”

“That’s a nice offensive take on things,” Lacey responded. “You know, there’s a desk open near Wiedemeyer. Felicity could move there. Or he could move here. Make a nice change. Part of the big makeover. Move me to news.”

Mac grabbed an iced oatmeal cookie. “Not gonna happen, Smithsonian; we like Felicity. Sitting her near Wiedemeyer? It’s not a good idea.”

“Because you think he’s a jinx.”

“No, I don’t believe in that. No such thing as a jinx. However, it’s a known fact that bad things mysteriously happen to Wiedemeyer and the people who hang out around him.”

“Like a jinx?” Mac rolled his eyes. “But Mac, Felicity likes Harlan and he likes her. She’s already had her car blown up. What else could happen?”

Mac looked over at Felicity’s desk. The plate of cookies was calling, and he took a couple more. “I’m not interested in finding out.” He cleared a spot on Lacey’s desk and leaned against it. “I am, however, concerned that your car was stolen out of
The Eye
’s garage yesterday. And our publisher is furious.”

“Is Claudia going to buy me a new car?”

“Nice try. But you will be glad to know we’re putting together new security procedures.”

“Closing the old barn door after the horse is stolen. Good strategy.”

“By the way, you got a ‘Crimes of Fashion’ column for me this week?”

“I’m working on it.” It was Wednesday, the deadline for her Friday “Crimes of Fashion” column. She was still hammering away at “Make Me Over: The Mad Pursuit of Beauty in the Twenty-first Century.” But there was quite a ways to go. “Better leave me alone or you’ll be running blank column inches.” Mac grabbed another cookie and ambled off.

The weekend couldn’t come fast enough, as Lacey found herself dwelling on pleasant thoughts of Victor Donovan. He was broad in the shoulders, narrow in the hips, and had muscular arms that made her melt. Getting out of town alone together would be the perfect antidote to all this nonsense about supermodels and their paranoias and her beloved car being stolen and the paper’s big makeover and being badgered about a cutesy little photo to go along with her column. She couldn’t stand it one more second. She gave Vic a call. Anything to hear his voice and relive the promise of seeing him later.

“Howdy, stranger,” she purred. “Can I buy you dinner?”

“That’s hard to pass up, lady. By the way, who is this?”

“Smart-ass. First I have to finish this accursed column, and then I’m going to see Amanda Manville in action at a photo shoot in Dupont Circle. But I can meet you later.”

“Is this the knucklehead model who wants you to solve her much-anticipated murder?”

“The very same.”

“In that case, we’ll go together. I’ll meet you at the paper.”

“It’s sweet of you to care.”

“Lacey.” His voice was a caress. “I’ve loved your mind and your soul for a long time. But right now, I’m pretty darned interested in your body, and I’m going to protect that cute tush of yours, no matter how many weirdos try to trap you in their sick head trips.”

“Ooh, you think I have a cute tush?”

“The cutest.”

“Sometimes, Vic, you’re adorable.”

“Prove it.”

Thrills danced up Lacey’s spine. “Prove it?”

“This weekend. And remember what you’re going to say if anything, much less the worst, happens to Ms. Manville?”

“I’ll let the police handle it, Chief.”
I’ll let them handle their end of it, anyway.

Lacey felt his presence before she saw him.
There really is something to those pheromones.
She smiled to herself; then she looked up from her computer screen and there he was, sexy smile and all.

“How did you get through security?”

“I’m a professional.” His skin was still dark from the Colorado sun, his jade eyes telegraphing his desire for her. His faded jeans molded to his body, and a black sweater pushed up on his forearms revealed curly dark hair. Goose bumps and a few other hot, sweaty feelings distracted her. Good thing she had finished her work. Her friend Brooke’s fantasy “Pentagon pheromone jammers” that were allegedly derailing Washingtonians’ sexual desires certainly had no effect on Vic. “You look beautiful, Lacey.”

This is what men are good for,
she thought.
Among other things.
Lacey had no idea how she looked today. Yesterday she had dressed to impress. Today, dressing for comfort, she simply wore black slacks and a fitted red jacket with black buttons, but one word from Vic made her feel beautiful. She ran her fingers through her hair as she gave him a slow smile.

“Maybe we could start our weekend early,” she flirted.

“I can make a phone call,” he said. “Take Thursday and Friday off.”

“Oh, darling, I can’t,” she said, “but maybe tonight we could . . .”

Trujillo chose just that moment to pass by on his way to the staff kitchen. “Get a room, you two.”

“Reservation’s already made,” Vic said. Tony grinned, and they slapped hands. Lacey blushed.

“Get out of here, Tony,” she said.

“It’s quitting time; we all should get out of here. Then later Vic and I can swap stories,” he said, ducking a paper missile that Lacey launched at him. Lacey gathered her tote bag, grabbed her leather jacket, and sneaked a kiss with Vic.

 

The sun was an orange ball low on the horizon, lighting pink and lavender clouds in the dusky Washington evening. A hint of wood smoke perfumed the air, and it was just crisp enough to kiss the cheeks with a hint of colder weather to come. Just crisp enough for her black embroidered shawl and gloves. Lacey held Vic’s hand as they approached the park and the Navy Memorial fountain at Dupont Circle. It was a pleasant oasis tucked inside the city’s most irritating traffic circle, a setting that always reminded Lacey of Paris, or at least the Paris of her imagination, the one she had seen only in the movies. The green ring of shrubbery around the fountain was a perfect setting for a painting—or a catalog photo. Scarlet, orange, and yellow blossoms glowed in the dimming light. A few leaves fell as if on cue.

Lacey spotted Hansen, obviously working freelance for Amanda, along with some other guys from the paper, checking lights and equipment for the photo shoot. A mob of Amanda’s fans were milling around, waiting for a glimpse of America’s makeover queen. There was an air of excitement among them, young women of every shape and description.

Amanda’s trailer was set up on P Street, on the east side of the Circle. Stella emerged from the trailer in her Stylettos salon smock and spied Lacey and Vic sitting on the edge of the fountain. She waved and dashed through the ever-chaotic Dupont Circle traffic to join them.

“You survived Amanda,” Lacey said, meeting her halfway. Stella looked uncharacteristically beat. Her makeup was doing a disappearing act, and her usual sparkle was fizzling out. Even her spiky purple crew cut seemed to be drooping.

“She’s a trip. Amanda Manville makes the evil queen of Stylettos, Josephine Radford, look like a lamb. Can you believe that bitch said I look cheap?” Stella took off the smock and showed off her outfit, especially chosen to impress her client. “Vic Donovan, you tell me, does this turquoise-leather catsuit look cheap? And let me tell you, these turquoise chandelier earrings cost me a small fortune. They are, like, totally authentic Native American, and there is nothing cheap about that.” She was deeply offended. Vic tried not to smile. He consoled her with a pat on the back.

Lacey perched on the edge of the fountain. “It’s okay. She sneered at my green gabardine vintage suit. She said vintage is
so over
.”

“Just goes to show she knows nothing about real style for real people, like you and me, Lacey.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s not real anymore. So how does she look now?”

“Gorgeous, thanks to me, but a little weird. Plastic, you know? Doing someone’s makeup I’m always trying to balance the two sides of the face, ’cause everybody is a little asymmetrical, right? But not her; she has, like mirror-image symmetry. Creepy. And I’m not sure she can move all of her features.”

“Maybe she’s Botoxed. Although she’s really too young, mid-twenties.”

“You’re right. Definitely Botoxed. And she should really be Prozacked as well, and maybe chloroformed,” Stella continued. “I think maybe her teeth are too big. Veneers, you know. And she has too many of them, in double rows like a shark. And I swear they glow in the dark.” The exhausted little punkette stylist, with her own makeup smeared, sank down next to Lacey.

“Did she mention her big fear?”

“That she’s being stalked by the killer plastic surgeon? Oh, yeah. You know what I think? It’s a freakin’ miracle no one’s knocked her off yet.”

“Do we get to see this mythical creature anytime soon?” Vic wanted to know. “Does she levitate off the bed? Does her head spin around?” He laughed, but the sound of a high-pitched shriek made them turn in unison and look toward the east side of the Circle. Amanda had emerged from the trailer.

“Stella!” It was a bellow worthy of Stanley Kowalski on amphetamines. “Who told you to take a break? I didn’t say you could leave. This lipstick is all wrong! I need you to fix this
right now!
”

Stella stood up, spoiling for a fight. “She said she was wearing the gold dress. That lipstick was right for the gold dress. Now look what she’s gone and done!”

Amanda was a vision of shrieking loveliness, wearing a long dark red panne velvet gown. It was a Christmas fantasy of a dress, featuring a hood trimmed in white faux fur. Deep, wide cuffs on the bell sleeves were also trimmed in white fur. She had selected this evening gown for the Dupont Circle shoot for her premiere winter catalog. Against the autumnal parkscape of the Circle it would paint a serene picture and play to the fantasies that encourage women to buy those perfect dresses they never wear. But Amanda was anything but serene as she marched across the street into the park to yell at Stella. Stella, menace in her heart, trudged over to meet her. Amanda towered over the small stylist.

“Where did she get that voice?” Vic asked, grimacing at Amanda’s nasal flatness. “You know who she reminds me of? The robot in
Metropolis,
the Fritz Lang movie.”