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Prologue
"Marigold! We need you on set!" The director of the photo shoot calls out from one end of the giant, high-ceilinged studio that they've rented for the day in New York's Industry City, a part of town largely known for its shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complexes. Her voice echoes through the twenty-thousand square foot warehouse, competing with the upbeat, poppy sound of Deee-Lite singing "Groove Is in the Heart" on the CD player that's hooked up to giant speakers.
On the far side of the building, Marigold Pim is seated in a canvas director's chair in front of a giant mirror that's ringed by lights. She looks at her own reflection as a makeup artist leans in, sweeping a soft, full brush across Marigold's high cheekbones. As usual, she's been turned into a different--and some might even say a better--version of herself, transformed by the carefully drawn lines over her eyes, perfect brows that have been filled in and arched, and lips outlined and colored red to look like shiny rubies next to her white smile. This whole process sometimes makes Marigold feel like she's not even a real woman, but that instead she's simply a two-dimensional, color-by-numbers creation who doesn't even come to life until someone else paints her.
"Goldie Pim, get your sweet ass out here!" the set director calls again, this time with more force.
"I think they're playing my song," Marigold says, sliding off the chair and standing unsteadily on her five-inch heels.
"Careful, toots," Jagger, the extremely flamboyant costume designer, says as he taps the ashes from the long, brown cigarette that he's smoking near an open window. "We can't have our star twisting an ankle before we get our money's worth." Jagger winks at her as he takes another drag of his cigarette and then holds it over the window ledge while he tips his head back and exhales up toward the ceiling.
Outside, the day is gray and the air is cool. It's February 1991, the start of a new decade. Marigold is twenty years old, and she knows that hers is a tale as old as time when it comes to the world of modeling: beautiful girl from a small American town who has no idea that she's actually gorgeous and not just weirdly tall and bony. She also knows that her quick rise into the stratosphere of her profession is thanks to nothing but a lightning strike against a metal rod; it's essentially a lucky accident of genetics, combined with some great pictures taken by a photographer whose own star was on the rise at the very same time.
Marigold shakes out each leg, steadying herself after two hours of velcro rollers in her hair, cloud after cloud of aerosol hairspray, and so much makeup that she feels like an old house with multiple layers of paint. Jagger has dressed her in a black Thierry Mugler bra with slightly coned cups, a pair of black panties with a thick gold chain draped over them, a pair of black fishnet stockings, and the damned shoes that feel like giant patent leather stilts under her feet.
Marigold catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and does a double-take; she is a glamazon with six inches of hair floating around her head like a halo. She is a sloe-eyed vixen with a body honed by long runs and a steady diet of coffee and cigarettes punctuated every so often with a croissant or a salad. She is a supermodel who brings home over a million dollars a year before she can even legally buy herself a bottle of wine. She is a well-known face with a boyfriend whose band can fill Madison Square Garden. Marigold travels the world, ringing the globe each month to have her photo taken in bathing suits in the desert, to be captured skipping over a puddle beneath the Eiffel Tower wearing a leopard-print catsuit, or to lounge on a yacht off the coast of Greece as ad execs debate the precise placement of her hair over one shoulder and what it says about the perfume brand they're trying to advertise. Above all, Marigold is exhausted.
"We're going to put you on that motorcycle," Bennett James says, pointing at a 1990 Harley Davidson FXST with shiny chrome fenders and mirrors. "If you can just straddle that bike like it's Cobb Hartley," he says, laughing at his own joke, "and ride it into the sunset like you would ride him, then we'll get our shot."
Marigold stifles the urge to say something snappy back to the photographer, though she desperately wants to. It doesn't matter to her that she's a twenty-year-old girl who is making thirty-thousand dollars for this one photo shoot, she's also a person with some decency, and a grown man telling her to straddle a Harley and pretend it's her boyfriend both annoys her and disgusts her. She shoots him a long, dark look before stalking over to the bike and grabbing the handles. Marigold assesses the logistics of climbing onto it, but then she throws caution to the wind and slings one long leg over the leather seat, landing on it in a way that makes the eyes of every straight man on the set bulge indecently.
The song switches and suddenly George Michael's "Freedom" fills the studio. Marigold leans forward on the bike as Bennett rushes through his last minute light meter checks, the flash of the bulbs popping in time to the music.
"Ready," Bennett says eagerly, holding out a hand for one of his many assistants to set the right camera in it. He prefers to work without a tripod, kneeling, crawling, standing on tables, and moving around his subjects to capture them from every angle. He hits the button and forwards the film in the camera, ready to immortalize the not-yet-legendary Marigold Pim romping on a bike seat in teased hair and a pair of Mugler leather panties.
Marigold is just getting into the groove of the music, remembering how it felt to watch the famous video of her slightly older and more experienced supermodel friends as they lip-synched along to this George Michael song on MTV. She'd been eighteen and working at a coffee shop in Vermont when the video came out, and seeing those glamorous women--Cindy, Linda, Christy, and Naomi--cavorting and posing for the camera had made Marigold long for that kind of glamour. She'd put on her stained apron each day and made lattes, mochas, and teas for people on their way to the mountains, but in her heart she pictured herself as a city girl and not a country bumpkin. She desperately wanted to be someone who danced all night in fashionable nightclubs and then woke up in a Manhattan apartment on the forty-eighth floor.
"This is good stuff, Goldie," Bennett says, snapping away. "You're on fire!" His face is hidden behind his giant camera, but Marigold isn't looking at him anyway. Instead, she's leaning forward over the handlebars dramatically, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched as she focuses on some spot in the distance. She knows from doing this job long enough now that the photos will be magnificent. She'll look tough, beautiful, and likesexis her middle name. She will earn every penny of this thirty thousand dollars from the client by making this campaign kick ass.
"Excuse me," Jagger says, stepping onto the set. Everything goes quiet except for the music as the flash and pop of the bulbs slows to a stop. "Phone call." He's holding Marigold's giant brick of a cell phone in one hand, looking slightly mortified. "I wouldn't have interrupted, but I answered when it rang and they said it was an emergency."
Bennett James lets loose a long stream of expletives as he kicks an extension cord in anger. It flips around in the air like a snake and smacks against the concrete floor when it lands again. "Dammit. Alright, fine," he says, running a hand dramatically through his greasy hair. He's got the carefully cultivated air of someone who takes himself far too seriously, and quite frankly, he doesn't scare Marigold.
She steps off the bike, reaching out uncertainly as Jagger walks over to her. "Hello?" she says, holding the phone, with its curved body and long antenna, to her ear. She covers her other ear to block out the loud, insistent music that's filling the cavernous studio space.
"Someone turn off that music," Bennett says angrily, looking at the floor but pointing at the stereo.
"Is this Marigold Pim?" a man asks in her ear.
"Yes, this is Marigold." Her heart races as she realizes that anything that constitutes an emergency is probably going to be something bad. Could it be one of her parents? Her sister? She can't even blink her eyes as she waits for more.
"Miss Pim, this is William Masters from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. I'm calling on behalf of Cobb Hartley."
"Oh, god," Marigold's hand flies to her chest, which is clad only in a fitted, leather bra. She suddenly feels naked and clownish in her extreme hair and makeup. "What's wrong? What happened?"
The eyes of every person on set turn to look at her, but she's tunneled in on the words coming through her phone.
"Mr. Hartley is currently in our ICU. He's suffered a...an incident of sorts, and his assistant listed you as his next-of-kin."
"You mean like I'm his family?"
"Yes, ma'am," William Masters says. He sounds older and authoritative, like Marigold's own father, and this somehow soothes her. It's not as if this man is personally responsible for Cobb's care or for the outcome of this situation, but the way he sounds so capable and kind helps Marigold relax.
"I'm his girlfriend," Marigold explains unnecessarily. "Should I come there?"
"Yes, ma'am," William Masters says again. "You should come here as soon as you possibly can. When you get to the front desk, please ask for me and I'll come down to the lobby and get you." He pauses. "Because of the nature of this situation," he says, clearing his throat, "we've enacted a slightly different protocol."
"You mean because...he might not live?" Tears spring to Marigold's eyes, threatening to wash away the meticulously applied eye make up and loosen the false lashes that are held to her lids with glue.
