Chapter Fourteen
The next day, Ornette was in the cafeteria grateful that she had spat out every drop of alcohol that had been handed to her at the party. Quite a few of the other contestants were nursing hangovers.
Ornette peeled her banana and knew exactly why the other girls drank. They didn’t care if they were eliminated at the end of the first episode. That was especially true for the group of four contestants in the middle group. That was Mikayla, Ivanka, Starling, and Summer. They all sat at the same table.
“Did you ladies have a drinking contest last night?” Tania asked them caustically as she walked by.
Mikayla stood up with a bob of her dark hair. “Hi. I’m Mikayla Harvardson and I’m an alcoholic. I fell off the wagon last night.”
Starling, the woman who belonged to the church of Voynich, kicked the back of her knees in. “Shut up. You’re not at an AA meeting. You’re here with us on the Goldilocks Zone and you hardly fell off the wagon. You only weigh 80 pounds and so every single drink you have knocks you into the gutter. Look at Ivanka. She’s made of meat, so she can handle her drink.”
“Please don’t talk to me like that,” Ivanka said from behind her dark glasses. “I have a normal body. It’s the rest of you that are freaks. You’ve all been butchered by plastic surgeons… Except her.” She pointed at Ornette.
“And why hasn’t she been butchered by a plastic surgeon?” Summer wanted to know. She was the model who looked like the human equivalent of a ripe peach.
“If she was getting stuff fixed, she would have got her hand fixed, instead of dousing it in makeup and risking getting foundation all over the place. Isn’t that right?” Ivanka said to Ornette.
“It’s true,” she agreed loudly. “I haven’t had any work done, but that’s because if I had any money to spare I wouldn’t reinvest it in myself as a Sleeping Beauty Inc. model. Not only that, but soon I’ll be too old to bother with any of this stuff.”
“You’re old?” Mikayla asked, still so hungover that she couldn’t see what was obvious.
“Yeah. I’m over 30 in model years and over 40 in real years.”
“Is that why you’re the cheapest?” Mikayla asked. “Because you’re the oldest? So our prices can only go down from here?”
In her drunken state, she’d hit the nail on the head. Most models didn’t go up in value after they were 30. Most declined slowly until they hit 40 and then declined faster until working as a model was no longer worth it. At that point, if a model had put away enough money, she could retire. If she hadn’t, it was time to get a real job.
The real job was waiting for Ornette, but she was happy about it. She was really tired of rich men and what they wanted. If her debts were paid, she was going to get a job doing something quiet that only had to pay for her life, not her debt.
She thought about the money Desmond told her would be awarded to contestants who lasted in the competition.
Then she stuffed the rest of the banana in her mouth.
***
Things were quiet in the helocarrier on the way out to the designers. None of the women were feeling very chatty. Chances were that everything would be less tense once the first contestant was eliminated and everyone saw what happened to her.
Again, Ornette was dropped off last. She was always last, but in this case, it seemed like a blessing to the other women. Tania was dropped off at a studio that looked very much like a warehouse.
It probably was a warehouse.
They got a lot closer as they landed.
It was a warehouse.
Jane was dropped off at a metal refinery. It was less horrifying, but it was still horrifying.
Yilin was dropped off at an air dock where another helocarrier was picking her up. When Ornette saw it, it reminded her of the saying that when you were being kidnapped, you needed to stop your kidnapper from taking you to a second location. More than anything, it seemed like a sign that her designer had fallen on hard times and he didn’t want the cameras to film where they would be doing their work.
Ornette didn’t think there was much worry over that. Most places where designers did their work were not glamorous, but maybe it was a lot worse than she imagined.
However, Ornette was taken to Hans’ most famous storefront. The place was like a fairytale for clockmakers and steampunk chicks.
Hans did not meet her at the door. Instead, he sent a spry 76-year-old woman to lead her around their showroom.
Ornette did not feel even the tiniest need to fuss as the woman led her around. Actually, she was so bored by the whole thing that she didn’t catch whether the woman’s name was Laura, Lara, Lauren, or Laurel. It was one of those, but Ornette didn’t care. Everything in the shop was perfect. It was silver, gold, black, red, shining, sparkling, polished, cared for, brilliant, and fecking stupid.
The shop was also within spitting distance of where Ornette grew up. She had passed the building (as it had been there 35 years before) when she went down the street to buy iced pops when she was a child. Hans’ store was boring because it hadn’t changed in 35 years. That was tradition. Ornette had already seen everything. She used to look up at the beautiful cogs and wheels in the sign and think that Venus was such a magical place.
Well, it wasn’t.
It had only seemed like that then because she hadn’t understood how Venus worked.
She tried to look at the things Lau-whatever showed her, but she couldn’t manage more than a polite nod no matter what she was shown.
When she was finally taken up to Hans’ office, she was starving. It was past three o’clock and she had not been offered lunch.
His office was as sterile as an operating room if not as terrifying.
Ornette sat in the chair she was offered with her back straight and the corners of her mouth pointed down. Enthusiasm would not impress Hans. He had probably been watching her with surveillance software since she arrived.
“Do you have any interest in watches?” he asked Ornette once they were alone. His voice was like someone crushing aluminum foil in their hand—crinkling.
Ornette spoke like a person in a trance. “Your work is very beautiful.”
He was bored.
She was bored.
She turned her greenish eyes on his grayish eyes. “We’re not allowed to create a watch together, and actually, I don’t think we should. I don’t think we should make anything that competes with your current product lines.”
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Hans moved his hand slightly to show his agreement. “What kind of piece would you like to create?”
“I’d like to take your garbage and make something out of that,” she said, unintentionally making her voice like his.
“My garbage?” he queried softly.
“Yes. Things that can’t be used because they’re damaged.”
“Most metal is recycled,” he offered, “but I suppose I see where you’re going. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.”
“Were you planning on making something marvelous to spur sales and make people more interested in your shops?” Ornette replied.
He blinked at her slowly. “I was not.”
She was somewhat surprised by his answer.
He continued, “I actually tried to enter the contest as a businessman, but there were more than enough in that category because everyone needs a spokeswoman who can get attention. I was refused, but I was told that I could enter if I agreed to enter as a designer.”
That explained why he didn’t have a grubby studio and why he had her brought directly to the store. He had no need for her to help him design anything.
“I believe there are some watch bands that might make stunning bracelets if they’re modified. Why don’t we start there?” he asked, rising from his desk like a vampire rising from his coffin.
Ornette nodded and stood also.
He moved fluidly as he came around to join her. “I must also thank you for the approach you’ve taken to our meeting. I feared greatly that you would remain the ball of enthusiasm Mr. Fitness credited you as being.”
Then he offered Ornette his elbow and together, they made their way to the design floor.
***
Ornette had a small neck. She had such a small neck that one woman's watch band could be put around her throat and tied with a ribbon. The ribbon was half her neck, and the bracelet covered the other half, but it was more than sufficient.
Hans looked at the gorgeously fat red silk ribbon tied around Ornette’s neck and said plainly. “This is not what we will use for the day of the show, but it gives me a host of ideas. Do you have an opinion, Ornette?”
“I love the red. Isn’t there a way to keep the red in the design?”
“I will think on it,” he said without warmth.
“I think we should do a necklace, a bracelet, and a ring,” she told Hans. “We need to choose options that show the classical nature of your brand. What do you think?”
“Very sensible,” he replied dully.
That was the moment when she thought that she was going to get through the week without having a romantic encounter of some kind with Hans. Surely, he didn’t want anything like that. Surely, he was an old withered man who had lived his life as a gentleman and he would die like that.
That was what Ornette thought, but she was wrong.
He came and stood behind her, fiddling with the red ribbon encircling her throat. His gaze was on her reflection in the sparkling mirror in front of them. He tried the ribbon one way, then pulled it loose. He tried the ribbon a different way, then he took a moment to really examine her reflection. He placed his hands on her shoulders.
She tightened the muscles in her body on instinct.
His touch traveled down her back. One hand lingered at her waist while he grazed her bottom with his fingers before grabbing her fully with fingers as bony as a skeleton.
Ornette gave no reaction.
Clearly, he was looking for one. His eyes were on hers through the medium of the mirror, but Ornette did not look like it concerned her.
The moment hung, his grip as strong as the metal he worked with.
She wondered if she’d have a bruise.
He let go.
When he finally spoke, he said, “You’re more beautiful than I thought you were. Perhaps these odd pieces of jewelry will not work for a woman like you. Fenrir and Mr. Fitness gave me the impression that you were a foolish creature who bubbled and giggled on her way to the guillotine because she didn’t know any better.”
“They were wrong?” she asked, with a coldness in her voice that matched his. She could have been colder. She just chose not to be. She chose to match him. That was what he wanted.
He wanted to look into a mirror, see her face, but also himself. He wanted to feel her body, not like she was a woman, but like she was a racehorse and he was considering whether or not he ought to buy her.
Ornette wasn’t sure if she passed the test regardless of what he said. The compliment he offered her might be all he planned to give her.
Hans sent her away that night with a dismissive wave of his hand. She was the first to be picked up by the helocarrier.
The next day, it was clear that she had impressed Hans. He showed her sketches and plans for the collection of pieces he was having made and asked her if there was anything lacking from them.
More tests.
Those kinds of men couldn’t stop putting the people around them through hoops to make them test their worth and their loyalty.
Ornette looked at the designs. They were beautiful, but they were incomplete. Well, they were complete to the untrained eye, but to Ornette, they were incomplete. He was giving her an opportunity to join in the design phase, which was what he was supposed to do as part of the competition, but he could have chosen to discard her opinion. Even still, she might be too cowed to give an opinion.
Ornette straightened her back and said, “The basic design for the flowers is really beautiful. I love the metal edging with the red underneath, but I think it’s a shame to have them be the same on all three pieces, even if they are part of a set.”
“How would you change them?” he asked without emotion.
“The bracelet and the necklace look almost identical with a thick chain and one flower with four petals. When I think about it that way, the ring is the same too. I think they need to be distinctive and beautiful in different ways even as they are beautiful in the same way.”
“How so?”
“The ring is the best of the three. It just needs more petals. It should have as many as it can have sensibly without losing functionality. We don’t need to make something that’s cumbersome. It should be a statement… Especially because you’re setting bits of ribbon into the metal like tiny embroidery hoops. It gives a completely different impression than rubies. It will still be light even if you add more petals.”
“The bracelet?”
“Give up the flower altogether. Instead, place the petals of the flower into each of the elongated links of the bracelet. At first, I thought we should do whole flowers all the way around, but when I started to think about what would make the ring cumbersome, I thought flowers all the way around would be awkward and too high off the wrist. The ornament should lie flat. Flat petals like a lover’s trail into a bedroom.”
Hans touched her hand.
Ornette gave him a cold stare. “What is it?”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it with his cold lips.
She closed her mouth to stop herself from gaping and waited for him to finish. When she directed her gaze at him in that way, he seemed to realize that he was interrupting their work and that was actually the last thing he wanted to do.
He removed his hand and said, “Continue.”
She drew in a breath to collect herself before explaining her design ideas. “What I want for the necklace is tricky. I hope you have an idea to counter the problem I’m seeing.”
“What problem?” he looked instantly concerned.
“There’s no problem with the sketch you’ve presented to me. There’s a problem with what I want to do. I want the bloom to rest on my jugular. Right here,” Ornette pointed to the place at eleven o’clock on her neck. “Nothing wants to stay in a place like that. If I wear a necklace with a flower there, it weighs more than any other part of the necklace and it always falls forward. How can we keep a heavy blossom in that asymmetrical position?”
“We put a weight on the back,” Hans supplied. “I can’t tell you how exciting I find that. We use weights like that when we make grandfather clocks. If you wear a dress with a plunging back and your hair up, I think we can create something that’s quite exciting.” He took the tablet from her and began sketching a new design. “You want more flowers on the necklace?”
“I want a single flower dropping petals.”
“Like a vampire lover has bitten you? The flower is the place bitten and the dropping petals are the drops of blood?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Then we understand each other.”
For a man who didn’t really have emotions, his expression appeared shockingly satisfied. “I will send this sketch downstairs for them to make a prototype. Let me take you to lunch.”
***
Lunch was in a cold restaurant where precious little food was served. There was sparse conversation and all Ornette had to do was hold her head up and keep her reactions neutral. It would have been delightful with the arched ceilings over her head, the classical music playing in the background, and the high profile of the restaurant, except for the elephant in the room.
Hans was not an elegant man. He only pretended to be so.
He did not eat in a place like that. He ate on his own privately. He had to. Not even he could maintain his skeletal body on what he consumed at the restaurant. He came to be seen and to see others.
He wanted to be seen with her.
It was probably the finest compliment he could offer anyone.
After lunch, he sent her back to the studio and he did not call her back until two days before the show.