The End of the Runway: Chapter 8

STACY HAD KEPT silent while she was being checked out, but she could tell that Unla had something to say. She decided to take a gamble and get the first word in. "Unla, I am SO sorry," she began. That was a good start. "I have no idea what happened. I must have eaten some bad shrimp. You know these French...such peculiar culinary habits." Hopefully Unla's unrelenting Germanness would come through in a pinch. Stacy could see it wasn't having quite the intended effect and decided to flesh out a few details as they headed for the elevator.

By the time she had finished rambling, Stacy had added a back story on the shrimp dish having floated in melted ice for at least an hour and an outbreak of food poisoning she had heard was going around at the hotel.



Outside, Unla ushered her into a cab and sat stone faced until she finished. "Ve know about ze gin," she said finally.

"Gin? What gin?" Stacy replied coolly. Was the jig up? How much could they really know, she thought. "I have just suffered acute food poisoning, and believe you me, I will be contacting Solomon Goldshmidt, America's finest personal injury attorney for this wanton lack of sanitary food preparation—" Solomon Goldshmidt ran a local Hoboken shoe repair store, but what did Unla know?

"Briann and the other girls saw you zneaking gin," said Unla. "Ve know you've been drinking."

Stacy wondered who Briann was. The curly haired model who had given her the gin? Conveniently someone had forgotten to mention it was from her flask. "I—I was poisoned!" Stacy wailed in a panic. "It was a setup! I saw them do it! They told me it was just water. They were jealous—I was closing the show!" Was anyone buying this? Stacy was too scared to tell the truth about the ipecac syrup, afraid Unla would think the same thing as Irene and the doctor if she spoke up. What if it got back to her parents that everyone thought she had an eating disorder?

"Actually," she said quickly, changing tactics, "I think my recently acquired allergy to synthetic fabrics may have played a significant role. I'm not used to those clothes. I told them about it—rayon has a devastating effect on my fair complexion. I'm sure it's in my file..."



None of it was registering, as the taxi pulled up to Stacy's hotel, the Magente Orly. Now she was being instructed to go to her room and pack up her things and meet Unla in the lobby in 30 minutes—she was being put on the next flight home.

As sorry as Stacy was to be leaving Paris with things in such a muddle, she knew how good it would feel to get home, change into her jammies and pig out on Oreos and ice cream while she hid her face from everyone. But she still felt terrible about what she had done to Red Linton, especially when he was probably still grieving for Anya. And why would Briann put ipecac syrup in her own flask? And most important of all, would she still be getting paid for working the show?

Before she left her room, Stacy determined to settle at least one account and scrawled out a desperate apology to Red Linton on hotel stationary. She could probably count on Unla to deliver it, she thought as she slipped it into her purse and headed for the elevator bank. If not, at least she could say she tried.



Stacy emerged with her bags onto a crowded lobby thronged with mingling fashion types. They weren't here a half hour ago, Stacy thought to herself as she squinted her eyes and kept on the lookout for Unla. How could she find anyone in here, she wondered as she slunk and wormed her way through groups of old women thinner than herself wearing cocktail dresses that draped from sinewy shoulders like dry cleaning bags on clothes hangers.



Stacy saw signs indicating a fashion week after party would start in one of ballrooms at 9 p.m, just a few minutes away. Doing the math, she realized it had been less than six hours since she had humiliated herself at the Cadiz show. She bowed her head. What if someone recognized her? Stacy suddenly had awful visions of jeering fashionistas pelting her with pickled truffles and dousing her with Prosecco.

Stacy was now on a desperate hunt for Unla so she could leave in a hurry. This crowd is ridiculous, she thought to herself, sweeping her eyes across the packed room. Maybe Unla was by the front desk? Stacy turned her head to the right as she unconsciously gravitated toward the crush of people huddled in the center of the room.

Suddenly, Stacy caught a blur out of the corner of her eye and swerved her head just in time to see her smack right into a tall stranger, her bags crashing to the floor beside her. “OW!” she yelped. “You should really watch where you’re going, you could have...”

Stacy hadn't even finished her thought before she looked up and stopped mid-sentence. Standing in front of her and dressed in a dark suit and black bowler hat, with unrelenting chiseled features and bright blue eyes, was one of the most gorgeous men Stacy had ever seen. He was obviously around her age, well toned, and definitely modelesque. “Oh, I uh, nevermind” Stacy stammered almost in a whisper, losing her nerve—and what was left of her breath.



“Pardon, mademoiselle, I did not look where I was going,” he said politely, beaming a smile that betrayed two rows of perfect white teeth. “It was all my fault. Please, allow me,” and scooped up her bags off the floor and held them out for her. His French accent was impressively slight and intoned with almost British inflections—which Stacy found extremely sexy. She had noticed the same thing with Irene—what was it with these French and their flawless English? At Cadiz, Stacy couldn’t go one sentence without tripping all over her high school French—and she was in the “advanced” class. What a joke!

“Oh, thank you,” she said bashfully, sliding her arm into her shoulder bag and taking her suitcase by hand. Stacy really hoped he wasn't at the show that afternoon.

“Can I get you a taxi or anything?” he said, folding his hands in front of him. "I really do feel awful"

That makes two of us, Stacy thought to herself. “Oh no, that’s not—no, I’m actually waiting for someone. Well, she’s waiting for me,” she told him instead, catching herself before she started to ramble. “But thank you.” With that, she shot him a weak smile and trudged on, still on the hunt for Unla so she could get her plane and get out of here. Shame, though, she thought, glancing back at the man in the hat, who had turned to rejoin his group. She wished there was just a bit more time to take in the, uh, "sights."

Since Unla obviously was not near the front desk, Stacy swung her head toward the left, at the bar at the far side of the room. Grazing over the tops of partygoers' heads, one face in particular caught her eye, and when Stacy went back for a closer look her heart stopped cold, frozen in terror.

There in a fresh black blazer and cream sweater she glimpsed the unmistakable chestnut hair and thin-framed aviators. Red Linton was standing not 30 feet away. And he was staring right back.