and pout your lips. Uh-oh. Wow. Okay, now smile like you just won a million-dollar contract with L’Oréal. Because you’re worth it, baby.”
Mandy had expected Kramer Lamb to be slick and fashiony and intimidating, dressed head to toe in black couture. Instead, he was a super-friendly dork wearing a turquoise mohair bow tie, pleated khaki pants, and pink Adidas pool slides with gray rag wool socks. And he obviously loved his job. She would have to send Wendy Clarke flowers or steal her a pie for recommending him.
Mandy straddled a kitchen chair the wrong way around and leaned her chin on the back of the chair. She pushed her bottom lip forward in a pout. Poses seemed to come naturally to her, and she didn’t feel self-conscious at all in her own home.
Mandy giggled. “You know, I don’t even like clothes very much. I just wear my husband’s old T-shirts.” She was wearing one right now, the plain black V-neck one that Stu always said looked sexy on her.
“Modeling isn’t about clothes. Or makeup. Or hair. It’s about the je ne sais quoi, and you have it.” Kramer Lamb pulled the camera away from his face and squinted at it. “You’re a goddess with a heart-shaped mouth and a heart-shaped face. Even your nose is sort of heart-shaped. So is your butt. And your cleavage. You’re insane!”
Who knew flattery could be so exhausting? Mandy flopped down on the bed. The streetlights came on outside, streaming white light through the kitchen windows. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the enormous stack of unopened bills beneath the bed.
“Oh my God,” Kramer Lamb exclaimed, snapping away. “Kim Kardashian is so going to want to use you for her new lingerie line. Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it.” He took a few steps back and looked around. “I love that you have a bed right here.”
“She has MS.”
Stuart stood in the kitchen doorway with Ted, watching them. He’d been trying to keep Ted entertained in his room, but Ted was hungry.
“We’re almost done here.” Kramer Lamb didn’t appear to have heard what Stuart said, or if he had, he didn’t care.
“So, what happens next?” Stuart demanded.
Kramer Lamb blew Mandy a kiss as if to say, “Your husband might be famous, but he’s a pushy dick.”
“Next, you let me do my job and send these pictures out and I call you with seventeen trillion offers and you buy yourselves a country house with a swimming pool!”
“And a dog,” Ted said.
“Okay.” Mandy wasn’t sure. “Can I see if I like it first? I mean, if someone wants me, then I’ll try it, and if I hate it, can I just stop?”
“Or if her MS gets worse,” Stuart said. He really was being sort of a dick. “Maybe we should check with her doctor first.”
“I already did,” Mandy lied. “He says it’s fine.”
Kramer Lamb held out his fist. Mandy made a fist and bumped it against his.
“No worries. Worry makes wrinkles,” he said. “From now on, I worry for you. Yes, my beautiful one?”
Mandy giggled and hugged her pudgy knees on the bed. “Don’t I need to go on a diet? Or like, do something different to my hair?”
“No! Please. Whatever you’re doing is working for you. Just keep doing it!”
It was Friday. The women who lived across the street always got meals with salmon and potatoes delivered from Grandma’s House on Fridays. Last week it was salmon moussaka—yum. Mandy just had to get Stuart and Ted out of the house so she could steal it.
“Can you go to the store for me, Stu?” She asked sweetly. “Take Teddy too, so he can pick out his snacks.”
* * *
Elizabeth’s eyes were closed. “Why are there so many English people in Brooklyn? I hear their voices everywhere. There was a whole pride of them in the liquor store.”
She lay full length on the couch, her bare size-twelve feet draped over the arm, Catsy curled comfortably between her protruding pelvic bones. Tupper was on the floor trying to straighten out his back. They’d been awake the entire night before, gathering more limbs from his warehouse in Red Hook. When Tupper had returned from scattering them in Cobble Hill Park, they’d made love and ordered sushi and shared a bottle of wine. Now they were both more relaxed than they’d been in years. Elizabeth never mentioned Iceland.
Tupper’s eyes were closed too. “Maybe they feel at home here,”