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Chapter One
Barneys or Bargain Basement?
"Oh, damn."
Aynsley Rothwell glanced at her vintage lizard-skin Cartier Tank watch and threw a twenty at the cab driver. She paused in front of the gleaming glass towers of Conrad Publishing and checked her watch. It read eleven o'clock, same as it had when she came clattering out of her town house at least twenty-five traffic-jammed minutes ago. She'd warned the cabbie not to take Park Avenue. She pulled her BlackBerry Pearl out of her metal mesh tote bag. Noon. She was more than half an hour late for the first day of her summer internship at Couture magazine. Oh well. Aynsley knew that half an hour late in New York City time was positively prompt. And in the fashion industry, thirty minutes tardy was the gauche side of early.
She breezed past security and caught an elevator, all the while tapping at her watch. It had probably been broken for years. Not that Aynsley would've noticed. It's not like she ever wore the thing as a timepiece. She'd found it in Paris at the Saint-Ouen flea market two Christmases ago and had begged her dad for the 1,200 euros to purchase it. She never thought to make sure the thing actually worked.
Aynsley rode the elevator to the thirty-third floor with a blond Amazon whose cheekbones could have cut diamonds. The Glamazon gave Aynsley the once-over. She obviously coveted Aynsley's bag—by Eamon Sinds, a bad-boy Londoner who the Glamazon would discover along with the rest of America when his first stateside collection arrived in the fall. But she was also trying to see if Aynsley was carrying a portfolio. No doubt to figure out which modeling agency represented her. Click? Elite? Flash?
None of the above. Aynsley's waiflike figure—five feet ten in flats, a boobless, hipless size two—and her sexy, slouchy, pantherlike stride would've made her a natural on the catwalk, but she was so not interested. Modeling was a job, and jobs were, yawn, a bore.
The elevator opened and Aynsley found herself face-to-face with a life-size Angelina Jolie—her lips in all their puckered glory graced a blowup of the latest Couture cover. The receptionist jumped out of her seat and quickly ushered Aynsley down the hallway. They passed rolling racks full of Miu Miu dresses, Dolce jackets, and Celine boots before arriving at the entrance to a glass-enclosed conference room.
"Aynsley, it's divine to see you—and where did you get that trapeze dress? It's positively fab."
"Kiki," Aynsley said, kiss-kissing Couture's Gucci-clad deputy editor, Kiki Benedict. "It's a Stella. I got it in London. Limited edition."
"Of course you did. And you scored a Sinds bag. Clever girl. You're late, by the way, but you haven't missed much. Isabel decided to tear up the houndstooth spread that everyone but Dieter always loathed, so she and Dieter are doing their brainstorm dance."
Isabel Dupre was Couture's editor in chief, and one of the most famous fashion icons in the world—more well-known, perhaps, than any of the top designers and models who covered the pages of the magazine she'd run for the past fifteen years. Dieter Glück was her creative director, her sidekick—or as Aynsley's mother sometimes called him, "Isa's bitch."
"I was just going over the basics with your fellow interns, Aynsley. Of course, you already know the basics," Kiki continued. She turned to face three girls sitting around a glass-and-steel table, amid a clutter of lipstick-stained Starbucks cups, Poland Spring bottles, and an untouched tray of croissants and bagels. "Aynsley's practically family around here. Her mom and Isabel studied at the Sorbonne together."
Aynsley brushed away the swoop of coal-black bangs that hung over her left eye to get a better look at her cohorts. They were looking a tad dumbstruck, like those see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys. They'd probably all worked their asses off to get this gig. An internship at Couture was a platinum-plated key to the fashion world. That's what Aynsley's mother had told her, anyway, before she announced that she'd pulled beaucoup strings to land her one of this summer's four coveted slots. Then she'd warned Aynsley that if she blew it, the glittering party that was her life would be as over as Juicy sweats.
"Hey, Aynsley. I'm Nadine Van Buren." Out of one of the chairs popped a sexy, mocha-skinned girl, with a slick black bob and eyebrows that arched to the north pole. Even in her vertigo-inducing metallic platforms, Nadine came up to Aynsley's shoulder, but what she lacked in height she made up for in oomph. The girl had curves in all the places where Aynsley had angles, and her clingy Pucci wrap dress kept no secrets.
"Nadine's a Philly girl," Kiki explained. "Great art scene happening in Philadelphia right now. She's also the star editor of her school newspaper."
"And I'm a photographer. I'll be shooting covers here before the summer's out," Nadine said, grinning.
"Yeah, well, you'll be shooting my designs then," said a voice that was too squeaky to match the bravado behind it. The voice cleared its throat, before continuing in a steadier tone. "I'm Callie Ryan."
Callie extended her hand to Aynsley as if Aynsley, too, were a fashion icon, as if she were someone to suck up to. Sigh. Hadn't she just graduated from high school?
Aynsley turned her smirky smile on Callie and saw that the girl's hazel eyes were boring into her like a laser. The look and the voice, they scratched something inside Aynsley, like fingernails down a chalkboard. She gave Callie an icier version of the up-down that the Glamazon in the elevator had given her. She had to admit, the squeaker was cute. Long, perfectly messy brown hair, bee-stung lips, legs that seemed to go all the way up to her boobs. Her outfit needed some help, though: She wore a lacy cami and a micromini made from a patchwork of crushed silk, faded denim, and black lace. The skirt was cut high enough to require a precautionary bikini wax, and the whole ensemble was a little too Hot Topic for the halls of Couture. Moving down Callie's legs, Aynsley stopped on her shoes. Strappy copper Sigerson Morrison sandals. So two seasons ago.
Excerpted from Fashionistas by Chloe Walsh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
