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He’s only fifty-three,says Renfield.That’s not so bad, is it?
As far as Renfield knows, I’m twenty-five. So, yeah, it is so bad.
The girl in the mirror stares at me expectantly.
I text back:I’m on my way.
Renfield says,That’s my girl.
I think I’m going to be sick.
I wish I had a boyfriend or a bodyguard or something. Anyone to anchor me against the tide of the crowd. A reminder…
A reminder of what?
To treat me like a person.
What kind of person?
Something catches in my lungs. The air tastes funny. The dress’s corset top is too tight. It’s strangling.
What kind of person, Penelope?
I slip on the necklace that matches my earrings. Diamonds and sterling close around my throat, and the cold chain links slide into place where they practically form an arrow towards my breasts.
Just one conversation. Just smile and nod for a little bit, that’s it, nothing else. It’ll be okay.
It’ll be okay.
It won’t be—Janie’s right—but sometimes the lie is all you have.
***
Renfield is waiting for me on the stairs of the event center.
He’s sitting on the bottom steps, staring at his phone—waiting for me to text him again, or waiting for someone else? He has other clients, supposedly, but he treats me like I’m the only thing standing between him and poverty.
Gray hair, beard, rounding in the middle from beer and age. His eyes twinkle—less like stars and more like coins at the bottom of a fountain, the reflections of half a hundred dreams thrown into the water and abandoned.
He hurries down the carpet and says, “And here she is! Sweet Penelope mine.”
There really is something pimp-like about Renfield’s demeanor. There’s no animal print in sight, no heavy chains, no gold teeth, no sunglasses, no hideous purple hat; but it’s there, all the same. It’s in the crystal gleam of sweat on his hands, in the smile that changes color when it reaches his eyes. It’s in the way he says “mine”, making me feel like a teenager in an alley, coming to ask about that easy money he mentioned.
“There are some people I’d like you to meet,” he says.
There always are.
He guides me into the room, hand on my lower back. Thumb moving up and down as if he’s already counting the hundreds coming in.
Inside, it’s a massive space—shiny white floors, window-walls framed by golden pillars, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling like statues of stars and broken glass. The crowd mills, a swarming animal all in red and black. The models—the only colored dresses in the whole room—are easy to pick out. They laugh, they smile, and they look like puppets—maneuvered by their agents who manipulate their strings.
I’m no different.
I feel like a corpse at a baby shower. Dead and shriveled, trying not be seen, but fuck, there are only so many places to hide in a room full of cameras.
It really is like wearing a mask. Except you can barely tell the mask is there, and there’s no way to know who’s wearing the mask with you, and whoactuallylooks like this. Which faces are real, and which ones are plastic fabrications.
They’re all plastic.
