Beautiful People | wlw

Eighteen: Chiffon

"And this is the room that's available." The young woman hooked a thumb through the strap of her overalls as Vera peered into the tiny space. Scuffed floorboards, a small window high on the wall, barely enough space for the bed. No room to sew, no room to record videos. Terrible lighting. Somehow, still better than any of the other apartments she had seen. At least it had a decent-sized closet.

"How much did you say the rent was again?"

The woman told her, and she winced. She could practically hear her barely-more-than-empty bank account mocking her.

"Uh, I'll get back to you."

Shrugging, the woman lit a joint.

Waiting on the curb for her carshare to show, Vera tapped her wobbly heel against the pavement and thumbed through her notifications, too depressed to look at more apartment listings. Her follower count had flatlined, the traffic still being driven by the Red Carpet Situation now  countered by just as many unfollows as people began to realize she wasn't all that interesting after all. Her mentions were dotted with grumbling from her older fans. She frowned at one that particularly stung, from someone who used to be one of her most reliable commenters: you were better when you were calling celebrities out instead of kissing their asses.

She missed making original content, too, but she'd been so focused on Carmen she hadn't managed much more than a few outfit-of-the-day posts in weeks. Maybe she needed an assistant to help her manage it all, but how could she afford to hire someone when she couldn't even afford an apartment? First, more jobs. Then replacing these cheap cherry-red heels that Ellie had sneered at. Then she could think about an assistant.

An email caught her attention. Following up on our request for an interview -

"Oh, shit."

She had never finished her answers to the interview questions from the magazine. That unfair question about how she was going to top Carmen's Teen Taste look had stumped her, and then the Ellie situation had knocked it completely out of her mind. And now she'd missed her chance.

We went ahead and ran a different story, said the email. Thank you anyway.

Vera glared at her phone. That promotion could have been huge for her visibility. They didn't even send a reminder before dropping her. "Fuck you too," she muttered, and closed her email without opening the note from Ivy, subject: Bali Photos and Toffee's Ear Infection Update. She definitely wasn't in the mood for a guilt-trip over not being able to dogsit.

Nudging her earphones in, she pulled up a recent interview with Marina. Thanks to her long history of unapologetic fandom, she'd gone into the Carmen job knowing a lot about her client, but before she'd dug into Marina's style history, she'd only known the actress from gossip related to her friendship with Carmen. She worried she might accidentally reveal her ignorance and risk the wrath of celebrity ego. And so she found herself watching this slightly cringe comedy show on which Marina had been a guest the week before, hoping she could learn something.

The carshare finally arrived. Wrenching the rusty door open, she slumped into the back seat with barely a glance up as she tapped through to an interview Marina had given a few months ago about the period products charity.

"We're changing the lives of these teenagers," Marina said earnestly to the interviewer, who was doing a heroic job of keeping a straight face.

Her phone buzzed with a call from Sharise, which was honestly a relief. She was really starting to get tired of hearing people talk so much about menstruation.

"How did it go at the apartment?" Sharise's voice had that distant, tinny note that meant she was on bluetooth in the car.

With a dramatic sigh, Vera sank lower in the sticky leather seat. "Not great. The ad said there were two roommates, but I counted the toothbrushes and I think they've both got live-in partners. And I'm pretty sure the room was actually a closet."