Hex and the Single Girl (25 page)

Wittfield? We go live in five minutes.”

The advertising dynamo instantly forgot Emma. Daphne screamed at the techie to “get the fucking talent.” He zoomed down the stairs. Daphne hurried back up, prowled the stage, barked orders left and right, made twenty underlings jump this high.

Marcie, Alfie and Sherman ascended the stairs, the techie prodding them along.

When Daphne saw Marcie, she shrieked, “What are you wearing? Where’s the Prada gown?”

“It didn’t fit,” said Marcie. “Too tight. Besides, no ordinary woman could wear that gown. I didn’t want to make ordinary women feel bad about themselves.”

“Who gives a shit about ordinary women?” roared Daphne.

The techie counted down. “We go live in four, three, two…”

“Greetings from the crossroads of the world,” boomed a man at center stage into a microphone. “I’m Upton Synergy, president of SlimBurn Energy Pills and Herbal Remedies. I’m honored to unveil the largest billboard in Times Square history. Marcie Skimmer is the world’s most beautiful, glamorous woman, and we’re proud she’s had so much success using our product. As have other women all over the country. So far, we’ve sold ten million units in North America this year! America loves SlimBurn! And America loves Marcie Skimmer! So without further ado, I present

DreamBody by SlimBurn!”

He fumbled clumsily with a remote switch, and then the white sheet rolled upward, revealing the billboard from the bottom up. First we saw Marcie’s bare feet, then her shins, then her slim thighs, then the jeweled bikini crotch, her flat washboard belly, her rounded tits in the jeweled bra top, her elegant arms, her bony shoulders, her lanky neck, and, finally, her Barbie doll face, with puffy platinum hair on top. One slender arm rested on her jutting hip, one hand fluttering at her collarbone. Her eyes were round and big as manhole covers. From where Emma was standing, directly underneath the billboard, Marcie’s legs appeared to be all of twenty stories long.

The crowd cheered the gargantuan nearly-naked woman. Marcie herself was speechless. Alfie whispered something in her ear. The president of SlimBurn was waving her over to say a few words.

“Here goes everything,” said Marcie.

Alfie at her side, the mannequin took the microphone. She said, “Hello, New York.” Camera flashes popped, clicked, spun. Marcie wasn’t flustered. She was a pro.

“I have some people to thank,” she said, smiling. “This is my fiancé, Alfie Delado. He’s an artist with a sculpture exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He’s been an inspiration to me, and I hope I can be his muse.”

They kissed neatly. The cameras flashed a wall of light. When they stopped, Marcie reached into her cargo pants pocket, and pulled out her notes.

“I’m going to read a short statement now. As most of you know, I gained fifty pounds last year. And I recently dropped the weight in three months.”

Marcie paused. Alfie rubbed her back. Emma glanced over at Sherman whose eyes were closed, as if he couldn’t bear to look. Daphne’s eyes, however, were unblinking, locked on Marcie.

“It is true that I gained fifty pounds. And it’s true that I lost it,” said the spokesmodel. “But the rest of the story is a lie.

The image on this billboard is a lie. And the people who created the ads are liars, including myself.”

Daphne let out an anguished whimper.

“You might have heard my weight gain last year was the result of a depression. Not true. As per my agreement with Crusher Advertising and SlimBurn, I checked into a Swiss hospital where I received intravenous lipids and glucose—

ten thousand calories a day—for eight weeks. I came back to New York, as planned, to pose for the original ad campaign—the now-famous series of magazine and TV ads featuring me as a cow and a parade float. I’m sure many of you can’t believe a model would willingly put on that much weight. I did it for money. Crusher Advertising brokered the deal with SlimBurn to pay me five million dollars to follow their two-year plan to the letter, with the promise that, when it was all over, I’d be more famous than ever.”

The crowd was hushed. Times Square, quiet. Emma had never heard such silence. Marcie continued. “When the time came to lose the weight, Crusher Advertising sent me to a remote Catskills spa. I had every intention using the pills, exercising and eating sensibly. But the weight didn’t come off. At least, not quickly enough. That’s when a decision was made that will torment me for the rest of my life.”

“One more word and she’s dead,” said Daphne under her breath.

Marcie was rolling. Nothing could have stopped her. “A team of plastic surgeons from Europe was brought to the spa,”

she said into the microphone, “They put me on a weekly liposuction schedule. On Monday, I’d have the procedure. For the rest of the week, I was bedridden in pain. I was forced to take ice baths and was bound in constriction wraps to reduce swelling. I had ten liposuctions in total. Six of those surgeries required general anesthesia. In recovery once, I overheard a nurse at the spa say my ’diet’ cost fifteen thousand dollars per pound. That’s $750,000 total.

“Mr. Upton Synergy—the man having a coronary over there,” Marcie paused for laughter. Then she continued: “Just kidding. He’s fine. Anyway, he says that ordinary women can lose weight if they buy a forty dollar bottle of pills. I’m supposed to be living proof of that. But the truth is, an ordinary woman will never look like
that
”—she pointed behind her to the billboard—“unless she spends three months in a remote spa with a team of plastic surgeons. The truth is, I’m living proof that these pills are worthless. Every woman who’s bought SlimBurn pills in the last year has been the victim of a multi-million dollar swindle.”

And that was when Upton Synergy really did have a coronary. The president of SlimBurn grabbed his chest, emitted a wounded yelp, and fell out of his chair onto the stage floor. The cameraman from New York One rushed over, filmed a close-up of Synergy’s face as it turned purple. Police and ambulance sirens roared from all directions. In a minute, EMS workers stomped up the stage stairs, bowling over journalists along the way. They began CPR on the fallen president.

Photographers swarmed Marcie and Alfie. Sherman fought his way into the tight cluster. Emma was knocked to the side by techies and reporters, everyone scrambling like headless chickens. The chaos overwhelmed Emma’s senses.

She had to get out of there.

She fought her way to the stairs. Coming up alongside, Alfie was pulling Marcie down the steps, Sherman at her rear.

Alfie yelled, “Come on!” to Emma.

Elbows flying, Alfie knew how to bulldoze through a crowd. Marcie’s driver was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, limo door open to catch them. The four piled in and locked up. The driver hustled around to his seat, and they were off.

Marcie looked scared but excited. She said, “That was incredible! I can’t believe I did it! Did anyone see Daphne’s face? How did she react?”

“I’m sure she was impressed by your bravery,” said Emma.

“She was livid,” said Sherman.

Alfie said, “You changed the world today, Marcie.”

He might be right about that, thought Emma. Perhaps the model’s bold confession would start a hot new trend:

accountability.

Emma thought about something Marcie said on stage—that the billboard image was a lie, and that the creators were liars. The evening they met, Daphne said that she and Emma were in the same business: image making. That was true, to a point. Emma sent images for love, to create joy, as any artist would. Daphne was also an artist—a con artist. There was no joy in what she did. She promoted self-hate, if one wanted to be philosophical about our fat-obsessed culture.

The biggest difference between what Emma and Daphne did was intent. Emma might manipulate, but she didn’t

defraud. She used real images of real women. She represented the truth, even if she used deception to do it. Emma was satisfied by this logic. Soul satisfied. And, surprisingly enough, she had Marcie to thank for her revelation.

William was wrong about me,
she thought.
I am a good witch.

Meanwhile, Marcie was still talking. “I didn’t get to say the part about the giveaway.” To Emma, she said, “I want to reimburse the women who bought SlimBurn pills because of me. A dollar a bottle, until I run out of money. It’s the best I can do. Alfie’s idea.”

Emma raised her eyebrows at the artist. Alfie shrugged and said, “You’ve got to stay hungry.”

“Which is true in art—and dieting,” conceded Emma.

Marcie said, “Only one problem. How can I possibly organize something so huge? If only I knew about a not-for-profit charitable organization that could set this up. Sherman, can you look into that?”

“It just so happens,” said the Good Witch to Sherman Hollow, Esq., “I know the vice president of a charitable organization with all the infrastructure in place to handle that kind of monetary distribution.”

“You don’t say,” monotoned Sherman.

“I can call her right now, if you’d like,” said Emma, already dialing Susan Knight at the Verity Foundation.

“I definitely didn’t go to Harvard Law School to give money away,” Sherman said scornfully before pressing Emma’s cell phone to his cheek.

Chapter 24

T
wenty minutes later, Emma was receiving instruction from Hoffman Centry.

“Say, ’I’m impressed,’” he prompted. “Say, ’Your office is huge! I had no idea you were so important.’”

“I never judge a man by the size of his…desk,” said Emma. “You know what it means, anyway, if a man has a big desk?”

“Overcompensating?” he asked.

“Big desk, big…files,” said Emma. “But he’s probably overcompensating, too. Not you, though.” She winked

exaggeratedly.

Hoff blushed. “What do you think: Should we tell Susan about our one night of thwarted passion?”

“Why not?” she said. “I’m on a truth binge.”

“Does this mean I really do have big…files?” he asked.

“Honestly, Hoff, I don’t have all that much of a basis for comparison,” said Emma. Although, she could tell him right now, truthfully, that William Dearborn had him beat by at least two hanging folders.

Emma had asked Marcie to drop her at Ransom House. It was close enough to Times Square, on East 49th Street. The Good Witch was going begging. Her soul might be satisfied, but she still had worldly realties to deal with. She’d been against borrowing before, loath to ask others for assistance. But the time had come to pop her bubble and seek help. To humble herself, and share her problems with the people who cared about her. She knew Hoff had family money.

Surely, he could spare ten thousand. Or five thousand. She’d be thrilled with two.

So she’d come to Ransom House. The contrast between her chilly reception at Crusher and the warm welcome at

Ransom was like night and day. Hoff dashed to greet her at the elevators (she’d been announced by lobby security), and escorted her to his corner office, introducing her to colleagues along the way as “one of my best friends.”

Now they were alone in his, yes, very large and impressive office. “Susan called me about Marcie Skimmer’s cash giveaway plan while you were on the way up in the elevator,” he said.

“She’s got you on speed dial already?” said Emma.

“You realize what a high-profile case like this will do for the Verity Foundation.”

“I guess they’ll get to keep on not making a profit for another decade,” said Emma.

“Susan owes you,” said Hoff.

“I owed her,” said Emma.

“In the past few days, you’ve found her a fiancé, a star client, and helped her purge an ex-boyfriend. I think she owes you,” said Hoff. “There’s a popular clothing store named Old Navy—have you heard of it?”

Emma laughed. “Maybe once or twice.”

“Old Navy is going to offer Marcie Skimmer an endorsement deal. Apparently, she was wearing their cargo pants at the press conference today.”

“When did this happen?” asked Emma.

“I’m not sure it has yet,” he said. “I saw it on a news crawl on FFN.”

“That girl is as bouncy as a ball,” said Emma. “And that’s not a fat joke.”

Hoff stroked his chin and mused, “I wonder if Marcie would be interested in writing her memoirs.”

Emma groaned. “I bet you wonder. As does every other book editor in New York.”

“We are a depressingly predictable bunch,” said Hoff.

The Good Witch grinned at him in his cashmere jacket. She was a sucker for his dash-it-all humility. “I’ll make sure Marcie talks to you first,” she said. “My gift to you. But only because I like you.”

“And here’s my gift to you,” he said, tossing a manila envelope across the desk to her.

“Is it ten thousand dollars?” she asked, astounded at his prescience.

“Ten thousand dollars?” he asked. “Do you need money?”

“So what’s in the folder then?” she asked. “And what if I do?”

“It’s my file on Seymour Lankey,” said Hoff.

“What if I do?” she repeated. “Need a loan?”

Hoff took a deep breath. “You understand the difference between old money and the nouveau riche?”

She said, “Old money never spends principal.”

“Precisely,” he said. “Except, sometimes, that’s not always possible. And a bad investment here, a damaging

settlement there, a drunken uncle with a gambling addiction. Old money magically, tragically, turns into the nouveau poor.”

“But you have the Gramercy Park apartment. The Danish modern furniture. That cashmere jacket.”

“I inherited the furniture, spend every penny I make to maintain my apartment with just enough left over for the occasional extravagance,” he said, stroking his lapel. “I love cashmere. I have two dozen pairs of cashmere socks.”

Emma had seen them in his underwear drawer. “Maybe you should keep the cashmere fetish to yourself—until after the wedding. And the compulsive showering. Man, you get weirder by the minute.” And she liked him more by the minute.

“You’ve done so much for me,” he said. “I wish I could help you.”

“We’ll just have to get that Riptron reward money,” she decided.

That comment made him check his watch. “Oh, we have to hurry,” he said suddenly. “Bring the folder. You can read it on the way.” Hoff took Emma by the elbow and led her back out through the labyrinth of cubicles and down the