So Pretty It Hurts

“You didn’t shoot that moose, did you?” Jessie asked, looking up toward a huge stuffed head hanging above the double front doors.

“Yeah, right,” Scott said. “The only thing I’ve ever shot is a recording artist who didn’t go platinum. Come up and meet everyone.”

As we reached the top of the stairs, I got a better sense of the place. To the left of the landing was a great room—a combination kitchen, dining, and living area, with two couches, a bunch of chubby armchairs, a big round dining table, and another animal head mounted on the wall, this one an elk that had probably never set hoof east of the Rockies. Sandy was fussing with some things on the kitchen counter. Six other people were bunched directly behind her at a big wooden island, some standing, some sitting on barstools.

All conversation ceased as we stepped into the room. It felt as if we’d accidentally stumbled into a play midperformance and caught the actors totally by surprise.

Scott dispelled the awkwardness by quickly introducing us to everyone present: Devon Barr’s agent, Cap Darby, a square-jawed, superconfident Clive Owen type who appeared to be in his mid- to late forties; his blond wife, Whitney, who couldn’t have been more than thirty and had a rock on her left hand the size of an iPod; Devon’s booker, Christian Hayes, a slim African American with a shaved head and cropped, curly beard; a girl named Tory Hartwick with short, jet-black hair and striking hooded eyes, who clearly was Devon’s model friend; and a tall, thin rocker type named Tommy Quinn, who had one of his bare, heavily tattooed arms draped over Tory. He must have been important, because I felt Jessie press her foot into mine when Scott introduced him.

And then there was Richard Parkin, whose name I recognized instantly. He was an award-winning journalist and author, hailing from the UK, who wrote profiles for magazines like Vanity Fair and Track, the music magazine that was part of the same media company as Buzz.

“So this is our house party,” Scott said. “Devon isn’t here at the moment. She went to her room after dinner, but she’s coming back.”

I caught Whitney shooting a look at her husband Cap, though I had no clue what it meant.

“And oh, Devon’s assistant Jane is missing too,” Scott added. “She slipped out to the deck to use the telescope.”

Jane must have been the girl Jessie and I had spotted charging down the glass passageway like a bull through the streets of Pamplona. Based on the land speed at which she’d been moving and the ticked-off expression on her face, I doubted she was out there right now studying the moons of Jupiter.

“You didn’t get lost, did you?” Christian asked us. “I accidentally ended up in the town of Traugersville, population fourteen.”

“I thought you didn’t drive, Christian?” Whitney said, revealing a strong southern accent. With her long, flowing hair, translucent blue eyes, and curvy figure she was attractive enough, but it was a standard-issue look that made her indistinguishable from millions of other women with big blond hair and hard, fake tits.

“I don’t—I used a car service,” he explained. “The driver clearly hadn’t been north of Westchester in his life, and he never took the car over fifty-nine miles an hour. I could have been in Montreal in less time.”

“How about some wine?” Scott asked us, interrupting. We both accepted a glass of red.

“Scott has quite the cellar up here,” Cap announced. “If you’re a wine lover, you’re in for a treat.”

“You just have to keep putting your hand over your glass,” Whitney said. “Or he’ll top it off endlessly.”

“Actually, I’m fine with you topping mine off,” Richard said in his posh British accent. He reached out his empty glass. From the ruddiness of his face, it appeared he might have already enjoyed several. “It’s absolutely splendid—saddlebags and a strong hint of black cherries, I’d say.”

“I thought wine was always made from grapes,” Tory said.

At first I thought she was kidding. But the look of befuddlement on her face said otherwise.

“You’re not serious, are you?” Tommy asked her, feigning horror.

A door slammed downstairs at that moment, saving all of us from any explanation on Tory’s part, and then we heard the sound of someone’s long strides across the wooden planks.

“There’s Devon,” Cap said with a hint of relief. I wondered how he knew it was she and not Jane.

We all turned expectantly, listening to the clop-clop of her boots as she mounted the stairs.

She was wearing a black pea coat over her jeans, and her long, perfectly straight blond hair, parted in the middle, was fanned out around the collar. She was tall, though not quite as tall as Tory. But then she didn’t need to be. Her face was her fortune, and it was as exquisite in person as in photos: big hazel eyes, shaped like almonds, a small, perfect nose, and a ripe mouth that was always slightly and sensuously parted, as if she were on the verge of telling someone softly that she’d like to fuck his brains out.

“Come meet our new arrivals,” Scott suggested.

She glanced toward us without really taking us in. She looked bored, as if she had just arrived at a three-day conference on treasury bonds. In her right hand she was holding both a water bottle and a nearly flattened cigarette pack, and after setting down the bottle and stuffing the cigarettes into her pocket, she shrugged off her pea coat onto an armchair.

We all stared at her wide-eyed. On top of her skintight jeans she was wearing a filmy black top with a deep plunge. Each side had shifted, and her small but perfect breasts were totally exposed.

Chapter 2

“You’ve had a slight wardrobe malfunction, darling,” Christian announced.

Devon seemed to totally ignore him, but then, without a trace of self-consciousness, she slowly teased the fabric back over her breasts with long, slender fingers. I’d seen modeling shots of her almost totally nude before, and I wouldn’t have expected her to feel awkward, but the languidness of her movement suggested something else: that it had all been intentional—for someone’s benefit. Another thought shot through my brain. How thin she was. When Devon was first starting out, she was known for the heroin chic look, but she had filled out as she grew older, to something you could have described simply as “model thin.” Her appearance tonight suggested a worrisome drop in pounds.

“There—better?” she asked blasely to no one in particular. And then, “I’d like some fresh water,” before anyone could weigh in with an answer to the first question.

“Absolutely,” Scott said, reaching inside the fridge for a bottle. “This is Jessie, by the way, and her friend Bailey.”

“Hello,” she said, without much enthusiasm, but she came forward and shook our hands. Her hand was slim and felt as fragile as a seashell. She held my gaze just a moment. For a split second I saw a flash of cunning in her eyes.

“Congratulations on your album,” Jessie said. “It must be a very exciting time for you.”

“Scott’s the one who deserves the congratulations,” she said. “He’s the one who made it all happen.”

“And Cap, of course,” said Scott, a little forced. “He’s the one who brought you to me to begin with.”

“Have you been writing music long?” Jessie asked her.

“I wrote little songs, when I was young. Then I learned how to do it from watching Tommy.”

She looked at him slyly, as if there was a secret between them.

“Scott tells us we’re going to have a preview this weekend,” Tommy said. “I can hardly wait.”

Next to him, Tory formed her wide mouth into a pout, clearly not appreciating the way Tommy was taking in Devon—or maybe she was still pondering how you turned cherries into wine.

“Did you bump into Jane?” Cap asked Devon. “I sent her to look for you.”

Devon shrugged as if she didn’t remember and could care less where Jane had gone. “You know what I’m in