“Right back atcha,” I say and walk away.
“Cookie, don’t you dare think you can—”
A tiny bell rings as the shop door slams behind me.
Cassidy runs out to catch me. Bluish black circles have formed under her eyes.
“There’s a coffee shop right around the corner. Your mom says to wait until—” She breaks off with a huff.
Behind her the wiry photographic genius Bruce Richardson leans over the top step of a tall ladder. “Cammie! We’ve got light for maybe another thirty minutes. Get Leslie out here stat. And clear this street. The last thing I need is that fat ass in my shot!”
Cassidy eyes Richardson with the crazed expression of someone on the verge of totally losing it. “It’s Cassidy,” she mutters under her breath.
But we exchange glances and she chews her lower lip. We both know I’m the fat ass Richardson means.
“Please. Wait here, Cookie,” she tells me, and she disappears into the hardware store. I know she feels bad. For me.
But I don’t want her sympathy.
And I don’t want to be in fucking Whitefish, Montana.
“Cookie. Perfect name for that girl. The jokes almost write themselves,” Richardson says as I walk toward the coffee shop.
SKINNY: Day 738 and strange benefactors
“Sure,” Gareth says, “I remember that issue of Par Donna. Richardson’s nothing if not memorable. And weird. The corsets and furs, I get. But what was with those rodeo clowns?”
I shrug. “Sorry. I don’t have much insight into his process. From what I could see, he spends most of his time on a ladder screaming at people.”
The flight attendant serves him his white wine with a dazzling smile. Gareth takes my soda and places it on my tray. I’m praying for a break in the conversation long enough that I can finally slip in my headphones. I’m pretty sure a woman across the aisle from me is considering tossing me from the plane and taking my seat.
“You been on a lot of shoots?” he asks.
“Nah,” I say.
“Not into the world of fashion?” he asks, arching his eyebrows.
I couldn’t help but smile. “My grandma taught me to sew when I was five. She’d put on Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Casablanca and we’d hand-bead wedding dresses. Claire McCardell said that fashion isn’t about finding clothes, it’s about finding yourself. That the girl who knows what to wear knows who she is.”
Gareth smiles a bit wistfully. “That’s kind of how I got started too.” I already know this.
“You work in fashion?” he asks.
I hesitate.
“I’m a blogger,” I say.
“You blog about fashion? Professionally?”
I nod and take my iPad out of the seat pocket. He puts his hand lightly on mine to stop me from turning it on. My stomach flip-flops at the touch of his slightly calloused fingertips.
“And I guess you’re not very good at it?” he asks with a smirk.
I drop my headphones and they land against the iPad screen with a click. “I’m guessing you’ve never read my blog. So how would you know?”
Gareth Miller chuckles. My face heats up. I hate his rogue appeal. I want to throw cranberry juice on his crisp linen shirt.
He ignores my death stare and continues to smile. “I’m Vogue’s Designer of the Year. I’m on my way to New York Fashion Week, where tickets to my show are nearly impossible to get. There’re a million fashion blogs. And, not to be immodest, but sitting next to me is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Shouldn’t you be trying to interview me? Working me over for samples or show tickets? Cookie, darling, I think you’re showing a real lack of initiative.”
He’s teasing. But still, the comment stings. I pride myself on my fashion expertise.
“Well, you’d be wrong. I already have an appointment to interview you.”
“Really?” he challenges. “Once we get to New York?”
“Yes.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and reads from the screen. “Huh,” he says in surprise. “On Sunday afternoon. This is your blog, Roundish?”
“Yes.”
Gareth shifts around in his seat. “It’s...uh...it’s a plus-size fashion thing?”
Ha! It’s my turn to smile. I finally feel like I’ve got him on the run. “Yeah. The title’s from that Karl Lagerfeld quote. You know, how nobody wants to see round women? Well, I do want to see them. And make sure they look and feel great.”
“Any particular reason you want to do plus-size when you’re not plus-size yourself?” he asks.
Yes. For every time I stepped into a store and they didn’t have anything in my size. For every time I found a designer I loved and then found that their stuff only went up to a size eight. For the fact that I had to lose weight in order to be taken seriously as a designer or blogger. That’s what I should say. Instead, I shrug. “Everyone wants to dress the super tall and super thin.”
He doesn’t look at me but continues to read. “You’re a finalist for the CFDA media award. My publicist seems to think you plan to demonize me. Create sort of a Karl Lagerfeld/Adele–type controversy.”
“My subscribers have questions.”
“What kind of questions?” he says, his eyes narrowing.
“I plan to have them ready for you on Sunday at 2:00 p.m.”
“Maybe you need background info? Maybe you want to ask how I got started?”
I shake my head. “You’re Gareth John Miller. You’re thirty-one years old. You were born in Santa Fe but moved to Kalispell at the age of two. Your dad’s a rancher. Your mom’s an artist living at Arcosanti. Your contact with her has been minimal. Your grandmother taught you to sew doll clothes at a young age. When you were a junior in high school, you made prom dresses for the entire cheerleading squad. The dresses became the portfolio you submitted with your application to Parsons. It’s still regarded as their best incoming student submission. You’re the youngest graduate in the school’s history. When you were twenty-four, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy offered to finance your label. But you turned Bernard Arnault down. Instead, your father mortgaged the family ranch and gave you $150,000 in working capital. Your three lines, Gareth Miller, GM by Gareth Miller and Gareth Miller Kids, earned over $90 million last year. And your brand is one of the few of its size without some offering of plus-size fashion.”
He watches me in a new way, sizing me up. “I stand corrected. You clearly do your homework. And you were planning to sit on this flight for four hours and not say anything to me?” He checks his phone again. “I think I paid for that seat.”
“It’s too late to take it back,” I say, remembering Gareth’s helpful publicist.
“I certainly wish I had read this email before I...so I would have known I’d be sitting next to...but I had to rush over here from...” he mutters. For the first time, he’s nervous. “That thing I said before...about the woman in the airport...”
I should so let him sweat this out. He’s chewing his lower lip in this annoyingly endearing way and I enjoy watching him way too much.
“I only plan to blog about what you say during our official