The End of the Runway: Chapter Five

THE DREAD MOMENT arrived not fifteen minutes later. Stacy's head was swimming, but she felt relaxed. Queasy, but relaxed. It was better than the alternative. Anya's moment had came and went but Stacy was too busy figuring out how to balance on her new heels to notice much. When the second to last model emerged onto the runway, Stacy began counting in her head and watching for her signal.

And before she even knew what was happening, she was being pushed by a minder on stage, high-heeled boots and all. Although she had never done this before, Stacy knew enough to fix her focus on the horizon line in front of her and its dark shapes. It was all a haze, really. Bright strobes of flashing light flanked Stacy—the sum of hundreds of magazine and newspaper cameras—blurring everything on each side. Since she couldn't see anything, Stacy just kept meticulous count in her head, careful to pace herself evenly, "fifteen... sixteen... seventeen.. left foot, right foot, left foot." Walking too fast—or worse, too slow—could throw the whole show careening off its carefully choreographed timing. It seemed to be working.





Suddenly, the fixed point straight ahead began to come into focus. Amorphous shapes began to define themselves, like when they eye doctor switches lenses during a vision test. First they became dark blurry ovals, then shoulders and heads began to emerge. People, a whole row of them, came into view. Then, a man in the center with a crimson blazer, dark glasses, chestnut hair.

Red Linton—it had to be. Stacy almost lost her balance from the shock. She teetered forward, knees jabbing in opposite directions. She recovered, quickly, but her brow was now thick with perspiration. She was expecting him there, of course, but not directly in her line of vision. Not when she had nothing else to focus on.

"Concentrate," Stacy thought. "Twenty-two... twenty-three... twenty four..." Red was staring right at her. The lights were awfully hot. This outfit was ridiculous, the whole tent was swirling.

The end of the runway approached, Stacy was short of breath and nauseous. Where was she supposed to turn? She remembered 1/4 of a meter. Was that the same thing as half a foot? That seemed almost reasonable. She locked her gaze on Red as she tottered toward him, aware for the first time that she had drank too much.

By this point, Stacy had long since lost count. Her hands were shaking, drenched in a cold sweat. Now, she realized, she was in a full-blown panic—drunk, and standing two feet from the end of the runway. One foot, half a foot.

Then, Stacy froze and clutched her stomach. It wasn't the panic, she realized, it was the nausea. The hot lights, the eyes, everything was fixed intently on her. This was no jaunty fashion pose. Suddenly, she let out a dry heave. Even though loud thumping music played overhead, she could hear the collective sound of five hundred jaws dropping.





Still frozen, Stacy retched again, but this time it was the real deal. She lurched forward and tripped over the toe of one of her towering high heels. With no room at the end of the runway, Stacy couldn't regain her balance with her other foot.

The last thing Stacy recalled before losing consciousness was tripping over the stage and tumbling right into Red Linton's lap, preceded by a cascade of her own vomit.

The End of the Runway: Chapter Four

ONCE BACKSTAGE AGAIN, Stacy began to dress. Like all Cadiz pieces, hers was a showstopper. Thick bell sleeves and obnoxious bright patterns. The boots were six inches high and simply hideous. They also hurt. Stacy didn't even want to think about walking an entire runway in them.

Anya Tom could have done it.

But Stacy was no Anya Tom, despite this bizarre day, but perhaps she could be. Stacy's head began to spin, along with the room, from what could only be the gin.

At least she wasn't nervous anymore. At least, no more nervous than usual.

The lights flickered and one by one the models began to line up, as stylists and designers added accessories and touched things up. Suddenly, the nerves returned. She started to shake. Stacy was closing the show.

Without thinking, Stacy slid out of line—easy since she was last—and tiptoed up to the curly haired model with the flask.

"Do you have any more, please?" and tipped a sort of hang ten sign to her lips. Butterflies were exploding in her stomach.

The curly haired model was clearly not in the mood. "Get back in line before they see you!" she hissed. Stacy pleaded with her hands. The model sighed, "It's over with my stuff," she said, and pointed to a clothes rack on the far side of the room. "The red coat."

Stacy tried to sneak over, hoping to get lost in the backstage mêlée, but a sharp-eyed stylist from Cadiz  spotted her and began shouting at her in French pointing to the perfect row of girls behind them.

"Pardon, un moment s'il vous plaît." Stacy was desperately recalling her high school French.  "J'oublie ma..." What would she be retrieving? "...ma medication. Je suis malade." 

"Vite! Vite!" he shouted. The rest was incomprehensible.

Stacy groped around the red coat until she felt the flask. Draping her head between some clothes, she held her breath and downed the remainder of the gin in one go. She dropped it back into a pocket and wobbled back in line. These shoes were impossible.

The End of the Runway: Chapter Three

PREDICTABLY, HAIR AND makeup took forever, and allowed Stacy to collect her thoughts. She may not be able to get out of closing the show after all, she thought. Now all eyes would be set on her—every camera lens, every fashion maven. "So this is who they think they can replace Anya Tom with!" they would all scoff. She could picture Red Linton—if he wasn't being questioned by the police—shaking his head disapprovingly next to all the industry heavyweights. But then again, if she aced it, this could be the start of a major fashion career. The prospect of making Anya Tom money made her positively giddy.

Stacy didn't end up liking they way they dolled her up, especially the dark makeup. Not that it mattered, though. The hairdresser didn't speak English, thank goodness, so there was no more awkward talk of Anya Tom, or anything at all. Until Unla and three flacks from Cadiz came over and pelted Stacy with a hundred do's and don'ts at a mile a minute. Stacy couldn't keep up with most of them. "Don't turn about face until you're almost 1/4 of a meter from the end of the runway," was one of the few items she caught. Stacy didn't even know what a meter was, and was simply too petrified to ask.





After hair and makeup, Stacy excused herself and went to the bathroom. A group of models were huddled around a mirror checking themselves for blemishes and critiquing their makeup. A copy of Style was lying open-face on the sink, showing Red Linton's latest editor's column. It was as if he were stalking Stacy's every move today. Would he like what he saw on the runway? Her nerves were acting up again.

One model, a curly haired brunette, was drinking from a flask.





"Hey, can I please bum some of that?" Stacy asked. She rarely drank, but something had to put her nerves at ease. "I'm closing the show and I wasn't expecting it."

The model dutifully handed over the flask and Stacy took a swig and gave it back. Gin. Not as rough going down as she expected.

"You're closing the show?" one of the other models asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, isn't that funny?" Stacy said. Maybe this had finally made her one of the girls.

"Here," the curly haired model said, handing the flask back to Stacy. "If you're going to take Anya's spot you're going to need a lot more of this."

The End of the Runway: Chapter Two

ONCE INSIDE THE tent (actually a wood pavilion snapped together in a day), Stacy made a beeline for hair and makeup. The good thing about working was that you never had to do it yourself, so getting ready was a breeze. From behind she felt her shoulders pinched and squeezed. She knew it had to be Unla, one of her new agency's reps and her minder in Paris.

"Vhere do you sink your going?" she bellowed. Unla never just said anything, she always bellowed, and through an impenetrable fog of a German accent.





"I was, I. I was going to hair-," Stacy stammered. Where else would she be going?

"Vell you should have been at ze meeting. Didn't you know about ze meeting?"

This was the first Stacy had heard anything about a meeting, but then again her cell phone didn't work in Europe and she had never figured out how to check her messages on her hotel phone, with its perpetual blinking light.

"Can you show me where the meeting is?" Stacy said. She was trying her best to be polite.

To her relief, Unla said nothing and led her through a thin crowd, who were huddled up in groups, buzzing, likely, of Anya Tom.

The meeting, when Stacy finally arrived, consisted of about thirteen models and about thirty people, some teary-eyed, that Stacy didn't recognize. She might have if she ever read the Paris magazines like the other models did. Fashion, she told herself, was just a paycheck and a chance to see the world. Still, there was something terrifying about the way Red Linton could make or break a model's career with a few well-chosen words or a photo in Style. Admittedly, he was pretty scary. I mean, look what happened with him and Anya. Stacy glanced at a few of the other attendees wiping away tears behind sheets of Kleenex. Yeah, scary was definitely the word.





During the meeting, Stacy hid behind a few of the taller girls and said nothing. The gist of the meeting was that the show would still be going on as planned, but with a respectable moment of silence for Anya at the beginning.

Just then, she was spotted. "There she is," one of the men in the center of the pack exclaimed as Stacy approached. Stacy winced, bracing herself for another telling off.

"Hi, honey," he told her. He sounded sweet. The lanyard around his neck said his name was Wolf, but was that his first name or his last? "Hurry up and get ready! We need you!" This was not as sweet. "We need someone to close the show. Now! Anya clearly won't be doing it as planned."





Stacy froze in fear. Close the show? Absolutely not! She was looking to escape attention, not bask in it. She couldn't speak, but shook her head from side to side and shrugged.

"Well you have to do it," Wolf said, simply, as if Stacy's input wasn't an issue. "All the other models have been assigned."

Stacy winced as he pronounced that last word. Was he kidding? Didn't these fashion types communicate? Didn't anyone else know about her "lackadaisical pacing?" Her knock knees?

"You want me to close the show?" She was buying time. How was she going to get out of this one? She couldn't close a major fashion show. She had never walked a major fashion show.

"Yes, yes! Of course!" Wolf was getting impatient. "Get to hair and makeup and we'll fill you in. You don't have much time."

Stacy stared back blankly. "I, I'm flattered because of, because Anya can't -- but I can't close I, I." She was stammering again. "I mean, I haven't walked. I can walk, but, uh, lackadaisical pacing! That's it." This wasn't very persuasive, she realized.

Wolf ignored her and motioned for an assistant to lead her back to hair and makeup--as if she didn't know where it was, and wasn't halfway there five minutes ago!

"My name is Irene," the girl said. She was French, but had only a trace of an accent. "You are closing the show now. You must be so excited!"





Stacy didn't know what to say on the way to hair and makeup, so she ended up talking about the one thing she vowed not to. "What happened to Anya? I mean I know she died, but what happened?"

"Isn't that sad?" Irene said. "No one knows, but one minute she's here, and now she's dead. But the show must go on."

The End of the Runway: Chapter One

Author's note: Stacy is not my model--find her here.

PARIS  (AP) -- A 19-year-old high fashion model from the U.K. was found dead in her Paris hotel room this morning during fashion week, in what authorities are calling an apparent suicide.

Model Anya Tom had been an international presence on runways and fashion magazines around the world before being found dead Tuesday by a hotel maid.

Authorities say major signs point to Tom having taken her own life.

The cause of death is still unknown, but police say the British model had had a loud fight by phone Monday with her ex-boyfriend  in New York, the American Style editor Red Linton, which caused several guests to lodge noise complaints with hotel staff. Linton could not be reached for comment.

A source close to Tom's fashion agency, Connekt, says the star model was set to appear in a fashion show for the Spanish label Cadiz later this afternoon.

STACY BLOOR STARED at the computer screen in her Paris hotel room, dumbstruck. Stacy hadn't known Anya personally, but it couldn't be true, could it? She knew of her, of course—who didn't? Anya Tom had it all: fame, looks, and a six-figure perfume campaign to die for. Well, maybe that wasn't the right expression. But what could make Anya Tom do something so callous, so... permanent. It wasn't as if modeling isn't the cushiest job in the entire world.

And Stacy Bloor would know. After being scouted at a pizza joint in Hoboken, New Jersey, Stacy had landed herself in the jet set of haute couture. Her agency had praised her looks: At 19—the same age as Anya Tom—Stacy had a long, slender frame; lankly, reed-like legs,  gigantic liquid gray eyes, and a thick mane of bright blonde hair.

Suddenly, there were $6,000 photo shoots and swanky dinners at fine Manhattan restaurants. And now, the trip of a lifetime to Paris, France. Who would give all that up? And over a guy? Even if he was Red Linton, the richest, most powerful straight fashion editor in the world.

Then Stacy spun her thoughts to what only five minutes ago she had been fervently  obsessed over. At 3 pm sharp, she was slated to walk in her first major runway show ever, for the emerging fashion house Cadiz. Weeks ago, back in New York, she had been plucked from her agency's enormous roster to walk the show, to be famously headlined by none other than Anya Tom. Goddess among models, the face of Eau Jasmine, the darling of the fashion world. Beautiful Anya Tom, who was now dead.

Stacy went to the bathroom and ran cool water in the tub. Maybe this was all a publicity stunt, she thought as she slipped into the shower. She imagined Anya Tom descending from a enormous jasmine flower perched high in the rafters above the Cadiz runway, unfurling her long silken legs along with the petals, stunning the fashion world to the delight of Red Linton, who could devote a ten-page spread to the event. That would be just like Anya Tom—always a step ahead.

But, of course, Stacy knew Anya Tom would not be descending down onto the runway from a flower. She was dead. The newspapers were all saying it. And soon the whole city would be too.

As Stacy stepped out and dried her hair she suddenly had a thought—a thought so enrapturing that it snapped her right out of her maudlin funk. If Anya Tom was all they were going to be talking about, then no one would even notice little Stacy Bloor one whit. Not Red Linton or anyone would pay one lick of attention to scrawny Stacy, she thought, with her chicken legs and too-wide set eyes. She would walk her show, collect her money, and leave. No one would even care that she hadn't practiced her catwalk but once since she was scolded, quite publicly, for what the Paris agency 's rep had called, "lackadaisical pacing and knock knees." The words had stung, but only for a few days.

She dressed, hurriedly, in black stockings and a black dress (Red Linton had once wrote that you can never go wrong with black) and bolted out the door of her room at the Magente Orly in a tony Paris neighborhood along the Seine. Stacy made a point to avoid eye contact with everyone. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Anya Tom, at least before she absolutely had to.

Introductory Post

The first chapter in The End of the Runway has been posted. Look for subsequent chapters in the coming days.