1
AMUSIN’ PERIL
Lincoln Center, New York City
8:36 p.m.
METAL CATERING RACKS crashed into each other as the ebony-skinned model—hair set in pin-curls, face in full glam—fell out the doorway and into the deserted back alley outside the illustrious fashion week venue. Two plates and three champagne glasses teetered dangerously on the edge but stopped short of toppling to the frozen pavement. Squeezing her eyes, she raised her face to the heavens and blinked back the tears that threatened to ruin the makeup her personal glam guru had spent over an hour perfecting. Out front, entertainment news vans crowded the massive tents that housed the glitz and bling of the latest trends, designers, and, of course, Supermodels. She looked left. Then right. Coast clear, she shuddered away the horror of a few moments ago. “Asshole,” she snuffled.
A diminutive assistant multitasking on two iPhones burst through the same door. She looked left. Then right. “Keisha?” she called, squinting into the murky night.
“Where the hell’s my driver?”
“Ohmigod. You scared me,” the girl blurted, having no idea how scared she really should be. “I texted him twice. Shit, how do I not have service out here?”
The five-foot, eleven-inch model—towering like a cat over a little bird—grabbed one of her iPhones, smashing it to the ground. “Just get me my damn car!”
“Yes, Keisha. Right away, Keisha.” The assistant ran back into the tent.
Noticing two heroin-chic models, winter coats drawn tight over their white bathrobes, walking in her direction, the Supermodel ducked behind the catering racks. She watched as they expertly navigated their way up the icy ramp, holding on to each other’s arms for balance, their slippery pedicure flip-flops making them look more like waddling ducks than mighty cat-walkers of the runway. Plumes of white smoke billowed from their vapes.
“It was bound to happen,” the blonde girl quipped. “At the Veronika’s Privates fitting, she had to wear a size eight, and that barely fit.”
The brunette shivered. “Donatella won’t even look at anyone over a size zero.”
Keisha dropped to her knees behind the carts of empty champagne glasses. The fashion industry that insisted it no longer encouraged models to starve themselves was all lip service. The duck-walking cats simultaneously nodded their heads like dashboard bobblehead dolls. “I hear she’s not booked for any shows in Europe either. She’s getting too old anyway.”
Blondie took another drag on her vape and choked. “I don’t care how big a bitch she is, Michael Kors going on like that tonight was way rough.”
“Did he fire her or did she fire him?”
The metal stage door flew open again, and this time a strikingly handsome, racially ambiguous man in black leather skinny jeans burst into the alley holding on to his headset. The caterer’s racks could stand no more. The teetering glasses that had been barely clinging to their perch toppled to the ground, shattering over the crouching model’s hidden head.
“Shit,” the show coordinator for Michael Kors screeched, grabbing two of the racks to steady them. “What are you guys doing out here?” He saw the anorexic models, hurrying toward the tent door. “We’re starting the show in five minutes. I need you inside and in your first looks,” he yelled at the smokers. “Have either of you seen Keisha?”
“Didn’t you get the memo, Pablo?” the sickly Nordic-type sniped. “Michael told Keisha she was getting too big for his britches. We figured that was good for another smoke,” she sassed.
Pablo sneered at the girls. “Clearly, it’s you who didn’t get my memo. Beyoncé and JLo started the booty revolution. It’s all about loving your curves now, girl.” He looked the rail skinny models up and down. “Michael just needed to be reminded. Keisha’s in, and we’re on in five.” He looked left. Then right. “As soon as I fucking find her,” he mumbled under his breath. If Pablo were a firefighter, he’d be the one holding the hose. His job was to put out fires. Quickly. Efficiently. Permanently.
The girls waddled toward the door in their pedi-flip flops.
“Better hurry; Ashley Graham is probably replacing you for a major campaign as we speak.”
The starving models gasped in horror, now skating toward the door.
“Ashley will never get the real money gigs,” Blondie whispered to her cohort.
“Don’t count on that,” Pablo, who’d overheard the snide comment, retorted. “Michael Kors needs a big headline this season, and I just reminded him—big is beautiful. Keisha’s opening and closing the show tonight, booty curves and all.”
“Shit, she’ll get an extra fifty grand for that stunt,” Blondie said, stepping through the threshold.
“Honey, she gets twenty grand per turn. She’ll get two-fifty tonight.” Pablo slammed the door shut on the girls’ stunned faces.
“Hell, that’s more than I make in a year,” he heard one of the models say. Their muffled voices faded away.
Pablo enjoyed putting the little ingrates in their place, but right now he had a seriously urgent matter to attend to. “Does anyone have a twenty on Keisha Kash,” he yelled into his mic. “I need a twenty on Keisha Kash. Now.”
Like a black Venus rising, the Amazonian Supermodel uncurled to her full majestic height from behind the catering racks. A few shards of glass twinkled in her pin curls like glitter. Pablo’s mouth gaped open as he looked up at the black goddess herself. “Ohmigod. Miss Kash, I…I’m so sorry you heard that. If I offended you in any way…I mean, you’re not fat or anything, those skinny girls are just…ah shit, I mean, you’re stunning, you’re real…most women would kill to be you.”
“I know.” Keisha’s gold-tinted lips curled into the smile that had made her millions.
“Pablo, come in, Pablo,” his headset blared. “She’s left already. I heard her assistant calling an Uber.”
“I’ve got her.”
“You’ve got her?”
He nodded, as though the stage manager could see him, then repeated, “Yeah, I got her.”
“And you are?” Keisha asked, looking him up and down, pursing her lips as she judged his merit and his looks.
“Aside from being an inarticulate dumbass?”
“Aside from that.”
“The show coordinator, Pablo Michaels.”
She reached over and tapped the end of Pablo’s nose. “And you convinced Kors to let me open and close the show?”
Pablo nodded slowly.
“You’re my new BFF, Mr. Pablo.” She blinked her false eyelashes at him, twice.
Pablo’s heart thumped in his chest. He’d loved Keisha Kash since she’d made the cover of Vogue at the age of sixteen, single-handedly redefining beauty as a young woman. Very few black models had that honor at the time. And now, he hoped, she might get to do it again in her 30s, representing the full-figured woman.