She's at the Met Gala. At the Met Gala, before you even get into the place, it's ritual custom to get one thousand photographs taken of you. She's good. She walks the red carpet at a constant pose. Some famous designer draped upon her. It'll be in the tabloids for a week, for sure. She's smart, which is scary. Her eyes never stay on the same lens for more than a second.
But these are pros on the other side. The best. The best cameras, the best flashes. A second's all they need. After all, they're in it for the money.
So is she.
Once in, the necks crane. It's her. She's used to it. She looks for people she knows. Say what you will about her vanity, that girl can scan a room in under three minutes. A room of three hundred faces lit low from the high rafters. Three minutes tops. She's knows a lot of the faces, doesn't care for most. Ah, a friend. That bitch, she's by the bar. So typical.
She feels his eyes on her bare back (that famous designer despised dresses with backs) like the midnight sun in the dark, like a heat lamp or coming out of shade in the summer day, and her flower opens to him and she turns to look at him, and what she sees she's most certain of. She's never seen him before. Not ever. Not even once, not in the papers, nowhere.
Set at the other end of the bar with a pencil in hand. He twirls it in his fingers and then writes in a palm-sized black notebook on the bar. And then he twirls again and writes a little more, not glancing at the pencil and the words coming out, but at her. She's coming towards him now. Then back down at the words. Then back at her.
She's curious. Which, to be true, is a feeling usually lost on her. But she's curious. It's in her eyes, this curiosity, and in her eyes are reflected his own. When they're looking at her. He's still writing. What the hell is he writing?
When he stops writing as she nears, he doesn't break her gaze. The pencil's still in his hand though. His left. With his other, he cleanly swipes a tumbler off the bar and empties the contents, golden, save the ice cubes, and then she's on him.
"Hello, darling."
"Let me guess," she says.
"Guess..."
Her eyes flick to the empty tumbler, then back to his face. At this range he's much more real. He didn't shave today, perhaps yesterday though. It's an almost fresh face. There's no product in his hair either, which is a shame, she thinks, because it would look so good with a little style to it. It's wild. Not in a long way, not disheveled, but in the way of someone who's constantly running his fingers through it.
"Ah, the drink. I like this. By all means. Read me like a book, love."
"It was a fine whiskey, wasn't it."
"Brave try. It usually is actually. But no, tonight it's tequila, equally fine. It's a night for uppers."
"And tequila is an upper," she concedes.
"Tequila and champagne, Miss... I didn't catch your name by the way."
"It's Kendall."
"Well Miss Kendall, I must say. You're quite the stunner."
"What are you writing?"
"What do you mean?"
"I saw you writing and then you stopped. What were you writing?"
There's a piece of paper on the bar, note-sized, that he quickly folds in half with one hand and sees into the inner pocket of his jacket. "Oh, it's nothing."
"Nobody writes nothing. I want to know."
"Have a drink with me first, then maybe I'll tell you."
"No, tell me now." It's strange. This rejection.
He smiles, and glances over her shoulder. "I think your friends coming. Tell her she's pretty for me, will you?"
She turns, and he kisses her on the cheek, like an old French friend. And then he's gone.
"Kendall! Oh my God, who was that?"
It's like a dream she remembers from long ago. "I don't know. He said you were pretty though."
"Oh my God, really?
What do you think?
Too glam?
Kendall?
Oh my God, Kendall.
Snap out of it."
She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes quickly and shakes it off before realizing her hand's clenched on something, right hand. It's a piece of paper, palm-sized, folded over once and ripped on one side. In penciled and clean writing it says:
Well, you're just about the prettiest thing
I've seen since spring.
Call me tomorrow
310.227.6314
"310. That's an LA number." She's whispering to herself, her tight lips curling ever so slightly on one side.
"What that? Kendall baby, I missed it. And what's that?" She's noticed the note.
She folds it up again and reaches through the side of her dress, first up (fuck! that's right, no bra), then down (thank god I wore panties) and slips the folded note into her tight silk-thin panties, right over her clit. She bites her lip. "Nothing," she says, grabbing her friend by the arm. She's drunk, the friend. "Who else is here?" Meanwhile in her mind she repeats the number over and over and over again, seven times because she read somewhere it takes seven repetitions to really remember something.
3102276314. 3102276314. 3102276314. 3102276314. 3102276314. 3102276314. 3102276314.
