was: a smart, capable woman who could kick her ass on a downhill slalom course any day of the year. Me, Jane. Me good at sports. Unk! As if that mattered. But it was the place I went to when I felt intimidated.
“What do you want?” she said, eyes darting up and down my body, landing on the emblem of my Molson Beer shirt.
“You’d like caviar? Want some champagne or crackers or anything else?” I said gulping. “Just want to make sure we get you everything you need.”
“Uh, yeah,” she nodded, her face frozen in aloof non-expression with a well-rehearsed lip pout. “Sounds good.”
“By the way, I’m Jane Kaufman.” I stuck out my hand and smiled nervously—it was like meeting royalty. “I’m one of the producers.”
She put her wax-soaked orchid-soft hand in mine as if I should kiss it. I nearly did, then shook it gently, awed by her beauty. I had never seen or felt anything quite like it.
“Okay, thank you. We’ll get right on that,” I said, walking away, nearly gleeful. Man, I handled that like a pro!
“Hey,” she snapped.
Exit cool. Enter fear.
“Where’d you get that shirt?” Her nose angled toward the ceiling. “I want one.”
This is what she did best. Want. . . and get.
“I’ve had it since high school,” I said, smiling, relaxing ever so slightly, and feeling downright dandy that a fashion icon had just approved my taste in clothing, even if it was recycled retro from the last century. “Crazy, huh?”
Regret poured in the moment my words left my mouth. It’s cool to be real with your friends, to tell them about your bargains, about the 70 percent off the 70 percent off sales, or the hand-me downs from your brother, or the fact you still own a shirt from over a decade ago, but sharing that information with an heiress?
“Real crazy.” She smiled with only half her mouth. “It’d look cute on my dog.” Then she swiftly closed the door.
Defeat: I tried not to think about it and immediately called down to the chef to place her late-night order. Danny turned up the volume on Dagmar in the room, drowning out my phone conversation with the kitchen.
“Anyway, she’s a chunker. And that shirt is so tight on her, it would fit my dog. Wouldn’t it, Baby Tofu?” Dagmar’s voice whined from the monitor, distorted by the volume.
Danny sneered. He couldn’t help himself. He’d enjoyed it.
“Was she talking about me?” I said pitifully, the phone dropping to my shoulder.
My mouth popped open in revulsion as I sank into my chair.
Danny froze.
“Was she?”
More silence.
Then, as though reconsidering his foul conquest, “Jane, she’s a C-U-Next-Tuesday,” he said, sounding surprisingly believable as he turned down the volume even more. “That’s not right. And Babes, you ain’t fat. You’re fit. And that’s better than being anorexic like that bitch.”
“Thanks.” I hung up the phone and sulked. “It’s been a tough couple of days and I was just starting to feel good about things.”
Danny awkwardly wrapped his arm around me. Did I hurt? Of course I did. Not because of that smug, brainless, six-foot hanger with her mug all over the monitor, but because of Craig. And though I wanted to be over him, and maybe even thought I was over him, I couldn’t escape the fact that he had dumped me. And for all I knew, he did so because I was fat. Well, not fat. Because I knew I wasn’t F-A-T. He dumped me because I wasn’t perfect. I didn’t have a model’s body, or fake boobs, or really boobs at all, and my legs were muscular from sports. It sucked, moving to LA, surrounded by perfect-looking women, and not getting to be one of them, even for a day. And what sucked even more was that this absurd, unattainable perfection was starting to feel necessary for my survival! Whatever happened to saving the world—me and Diane Sawyer? And whatever happened to the world I wanted to save?
An hour later, the caviar had been delivered, inspected, picked at, nibbled, and basically left to the elements by the heirs. Dagmar and Dominic made a run for their rooftop Jacuzzi as Dagmar modeled the latest in Euro-string swimwear for the 2015 summer collection, and Dominic followed along in his matching skort. Seriously, a man-skort. Only in Europe. They settled into the bubbles as our Jacuzzi spycams recorded a half-assed attempt at conversation, which went something like this: