Read Online Material Girls by Elaine Dimopoulos - Free Book Online Page B

it. You have no idea how it feels.”
    She looked at his face, the dull eyes, the nostrils still faintly pink. “You’re right,” she said. She reached into her pocket for her placidophilus tin and shook it. It was full. She removed a single pill, put it in her pocket, and stuck the tin in the top drawer of his desk, closing it softly. “Those will help.”
    Constantine stared at the drawer. “Thanks,” he whispered. “Go tell everyone I’m fine. Good luck with the album release.” He grabbed a comic book from his nightstand. “Maybe I’ll write an article about you someday.”
    Ivy walked out, leaving the door to her brother’s room open.

Chapter Seven
    I was getting used
to life in the basement.
    I was getting used to copying models out of magazines. I made some pathetic first attempts where my people looked like gingerbread men—these I stuffed into my briefcase before anyone could see. But I kept at it, praying that my old technique would come back. After a few days, my people looked more lifelike and less like something Karen would bake for dessert.
    Dido would look over my shoulder every so often. “Elongate the torso and the limbs. Here.” She would take my pencil and make some changes. “Your designs will look more flattering.” I practiced willingly. It helped to concentrate on tiny tasks and not think about the grand dive my life had taken.
    â€œNow work on close-ups of clothing,” Dido later advised me. “Sifters and selectors like when you include a detailed view as well as a garment on a body. Well, you remember.” I did.
    I was getting used to the way a selector stepped out of the elevator every day around eleven a.m. and handed a stack of drawings to Godfrey. He ruffled through them and handed them off to Winnie, who distributed them with a warm smile and a shoulder pat. My second day on the job, Randall had one of his sketches selected.
    â€œCongratulations,” I said, looking at the drawing in his hand. It showed shoes whose high heels forked like the tail of a swallow. They were definitely original, but I wasn’t sure I would have approved them as a judge. They didn’t really fit into any of the major trends right now. Still, I liked their sleekness.
    Randall didn’t smile as he stood up. “I never get my hopes up,” he said. He left to visit Garment Construction on the second floor and oversee the building of his shoe.
    When he returned to the basement two days later, he sat down and shook his head sadly. “Sorry,” I mumbled at him, and gnawed the inside of my cheek. I’d rejected designs all the time as a judge. I’d felt sympathy for drafters who’d had to leave the room with rejections, but the truth was, I hadn’t thought about them as much more than creators of flawed garments. I hadn’t thought about them as people. I watched Randall grab a piece of paper and sigh as he began a fresh sketch.
    I was getting used to dropping my signed, finished sketches into the gray bins and my day’s pile of scratch paper into the green bins on the way to the elevator. Winnie told me that Torro sent its paper waste to a processing plant a few blocks away and bought back its own recycled reams. “Isn’t it great to work for such an environmentally friendly company?” she chirruped.
    I began to think it wasn’t natural to be so perky all the time.
    I was getting used to my mother kneading her forehead at dinner. Karen would describe her embarrassing encounters with the other mothers she’d run into that day, to whom she had been forced to reveal my current title at Torro-LeBlanc.
    â€œAnd everyone asks why you just don’t quit altogether. Emma quit Belladonna last year. She and Lorraine have started to look a little seedy, I’ll give you that, but they’re taking a cruise together this November. A mother-daughter trip. Doesn’t that