went.”
There was a lull in the arrivals. The waif was complaining to Horn-rimmed Glasses, claiming her improv teacher had called her too pretty for comedy, when Horn-rimmed Glasses waved his hand in her face and bellowed, “GIRL SHUT THE FUCK UP HERE SHE COMES.”
Orla perked up and craned her neck toward the SUV that had just pulled up. Hilaria’s publicist had likely emailed Ingrid already, demanding that Orla apologize. Maybe Orla could redeem herself with a quote from whoever was making Horn-rimmed Glasses clap tiny, overjoyed claps.
Flashbulbs popped so brightly that Orla had to look down. Then she could only see the pair of legs coming toward them, oiled and deliberate. Next to her, the waif leaned forward and said breathlessly, “Floss, it’s like the hugest honor.”
Standing in front of the waif, Orla saw as bursts of light cleared her vision, was her own roommate. Florence.
Orla stared at her from the side. She was closer to Florence now than she had ever been in their apartment. The skin that ran from her ear to the corner of her mouth shimmered with such pearlescence that Orla could see her own shadow in it. Florence’s eyes, dark and liquid, blinked slowly, sleepily, beneath the weight of her thousand-legger eyelashes. She had more hair than she did at home, and they were laughably bad, the extensions—limp, and shiny, and stinking of something chemical. Florence had on the same things Orla wore on formal occasions: a strapless, nude bra and stomach-slimming nude panties that continued down the thigh. But Florence wasn’t wearing anything over them.
She was beautiful, the type of beautiful that made Orla wish that she knew more of Florence’s bad qualities, so she could soothe herself by listing them out loud.
Then, suddenly, Florence was air-kissing the waif goodbye and stepping into Orla’s little space. “Hi,” Florence trilled. Orla startled at the sound of her public voice. It came from somewhere high in her nose. “Oh,” Florence went on, “I love Lady-ish.”
“Florence,” Orla said.
“Call me Floss!” Florence giggled. She pulled all of her hair over one shoulder and stroked it like a pet.
They were at an impasse: Floss didn’t recognize Orla, and Orla didn’t know who Floss was supposed to be. As Orla tried to decide what to say next, Floss’s publicist—she had a publicist!—jumped in.
“Jordie from Liberty PR,” he said. “You of course know Floss Natuzzi from the reality competition Who Wants to Work at a Surf Shack.” His voice had a defeated sort of hum, like he no longer got up in the morning hoping people would take him seriously. Orla could envision the half-finished law school application on his desk at home. “She’s also a fixture on the Akron fashion scene,” Jordie added, “where until recently she lived with Columbus Blue Jackets star Wynn Walters.”
“The Athens fashion scene?” Orla said.
“Sure, let’s go with that,” Jordie sighed, at the same time Floss said loudly, “No, Akron. Akron, Ohio.”
Jordie shot Floss a look, then laughed and threw his hands up. “Yes, Akron,” he said wearily. “It’s mostly, ah, underground. Very avant-garde. LeBron James...” He trailed off purposefully. It wasn’t a lie; he had merely said the words “LeBron James.” Orla nodded appreciatively. He would do well at law school.
She looked at Floss, who seemed not to be listening. She was peering down at the printout Orla was standing on, then back up at Orla’s face. As Jordie tugged her toward the next reporter, Floss seemed to realize something. “Wait,” she said, blinking, looking back. “Omigod.”
Orla waved at her stupidly.
“Come inside, then,” Floss called over her shoulder. “I want to talk to you.” She tottered off on her heels. Orla watched as Jordie stepped forward to pull something off Floss’s wrist. It was Orla’s own yellow hair elastic. She had left it on the sink that morning.
“What, you know her?” Orla heard the waif say, sullenly. Out of some instinct, Orla didn’t respond. Floss was only the last to arrive at a party for dog shirts in Midtown, but she was clearly someone to someone, and she had told Orla to come inside. Orla didn’t have to talk to the waif anymore.
The girl at the door with the list was unimpressed. “I’m a personal guest of Floss Natuzzi’s,” Orla said again. “She’ll be so upset to hear about this.” The girl just looked behind her, waving someone forward. Orla stepped back to let an Afghan hound in a beret and its handler walk through.
She walked along Fifty-Seventh Street and found she could see into the event, which spilled into a courtyard fenced in by wrought iron. Floss was just a few yards away, talking to a short, sweaty man with his shirt buttons mostly undone.
Orla put her face to the bars and hissed into the party. “Floss!”
Floss looked up. She turned away from the man while he was still midsentence and came trotting over to Orla. “What are you doing? I said to come inside.”
“They wouldn’t let me,” Orla said. “Can you get me in?”
Floss looked down at Orla’s scuffed ballet flats and murmured, “Those, probably.” She took a glass of champagne from a waitress and slid it through a gap in the fence to Orla.
“You can’t—” the waitress began, and Floss fixed her with a cold smile. “Did they resolve the oyster situation yet?” she asked the waitress. “Would you please find Gus and find out? I’ll wait here.” The waitress scurried away.
“Who’s Gus?” The champagne glass felt so delicate in Orla’s grasp, she had to focus on not crushing it.
Floss rolled her eyes. “There’s no Gus.” She drained her champagne and motioned for Orla to drink hers down. “Wait there,” she said.
Three minutes later, Floss was walking toward Orla, one arm in the air, hailing a cab. When one stopped, she stood there blinking at it until Orla stepped forward and opened the door, then stepped back to let her in first.
Jordie skidded out of the club toward their cab, the soles of his needle-nosed shoes slipping on the pavement. He stuck his head through the window. “Where the hell are you going?” he said to Floss. “Do you know how I had to beg to get you into this party? You’re nobody, honey.” A drop of sweat eased out of a crease in his forehead and landed on Floss’s thigh, right where the nude shorts disappeared into the boot that stretched over her knee.
Floss dabbed at the mark. “If you had to beg that hard,” she said calmly, “I guess you’re nobody, too.”
The light turned green. As the cab pulled away, Orla glanced over her shoulder at Jordie. She thought he’d be staring after them, reeling from the exchange, but he was already back on his phone, skating toward the party.
Perhaps it was because Orla remembered how he looked from that distance—freckles you could sense a block away—that she recognized Jordie’s photo on the cover of the New York Post, more than a year later, while she was still walking toward it. She would never forget him. Nobody would. Jordie was the very first to die in the Spill. The story about his death didn’t mention his working with Floss, which surprised
