Material Girls (30 page)

“You little brat,” the publicist hissed at her before disappearing into the building.

Ivy risked a glance at Fatima. Her publicist had a smirk on her face. Good. She had bought herself some credibility.

Her Unum buzzed suddenly, and when she saw the caller, she waved to her entourage to form a shell around her. They stood with their backs to her, and she pressed the button to answer. “Constantine?” she said.

“Hey.” Ivy blinked at the screen. Her brother had one giant black eye and a scratch under the other. He looked like a sad panda.

“What happened to your face?” she asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

“Nothing. It's nothing.”

“It was obviously something.”

“Just a fight.”

“With who?”

“My friend Colin's cousin. He works for Arcadia, and he's a royal ass-wipe. He started it.”

Ivy sighed. She seriously doubted that Colin's cousin, whoever he was, had taken the first swing. “Constantine, I heard about the . . . statue.”

“Please
don't give me another lecture. I've heard it all from George and Christina. We're going over and over it in therapy, too. The doctor's helping me find”—he raised one hand and mimed air quotations—“positive ways to express my frustration.” He snorted.

Ivy hoped the black eye was enough proof for the therapist that her brother was still full of anger. She wouldn't bring up the connection between Skip and herself now. Maybe later—much, much later, when they could laugh about it all. “I just wonder why you're not . . .
calmer,
” she said meaningfully.

Constantine glanced over his shoulder. “Working on it,” he muttered.

“If there's a friend I can mail—”

“I got it covered.” He changed the subject. “Hey, I saw you on
Up & At 'Em.
”

“I have a signed photo from Savannah Brown for you.” Constantine had always watched the show attentively; Ivy suspected he had a little crush on the host.

“Oh. Prime.” He coughed. “We've been watching the fashion strike here too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. That's why I called, actually. They're saying—they're saying stuff about Adequates getting prime jobs in the company, if they want. Have you heard anything about that?” He looked at her intently. “Do you think it might happen for other companies? Like for gamers, too?”

Ivy knew nothing about what the Adequates were up to or the state of the gaming industry. But she thought about the prospect of Adequates like Constantine getting to work in the industries they wanted to, instead of spinning out of control when their dreams were shattered. She remembered the doctor who had examined her, who had seemed convinced that the system was fair. Maybe . . . maybe it could be fairer than it was. Her brother looked so hopeful that Ivy didn't hesitate. “Absolutely.” she said. “A lot's changing right now. Keep watching, okay? And take care of yourself.”

“Yeah. I will.”

Ivy gave her love to him and to her family and hung up the Unum. With Constantine's words ringing in her head, she looked around at the crowd. She was done here. Lyric was humiliated. What if . . . what if she just took off? She could help her brother
and
accelerate an overdue reunion. To dodge security, she'd need a massive distraction. Having already proved useful once today, the trendchecker in her hand gave her an idea. She'd have to time the thing just right. But if it worked . . .

Emerging from her makeshift cocoon, she once again began trendchecking along the rope of fans. Eyeing security and Fatima, she looked for a section where the fans seemed especially rabid. She found one and lingered, trying to work up her courage. She'd taken so many risks recently—what was one more? She took a breath and yelled: “Whoever catches this gets free tickets to my tour opener!” Then she hurled the trendchecking gun into the air.

Ivy had a half second of distraction as the crowd, necks craned, stretched hands toward the gun. Running to the stage door, she whipped it open. She bolted down the long hallway, pushing her way past bewildered technicians and assistants. She turned right, then left, then right again, as the hallway meandered toward Pop Beat's lobby.

She heard clacking footsteps behind her. She turned expecting security, but it was Madison, pumping her arms and pursuing her in high heels. “I can see her! I can see her! She's almost to the lobby!” Madison shouted wildly.
Traitor,
Ivy thought. She waited for more people to follow, but, strangely, no one else appeared behind Madison. Who was she talking to?

Ivy crossed the flashy lobby and spun through the revolving door. Outside, still sprinting, she wriggled out of her jacket and put it over her head to shield her face. She crossed the street and took off running down a narrow alley between two buildings. Grateful for her dance-rehearsal conditioning and her practical shoes, she didn't stop moving until she reached a train station. Finally permitting herself to glance over her shoulder, she saw that she was completely alone.

Even so, Ivy didn't stop to catch her breath. She climbed the steps, bought a ticket for the Fashion Row station, and boarded the train.

On Wednesday afternoon,
the parade of speakers continued as the cameras rolled. While Vivienne stood at the podium introducing a drafter from Belladonna who had walked out, I noticed a clump of people holding signs that said
K.U.T.
The clump waved them high in the air and cheered when the Belladonna drafter took the stage.

I turned to Felix. “K.U.T.?”

He looked where I was pointing and shook his head. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“What is it?”

“One of Viv's side projects. They're pledging never to buy new trends again. Come on.”

We made our way to the podium, and Felix beckoned Vivienne over. “We saw the posters, Viv,” he hissed into her ear. “What are they doing here?”

Vivienne gave him a placid smile. “Apparently, I'm not the only radical out there,” she whispered back.

“How does that help our cause? Huh?” he demanded. “Encouraging people to believe that fashion is worthless? We want to return to work and design new looks. This whole K.U.T. business will hurt us, if it ever catches on.”

“I'm fighting the good fight,” Vivienne said. “Having the K.U.T. fanatics on one end of the spectrum shifts the balance of the whole debate.” She smiled and tilted her head back toward the speaker from Belladonna. “Suddenly, what the strikers are asking for seems reasonable.”

“I know you, Viv. You're recruiting them hard. I saw the site.” He snorted. “Never knew you were such a big Ivy Wilde fan.”

I wondered how Ivy was involved.

“You want them to be a force, not some little fringe group,” Felix went on. “If we get our way, Torro's sales need to be
through the roof
to show the new system works. We need people buying our stuff!”

Vivienne glanced at the K.U.T. sign holders in the crowed and shrugged. “Sorry, Felix. It's done. It's who I am. You've always known that.”

“And
you've
never understood the way—”

“Felix.” I put my hand on his arm gently. “I haven't seen the site you're talking about. But you're worried that people will stop buying new designs?” I paused, hoping he'd hear how absurd the words sounded. “Think about it. Do you really think trends will ever stop?”

He didn't answer.

“Early on, you said something to me about people always wanting to be different, about it being human nature,” I continued. “You were right. Fashion will always be changing. Personally, I hope it doesn't change so fast under the new system. But trends are safe. They're never going away.”

“Unfortunately, she has a point,” said Vivienne. “But there should be a place for those who want to resist the constant change. That's all I've provided. So relax.” She stepped away from us and turned back to the podium.

Felix's frown softened. “For the sake of everyone here, I hope you're right,” he said.

“I am,” I declared.

Later in the afternoon, while marching in the circle of protesters, I chatted with Neely Syms. I liked the patternmaker's warm intensity. She had ideas about everything: unraveling old sweaters for yarn, repurposing coffee sacks into handbags, annealing silverware into jewelry . . .

We were brainstorming plans for our eco-friendly design studio—it was getting a little pie-in-the-sky, I had to admit—when my Unum buzzed. I pulled it out, prepared to ignore the call, but as I glanced down, I saw a name I hadn't seen in a while. “Excuse me for a sec,” I said to Neely. I scurried away from the marchers and pressed the button to accept the call. “Hello?”

“Marl! What's up?” Braxton's obnoxiously grinning face appeared on the screen.

“Braxton,” I said. “This is a surprise.”

“You're everywhere,” he said. “You're all over the news. It's crazy.”

I looked at him. He was in front of some kind of building. I could see bricks behind his neck. “What exactly do you want, Braxton? I'm sort of busy here.”

“I've just been thinking about you, that's all,” he said. “I thought we could get together sometime and hang out.” His eyebrows flicked up and down.

“Really,” I said. “Olivia would love that, I'm sure.”

Braxton laughed. “Please. Livy and I are ancient history.”

“Ah.” I didn't need to hear more. “Well, I'm sure you need to get back to judging. I've got to go too.”

Braxton's lips gathered into a knot. “I'm not really on Denominator's court anymore,” he mumbled. “But I got a cool promotion. Movie-premiere design. You know, like I decide which posters we should put up, and where the life-size cardboard cutouts should go. It's a really important job.”

And that's when Olivia dumped you,
I wanted to say.
As predicted.

“You know,” Braxton continued after an awkward silence, “one of my friends from Denominator told me last night that your little drafter strike is giving people ideas. Apparently, some people are talking about making the same kinds of changes over here. A couple of the storyboarders are starting a petition or something. I hope it works—just to see the judges' faces.”

This was news. I was eager to tell the others. Braxton's take on the whole thing, though, aggravated me. “You know, change doesn't just happen. You could do something about it yourself.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely, I think I will. But it would be great to hang out in the meantime. What are you up to this weekend?”

This weekend? I thought ahead to how busy I would be. Braxton didn't have the first concept of what we were trying to accomplish. “Well, if the Silents don't agree to the makeover, we'll have to keep visiting the homes of other design-house employees to convince them to join the protest. And making signs. And scheduling more press appearances. And if they do, we'll be in negotiations. I don't think this weekend's going to work.”

“Maybe you could come over tonight, then? I really, really want to see you.” His eyebrows hopped again.

I sighed. Talk about pathetic. Even if he hadn't left me for Olivia, and even if I'd never met Felix, I couldn't imagine being his girlfriend. “Braxton, it's not going to happen. We've drifted apart.” I recalled his words during our last Unum conversation. “I just don't think we're into the same things anymore,” I said with an edge to my voice. “You know?”

“What are you talking about? We're totally into—”

“Stay young, Brax,” I said, and hung up the Unum.

Around half past three my Unum buzzed again, this time with a message from Vivienne.
Just heard from Torro,
she wrote.
Looks like we broke them.
The forwarded message appeared farther down the screen:
We will speak with you today at four p.m.

I left the protest and ran to Vivienne.

“I think we might have done it,” she said in a rush. For the first time since I'd known her, she looked jubilant.

Gwen and Dido appeared next to us. Randall waved from where he was standing near the sound equipment.

“Do you think they'll really listen?” Dido asked.

“If they don't, we walk out of the meeting,” said Vivienne. “It's that simple.” I nodded.

“This is incredible,” Kevin said, jogging up to them with his Unum out. “Is it for real?”

“Believe it, baby,” said Gwen, clapping him on the shoulder. “It's our time.”

“Aren't you going to send it to everyone?” Kevin asked. I looked down at the addressee list and noticed that Vivienne had forwarded the message only to our inner circle.

“Of course. But I just got a message from our last speaker. She's on her way, and we don't want an eruption quite yet.” She glanced at her watch. “I'll make the announcement right after her speech.”

I saw Felix running through the crowd toward us. He was whooping with abandon. It was . . . adorable.

“Of course, that one might give away the whole thing,” Vivienne muttered with a smirk.

“We did it!” Felix yelled, waving his Unum above his head crazily. When he reached us, he hurled his arms around me, then lifted me off my feet and spun me around several times. I could see the others shaking their heads and laughing at us. Only Dido looked surprised.

When he finally returned me to the earth, he kissed me. “I think I'm delirious,” he said, following it up with four more quick kisses on the cheek. Even though it was a little embarrassing, I couldn't stop smiling.

I broke away and turned back to the group. Before I could say anything, I caught sight of someone behind Vivienne's shoulder.

Ivy Wilde was standing there, watching us.