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.
I love your opening shot, it's done so well, like a real newspaper article.
ReplyDeleteDang, like Stacy I really wonder what could have driven Anya to take her own life. I think suicide is one of the hardest things the person taking his/her life and the people they leave behind can ever go through. There are always questions and feelings of guilt and not much of closure. I feel sad for Anya and the people she's left behind.
As for Stacy she fascinates. I wonder if she's aware of her little crush on Red Linton, or maybe I'm reading too much into it, it's just the way she kept focusing on things Red Linton once said, his looks and his fat bank account.
I wonder what Anya's death means for Stacy, big things I assume.
This is such a great beginning.