‘Here,’ she said, depositing what looked like jeans, a T-shirt and some frilly underthings on to the couch beside me. ‘I thought you might want to put this stuff on. I mean, that dress isn’t exactly doing anything for you, you know.’
‘Um,’ I said. ‘It’s a hospital gown, not a dress. But thanks.’ I picked up the pile of clothes, then hesitated, looking around the loft.
Lulu heaved a sigh. ‘I can’t believe you don’t remember. Your room’s down there,’ she said, pointing towards a door off to one side of the kitchen. ‘The food’ll probably be ready when you’re done.’
I thanked her and got up, a little unsteadily, still clutching the blanket around me. I didn’t look at Brandon as I made my way down the length of the loft. For one thing, walking in my new body was… well, weird.
For another, I could feel his gaze boring into my back the whole time.
I couldn’t exactly blame him. If his lips felt anything like mine did, it was really hard not to go running right back over there and smack them right back on to his.
How do couples not just go around kissing all the time? Kissing is fantastic.
Oh my God. I’ve known I’m a model for five minutes, and this is how my thought process erodes? I’ve got to get a hold of myself.
I opened the door to Nikki Howard’s bedroom, relieved to be out of Brandon’s sight line — and was hit in the face by the overwhelming fragrance of roses.
I soon saw why. The ‘basket’ of red roses Lulu had told me had been delivered to the loft — the ones from Gabriel Luna — sat on top of Nikki Howard’s vanity table. Only the ‘basket’ was actually a wooden crate… a wooden crate filled to the brim with roses.
Jeez. Gabriel didn’t mess around, did he?
Nikki’s bedroom, I saw, was a lot like her living room… all white, with a thick furry carpet and a vast, soft- looking bed. In fact, the only colour in the room came from Gabriel’s roses. The floor-to-ceiling windows were covered with white satin curtains. A huge mirror — half hidden by Gabriel’s crate of roses — hung over the white vanity table in one corner. In the mirror, I could see my reflection — a pale, skinny blonde girl in a hospital gown, wearing a terrified expression and clutching a pile of clothes to her chest, and a cashmere blanket around her shoulders.
Right. A pale, skinny blonde girl who, if Frida’s CosmoGIRL! was right, earned something like twenty grand a day.
Unlike in my own room, back home, Nikki hadn’t decorated her walls with postcards of paintings or posters of movies she liked. Nor were there piles of science-fiction and fantasy books and journals and mangas lying around, threatening to topple over at any moment. In fact, there wasn’t even so much as a photo on her nightstand. Although Nikki did own a computer — a Stark-brand laptop (in a hideous shade of pink) which sat on the vanity table near her bed — she didn’t appear to own much of anything else, really, except a Stark-brand flat- screen television, which was affixed to the wall across from her bed.
And make-up. At least, that’s all I found in every drawer I pulled open, looking for… I don’t even know what.
But all I found? Mascara. And lipgloss. A LOT of lip-gloss.
Which I supposed she needed, considering all the kissing she was apparently doing. She probably had to reapply a lot.
And, when I opened another door, I saw that while Nikki didn’t appear to own any books, she did own a lot of clothes. There was a whole walk-in closet full of them — what looked like thousands of shirts, blouses, jackets, jeans, trousers, dresses and skirts of every description and colour, each item hanging neatly on a wooden hanger. Some of them were so new they still had price tags on them. I found more than one pair of $400 jeans, and a pretty plain-looking dress with a tag that said $3,000 (which had to be a mistake). Beneath and above the hanging clothes were shelves containing literally hundreds of purses, bags, totes and shoes of every type imaginable… boots, sneakers, flats, heels, sandals, pumps, even, for some reason, wooden clogs, like the Dutch Boy wears.
Frida, I knew, would have felt as if she’d died and gone to heaven if she’d walked into Nikki Howard’s closet. All I felt, however, was confused. What kind of teenaged girl could afford $400 jeans? Who even needed $400 jeans? And who kept her stuff so… neat? It was kind of freaky in a way. I didn’t like being in that closet. Not one bit.
I hurried out of it and tried the other door… and found myself in Nikki Howard’s bathroom.
Unlike the rest of the loft, this room wasn’t white. The walls were made of a taupe-coloured marble — the ones that weren’t mirrored, that is. There was a walk-in shower and a separate Jacuzzi tub. The mirror above the double sinks was surrounded by lights, dressing-room style. The reflection I saw blinking back at me in that mirror looked scared.
I put down the pile of clothes Lulu had given me and reached up to undo the ponytail someone had put my (or, more accurately, Nikki Howard’s) hair into. It came tumbling down my shoulders, looking as unlike my own hair as any hair ever could. Instead of being stick straight and brown, Nikki Howard’s hair was silky and golden and hung in perfectly curled waves… even though it clearly hadn’t been brushed — or washed — in a while.
And when I reached behind me to undo the hospital gown, and it fell away to land in a puddle at my (I mean, Nikki Howard’s) feet, I saw a body as unlike my own as the hair was. It was the same absolutely perfect — by the Walking Dead’s standards — body I’d seen in countless Victoria’s Secret ads featuring Nikki Howard. There were no surprises there. None at all.
Except the main one — that suddenly, that perfect body appeared to be my own.
I looked away from the mirror and hurried into the clothes Lulu had given me — a pair of frilly pink knickers and an equally frilly bra first. Then jeans, which slid on to fit like a second skin, and the T-shirt — which, disappointingly, bore the words Baby Soft across the front, in pink curlicue writing — which did little to hide what the under-wire bra was emphasizing. This was certainly unlike the shirts stocked in my own closet back home, which I’d selected based on their ability to HIDE what Nikki Howard apparently appeared to prefer to flaunt.
Hurrying from the bathroom and into the closet to grab a pair of Skechers, the lowest-heeled shoes I could find, I threw them on.
Then, giving a last look at this room that supposedly belonged to me — but that, in a million years, I’d never have been able to keep that clean — I staggered back to the bedroom door, threw it open…
And was attacked all over again.
Nine
It was OK though. Because this time, instead of a couple of FFBFs in surgical masks, my assailant was nine inches high and only weighed a half dozen pounds. The minute she saw me come out of Nikki Howard’s bedroom, she careened straight at me, like a fuzzy white bullet with a pink lolling tongue.
‘Sorry,’ Lulu called from the kitchen as she saw me scoop up the excited little dog. ‘I had her locked up in my room and I forgot to let her out until just now. God, look how glad she is to see you! Even if you can’t remember us, you have to remember Cosabella. I mean, you named her after your favourite line of lingerie!’
Except, of course, that I don’t have a favourite line of lingerie. Except maybe Hanes.
Still, even if I didn’t know Cosabella, Cosabella knew me. As soon as I sat down again on the comfy white sofa I’d vacated a few minutes earlier, Cosabella leaped up and, tiny stump of a tail wagging, promptly stood on her hind legs to give my face a thorough licking.
And I didn’t mind. I really didn’t. Because after the shock I’d had, a face-licking actually felt pretty good.
‘OK,’ Brandon said, lowering himself on to the couch opposite mine and studying me with a worried expression on his face. But not, I soon realized, because he was trying to figure out how to get me to kiss him again. Unfortunately. ‘It’s time to stop messing around. Who did this to you, Nikki? And be honest. Was it Al- Qaeda?’
‘Brandon!’ Lulu shrieked from the kitchen.
‘Well,’ Brandon shook his head, ‘if they want to strike a blow against freedom, why not go after the Face of Stark, one of America’s most beloved models?’
