Raising Hell Read Free Page A

it, and she felt unreasonably relieved when the first call of the day came in, the businesslike buzz of the phone urging her to sit up straight and keep her mind on her job, not her mail. “Kelley-Hart,” she said, punching the button to answer the first call. “Public Relations and Publicity.”
    And so the day began. Like most Tuesdays, the morning was flooded with calls and appointments. Everyone who’d skipped Monday for a long weekend or had spent the day holed up in planning meetings was suddenly coming back to grips with reality and wearing out their index finger dialing through their Rolodex.
    Between fielding calls and greeting the steady stream of clients, Lila spent a blissful morning not thinking about the damned envelope. In fact, it wasn’t until Stacey, the college intern, showed up to relieve her for lunch that Lila thought another thing about it.
    What she thought, in fact, was that she was a wimp. She was just about to shove the envelope back into her tote, when Stacey opened her mouth. “What’s that?” she asked, grabbing for it.
    Lila snatched it away, resisting the urge to smack Stacey’s fingers. “Do you mind?”
    “Come on!” Stacey said. “I saw the return. It’s from the Tannin Agency. Are you a model? God, if you’re not, you should be.”
    “What?” Carrie said, swishing up in a flurry of designer labels. “You’re telling me you haven’t seen our girl already? She’s got the biggest billboard in Times Square! That’s where you hang out, right?” she added, peering down her nose at Stacey as Lila tried very hard not to feel sorry for the girl. Once Carrie decided she liked you, she was as diligent a friend as a guardian angel. But until then, she could be a little scary.
    Stacey frowned, genuinely befuddled, as Carrie laughed and grabbed Lila’s sleeve. “Come on! Lunch!” She tapped the face of her watch. “Tick, tick.”
    They were out the doors and onto the elevator before Lila realized that she’d left her sack lunch in the break room refrigerator. “My lun—”
    “My treat,” Carrie said firmly. “And when you’re a big, famous model, you can pay me back.” She looked Lila up and down. “Not that you’ll ever be big …”
    Lila crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously. “I never said I wanted to be one of the Victoria’s Secret girls.”
    Carrie patted her on the shoulder, grinning wickedly. “And you never will be.”
    Lila almost laughed, then remembered that her entire fate was still tucked into her tote bag. “Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever model for anything.”
    The elevator doors opened and Carrie stepped out, but not before shooting Lila a withering glance. “Since when did Little Miss Sunshine turn pessimistic?”
    “Since that letter ended up in my mailbox,” Lila said. She paused at the newsstand near the entrance to their building. “Hold up a second.”
    While Carrie waited, foot tapping since the lunch hour was ticking away, Lila bought a copy of Vogue and a Milky Way. She gave Harlen, the kiosk’s owner, a twenty, took her change, and turned back to Carrie.
    “I think I may faint dead right now. Lila Burnett, eating a candy bar?”
    “I can eat as many as I want since my chances of being a model are all shot to hell. But, no, it’s not for me. Stacey loves them, and she always works through lunch.” From what Lila could tell, “intern” was a shortened version of “indentured.” As in servitude. As in Stacey worked her tail off and only had college credit to show for it.
    Carrie rolled her eyes, her mouth curving into an ironic smile.
    “What?” Lila asked, fumbling to shove her change back in her wallet. “Oh, wait!” She turned and headed back to the kiosk, Carrie following behind, her heels clicking a fast tempo on the polished floors.
    “Lila!” Carrie called. “If we don’t hurry, we won’t have time to eat!”
    “Just one second,” Lila shouted back over her shoulder. She hurried back to