Fashionably Late Read Free

Karen wondered at it, but it did sell gowns.
    Slowly she and Jeffrey continued to make their way through the crowd to their table, where Defina Pompey was standing, tall and majestic as an ebony column. Karen and Defina had worked together for more than a decade. Fifteen years ago Defina had been the hottest runway model of the season and now, even with Linda Evangelista standing not too far behind her, Karen could see why. Her friend was still gorgeous, more beautiful than Beverly Johnson or Naomi Campbell on their best days.
    Today, when it was truly unchic to do a show without several black models, it was hard to remember that it was this woman who had broken ground for all women of color. Defina was deep in conversation with a painfully skinny, intense young woman dressed in black and an elegant Italian-looking manţDefina had a gift for languages and spoke flawless Spanish, Italian, and French, but she still knew how to communicate with the homeboys.
    Defina looked across the table and flashed a smile at Karen. She was wearing a white silk jersey gown that Karen had designed for her. With it, Defina wore the wrap jacket that did great things for any woman who wanted to camouflage a thickening middle. Defina, in the days since she’d left modeling, had broadened and matured in all senses of the words.
    “May I introduce you to someone who would like to meet you?” Defina asked smoothly. She turned to the Italian and dismissed him with a “ciao” and a gracious smile. Then she sidled over to Karen, the little black fashion wraith fighting the crowd behind her. “This one is so green she actually thinks Calvin and Anne Klein are related. Should we tell her they’re married, and Kevin is their son?” Defina suggested, sotto voce. The wraith got closer, extended a skeletal arm, and put out her bony hand. “Karen, meet Jenn Nuborg. She’s a freelance fashion writer who would like an interview. I told her you’d love to.”
    Defina had put a little too much emphasis on the word love though only Karen would pick it up. Defina knew how much Karen hated to be bothered by the fashion reportorial tyros. God, they could be stupid and annoying. As if that wasn’t enough, they were most often oversensitive and quick to take offense. But Karen had no illusions: it was the fashion press who had put Karen here tonight. After years of effort, Karen had managed to survive in the cut-throat world of haute couture, but it wasn’t until Jeffrey had insisted on hiring Mercedes Bernard to do their public relations work that Karen had really broken from the pack and become a national, and perhaps almost an international, name.
    “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” the Nuborg woman asked.
    Her voice was as thin as her arms. This was no time for an interview, but before Karen could think of a pleasant way to put the woman off, the girl continued. “What, in your opinion, is the sexiest part of the female body?” she asked. Defina, standing behind the reporter and towering almost a foot over the Nuborg’s head, smirked at Karen.
    “Her mind?” Karen asked, as if the question had been a riddle.
    The girl didn’t smile. Too intense for that! “What is your biggest unfulfilled desire?” she asked relentlessly.
    Karen’s smile faded. Without thinking, she moved her hand to cover her stomach, as if to shield her empty womb. She remembered Dr. Goldman tomorrow. She blinked, paused, and told herself to get a grip.
    Before Karen could begin to answer or make an excuse, tall, pale Mercedes Bernard floated over. “lenna. It is Jenn, isn’t it?” the PR woman was a genius at remembering names, and while the pre-party arrival noise crescendoed around them, there in the glittering ballroom of the Waldorf, Mercedes began to detach the Nuborg mollusk from Karen’s side. “Perhaps later would be a better time for this,” Mercedes was saying, her cool but pleasant smile already in place.
    Mercedes projected an aura of noblesse