Dead Is The New Black - Chapters 1 and 2

Laura blew into the Korean market and spotted Ms. Hipster at the coffee bar. Laura headed over there and poured herself the smallest size. It smelled stale, even for a Sunday, so Laura felt zero guilt about the wasted brew as she intentionally mismanaged the paper cup.

“Oh, geez!” Laura exclaimed, as Ms. Hipster arched her back away from Laura’s flying coffee. “I’m so sorry! Did it get anywhere?” A spot of coffee clung to the fabric hairs on the front, about to soak in. The woman had to go ballistic. Who wouldn’t? A Donatella coat cost four thousand dollars. The girl didn’t look like she could afford more than a vintage find from Goodwill.

Ms. Hipster daubed it with a napkin. “It’s all right. I think it’s mostly off.”

Mostly? She was either loaded—that was out, judging from the rest of her ensemble—or the coat was cheap. Laura held out more napkins, and they moved out of the way of the cashier line. “I think there’s a little on the button, too.” Ms. Hipster looked, but of course there was nothing. Laura continued, “If the button is stained, I saw the same ones at Harry’s. I don’t know where you’d get the thread to match, though.”

Laura waited. Ms. Hipster looked at her button, “No, it looks okay. And the thread is just pink. No big. I can buy that anywhere.” She gave a noncommittal smile and backed into the cashier line.

She didn’t have pink thread at home.

Meaning she hadn’t resewn the buttons.

Meaning the coat buttons came with pink permacore thread.

So it’s fake. Fakefakefake.

“It’s really cool, the coat,” Laura said from behind Ms. Hipster, who was counting out nickels and pennies to pay for her coffee. “Where did you get it?”

“My mom brought it back from China.” The girl spun on her vintage 1970s cowboy boots and left. She didn’t seem to know, or care, that Jeremy’s stuff was made in the U.S.A., on 40th Street for that matter, and didn’t ship to Asia. There was always the possibility that she was trying to throw Laura off the trail of a cool new store by claiming the coat came from overseas, a common trick, but if that was the case, there was no way Laura would be able to choke the source of the coat from the hipster anyway. So she just went to the office, quite a far walk from the little Korean grocery with the stale coffee.

She might be late but, as Laura got into the elevator with the other Sunday workaholics, she knew there was most certainly going to be a meaty conversation with Jeremy. Her reflection in the shiny brass of the elevator doors showed a woman who didn’t look as confident as she felt. She straightened her hair and, struck by the futility of it, pulled her wooly cap further down.

The mission of the house of Jeremy St. James was to clothe women who were ashamed of neither their bodies nor their discretionary income. If there was a breast to push up, a patch of skin to expose, or a waist to accentuate, Jeremy’s clothes pushed it up, exposed it, or sucked it in. If there was a straying husband, the clothes were meant to bring him home. If there was a lover to attract, Jeremy St. James had a five-hundred-dollar shirt that would inch you toward that goal.

Jeremy’s clothes simply looked too good, too sexy, too gay to be the work of a heterosexual mind. That intensified Laura’s crush. He was gorgeous, brilliant, and safe. Otherwise, she’d be too nervous even to talk to him, and talking to him was why she got up early and dragged herself to the office.

Eight in the morning was still too early for just about everyone but Laura and Jeremy to be at work. The reception area glowed from the concealed lighting, warming the white walls, dark woods, and rare red orchids. The cement floor was tinted a grey only a shade warmer than a city street. The glass and wood reception desk sat unmanned, but the crumpled environmentally friendly napkin from HasBean in the wire garbage can told her Jeremy was already in, and that there would be a cup at her desk. She put in her code and rehearsed the counterfeit Donatella story in her mind.