Four Blondes

“This is going to be a prob-lem,” he said.

At that moment, Aleeka Norton arrived in the showroom. She threw down a Louis Vuitton handbag and called across the floor, “Hey, Swish, leave her alone about her hips, huh? She’s a woman, for Christ’s sake. That’s the problem with you fags. You don’t know women.”

“Hello, darling,” Swish said. “I hope you’re not getting fat on me too.”

“Oh shut up, Swish,” Aleeka said. “Why don’t you try eating pussy sometime? Then we’ll talk about hips.”

Swish giggled and the fitting continued as if nothing had happened, but Janey was scared. She’d been pudgy as a child, and she’d heard stories about girls who got into their early thirties and suddenly put on weight and couldn’t take it off, even if they’d never had children. Afterward she found Swish in his office, where he was pretending to study fabric swatches.

“I’m not over, am I?” she asked. She was usually never this frank, but on the other hand, she usually didn’t have to be.

“Oh my dear,” Swish said sadly. “Of course you’re not over. But your type of figure . . . that nineties, fake-titted thing . . .”

“I could take out the implants,” Janey said.

“But can you take out everything else?” Swish said. He put down the fabric samples and regarded her frankly. “You know what it’s like, Janey. You’ve seen these new girls. They’ve got hips the size of swizzle sticks. I think Ghisele is a size two. And she’s five-eleven.”

“I get it,” Janey said.

“Oh listen, Janey.” Swish came out from behind the desk and took her hands in his. “We’ve known each other a long time. You were in my first fashion show. Remember?”

Janey nodded. The show had been held in an art gallery in SoHo. “It was so hot,” she said. “And we were late. We kept the audience waiting an hour and a half. And then they loved it.”

“They went mad,” he said. “And the funny thing was, none of us knew what we were doing then.” He let go of her hands and lit a cigarette, turning toward the large window that overlooked Prince Street. A bus had pulled up outside and was unloading tourists.

“You know, in some ways I really miss those days,” he said. “There was everything to look forward to. It was like a big amusement ride, wasn’t it, Janey?” He stubbed out his cigarette. “We didn’t know then how nasty people could be.”

“No,” Janey said. “We didn’t.”

“I always wonder if it’s the times that change, or just us getting older. Do you know?”

“No.”

He began moving things around on his desk. Janey shifted from one foot to the other. “You’re not over, Janey,” he said. “Not one of us can ever be over unless we decide to be. But take my advice. I tell all the girls this. Go to London.”

“London?” Janey said.

“London,” Swish said, nodding. “You get married.”

“Well. Really—”Janey said.

Swish held up his hand. “But not to just anyone. You marry . . . a titled Englishman. You know, a lord, a duke, a marquis . . . Rupert and I were just over there in October and it was fantastic.”

Janey nodded patiently.

“Lady . . . Janey,” Swish said. “You have the stately home, the title, money, hounds. . .” The phone rang, but Swish didn’t answer it. “Oh darling, hounds are just fantastic, aren’t they? You’ve got to do it. I could do the most fantastic trousseau for you. I could design my whole fall line around it. Lady Janey’s Trousseau. What do you think?”

“Fantastic,” Janey said. “But I don’t know anyone in England.”

“Darling, you don’t need to know anyone,” Swish said. He laughed, caught up in his own fantasy. “A beautiful girl like you? English girls look like crap. There’s no competition. You show up in London, and within minutes, you’ll be everywhere.”

Janey smiled coldly but said nothing. Why was it, she thought, everyone assumed that if you were beautiful, things just fell in your lap? Ever since she was sixteen, she’d been promised this big fucking prize for being beautiful and (later) having tits, but where was it? Where was this fantastic life her beauty was supposed to bring her?

And now she had to move to another country? “I don’t think so,” she said.

“You could go this summer. I hear the summer season is very hot in London. Ascot and all that. I’ll make you a hat.”

“I always go to the Hamptons for the summer,” Janey said.