The Knockoff Page 6

  “The queen has returned.” He smiled. Imogen enjoyed the flash of intimidation that briefly crossed Eve’s features. The girl visibly bristled and immediately launched into work chatter, avoiding the kinds of niceties that people with actual experience in business make sure to go through before getting to the point of any professional meeting.

  Eve gesticulated wildly to emphasize her points, violently flinging an arm and knocking a cup of milk from the table. The growing pool of ivory liquid nearly spilled onto Imogen’s lap before Frederick deftly swept in with a tea napkin. Eve paused for a moment and stared at Imogen’s bare wrist. “Where’s your bracelet?”

  “What bracelet, Eve?”

  “Your Glossy.com bracelet. I left one for you on your desk.” Imogen cringed, remembering the slick black rubber band she’d tossed in the waste bin. “That was sweet of you, Eve, but it isn’t really my style.”

  Eve grew apoplectic. “We all wear the bracelet, Imogen. We’re a team.”

  “I don’t think that bracelet goes with Chanel, Eve.” (“It’s black. It goes with everything. And it isn’t just a bracelet. It’s a FitBoom! It measures all your steps, calories and metabolic rate.” Tugging at her own black bracelet, allowing it to snap sharply against her skin to punctuate her annoyance, Eve came in.)

  It took only ten minutes for her former assistant to arrive at the pièce de résistance, the reason they were meeting for an expensive breakfast instead of gnawing on hemp-seed granola while staring at computer screens with the other worker bees back in the office.

  “I can’t get the designers on board without you,” Eve admitted sheepishly. “God. You would think they hated the Internet. They hear ‘app’ and want nothing to do with us. You know these people. You know who we need to work with and you know what to say to get them on board.”

  It was true that Imogen had the respect and the ear of practically every fashion designer from Manhattan to Milan. Editors in chief enjoyed their real rock star moment in the nineties, before being replaced by Food Network chefs and ultimately tech billionaires and personal trainers as the celebrity careers du jour. Imogen remained beloved inside and out of the industry for one simple reason: she was nice. That was her biggest selling point, and why she was still a little bit famous. Every interview about her began with a variation of the same line: “Imogen Tate seems so perfect that we wish we could hate her but she is just sooooo lovely.” Why not be nice? It wasn’t really any harder than being mean.

  The universe underscored the point about just how valuable Imogen’s connections could be when one of the fashion elite, Adrienne Velasquez, breezed by the table, blowing Imogen a kiss and asking after Alex. Adrienne was the fashion director over at Elle magazine and she’d recently turned into a huge television star after becoming a judge on a Bravo reality show on which fledgling designers competed to create the most outrageous outfit, typically out of bits of fabric found in trash bins. Adrienne’s co-hosts were former supermodel Gretchen Kopf and the head of the Fashion Institute of Technology, Max Marx.

  Eve turned bright red.

  “You actually know Adrienne Velasquez?” she yelped as Adrienne departed to join Gretchen and Max at a sun-dappled corner table.

  “Of course I do,” Imogen said, uncertain why Eve was so surprised.

  “I just love her. She’s my absolutely favorite fashion personality in the entire universe. Oooooo, I never miss an episode of Project Fashion. Never! Do you think you can call her back here?” It grew embarrassing as Eve began to do something that resembled hyperventilating. Imogen had to remind herself that the industry was different now. Adrienne was on television. She was a real celebrity. It wasn’t Eve’s fault that she didn’t understand how totally and completely unprofessional it would be to ask for Adrienne’s autograph. Adrienne was a fashion director. She had Imogen’s old job, for Chris-sakes.

  Imogen gave Eve a big smile and for a moment enjoyed having the upper hand. “Let’s eat for a bit and then say hello on the way out.” The rest of breakfast was dominated by talk of Fashion Week logistics. The “action item” for next month, as Eve put it, stabbing at her egg white omelet each time she said the word “action,” was to rule online coverage for the shows in New York, Paris, London and Milan. This would be the first year Imogen wouldn’t travel for the Europe shows, as apparently Glossy.com had “no budget” for it. Imogen didn’t grow up with money, but she had quickly grown quite comfortable around it when she was given the privilege to travel the world for work. She and Bridgett always took rooms next to each other and would throw parties every single night during Fashion Week, all on someone else’s dime. It was always someone else’s money. She thought Alex would leave her six months into their relationship when he surprised her in Paris only to find a hairstylist giving her a blowout each and every morning in the privacy of her room. It was a lifestyle that was just so easy to slip into, all very fizzy when you were made to feel like a real VIP. Imogen had to work hard when she returned to prove she really was the down-to-earth girl Alex fell in love with. Some days she even had to convince herself.

  The next bombshell was that Eve wanted Imogen to throw Glossy.com a launch party at the end of Fashion Week, and Eve needed reassurance that Imogen would invite all of her fabulous friends, making no bones about the fact that she wanted unfettered access to Imogen’s contacts.

  When the bill came, Eve changed the subject. “Introduce me to Gretchen now,” she demanded unceremoniously.

  Adrienne was gracious as always when Imogen introduced the stuttering Eve, who immediately asked to take a selfie with the entire table. Gretchen Kopf was rising gracefully from the table to kiss Imogen on the cheek when Eve wrapped her arm around her shoulders and stretched her phone out in front of them.

  “Smile!” she ordered Gretchen, Adrienne and Max. The trio was used to this drill and gave their best selfie faces before turning away from Eve and the camera to grab their things from the table.

  But Eve wouldn’t be deterred. “I’ll tag you in that photo, okay? Gretchen, we want you on board for the new Glossy app.” Eve burst like a bubble of caviar. “And you have to come to our party!”

  “Now may not be the best time, Eve,” Imogen tried to gently place her hand on the small of Eve’s back. Gretchen and Max glanced at each other and then at Imogen, not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting to have to awkwardly turn down a business proposition in the midst of a polite breakfast.

  “Of course it is. We are launching the new site! Gretchen and Max and Adrienne are perfect. They must be involved.” Eve played the role of the recalcitrant child and Gretchen, ever the mediator, smoothed the situation perfectly. She was well practiced in the art of making a fan feel welcome and then turning her attention elsewhere to end their interaction before it became too taxing on her. She smiled and touched them before purring: “I should let you get going” in a way that made you believe she was doing you a favor by dismissing you.

  “We will call you, darling,” she said in her sexy German accent. “Let us call you.” Imogen whispered a barely audible “thank you” to Gretchen before guiding Eve like a child gently out the exit.

  Midtown traffic was dense by nine a.m. as Imogen raised her hand in vain for a taxi with its light on. Eve fumbled on her iPhone to see if Uber would send a car her way. Imogen opened her mouth and then shut it.

  A black car sidled up to the curb.

  Eve pulled down hard on the end of her dress as she fell into the Town Car. “Aren’t you getting in?” Eve tapped her foot impatiently.

  “No. I’m not,” Imogen replied sternly. Eve barely had time to gather her limbs inside the vehicle before Imogen slammed the car door a bit too firmly for her.

  —

  Ever since she’d arrived in New York the week before college, Eve Morton had wanted to be one of those people who took cabs with abandon, who didn’t constantly stare at the meter and think about how many meals the cab fare would add up to. She could count on one
hand the number of cabs she took the first year she lived in the city.

  Now that she actually made a living wage, better than a living wage, although not nearly anywhere near the absurd salary they were paying Imogen Tate (when did they decide that magazine editors should be paid like brain surgeons?), she enjoyed watching the meter rise and knowing she could afford it. It was something she actually missed when she took one of these sleek black Uber Town Cars and the fare was charged automatically to a credit card on file and no money ever changed hands.

  Eve knew better than anyone that Imogen was not tech savvy. Part of her job as Imogen’s assistant had been to print out and then reply to all of her emails. Pretty standard assistant stuff back then. Still, she had assumed that her old boss had caught up with technology in the two years she had been away at school. The entire world had caught up by now.

  Breakfast went okay, she thought.

  The way Imogen handled the Adrienne Velasquez situation was just so completely uncool though. It wasn’t as if Eve couldn’t make friends with Adrienne on her own if she wanted to. Imogen was so weird about the whole thing. People like Imogen were so precious about their networking, about how and when they would bring you into their circle. Thank god her generation didn’t behave like that. Eve loved how connected she felt to all her peers. If she was friends with them on Twitter that was equal to being besties in real life. She didn’t discriminate. The old guard of fashion had so many bullshit hierarchies and unspoken rules. It was frustrating.

  At least Imogen could be useful (if she went along with the program) in helping navigate some of those barriers. She held the keys to the kingdom for the new Glossy app—if only she got it just a little bit more.

  Eve glanced down at her phone, seeing an email that made her give out a little yelp. It was last-minute, but who cared. This was huge. Eve quickly dashed off an email to Imogen.

  From: Eve Morton (EMorton@Glossy.com)

  To: Imogen Tate (ITate@Glossy.com)

  Subject: DISRUPTTECH!

  We have to fly to San Francisco tomorrow afternoon. We got accepted to come to Disrupt Tech conference. Hza. C more here.

  www.Disrupttech.com

  <<< CHAPTER FOUR >>>

  The next evening Imogen pressed her forehead against the cool Plexiglas window in economy class on the plane, looking down at the lights of Manhattan as they curved around the island, twinkling on the dark canvas like jewelry laid out for a fancy party.

  Imogen was wearing her layered traveling outfit, perfected over years of shuttling to international shows twice a year—a lightweight long-sleeved gray cashmere T-shirt, black ribbed cardigan, large Hermès gray and black scarf that doubled as a blanket on chilly plane rides and her low-slung Rag & Bone boyfriend jeans. Classic black Ray-Bans pushed her hair off her face. For the past fifteen years plane travel had been a welcome respite from the busyness of life on the ground—a space free of phone calls, text messages, emails and the Internet. She knew all that was changing, but she still clung to the notion of a flight as a few sweet hours of uninterrupted time to indulge in a digital blackout, along with her stash of celebrity trash magazines.

  “Didn’t you bring your laptop?” Eve asked her right as they reached cruising altitude, snapping her own screen open in a salute.

  “No. We’re only here for a day,” Imogen said, dipping her hand into her bag for her copy of Us Weekly.

  “The plane has Wi-Fi,” Eve said incredulously, as though she couldn’t imagine the availability of something as precious as the Internet going unused for a single wasteful second.

  “That is so lovely for the plane,” Imogen replied, refusing to let a twentysomething antagonize her as she lost herself in a spread of “Hollywood Plastic Surgery Secrets.” She paused for a moment. Now could be a good time to try to reconnect with Eve. What sense did it make to start off on a bad foot? She folded her magazine onto her lap and placed a hand on Eve’s elbow.

  Eve pulled out one of her earbuds with great irritation and let it dangle like a loose thread down her neck.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “So, tell me all about business school?” Eve was startled, but once she got going she was more than pleased to talk about what a transformative experience Harvard had been for her.

  “If I had stayed at Glossy I would be just another lowly associate editor right now,” she said seriously. “Now look what I’m doing. I’m literally transforming this company. I mean, B-school was the best decision of my life.”

  With that Eve turned her attention back to her computer, effectively ending the conversation.

  Imogen gazed longingly toward business class. If she’d had more notice she would happily have used her own miles to be in those plush seats where they served actual food that didn’t come in rectangular boxes wrapped in plastic.

  “Business class is a little ridiculous for a flight this short, don’t you think?” Eve snorted with derision as she noticed Imogen’s gaze. “I mean, you sit at your desk working for five hours a day. Why can’t you be content sitting in this seat? I did the San Fran route back and forth ten times last year.”

  Imogen turned back to her magazine.

  Just after they landed, a little past nine, Eve revealed they would be sharing a room at a Days Inn near the convention center.

  “It’s like a slumber party,” Eve said matter-of-factly in the taxi.

  “How many beds are in the room, Eve?”

  “One king. We’re kind of like a start-up now, Imogen. We need to be on a start-up budget.”

  “And there is some kind of pullout sofa in the room?” Imogen breathed the words out with false hope.

  Eve stopped paying attention to her, focused as she was on taking yet another picture of herself, a copycat of the photographer Ben Watts’s famous “Shhhh” pose that all the models were doing. She sucked in her cheekbones and made the international sign for “be quiet” with the edge of her forefinger pressed to her painted lips. The intensity of Eve’s gaze was as though Ben Watts actually was on the other side of the smartphone camera lens. Imogen had to admit it was working for her.

  “Eve?”

  “You know the perfect selfie is all about the eyes, Imogen. People think it’s about the smile, but it isn’t. It’s about getting the eyes just right,” Eve said, completely ignoring Imogen’s question.

  “The bed?” Imogen repeated.

  “No. I don’t think there is another. No pullout.”

  Before Imogen could ask anything else their taxi pulled in front of the run-down little motel, a scruffy stray cat scowling into its headlights. Eve hopped out and sashayed into the building and over to the front desk, leaving Imogen to pay the cabbie. The manners of this girl! It was like she was brought up in a barn.

  She breathed deep into her belly. The night air was crisp here, refreshing and chillier than back home.

  Once inside, she tried to talk to Eve again.

  “So we will be sharing the bed?” Imogen asked.

  “Of course. Like sisters!” Eve squeezed Imogen’s upper arm too hard as she stood at the hotel check-in desk smiling her Cheshire grin at the spotty-faced overnight clerk who just wanted to get back to watching his episode of Storage Wars.

  Grown-ups who were not engaging in or planning to engage in sexual activity with each other did not share a mattress. Imogen hadn’t shared a bed with anyone except for her husband and her children in more than a decade.

  “We’re not sharing a bed.”

  Imogen had no say in the matter. To her amazement the hotel was fully booked, as were most of the nicer places around town. This particular tech conference had grown in popularity, due in no small part to last year’s appearances by several A-list actors, the ones who had forgone the typical celebrity revenue stream of Japanese cosmetics commercials and cheap clothing lines in favor of investing in technology start-ups.

  These accommodations were cheap in every sense of the word. The
price for the two of them in that one room was a third of the cost of any Union Square hotels like the Fairmont or Le Méridien.

  After three swipes of the faded magnetic strip on the key card they finally entered the small room. Imogen needed sleep.

  “Tomorrow is going to be so rad, Imogen,” Eve said, sitting next to her in bed, as Imogen struggled to find a comfortable position. “We are going to kill it at this conference.” She raised her hand in a high five, and then, thinking better of it, lowered it and stuck out her pinky.

  “Let’s pinky swear on it. That’s how awesome it’s going to be.” Imogen was at a loss for what to do. She extended her pinky as well, which Eve promptly grasped with her own smallest digit and shook it vigorously up and down.

  “I’m bringing pinky swearing back,” Eve said, more to the entire shabby room than to Imogen. “Ooo, I should tweet that.” Eve spoke out loud to herself as she tapped the words into her keyboard. “Bringin da pinky swear back. Booya!” With that she rolled over and went to sleep.

  Imogen was exhausted and jet-lagged, but her mind just wouldn’t shut down.

  Did I really only come back to work the day before yesterday? She was having trouble processing just how much had changed so quickly. She’d barely even had time to discuss it with Alex in the hour they had seen each other before bed the night before. Her lawyerly husband wanted her to talk to an employment attorney right away.

  “You have rights,” he told her.

  A right to what? She hadn’t been fired, hadn’t really even been demoted. The situation had merely changed and the ground had shifted from underneath her. She had gotten to say a quick good-bye to the children that morning after she packed her bag and now here she was in San Francisco. This was where Silicon Valley was, wasn’t it?

  She tossed and turned in the bed, desperate to find a comfortable spot on the scratchy sheets. She felt blindsided—felt like a woman whose husband was having an affair right under her nose, who brought his mistress to dinner parties and called her his protégée. How could she not have known all of this was happening to her magazine?