Prologue I've always been jealous of witches. Not the incense-burning, tree-fondling kind, but the others -- the ones that can cast real spells, that can turn people into livestock (I'd have turned my ex-husband into an aardvark -- a faint subgenus resemblance -- but that's another story).
When I was a kid, I'd watch Bewitched and wish for the ability to turn myself pretty and blond. As I grew older and married (my true hell on earth), I'd wish for the ability to ban housework forever. I was never meant to be a domestic servant, especially after a ten-hour day at the office. Cows should be domestic servants, not women, don't you think?
I wanted to break free. Be somebody I never was.
You know Buffy, Xena, Joan of Arc? Saving the world is for the pantywaisted. Me? I want to rule it.
Who am I?
Call me V.
Copyright © 2005 by Kathleen Panov
Chapter One
Which publicist/designer couple have hit a speed bump in their marriage? Rumor has it that they are sharing separate quarters and that she has been seen on the arm of a well-known piano player. True love, revenge, or PR scam? Only the piano man knows for sure. I predict big things for the Hollywood starlet opening on Forty-second Street in August. Her voice, her moves, it's the best thing she's done in ages. You heard it here first, darlings.
Fifth Avenue's most daring bag lady and her darling designers have done it again. Current buzz on the street says that the It Bag for the spring season is part of the Sonata line from V.
V. Yup, that's me. Now I own a prosperous leather shop on Fifth Avenue, and I'm not going to name names, because the purpose of anonymity is to stay anonymous. Every day celebrities waltz into the store, celebrity wannabes bumbling right after them. All to buy my bags. It's a hell of a rush, and I like to have fun with it every now and then. (It'll be our little secret.)
If you shop on Fifth Avenue, you'll really appreciate this one. Here's the drill:
"Are you looking for something special today?" I ask.
"I'm not sure," the customer says in that Botoxified highbrow tone that tells me she wants me to compliment her on her new $1,500 Viktor & Rolf knockoff and then find a bag to match. Do these people never learn?
"I've got just the thing," I tell her, and then, in my head, I say the magic words:
Baggara, faggara, haggara, fine, puce is what you need to shine.
Immediately her eyes zoom in on the puce monstrosity that is sitting behind the counter. We've discounted it 47 percent, solely because it's an ugly mother and no one would ever touch it.
"I love it," she gushes.
I smile and rack up the price 200 percent.
Ka-ching.
After the Page Six item, I take in orders for a thousand bags (including some in butt-ugly puce). You wonder how hype starts?
I'm telling you, it's all in who you know. You see those names that get paraded around and become forty-seven-minute celebrities? Well, if you see a certain ex-hooker at mass, I'm telling you it's a sham. As long as she's banking the advances and fighting off the West Coast producers with a diamond-studded stick, she's got connections.
That evening I take off for my usual night out. I signed over my soul to the devil almost two years ago, and I haven't regretted it yet. Having your every whim and desire -- what's not to love?
Pandemonium is a trendy little joint over on 1111 Legion Street. I'm meeting Shelby and Meegan ("two e's, but pronounced Megan; it's a family name"), who belongs to one of the political dynasties from Connecticut (who knew?). Shelby is svelte, tall, with a deceptively casual blond cut. Her hair was specially designed by Frederic Fekkai, and the body was designed by Oreos and Ex-Lax. A deadly combination.
Meegan is much less disciplined, a bluestocking with no sense of style at all who I had met one day while getting a facial. I promised Lucy I'd get them both in the Life Enrichment Program, and now it's up to me to show them the infinite rewards of my life. Oh, yeah, like that's a tough job.
To be perfectly honest, I don't care too much for Shelby. It's tougher to be apathetic about Meegan. She is genuinely nice, in a way I don't even begin to understand. We've talked a few times, and I'm feeling the disconnect. I've never spent a lot of time around nice people; that's what happens when you grow up in Hoboken.
I walk into the bar, and heads turn. Men like the lean, Dolce & Gabbana "You can look, but you have to sell your firstborn in order to touch"-clad body, and women notice my bag. Yeah, eat your heart out, New York.
One of the Yankee ballplayers is holding court in the back, and I wink, but don't go any further. I'm a Mets fan, and it seems disloyal. Someday, when I get to be a Level 7 and earn my behavior-modification status, the Mets are going to win the pennant.
I find Meegan and Shelby near the wall in the back. I've been trying to teach them to be bolder, more aggressive, but that's easy when you have no reason to fear rejection.
"Evening, ladies," I say, picking up the martini the bartender has magically provided. It's a good life.
"V" -- she didn't actually say "V," but it's really important that no one knows my real name (Life Enrichment Clause Number 473) -- "you look fabulous!"
We do the air-kiss thing, and Meegan gives me an arm squeeze.
My cell phone rings, and I hold up a "just a minute" finger while I fish it out. Caller ID indicates that it's Harry, and I consider him for only a moment. Then I shake my head and put the phone back in my bag with a little moue. "Voice mail will get it. I'm with two of my favorite friends, and besides, who needs a man anyway?"
Shelby's eyes sharpen with greed. She is close; I know it. I get extra powers for each client I recruit (Life Enrichment Clause Number 10478), and I have been just itching for my next level, mind-reading, aka the Amazing V Sees All.
There's an art to the program, a stealthy give-and-take, and you never ever share the secret until the absolute moment of desperation strikes. Neither Meegan nor Shelby knows anything, although Shelby will soon. She's about to hit the wall. I can tell. With Meegan, well, let's just say she's not really the desperate type. Yet.
I push back my hair and sigh, a great, "oh, woe is me" wellspring of breath. "The shop was brutal today," I say, and then pause for effect. "There was a leak in the Post about the new line, and the waiting list has already started. Julia's assistant called and offered me five thou to put her at the top of the list." I roll my eyes to indicate my perpetual ennui. "Can you believe it? Like I could be bought," I scoff.
"A new line?" asks Meegan.
"Yes, Paolo has been busy. It's to die for." Paolo is my mentor, the one who recruited me. He had been the fabbest leather designer in Italy and got promoted to New York as part of the package for me. It is a big ego trip to think that my soul was worth a move to New York. I don't know what made me so special, but I give thanks every day because of it.
"I can't wait to see it," Shelby gushes.
I lean in close and smile. "I'll get you the first one."
And there it is. I can see it in her eyes. I have her, and all it cost me was a fucking leather purse. Sad. I don't like Shelby, but I think I would have wished more for her.
"You're the best," she says, joy in her voice.
"We'll do lunch tomorrow," I answer, not disputing it at all. I'll arrange for Lucy to be there. The paperwork and the legal hocus-pocus can take up to two hours, but the 1040 EZ (Lucy took great amusement in naming that one) is available for those in a hurry. Shelby looks to be in a hurry.
Meegan starts making eyes at a broker against the back wall. My gaydar is beeping overtime, but she isn't on the same wavelength. "I think he likes you," I say, just as a conversation starter. "Go talk to him."
She looks hesitant, but lonely, so she moves in his direction. I twitch my nose (purely show business, but it lends an air of mysticism), and the words just pop into my head.
Hetero, Homeo, higgledy hurl, forget your preference and go for the girl.
Immediately he turns and gives her a long once-over. His companion looks a little startled, and I giggle to myself. Just like a man. Give him a heat-seeking missile, and he'll follow it anywhere. After a short five minutes of chitchat, Meegan and her new convert are heading out the door, arm in arm. I take a long draw on my martini. Doing the magic takes a lot of energy, and I get a little sapped, but soon the alcohol is coursing through my veins, reviving the blood flow.
"She bagged him," I say with a satisfied smile.
"Lucky her," replies Shelby, bitchily.
"Ah, every dog has its day, and every woman has her lay."
"I'm being petty and small-hearted, aren't I?" she asks, completely insincere.
"That's what Prozac is for, darling," I drawl, patting her hand.
We share a moment of awkward insincerity as I contemplate my soon to be ESPness and Shelby contemplates her aloneness.
I spot him before Shelby does. An eleven-point buck in the patent-pending Armani suit. It's the shoes that do me in. Italian wing tips. I have a severe sweet tooth for Italian wing tips. Some sort of postseventies Richard Gere fetish, I suppose. He meets my eyes, and I feel nothing. However, I figure it's time for Shelby to get some sport. A kind of last hoo-haw, as it were.
I give him a wink that he won't remember -- I do like playing God -- and chant to myself. It occurs to me belatedly that I really shouldn't give over all my spells to the general populace, however, I will say it involves the words wing tips, bon vivant, and clam dip. 'Nuff said. (But you know, I have a tendency for prolixity, so I bet I slip up in the future. Shoot me.)
Mr. Wing Tips locks on to her, and the rest is history. They talk for a good forty-five minutes at the bar, com...
