Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

We burst through the doors at street level and I looked around for the limo. They’d dropped us off at the Bergdorf’s end of the mall, so I figured they should be nearby. Tiff was giggling. She gleamed in the afternoon light. “Oh, my gosh,” she said with a half-laugh, half-hiccup. “This is so wild.”

“You should power down,” I said. “You’re like a Christmas tree right now—all lit up.”

“You got it, boss.” I didn’t have to look back to see that she had changed back. I could feel her soft flesh in my hand instead of the cool hardness of her power.

I saw the limo then. It was stuck in traffic on the opposite side of the street, with the cars trying to turn into the parking garage.

“There’s the car!” Tiff yelled. She pulled her wrist out of my hand and started across. I heard a rumble, looked to my left, and saw a tourist bus coming. There was no time to say anything, to warn her to diamond up. I just leapt out and shoved her out of the way as hard as I could.

Then the bus hit me and I stopped thinking about anything else.

My body ballooned. Part of me realized this was good—we had a challenge coming up, and the bigger I was, the better. As I flew through the air, I heard the squealing and hydraulic hiss of the bus brakes. My body felt oddly weightless—until I crashed into the back window of a parked Lexus. The impact from that landing made me even bigger. I lay for a moment in the confetti of broken glass. It wasn’t that I hurt, I just couldn’t figure out how to move quickly at this size. Being hit by a bus, even if it didn’t kill you, was disconcerting.

I rolled off the Lexus and safety glass rained onto the pavement. The bus driver was already out of his vehicle and coming toward me. “Holy crap!” he said. “Are you okay?”

Glass tinkled off me. “Just a little shook up.”

“Michelle!” Tiffani ran over to me. She was diamond, thank goodness. Then she was brushing glass from my shoulders and making little tsking noises as she examined my torn pants and jacket. “Well, these are hopeless,” she said. “Good thing you’ve still got your spending money.”

My hands were itching, and I burned to bubble. It was always this way after a big surge of fat. By now, the limo had gotten free from traffic and was pulling up alongside us. One of the PAs jumped out. “Are either of you hurt?”

“Nah,” Tiffani said. “We’re built wild card tough.”

There was a tap on my shoulder and I heard, “A thousand pardons, but is this your purse?” One of the Japanese tourists was holding out my bag.

My heart sank. I’d brought my favorite purse on this excursion, and now it was much the worse for wear. “Yes, it’s mine,” I said, taking it from her. “Thank you for bringing it back.”

“Oh, if I had a purse this wonderful,” she said, “I would be heartbroken if anything happened to it.”

Tiff looked at my purse, then at the tourist. “It’s a handbag. What’s so special about it?”

“Oh my, that’s a real Hermés Birkin,” the tourist replied. “And if I’m not mistaken, it’s a very rare color as well. In Japan, they sell for almost two million yen.”

Tiff’s eyes bugged out. “Two million for a purse?!”

“Tiff, that’s in yen,” I said. “The conversion rate is, like, totally insane.” I wasn’t about to tell her that at retail in the states, Birkins could cost from $15,000 to $50,000. Which was also completely insane.

“Okay, I confess, it’s not a real Birkin,” I said. I hoped my lie would mollify Tiffani.

“I’m certain that is a real Hermés,” the tourist said. “There are certain distinguishing signs.…”

Why did I have to run into the one Japanese tourist with perfect English and an eye for overpriced accessories? I felt terrible. Tiffani had grown up so poor.

The crowd was swelling, traffic was backed up behind the limo, and I’d managed to dent the front end of a bus as well as destroy a Lexus. Our day of fun was rapidly turning into a gigantic horror show. I was trying to figure out what to do when Tiffani grabbed my hand, stood on tiptoe, and whispered in my ear. “We can’t fix any of this,” she said. “Let’s get in the car and let the PA sort it out.”

“I can’t just leave,” I said. “This is my fault. And how on earth will he be able to handle all this?”

“Please get in the car, ladies,” said the driver. Normally, the drivers didn’t talk to us—unless we initiated the conversation. “If I come back without you, it’s my job.”

I was torn. The PA was clearly in over his head, but I didn’t want to get the driver in trouble. Reluctantly, I allowed Tiff to pull me into the limo.

Tiffani and I sat in the Jacuzzi. Tiff was wearing an itty-bitty bikini and I wore the Big Girls Special. I might as well have been wearing a muumuu. We could hear Drummer Boy banging around inside the house. He was massively pissed at being taken off the Hearts team.

When we all got back from the taping—what a fun car ride that was, what with Drummer Boy alternately sulking and making snide remarks—Tiff suggested that she and I should grab a couple of bottles of wine and hang out in the backyard until things inside quieted down some.

“Wow, he’s got some stamina,” I said. “He’s been in there banging around for at least an hour.”

Tiff took a drink of her wine, then wrinkled her nose. “You’d think this stuff would taste better. Actually, I think he’s playing. Sounds like Tommy Lee’s drumming.”

“Well, I can’t taste anything,” I said. “After two glasses my mouth’s kinda numb. Yeah, you know it does sound like he’s drumming in there.”

Tiff got up and reached for the wine bottle. Water sluiced off her, ran down her back, and between her legs. I closed my eyes. It was too distracting. I imagined sliding my hand between her legs, and that didn’t help anything. I opened my eyes and Tiff was filling my glass up. “So,” she said, as she settled into the water again. “What’s the story with your purse?”

I groaned. I’d hoped we wouldn’t end up talking about it. “Okay, I’ll explain it,” I said. “But you have to promise that you’ll keep it a secret.”

She looked at me with limpid eyes. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.” Her tongue darted into her wine glass. And that made me take another big drink. I leaned closer to her, hoping that between whispering and the noise of the Jacuzzi, they wouldn’t have good enough sound to air what I was about to say.

“I’m not Michelle LaFleur,” I whispered. “I mean, that’s my real name, but I work under the name Michelle Pond. I’m a model. I mean, I was a model. I started young. You know, I was the OshKosh B’Gosh girl for like five years when I was a kid.”

“You? A model?”

I laughed. It did sound ridiculous, given my current appearance. “I know, it seems goofy, doesn’t it?” I said softly. “I was in demand, and since I never went through an ‘awkward’ stage, I kept working solid from the time I was two years old until well, just about now.”

Tiff adjusted the top of her bikini. I tried not to stare.

“Anyway, I pretty much did it all,” I said. “Runway shows, fashion modeling, the works. And I had a great career, except that I was working like a dog and not seeing any of the money from it.”

“I can barely hear you,” she said, scooting closer. She dropped her voice lower as well. “But if you were working, where did the money go?”

And there it was. The question that I dreaded. The reality of my life that was so bitter to me, I could barely stand to think about it, much less talk about it.

But there was Tiffani with such sympathy in her eyes, and the wine made me feel disconnected from myself. I drained my glass for Dutch courage.