“Ah, the little rag that’s sucking all our fearless leader’s attention. Getting an audience with Elena these days is like visiting the queen. Even for me. So…why are you here, Junior Crime Reporter?”
“Just doing a favour for Felicity. I have something to drop off.” She held up the USB drive.
“So leave it here. I’ll give it to her.”
“Felicity vowed to flay me alive if I didn’t deliver it to Elena personally.”
“Ah. That does sound like the indomitable Ms Simmons.”
Maddie laughed at that. “So, what do you do?”
He gave a rueful chuckle. “Ouch, my poor, poor ego. In my industry, everyone knows me. I’m Style International’s global art director. If it’s trendy and fashionable, then I was the one who helped make it so.”
“Seriously?”
“Scout’s honour.”
“Votre attitude est décevante. Je ne suis pas ouverte au compromis.” The burst of French from Elena was loud enough to travel to where they sat. Something about a bad attitude and no compromise? Maybe?
“She shouldn’t be too much longer,” Perry said in a hushed voice, leaning forward. “She’s insulting the man’s professionalism. When she gets to threatening to reduce his budget, too, she’ll be done. Or she’ll just fire him.” He lifted his broad shoulders as if unsure which and not caring either way. Then he tugged at his cuff to straighten his jacket back to perfection.
“Oh,” Maddie said back in a whisper. “Who is she threatening?”
“Style Paris has just signed an insanely overpaid, rising-star model, which has blown their annual budget by twenty percent. To make matters worse, the girl boasted about the size of the deal all over social media, so there is no face-saving way to cancel it and pretend it never happened. Even if there were, Style Paris’s new hot-head editor won’t replace her and thinks suggestions he do so are ‘interference by Américains imbéciles’. It will end badly if he doesn’t get it through his thick skull who he’s dealing with. Elena could blacklist him and make it so he’d only ever be able to work in retail in Iceland. Which would be a shame, because I rather like Iceland.”
“She cares a lot about her fashion magazines, doesn’t she?” Maddie says. “I mean, Style is not just another masthead to her, is it? It’s what she loves, right?”
Perry studied her curiously. “You really don’t know her, do you?”
“I’d like to,” Maddie said earnestly. She paused as she wondered why that was. Why had she been trying so hard to get to know her boss? So much so, she’d probably made an idiot of herself by oversharing yesterday. She bit her lip. Because Elena is fascinating, her brain whispered to her. And beautiful. And a mystery. And I love to unpick a mystery. I want to know who she is and how she thinks about anything and everything. I want to know her.
Perry hadn’t replied, as if sensing there was more.
“But no, I don’t really know her,” Maddie continued. “I mean, I haven’t known her long. I just want to know who she is when she’s not playing a god. You know?”
“What if I said she’s not playing? Would you believe it?” Perry leaned forward.
Maddie couldn’t work out if he was joking. “I’d say she’s good but not that good.”
Perry laughed and leaned back again. “True. Or perhaps it’s a matter of perspective.” He studied her for a moment. “Do you know that everyone asks me about her because we’re good friends? They all try to find out about the businesswoman. What makes her tick? Who does she favour politically? Their reasons are clear. But in twenty years, you’re the first person who actually sounds sincere when asking me about the woman behind the power. No ulterior motive.”
“Really?” That was both startling and depressing. Who wouldn’t want to know the real Elena?
“Yes, really. So I will tell you her secret.” Perry gave her a tiny smile. “Well, it’s not such a secret if you watch her for as long as I have. Anyway, the thing about Elena is fashion always comes first.”
“Fashion.” Maddie gave him a sceptical look. “Seriously?”
“Absolutely. Oh, she might deny it and talk about her media vision, but it’s not what drives her.” He waved his hand towards Elena’s office. “She is a woman in love with beauty in all its forms. Those who propose a project that offends her sensibilities because it is ugly get cut loose. Because Elena sees herself as a curator of beauty, first and foremost. People who don’t understand that, don’t understand her.”
Astonished, Maddie stared at him. She ordered her thoughts. “That’s just… It makes no… Okay, well let me tell you something. There’s an eighteen-year-old kid I’m doing a story on. Ramel Brooks. He was hanging out at his friends’ place when the drug squad raided. Ramel, unlike his druggie mates, is a straight-A student, with a college scholarship lined up. But after everyone got arrested, his loser friends all claimed they were innocent and that Ramel was a big-time drug dealer. Now they got cut loose and he’s carrying the can for all of them.”
Perry frowned. “I don’t see what your story has to do with Elena.”
“I had to look into this kid’s eyes while he told me, voice shaking, that every day he sees his mother’s doubts in him. She wonders if Ramel did it, and that’s what’s breaking him—more than the betrayal of his friends, the dodgy charges, or the threat of years in jail. Stuff like this is what I see in my job. Life is so bleak for some people. And my working day is sharing that bleakness. Truth is, news is mostly just slickly packaged pain. It’s ugly and depressing. When my story runs tomorrow, people aren’t going to say, ‘Oh, how beautiful’. They’ll say ‘Sucks to be Ramel’. So how can Elena see beauty in the news? I don’t get it. If what you say is true, how can she even be in this line of work?”
Perry’s gaze turned thoughtful. “Look, when you see a newspaper, you see its content. The good, the bad, whatever. Elena doesn’t see that. She sees the basic beauty in what she has built. Your sad little story is just a cog in a news machine that she has remade so efficiently that to her it all becomes art.”
“Art?” Maddie gaped at him. “Come on, that’s crazy.”
“No, that’s business. At its core, it doesn’t matter what you produce—if it’s made well and effective, to the person who designed it, it will be beautiful.”
“T’es viré!” came a bark from the next room. A phone slammed down.
Funny how she hadn’t even raised her voice, but her lethal tone sent a chill down Maddie’s spine.
Perry’s head tilted. “Hmm. Well, I suppose that was inevitable.”
“She just fired him,” Maddie said, slowly deciphering the words. “The French editor.”
“Mm. She will do worse to him than that.”
The executives were now filing out, and the rat-a-tat of Elena’s demands drifted over. “See that Marcel never works for any of my publications again. Meanwhile, find out if Stan has shifted his stance on selling those six titles. I saw him at Martha’s Vineyard recently, and it’s in his eyes. He wants to retire and play golf. So, send him a membership for whatever the closest five-star course is. It’ll eat him up that he can’t play because business is interfering. All right. We’re done.” There was a pause. “Perry!”
“My cue.” He rose, picked up the two garment bags resting on the sofa, and strolled towards the office.
At the opening to her office, he greeted Elena warmly and then unzipped the top bag. Their murmurings reached Maddie’s straining ears. Something about an upcoming ball and several famous designers. She leaned forward, craning her neck to see around the frosted glass wall that separated them. Luckily they were still only barely inside Elena’s office. A flash of glitter caught Maddie’s eye, as Perry lifted a dazzling blue dress from the first bag.
“Absolutely not,” Elena said. “I’ll look like a mirror ball. Show me the other one.”
