The Knockoff (27 page)

An ad for Shoppit appeared on the side of her screen. Imogen clicked it. The site was well organized by type of item and it looked as if it sold absolutely everything anyone in the world would ever want to buy. Imogen clicked over to the website’s fashion section. It was simple and utilitarian, lacking a sexiness that Imogen craved when looking at fashion content. Aerin was right, her site could use some glitter.

Imogen wondered:
What if Shoppit did the opposite of
Glossy
? What if it turned a commerce site into a magazine instead of the other way around? Was that crazy? Was anything crazy anymore?

She pulled a notepad from the nightstand drawer and began drawing mock pages.

Aerin was serious about importing high and low into the Shoppit website. There actually was a whole section of the site devoted to street jewelry sold by vendors on Prince Street in SoHo.

What if they created a magazine that built stories around those items? They could interview the artisans and tell their story. What if
they paired the jewelry with gorgeous clothes? Wouldn’t that inspire someone to BUY IT NOW? She began copying her notes into a document on her laptop.

She could do that for Shoppit. She should be doing it for
Glossy
. She went to sleep right after she closed the computer.

A
s promised, the location van for the photo shoot, really a rickety mobile trailer for hair, makeup and catering, was parked in front of the Four Seasons at seven a.m.

Ashley sauntered up the steps of the van at 6:59, her hair pulled into a high ponytail at the crown of her head and cascading down the sides of her cheeks in large curls.

“Am I late?” Wearing Adidas original sneakers, torn-up Rag & Bone jeans and a perfectly crisp white tuxedo shirt, the girl glanced down at her phone, and, seeing the time, smiled with a sense of pride. “Nope. I am a minute early,” she said as she sipped from a large Starbucks cup with “Ash” scrawled in cursive on the side. She thrust a second Starbucks into Imogen’s hand. “Macchiato, skim milk.” Imogen noticed Ashley had one bare ear and that the other was adorned by a huge sculptural jeweled cluster from Marni. It wouldn’t have worked on anyone else.

Grateful for the caffeine, Imogen recoiled at hearing the whoop of a siren outside. Probably an ambulance or a fire truck, but a second and third whoop made her stick her head outside the trailer door just as two police officers raised a hand to knock.

“Hello, gentlemen.” Imogen beamed at them through gritted teeth.

“Hello, ma’am. We need to see the permit you have for this vehicle.”

“Of course. Absolutely no problem. Hold on one quick second.” She moved inside the door and lowered her voice.

“Ashley, do you have a copy of the permit for the van?” Ashley’s blank stare answered the question for her. “You did remember to get us a permit for the van to park here, didn’t you?”

Ashley’s head moved back and forth. “Eve said she was taking care of it.” Ashley’s body tightened into a defensive posture. She slowly raised the Starbucks cup to her mouth to take a sip.

“There were so many details. I booked the models and the hair and the makeup and then Eve wanted new hair and makeup. She wanted Allison Gandolfo from John Barrett at Bergdorf and she was hard to get in touch with and then I booked this van and I called the Four Seasons and Eve said to let her take care of the—”

Imogen cut her off. “So we have no permit?”

“I’ll email her. She hasn’t sent me any details about one though.” Ashley moaned. “I could have missed an email. I’m also trying to tweet and Facebook and Tumbl and Pin and Gram around the clock!” It was no wonder to Imogen that Ashley had a hard time being wonderful at being either an assistant or a social media manager. She was stretched so thin she had no time to master either one and instead was forced to operate at half capacity for each of the jobs. Imogen drew in a deep breath. She’d never done what she was about to do and honestly had no idea if she could pull it off.

After a second of searching, Ashley shook her head.

“She never sent one.”

Imogen opened the doors.

“Officers, can I invite you in for some coffee?”

“Ma’am, we really just need to see that permit.”

“I am so rude. Can I introduce myself? I’m Imogen Marretti.” She used her married name, but spoke in her most proper British accent. “Have we met before? You look so familiar. Maybe at the policeman’s ball. My husband, Alex, works in the U.S. Attorney’s office and he loves you gentlemen so, so much. He raves about all of the hard work you do. Come on in and let me get you a coffee while I work on finding
that permit.” The two police officers followed her up the trailer steps and pulled out chairs at the small dingy table in the back.

“We know your husband, ma’am,” the first officer, a handsome guy in his late twenties, said. His name badge read
OFFICER CORTEZ
. “Good guy, that Alex Marretti. He put away a coupla drug dealers I brought in last year.”

“I didn’t know his wife worked in the movies though,” the other one, burly with a bald head, black bushy eyebrows and the jawline of an ox, replied as though he were the most hilarious man in the room. The burly one had no idea that the fly on his pants was down, Imogen noted with a small degree of satisfaction. She waited until no one else was looking and then winked at him and touched the zipper of her own pants. He gave her a grateful smile.

“How adorable are you? I’m not in the movies. I’m a magazine editor. Hold on just one second and let me work on finding you that permit.” She went back to Ashley. “Go to that little bakery down the street and get us a box of doughnuts.” The girl wrinkled her nose at the mention of trans fats and processed sugars, but complied without saying a word.

Imogen made the motions as though she were looking through her laptop for a very specific email or document. She was actually composing an email to Eve asking if she had the permit for the trailer to be parked there.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find it in just a moment,” she said over the top of her screen. “I’m so, so sorry to make you handsome men wait like this. I know how busy the city keeps you guys. This is my first shoot back. I don’t know if Alex shared this with his work colleagues, but I was out on medical leave for a few months and I am really just getting my sea legs back.” Imogen despised playing a damsel in distress, but with a certain breed of man, it was the one role that could get you exactly what you wanted. She hated the next word even more, but lowered her voice, “Cancer.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that, ma’am.”

“Please call me Imogen.” She paused and then let a stricken look cross her face. “I am so stupid,” she cried. “I can’t believe I did this. I just cannot believe it.”

Cortez looked up and cocked his head in a question.

Imogen continued, “We asked for a permit for the wrong day.”

The bald one shook his head a little, but Cortez’s eyes implored him.

“We don’t normally do this, Imogen, but we could maybe let that permit slide.”

Imogen had never expected it to work.

Cortez placed a hand over hers.

“You’re under a lot of stress.” Cortez tried again. “Seriously. We want to help. Your husband helps us keep the bad guys off the street every single day. How about we put some police tape around this here trailer and no one will bother you for the rest of the day.”

Imogen reached over and hugged the man.

“Also, Officer? Would you mind terribly not telling Alex about this? I would be so embarrassed if he knew I wasn’t able to hold it together at work like this. I don’t want him to worry about me.”

Just then Ashley returned with a box of pastries. No sooner had she placed the box on the table than a chubby hand reached in and raised one to his lips, stopping just before he took a bite.

“What is this?” He looked at the baked good with the confusion of a basset hound given lettuce.

“It’s a donnoli,” Ashley declared. “Half doughnut. Half cannoli. It’s like the new Cronut or something.” She was proud to have found such a gourmet delicacy in midtown. The officer just shook his head.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said and took a bite, frosting catching in his bristly mustache.

Cortez rolled his eyes slightly at his partner and nodded to Imogen. “Today is our little secret.” Men loved feeling complicit in a secret with a beautiful woman.

The police officers ambled down the steps and began wrapping the trailer in police tape as though it were a crime scene. Imogen texted her husband.

>>>>Asst. forgot permit. Had to cry and drop your name with the police. Hope is ok.<<<<

>>>>Use what you got. Get ’em gorgeous.<<<<

An email arrived from Eve a couple of seconds later with just one line: “Isn’t getting a permit for YOUR photo shoot YOUR job?”

Thankfully everyone else was about twenty minutes late for the shoot. Coco and Hilary miraculously arrived at the exact same time, both clean-faced with freshly washed hair, blank canvases ready to be painted.

“Okay, Ashley, now tell me about this makeup change that Eve asked for?” Imogen turned to her assistant, who was busily tweeting something. “I thought we lined up Pat McGrath.” Ashley barely looked up as she replied.

“Eve wanted someone cheaper so she booked makeup herself.”

Imogen tried not to show how livid she was. “Do you know who it is?”

“Someone she ended up getting for free.”

“Ashley, please pay attention. We need to make sure this shoot goes off without a hitch. It’s your job to pay attention right now.”

“It’s also my job to tweet.” Imogen could tell the girl regretted the words the second they left her mouth. “I’m sorry,” Ashley said. “I’m a little overwhelmed.”

Move forward
, Imogen thought.
Breathe
. At least the hair and makeup people were here, unlike the permit.

Both Hilary and Coco were hungry, but most definitely not for donnolis.

“Do you have any gluten-free breakfast bars?” Coco asked.

Hilary chimed in, “Can I get a protein shake?”

Imogen looked at Ashley, who shrugged and held up her hands.

She would need to figure out catering too.

This time Ashley didn’t need to be told anything before she left the trailer in search of an organic grocery store at the same time Imogen realized that no one had thought to bring a steamer for the clothes—all now crinkled from transit.

Alice arrived right on time at nine thirty, her tiny frame swathed in what looked like four layers of cardigans and cashmere wraps in varying shades of gray.

“I can’t believe I am actually going to shoot this on my phone,” she said incredulously. “I’m excited. But nervous.” It was the most small
talk Imogen had ever heard come out of Alice Hobbs’s mouth. Fashion photographers were notoriously bad communicators, at least out loud. They were somehow always able to convey a grand vision for their photographs through one-word grunts, hand gestures and small tap dances, but conversation was simply not their forte.

“I think you will be as genius shooting with an iPhone as you are with a twenty-thousand-dollar camera.” Imogen smiled. “Please excuse me for one second while I check on something.”

She texted Tilly to find a way to bring her steamer from home.

Hair and makeup were rolling along fine, not perfectly, but fine. Imogen stepped in for a beat to show one of the stylists exactly how to do a wraparound braid on Hilary. She wanted Coco done up like Rita Hayworth in the strapless gown from
Gilda
, all large loose curls and pushed up breasts. She would hold an e-cigarette instead of the real thing and lean seductively against the wall wearing Google Glass.

The pair of stylists stared at her blankly when she mentioned Rita Hayworth. Ashley walked through the trailer, carrying the steamer.

“Ashley, you know who Rita Hayworth was, right?”

“Of course I do. All my style icons are dead…or over fifty.” Ashley often talked in tweets, small clips of sound bites with abbreviated words. Imogen pulled a photograph up on her phone.

The next five hours were a frenzy of activity as more models arrived, along with the CEO of MeVest, the biz dev woman from Blast!, a woman who’d pioneered a pair of high-tech yoga pants that wicked away sweat and odor and never needed to be washed. They all had their hair and makeup done and cycled in and out of the restaurant for the photos. Imogen had hired two freelance stylists to be on hand to dress the women. Both pros, they carried out their tasks without a hitch. Once Tilly arrived with the steamer, Imogen gave Ashley a lesson on how to remove all creases and wrinkles from the clothes. Was she really doing this?

“This is a lot of work,” Ashley said, holding the steamer lazily in her left hand as the water dripped onto the trailer’s floor.

“You’re my assistant, Ashley. This is your job. Do you know
the kinds of things I used to do as an assistant? The very first creative director at the very first magazine I worked at threw a Stuart Weitzman shoe at my face because he hated how I steamed something. It nicked my eye.” It was Imogen’s version of an “I walked four miles uphill to school in the snow” story, but she told it to Ashley anyway. “When I was an assistant at
Moda
I got to the shoots two hours early to prep all of the clothes.”

“I can help, darling,” Imogen heard a Southern drawl and turned to see a well-dressed brassy blonde, pillowy all over her body. Paula Deen in very, very expensive clothes.

“Moooooom.” Ashley’s fair skin tinged red as the bottom of a Louboutin. “I told you to just hang out and be quiet.”

“Ashley,” Imogen said with a small smile. “Do you want to introduce me?”

Obviously embarrassed, Ashley murmured, “Imogen, meet my mom, Constance. Constance, this is my
boss
, Imogen Tate. I’m so sorry about this, Imogen. My mom loves Alice’s work and she just wanted to come hang out.”

“I came to help out,” the older woman interjected. “I know how busy you girls are. Let me do some dirty work. What can I do?” She looked like she had never done an ounce of dirty work in her life, but she took the steamer right out of Imogen’s hand and got to work.

Constance was obviously a woman of means and from the tidbits Ashley had revealed, a woman without a career of her own. “She is, like, obsessed with my job,” Ashley had once told Imogen. “She lives vicariously through me.”

Imogen moved on to the next fire that needed to be put out.

Mina Ekwensi, a Nigerian model who had just come on the scene a few months earlier, had freakishly large feet, yet another thing that Ashley had not bothered to account for.

“It’s fine,” Mina told Imogen as she squeezed her size-eleven foot into a size-nine shoe. “Sometimes we suffer for our art.” Imogen watched in frustration as the model hobbled to the restaurant’s entrance.

Imogen hardly had a moment to sit down and collect her thoughts before the entire thing was over. At four p.m., Alice walked out of the
restaurant, triumphant, iPhone held over her head. She beamed at Imogen.

“It might be some of my best work. And on a phone, no less.” She looked down at the phone and up at Imogen. “Thanks for letting me do this.”

There was no way Alice could have seen the bike messenger whirring down the sidewalk. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but the trailer, the one with no permit with the yellow police tape wound around it, was blocking the bike lane. It was that bit of the afternoon, about an hour before the glass towers began spewing people onto the streets, where the sidewalks were less crowded than the road. The messenger was in a hurry. Imogen barely saw him until it was too late.