“Don’t bring my mother into this,” Schuyler warned, shaking Mimi off. “You don’t know anything about my mother.”
“Oh, but I do. I have lived much longer than you.” Mimi’s face changed, and for a moment, Schuyler saw flashes of all the women in history Mimi had been: the Egyptian queen, the French noblewoman, the hardy Pilgrim, the Newport hostess—all breathtakingly beautiful, all with the same cold green eyes.
“You don’t understand the bond,” Mimi whispered, as around them the designer and his team were making final corrections on all the clothes. “Jack and I are one and the same. Taking him away from me would be like ripping off his skin. He needs me. If he renews the bond, he will grow stronger, his memories will be whole. He will flourish.”
“And if not?” Schuyler challenged.
“You might as well reserve a spot for him in that hospital my father keeps visiting. This is not some silly high school game, you stupid girl.” This is life and death. Angels and demons. The bond is law. We are made from the same dark matter, Mimi thought but didn’t say. She saw that Schuyler could not, or would not, understand. Schuyler was a newborn. She had no comprehension of the rigors of immortality. The harsh and absolute ways of their kind.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t expect you to.” Mimi looked exhausted. “But if you do love him, leave him, Schuyler. Release him. Tell him you don’t want him anymore. It’s the only way he’ll let go.”
Schuyler shook her head. Around her, the models were lining up, and Rolf was pinning a hem here, tucking in a pleat there. Outside, the lights had gone black and the show was about to start. She let one of her dressers snip an errant thread from the sleeve of her riding jacket. “I can’t do that. I can’t lie.”
Mimi took a sip from Schuyler’s glass of champagne without asking. “Then Jack is lost.”
SIXTEEN
Last year during his fall presentation, Rolf Morgan had made the audience walk down the runway while the models sat on front-row seats and pretended to take notes. The gimmick had charmed the fashion press so much he was keen on trying out another fun twist. This year the show would be run backward, starting with the designer’s bow and the grand ball gowns and ending with casual sportswear. As the band played a thundering rendition of “Space Oddity,” Rolf ran out onto the stage to thunderous applause. He returned bearing a bouquet of roses, beaming and energized. Schuyler watched as Cyrus, Rolf ’s spastic show runner, led Bliss to the front of the line. The black lace corset dress was meant to be the showstopping finale, and therefore, in the backward equation, the opener. Schuyler gave Bliss an encouraging wave. She knew her friend was still slightly intimidated by the catwalk, and Bliss looked like a nervous colt, her hands quivering slightly as they rested on her hips.
Bliss returned a few minutes later, a broad smile of relief on her face. “It’s madness out there!” she gushed to Schuyler before being whisked away to get changed for her second outing.
Schuyler returned Bliss’s smile, thinking she would be glad when it was over, when she could finally put on her own clothes—a certain men’s Oxford shirt that was her current favorite, over a pair of black leggings and cloven-hoof boots that she’d picked up at a resale shop.
The girls in their gothic prom dresses had exited the catwalk, and Cyrus motioned her to the front. She was next. “Remember, when you get to the end, one pose, two pose, BAM! And then come back.”
Schyler nodded. She took a deep breath and walked onstage. Stepping out onto the catwalk was like stepping onto the moon. You went from the grungy reality of backstage, surrounded by chatter and safety pins and a heroic mess of clothing racks and raided accessory bins, to the bright white lights of the stage and the blinding flash of a hundred cameras.
The atmosphere was electric, a noisy cacophony of hysteria reserved for the best rock concerts—the hoots and cheers from the back row energizing the band to play faster and louder, and the models to assume their haughtiest facades. Schuyler never even noticed the grim-faced editors or the tarted-up celebrities in the front row; she was too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not making a fool of herself.