Citizen Girl (30 page)

‘Kat’s here,’ a flustered Stacey announces on her heels.

Jeffrey leaps to give her a kiss. ‘Kat, darling, you’re early.’

‘I know,’ she shrugs, exchanging stares with an immobile Rex before stepping past everyone to plant red lips on my cheek. ‘It’s one of my foibles. Well, better early than late, I always say.’ She pats her uterus for emphasis and plops into the seat next to mine. ‘So, what are we up to, Jeffrey?’

‘Well, first and foremost, I’d like to introduce Rex, Chairman of My Company.’

Rex stands a tad too slowly, causing Kat to blatantly swivel her torso away from him to turn her glow on me. ‘Did you get back to sleep?’

‘Uh, yes.’ I dart a stern, squash-the-budding-fantasies look at the hetero side of the room.

‘Jeffrey, I’ve only got a half-hour here. Let’s get a move on.’

Guy tilts his eyebrows at Rex, telegraphing over Kat’s head
told you she was a bitch
.

‘Absolutely, let’s get started,’ Jeffrey claps. ‘Girl, take notes on the whiteboard.’ I take my station, me – marker-holder, note-taker, Vice President. ‘Since our Friday meeting we’ve been working round the clock to mine
MC’s extensive database of user preferences for a launch campaign that would unite Bovary’s brand with “Chicks Gone Senseless”.’ I look to Kat to update him, but she remains mum. ‘The
facts
, brought to you by the million women who pass through MC’s site each day, are consistent. The
younger
the model in the ad, the
more
hits the product gets. Yet Bovary wants to take the revolution to the older, more established corporate woman. With that in mind, we propose that these lovely ladies …’ He flips back the shrouds dramatically to reveal ad mock-ups showing barely pubescent bodies frolicking in Spring Break settings, seamlessly superimposed under Catherine Deneuve-like fifty-something heads.

‘Hmm,’ Rex murmurs, ogling an eleven-year-old physique spread-eagled off a diving board, a gleeful-looking dowager visage Photoshopped above.

‘We’re going to pick up where Calvin Klein left off.’ Jeffrey savors each word as he gestures to the body of Kate Moss’s kid sister pushing her hipster swimsuit down to hint at her hairless mons, her head eligible for Medicare. ‘By breaking new ground for older women …’ Jeffrey’s pitch grinds to a halt as he takes in Kat’s souring expression. ‘But, of course, everything is flexible.’

‘Well, it’s not
exactly
what I’d been thinking.’ Squeakily I write, ‘Not what Kat’s been thinking.’

Guy looks furtively to Rex. ‘Now, Kat, at this point we’ve put considerable resources into your interests,’ he addresses her as if admonishing a petulant child, ‘and I want something firm.’

‘Oh, boys.’ She tears her eyes away from the cardboard
chimeras to wag her finger. ‘You’re trying to put on the thumbscrews!’ Jeffrey and then Guy break into forced smiles. ‘I told you, as soon as the Bovary board makes a decision, I’ll let you know. I’m really at their mercy for the moment. So let’s just keep moving forward
as
if. For the time being, keep
beavering
away.’ She snorts with laughter just as her cell bleats.
Julia, baby, it’s me
.
Just keep moving forward ‘as if’.’Kay?
‘Feeling better? … Well, I told you tequila was dumb after all that wine … I’ll wake you when I get back.’ She drops her phone back into her bag. ‘Liz is retching her guts out – we went to the most amazing party last night and that’s what
I
want to talk about. The more I think about it, the more I’m put off by the notion of getting my revolution into bed with such an arrogant sod as Jed Devlin. So new brand: Muffin.’

‘
New
brand,’ Rex repeats.

‘Yes.
New
brand,’ Kat asserts. ‘I’ve been thinking, “Chicks Gone Senseless” – it’s the now, which means it’s the past. Muffin is the future. They throw these parties that cater entirely to an empowered re-envisioning of women’s sexuality.
That’s
who Bovary should get aligned with – my product in every goodie bag and promoted on their website —’

‘Yeah, fine, great, Muffin.’ Rex tosses his hands.

‘Pardon?’ she bristles.

‘Muffin, fine.’

‘
I’m
totally on board,’ Guy rushes in. ‘The future. Parties. Women’s sex. Sexy women. Yes.’ He nods, fumbling. ‘We can totally work with that —’

‘Do we have a deal or don’t we?’

‘I’m sure what Rex means —’

‘I can speak for myself, Jeffrey. What I mean is, you’re being a cock-tease, young lady. And I think you’re enjoying it. We’ve given you significant time. We’ve made your ideas viable. We’ve proven ourselves.’ Rex shrugs as if there’s nothing else to say.

‘Have you …? I wasn’t aware you were in any position to be quite so forceful,’ Kat manages to purr.

‘Well, this
is
a business discussion,’ Rex continues as Guy nervously clicks his pen. ‘We’re all grown-ups here, we can be frank. It’s shit or get off the pot.’

The room goes quiet. I study each face: Jeffrey, mouth pursed, eyes rolled to the ceiling in disapproval; Rex, smug smirk, hands behind head in repose; Kat, forehead rigid, cheek being sucked slowly between teeth; and Guy, drained of all color, pulls at his collar, a trickle of sweat sloping down his temple.

‘Kat.’ My heart quickening, I reach across to her. ‘We can make this w —’

Kat swipes her handbag off the floor. ‘Girl, it’s been a pleasure.’

‘My, my, Rex,’ Jeffrey infuses the tense silence with a laugh. ‘How you talk.’

‘Kat, let me walk you out.’ I stand.

‘Thanks, but this cock-tease can find her own way.’ Without a backwards glance, she sashays out of the office. Taking my pledge with her.

‘Get her back.’

Jeffrey turns from the doorway.

‘
Get her back
,’ Guy says again, his constricted face
turning a deep red. Rex, surprisingly calm, bends for the golf club.

‘Please,’ Jeffrey corrects drolly.

‘Not you. Girl.’

The door to Kat’s Mercer Hotel suite cracks open and a mascara-flecked cheek appears. ‘Hello?’ a small voice croaks.

‘Hi! Hi. Remember me? From the limo?’

The door recedes and little Liz, wrapped in an oversized terry cloth robe, peers at me, rubbing glitter out of her bloodshot eyes.

‘I’m from MC, Inc. Sorry to disturb you, I’m looking for Kat.’

‘Oh, yeah, I know you,’ she says in her upper-class childish singsong. ‘You’re Girl. The lovely one.’ She shuffles away and the door swings at me. Catching it just before it clicks shut, I push into the darkened room. The curtains are drawn and the air is thick with the fetid smell of stale smoke. I pick my way through the velvet sofa cushions strewn around the candle-wax-encrusted coffee table.

‘Please, have a seat. Drink?’ Liz plucks an open bottle of champagne off the TV, which has been duly swathed with a silk scarf.

I perch on the edge of the bare sofa frame. ‘No, thank you. So, are you expecting Kat soon?’

‘Yeah, she just popped to some spa place with a lovely kind of peaceful sex name.’ Liz trails her fingers through the air.

‘Bliss?’

‘Yeah!’ She tosses her skeletal arm towards the ceiling. ‘That’s it. Mind if I take a bath?’

‘Uh, no, of course not, please go ahead.’

‘Splendid!’ She turns to the white folding doors behind her and pulls them open, revealing the bathroom. ‘Isn’t this fab? Americans are so social – I love it.’ The rectangular marble tub runs the length of the opening. She turns on the water, generously dumping in most of the blue salts from a jar on the rim.

‘You know, I’ll just wait in the lobby.’ I stand up.

‘No, no, let’s talk.’ Liz flitters around and alights in the bathroom from the hallway door. ‘I’ve been up here for days, feels like.’ She drops her robe and slides her tiny bruised body into the massive basin. ‘Oof, I get so banged about at these dance things.’

I inch down onto a floor cushion and try to clear my head from the bungle of instructions shouted at me by GuyJeffreyRex as I was leaving. ‘So … you founded Bovary?’

‘Oh, I started making knickers for friends when I was at the Royal College. Kat was my dad’s assistant and we just kind of fell madly. I had the trust from Mum’s family and she had the business whatchamacallit.’ She snaps her fingers in the air absently.

‘Acumen?’

‘Sure!’ She holds her nose and dunks under the water, leaving me momentarily alone.

‘Your charity work is really admirable,’ I say as she surfaces.

‘I know, I’m really proud of that.’ She alights on a bristle brush and starts scrubbing her small feet. ‘Twenty-five p of every sale goes to something. Can you pass me that bottle?’ she asks, holding out her arm.

I retrieve the warm champagne from where she left it on the coffee table and hand it off to her. ‘Thanks.’ She takes another deep swig, patting the rim of the tub for me to sit down. As my skirt absorbs her splashes, I speculate if my next MC, Inc. errand will be conducted in stirrups. ‘I think that’s really what it’s all about, but, well, Kat’s really the, the, the —’

‘What’m I?’ The door opens and Kat strides in.

‘The brains!’ Liz calls gleefully, having found her train of thought. ‘I was just telling Girl about our philanthropy. Good rub?’

‘Yes, dear.’ She kisses Liz perfunctorily on the forehead as I stand up quickly. ‘So, the old fart sent you.’

‘No! What? No. No, I’m here because … uh, yeah. Yeah, he did.’

Kat pulls down her trousers and I back away from the bathroom as she flops down to pee. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry to see you.’

‘Rex really regrets getting off on the wrong foot,’ I say to the drawn curtains.

‘He’s a fuck. And don’t tell me you think any different.’ A pause as Kat presumably roots around for the toilet tissue. ‘Look, Girl, I’ve been the slave. You know Liz’s dad, Robby Switch, he produced all those crap pop groups in the nineties?’ I nod from back on the metal couch frame. ‘Well, he was my first gig out of university.’

‘I told her,’ Liz says petulantly from the bubbles.

‘Well, did you tell her that among other assorted tasks, I had to take this bird he’d knocked up for an abortion’cause he wanted to make sure she went through with it – I mean, way fucking above and beyond.’ She snorts in disgust at the memory while Liz finishes off the champagne. ‘So I don’t need to take a step backwards, thank you very much.’

‘But you’re not working for Rex – I am. Look, he’ll get the hang of answering to you – just give him a chance to get used to it —’

‘He’d rather cut his balls off with his money clip.’

‘But there’s an amazing opportunity here!’ I stand to plead, modulating over Kat’s flush. ‘He’s pledged to donate a million dollars to a charity that’s saving victims of white slavery —’

‘I like that bit,’ Liz says, combing conditioner through her hair. ‘That’s a really good cause, Kat.’

‘It is!’ I stride back over to them as she zips up. ‘But we’ll only be able to help them if you commit. It’s so Bovary – the money would go to —’

‘That was just a way to distinguish ourselves in the saturated European market.’ Kat tosses her hand as she rifles through her vanity case. ‘But, I’m sorry, Girl, Liz, Americans do not shop for a cause. They buy knickers to get laid.’ She pulls her diamond Rolex from the suede folds and slips it on. ‘So how can we help them get laid?’

‘Kat, you’re so
crass
.’ Liz steps out of the tub and reaches for a towel. ‘We have an
obligation
to help those less fortun —’

‘Please, spare me the sanctimonious crap. It’s wonderful they taught you charity at that posh boarding-school, but
I’m
running a business where nearly every fucking penny goes to the government for socialized
this
and socialized
that
, so I really think
I’m fucking doing my part
!’ She hurls the bathroom door shut, barely missing Liz.

‘How
dare
you?!’ Liz throws it open, struggling to follow Kat through the cushion-strewn floor to the bedroom. ‘Without me you’d be
nothing
. You’d have
nothing
—’

Hearing the distinct sound of a slap, I start towards the front door.

‘Pull yourself together,’ Kat hisses. ‘You’re high as a
fucking
kite. It’s pathetic.’

‘Kitty, Kitty, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, wait!’ Liz sobs.

Kat marches out of the bedroom, pulling me with her as she passes. ‘Come on.’

‘I should check on her.’ But I stumble, as Kat tugs me out into the dimly lit corridor.

‘No,’ she says, pressing for the elevator. ‘She just gets like that when she hasn’t slept.’ She rolls a shoulder back and huffs. ‘Liz is a very passionate person. She’s not really cut out for business.’

The door to the ebonized elevator opens and we descend in near darkness to the lobby. Kat unfastens her bag, extracting a lip-gloss, which she applies carefully in the reflection of the button panel. I watch her through a haze of loathing as she smiles at herself, tilting her face side to side, before running a finger through her hair to reinvigorate her spikes. By the time the door reopens, her gleam is returned. ‘Look, Girl,’ she faces me in the deep
mauve of the lobby elevator bank, ‘Europe’s market’s in shit shape, too. There’s a lot more riding on this launch than there was a year ago. It has. To be. Spectacular. I want Muffin. Their members are our target consumers – they’ll deliver us directly into the black. Mark me,
this
is the next sexual revolution.’ She shakes her hair out. ‘And I hear the cha-ching.’

‘Cha-ching that trickles down to Magdalene?’ I ask evenly as she struts through the lobby.

‘I think we’re on the same page.’ Smiling at the doorman holding open a limo door, she stops short of him, cocking her head at me. ‘I like you, Girl. I liked your presentation. I liked the bemused look you have on your face around those useless sods.’ She squints, taking me in from head to toe. ‘You have a quality, something I think Bovary’s missing.’

A conscience?

She pulls out her sunglasses. ‘Whatever happens with this deal, I want us to work together. Do you?’